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“Are you positive the same men took the other children?”
Was I? I had just always assumed. “There’s no way to know for sure, except for one.”
“Your friend. The boy named Luke.”
I nodded.
“You said he was never found.”
“He wasn’t. But I was the last one to see him.”
“Did you see him alive?”
“No.” I shook my head, my heart stampeding. “He was already dead.”
“Talon, there’s something I want you to understand.”
“What’s that?”
“None of this is your fault.”
“I know that.” But did I really? All those horrid days, when no one came for me, I’d sat there on that stupid raggedy blanket in that stupid gray cellar thinking I was worthless. No other reason existed for no one to come for me. “I mean, I think I know that.”
She nodded. “What you mean is that you know that objectively. That as an adult, you know it was just chance that you were taken, and it could have easily been any other little boy in the area. You didn’t deserve what happened to you any more than any of those other children did. Of course you know that. But the horror still lives inside you, and it has affected your life up until now.”
That was the goddamned truth for sure.
“So even though you know it and can take a step back and look at the situation objectively and say to yourself, ‘this wasn’t my fault,’ it still lives inside you and affects the way you view yourself.”
“I guess that’s where you come in, Doc.”
She smiled, and her eyes were glassy with unshed tears. “It may not be easy, but I promise you, I will not stop until we get you where we need you to be.”
“Doc? I’m okay.”
One tear fell down her cheek. “I know you are. And you’re going to be even better.”
“Then why the tears?”
“Because this is why I became a therapist, Talon. For days like today.”
“What’s so special about today?”
She grabbed a tissue from the box on her coffee table and wiped her eyes. “Today was the day you admitted what happened. That was the first true step in the healing process. We’re not done by a long shot. It may not be pretty from here on out, but I promise you, it will at least be downhill.”
Chapter Three
Jade
I didn’t want to be alone, but I couldn’t bring myself to drive out to the ranch. It was Friday, and Marj was in the city at her cooking class. I was freaking about Larry and also about Colin being missing. I was over Colin for sure, but I didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. This was a man I’d once loved, had almost spent my life with. Granted, he’d turned out to be far from the man I’d thought he was, but I still didn’t wish him any ill.
Where was he?
Talon surely had nothing to do with Colin’s disappearance…but I feared he might.
Talon and his brothers were good men, but even gentle and even-tempered Ryan had become rattled during their last interaction with Colin.
I desperately wanted to see Talon. Would he be home? I didn’t know. Would he want to see me?
