“Yes, and about Frank, and everything I went through.” She exhaled loudly, the relief in her voice evident.
“Babe, that’s great. Was it hard to do?”
“At the beginning it was. But we were talking between clients this afternoon, and she said something about the night I ran out of the Salty Hog. She’d texted me that night and a few times since, and I’d texted her back, but I did what I always do. I said I was fine and not to worry about me. But today she said she felt like we were family and that she hoped I knew I could talk to her.”
“She cares about you, babe.”
“I know. I’ve known her as long as I’ve known Tank, and she talks to me about everything going on in her life. But you know . . .”
He sank to the sand, and Scrappy crawled into his lap. “I do, but I’m glad you talked with her. How did it go?”
“Better than I could have hoped. Gia is kind of like Wells. She’s brash, but she has a serious side and a big heart, and she cares about me and Aria, and Tank and his family.”
Cait told him about their conversation and shared stories about her friendships with Gia and Aria, the blonde he’d met. She’d already told him how important the Wickeds were to her, and he liked knowing Gia and Aria were special, too. He loved hearing about her life there.
“Gia said she knew I was running from something,” Cait said. “She said she’d asked Tank about it a few months after I started working there, and he told her that all she needed to know was that I was safe and that was in my past.”
“Tank seems to know how to handle things.”
“Yeah, he’s got great instincts.” She told him more about her conversation with Gia, and then she surprised him by saying, “Gia asked me to tell her about when I ran away, but I didn’t want to.”
“That’s understandable. Was she okay with that?”
“Yeah, she was. But I want to tell you, Brant.”
He got choked up. “Thanks, baby. I want to know.”
“I planned my escape for months before getting up the courage to do it. Every night my father had two drinks, and I was supposed to make them. I crushed up Benadryl tablets and put them in his drinks the night I ran away. After he fell asleep, I stole two thousand dollars in cash that he kept hidden in a book in his home office, and the first thing I did was dye and cut my hair in a twenty-four-hour drugstore bathroom.”
She told him that her hair was naturally the color of sand, like Ava’s was, and it had been long, to the middle of her back. She’d cut it above her ears like a boy’s and had dyed it black. Then she’d taken a bus out of town. She told him about traveling from city to city, using fake names and being terrified every second of being caught. His heart broke, imagining her at that age, alone and fearing for her life. She said she’d connected with other teenagers at shelters for a few days here and there, but then she’d move to another town, just in case. She told him that the reason she wore sneakers all the time was so she was always ready to run and that she was trying to wear sandals more often, but that sometimes it panicked her to be without the comfort of her sneakers. That killed him, and as he learned more about those traumatic years, he discovered the depth of her strength and resilience and fell even harder for her. Every story cut deep, but when she confessed that she didn’t like her smile because her father had made her fake it whenever they were in public, his heart broke anew for his beautiful girl whose fucking father had tried his best to take everything from her.
He looked out over the water and said, “I wish I were there with you right now.”
“It’s okay. You kind of are.”
He knew that was as close as he’d get to an I miss you.
She told him how she’d taken a bus to the Cape because she’d heard about Wicked Ink, and since her father had hated that area, she thought she would be relatively safe there. She said she’d applied for a job and that Tank had hired her, but she’d found out months later that he hadn’t been looking to hire anyone. He’d told her that he’d sensed she needed to be there. He’d befriended her, made sure she had a safe place to live, and had insisted on driving her to and from work. She knew he and other Dark Knights had watched over her cottage even before she’d told him the truth about her past.
“Thank God Tank was there for you.”
“He’s a good person, but so are you, Brant. You opened my eyes to the healing power of communication. It’s not like I’m going to run around gabbing about my crappy past, but talking to the people who matter the most is making a big difference. I don’t know how to explain it, but imagine if you got so used to thinking about how to frame everything you said so you wouldn’t give away clues to your secrets that eventually you swallowed most of your words because it was easier than navigating around the ugly parts.”
He felt a fissure form in his chest, remembering how much of an observer Cait had been when she’d first come to the island. “You explained it perfectly, angel, and I can see how that could happen.”
“That’s one reason I love doing tattoos. I don’t really have to talk much. Nobody wants to sidetrack their tattooist. But life is better when I’m not doing that, and that’s because of you.”
“That’s all you, baby. All I do is care about you. You’ve done the rest. You opened up to me, and I know it was probably one of the harder things you’ve ever had to do. But I’m so damn glad you took the leap instead of forcing me to walk away, because my life is a thousand times better with you in it.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE LATE-AFTERNOON SUN beat down on Brant’s shirtless back as he pried another piece of decking off the Chris Craft he was refitting. He would move the boat inside once he was ready to take out the engine, but he preferred to work on the lot beside the shop when he could. He tossed the wood onto a pile on the ground and took off his baseball cap. He wiped the sweat from his brow and checked on Scrappy, lying in the shade by the workshop with his new favorite toy, a stuffed cat that Brant and Cait had bought for him yesterday afternoon. Not a day passed that he didn’t think about how lucky he was that he’d been running the afternoon Cait had gone into the marsh after Scrappy.
He could have lost them both.
He settled his hat on his head, guzzled some water, and went back to work. As he stripped the boat down to bare bones, his thoughts returned to his raven-haired beauty who was busy shedding her own damaged layers. It had been two weeks since she’d told Gia about her past, and that night would probably always stand out in Brant’s mind. He and Cait had talked for hours as he’d sat on the beach with Scrappy, too many miles away from her. Cait had done most of the talking, as if opening up to Gia had broken a dam to the words she’d been holding back for years. That night’s conversation was the second most difficult one he’d ever had—the first being the night she’d told him about the abuse—and had left him aching to be closer, to have her safe in his arms. He’d gone to the Cape the following evening and had surprised her at her cottage when she’d arrived home after work. She’d shown him the sketches Ava had drawn of her when she was young, and she’d told him the heartbreaking stories behind her tattoos. They’d both been teary-eyed, and later that night, when they’d made love, he’d felt a change in the way she’d looked at and touched him. It was as if by trusting more deeply, she was slowing down to enjoy him instead of trying to get in as much as she could as fast as possible, fearing their relationship might be taken away.