“Breathe.Just breathe.I didn’t mean to frighten you.”She nodded, then shook her head.“Come on now, just breathe, and you’ll be fine.I’ll stand right here until you’re better.All right?”
He couldn’t be her mate.She was too old for him.At twenty-nine, she knew that someday she might meet a man who would want to go out with her, but never a mate.She didn’t need another man in her life.Ever.Sitting down when a chair suddenly touched the back of her legs, she put her head between her knees and breathed.This just couldn’t be happening right now.
She didn’t know how long she sat in the chair, but the crew was headed out the door.She wasn’t bothered by anyone.She needed her son so that he could tell Walsh that there had been some kind of mistake.It couldn’t be her.She watched the door waiting for her son, and when he arrived back at the house, she nearly knocked him down, wanting him to talk to the Walsh person.
“Calm down, I can’t understand you when you’re going that fast.”She tried to reason with Thatcher about what was going on, but he needed her to be calm.She was far from that.“He told you you’re his mate?That’s all right.I can talk to him.Just let me get my bearings straight.”
When Thatcher walked away to where Walsh was, she felt a little calmer.No one would want to be mated to her, not with her past.Olivia was damaged goods.Not just because of her hearing and loss of voice, but she was told she couldn’t have any children either.Not since Thatcher was born.
“Mom, he wants to talk to you.”She shook her head no.“You have to tell him something.You can’t just say no, it can’t be when you know as well as I do that it could well be that you’re mates.”
“I’m not capable of giving him what he needs.”Thatcher asked her how she knew that when she’d not even spoken to him.“Tell him about my past, then he’ll understand.Tell him about Winchester and the nine days I spent with him.”
“You’ll have to tell him too.”She looked at her son and pleaded with him to help her.“He’s the first man in nearly seventeen years that has given you a second look, Mom.You have to let him know what happened so that he can make a decision on his own.”
“What if he wants children?Then what do I tell him?”He told her to tell him the truth.“I can’t be what he wants.He’s a wealthy man who will need a wife who can at least hold her own in a conversation.”
“He’ll just have to learn sign language, that’s all.”She glared at her son.“You taught me you can teach anyone how to talk to you.Just tell him what happened, and you’ll be able to work something out.You know how mates work.For all you know, now that he’s found you, he won’t be able to function without you.You have to give him something.”
“I have nothing to give.”She watched as Thatcher spoke to Sidney.She didn’t even know if he really was the homeowner.There had been so many of them coming and going since she’d been on the job that she didn’t know who was who.Packing up her things, glad now that she didn’t have to bum a ride home, she had her gear near the car when both men came out of the house.It was Walsh who spoke to her calmly.
“I need to talk to you.All right?I won’t harm you in any way, but I’d like to know what happened that has you so upset.”She simply nodded.“All right.Good then.We can have dinner tonight.Thatcher said that you two usually have pizza on Friday night, so we can do that.If you don’t mind, we can pick it up and eat it here if you want.That way, no one will bother us.”
Giving him the thumbs up, she agreed to eat with him.Thatcher was going to be there in the event that things got out of hand, and he could also translate for her if he didn’t understand her.This was going to be a nightmare.Not one that she wanted to go over again today.Looking at her son, she told him how sorry she was, and he laughed.
“You’re always getting me out of one bit of trouble to the next.For a change, I get to help you.”She laughed with him and looked at Walsh.“His name is Sidney, the homeowner, as you guessed.As soon as he orders the pizza, I’m going to go and get it, and we can talk.He’s a nice man and well respected.Also, he’s a dragon.”
“Dragon?”He nodded.“I’ve never known a dragon before, have you?I would guess that explains the double ovens and the larger-than-life stove.It would take a lot to feed them all when they’re together.”
“Mom, you’re going to be just fine.Tell him like you told me all those years ago, and it’ll be fine.”She didn’t say anything back to Thatcher because she knew better.Men did not want damaged goods, and she was about as damaged as she could be.“I love you, Mom.You’ll see.This will work out.”
She didn’t know how.But just so he knew what was going on, she’d tell him everything that had happened and how, at thirteen, she’d had a child.
Chapter 3
“This is sixteen years prior to this year.I was just thirteen years old, a child playing around in the yard with my friends.I’m going to tell you the story just as it unfolded.”Sidney said he was there for her.“You are now, but you might not be after I tell you what unfolded that summer.Along with the months and years that followed it as well.”
She loved playing outdoors in the summer.She didn’t need anyone to translate for her while she was with her friends.They just had fun in whoever’s yard they were in and would play outside until it was dark out.
Most of the kids that she played with knew enough sign language to get them by with her.She had taught them the basics last year, and they knew enough about her that they didn’t give her a hard time when she messed up because she couldn’t hear.She couldn’t speak either, but they were fine with that.They were good friends, and that’s all that mattered.
At dinnertime, she had to go home to eat.She thought that her mom just wanted to make sure she was getting enough to eat, which is why she didn’t eat at the other kids’ homes.But they could come to her house, and that was fine by her mom.Today they were having grilled peanut butter sammiches along with chips and a glass of milk.Toby Lea was the youngest of her friends at eight, and she was the oldest at thirteen.
After lunch, they ended back in the yard playing with dolls and having a good time.She noticed that there was a white van that kept going by her home, but like the rest of the kids, she thought he was looking for a street address.As soon as he drove away, she went about playing with her doll that she’d gotten last Christmas.The others, the same kind of doll, were having a tea party, and she wasn’t able to join as they only had four seats.Not that she cared.Olivia could and did create her own little world about her dolls.Today was no different.
When the van pulled up in front of her house, she watched as a man got out with a present in his hands.She knew better than to go into someone’s car that she didn’t know, but watched the others get closer and closer to him.It was then that he grabbed Toby Lea and pulled her towards the van.Sensing danger, she beat on the man until he let her go.That was when he pulled her into the van and drove off.Hitting her head on something hard in the van, she was out before she could figure out if the kids were going to tell her momma that she’d been kidnapped.
Olivia’s teacher had told them about stranger danger.Her mom had told her too that you never took a gift from someone you didn’t know.There was a little girl down the street from them all who had been caught by a stranger and killed.She didn’t want that to happen to her.
The man who was driving the van had tied her up, and she was rolling around in the back.Each time she hit her head, she was out again.This went on for what seemed like hours.When the van stopped, she tried getting away from him, but he wasn’t having it.He carried her, wrapped in a smelly blanket, into a barn that she could see and tied her up again.
That first night, he violated her innocence and shattered the world she had known.Broken and terrified, she cried herself to sleep when he finally left her alone.She prayed it would be the only time, prayed he would let her go so she could find her way home.But Olivia was trapped in a silence deeper than most could imagine.She could not call out for help, nor hear what the man tried to tell her.A bandana covered his mouth, denying her even the chance to read his lips.
When he came for her again, Olivia fought back, managing to bite his arm hard enough to draw blood.Her defiance earned her a brutal blow, and when she regained consciousness, she found herself restrained and utterly at his mercy.She pleaded with him as best she could, but her resistance only brought more cruelty.By the next day, after enduring repeated abuse, she was weak, in pain, andcertain she might not survive what was being done to her.
She had no idea whether anyone was searching for her as the days and nights blurred into one endless nightmare.He brought her meager food at first—things she could barely force herself to swallow—followed by more abuse.In time, even that small mercy faded, and cruelty became the rhythm of her captivity, sometimes more than once in a day.It wasn’t until she finally saw his face clearly that a deeper terror took hold.She knew she would never forget him.She had seen that face before—on billboards along the highway, smiling down in polished confidence.He was one of the wealthy men who had visited her school, speaking of tearing it down and rebuilding it on the same grounds.His name was Richard Winchester, of the Winchester family.
Weak and barely holding on, Olivia was sometimes untied while he tended to her or left briefly to his own business.But she had never dared try to escape again.She had attempted it once before, and the punishment had been so violent she feared it had nearly killed her.The pain from it lingered, a constant reminder of what defiance could cost.But one night, when he left her unbound, something in her shifted.Summoning what little strength she had left, she managed to run.
