Jenna McDonald was going to live an independent life.
At least she wasn’t financially dependent. She’d grabbed the few hundred dollars she’d had hidden behind the glove box closure. And always kept a few hundred hidden in her purse, too. She had her checkbook for the personal account Max had insisted she have, just so she’d feel safe. There was enough money in there for her to be fine for a while—not that she wanted to use it. The checking account could be traced....
She glanced at the diary. It was something she had to deal with. The woman who appeared on that page.
DAY ONE. Jenna touched the pen to the page.
I’m bereft. So much so it hurts to draw breath. The pen faltered as her fingers grew weak. She paused. Read the written words. And resumed writing.
The future looms before me. Frightening. I feel today that my life will be short. I won’t grow to be an old woman. I won’t live another year.
I want to live. I want to be the wife and mother I tried to be. More than anything.
Pen clutched in her sweaty grasp, Jenna gritted her teeth, closed her eyes. And breathed. She was fine. She’d been here before. Oh, not the room, here. Or even the building here. But she’d been at this point.
And being here again...this she could do.
Opening her eyes, she picked up the pen again. She couldn’t turn her back on the woman on the page.
How does a woman leave the man who is her whole world? Who cherishes her and loves her as much as she loves him? How does she leave a good man?
And how does she leave her baby?
Jenna’s pen flew across the page so quickly now her hand cramped up.
How did her heart continue to beat? Her blood to flow and her stomach to feel hunger pangs?
How could it be that she’d woken that morning as one woman and would go to bed that night a totally different person? Not just a woman with a different name, but a woman who was irrevocably, permanently changed?
But I did the right thing. The only thing. I am putting action to the greatest gift life has to offer. The gift of love. I, of all people, know the value of unconditional love. I was given a chance to know it in its truest sense. And now I must honor that love by loving selflessly back.
I can live the rest of my life, however long or short, knowing that I loved my men enough to put their well-being before my own. I can leave this world in peace knowing that.
Peace. I need it. For them, first. And for me, too.
The pen paused and eyes closed, Jenna tried to clear the mind that raged inside of her. The mind of a woman who’d been so many people. In so many places.
I am absolutely certain that I am not going to run again. I don’t know yet how I’m going to do what I’m going to do, but I am in a place where I will be safe while I figure out exactly how I am going to stand up to the man who’s determined to keep me down, to hold me locked in an embrace that stifles everything that is good inside of me.
As soon as I have figured out how to beat Steve Smith at his own game, as I know now that that is the only way to beat him, I will present myself for battle. To his death or my own. I must either be free to live with my husband and son, or die fighting for that freedom. There is no other life for me. I am not the same powerless woman he once knew. Love gives me the strength to fight the demon....
Jenna jumped as a knock sounded on her door and quickly closed the diary, sliding it inside the desk drawer without making a sound. She moved just as quietly to the bed, lying down with her back to the door.
“Come in.”
“Jenna?” She recognized the voice. Lila McDaniels had introduced herself earlier that evening as the managing director of The Lemonade Stand—Jenna’s current abode.
“Yes?” Hoping that the older woman would respect her need for solitude and go away, Jenna didn’t turn over.
“We missed you at dinner.”
She’d smiled when they’d rattled off the cafeteria hours. And smiled a second time when Lila and Sara had invited her to join them.
“I had some fruit in my bag,” she said. And still did. Left over from another place and time. It had been meant for another. A little boy. She’d get rid of it before it rotted. Just not that night.
The bed depressed and knowing that she wasn’t going to get her way, which was to be left alone, Jenna rolled over. And welcomed the calm that descended over her as she met the other woman’s gaze.
“You’re sure there’s no one we can contact on your behalf?” Lila asked.
“No, ma’am, but thank you.”
She was an adult. Free to travel from place to place as she chose.
“No one who will be worried about you?”
“No.”
“Someone knows you’re here then?”
“Someone knows I’m gone. No one knows I’m here.” The point was critical.
Lila nodded, a sad smile on her face, looking as if she wanted to say more.
“That’s fine, then,” she said. “Your secrets are safe here.”
“I appreciate that so much.”
“When you’re ready, I hope you’ll talk with one of us, Sara or myself or any of the other counselors. We’re here to help. And anything that’s said within these walls stays here.”
“Thank you.” She’d met Sara. Had liked her. But Jenna could probably facilitate any counseling session these good women had to give. There was nothing they could tell her, in terms of battered-wife recovery, that she didn’t already know.
And sometimes all the knowing in the world, all the protection in the world, wasn’t enough.
Sometimes a woman had to be enough all on her own. No matter the consequences.
“You’re sure you don’t want us to notify the police?”
“No!” She almost sat up at that. And calmed herself. “Please, no,” she said. This point was not negotiable. “It does you no good to do so behind my back, right?” she felt compelled to point out. To reassure herself. “There’s nothing to report if I don’t speak up.”
“That’s correct. But we wouldn’t go behind your back in any case, Jenna. Not unless you were a minor or had a minor with you. In that case, we have no choice but to involve the police.”
She nodded. Understanding. And concentrated on relaxing her muscles. One at a time.
The diary in the desk was bothering her. Burning at the edges of her concentration. She was going to have to hide it. Or have it on her person at all times.
“Do
