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surprised her.
    It surprised Adam, too. Her body fit perfectly with his, somehow. Her slim curves and length of limb were smooth and streamlined and slipped in to his bulk like she belonged there. He held her gently and was taken aback that he actually liked to be close to her.
    He touched her hand and she looked up at him.
    “OK?” he said quietly.
    “Yeah. I am now.”
    He stared at her, astounded at how soft her eyes were in the half-light of the flashlight. Ten minutes earlier he had convinced Katie to lie down again and without even thinking about it, he’d laid down beside her, leaving some space between them. He wondered if she might recoil or tense up, but instead she’d just curled right up against him like she’d been there many times before. Like she totally knew his body, and trusted him with hers. Like she found comfort by being close to him.
    “I’m sorry, Adam.”
    “What for?”
    “When you offered to help me, you had no idea what you were walking in to. As you can see, it’s messy.”
    He shook his head. “Don’t even worry about it.” He paused. “Can I ask you something else?”
    “Sure,” she said.
    “What you said, about not even your friends knowing about your scars… why didn’t you tell them?”
    She looked away. “I don’t know.”
    “Katie?” He used one finger to gently lift and turn her chin. “Mia knows about your stepfather, right? What he did to you?”
    “Yes. Mia and Reena and Maggie all know. They know about the physical abuse and the – the – what he did to me from the time I was twelve. But I couldn’t talk about the burns. They’re so… I don’t know.”
    “Brutal?”
    She looked at him. “Yes. I just couldn’t say it out loud.”
    “But when you were growing up, how did you explain the scars to people around you?”
    “You mean like at school?”
    “Yeah.”
    She shrugged. “Well, nobody at school looked all that closely, really. I always wore long shorts in the summer and track pants in gym class and I always changed in a stall.”
    “But what about at the doctor? I mean, I imagine you and your Mom and brother were always in and out of the E.R., right? Nobody asked? Followed up with Child Protective Services?”
    “My Mom was a nurse before she married my stepfather, so she took care of most things at home after the beatings. Stitches and stuff. The times we had to go to the hospital – when he broke Ryan’s arm, for example, and when he broke my wrist – Mom took us. She used to work there before my stepfather forced her to quit, so they believed what she told them. And she covered for him with our breaks and bruises. Nobody looked any farther.”
    “So she said that you fell down the stairs?”
    “And fell off the jungle gym and got hurt playing basketball. You know. Kid stuff.”
    “OK, but what about boyfriends? I mean…” He stroked her cheek. “You know. Guys you slept with. They’d see you naked. No way they couldn’t see that these are cigarette burns. I knew right away.”
    “To tell you the truth, Adam, the guys that I’ve been involved with weren’t all that interested in me.”
    He pulled back to see her face better. “So, why be involved with them?”
    “Because I knew they wouldn’t care enough to ask about my scars. And if they did, I just told them they were from the plane crash and that shut them up pretty fast.”
    Something moved in his chest. “You don’t have a very high opinion of men, do you?”
    “No.” She gave him a sad smile. “No, I really don’t. Especially physically strong men – in my experience, they just use all that size and strength to hurt people smaller and weaker than them.”
    He nodded. “I can understand why you’d think that.”
    She peered up at him, suddenly aware of what she just said. “Wait, Adam. I don’t mean you or Nick. I’m not implying that you guys would ever hurt me or Mia or anyone who wasn’t standing there in the ring, fighting you by choice.”
    He touched