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She spun to look at him. He winced at the sight of her, so deathly pale and terrified. She screamed again and shoved her way out of the sleeping bag. With a desperate, hacking breath, she stumbled away and ran to the almost cold campfire. There she stopped dead.
He could hear her breathing, ragged in the silence. Her shoulders rounded, then she hugged herself and straightened.
He didn't know what to do, what to say. She looked so alone out there, so frightened and lonely and disconnected from the world.
He peeled out of the sleeping bag and got to his feet, padding silently toward her in stockinged feet. He reignited the fire and set the now cold coffeepot on the flames. He plucked two tin cups from the pile of used dishes and waited for her to say something.
The seconds spilled into minutes and passed in silence. The fire crackled and popped, the coffee began a slow, roiling splash against the metal pot. And still neither one of them spoke.
He watched her, saw the stiff tenseness of her body, and knew that she hadn't shaken the fear yet. It hovered around her like a dense fog, pulled the color from her cheeks and left her lips pale.
She was such an odd mixture of strength and vulner-
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ability. So often she made him think of Emily, though there was only the most fragile of similarities between the women. Emily had been all feminine softness with a quiet weakness running throughout. She hadn't been able to deal with life's cruelties. She'd depended on him for everything?and that had ruined both of them.
Lainie was so different, so hard and angry, but the strength she showed seemed to come more from fear than resolve, as if she'd spent a whole life fighting and didn't know any other way. And yet, down deep, she was perhaps more fragile than Emily, more easily hurt.
Maybe Lainie was what Emily would have become if she'd had the strength to keep living. If she'd learned how to fight for life. Strangely, it was Lainie's vulnerability that drew him to her, but it was her strength that he admired. Lainie might ask him for help, might depend on him, but she'd never rely on him like Emily had.
He pushed to his feet and moved cautiously toward Lainie. Pouring a cup of coffee, he offered it to her.
She reached out, curled her fingers around the handle, and drew the cup close, letting the steam pelt her chin. "Thanks." Her voice was hoarse still, a little soft.
"Sit down, Lainie," he said, gesturing to a nearby rock. Then he sat down on a log across from her.
She was careful not to look at him. Nodding briefly, she lowered herself slowly to the rock and lifted the cup to her lips. "Thanks for the coffee."
He knew he shouldn't say anything now, should just keep silent and sit beside her. But he couldn't do it. He felt compelled to let her know that he understood. "I had nightmares for years afterward," he said softly.
Slowly, almost against her will, she looked up at him. Her face was still pale and drawn, her eyes still shadowed and steeped in pain. "How do you do that?"
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"What?"
She waited so long to answer that he thought she wasn't going to. Then, quietly, she said, "Know what I need to hear?"
He didn't know what to say. The moment seemed fragile suddenly, easily broken by the wrong word. But it felt as if she'd opened the door to him, just a little, given him the first honest glimpse into her soul that he'd ever had, and it was a dark, lonely place just like his own. "What are you so afraid of?"
She looked away, shrugged. "I'm afraid I won't get to the Rock in time."
He knew as she said it that it was a half-truth, a partial answer. There was so much more in her eyes. "No. You've been scared a long time, Lainie."
She stared out at the desert, unmoving, so still that she seemed to have stopped breathing, then slowly she turned to him. He could tell that she was trying desperately hard to be casual. "All my life," she said softly.
"Because of the .. ." His words melted into an awkward silence.
"You can say it. Rape. But no, that wasn't what started it. It took me a long time to sort through the pain of that night, but after a while it started to dim. The body heals a hell of a lot faster than the mind."
He knew he shouldn't ask, but he couldn't help himself. "So what started it?"
She shrugged. "A lot of people have tried to answer that question. They all had opinions about my mind, about how it works." She gave a brittle laugh. "Or didn't work. Doctors, psychiatrists, social workers, foster parents. Everyone's taken a crack at figuring me out."
He frowned, trying to sort through the confusing jumble of her words. But he knew it wasn't the words
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