Fractured Sky (Tattered & Torn #5)(30)

I pressed my fingers against her pulse. Her heart beat in a rapid, chaotic rhythm. Shiloh wavered in place.

My hold on her hands tightened. “It’s just you and me. You’re safe. You think Kai would let anything happen to you?”

That seemed to register, causing a flare of something in those ice-blue depths.

“That’s it. Look at me. Pick one thing.”

Her eyes tracked over my face, stopping to lock with mine.

“What color are my eyes?”

Shiloh let out a noise. It wasn’t a word, exactly, but it was something.

“Think about that color. What does it remind you of?”

Mud eyes. That was what my stepdad had always called them. But that wasn’t the point. I had to get Shiloh thinking about something other than what had sent her into this state.

“Beautiful,” she croaked.

The vise around my chest loosened a fraction. I’d never been happier to hear a single word.

I squeezed her hands. “Tell me more.”

“Your eyes. They’re beautiful.”

The kindness of her words burned my gut, but I forced it down. “Careful, that could go to my head. What else do you see?”

“Pain.”

That vise around my ribs tightened right back up.

“So much I could drown in it.”

I didn’t want to take Shiloh into that darkness with me. Didn’t want her to even be able to see it. “Didn’t think pain could be beautiful.”

“It is when it makes you feel not so alone.”

She blinked a few times as if coming out of a stupor. Her pulse and breathing slowed. Her gaze traveled from my face to where my hands were locked around hers.

“You’re touching me.”

There was wonder in her tone that had my brows pulling together. “Would you rather I didn’t?”

Shiloh’s gaze flew to mine. “Don’t let go.”

“I promise. I won’t let go.”

My grip on her tightened a fraction, just to let her know I was still there.

Her eyes glittered with unshed tears, but she shoved them back. I could feel her battle to keep them from falling. In one way, I admired the hell out of that stubborn determination. In another, my heart broke that Shiloh felt as if she couldn’t set them free in front of anyone. That kind of bottled-up emotion could eat a person alive.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she whispered.

“What doesn’t?”

“You touching me.”

I fought the urge to rear back—only decades with horses kept me from doing so. The training that kept me from reacting strongly when I got knocked sideways. “You thought it would?”

“It always does. Whenever someone touches me. It…it’s like it grates against my skin.”

I bit back a million different curses. “Tell me if it’s too much.”

She shook her head back and forth. “It’s not.”

“Okay.” I rested back on my heels, not letting go of her hands even after their death grip had loosened. “Can you tell me what happened?”

A shudder ran through Shiloh that had me kicking myself. She took in a steadying breath. “I’m okay—”

“Bullshit,” I snapped.

She jolted and then blushed.

“Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“No. It’s not your fault.”

“Give me your truth. Please.” I hadn’t earned her truth. Certainly didn’t deserve the right to demand it. But I wanted it so damn bad.

Shiloh searched my eyes, looking for something. Whatever it was, she must’ve found it or decided I was worth the risk. “I got a letter.”

“Okay…”

She looked down at the paper still clenched tightly in her hand.

I released that hand and took the letter while still holding on to her other. I wasn’t letting go until she told me to. I scanned the handwritten page, and each word dug into my flesh. By the time I reached the end, I was barely holding on to a control I’d mastered years ago.

I struggled to keep my expression neutral and lifted my eyes to Shiloh. “Who sent this?”

“I don’t know. It’s Howard, but it’s…not.”

I reared back at the name—something my years with the horses had trained me not to do. But I couldn’t help it. I’d done my research when Shiloh started showing up at my ranch all those years ago, and that name was burned into my brain. “It sounds like things he told you?”

Shiloh had only been ten when Howard Kemper took her, but whatever he’d said when he had her was likely permanently etched in her psyche.

She shifted on the step, and Kai moved in closer. “You can let go,” she said softly.

It took me a second. I didn’t want to lose the contact—that link between us. I forced my fingers to open, setting her hand free.

She stared down at it as if it held all the answers in the world. “He wrote me letters. I started getting them when I got my own mailbox. I have no idea if he tried to send them before or how he got my address. It’s a small town, and I can only guess that his son told him he’d seen me picking up mail at the post office.”

Blood roared in my ears. “There’s no way letters to a victim should’ve made it out of prison.”