by Dianne Drake
“But you didn’t come. Instead, you sent Scott to tell me you had other plans.”
“I never asked you, Leanne. I swear...” His stomach was starting to churn as bad images began barraging him. And he was starting to sweat.
“But I had the note, and I thought you had. When Scott showed up, though...” She let out a heavy sigh. “He was pretty high. Acting crazy. Being rude. So, all I wanted to do was get away from him, get away from what I thought you’d done to me. Which was what I did. Scott suggested I stay out there with him for a little while, but I said no. He was a bad kid, Caleb. You weren’t. Not until him.” She shook her head and wrapped her arms around herself. “You hurt me. You shut me out. First my dad, then you. And there was no one else...”
“I shut you out because I knew the end of the story. Little-kid dreams turning into a reality that was nothing like they’d planned. I watched you, Leanne. You shone. People loved you. You had friends. Maybe not the kind you wanted but you were always surrounded by people who admired you, while I had a group of misfits just like me who nobody wanted around.”
“But I did, Caleb. I always did. And that night, when I had so many hopes, Scott turned up...”
“What did he do to you?”
“He tried to rape me,” she said without emotion. “Then after that, every time I saw you two together...”
His head was pounding now. Everything was finally making sense, yet nothing was making sense. “But he didn’t...”
“Not rape, no. But he did molest me. Ripped off some of my clothes. Touched me.” She grimaced, shut her eyes, shuddered. “Shoved me down, got on top of me...”
“Oh, God,” Caleb moaned. Of all the things he’d imagined that might have caused her amnesia, this had never been one of them.
“What he didn’t know, though, was that Jack Hanson had been working with me. I was strong. I fought back.” She opened her eyes and looked straight at Caleb. “But I thought you knew what he’d done because of the way you two would look at me after that. Best friends talk, or brag. I was sure he had.”
“Why didn’t you tell someone?”
“Probably for the same reasons that over sixty percent of all sexual assaults on women go unreported. Some say it may be as high as ninety. I wasn’t even a woman when it happened to me. I had no one to turn to. No one to talk to. So, it just went away. Got stowed in a place where I could go on without having to deal with it. That place you’re calling childhood traumatic amnesia. At least, that’s what I think happened. I’m going to need more professional help to sort it.”
What could he say? What could he do? Other than to fight back the rising nausea, he didn’t know. “So why me? Why did I become your target?”
“Probably because I thought you were betraying me by being friends with someone who’d attacked me. I mean, that’s part of what I must sort out. But that night, up at Eagle Pointe, when you two were staring at me, laughing...” She moved closer to the bed but stayed at an arm’s length. “I snapped, Caleb. That’s all I could think. That you knew, and you were laughing about it.”
“But I didn’t, Leanne, or I’d have—”
“I know you didn’t. I know that now. But I was a kid. I didn’t know how to deal with what happened to me, and all I could see was that the one person I could have turned to had chosen to be friends with my attacker. Which was why I did what I did to you that night. I wanted you to feel exactly how I’d felt that night Scott attacked me, ripped off half my clothes and tried to...”
“Were you the one who sent help out to get me the next day?” he asked, wishing to God he could get out of bed, hold her, do something other than lie there and watch her suffer. But he couldn’t. Not with the IVs and splints... And he felt like hell for being so helpless.
“I was. Because despite it all... I loved you.” She brushed away the tears streaming down her face. “Always have.”
The words were barely out of her mouth. And all he could hear were the screams. His screams. Screaming for the things he didn’t know. For the things he did.
And for Leanne. Mostly for Leanne.
* * *
Hours later—at least it seemed like hours later when, in fact, it had probably only been a little while—Leanne emerged from the hospital bathroom, cold water still splashed on her face, wondering what came next. Caleb hadn’t spoken, not even when half the hospital staff had run into the room to see what was wrong with him. They were gone now, the door was shut, and it was just the two of them. Alone. Together. And she knew she didn’t want to go on with this, but she also knew she couldn’t stop. Not now. Not until everything was said. Because she remembered, every detail...every second of that horrible ordeal.
“I don’t blame you for that, Caleb. At least, I don’t anymore.” He turned his head away from her but, not to be daunted, she sat down on the edge of the bed next to him. Reached over and took hold of his hand. “It’s a mess. I’m a mess. You’re a mess. And we’ve got a lot to work through. But the one thing I know, the one thing I’m sure of now, is that you couldn’t have known what he did to me. Back then I thought you did. But you weren’t like that. At least, not until I bullied you into doing things you wouldn’t have normally done. Things to hurt you and humiliate you. Because I felt hurt and humiliated.”
“That day, when they brought me out of the cave...” He still refused to look at her. “Half the town turned up to watch. They were making fun of me, Leanne. Saying terrible things. And all I wanted to do was go and hide somewhere.”
“I know,” she said, raising her hand to brush his cheek. “At least, now I know. Back then, though...” She swallowed hard. “And after you took it out on half the windows in town, and they arrested you...it didn’t make me happy, Caleb. Didn’t give me the satisfaction I wanted. In fact, that’s why I left Marrell shortly after. Because I did remember that night. The look on your face. Up until you fell off the cliff last week, that’s the only thing I remembered. And I wanted to run away from it. Not from being molested. From what I’d done to you.” With the back of her hand she swiped at the tears streaking down her cheeks, then continued. “I didn’t know you would go off the deep end the way you did. If I’d been older, or smarter, I would have figured it out, but I wasn’t, and...” She sniffed. “The trauma that brought about my amnesia wasn’t about what Scott did to me, Caleb. It was about what I did to you.”
All she could feel was despair, and loathing for the things she’d done. And an overwhelming sadness for the grief she knew Caleb must be going through now, and what she’d put him through back then. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I loved you, Caleb. Like I said before back then. Even now. It’s never changed for me, even though I didn’t remember it. But when I did...”
She waited for Caleb’s response, but when it didn’t come she finally stood, reconciled to what would come next. And she couldn’t blame him. She’d been a lonely girl who’d latched onto a lonely boy, and nothing had worked out. She was still lonely, lonelier than she’d ever been in her life. But Caleb had Matthew now, and she was glad for him. He deserved some happiness, and she was truly happy he’d found it. Caleb was a wonderful man. The love of her life, she was coming to realize. The one she’d never get over, and she wanted nothing but good things for him.
“I’m so sorry for what I did. Sorry that I didn’t remember. Sorry for things I probably haven’t even made sense of yet. I know you’re not going to want to have anything to do with me now, and I don’t blame you, because I don’t want anything to do with myself either. But for what it’s worth, you’re the person I always knew you would be. A good man. A kind man. A man who didn’t deserve to be hurt.” He was also the person she had loved since she was five years old. And would always love.
She pushed the door open and started out into the hall, but stopped to take one final look back at him, only to find him looking at her.
“Would you rep
ort him now?” he asked simply.
“Does it matter, after all this time? They won’t prosecute him. It’s been too long.”
“Yes, it matters. Because even if all you get to do is press charges, his crime will no longer be a secret, and maybe he’ll lose some of that charmed life he lives. Or maybe someone else he might have done that to will fall within the legal time limit to prosecute and come forward. Most of all, though, it lets you move on. You didn’t cause it, you didn’t deserve it, and this finishes it.”
“Except for more counseling.” She sighed. “It would be nice knowing that he knows he didn’t get away with it. Or that he won’t get away with it in the future, if he’s inclined to do it to someone else.”
“Or just to get even,” Caleb said, finally giving over to a smile. “You deserve your right in this, Leanne. And even if that right is only some self-satisfaction, it belongs to you, if you want it to.”
“Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked. “I don’t deserve it.”
“What you don’t deserve is what Scott did to you, and all the trauma that came afterward. You’re not to blame here. Neither am I. We were young, we didn’t know...” He held out his hand to her. “We didn’t have each other to help get us through it.”
“You were always my knight in shining armor, because you were a dreamer, you know. Because you dreamed the dreams I wanted, and believed. Sure, they were little-kid dreams, but to a little kid they offered so much hope and promise when the rest of her world just wasn’t working out. And, Caleb, I never saw you as odd or different. All I saw was...my friend. My one true friend.”
“Until I wasn’t.”
“Until you weren’t.”
“I’m sorry for what Scott did to you. Sorry I couldn’t defend you, because I would have.”
She walked back over to him and took his hand. “I know you would.”
“So, what about us?” he asked. “Can we work it out? Maybe come out on the other end with that dream we shared?”
“Would there ever be a possibility that you could trust us? Or trust me?” she asked honestly.
“When I first arrived, and knew you’d be here, too, I didn’t want anything to do with you. Didn’t want someone like you being around my son. But you weren’t...you. At least, not the one you turned into. You were more like the Leanne I knew when I was a child. But I didn’t trust that. Couldn’t. Because I was the one who did remember. Except I never factored myself into that equation. But I was there, Leanne. So, could I trust us? Or you? The answer is yes. I could, and I do. Although we’re going to need help getting through it. If you want to get through it...with me.”
“I do,” she said. “For you, for me, for Matthew. I want us.”
“But that means Marrell. Can you live with that?”
“Being in love changes everything. Didn’t you say something to that effect once?”
“So, how, in any fairy tale ever told, does the ugliest, geekiest kid in town end up with the prettiest, most popular girl?”
“They say love is blind,” she said.
He chuckled. “No way in hell it could be that blind.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, I never saw ugly or geeky back then, and I sure don’t now.” Not that looks mattered, because they didn’t. Maybe that was looking through the eyes of love, maybe it was what he’d turned into. Or had always been. She didn’t know, she didn’t care. “Now tell me, what do we do next?”
“Could we start again, please? Go back to when we were five and six?”
“We could, but then we...you wouldn’t have Matthew.”
“I like it better when you say we.”
“So do I. When you called and told me he was missing... I was so scared. For him, for you... All I could think about was how wonderful it felt having two people in my life I loved more than life itself, and how one of them was in danger. Those were agonizing hours, Caleb. I know they were for you, but they were for me, too.” She swiped back her tears. “I knew when I went back to Seattle that I loved you, but coming back here, for Matthew...that’s when I knew how much.”
He sniffed, fighting back his own tears. “We are a mess, aren’t we?”
“We are. But I think it’s a mess we can straighten out, if you want to. But you must be the one to say you want to, because I’ve been standing here with my heart on my sleeve for quite a while now, and I haven’t seen your heart yet. And I have to see it.”
“You are my heart, Leanne. Always have been, even though I took some odd paths to get to where I could say that to you.”
“Then we have our beginning, don’t we?” she asked.
“We do,” he said.
“We do,” she repeated, sitting back down on the side of the bed with him. “But I also want you to bring Matthew home to live with us, let him commute to school even though Hans Schilling has bumped up security in huge ways. Matthew’s part of that beginning, and I want us to be a family, together. I want to work part-time, help raise Matthew, take care of you...especially take care of you. If I’m lucky, give Matthew a brother or sister. Let you run the hospital, which was always my plan in the first place.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me.” He pointed to the corner of his mouth. “Any plans for that particular spot?”
“Maybe,” she said, bending in to give him a light kiss.
He scooted up in bed a little, taking care not to injure his shoulder. Then pointed to the other corner of his mouth. “More plans here?”
She obliged him with another light kiss.
“Maybe right there?” he pointed to a spot on his forehead, but when she kissed it, he sucked in a sharp breath and nearly recoiled from the pain. “OK, try there.” He pointed to another spot on his face. Same pain reaction when she kissed him, though. Then he blew out a frustrated breath, reached out, pulled her face to his and kissed her hard, the way he wanted to. The way she deserved to be kissed. To hell with the pain.
“Didn’t that hurt?” she asked, when he finally dropped back into his pillow, his expression caught somewhere between agony and ecstasy.
“Worth it,” he managed to gasp. “Totally worth it. Now, would you call the nurse and ask her to bring me a pain pill?”
Epilogue
IT WAS HARD to believe. He’d been in Marrell only six months, and so much about his life had changed. Matthew had more friends than he could count and he was loving his young life in ways that excited Caleb. Ways that Caleb found amazing. But a lot of that was due to Leanne. She was loving life here, too. Working. Being a mother to Matthew. Being his wife.
And he was happy. His shoulder was healing nicely after a couple of surgeries. He was back to work part-time, glad to have admin duties to keep him busy when the physical act of being a doctor was more than he could handle.
“You know he isn’t going to take no for an answer, don’t you?” Leanne called from their cabin’s front porch. “And he’s in a hurry, Caleb. He wants to get up there before the sun goes down completely so he’ll have time to get set for the perfect dusk shot. And he’s right. The conditions are just right for it.”
Caleb rose from the couch and wandered out to the front porch, where Matthew, with his camera equipment in a backpack, was standing, arms folded across his chest, looking impatient to get on with it. Leanne looked much the same. Meaning he couldn’t win. Not where the two of them were concerned. They ganged up on him every chance they got, and dragged him out on one of their mother-son adventures. Not that he ever objected. Because he didn’t. “And just what is it I’m supposed to do while you two are off taking pictures?” he asked, following them down off the porch.
“Look out for eagles, Dad,” Matthew said. “I still haven’t got a good shot.”
“And carry the tripod,” Leanne said, laughing as she thrust it at him.
“So that’s all I am to you? Just someone to
stand lookout, or tote and carry?”
“Poor Caleb,” Leanne said, laughing as she stroked his cheek with her hand, then gave him a quick kiss.
“Now, that’s the part I like,” he said, grinning.
“And I hear the kissing’s awfully good up at Eagle Pointe this time of year,” she said, taking hold of Caleb’s hand. “And other things.” She pressed his hand to her belly. It was still flat, but wouldn’t be for long. One night at Eagle Pointe...
Matthew turned back to his parents, and rolled his eyes. “Nothing’s going to be good if we don’t get started. And I promised Jenny she could go along, so...”
Caleb turned to Leanne. “Who’s Jenny?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, but if he’s anything like his father was at that age, we’ll have plenty of time to find out.”
* * * * *
Look out for the next great story in the SINCLAIR HOSPITAL SURGEONS duet:
HEALING HER BOSS’S HEART
And if you enjoyed this story, check out these other great reads from Dianne Drake:
SAVED BY DOCTOR DREAMY
THE NURSE AND THE SINGLE DAD
DOCTOR, MOMMY...WIFE?
TORTURED BY HER TOUCH
All available now!
Keep reading for an excerpt from HEALING HER BOSS’S HEART by Dianne Drake.
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