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Prologue
Three years earlier
Grace looked in her rearview mirror and clutched the steering wheeler tighter. The eighteen-wheeler was coming on her too fast. Damn it. She should have taken her sister’s advice and stayed at the dinner party until it stopped snowing or at least slowed down a bit. She hated driving on icy roads, especially at night. The snow made visibility extremely poor, and the truck behind her seemed intent on driving her right off the road. She could kick herself for offering to work tomorrow, Christmas Eve. She would be getting paid double-time, though, and she needed the extra cash for books. College, she was learning, wasn’t cheap.
Still, when she’d left her sister’s house, she hadn’t expected to deal with a road-raging truck driver. He blew his horn again, and she wanted to scream. She was already in the slow lane. What more did the asshole want? Her anger got the better of her and she blew her horn. She breathed a sigh of relief when she noticed him merging into the other lane.
“Couldn’t have done that seven miles back, though, could you, jerk?” she mumbled as he came up alongside her.
She noticed the big rig out of her peripheral vision. Suddenly he beeped his horn again, and Grace forced herself to keep her eyes on the road. This was going beyond normal road rage. She suddenly felt as if she’d been tossed into a bad horror movie. She reached over and turned up her radio, attempting to shut out her fears of being on the road alone with a psycho wielding a really big truck as a weapon. Just as the cheerful notes of a Christmas classic filled the interior of the car, the truck driver swerved. Time seemed to stand still as she watched the scene unfold around her. The fear of being crunched under tons of metal had her slamming her foot into the brake pedal. Her car spun out of control. The sounds of breaking glass and metal connecting with metal mingled with the cheerful notes of the song still coming from the speakers. The last thing she heard before the world went black was Bing singing about a white Christmas.
***
“She should have waited. I told her to wait.”
Grace heard the worry in her sister’s voice and she wanted to reassure her, but she didn’t quite understand what had her so upset to start with. It was almost like she was crying, but why?
“We know, Faith. She’ll be okay.”
Merrick? Why was Merrick in her dorm room? Come to think of it, why was her sister in her dorm room? And why the hell couldn’t she seem to get her eyelids to open?
“I should have made her stay,” Faith wailed. “This is all my fault. I insisted she come to the dinner party. She’s been studying so hard, and I thought the break would do her good. This is my fault.”
“No, it isn’t, now stop that or I’ll paddle your ass,” Merrick growled. “This is because of a drunk truck driver. No one else is to blame.”
“Merrick’s right, dear. Grace is a strong girl, she’ll be okay,” her mother said, her voice as soothing as ever. “Though I could kick myself for letting her drive that old Nova. I should’ve insisted on a car with airbags.”
Then Grace remembered. Oh, God, the truck, the icy roads. She remembered it all. Grace concentrated harder on opening her eyes. Finally the blurry outlines of her mother, sister and Merrick came into view. She blinked a few times and tried her voice. “Hey,” she muttered, though it sounded like someone had scraped her throat with sandpaper. Crap, it hurt worse than the time she’d had Mono.
“She’s coming around,” her mother announced. “Someone get the doctor.”
“Where am I?” Grace wheezed.
“It’ll be okay, kiddo,” her sister said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You’re in the hospital. There was a car accident.”
Grace licked her lips and tried to move, but her entire body was one big ache. “There was a truck,” she said to the room at large. “He wouldn’t stay off my tail.”
“We know,” Merrick gritted out. “The asshole lived, but he’s in critical condition. He tested two times the legal limit for alcohol. He was drunk as hell. I don’t think he’s going to be driving again anytime soon.”
She wiggled her toes and was actually grateful they hurt. “My left leg feels like someone tried to massage it with a sledgehammer, and my stomach is on fire.”
“You suffered a few broken bones, sweetie,” her mother explained. “And there was some trauma to your abdomen, but you’ll be okay now. Everything will be okay, you’ll see. I love you.”
“I had my seatbelt on,” she said, as if anyone cared about that now.
“Of course you did,” her mother said. “You’re a smart girl, Grace, always have been.”
The door opened and her dad stepped in, doctor in tow. Her dad looked as if he’d aged ten years. She tried to smile, to reassure him she was okay, but it hurt too much.
“You just lie still, baby,” he said as he came to the side of the bed and took her hand. She relaxed instantly. Her dad could always take her pain away. When she was a kid, she used to think her dad was some kind of magician. She still wasn’t so sure he wasn’t.
She wa
tched as the doctor checked her heart rate then began to palpitate her abdomen. She winced when he pushed on the area below the left side of ribs. He frowned and stepped back. “I want to run a few tests.”
“What sort of tests?” her mother asked as she clutched onto her dad’s hand. His arm came around her shoulders and he pulled her close. Faith stood on the other side, next to Merrick. Everyone in the room looked worried. Grace just wanted to go back to sleep. God, she was tired.
“They gave you some meds, that’s why you’re so groggy.” Merrick answered her unspoken question.
“Must be some good stuff. I feel like I could sleep for a week.”
‘You’ve already been out for two days straight.”
“No way.” Merrick nodded, his expression serious. Grace sighed. “I totally screwed up Christmas, huh?”
Merrick chuckled. “We forgive you, brat.”
Grace wanted to come back with something smart-alecky, but her voice wouldn’t work. Her eyelids drifted closed, and suddenly she just didn’t care about tests and crazy truck drivers. All she wanted to do was sleep.
