Week 162 – It didn’t happen

Jax tried to keep his eyes on the road but his gaze kept straying to the beautiful but silent woman curled up in the passenger seat of his car.

Mackenzie had spent the night in the hospital being observed because of a concussion, she’d endured the rape kit without a complaint, she’d given her statement, and then she’d slept fitfully until around seven when she announced she was ready to go home.

Not wanting her to go alone he’d offered to drive her and she’d nodded her acceptance. Dressed in a spare pair of scrubs one of the nurses had given her, she sat huddled in his car, staring out the window, lost in her own world.

He wanted to reach her but he didn’t know how.

What did you say to someone who had just been through what Mackenzie had?

“We’re here,” he announced as he pulled into the parking lot of Mackenzie’s apartment building.

She turned slowly to look at him, the bruise and cut on her forehead standing out in stark contrast to her pale skin. Her eyes were wide and almost seemed to stare through him. He couldn’t leave her like this, the least he could do was walk her upstairs.

“Want me to go up with you?”

Mackenzie gave a shrug and resumed staring out the window, but her body language screamed terrified to be alone but unable to admit it. He got that, Mackenzie was tough, strong, she spent her days listening to other peoples problems and didn’t want to admit that right now she needed someone to help her deal with hers.

“Wait in here till I open your door for you,” he said as he climbed out. He didn’t think she was in any danger, her attack was most likely random and she hadn’t seen his face, but he’d rather err on the side of caution, at least for the next couple of days.

He rounded the car opened her door for her. She fumbled with her seatbelt for a good thirty seconds before he gently nudged her hands out of the way and unclipped it for her. He took her elbow and helped her stand, she swayed a little and once he’d closed the door and locked the car he wrapped an arm around her waist both to offer physical and emotional support.

Neither of them spoke as they entered the building and took the elevator to the fourteenth floor. Her attacker hadn’t taken her purse so he had her keys and unlocked the door for her, guiding her inside where she stood in the middle of the room looking small and lost.

Jax wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms, snuggle her on his lap and just hold her and whisper in her ear that everything would be okay but he was just out of a relationship where he’d been cheated on, and from what he’d heard over the last week that that’d known each other Mackenzie had been through something similar, and that meant he didn’t know how to proceed. He wanted to be there for her but he didn’t know if it was a good idea or if it was even what she wanted. Did she want to be alone? Was she scared to be by herself? Should he offer to call a relative or friend to come and stay with her?

Slowly she turned to face him, her small body trembling. “I want you to tell me it didn’t happen, that this is just a dream, that I wasn’t just assaulted.” Tears shimmered in those beautiful dark blue eyes of hers, and then they were streaming down her cheeks. It was the first time she had cried since he’d found her and the sound of her weeping tugged at his heart in a way nothing else ever had.

He’d crossed the space between them in three large steps and then he was gathering her into his arms, holding her close, stroking her back, whispering a string of soothing consolations into her ear, and rocking her like he would something precious.

And she was.

Too soon or not this pretty, spunky, sassy, sweet woman was in his heart. He’d fought the attraction all week, positive it was too soon for either of them, but right now, with this small, crying bundle in his arms, nothing had ever felt so perfectly timed.