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Angel stared at the chair as Natches pointed out the teenager’s bathroom. The soft pink cushions were well-worn, the paint a little faded here and there, but it was sturdy and comfortable.
Especially to a three-year-old who liked reading her two-words-to-a-page storybooks.
Hop. Hop. She struggled with the word then did like her momma taught her and made the sounds of the word. Hop, boy.
“Angel?” Natches paused beside her. “The safe room’s next.”
She turned, followed him, ignoring the need to sit in that chair for just a moment.
He showed her the safe room, though she knew she’d have to make him explain it to her again before Bliss came home, because she barely saw it. The same with his and Chaya’s bedroom, then back into the living room.
She stared around, looking at the pictures in the room, seeing so many, but none of Chaya’s first child.
“There’s only one room upstairs,” he told her as Duke joined them at the stairway leading to the upper room. “It’s never used. Are you sure you need to see it?”
She nodded, still seeing that rocker, remembering the room it had sat in first. The room in the house Chaya had sold.
“Very well.” He seemed to make some silent decision, then led the way up the wide stairwell. “Bathroom.” He opened the door on the left of the landing. “Bedroom.”
She stepped into the bedroom then froze.
She couldn’t breathe.
She stared around the room, refusing to speak, barely able to hold back the screams of rage.
The twin bed she’d once slept on, the quilt she’d so loved still covering it. The big chair sitting beside the gas fireplace where Chaya had taught her to read. The white dresser, chest, and child-sized vanity littered with ribbons and bows and the brush she’d used to brush her hair.
On the bench at the bottom of the bed and in front of it were several small stacks of gaily wrapped presents. Who bought presents for a child that they believed was dead?
On the walls were white shelves, lined with her dolls.
Lying on the bed was the doll she’d slept with and hugged to her as a child. The large rag doll had been her favorite besides the teddy bear she called Binny. She didn’t realize she’d walked to the bed, reached out, and almost touched the doll.
Cora. She’d named the doll Cora and she told her “good night” every night before she went to sleep. Cora lived in her bed; she didn’t travel with the child as Binny had, but had waited patiently to hold back any bad dreams she might have while she slept.
The real nightmares didn’t come in dreams, though, she thought. Life itself could be the real nightmare.
Duke moved to Angel, his chest aching as he blocked her expression from Natches just in time to allow her to keep the agony that crossed her face hidden. His cousin didn’t need to see it. Dammit, he hadn’t needed to see it.
She swallowed tightly as she caught sight of him in her periphery. Her body stiffened and she turned from the bed, her gaze meeting his for only a second. What he saw there had his jaw clenching in fury.
“I’m finished.” She walked past him, moving with that precise, loose-limbed walk she used when she knew danger was close. “We can discuss the layout after I walk the grounds.”
Angel felt threatened. She was off balance and she was hurting and all that training over the years was the only thing that kept her from breaking.
He followed her, aware of Natches closing the door softly behind him as Angel went down the stairs, not even pausing on her way to the front door when her mother stepped to the foyer.
She was escaping. Running away until she could handle whatever emotions were threatening to escape all that careful control.
Chaya might be right, she might have needed to see the room, but Duke still disagreed with the lack of warning she’d been given.
“Did you know about it?” she demanded, her voice rougher, her control shakier as he caught up with her in the front yard, moving beside her as she strode along the rock walkway that wove through the multitude of flower beds.
“The bedroom?” He breathed out roughly. “I knew,” he answered at her sharp nod. “But would you have believed me if I told you? Or accepted it?”
She paused, breathing in deep, and Duke saw the faintest tremble at her lips.
Damn Natches and Chaya.
