Part 11 (1/2)
Chapter Sixteen.
Her table strewn with reports, Gloria tried her best to put Kristine's weirdness out of her mind, but she kept circling back around, trying to figure out when things had s.h.i.+fted between them, how Kristine could have gone from steamy promising kisses to aloof so quickly. She glanced at the clock, wondering if she should walk down to the Aspens and demand an answer. Kristine's rebuff stung, and she found it hard to ignore. Exasperated with her inability to let it go, she scooped up the reports and dropped them into a drawer hoping she could lose herself in a novel. She gathered up her toiletries and made a run to the bathrooms to get ready for bed.
When she returned, she found Kristine sitting on her step. She rose as Gloria approached. Gloria was tempted to say that she was beat and send Kristine home but accepted that Kristine had come back and invited her into the camper.
”Do you want the plate I fixed for you?”
”No, thanks,” Kristine said, sitting down at the table. Gloria sat down across from her. ”You don't have to tell me what happened out there. I didn't mean to push.”
”No. I do. It's just...it's a long story, and one the people here don't know. I'm not sure where to start.”
Gloria reached for Kristine's hand. ”This isn't about today.”
”No. It's about Nard.”
Kristine's statement didn't make sense to Gloria, but she waited, guessing that Kristine needed to work up the courage to talk about what clearly haunted her.
Kristine continued, ”When I first started at the Lodge, I didn't even notice him. He was in the backcountry most of the time, and I was at the corrals. The day-ride girls used to make fun of how every summer he had a new girlfriend and take bets on how much any one of them would know about horses. So many of them were such bimbos. My last summer, he didn't have a girlfriend. All of a sudden he zeroed in on me. Every time he was in from a trip, he'd try to convince me to sleep with him, said that if I would just give guys a try...”
Gloria rolled her eyes in sympathy.
”I got good at avoiding him when he was in, but then he started pulling me out on his trips. Out there, I'd always get the cook to say she needed my help guarding the kitchen because I didn't trust having my bedroll out near the stock where he slept. I always stayed near the guests. That only helped a little. He'd still find ways to get in my s.p.a.ce when we were saddling and packing, those were the hardest.” Her voice took on a hard edge.
”And you couldn't get out of the trips?”
Kristine shrugged. ”Everyone wants to be on the overnighters. I'd been fighting to get out there and pack for ages, but all the cowboys were like Dozer. They didn't want me around, so I kept taking the trips with Nard, thinking he'd eventually get the message that I didn't want to sleep with him. That last trip was big enough that Leo made me second packer and sent Gabe as the helper.
”We had a new cook, too. She'd been doing day rides but wanted to try to cook, and since I'd been hanging around the kitchen on other trips, I shared some tips with her. She was probably my age. Since Gabe was the helper, he rode with her and the guests and did the kitchen ch.o.r.es. The three of us got on really well. It's the only time I remember being in the backcountry and being relaxed, having fun without watching my back.
”But Nard was watching. He saw what I didn't, and on the third day out, when we stopped to camp, he saw Nicole follow me down to the river. I don't know what I was thinking. I shouldn't have. I knew better than to fool around with anyone on trips, especially with Gabe out there. But that night after everyone had turned in, I slipped off to her tent.” Briefly, she looked guilty, but before Gloria could comment, Kristine's expression darkened. ”I was on my way back to the kitchen where my bedroll was when Nard grabbed me.” She looked down, like she was embarra.s.sed and sounded apologetic when she said, ”He caught me off guard.”
Gloria hated Nard for putting that tone in Kristine's voice. She stroked the veins on the back of Kristine's hand, admiring the strength that it took to come back to the Lodge.
”He said he was tired of me being a tease and accused me of going after Nicole to turn him on. I told him to stop. I was very clear about not being interested him.” Her eyes sparked anger before fading with the memory that had to be playing in her head. ”But he said I was in no place to argue, not as the campfire s.l.u.t.”
”At the beginning of the season everyone seemed to know that you had that reputation,” Gloria said softly.
Kristine looked away. ”I crossed a line in the backcountry. I knew it, and he knew it, and when I refused him...he got so angry. I thought I could shake him off, but his hands were everywhere. He was so much stronger than I thought. I...” She swiped tears from her eyes. ”I couldn't get away from him. I tried, but I fell backward, and then he was on top of me. I tried to kick him, and he struck me across the cheek, telling me not to fight him. I was dazed, stunned. He laughed.” Her voice caught. ”He laughed and said, 'That's right. I knew you wanted it.'”
Gloria didn't know what to say. She feared that she knew what came next and squeezed Kristine's hand, willing her to feel the strength she was offering.
Kristine wouldn't meet her eyes. After a long silence, she continued. ”I hated myself trapped there underneath him. He made me a helpless girl.”
”You weren't helpless,” Gloria argued. ”You were overpowered. There's a difference.”
Kristine stared at her hands. ”You don't understand. He took everything from me, everything I'd been trying to prove. I felt so small.”
Gloria ached for the woman sitting in front of her. Questions she wanted to ask buzzed around her brain, but she didn't want to ask something insensitive, something that would worsen the memory. ”Wasn't there anyone...?” she risked.
”Of course. Everyone was within shouting distance. If I could have made a sound. But I was so shocked, so rattled. By everything. I couldn't get my thoughts unscrambled enough to make any noise. I would have been in real trouble if one of your friends hadn't shown up.”
Gloria blinked, confused. ”He didn't...?”
”No.” Kristine looked away, retreating into the memory. Gloria watched as Kristine seemed to search for what to say, her gaze darting everywhere but back to Gloria. She couldn't understand why Kristine seemed more upset after she clarified that Nard had not raped her.
Kristine cleared her throat and continued, ”The cook started screaming her head off because a bear was in the kitchen. Everyone for miles around must have heard her. Nard crushed my mouth with his hand and said, 'Don't even think we've finished this.' There was no way I was going to give him a chance to finish anything, so I bailed. I was pretty banged up, but I rode out that night and became their joke. Dozer said something today about how I was too busy s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around to help him, just like before. He doesn't know. None of them know. To them, I'm just a flake. I'm still the one who was wrong.”
”But you didn't do anything wrong.”
”But I did.” Kristine's eyes blazed.
Gloria didn't understand her adamance and sought to rea.s.sure her. ”You did what you needed to do. You took care of yourself. There's nothing to be ashamed about there. And you're here now. I think that takes an amazing amount of courage.”
Kristine slipped her hand away from Gloria's. She sat folded in on herself and looked so vulnerable, so completely different than Gloria had ever seen her. ”Yeah, look at me, so courageous. For two months, I've been trying to earn back some respect, but there's no way they'll forget what they think they know.”
”Why didn't you tell Dozer the truth today?” Gloria asked gently.
”What was I going to say? I got scared and ran. I quit the wreck. I bailed and lost control.” She swallowed hard.
Gloria hated the resignation she heard in Kristine's voice. ”He attacked you and if it weren't for the cook calling him, he would have raped you. That's a.s.sault,” she insisted.
Tears began to stream down Kristine's face. Gloria grabbed a box of tissues and scooted around so she was sitting next to Kristine. ”None of this is your fault.” She put an arm around Kristine and held her while she cried, wis.h.i.+ng that words could fix the hurt she was feeling. She stroked Kristine's hair and touched her lips to her forehead, using her chin to pull Kristine closer. ”You are the victor here. You came back. That earns you my respect.”
Kristine nodded against her chest. ”Can I stay here?” She whispered so softly Gloria almost missed it.
”Absolutely,” Gloria answered, honored that Kristine would trust her to ask. She wanted Kristine to know that she understood why Kristine had stepped away from her that afternoon and that she wasn't expecting anything more now. ”Whatever you need. This folds into a bed if that's what you'd like.”
”No...if it's okay, I'd like...to be next to you.”
”Of course.”
She gave Kristine a spare toothbrush, boxers and an old tee, changed into similar sleep attire and crawled into bed. Kristine's confession explained so much, the tension between Kristine and her colleagues and her reluctance to get involved. She sensed Kristine's need to not let anything distract her.
Kristine returned from the bathroom and locked the door. ”Lights out?”
”I'm good,” Gloria replied.
Kristine crossed the short s.p.a.ce between them and crawled under the covers. Gloria wasn't sure what to do with her body. She wanted to hold Kristine, but she didn't want her to think that she was pus.h.i.+ng for something s.e.xual. She didn't want any of her actions to come across wrongly, so they simply lay next to each other. Gloria wondered what Kristine was thinking about, and then she felt her move, s.h.i.+ft just enough so that her hip and thigh touched Gloria's.
”Do you want to turn?” Gloria asked. ”I could hold you if you'd like.”
Instead of turning away from Gloria, Kristine rolled to her side to face Gloria. It was too dark to see her, so Gloria had no insight to what she wanted. She was about to scoot to her hip when she felt Kristine's hand slip into hers. Silently, she lifted Gloria's arm and nestled her head on Gloria's chest. ”Is this okay?”