“I encourage you to spend your reflection outside, in nature. There are several open paths you can explore around your tent. My only request is that you respect the privacy of the other guests.” Dr. Julia’s pleasant voice took on an edge. “Everyone has received instructions to remain separate until our first group session tomorrow morning, and the guards will be around to make sure everyone honors those instructions. It’s critical that the initial stage of this experience not be overwhelmed with too many external factors.”
Great.So even if Rachel was here, we wouldn’t find out until the morning.
Chapter 12
Calder
Rule #20: The best weapon is the one between your ears.
Whistling the tune of that piña colada song, Ben led us roughly a quarter of a mile along the foot-worn path away from Maxwell’s sanctuary.
Fresh branches and fallen leaves crowed under our footsteps, the grass a tired yellow from the consistent battering. Through the trees, slivers of large light-brown tents tucked into the enveloping foliage. I created a mental map as we walked, the details of our surroundings marred only by the distraction of who walked ahead of me.
Lara was on edge. Her shoulders were pinched. Her head snapped from side to side, and her hands continued to comb through the red-drenched waves of her hair, as though searching for a place to moor her thoughts. I had a feeling they oscillated on the same tipping point as my own.
“After how things ended between them.”
Her answer haunted me like a midday shadow. The way she’d looked ... the way she’d talked ... the things she hadn’t mentioned. Lara didn’t know a fraction of what had happened between Rachel and me.Something that didn’t matter now,I forced myself to remember.What we discussed with Maxwell... it might be the truth, but it wasn’t something to fix.Weweren’t something to fix.
“Here are the bathrooms. Toilets. Showers.” Ben pointed to the portable structure that gave some semblance of the comforts of indoor plumbing.
We followed another path to the left, passing two more tents that sat several yards off the worn ground.
“Tent seven,” came our introduction at the end of the narrowed walkway, a cabin-size sandy-colored tent that terminated that portion of the trail.
Ben unzipped the flap and held it back for us to enter.
No lock on the tent door. Common, but not comforting.
I followed Lara closely inside, my balled-up fist resisting the urge to make a statement to the guard who still openly tried to get a look at her ass.
For all the luxury promised with the high price tag, the residence we were given for the next two weeks was surprisingly sparse. A small table and two chairs on one side of the tent and a bed on the other. A single queen-size bed.
I looked at Lara at the exact moment her eyes swung to me.
One bed for the two of us.
Heat thumped down to my groin.Dammit.Had I really thought they’d give us each a sleeping bag? It was a couples’ retreat. Was I really that naive?
“A gong will sound when it’s time to return from reflection to your tents. Dinner will be brought to you at five thirty. At six thirty, Dr. Julia will do an evening reflection, which will come through your speaker.” Ben jerked his chin to indicate the Bluetooth speaker hanging from the top of the tent. “When Dr. Julia is finished, you’ll have an hour to journal and use the bathroom or shower before curfew,” he continued to drone from the tent-flap doorway, his eyes lingering on Lara. “Curfew is eight p.m. unless there’s an evening activity taking place. The schedule and your journals are there on the bed.”
Lara turned and bent to examine the papers, oblivious to the crude gaze of the guard as it roamed over her ass. Like his authority vacated our right to privacy and Lara’s right to decency, Ben stepped inside our tent for a better view. And it took only two steps to put me right in front of him.
“Anything else?” I asked with only a thin veneer of calm coating my voice.
His frustrated glare clashed with my furious one.
I’d dealt with plenty of men like Ben in the retrieval business. Cops, federal agents, or any kind of head of security usually bristled at my assistance on a case. Give a man any kind of badge and weapon, and far too many times an inflated sense of ego followed. But never had that egregious ego tempted me to violence the way it did now.
I stepped closer, and instantly he removed his foot from inside our tent. Nostrils flaring, Ben frowned like a spoiled child and looked me up and down.
“Curfew is strict. Don’t let me find you roaming outside the tent after hours,” he grunted, puffing out his chest and casually strumming his fingers on his gun. “It can be dangerous out there.”
Subtle.I doubted it would amount to any real threat.
I stayed in the entrance as he walked away, whistling that same tune, and waited until he was completely out of sight before I faced Lara again.
“What was that about?”