Page 18 of Deadly Storms (Sunrise Lake #3)

“He probably did deserve it at the time,” Raine said. “But I think you missed your opportunity. You can’t just decide months later to attack the man willy-nilly.”

“?‘Willy-nilly’?” Stella echoed. “No one says that, Raine. And the only way I’d have a chance of skewering him is a surprise attack.”

Shabina couldn’t believe she had gone from despair to laughter in such a short time. She really needed to spend more time around these women. They were good for her. She didn’t dwell on the worst-case scenario every minute.

“Stella Harrison-Rossi, it sounds as if you have been planning to skewer him since Vegas,” Raine accused, doing her best to look outraged, but succeeding in looking as if she might fall off her chair laughing.

“Well, as a matter of fact, I have been.” Stella’s nose went in the air. “I dream about retaliation. He’s so sure of himself.”

“Does Sam have any idea that you carry grudges forever?” Raine asked.

“Unfortunately, yes.” Stella heaved a sigh. “I try to keep him with illusions, but he sees all. He always has. He doesn’t seem to mind that I have these little flaws.”

Shabina couldn’t help laughing again at the sigh in her voice.

“I think Sam loves what you call your ‘little flaws.’ In any case, you have the wrong impression of Rainier. I don’t want you to think he’s some terrible brute.

The truth is, I totally ruined his life.

I destroyed his career. I lost him the one woman he loved.

He’s on a dozen hit lists because of me. ”

“Shabina,” Raine said, her voice gentle. “Stop taking on the responsibility for Rainier’s choices. There was no gun pointed at Rainier’s head.”

“You weren’t there. You didn’t see me. He did.

I gave him no real choice. I was barely sixteen and in a terrible state.

You may have seen pictures they took of me when Rainier returned with me, but that was after he’d treated me for two weeks.

My father was furious with him for not bringing me straight back and did everything he could to ruin Rainier’s career, even after Rainier risked his life to get me out of that hellhole.

Rainier was the one to figure out where I was by watching the videos.

He realized I was sending coordinates in each one when no one else did.

Still, that didn’t matter to my father. It didn’t matter that I’d told Rainier that I would commit suicide before I would ever allow anyone else to see me in the condition I was in.

He knew I’d meant it, and again, he risked everything to take me somewhere safe and treat me himself. ”

There was silence while the two women did their best to comprehend what Shabina told them. She’d spared them the details—those were too grim to share.

“Rainier listened to me when no one else could hear me. Again, my parents didn’t want him near me, but no one else could make me feel safe, and he came to me when the nightmares wouldn’t stop.

He was the one who taught me to use a gun.

When I begged to learn self-defense and my father said it was not necessary, that I would have security day and night, Rainier taught me self-defense.

When he wasn’t around, he provided me with good teachers.

Even then, I didn’t feel safe if he wasn’t with me.

I saw a handler working dogs and wanted to learn how to do that for myself. Rainier talked my father into it.”

“What you’re telling me is,” Stella said, “Rainier is a good guy despite the fact that he makes you cry.”

Shabina nodded. “I turn into such a baby when he’s around.

I want him to see me as a woman, but that’s impossible when he only comes around when I’m in the middle of a crisis.

I do my best to get strong and stand on my own feet, so one day he can either let go completely or view me in a completely different light. ”

“Shabina,” Stella breathed her name out in a shocked whisper. “You’re in love with him.”

Shabina didn’t know if it was love. She knew there was no one else for her.

There never would be. Others would always say she had developed feelings for him because of the extreme circumstances they’d met under.

It was probably true. Whatever the reasons, her feelings ran deep, and she knew they weren’t going away.

Rainier was everything to her. She didn’t even know when she became so utterly dependent on him.

It had been a gradual realization that she couldn’t do without him.

She worried about him. A big part of the reason she had moved out of her parents’ home was because she felt they treated him so unfairly.

Rainier didn’t seem bothered by the way her parents acted toward him, and their behavior never stopped him from coming to her when she needed him.

Still, it bothered her so much she felt eventually it would drive a wedge between her and her parents.

They worried that she was so close to him.

Maybe it was because they knew she needed him, and they wanted her to need them.

“You should be very, very careful,” Stella murmured. “Really know what you’re getting into before you take that leap.”

Shabina gave her a fake smile as they all stood to leave. “He doesn’t look at me that way, Stella, so don’t worry about it.”

“I just want to caution you again, Shabina,” Raine said. “If Rafferty or either of those agents contact you with more questions, don’t answer without Decker present.”

“I’ll be heading up to Yosemite to camp for a couple of nights,” she pointed out. “I don’t think they’ll be so eager to talk to me that they’ll come looking to find where I’m camping.”