On Dangerous Ground

Sky walked across the entry and into the room where she had spent every Monday evening for the past six months. The study was warm and vibrant with thick rugs, polished brasses and solidly constructed furniture. Faint wisps of lavender haunted the air. Always before, the mood of the room soothed, but tonight Sky was as taut as a coiled spring and the feeling had nothing to do with her close encounter with Sigmund.

Her fingertips grazed the top of the inviting tobacco-brown rolled-arm sofa. She’d sat here and told people she barely knew about the terrifying event that had altered the course of her life. Related intimate details she could not share with Grant, not after the way she’d humiliated herself that last time they were together.

Getting involved with him had been wrong, so unfair. She had hurt him—not intentionally, but she’d hurt him all the same. Now he would rather take a cab than climb into a car with her. The knowledge made her want to weep.

“Here we are,” Dr. Mirren said as she swept through the arched entrance, bringing with her two oversize cups and the heady scent of rich coffee.

“It smells wonderful,” Sky said, accepting the cup the doctor offered.

“Let’s hope it tastes that way. I’ve only had the espresso maker a week, so I’m still practicing.” Smiling, she sat in a leather wing chair on the opposite side of the rug that spread a soft pattern along the wood floor. She blew across the rim of her cup, then sipped. “Not bad.”

Sky settled on the sofa. “It’s perfect,” she said, savoring the creamy heat that slid down her throat.

“You mentioned you went for a drive and somehow wound up here.” As usual, the psychiatrist took little time getting to the heart of a matter. “Did something happen tonight?”

“I saw Grant.”

“A date?”

“Hardly. I had to tell him about the results of a comparison on DNA found at two of his homicide cases.”

“Did you go to his home to tell him?”

“No.” Although she’d made only a few vague references about her relationship with Grant to the Monday-night group, she had told Dr. Mirren all the details during their private sessions. “I wouldn’t have the nerve to just show up and knock on the door. Grant’s partner died of a heart attack, and the funeral was this afternoon. I knew he’d gone to the FOP club, so I went there.” She lifted a shoulder. “A mistake.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It’s a social setting. We don’t have that kind of relationship anymore. Never will have again.”

“Could you have waited until tomorrow to tell him about the DNA results?” Dr. Mirren asked, her eyes meeting Sky’s over the rim of her cup.

“I suppose. He needed to know, though.”

“I’m sure,” the doctor said agreeably, as if they were discussing the weather. “Could you have put this information in a memo?”

Sky tightened her grip on the cup’s ceramic handle. “I have to do that, too.”

“So, you chose to face this man.”

“I don’t know why. We’ve had no contact in six months.” That hadn’t stopped a greasy pool of jealousy from churning in her belly when the waitress at the FOP club put the moves on Grant. Sky chewed her lower lip. It had taken everything she had to sit there while the temptation to deck the woman passed.

She set her cup on the thick wood coffee table in front of the sofa. Too unsettled to stay put, she rose and walked to the leaded-glass windows that spanned one wall of the paneled study. Outside, an obviously recovered Sigmund scuttled full speed across the porch after a fluttering moth.

“I think I decided to tell Grant in person because of how he looked at Sam’s funeral,” Sky said after a moment. “So miserable. Alone.”

She’d felt the same way, and it hadn’t had anything to do with Sam’s death. Seeing Grant at the cemetery had sent memories storming through her. Of the stolen lunches they’d managed in the midst of a grueling serial killer task force they’d both been assigned to. His nightly phone calls when his deep, husky voice slid like velvet across her senses. The department’s Christmas dance when she’d first found the courage to step into his arms. The few tentative kisses that had sent need whipping through her. An intimate restaurant where violins stroked as soft as a lover’s touch, then later at his house when he’d pulled her to him and the rich male taste of his mouth swept her teetering toward the edge of control. Seconds later, her stomach had knotted, her lungs refused to work and she’d almost hyperventilated from the feeling of being trapped, with no way out. No way to save herself—though there’d been nothing to save herself from. On the heels of that panicked terror had come the agonizing realization that, no matter how much she wanted to—longed to—give herself to him, she couldn’t.

Now those memories gained strength, slamming into her so hard, so unexpectedly, that Sky found herself blinking back tears. She felt acid in her throat as humiliation pooled inside her.

“I wish…” She paused and steadied her voice. “I wish that night with Grant had never happened.”

“Sky, listen to me.” Dr. Mirren sat forward, her eyes sharp and knowing. “The rape you experienced in college was violent and sadistic, and it cut through the core of your existence. To make matters worse, the therapist the college sent you to was inept. If he hadn’t eventually lost his license, I would personally hunt him down and make a professional eunuch of him.”

Sky stared in silence, surprised by the woman’s candor.

“Because of his incompetence,” Dr. Mirren continued, “you never had a chance to properly deal with the attack. Certainly you healed physically from the knife wound. You became skilled in self-defense so you can now protect yourself if necessary.”

“Right. I can take down most any man,” Sky shot back. “I just can’t let one love me.” She gave her head a frustrated shake. “My hormones were in full swing that night with Grant. I wanted. Oh, God, I wanted…” Her voice trailed off. “I just couldn’t.”

“Because you repressed your feelings about the rape, denied your emotions and blocked the experience so you could function and get on with your life. Everything boiled to the surface while you were with Grant and you reacted very strongly.”

“I almost upchucked on his shoes,” Sky said miserably. “How’s that for impressing a man who wants to make love to you?”

“It makes you human. And memorable.”

“I’ll say.” Sky tried a smile, but it didn’t gel. “Grant mentioned tonight he won’t ever forget that particular experience.”

“Will you?”

“Not a chance.”

“It appears it affected you both equally.”

“Him worse. I hurt him.” As if chilled, Sky wrapped her arms around her waist. “When the panic hit me, I could barely even get out the words to make Grant understand I’d been raped in college. I could hardly breathe, much less give him details about the attack. He asked me to stay with him, just stay with him so he could hold me. All he wanted was to be there for me.” She closed her eyes. “I couldn’t let him. Couldn’t trust myself not to fall apart again. I still can’t,” she added softly.

“Don’t be so sure.” Dr. Mirren set her cup aside. “You’ve done admirably over the past months coming to grips with the trauma of the rape and its aftermath. Whether you realize it or not, you’ve begun to make some small changes in your life.”

“Changes?”

“Your glasses, for instance,” Dr. Mirren said. “Until a few weeks ago, you wore large glasses with tortoiseshell frames.”

Baffled, Sky nodded. She’d chosen the understated wire-rims on impulse during her last visit to the eye doctor. Even ordered a pair of contacts, which she now wore almost as often as her glasses. “My vision changed and I needed a new prescription, that’s all.”

“Instead of frames that conceal a large portion of your face—your looks—you chose an attractive pair that draw attention to you, not away. A man’s attention, perhaps.”

Sky felt her spine stiffen. “I don’t want men to notice me.”

“For years you haven’t. Now that you’ve begun dealing with the rape, your outer self is changing. Your clothes are different, too. You’re wearing black today probably because you attended a funeral, but you wear more colorful clothes than you did when you first started therapy.”

“My wardrobe needed updating.” Sky turned and stared out the window at the glowing ball of the full moon. A month or so ago, she had walked into her closet and found herself grimacing at all of the blacks, browns and grays. On a whim she’d taken a rare day off from the lab, gone to the mall and spent hundreds of dollars on a new, colorful wardrobe. She’d had no idea what prompted the trip, just that all that blandness had suddenly made her feel edgy and unsettled. Restless.

Just like she felt tonight.

She turned. Dr. Mirren had remained in the high-back leather chair, looking her usual calm and serene self. “Okay, so maybe I’m no longer hiding behind big glasses and drab colors,” Sky conceded. “There’s some things I can’t change. And one of those is my relationship with Grant.”

“You faced him tonight.” Eyes filled with ready understanding, Dr. Mirren folded her neat hands in her lap. “You could have sent him a memo about your DNA findings, or even phoned. Instead, you went to him.”

“On business. I had to tell him about the DNA.”