“Then you know that a common theme is sexual abuse. More than children who are physically battered, ones who are sexually molested learn to distance themselves. Go away in their head, so whatever is happening to them feels unreal.”
“But who...?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Your brother is too young. Your father leaped to mind, but you don’t seem to react to him as if you have that kind of history with him.”
“I wish I knew for sure,” she said, troubled. “Could it have been Beck?”
“You associate him with something traumatic, but if he made sexual advances you didn’t like, why wouldn’t you just have said no? He didn’t have any hold over you. You could have avoided him.”
“That’s true. And then there’s his shirt. It was comforting to me, not scary.”
“Were there any other adults you spent a lot of time with?”
“I don’t know. I can ask Felix. I’d say my parents, but they’re pretty mad at me right now. I asked why I was such a disappointment to them.”
“Didn’t go well, huh?” he said sympathetically.
“No. I probably shouldn’t have bothered. Mom said I was acting like a spoiled teenager and stalked out. Dad was mad because I had upset her.” She shrugged. “No great insights shared.”
“I’m sorry.” He sounded as if he really meant it.
“I wasn’t as upset as I thought I might be. I guess I didn’t expect anything else.”
His jaw set. He seemed to have trouble speaking. “I’m really starting to hate your parents,” he finally said, then shook his head. “And I shouldn’t have said that.”
She smiled and touched his hand, lying on the cover temptingly near hers. “Why not? I appreciate the sentiment.”
His hand captured hers, not letting her draw back. “It occurs to me we should talk to your uncle Duane. As far as I know, he didn’t spend that much time with you, but it won’t hurt to ask him.”
Why didn’t she remember this uncle at all? Her puzzlement didn’t last long; why didn’t she remember most of the kids she’d gone to school with, or her teachers? Why didn’t she remember most of her life?
“Ask Felix, too,” Colin continued. “You may have been involved in some activity. Debate, Knowledge Bowl? There could have been overnight trips to competitions.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so, but...” She felt a spurt of temper. “Oh, do you know how tired I am of having to say ‘I don’t know’?”
“I can imagine.”
Both were silent for a moment, and her thoughts jumped back to her confession. Maybe she wasn’t done with what she had to say.
“I feel dirty when I think about what I did.” The burning pressure in her sinuses was different from her “trying to remember” headaches, but just as bad. “I don’t see how anyone else can not despise me.”
He shook his head, and she could see only tenderness and understanding. “I hate that it happened for your sake. I kept a picture of you where I could see it for twelve years. You looked so young, so innocent, and yet also so sad. It’s hard for me to imagine that girl enduring what you did.”
She blinked hard to keep herself from crying. “I only did it a few times. I thought I could stand it, but I couldn’t. I got by after that for a couple more months by hanging out in fast-food restaurants and snatching food out of the trash when people threw it away. They had clean bathrooms, too, and nobody paid that much attention to who was hanging around.”
He closed his eyes. “God, Nell.”
She remembered him saying, You’re breaking my heart, and wondered if she could. If he felt that much for her, and why.
“You really don’t mind.”
He looked at her again. “For your sake,” he repeated. “Not mine.”
She waited for him to tell her she really should sleep and they could talk about this later. Under the guise of caring, it would be easy for him to leave her without overtly rejecting her. But when he didn’t move, her heart felt as if it were swelling painfully in her chest.
“The thing is,” she said in a husky voice, “since then, I’ve never...”
Heat flared in his eyes, but he seemed to deliberately bank it. “I don’t suppose you associated men with anything good.”
“No.” She hadn’t consciously thought, I don’t like men, but knew now that it was true. She kept her distance from them. Her friends were all women. She exchanged as few words as possible with their husbands and had certainly never gotten to a hugging or kissing-on-the-cheek stage with any of them. She was cautious around men who came into the library. Not afraid, just...not letting them get too close. No wonder, now that she knew what her relationship with her father had been like. She’d had no basis for trust.
So how was it she had trusted Beck? If I actually did, she reminded herself.
“Were you a virgin the first time, Nell?”
She stared at Colin, shocked. “Of course I was!” Then she realized how illogical she was being and shook her head. “That’s a dumb thing to say. But it means I wasn’t sexually abused, doesn’t it?”
He was shaking his head even before she finished. “The abuse didn’t have to involve penetration. It could have been no more than touching. That’s plenty traumatic when you know it’s wrong and nobody will listen to you.” He kept his tone matter-of-fact, although a thread of strain told her it was taking him some effort. “There could have been oral sex. A man could have been grooming you for later, when you were more physically mature.”
She knew all those things happened because at SafeHold, she’d heard stories that gave her nightmares.
So why was it that, beneath her surface calm, pain gathered in her head, as bad as when she tried to remember Beck? Worse. She was so close to remembering this. Touches. Commands. Affection disguising something horrible. It happened to me. I know it did.
“Nell,” Colin said sharply. She blinked and discovered he was shaking her lightly, his hands on her shoulders. His face was creased with worry.
“I’m okay.” The sight of him brought her back to the here and now. The anxiety diminished. “I almost knew something,” she whispered. “I think...it did happen. What you said.”
“But you don’t know who.”
She shook her head quickly. “It was almost there, but...not. My head started to hurt.”
“Like at the restaurant.” He groaned. “My fault again. I’m pushing you.”
Nell stiffened. “I’m pushing me. I won’t be safe until I remember. I have to remember.”
“It’ll come.”
“When?” she cried. “When?”
“I don’t know.” His guilt and discouragement weren’t hard to see. “Maybe I should leave you. Let you get some rest.”
It was only what she’d expected, Nell reminded herself. She didn’t blame him. She lifted her chin to be sure he didn’t know he’d hurt her. “If that’s what you want.”
“Damn it, Nell, you know it’s not what I want.” He glared at her. “I want you. But you’ve had enough today. We have time.”
Did they? She had come so close to dying today, she knew better. She sucked in a fortifying breath. “I’d like it if you would stay.” Uncertainty kicked in. “If...if you really mean it.”
His eyes blazed. “You’re sure?”
She nodded, even if she was also afraid of the unknown.
“Uh...give me a minute.” To her surprise, he stood and went into the bathroom. A drawer opened and closed, then another one. What on earth...? But when he came back, she thought, Oh. He had something in his hand.
He bent and unlaced his shoes and kicked them off, tossed his socks on top of them. He hesitated and unbuttoned his dress shirt, leaving it dangling over a rocking chair. Nell’s breath caught at the sight of his broad, naked ches
t. Over strong muscles, dark hair formed a triangle ending in a line that disappeared inside his slacks.
“Too much?” he asked, in a deep voice.
She gave her head an emphatic shake.
His mouth quirked in an almost-smile as he unfastened a narrow black belt and the button at his waist, then eased the zipper down. Beneath he wore snug-fitting navy blue knit boxer shorts that did nothing to hide the extent of his arousal. She desperately wanted him to shed those, too—and yet it was a little bit of a relief when he didn’t.
He grabbed the duvet, said for a second time, “Scoot over,” and slid into bed beside her. Rolling onto his side to face her, he smiled wryly, probably at the sight of her near-panic.
“Your first time.”
That made her stomach dip. “It’s not.” Had he not believed her?
“What you did wasn’t making love.”
“Is that what you call it when you want to have sex?”
“Yeah, but it’s usually a euphemism. A way of prettying up something that’s really just physical.” The timbre of his voice vibrated her senses. “What we’re going to do, though, Nell, it will be making love.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks felt as if they were flaming. “Have you...?”
He shook his head. “I’ve had sex. I’ve never felt like this before, though.”
If she’d been standing, she would have melted like candle wax. As it was, her fear melted away. Oh, please, Nell thought, please let him mean it. She reached out tentatively and laid her hand on that lovely bare chest. He tensed, and she felt a thump as if his heart had thrown in an extra, hard beat.
“Explore all you want,” he murmured.
For a few minutes, he only watched, groaning a few times, as she did exactly that. She kneaded, curled her fingers in his chest hair, followed it down to the elastic band of his shorts and chickened out there. That was okay—she reveled in what she could see. Eventually she got brave enough to lean close and kiss his neck and even lick the hollow at the base of his neck, loving the salty taste of his skin. No ugly memories surfaced, to her relief. Maybe she could do this. She drew circles around his small, flat nipples, then daringly kissed them, too. That groan was especially guttural. His hips seemed to lift from the bed momentarily.
She drew back. “Is that okay?”
“Yeah.” He sounded breathless. “Nell? Can I do a little exploring, too?”
She bit her lip and nodded.
“Is it okay to lose the shirt?” When she nodded again, he said, “And the bra?”
“Yes. I don’t, um, actually need it, you know.”
“Sure you do.” He smiled at her. “It’s armor.”
It was. She wore lots of armor, she realized.
She sat up and let him pull her shirt over her head, then watched his face as he took her bra off and looked at her. She was barely a B cup, but the dark flush that ran over his cheekbones and the glow in his eyes convinced her he liked what he saw.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, low and rough, then bent his head, first to kiss her. It was deep, passionate, fueling her rising tension. But he didn’t linger; instead, his mouth moved down her throat, then her chest until he kissed one nipple.
The sight of his dark head bent over her was erotic, but even so she hadn’t imagined how it would feel when he drew her nipple into his mouth and sucked. She squeaked and her hips bucked and he slowed enough to slide his tongue in a slow, sensual circle around her nipple. Then he moved to her other breast and did the same.
By the time his hand slid inside her panties, she was past feeling shy. She needed his touch, first pressing, rubbing. When one finger slipped between her folds, she moaned and opened to him.
Every so often, he lifted his mouth from her body long enough to talk. He told her over and over how beautiful he thought she was, how sexy, how he loved the way her hips rocked and her nipples peaked and how she blushed.
After coming back to her mouth for another slow, hungry kiss, he lifted his mouth and just looked at her for a minute. “Your eyes have always gotten to me,” he said, his voice transformed by hunger.
Nell ignored the twinge of unease that gave her. Right now, it didn’t matter what he meant by always. She was savoring the sight of his eyes, too, almost black with need and tenderness. The muscles in his back and upper arms were rigid, and instinct told her the deliberately slow pace of his lovemaking was costing him. But, oh, it was wonderful. So like him. He’d never been anything but patient with her. There was none of the groping, ugly urgency she remembered, only that patience and...love. It felt like love.
Her panties were gone, and suddenly, so was her patience. She wanted to feel, to see.... She curved her hand over the thick, hard ridge barely contained by fabric and squeezed gently.
His laugh was closer to a groan. “Let me...”
“Yes, please,” she said politely, and he laughed again, more genuinely, if still strained.
The shorts went flying and he lay, rigid, letting her stroke him, cup him, tease him. And then he made an inhuman sound, growled, “Enough,” and reached for the packet he’d set beside the bed. He had to push the covers back, giving her a chance to see his thick, pulsing penis before he sheathed it. The sight was the first to awaken something unpleasant in her head. She’d seen...
Colin noticed that she’d frozen. He caressed her face. “We’re making love,” he whispered, and began to kiss her and touch her again, until that glimpse of a memory was forgotten and hunger to merge her body with his swept away any doubts.
Once he’d spread her legs and moved over her, he held himself completely still. “You okay, sweetheart?”
“Yes.” She wriggled her hips. She wanted...no, needed him to move. “Please.”
He rested his cheek against hers and thrust. There was no pain at all, only pleasure. She heard herself make sounds that should embarrass her but somehow didn’t. He rocked into her, out, and she couldn’t have stopped herself from pushing up to meet him if someone had put a gun to her head. This desperation to feel him deeper, harder, faster, grew until it felt like... She didn’t know. A spring winding tighter and tighter in her belly. It couldn’t take any more tension. It couldn’t. It couldn’t...
And then it sprang loose, flooding her with unimagined pleasure. She could only hold on to Colin and stare in astonishment at his face, stark with his own release, as he pulsed inside her and his body jerked.
He tried to half roll off her as his weight came down, but she wouldn’t let him. Nell wrapped her arms around him, and she squeezed her eyes shut and rested her cheek against his as he buried his face in the crook of her neck. Tears stung her eyes.
So this was what real happiness felt like.
* * *
REGRET, OR AT least worry, brought him down fast once he’d gotten dressed and left Nell sleeping.
Making love with Nell—Maddie—might have been a huge mistake. No, it was the timing that stank. Colin didn’t know how he felt, she couldn’t possibly know how she felt. She’d been scared and needed reassurance. He groaned and rubbed a hand over his face. Yeah, he’d been scared and needed reassurance, too.
But he didn’t want to feel too much for her if she intended to return to Seattle as soon as her leave of absence was up. Why would she want to stay in Angel Butte? Was he willing to quit, start over somewhere else, when he was so damn close to getting Bystrom out of office and maybe having the chance to develop a truly effective police force?
Even thinking things like that was so uncharacteristic of him, it set him on edge. And yet—he was in love with her. He knew he was. There was a reason he hadn’t been able to help kissing her several times before. What he feared was that his fascination for Maddie had morphed into the emotion that was giving him heartburn now. He couldn’t deny the power her face, her eyes, had always held for him. If t
hat were the case, what did it say about him? What if Nell had come to town and he’d recently met her? What if she wasn’t Maddie? Would he feel the same?
He swore under his breath.
What if, in his confusion, he hurt her, a woman who had been hurt too many times?
He knew he’d never forgive himself.
Colin sat at the table, his laptop open in front of him although he hadn’t gotten any further than turning it on yet. Twice he’d stood up and walked silently to the bedroom to make sure Nell was still there. Still sleeping, not tossing in the grip of a nightmare. He’d meant it when he said he didn’t want to leave her this afternoon. Couldn’t leave her.
But he also itched to know what was going on with the various investigations. Had accountants turned up any answers about where all that money deposited into Bystrom’s account had come from? What about Beck? Jane would have been—
His phone rang and he reached for it quickly. Who else? “Jane,” he said.
“The uncle isn’t a very nice guy,” she announced without preamble. “The first time I called he said, I quote, ‘Why would I have kept anything of his? I was done with him.’ He did grudgingly give me the name of the family dentist.”
“And?”
“We have confirmation, Captain. No question.”
“Oh, hell,” he said, bowing his head. So much for any hope those bones had nothing to do with Maddie Dubeau.
“Opens a can of worms,” she agreed. “Means he can’t be the one who attacked her and abducted her.”
“No. It’s more likely he was protecting her.”
“That seems to be the likeliest scenario.”
Had to be, he thought, even knowing there were other possibilities. Maybe she’d shown up to meet him and he was already dead or she saw him killed. But why would anybody have wanted him dead? Because he was dealing...? Colin shook his head without finishing the thought. The Hales thought Beck was a great kid. Colin had seen the kind of student he was. Maddie had been shy and innocent, not the kind of girl to be attracted to a bad boy.
And then there was her memory block to account for. The headaches confirmed Colin’s belief that they weren’t talking memory loss from the physical injury, even if it had contributed. She was afraid to remember, even now.
Bringing Maddie Home Page 21