the white page.
“Karyn Mitchell.” He liked that much better than Katy.
KARYN WALKED into her apartment, threw her keys onto the hall table and hung her purse and briefcase on the coatrack. Walking into the silent kitchen, she couldn’t hold back a sigh.
Her head pounded, her shoulders slumped and a brick seemed to have lodged at the base of her spine. She knew stress, tension and exhaustion were responsible for her weary state.
It had been four days since that damn phone call. For the past three nights she’d turned on Dr. Desire only to hear his show become a heated discussion of her life and what he should do to help her.
Her hours at work hadn’t even been safe. Every time she’d tried to add up a string of numbers today someone had popped their head into her cubicle to gossip about Katy.
Her so-called best friend hadn’t been much better. Anne had teased and admonished, going so far as to try to cajole her into a double date. After hours of frustration Karyn had snapped at her. And felt guilty for it afterward.
But the frustration and anger hadn’t lasted long. It was hard to keep her bad mood when Anne was around. She was always so…chipper. Or rather, that’s what she showed the world. Even Karyn hadn’t realized that the brightness and light Anne seemed surrounded with was a facade. Not until it had slipped. She’d truly known they were friends the night Anne had broken down and allowed her to see the emotions she buried deep inside.
That same night Karyn had opened up and shared her own deepest secret. She’d never regretted the action or the trust she’d placed in the other woman.
At the moment, however, she was seriously regretting sharing that secret with half the South, even if she had used an alias.
She couldn’t believe it was happening all over again. She’d moved to Birmingham to get away from this kind of minute dissection of her life and choices. She’d spent years defending her actions to newspapers, TV stations, radio shows, her lawyers, the judge, not to mention the jury.
The job offer from Walker Technologies had provided her with a clean start, the chance to lose herself in the city crowds and forget the trauma everyone at home remembered when they looked at her. And with one five-minute phone conversation she’d inadvertently opened herself up to it all over again.
The one saving grace was that the city was discussing Katy’s life, not hers. But she wondered how long that would last. Reporters had a way of digging up details, especially the ones you thought safe and secret. Unfortunately, the only thing she could do was wait and hope the interest died down soon. Doing anything else would just draw attention to herself.
She’d gone in to work this morning hoping to bury herself in the minutia of number crunching. It hadn’t worked—she’d completely screwed up the monthly sales report and it had taken all afternoon to rework it. She’d become an accountant because she loved numbers, because they followed hard-and-fast rules that never changed. Today she wasn’t so enamored of them or her job.
If only people hadn’t kept interrupting her. If only she’d been able to concentrate on the numbers instead of Dr. Desire…
There was no escape. She kept telling herself that the interest in Katy would die down eventually, that something else would happen to catch everyone’s attention.
At the moment, that wasn’t very comforting; what would be was a hot bath, a good book and a glass of wine. The only food she wanted was a tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream covered in fudge sauce. Comfort and solitude at its finest. She’d pay for it tomorrow at the gym, but it would be so worth it.
Opening the freezer, she pulled out the half-empty carton and grabbed a spoon. With a hip bump she closed the spoon drawer and headed into the bathroom to start her night of relaxation.
Pouring the wine, picking out her book and turning on some soft music all helped her settle. She slipped into the hot water with an appreciative sigh. The last of the stress that had built inside melted away with the rising steam. Closing her eyes, she rested her head and just sat for a minute, soaking up a luxury she rarely made time for.
After a few minutes of bliss, she reached for the ice cream and scooped a bite from the carton, letting the cold glob melt in her mouth and slip down her throat. The bold, heavy taste burst through her mouth, reminding her of the mint tea her grandmother had always made on sticky summer days when she’d visited.
Times like these she missed her family, even her mother. Yes, she’d needed to escape Darby, Mississippi, to put some space between her family’s overprotective tendencies and her mother’s inability to understand. It had been an important step in her recovery, one she’d needed to take.
The anonymity she’d found in Birmingham hadn’t hurt, either. Closing her eyes, she tried to ignore the feeling that it was slowly slipping away.
She’d just scooped another heaping spoonful into her mouth when the phone rang. Reaching for the cordless she’d brought into the bathroom, she looked at the caller ID and groaned. She should have known better than to bring the phone into her haven of solitude.
Pounding the button, she answered, knowing if she didn’t her brother would send up a hue and cry to the entire family.
“Hello, Blake.”
“Hi, squirt, how’s it going?”
She couldn’t suppress the smile just hearing his voice caused. “Well, I was enjoying some downtime until you called. How can I convince you to get lost?”
“You can’t. I’m the official family envoy. If I don’t go back to Mom and Dad with specific information, we’re both likely to regret it.”
And wasn’t that the truth? Growing up the youngest of three kids and being the only girl meant she was very protected as a child and teenager. If her parents hadn’t worried about something, her older brothers sure had. It’d been a miracle that any guy had wanted to date her. Outgoing and confident, she’d been so eager to escape to college.
The overprotective atmosphere had only gotten worse after she’d been raped. It was her family’s natural response, to circle the wagons and ward off anything else that could hurt her. And at the time, she’d appreciated their love and understanding. But it had gotten old awfully fast and was the main reason she’d placed a state between her and the rest of the Mitchell clan.
With a sigh of resignation she said, “Okay. What do they want?”
“You to visit. We haven’t seen you since Christmas. That’s seven months, in case you’ve lost the ability to count along with the ability to find your way home.”
Karyn settled back into the steaming water, letting her hand play back and forth making waves. This would not end quickly, she could tell.
“I can’t get away from work right now.” And the thought of going back to Darby always left her slightly unsettled. The place held memories she’d been trying so hard to leave behind. She might not have been raped there, but she’d certainly gone back to live through the aftermath. The long wait, the trial, the media coverage, then the subsequent realization that her word hadn’t been enough for twelve of her peers.
She’d worked so hard to get her life back. And aside from this one last major hurdle—her
