To Win Her Back

by Mackenzie Crowne

  A sob of terror.

  Shh, you’ll wake Mama. This is our special secret, remember? She can never know.

  Lips clamped together so tightly, her teeth draw blood.

  Help me, God. Please. Send your angels to help me.

  The crushing weight of his body covering hers. The stench of whiskey scalding her nostrils.

  You love your daddy, don’t you?

  Sweaty, hot naked skin pressing against hers and the foreign stab of something hard between her legs, pushing against her private place.

  Daddy loves you so much.

  The putrid taste of vomit in her mouth. Gagging. Coughing. Spewing.

  Sticky wetness dotting Daddy’s face and tangling with the tears in her hair.

  Her darkest wish escaping to whisper through the shadows of her bedroom. I want you to die.

  Horror and fear, mirrored in her father’s eyes as he rears back.

  A painful hammering in her chest as one heartbeat passes, then another, and one more.

  Tears in Daddy’s eyes. His fingers ripping at his hair and clutching his head. Jesus. Jesus, what am I doing?

  Desperate hope as his weight shifts away. The door closing behind him.

  Freedom. Blessed freedom.

  Chest heaving with her stilted breaths, V palmed away the tears streaking her cheeks. The freedom she’d thought she’d found had been a mirage. Freedom had never come. Not after her father had left and never returned. Nor after the countless hours of counseling she’d forced herself to endure. Not even with her father’s death. All these years later, his malevolence still haunted her. The shameful, evil memories remained alive, locked in her soul, and there would be no freedom, no love, no marriage unless she found the courage to purge them at last.

  “V, I need the list for the owner’s suite.”

  V jumped, her head swiveling toward the door.

  Caroline took one look at her and turned to someone in the hall. “Go downstairs and make sure they’ve started setting up in the visitors’ lounge.” She closed the door on her assistant’s mumbled reply. “What’s happened, V? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Embarrassed and horrified, she didn’t know what to say. The fact was, she had seen a ghost. One who had been haunting her since she’d turned eleven. Her gaze caught on Sam’s ring and note, and she grabbed at the excuse. She indicated the box.

  “Sam wants to marry me.”

  Caroline slid into the guest chair at the edge of the desk, her eyes doubtful. “Don’t give me that. I’ve seen the two of you together. You glow when he’s around. There is no way in hell Sam proposing would put that haunted look in your eyes.”

  But it had. If they’d just gone on the way they were, she could have held it together. Loved him hard enough that the mystery of her past would have lost its importance. Loving him hard wasn’t a problem. She did that with every breath.

  She shook her head. “It’s not Sam. It’s some stuff from a long time ago. Complicated stuff.”

  “Life is complicated, V, but you’re one of the strongest women I know. You kick ass and take names, and don’t apologize for it. Yet, the man you love asks you to marry him and you fall apart?” Caroline crossed her legs and smoothed the crease in her red power-suit pants. “If you want that man, then fight for him. Can you fix this complicated stuff from your past?”

  V’s pulse kicked into overdrive. “It’s not something that can be fixed, but yes, it can be addressed.” If I can find the courage to say the words out loud.

  “Then do it. Put whatever it is behind you and move on because, I have to tell you, you look like hammered shit and it’s breaking my heart.”

  The comment was typical Caroline. V laughed. Still, her heart clanked against her ribs. Her friend was right. V was strong, refusing to let anything beat her when she wanted something. She wanted Sam. Needed him, and Lucy, and the life they could build together.

  The repulsive memories of her father had stolen her dreams and the knowledge she’d continued to let it happen sickened her. Somehow, she had to find the strength to tell Sam the truth. First, however, she needed to speak to her mother, in person.

  There was no way V could manage to speak the depth of her father’s depravity, but then, she wouldn’t have to. Even a watered down version of the truth would leave a hateful stain on Anita’s heart and soul.

  “I need to go to Barlow. If it’s okay with you, I’ll leave tomorrow.”

  Caroline grimaced. “For how long?”

  “Twenty-four hours. Maybe less.”

  Caroline thumbed the screen of her phone then held it to her ear. A murmured voice answered. “Have my plane ready to leave in a half hour. Tell the pilot to set a course for Barlow, Texas. Returning tonight or tomorrow.” She disconnected without waiting for a response and stood.

  V blinked. “Caroline, I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say goodbye and head to the airport. The Super Bowl is in fourteen days. After we win tonight, things are going to get crazy around here. I need my PR specialist here and happy, and I need my new offensive coordinator smiling. I expect to be fitted for a new ring in two weeks, and Sam and the boys don’t need any distractions if they’re going to make sure that happens.”

  Chapter 26

  V hesitated on her mother’s front stoop. Mother Nature was apparently in a playful mood, teasing the residents of East Texas with an early taste of spring. With the temperature at a comfortable seventy-two, Anita had opened the windows and front door to the fresh air. The murmur of a sports commentator floated to V’s ears.

  Like everyone else in Barlow, Anita would be watching the game. V’s nerves briefly took a backseat to excitement for Sam. The last time she’d checked the team app on her phone, the second quarter had just ended with the Marauders up by thirteen.

  She pictured Sam on the sideline, his big body pacing up and down the line as he called in plays. Clinging to the image, she knocked on the wooden frame of the screen door.

  “Yes. Coming.”

  Anita’s eyes widened in surprise as she spotted V through the mesh. “V, what on earth?” The hinges squeaked slightly as she pushed the door open, and her happy laugh scraped at V’s heart like clawing fingers. “What are you doing here in Barlow? The game is on.”

  V stared at her mother’s smiling face. Fast and efficient. Like ripping a bandage from a festering wound. That’s the only way I’ll be able to say what needs to be said.

  “I need to talk to you, Mom.”

  “Come in, then.” Her mother’s eyes held simple curiosity as she held the door wider. The band of nerves circling V’s chest tightened a notch. Curiosity would soon be replaced with hurt and revulsion.

  She stepped past Anita into the comfortably decorated living room. V had only been inside her mother’s home a few times, but everything was the same as the first time she’d seen it. Anita had always liked things simple and familiar.

  V glanced at the TV. The fourth quarter had just begun.

  “It’s so exciting. The camera panned to Sam twice.” Anita laughed. “You could hear the cheers and shouts from up and down the street.”

  V blinked at the screen. She’d shut off her phone before she’d come inside, needing to sever any possible source of connection with Sam—as if the evil of what she was about to say would somehow reach him across the miles. The compulsion was stupid and completely illogical. She’d be flying back this evening to face him with her past, but today, this afternoon, was important to him. She cringed at the thought of somehow sullying his pleasure at coaching his first championship game with the pros.

  “Would you mind turning it off?”

  The curiosity in her mother’s eyes took on the sharp edge of concern. She picked up the remote from the coffee table and aimed it at the TV. The screen blinked off. “Can I get you anything? A cold drink?” She indicated the couch with a sweep of her hand.

  “No, thank you.” The way her st
omach was churning, V didn’t think she could keep anything down.

  “You’re starting to scare me. What’s this about, V?” Anita sat on the edge of the couch.

  Too wound up, V couldn’t sit. She stood in the center of the room and dragged in a breath, then another, before she could force the words from her lips. “It’s about Dad and what he did to me.”

  Surprise lit Anita’s eyes before a crease wrinkled her brow. “I don’t understand?”

  “I know you don’t.” V swallowed. “He….” The word dragged out, blending with her shuddered exhalation. “He molested me, Mom.”

  All emotion washed from Anita’s face, along with the color.

  V forged ahead before she could turn and run for the door. “The first time happened a couple months before my eleventh birthday.”

  A soft cry escaped her mother’s lips, and she clapped her hands over her mouth, speaking through her clenched fingers. “The first time?”

  “We’d been at a cookout down the street at one of the neighbor’s houses. I don’t remember whose.” V twisted the strap of her purse around her fingers. “You said you weren’t feeling well and went to bed. He came into my room. I think he was drunk. His breath smelled like whiskey.”

  “Oh dear God.” Her mother’s face tightened and a sheen of tears flooded her eyes.

  “He never raped me. I need you to know that, but he came close.”

  Anita covered her face with her hands, and her thin shoulders seemed to draw in on themselves.

  Tears stung at the back of V’s eyes and throat. “And I’m not going to share the details with you, because they’re disgusting and shameful. I won’t be responsible for planting hateful images in your head.”

  Anita’s hands slid to her chest, her face a mask of horror. “They’re already there. Oh my God, baby. I’m so sorry. So sorry I didn’t see.”

  The hair on V’s arms stood up. She hadn’t heard the familiar endearment from her mother’s lips in years, and that was V’s fault. She’d erected a wall between them when her father left and refused each of her mother’s attempts to scale it.

  “He didn’t want you to see.” Her throat convulsed on a painful swallow. “Other than that first night, and the night before he left, he only came after me when you weren’t home. I never remembered him drinking when I was little. He hadn’t stunk of booze and sweat before, but he did then.” She shuddered at the memory. “He was sick and evil, and he said if I told you, you’d blame me and then you’d leave.”

  Anita shook her head in adamant denial. “Never. I never would have blamed you, baby. I never would have left you behind.”

  V’s breath trembled in her chest, and she squeezed her eyes shut against the tears spilling over her lower lashes. “I believed him. I was too scared not to.”

  V shivered as her mother’s arms suddenly came around her. She tucked her face into Anita’s neck and breathed the familiar clean scent of her perfume.

  “The night Dad left, I prayed God would send his angels to save me, but they didn’t come. He was drunk, so drunk he was slurring his words. I threw up all over him. I think it shocked him.” She slid her hands around her mother’s back and held on. “Then I told him I wanted him to die.”

  She didn’t know how long they stood there, clinging to each other. Weeping. Eventually, Anita guided her to the couch.

  V curled into a ball with her head on her mother’s lap. “I’m sorry, Mom. I should have told you right away.”

  “Shh.” Anita sifted her fingers through V’s hair, the way she had when V was little. “You were a child, and your….” She hesitated and shook her head as if using the word “father” to describe Edward Price was an abomination. “Predators like him prey on the weak and the young. What he did to you was not your fault.”

  V knew that. She’d had it pounded into her head by the counselors she’d seen, but her heart had never managed to believe it. “Later, after he left, I couldn’t tell you.”

  “I wish you had.”

  V burrowed closer. “I couldn’t. You worked so hard to take care of us. I didn’t want my dirty secret to touch you.”

  Anita crooned and tucked a curl behind V’s ear. “His secret, baby. Not yours.” She rubbed her hand over V’s hair. “It’s a heavy burden you’ve carried. I’m glad you’ve finally told me so I can bear some of the load with you, but why now?”

  “Sam asked me to marry him.”

  “Oh, V.” Her mother’s sigh held a smile. “You said yes, of course.”

  “Not yet, but I will. I had to tell you first.”

  They spoke for hours, between tears and laughter, too. V shared her dreams of a future with Sam and Lucy, and the hope of more children. Anita spoke of her students and simple things like the garden she’d planned for when true spring arrived. Drained and exhausted from the emotional outpouring, V drifted off at some point during the evening, safe and warm in her mother’s arms.

  * * * *

  Sam ran along the sideline, his arm pinwheeling in time with Tuck’s long strides. The roar of the crowd pulsed in his ears as Tuck crossed the thirty, the twenty, the ten. With eighteen seconds left on the clock, the Marauders’ all-pro wide receiver raced toward the goal line in a spectacular sixty-yard run that would, if successful, put the final nail in Arizona’s coffin. Two red-shirted defenders barreled toward him in a pincher move that would have worked, but for Tuck’s sudden leap into the air. Clipped on the thigh, he spun like a top, but momentum was with him. He came down hard several inches inside the goal line.

  The noise was deafening, and Sam raised both fists to the sky in a victory pump. In the end zone, Tuck rolled to his feet to spike the ball and faced the crowd with an Atlas pose. Sam grinned and absorbed the small stab of envy as his entire offensive line piled onto Tuck in jubilant celebration. Amidst helmet slaps and chest bumps, pure elation lit sweat-streaked faces as the players exited the field and the kicking team replaced them.

  In the middle of the chaos, Wyatt and Tuck loped toward Sam. Grinning from ear to ear, Wyatt extended his arm in a chopping point as they trotted the last couple of yards. “Fucking kick-ass call, Coach. We caught ‘em flat-footed, just like you said.”

  Tuck extended the ball he carried to Sam. “This one belongs to you. Just don’t expect it to become a habit.”

  Sam laughed and grunted his appreciation around the solid lump of emotion in his throat. The celebration continued on the sideline as the kicking team added another point to the tally.

  After the clock had ticked off its final second, the field crowed with players, press, and fans. Sam accepted congratulations and shook hands, gave several interviews. All the while, he kept his eye out for the one face he wanted most to see. Throughout the presentation of the championship trophy, he searched the crowd but, though he found Lucy standing off to the side with Gracie and CC, V was nowhere to be found.

  A nagging kernel of doubt grew in his gut until he could barely breathe. Had he fucked up, not getting down on his knee and popping the question in the traditional way? He’d considered it but, with V, the unexpected normally yielded the best results. He’d also wanted to give her plenty of time to process his proposal without the pressure of him standing in front of her with desperate hope in his eyes.

  The moment he was able, he slipped through the milling crowd to where he’d last seen Lucy. She spotted him when he was several yards away and ran toward him to jump into his arms.

  “Oh my God, that was incredible. Did you see the way Tuck leaped and spun? He should have been a dancer.”

  Gracie, grinning widely, arrived right behind her. “Be sure to tell him that next time you see him, sweetie. Congratulations, Sam. That was quite a game.”

  He tucked his game ball under one arm and Lucy under the other. “Thanks.” He glanced around. “Have you seen V?”

  Lucy shook her head.

  So did Gracie. “She never showed up in the skybox. I assumed she was somewhe
re down here on the field.”

  Gracie whipped out her phone as a print reporter cornered Sam to ask him a few questions. When the reporter finished a few minutes later, and left to chase after Wyatt, Sam looked at Gracie.

  She frowned and lowered the phone from her ear. “I don’t know, Sam. She’s not answering.”

  Shit. If V was still in the building, she’d be here on the field like everyone else. The bottom dropped out of his stomach as trepidation ratcheted up his spine.

  Jesus. He’d asked her to marry him and she’d run. Again.

  Chapter 27

  Sam wandered into his kitchen just as the first fingers of the dawn sun streaked across the sky. Jake turned, a sleepy toddler on his hip. At the table, CC and Tuck sipped from mugs. Sam arched a questioning brow, and CC shook her head.

  “I’m sorry, Sam. I tried to call her five minutes ago. She’s still not answering.”

  Sam scrubbed a frustrated hand down his face. Morning bristle scraped at his palm. “You should all be at home in your beds. If she doesn’t want to be found, she won’t be. God knows, she’s had plenty of practice at disappearing.”

  “She hasn’t disappeared.” Sam turned as Gracie spoke behind him. “There’s a logical explanation for all of this. You just need to be patient until she shows up.”

  Patient? He’d been patient for fifteen years, and look where it had gotten him. “I appreciate the positive attitude, sweetheart, but this ain’t my first rodeo with V’s disappearing acts.”

  “She’ll be back, Sam. If she didn’t plan to return, she wouldn’t have taken your ring with her.”

  There was that. He’d checked her office before he’d really started to panic. She hadn’t been there, and neither had his ring. She’d left his note on her desk.

  Hurt, confused, and pissed as hell, last night’s post-game celebration held no appeal. He and Lucy had left the complex shortly after the official presentations had ended. Much to his surprise and embarrassment, his new friends had shown up at the house in staggered intervals throughout the evening. Max had left sometime after midnight to deliver his pregnant and drooping wife home to her bed, but everyone else had insisted on staying until V was found.