Page 58 of The Rut in the Road

I made a face. I knew full well that it was a vaguely polite way of agreeing that I wasn’t normal without actually saying that there was something wrong with me.

Raj put one of his hands over mine. “Rayn.” He repeated my name. “You arenotcrazy. You might not think the same way I do, or the same way Ward does, or Mason or Hart—well,” His lips quirked. “Nobody actually thinks like Hart but Hart,” he remarked. “But the point is, you think likeyou, because only you have been through your life.”

“That’s just another way of saying I can’t help being crazy,” I told him.

He leaned forward, cupping my face in both his hands. “You arenot. Crazy.”

I sighed. “I’m not normal, either,” I replied softly. “I’m never going to be, and I’m okay with that.” I studied the stubborn set of his jaw. “Are you?”

His brow furrowed. “You’re not crazy,” he repeated yet again, as though there were some sort of power to the words that he could invoke just by repeating them. “You might not be whatever so-called normal is either, but there’s nothingwrongwith what you are.”

“Except when I have to testify at a trial,” I pointed out. There were easily a dozen other situations I could think of in which theway I understood and related to the world wasn’t exactly deemed appropriate, but I didn’t think pointing them out to Raj was going to be a terribly productive way to continue the evening.

He sighed, then let his hands fall from my cheeks. “It wouldn’t matter if you were normal in every way,” he replied quietly. “The lawyer would do everything possible to make you seem unreliable or confused or out to be a liar. It’s just that… with your history, that’s how they’ll do it.”

I thought about this. I supposed it made sense, if your job was to defend your client from prosecution and you lacked any moral concern about the repercussions for anyone else. “I understand,” I told him. “I just—don’t know what you want me to do about it.” I picked up my fork again, knowing it was important to keep eating, even though I wasn’t feeling particularly hungry any longer.

I was the opposite of an emotional eater. When I felt anxious or unhappy, I tended to ignore food, although I knew that wasn’t a particularly healthy way to relate to diet or nutrition. So I took up a forkful of rice and put it into my mouth, even though I wasn’t interested in eating it.

“I—” Raj paused. “I just don’t want to see you hurt,” he said, his tone falling off as he spoke. I looked back up at him, finding his expression troubled, although I couldn’t tell if he was upset, angry, or something else.

“I’m used to people thinking I’m crazy,” I told him. “It won’t hurt me.”

He made a grumbling sound in the back of his throat as he used his chopsticks to gather a ball of sticky white rice, then dabbed the end of it in some of the sauce on his plate. “It’s not just that,” he said. “It’s—if the lawyer succeeds in making the jury distrust you, then Garraway will get away with it.”

That made sense. It wasn’t so much that he was concerned for my feelings, although I’m sure he was, but that he wasworried about what would happen if Garraway were to be acquitted.

It hadn’t actually occurred to me that such a thing might happen. I’d been kidnapped, drained, and thrown in a well. I couldn’t imagine how the man who did that could possibly be exonerated. But if a lawyer were able to convince a jury that I was either delusional or a liar—or both—then the unthinkable suddenly became a possibility.

My concern must have been visible on my face, because Raj put his chopsticks down again, opening his mouth in order to say something, but I spoke first.

“What happens if he does?” I asked, and although I’d tried to keep my voice steady and calm, it sounded small and scared, even to me.

Raj reached out one of his big hands, once more covering one of mine. “That’s not going to happen,” he said, and his voice—unlike mine—didn’t waver.

“You can’t know that,” I half-accused, almost the same thing I’d said to him about catching the hit-and-run killer.

His hand squeezed mine gently. “I promise you, Rayn, he’s not going to walk.”

I decided not to argue the point with him, even though I knew he couldn’t actually promise me that.

I woke up gasping,the air closing in around me in the dark and cold at the bottom of the well.

At least I’d managed to keep the nightmare to myself, although the feeling of a big, warm hand on my back told me that I’d either been too loud or too restless, and I’d awakened Raj.

“Sorry,” I rasped, feeling guilty. I knew he had to go to work in the morning.

“C’mere.” The hand slid down my side, hooking me close to the waist and pulling me back against his chest. “I’ve got you.”

I sighed, trying to let go of the tension that still held my muscles tight, the adrenaline making my hands tremble and my heart beat too fast. I tried to relax into the warmth of Raj’s big body, the protection of his arms, the slow and steady beat of his heart and breath.

It helped, but when I closed my eyes I could still taste the mud and feel the roughness of brick and gravel, and my arm ached where it had broken. I couldn’t see it in the dark, even with the dim light filtering in from the streetlights outside, but if I’d run my fingers over it, I’d have felt the puckered skin where each stabilizing bolt had entered flesh, the ridge of the surgical scar, the faint crooked bumpiness where hardware still held the bone together under the muscle.

“You okay?” Raj murmured against my hair, his breath warm.

I debated lying so that he’d go back to sleep, but I’m a terrible liar, so I just shook my head.

His arms tightened around me. “The well again?” he asked softly. It was one of my more common nightmares, and I’d mentioned it to him more than once.