Grave Risk

“And yet, you’d already put your life on hold for three years after graduating from high school, watching all your friends go away to college.”

“I went to college.” She could hear the defensiveness in her own voice.

“You drove to School of the Ozarks at Point Lookout for classes, then back home at night to be with Noelle.”

“I got the preliminaries out of the way.” He was still itching for a fight, was he? She could give him one. Strangely, though, she didn’t really want one. Not with him. “Not everyone has to leave home as soon as they graduate high school.”

“You’re trying to tell me you were the only person who could take care of Noelle? At that time you did have extended family.”

Jill wasn’t prepared to explain to him about the concern she’d had for Noelle’s safety at that time in their lives. Would Noelle still even be alive if I hadn’t been so obsessed for her welfare? That was a time when my OCD came in handy, hard as it’s always been.

“You made that sacrifice because of your unique ability to love,” Rex said, as if he’d read something of her thoughts in her expression—much as he used to do. “Few people I know have that ability.”

The sudden gentleness in his tone undercut her momentum. She paused and looked at him, and felt an unwanted pang of regret.

What if they hadn’t broken the engagement?

Chapter Ten

Fawn was halfway between the dock and the street when she saw a familiar head of blond hair poking up over the railing of the pastel-blue gazebo. The tiny structure was surrounded by a riot of red and yellow flowers held in place by a bricked flower bed. It was Fawn’s favorite gazebo.

She stepped to the small, round picnic shelter and paused. “Sheena?”

The woman raised her head and peered over the railing.

“How’re you doing?” Fawn asked. Sheena looked as if she hadn’t slept much. She had such a sensitive nature, and events like Edith’s death and the awful experience Saturday would have left her upset for days. Kind of like Blaze, Fawn guessed.

Sheena shook her head. “I couldn’t go, you know.”

“To the funeral? I know. I didn’t see you there. Your parents were there, though, and it was a packed house.”

Sheena nodded, her gaze returning to the surface of the lake, where a flock of wild geese came in for a noisy landing.

Fawn stepped up into the gazebo and sat down next to her friend on the wooden bench. “Hey, are you okay?”

Sheena hugged herself, still staring out across the lake, the water now momentarily gray under the shadow of a passing thunderhead. A fitting day for a funeral, Fawn thought.

“How’d you do it?” Sheena asked, still staring at the lake. “You seem to…I don’t know…handle things so well. I mean, I know what you went through.” She didn’t look at Fawn, but shuddered. “Your mom disowned you, and yet you’re happy.”

“Sure I am.” Fawn gestured around them. “Look at this great town we live in. And Karah Lee and Bertie practically smother me with love. Even Taylor treats me like a favorite niece.” Though she wondered how long that would last after the wedding. Sure, Taylor was a good guy and all that, but still…

“You’re not bitter.” Sheena did look at her then, lowering her voice, though no one could hear them. “I heard you were…that your stepfather…”

Fawn sighed. Even though she was making peace with her past, she still had trouble talking about it sometimes. “Raped me?”

“Yes. That’s just so horrible.”

“But it isn’t something that’s happening now. You can live with a lot of things when you can convince yourself it’s over. It isn’t like I’m going to crumble.”

“But your own stepfather,” Sheena said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“My mother could really pick ’em.”

“And then when you ran away to Las Vegas, you had to…you know…support yourself by…” Sheena’s face flushed.

“Man, oh, man, a girl can’t keep anything a secret around here,” Fawn said.

“You mean you really did that?”

“I was a hooker. Yeah.” Fawn ignored the shocked expression on her friend’s face. People freaked way too easily about some stuff. “It isn’t like I’m one now, you know.”

“Uh, no. Of course not.”

“I was starving on the street, and I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I figured if somebody was going to take advantage of my body, I might as well make a living with it.”

“What was it like?”

“You don’t want to know. It was like the worst nightmare a person could have.”

Sheena stared at the lake in silence for another moment, then glanced toward Fawn again. “Do you still think about it?”

“Sometimes.”

“Is it still horrible?”

“Once in a while I wake up screaming at night. When that happens, Karah Lee sets up a cot in my room and sleeps near me.”

Sheena stared at her, eyes filled with sympathy. “How do you stand it?”

“I’ve got help. I know I’m loved, and I make sure to fill my mind with things in the present and the future, not things from the past. If I focus on the good things and remember the Bible verse Bertie likes to quote to me, then I can do okay.”