guessed that when her car was gone.”
“She had a meeting she forgot about, so she called me. She won’t be long.”
Peter was getting taller by the day. Skinny, with bright red hair, he was smart and athletic. Two years ago, he’d been a scared kid, abused by his foster father. Raoul and Pia had adopted him, despite the fact that Pia had been pregnant with twins. Now they were a loud, happy family.
“She takes on too much,” Peter said in a tone that implied his father saying the same thing. “Women do today.”
Charlie laughed. “You’re a charming guy, aren’t you?”
Peter grinned. “Dad says I get that from him and it’s going to serve me well.”
“I’m sure it is. Come on, let’s eat cookies.”
Charlie poured them each a glass of milk. Peter washed his hands and then put cookies on a plate. They settled at the kitchen table.
“How was your day?” she asked.
Peter grinned. “You sound like my mom.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
He told her about his second day of school. He was in seventh grade now, having to deal with going from class to class. They discussed optimal locker placement and how girls could get really pretty over a summer.
Charlie mostly listened. She liked how excited he was about math, how confident he was in his friends. She could feel his trust in Pia and Raoul and remembered the emotionally battered kid he’d been only a couple of years ago.
His birth parents had been killed in a horrible car accident. He’d been witness to the tragedy, trapped in the backseat. When Raoul and Pia had fallen in love, they’d never considered not adding Peter to their family. A lot for a newly engaged couple to take on. Especially considering the twins weren’t their biological children, either.
Charlie wasn’t sure she was as emotionally strong as Pia had been, but she liked to think she would have some of her friend’s grace. She knew she wanted a chance to give to a child, to be a constant in a changing world.
Fixing herself first made sense. She needed to be emotionally whole, or at least on the road to being whole, before she took on the responsibility of a child. From what she’d been able to figure out, the slower route was the most sensible. Find a good therapist and work through the issues of her past. Deal with the rape, the way she’d shut down, the lack of justice. Grow emotionally over time. Healthy, reasonable and so not her style.
The alternative was more radical—tackling the lingering effects head-on, so to speak. If she had a fear of flying, she was the type of person who would book a flight to Australia and get it over with in one hideous seventeen-hour plane ride. But she wasn’t afraid of flying, she was afraid of physical intimacy. More specifically, she was afraid to trust. Not men in general, but any man in an emotionally and physically intimate setting. Hardly something an online travel site could help her with.
The truth was, she could live with being broken. But being broken meant she was unlikely to raise a whole, healthy child. She didn’t want to raise a kid who was afraid because Mom was. Which meant getting better.
She needed a professional, she thought as she listened to Peter. Or the closest thing she could find.
* * *
CHARLIE’S HOUSE WAS a lot like her. Practical, well kept and not the least bit flashy. Clay took in the neatly cut lawn, the well-maintained hedges, the unexpected flashes of color by the walkway.
She’d called him a couple of hours ago and asked him to stop by. He hadn’t seen her since he’d gone by the station nearly a week ago. He wasn’t supposed to start on the volunteer firefighter program for a few days, so he wasn’t sure what she wanted to talk about. Still, Charlie was anything but boring, so he was sure he would be interested in whatever she had to say.
He climbed the three steps to the porch, then reached for the bell. The door opened before he could press it.
“Good. You’re here. Come in.”
She stepped back as she spoke, motioning him inside with her arm. As he passed her, he was aware of the tension in her body and the color on her cheeks. Not from makeup, he knew. Something else had her flushed.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Fine. I’m a little... Well, that doesn’t matter. Sit.”
It sounded like more of a command than a request.
He took in the comfortable oversize sofa, the extra chairs, all done in black leather. Color came from red and tan rugs over the hardwood floors and a few throw pillows. To the left was the arched entrance to a dining room and beyond that he would guess was the kitchen.
He walked to the sofa and sat down. Charlie settled across from him in one of the club chairs. She pressed her lips together, looked at him, then jumped up.
“Stay,” she said, holding out her hand, palm to him. Then she dropped her arm to her side. “Sorry. You don’t have to stay. What I meant is please don’t get up. I think I need to pace.”
Unease radiated from her. Something had happened—he’d guessed that much. “Are you hurt?”
She made a choking sound in the back of her throat. “Not in the way you mean. I’m fine. Everything is fine. Great, even. Sparkly.” She stopped talking and walked to the end of the room. When she returned, she positioned herself behind the second chair, as if wanting a physical barrier between them.
She was dressed as usual in jeans and a T-shirt. Instead of the steel-toed boots she wore at the fire station, she had on athletic shoes. Her arms were toned and muscled, her short hair slightly mussed. She was exactly as he remembered, yet he would swear that everything was different.
He wanted to go to her, to give her a hug and tell her that he would help her get through whatever was wrong. Only Charlie didn’t strike him as the hugging type. On a more practical level, who the hell was he to think he could solve any of her problems? Typical arrogant male response. That’s what Diane would say.
“I want to ask you something,” Charlie said, her hands gripping the back of the chair.
“Okay. What is it?”
“Background first,” she said. Her gaze locked with his, then slid away. “My freshman year of college I had a crush on one of the football players. Senior guy, good-looking. He smiled at me and I was hooked.”
“Lucky guy.”
Charlie blinked at him. “He didn’t see it that way. He invited me to a party.... I went. When he asked me up to his room, I said yes. I was young and stupid. I didn’t realize he expected to have sex. I thought we’d...” She shrugged and looked away. “I wasn’t thinking. Things went too far. I told him to stop and he didn’t.” She turned her attention back to him and pain filled her blue eyes. “I wasn’t strong then.”
Clay felt a rock hit the bottom of his stomach. “He raped you,” he said flatly.
She
