Draw (Gentry Boys #1)(13)

I was beginning to realize what she meant. “So this isn’t just a visit.” I pointed to her bag. “Those all your worldly possessions?”

Saylor stuck her chin out. “No, it was all I could grab. I had to get out of there quickly.”

“Because of him?” I pressed. “Dylan?”

“Devin,” she corrected me and then shuddered.

“Bastard. This the first time he did something like that?”

She took a full minute to answer. “No,” she said in a soft voice.

I stretched, feeling a twinge of soreness from the effects of the fight. “You know, Saylor, when a guy belts you in the mouth it doesn’t mean ‘I love you.’”

“Well thank you, Dr. Phil. But you know what? You can sit on your platitudes and rotate.”

“I might,” I considered. “If I knew what the f*ck a platitude was.”

She glared but it wasn’t the furious kind. It was a look of hurt. “Think what you damn well like about me, Cord. Yeah, it happened more than once and I stayed and I took it. I told myself I would get out and then I didn’t. I know how that sounds. Fuck, I know what it makes me. But it was the first time he…” Saylor couldn’t finish her sentence. She sank into the couch and buried her head in her arms.

I had to ask. “What?”

“He raped me,” she whispered, then raised her head. The look in her eyes was like a punch in my gut. “Okay? Now you know the whole ugly, sordid, disgusting truth.”

“Ah, shit,” I said softly, as it dawned on me that there was a painful reason she’d wanted to shower so badly. “Goddamn, I’m sorry, Saylor.” I handed her a napkin and she blew her nose into it while I downed the rest of that beer. Inwardly I was seething. For Saylor, for my mother, for every woman who’d ever suffered the harsh hand of a man who wasn’t worth two f*cking cents. To my shock, she burst out laughing.

“Christ, I’m sitting here in the middle of the night pouring my heart out to Cord Gentry.”

“Yeah, I’m feeling a touch of the surreal with Saylor McCann blowing her nose in my living room.”

We eyed one another for a long, uncomfortable moment before I broke the silence.

“You know,” I said uneasily. “I was thinking about it and Bray mentioned something about going camping up at Four Peaks with his girl.”

“Oh,” Saylor exhaled, looking defeated. “That would explain why he’s not sitting in his apartment waiting for his basket case cousin to drop by unexpectedly.” She started to stand and shoulder her bag. “Listen, thanks for letting me hang out here for a while.”

“Well, where are you gonna go now? Emblem?”

She laughed hoarsely. “Hell no. I’ll just find a motel for the night and see how things look tomorrow.” She rubbed her eyes. “I think I can handle it all after a night of sleep.”

I made a decision. Creed might grumble but the hell with it.

“Stay here,” I said.

Her head jerked up and she opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. “No,” she finally said in a soft voice, sighing tiredly. “No, I can’t, Cord.”

I stared down at my bruised hands. I didn’t want to be the * she thought I was. I may have been a lousy f*ck once but Creed was right. Things were different. I’d done everything to best the curse of being a Gentry from Emblem. It seemed like poor judgment to let a beaten girl from my hometown go wandering around Tempe in the state she was in. “You can take my room. I swear no one will bug you in there. Really, it’s no big deal. I crash on the f*cking couch half the time anyway.”

“Cord,” she said and I heard some pain in her voice.

“Well, you take the couch then. It’s a comfortable couch. Look at it.”

She looked. “It is a comfortable couch.” She dropped her bag to the floor and managed a watery smile. “All right.”

By the time I returned with a thin blue quilt I’d ripped off my own bed, Saylor was already curling up.

“Thanks,” she whispered with soft gratitude as I covered her. She looked so sweet and vulnerable that an actual lump rose in my throat and I shook away the sentiment. Saylor was just some chick crashing on my couch for the night. She didn’t mean a thing to me.

Then she propped herself up on one elbow. Her shirt slid carelessly off her shoulder and showed the top of her right breast, which caused something else, something a little harder, to rise.

“You’re welcome,” I said tersely, turning to leave.

“No, really, Cord. Thank you.”

I stared at her for a few more seconds as she pulled the quilt over her body and closed her eyes.

“Good night, Saylor.”





CHAPTER FIVE


SAYLOR



I woke up to the Steve Miller Band singing and Gentry brothers grinning. At first I thought I was having one of those odd dreams where I was back in Emblem, trapped for eternity in the midst of all the faces I never wanted to see again. But when I blinked they were still there. Then I remembered yesterday.

And Devin.

And Cord.

“You look like crap, kid,” Chase Gentry told me cheerfully as ‘The Joker’ played in the background.

Creed kicked him under the table. “Don’t be a dick.” He looked at me seriously. “Forgive my little brother. Emotional maturity hasn’t found him yet.”