Rowan by Tilly Delane

Rowan:
When you’ve been to hell and back ─ and I don’t just mean the outer rings of hell, I mean the ring right at the centre of Hades, where gladiators like me fight for the entertainment of today’s Caesars and Caesarias ─ you come back a monster or a broken man. If you come back at all.
I’m neither.
I don’t know what I am.
I know I’m an addict.
I know I’m killer.
I know I’ve been running from myself since I was twelve years old and that at every turn since I’ve made lousy decisions.
Time to face myself in the mirror.
So I’m taking a trip to the peninsula of Purbeck, a beautiful nature reserve on the south coast of England, to enter rehab.
Can you rehabilitate a killer? Can you rehabilitate a broken beast?
I doubt it, but at least I’m willing to try.
The last thing I expected was to meet a soul as tortured as me, a woman whose eyes tell me she’s seen it, the ugliness of life.
And she can deal.
She won’t look away.
She is competence in a fifties retro package with fishnets and combat boots.
She’s my nurse.
And totally off limits.

Raven:
I came out to meet the guy because he took longer than is normal. I thought he might have gotten lost. Though that’s pretty hard when going in a straight line down what was once the only road in a village. But it’s a rehab clinic. Folk are kinda lost by definition when they get here.
So I came to see what was taking him so long and found him going down on the water fountain.
I mean, seriously, the way he hulked over it, half his face under the stream, his tongue lapping at the water, was obscene, feral. So my smart mouth decided to make a comment. A wholly unprofessional comment, and now I’m standing here, mesmerised. Like Mowgli meeting Kaa.
‘Cause he’s staring me down like a pro.
I can’t look away from his eyes. They are huge, a deep, warm brown and they tell me stories too close for comfort. This is a guy who gets it. Life. The ugliness. The bits where other people play three monkeys. He sees them.
He sees me.
And I see him.
But he’s a client and that’s where the story ends.
It’s my last intake of guests.
In a month from now my year in the British Isles is over, I’ll hand over my job to a local, and I’ll be going home to America.
And I’m not getting fired in the meantime because of a ‘connection’ to some sexy giant with muscle for miles.
‘Connections’ are a myth.
And a myth is not worth getting fired over.
But what if there is more than a connection? What if there is actual healing?