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Chapter One
The cab driver honked for the second time, signaling his impatience. Grabbing her suitcase and her laptop, Dana Moretti set the alarm panel in her front hall and hurried out the front door. She considered herself lucky to get a cab to come out at this hour of the night and she didn’t want him to take off. Having no idea how long she’d be gone, leaving her car sitting in long-term parking indefinitely didn’t seem the best choice.
She barely remembered calling the airline, then haphazardly pulling clothes out of the closet and chest of drawers. She wasn’t usually this impulsive, but tonight she was trying to outrun a memory. Make that more than one. And the twenty-five years that separated them shrank into nothingness.
Leaning back in the cab, she closed her eyes, trying to instill some calm into her chaotic mind. Tonight’s episode and its painful conclusion were still too fresh. Grant Rushing got top marks for effort—fine wine, scented candles, soft music. Everything for the perfect romantic seduction. Too bad it was all wasted on damaged goods.
Like a rewound DVD, the memory of it played through her brain.
“Relax, Dana.” His voice was soft, gentle. “This isn’t a test. There’s no pass or fail. It’s okay, honey. Just let yourself feel. You have such a beautiful body. Let me love it.”
She swallowed and willed her tense muscles to unwind. God, would it ever be any different?
“It’s not your fault,” she told him, feeling sadness and defeat.
As if someone had thrown a switch, Grant rolled away from her, suddenly remote. “But not quite good enough, right? I should have known. It’ll take a lot more than this to defeat the elephant in the room.” The bitterness in his voice was unmistakable. “Tell me. Is it just with me or are you this way with all men?”
Dana squeezed her eyes shut, forcing back the tears that burned behind her eyelids. “It isn’t you, I swear it isn’t. You’re really—”
“If you tell me I’m a nice guy I might be tempted for the first time in my life to hit a woman. Spare me, okay?”
“Grant—”
“Forget it.” He climbed out of bed and headed for the bathroom. In the doorway, he paused and turned to her, his body backlit by the bathroom light. “There’s too many of us in the bed, Dana. Get rid of the fucking ghost, or we have nothing more to talk about.”
Grant certainly wasn’t the first she’d failed with. Unfortunately. She’d been called everything from frigid to a cock tease to a waste of time. But the moment a man’s hands touched her at the core of her sex, she was once again seven-year-old Carrie Nolan, blindfolded and tormented. Back in that barn again, so conscious of the scent of wood, of blood, of Kylie’s screams and cries.
Her outer scars had long since healed, but the ones on the inside were still raw and bleeding. She could change her name, but everything else had stayed the same. She was still a freak, terrified of men. All men.
Emotionally and physically.
The parade of therapists and volumes of reading material hadn’t brought her any closer to what other women had. A loving fulfilling relationship. Oh, God, how she wanted it.
“When the time is right it will happen and you’ll know it.” In her head she heard again the voice of her current therapist, Dr. Summers. “The barricades will fall, Dana.”
But she had her doubts.
Tears burned behind her eyelids, and her stomach pitched and roiled. Cold shivers skated over her body. For a moment, she was sure she’d throw up. The hatred for the man who’d made her into an emotional cripple welled up like poison. Clenching her fists in her lap, she forced back the nausea.
“Ma’am?” The rough voice broke into her mental fog, jerking her to awareness. “Ma’am, we’re here.”
Dana blinked her eyes and peered through the side window of the cab, realizing they were in front of one of the terminals at the airport. The roar of planes overhead mingled with the zing of tires on the interstate and the buzzing in her head. For a moment, she was tempted to tell the driver to turn around and take her back home, where she could hide forever behind locked doors. The only problem was, all that remembered terror would be hiding right along with her.
At the e-ticket machine, she swiped her credit card and punched in her information. It wasn’t until she was buckled into her seat, waiting for the plane to take off, that her mind kicked into gear again.
What the hell am I doing?
This was a trip she never thought she’d take, to a place she’d unsuccessfully tried to banish from her mind. But she’d finally figured out that facing her demons was the only possible way to get rid of them.
Twenty-five years had passed since she’d had her last glimpse of High Ridge, in the rolling Texas Hill Country, through the rear window of the family car. Had the small ranching community changed much? Would people still remember what happened? Had they buried the horror and gone on about their business?
Now she was about to bring it all up again. How would they react?
****
“I’m sorry, I don’t think we have those editions available.”
Well, at least I have my answer about their attitude.
