“But it did happen again, didn’t it?” he said softly.
She shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. “That’s the pattern, isn’t it? The first time, the husband apologizes and the wife believes him and things do get better…for a while. Then it happens again.” She pressed her hands to her face. “God, I was so ashamed. I kept thinking it must be my fault, that if only I were a better wife he wouldn’t be doing this. I tried so hard not to do anything that might set him off, but it seemed as though the quieter and more amenable I became, the more outraged he was.”
“Did he drink?”
“Sometimes. He knew he couldn’t handle it, so usually he stayed away from liquor. It was always much worse when he’d been drinking. I used to turn down drinks, hoping that he wouldn’t take one, either, but it didn’t work. It just meant I was sober enough to watch while he got drunk, knowing that sooner or later he was going to take it out on me. Sometimes he would come home very late, after I had gone to bed, and he would wake me up….”
She choked back a sob and put her hands in front of her face. “He…he would wake me up and…Oh, God, Nick, I felt so violated. It was like being raped by some horrible stranger.”
Nick’s breath caught in his throat. “Oh, my God.” The words seemed to be wrenched from somewhere deep in his soul. “It was like that this morning for you, wasn’t it? No wonder…”
“No, Nick. It wasn’t like this morning,” she said, reaching up to tentatively caress his cheek. She couldn’t let him equate his tenderness with Sam’s ugly violence. “You were gentle, not like Sam. It’s just that when I first woke up I was disoriented. For a minute…”
“For a minute you thought it was happening all over again.”
Dana nodded. She felt Nick’s hand on her shoulder, warm and comforting as it tried to counter the chill that swept through her.
“I am so sorry, Dana. So very sorry.”
“So am I,” she said, her voice laced with bitterness. “But do you realize how many women go through exactly what I did? Some sources say around thirty percent. One out of every three women will be abused at some time by a man in her life, a husband, a boyfriend. Not just me. I couldn’t believe it when the psychiatrist told me. I had been so sure I was all alone.”
Nick drew her more snugly into his arms and held her. She felt his tears run down his cheek and mingle with hers. He rocked her back and forth, murmuring softly. She was hardly aware of what he was saying, just the soothing sound of his voice washing over her, trying to ease the pain.
Finally he loosened his embrace and brushed away her tears. She remembered being frightened of those hands, terrified of their strength, but now she felt only their gentleness.
“I want you to listen to me for a minute,” he said. “I know that what you experienced was awful. I can’t even begin to imagine how horrible it must have been for you, but that was Sam. Not me. It’s over now. I can understand how you would be wary of men. In fact, a lot of things make sense to me now: your fear of getting close to me, your defensiveness, your need for independence. But, Dana, you can’t build a wall around yourself and live the rest of your life in isolation.”
“You’re wrong,” she replied wearily. “It’s the only way I can live.”
“Dana, I’m not like Sam Brantley. Don’t you know I would die rather than harm you? What we have is special and good. We owe it to ourselves to give it a chance.”
“I know that’s what you want and on one level it’s what I want. Intellectually I can tell myself that you and Sam are very different men, but emotionally I can’t convince myself of that. There are too many scars.” Nick flinched and she reassured him. “Not physical scars, psychological ones. They’re just as long-lasting. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel totally comfortable around men again.”
“Even after all these weeks, can’t you see you can trust me?”
Dana heard the hurt in Nick’s voice, but once started, she had to tell him the truth. She touched his cheek with regret as she said, “No, I can’t.”
“But—”
“No, wait. This isn’t something that’s your fault, Nick. Without living through it, you can’t possibly understand what abuse like that does to your ability to trust your own judgment,” she countered.
She searched for words to make Nick understand the inexplicable. “My husband was attentive, kind and loving all during our courtship. He was an educated man with an excellent career. That’s the man I fell in love with, but there was a dark side to him, a side I never saw before we were married. Maybe he hid it. Maybe I blinded myself to it. I’ll never really know.
“You talk about the weeks we’ve shared. Remember, Sam and I had known each other for three years in college, and I still hadn’t guessed that he was capable of violence. Sam would pick up an injured animal from the side of the road and take it to a vet. He was a soft touch for any sob story. How could a man like that possibly be abusive to another human being, especially his own wife?”
“I still don’t understand why you didn’t leave him once you did know, why you subjected yourself to more suffering.”
“There are so many reasons a woman doesn’t leave. For some it’s the children.”
“But you didn’t have that problem.”
“No, because I refused to get pregnant by a man with no control over his anger. We had some horrible fights over that. Sam wanted kids. We’d planned for them, but when the time came for me to stop using birth control, I couldn’t go through with it. I even tried to use that as leverage to make him get help, but it was as if he had no idea why I thought he needed it.”
“Then I’ll ask you again. Why did you stay?”
Dana closed her eyes. “Oh, God, there were so many reasons. For a while I kept deluding myself that it would never happen again. There were good days, you know. Sometimes months passed, and then I could believe that Sam was still the wonderful man I’d married. I also didn’t get much sympathy. The one time I tried talking to my parents, they sided with him. They were sure I must have deserved his anger or that I’d exaggerated it. After a while I began to believe that, too. Sometimes the psychological abuse is more devastating than the physical. Each day chips away at your self-confidence until no matter how bad it is, you’re afraid to leave.
“Besides,” she went on, “even if I had left, where would I have gone? I hadn’t finished school. I had no marketable skills. I had no money of my own. Sam made sure I never forgot that. I halfheartedly tried hiding away some of the grocery money for a while, but he always found it. Finally I just stopped trying.”
“There are shelters.”
“I know that, but at the time I tried to convince myself I didn’t need that. I wanted to believe that those shelters were for some other kind of woman, that if I tried hard enough I could handle Sam without anyone ever having to find out.”
“What about your parents? Why didn’t they listen to you?”
“They didn’t want to hear. My parents were from the old school. They believed a wife made the best of whatever happened. Whither thou goest and all that. They wouldn’t have taken me in.”
Nick appeared shocked. “Surely they couldn’t have realized how dangerous it was for you.”
“No, they probably didn’t. Maybe if I’d persisted, it would have been different. That’s what they say now, anyway.” She shrugged. “At the time, I was too embarrassed to tell them how bad it really was. They thought we were just having little spats. They never saw the bruises on my arms and legs or the gashes where his wedding ring cut into my flesh when he hit me. Ironic, isn’t it, that the ring I’d given him in marriage was used as a weapon against me?”
A shudder swept through her. “Do you know once I actually went out to get a job? I thought if only I could be economically independent, I could get out. The only thing I could find was a job as a checkout clerk in a neighborhood grocery store. I took it. When Sam found out about it he accused me of trying to undermine his position in the law firm. He clai
med my working in a demeaning position like that would make it seem as though he couldn’t provide for me.”
Her memory replayed the scene they’d had, and she drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them as if to ward off the pain. “It was awful. He threatened to rip up all my clothes so I could never leave the apartment, and then he…” She swallowed a sob. “Then he saw to it that I had enough bruises to keep me from showing my face in public for a while. When I think back on the humiliation, I wonder how I lived through it.”
“You made it because you’re a survivor. You’re stronger than you realize, Dana. After all that happened, you got out and you’ve pulled your life together. I wondered why you’d waited until last year to finish your master’s degree. Now it makes sense. And I can see now why you would choose a place like River Glen.”
He tilted her chin up until she was looking into his eyes. “Don’t you see how far you’ve come? That’s what’s important. You took that experience and turned it around.”
“I’m not so sure about that. Did you ever wonder why I would choose to be a librarian? I chose it because I was afraid, Nick. I was afraid of real people, of real emotions. I still am. I came here looking for a quiet, safe life. No bumps. No highs or lows, just a steady, predictable existence.”
“Dammit, Dana, you deserve more than a mere existence. Let me make it up to you for all the years of happiness you missed. You got out of one kind of jail. Don’t shut yourself up in another one.”
“I wish I could accept what you’re offering. With all my heart I wish that I could be the kind of woman you deserve.”
“You are exactly the kind of woman I need in my life, Dana. You are gentle and giving, despite everything you’ve been through. Perhaps even more so because of it. Tony sensed that instinctively and so did I. Don’t let bitterness and fear rule you. If you do, Sam Brantley will have won as surely as if you’d stayed with him. Are you willing to give a contemptible man like that so much power over the rest of your life?”
“Nick, I want to do as you ask, but it’s too soon. The scars haven’t healed yet.”
“Then let’s heal them together. Don’t go through this alone when you don’t have to. Let me in. Let Tony in. We love you. We can make it easier for you.”
She heard more than Nick’s words. She heard the pleading tone. His eyes were shining with love. He held out his hand.
“Please. Don’t fight what you’re feeling for me. Accept it, build on it.”
Dana hesitated, tempted. She was filled with longing, but she was also tortured by fear. She gazed into Nick’s eyes, then glanced at his outstretched hand. It was trembling as he waited for her decision. Her blood surged through her, hot and wild with the promise of a new chance.
“I’ll try,” she said at last, slipping her hand into his. “I can’t promise any more than that, but I’ll try.”
Nick’s fingers closed lightly around hers, enveloping her in warmth. Even the roughness of his skin felt right somehow, as if it was meant to show her that strength could still be tender.
“This is right, Dana,” he said, as though he had read her thoughts. He drew her close until her back was resting against his chest, where she could hear the steady, reassuring thump of his heart. “I promise you.”
And for now, with summer’s brightest sunlight dappling the bed and Nick cradling her in his arms, she could almost believe in the future.
Chapter 10
The image of Dana’s pale, silken flesh marred by bruises almost drove Nick insane. He swore if he ever ran into Sam Brantley, he’d make him pay dearly for what he’d done to Dana. The man—no, he was less than a man—deserved to suffer tenfold the same wretched humiliation his ex-wife had suffered.
For hours after Nick had left Dana’s, he had seethed with both anger and a desire for retribution. Only the certainty that more violence would slow Dana’s healing had kept him from traveling to Manhattan and going after Brantley.
Now Nick sat in his office, staring blankly at the walls. He vowed to concentrate on overcoming Dana’s doubts. He would have to gentle her like a brand-new frightened filly and teach her that love could be tender and passionate, rather than filled with anger and pain. Now that he’d discovered the way it had been for her before, he would have to find new ways to prove that their love would be blessed with joy. Convinced more than ever that their relationship could be truly special, he pushed aside his mother-in-law’s warnings. Surely now he knew everything.
With his goal firmly established, Nick picked up his phone and dialed the library, then tilted his chair back on two legs as he waited for Dana to answer. When she did, her voice bore no trace of the emotional turmoil she’d been through just a few hours earlier. If anything she sounded as though a tremendous weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
“I had an idea,” Nick announced.
“That’s your trouble,” she retorted lightly. “You’re always getting ideas.”
“Not that kind of idea,” he said, thoroughly enjoying her upbeat mood and the suggestive tone of her teasing. Perhaps on some subconscious level their talk had released her from some of the past.
“I think it’s time we have some fun,” he said.
“I thought that’s what we’d been doing.”
“Okay, more fun. Now will you be quiet a minute and let me tell you what I have in mind?”
“Certainly.”
“Dancing. I think we should go dancing.”
“In River Glen? Does Gracie’s have a jukebox?”
“Very funny. No. I thought we’d go to Colonial Beach. There’s a place there that has a band on weekends. It’s lacking in decor, but it does sit out over the water. What do you think?”
She hesitated and Nick had a hunch he knew exactly what she was thinking. “Dana, you have to face people sooner or later. We really don’t even know what they’ve heard. Maybe it had nothing whatsoever to do with you or your past. Whatever it is, the gossip will die down as soon as something more interesting comes along.”
“When did you start reading my mind?”
“It’s not all that difficult under the circumstances.” He paused thoughtfully, considering something that had been bothering him. “Dana, do you have any idea how those rumors would have gotten started in River Glen in the first place? Could Sam have planted them somehow? Does he know where you are?”
Dead silence greeted his questions.
“Dana?”
“No,” she said finally with absolute conviction.
“You’re sure? He sounds like the kind of man who’d go to any lengths to hurt you.”
“It wasn’t Sam. I can’t explain how I know that, but I do.”
There was an odd note in Dana’s voice, but Nick couldn’t doubt her certainty. “Okay,” he said at last, resolving to ask his mother-in-law where she’d heard the gossip. Perhaps he could trace it that way.
“Now,” he said, “what about tonight?”
“If you want to endure my two left feet, it’s fine with me.”
“Terrific. I also thought maybe you and Tony and I would have one of our backyard picnics tomorrow. I plan to challenge you to a championship-caliber badminton game afterward.”
“In this steamy weather I think croquet is more my speed.”
“Maybe it’ll cool off by tomorrow. Anyway, are we on for all of it?”
“As long as I get to fix the food.”
“Don’t tell me you’re casting aspersions on my cooking, too?”
“If the shoe fits, Mr. Verone,” she teased, and her tone made him smile with delight.
“Oh, it fits,” he retorted, “but it’s damned uncomfortable. I’ll pick you up at eight.”
His pulse was racing and he was filled with anticipation as he hung up. He wasn’t prepared to look up and find his mother-in-law in the doorway, a disapproving frown on her face.
“Jessica, what are you doing here?”
“I came to see you, obviously. Were you talking
to that Brantley woman, Nicholas?”
His gaze hardened. He hated to be rude to her, but it was time she understood exactly where things stood. His relationship with Dana was not open for debate.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” he said curtly, “but yes.”
“Then it’s clear you haven’t asked her about the rumors.”
“Not directly, no, but I do have a question about them for you. Where did you hear the gossip?”
“It’s not important.”
“I think it is.”
“Why? So you can rush out to her defense?”
“Dana doesn’t need my defense. We’ve had a long talk and I think I have a pretty good idea what the rumors are about. I see no reason to hold Dana’s past against her.”
Jessica’s eyes widened in shock. “You mean it is true! Then how can you say that?”
Nick lowered the front legs of his chair to the floor and stood up. He walked around his desk and put his hands on her shoulders. “Jessica, I am only going to say this once, so please listen very closely. I don’t want to hurt you. You’ve always been a very important part of my life, but my relationship with Dana is none of your concern.”
“It is when it involves my grandson.”
“No, it isn’t. If you really want to do what’s best for Tony, you’ll get to know Dana and welcome her into the family, because I have every intention of marrying her when she’s ready.”
His mother-in-law’s lips tightened into a forbidding line and she shrugged off his touch. “Never, Nick. Obviously this woman has taken advantage of your good nature to lure you in, but I won’t allow her to do the same with Tony. I’ll fight you, Nick. In court, if necessary.”
“That’s an idle threat, Jessica. You have no case. I’m warning you, though, don’t say one word to Tony about any of this.” Nick’s voice softened. “Don’t you see you’ll lose, Jess? Don’t risk it. Don’t risk losing your grandson’s love.”
“You’ve given me no choice,” she said, whirling away and stalking from the office.
Nick stared after her, puzzled by her unforgiving attitude. How on earth could she hold Dana accountable for what had happened to her during her marriage? She had been the victim. Despite Jessica’s attitude, though, he didn’t for a moment believe she would make good on her threat. If she didn’t drop the idea on her own, Joshua would see to it that she did. He was a fair man. He had already stood up for Dana once against his wife’s unreasonable behavior. Nick had no doubt he would do it again, but in the meantime Jessica could make things damned uncomfortable. The only thing he could do would be to reassure Dana that she was not alone. They would face down whatever talk there was together.
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