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oked at the roses for a few seconds almost as if she expected them to jump up and move, as if they weren’t an inanimate object. She leaned down and touched the petals of one flower, and put her nose to them, smelling their deep, luscious scent. Visions of Zachary McIntyre rushed through her mind, and without quite realizing she was doing it, her finger moved back and forth across the handwritten message. As she touched the card, she was bombarded with the memory of him pleading with her to forget the past and to give him a chance. It made her heart constrict.
For a moment she wished she were a normal girl, and that she could accept his dinner invitation without a qualm. But she couldn’t. Although she believed he’d let go of the pain in his past, or most of it, at least, she couldn’t let go of hers.
If only there was a way to tell him that it wasn’t anything personal against him. It was obvious that he didn’t know what had happened to her, and she felt bad for not being able to call him and tell him.
But she couldn’t, and she wasn’t going to make herself do it. What she’d gone through at seventeen had been bad, and she wasn’t ready to make herself take the first step in getting over it … not with a physical relationship, anyway.
She knew she was being a coward. She hated being a coward. But not facing Zach with the truth was far less of a cowardly act than when it had taken her months to go to the police about the attack. When other young girls had been in danger and she had been too scared to face what had happened to her, that had been … horrible. And so cowardly that she still cringed about it.
At the time, she’d been too shaken from the attack and had only wanted to hide in her room. She hadn’t wanted to upset her parents; she’d told herself she was trying to protect them from the pain of knowing what she had gone through. And that had certainly been true. But she also hadn’t wanted to face her attacker in a courtroom and have to go through the ordeal of testifying. It was shameful remembering that it wasn’t until she’d found out the evil bastard had almost hurt Mandy and Hannah that she’d agreed to testify. And even that had been because Josh had prodded her so much. And even though Jesse Whitaker was in prison now, it would be a long time before Katie forgave herself for being such a coward for so long.
So really, not telling Zach the truth right now wasn’t nearly as bad as the ball of misery in the pit of Katie’s stomach was telling her that it was.
She’d tell him one day.
She really would.
But today wasn’t the day.
****
A month later Katie received another dozen roses. The card was exactly the same except for one addition. Underneath the request that she join him for dinner, Zach had written the word please. That word, seeming so stark, so vulnerable when she saw it written in his handwriting, desperately made her want to go out with him. Tears blurred her eyes as she saw his roughly handsome face in her mind’s eye. She wished she were brave enough. She really did. Maybe he’d send flowers again next month. Maybe then she’d be ready.
She wiped the tears from her cheeks with the palms of her hands and inhaled deeply.
Yeah, she’d be ready next month.
****
On the sixth month, Katie got angry when the roses arrived. Why wouldn’t he leave her alone? Why did he have to send her stupid flowers every month? All they did was make her wish she could go with him. They made her feel utterly ridiculous for not being brave enough to step out of the narrow box her world had become over the past few years. The roses made her look at herself in the mirror, and she didn’t like who she saw there. There was absolutely no reason she should be afraid. But she was. Every month, when the roses came, they made her realize the depth of her insecurities and they made her remember things that she desperately wanted to forget.
And unfortunately, she began to build up a deeper resentment toward Zach with the passing of time.
PART TWO
Chapter Seven
Two and a half years later-Present Day
Redwood Falls, Texas: The Turner Farm
Katie sat at the kitchen table and stared in horror at her mother. “What did you just say?”
Diana Turner took a shuddering breath. “Zachary McIntyre is calling in our loan. We have thirty days to come up with the money or he’ll foreclose on the farm.”
Katie’s stomach turned slightly queasy as the ramifications of that statement sank in. “Mom, how did this happen? What loan?” Katie paused as tension coiled in her stomach, making it spasm in cramps. “How much money?”
Her mother looked up from the coffee she was absently stirring. Pain was etched across the older woman’s features. “Three hundred and twenty thousand dollars.”
Katie’s heart stopped beating as she felt the color drain from her face. “Wh-why?” The single word was all she could get out.
Diana started crying softly, tears running down her pale cheeks. “It was all because of that woman.” She took a deep breath and it was obvious to Katie that her mother was trying to keep it under control. “Ironic, isn’t it? When your Uncle Chris left town with Cindy McIntyre, he wanted to sell his half of the farm to raise funds for that money-hungry witch. I know I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, it was a horrible tragedy when they were killed.” As Diana took a sip of coffee and wiped the tears from her cheeks, Katie’s stomach tightened into a ball of sharp distress. Her mother inhaled deeply and her mouth tightened before she continued. “Anyway, you know your father couldn’t let half of the land go to anyone outside of our family. So we borrowed the money from the bank and bought your uncle out. Chris and Cindy got the money and disappeared. We got a mortgage. And then the drought came. The crop failed. We couldn’t feed the cows. We had to sell the herd for pennies on the dollar because we couldn’t afford the feed. So we missed some payments.”
As her mother began crying in earnest, Katie tried to calm her raging heartbeat so that she could assimilate the situation. She’d known the previous few years had been bad, but because she hadn’t known about a mortgage on the property, Katie hadn’t worried too much about her mom and dad. They’d always had a huge garden, along with a water well, and her parents had always managed to get by. But she could well imagine how difficult it must have been to service a mortgage of that size. “But Mom, how did Zachary come to own the note?”
“Because we’d missed some payments, the bank was about to foreclose on us. We had about sixty days to come up with the money.” Her mother took a quivering breath. “I had gone to see the loan officer but had zero luck. I was upset and ran into Zach outside the bank. I was crying and somehow, I really can’t remember, he got the story from me. He said he would help us out and loan us the money and give us more time.”
“And then he didn’t?” Katie couldn’t believe how manipulative the man was. He was manipulative; his goddamn roses were manipulative. Every month, without fail, for the last three years, she’d received a bouquet of flowers from him. They’d always contained a note and the note was always basically the same. Looking back on it now, she was mad at herself for even being tempted. Because she had been. But invariably, she’d get a grip and toss the flowers away so she didn’t have to think about him or what he wanted from her. No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t go out with him or anyone. Not now and maybe not ever. As the months had gone by, his notes had gone from requests, to pleading, and then finally, Katie began to read the frustration that came across between the lines. And then about eighteen months ago, even as the roses still came, she knew something had changed. It was as if the florist was only filling a standing order; there wasn’t anything personal about the deliveries after that. They’d each only been signed with his name, and Katie wondered if he even realized he was still paying for them each and every month.
Her mother answered her question with a sigh, “No, he did, he gave us some breathing room. But now the time is up, and we can’t pay him, and I don’t know what to do. This will kill your father; I haven’t told him that Zach has called in the loan.” Her mother’s f
ace visibly paled. “And Josh doesn’t know about any of it. He has no idea his father sold out. Dear God, I can’t stand the thought of Josh finding out what his father did.”
A horrible, purely suspicious thought came to Katie. “How long ago did this happen? When did ya’ll borrow the money from Zach?” Katie held her breath and waited for the answer.
Her mom was quick to respond. “Three years ago. It was a thirty-six month balloon note.”
Katie dropped her head into her hands as a shudder shook her body. It was three years ago exactly that Zach had kidnapped her from school and taken her to his penthouse and propositioned her. He’d warned her then that he’d win in the end.
And he had won. The bastard had won.
****
Dallas, Texas
Three days later, Katie rode the elevator up to the top floor of the corporate offices of McIntyre Oil and Wind Energy. She’d been mildly surprised when an appointment with Zachary had been so easy to obtain. All it had taken was one phone call and her request to see him had been accomplished. In that aspect, at least, he wasn’t going to make her beg.
Katie hadn’t set eyes on him in three years. The only contact between them had been the roses. By the grace of God or by pure good luck, she had managed to avoid him, until now.
She had dressed carefully for this meeting. Unfortunately, her first full year of teaching at a private elementary school had resulted in her wardrobe consisting of nothing but work clothes. She’d much rather have gotten a job at one of the higher-paying public school districts, but the recession had forced her into a lower-paying position that she was grateful to have been offered. She was living on her own, and basic clothes for teaching were all she could afford. Her parents certainly hadn’t been able to help her in a monetary sense, and of course, she’d never expected them to. In fact, they didn’t know she was here and Katie desperately wanted to keep it that way.
