“So...” Josh turned his attention to Kas. “Just who the hell are you then?”
“I’m...eh—” Kas turned to me, looking for guidance. I’d told him to hide the truth, but after what’d just happened...Josh wouldn’t buy that Kas was just a hiker in the woods who’d shacked up with me. There were too many holes in that story. Why hadn’t I left the valley sooner? Why was Kas not relaxed in company?
Ugh...the truth.
It had to be the truth because I didn’t have the mental faculty right now to fib successfully.
Taking a big breath, I looked at Josh and spilled everything as fast as I could. “I went looking for that boulder—as you know. I got lost. I found an abandoned mansion tucked in a valley. It intrigued me enough to go and investigate. I found Kas inside. And he...well, he wasn’t exactly happy that I’d trespassed.” I sped up, rushing past punctuation and pauses, racing to get it done, lying where I could so Josh didn’t kill Kas immediately. “Kas had been alone for eleven years, you see, and having company was a bit much for him, so he kept me for a few days while he acclimated, but then he released me, and he apologized, and we talked about me going home, but then...um, my Jeep had a dead battery, and my PLB wasn’t working, and, eh, a bunch of other stuff happened, which meant Kas got hurt, and I had no choice but to stay and look after him.”
Kas sat frozen beside me.
Josh’s mouth fell wide before he laughed out loud. “Do you honestly expect me to believe that load of crap?”
I sat taller. “Why? What’s wrong with it? It’s the truth. Mainly.”
He shook his head and held up his hand. “Right now, I can’t even address the fact that he stole you. That he imprisoned you.” His eyes shot daggers at Kas.
“That’s not exactly what I said.”
“It’s what happened, though, right?” He locked his attention on me. “Reading between the lines and all that. He had to have trapped you to release you. God, Gem. How could you let him do such a thing?”
It wasn’t like I had a choice at the time.
Stiffening, I muttered, “It’s in the past. Let’s talk about something else.”
He huffed harshly. “Fine, I’ll come back to that because if I talk about it right now, I might go rent a gun and unload a few bullets into this asshole.”
“His name is Kas, and you’re not shooting anyone,” I snipped.
Josh glowered at me. “I’m not buying your story because it’s ridiculous.”
I frowned. “What’s ridiculous?”
“Well, for starters, you always unhook your battery so it doesn’t die—that was one of the very first things you learned when you started going off track. And that locator beacon? It was pretty much indestructible. The shopkeeper said it could withstand a tumble off a cliff and still work.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what happened. I don’t care if you believe it.” I crossed my arms. Hoping that he wouldn’t ask for details because, in my current annoyed state, I might just tell him every bit of the condemning truth. I might reveal the faint bruises around my neck were from Kas’s fingers and point at the fresh scar I’d left behind on Kas’s forehead from hitting him in the face with a shovel.
To an outsider, our tale would sound preposterous and require serious psychiatric help. But I knew what I felt, and I knew Kas felt it too, so no one else mattered because we’d survived and grown and were together, for better or for worse.
Josh looked back and forth between us, his temper darkening his handsomely boyish face. “Has he got something over you, Gem? Is that why you’re protecting a man who locked you up like a dog and stopped you from coming home to us?”
Kas tensed, but I squeezed his hand and raised my chin. This was my fight, not his. “I wasn’t able to come home, brother, not because of Kas holding me but because of what I did. I was the reason Kas had an accident. He fell off a cliff—” I gulped, remembering that day. The way his eyes locked with mine and filled with absolute acceptance. He’d fallen into death and hadn’t even cried out.
My heart squeezed. “I was the reason he fell.” I gave Kas a sad shrug, hoping he knew just how sorry I was for causing him to trip into the sky.
He raised our joined hands and kissed the back of my knuckles.
Unlike that day when he’d almost died, his eyes were no longer accepting of death. They sparkled with ebony fire and a conviction that he would heal, he would be happy, and he would love me until the end.
I lost myself in his stare, amazed that the ghosts inside him were finally starting to fade, slowly and reluctantly...thanks to our connection.