A Family For Christmas

“They’d be harder to trace without a child.”

“So why, after Shawn left with her, would Cara suddenly leave him?”

“She wouldn’t.”

“So, where is she?”

He didn’t answer. And didn’t look like he felt any better, either.

Lila could only give him what she had. “Do you believe she did this, Edward?”

“No. But...”

Lila shook her head. “No buts right now. If you believe Joy over Shawn, then you need to focus on that. Focus on helping Joy. On finding Cara. And keeping Shawn behind bars.”

Because that was what Edward needed. Focus. He nodded. Took a sip of wine. And, eventually, gave her a long slow smile that scared her to death.

Prospector, Nevada

CARA WOKE UP Saturday morning with a sense of purpose. Feeling a thousand times better than she could remember, more rested and alert than she’d felt in a while, with energy pulsing through her veins. She’d...

Nothing. Lying inert, on the verge of wakefulness, she hadn’t known any better. All it took was a move of her sore wrist, a touch to her face, and she was fully awake.

There was no longer a purpose to her life. She was in a life she had no right to continue living.

Because of what she’d done.

So maybe she was physically better. That strength, while wasted, gave her the ability to look beyond the immediate pain. To think clearly.

To face the horrible truth.

With a pre-dawn grayness shining in from the window across from her bed, she couldn’t keep her mind at bay any longer. She’d committed murder. If Shawn found her, she either had to go on living with him, putting up with the more and more frequent blasts of violent anger, tiptoeing around so she didn’t inadvertently set off an attack...

Or he’d turn her in.

It all came pouring back to her. He’d given her the option in the van that last afternoon they were together. However long ago that had been now. She wasn’t sure anymore. Had lost track of time and days sometime during her weeks of captivity with Shawn. He’d told her that as long as she stayed with him, she’d be safe. He’d keep her safe. And if she tried to leave, he’d turn her in...

Except Shawn hadn’t kept her safe. Not for years and years.

Maybe not ever.

No one had kept Cara safe. Not since Mom got sick. And then Mom hadn’t been kept safe, either...

Which was why she’d promised herself she’d always keep Joy safe.

And then Shawn had started hitting Cara harder.

Another memory flashed. When she’d first awoken in that van, her entire body hurting, she’d been looking for Joy, inconsolable in her panic. That was when Shawn had told her that they’d lost Joy forever because of her, because of what she’d done. She’d wanted to die right then and there, but he wouldn’t let her. He’d kept telling her how much he needed her. He’d held her as she’d sobbed...

“Cara? You awake?”

Still reeling, Cara turned her head toward the door. If she pretended to be asleep would he go away? Or come in and wake her?

“Yes.”

“It’s time for your antibiotic.” For a while there he’d been waking her to take her pills. The day before, she’d been up to use the restroom before the pill was due. And now he stood outside the door and called to her?

What had changed?

“I’ll be out in a minute,” she told him, throwing off the covers and grabbing...nothing. She’d left her clothes outside the door to be washed the night before. Was wearing the makeshift gown he’d crafted for her.

“I left your clothes just outside the door for you,” he said, almost as though he could read her mind. Who knew what she might have told him when she’d been out of her head with pain?

She didn’t think she’d said anything. She hadn’t been out of her head. She’d been beaten to a pulp and exhausted. “Thank you,” she called back and, giving him a second to retreat, went to reach her arm around the door for her clothes.

The underwear was there, the bra and jeans, and three shirts. Hers and two others. T-shirts, both of them. A purple and a blue. From different years for the same Heart-Run. They’d be too big for her.

But better than the bloodstained T-shirt of Shawn’s she’d had on under her sweater jacket.

She chose the purple one. Because, in the color world, purple was known for bringing spiritual peace. For assisting in honest, deep, true thought. She’d lost any hope of good Karma having her back. She was well and truly on her own now.

She had to be able to count on her own mind.

As she pulled the shirt down over her torso, she suffered a stab of guilt. Purple was a healing color. Violet vibrated at the highest frequency and, as such, healers believed it to be a potent tool. Cara might have an aversion to doctors, but she’d done a lot of reading. Studying. Learning.

For Joy’s sake and for her own, too.

Joy.

Her heart caught, her throat tightened. Tears sprang to her eyes. And her mind closed in.

No. She’d lost any right she’d had to think of...

She had no business healing. So the purple shirt was the wrong one.

Taking it off, she replaced it with her own. Bloodstains were her style now. She couldn’t pretend otherwise.

With a last look around the room that had offered solace to a criminal, she went out to face the doctor. To convince him that she was just fine and could be on her way that morning.

As soon as she got back out on the mountain, she’d figure out what that way would be.

CHAPTER EIGHT (#uc61905c8-f0b6-58b4-b7cb-4fe4103705c8)

THE FIRST THING Simon noticed when Cara came out of the bedroom was that she’d foregone his clean shirts for her washed but bloodstained one.

She wasn’t settling in.

He took her message in stride.