Hope - Book 1 of the Bad Boy Vibes series

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

He was waiting for her.

Rafe came speeding out on her approach with Bruno hot on his heels, scrambling to a halt as the Harley came to a stop. With a last warning rumble, the heavy machine fell silent. Anna sat there uncertainly watching Rafe watching her. To say the silence that ensued was awkward was putting it mildly. But when it simply stretched on with neither of them making an attempt to say something, Anna thought it best to get off the bike first before trying to break through the ice. She removed her helmet and let it fall heedlessly to ground between them. Then she lifted from her seat and hesitantly swung her leg back over to stand there awkwardly before finally speaking.

"Should I just leave?"

Her apparent poor choice of opening words only served to set off the explosive reaction he had been trying so hard to hold back. He couldn't quite believe her gall to turn up here after all but abandoning his attempts to help her, only to go on back to those damn Prestons and get herself raped again. Did she think he couldn't do anything for her, was that why she took matters into her own hands? Was it the fact that he admitted that he himself had been raped? That he had yet to find a resolution to the crimes committed on his own person that made her lose faith in his ability to help her attain justice with her own situation? Did she think him weak?

Unable to face her anymore, Rafe merely turned heels and stalked off into the night. Needing the distance between them to help himself come to terms with his own insecurities.

Anna stood there, shocked to have her only ally in the world abandoning her in her time of need. The ever-present bucket of tears threatened once more in an outpour that could possibly know no end. But Anna couldn't leave it like that. Not when she absolutely needed Rafe. Needed him to hold on strong to her sanity. She was wavering on the brink as it was. Teetering on the very edge. It wouldn't take much at this point to push her over to the point of no return.

Collapsing under the weight of her own insecurities, Anna dropped to her knees in an anguished cry she couldn't quite hold back. A cry that rang out eerily into the night to haunt persistently at Rafe's retreating back. It stopped him in his tracks. It set his heart to pace up a double beat. It pumped up the adrenaline in his system. Honed and readied his battle instincts, bringing him up to knife's edge sharp. Then his mind snapped off, his instincts took over, and his feet took off at a wary run to follow the sound back to its grieving source. Spying Anna keeled over on her knees on the damp grass had his back stiffening and his senses splaying out looking for a threat. It was only when his thinking process snapped back into focus that he realised there wasn't any. That the only threat to her peace of mind at that moment was Rafe's own lack of understanding. Anguish filled his own being at his callous treatment of her. She who had turned to him for his help. For his understanding, while he wallowed in his own despair. They were the oddest pair of war heroes. Both of them had been in battles that threatened their sanity and came out warring to win it back.

Dropping to his knees before her, Rafe gathered Anna close. Wrapping her up tight in his comforting embrace as he rocked her...rocked him...rocked them both, in a desperate bid to temper their mutual anguish.

Anna clung on tight to her only pillar of sanity, giving in to the fear and humiliation she suffered at being treated as nothing more than a dump bucket for the Prestons' amorous needs. Despite her own experiences with men who had no honour, namely her stepfather and stepbrother, Anna still had that last glimmer of hope that the two were merely the rotten harvest of the crop. She still had faith that men as a whole were not evil, malicious, and generally uncaring. Yet they were. All those in her life were mean. Except her own father. Except Rafe.