of my clients’ names are kept confidential.” Even as the words slipped from her mouth, she knew that wasn’t foolproof for confidentiality. Trust was the foundation of her group meetings. She couldn’t control what clients revealed about themselves or others once they left.
Being a social worker, regardless of the community, had inherent risks: unstable patients, angry relatives and venturing into unsavory neighborhoods. But her need to help others—provide hope—trumped any threat to her personal safety. She took precautions. She wasn’t stupid.
Nick made a noncommittal sound and slowed the vehicle, turning into the parking lot of a nondescript building. A lonely sedan with a dent in the back panel sat in the parking lot. “Good, we caught her.”
Her, no doubt, being his sister. The physician.
Sarah’s mouth went dry. “I can’t. I won’t get out of the car.”
“My sister’s a great doctor. Don’t worry.”
Sarah glanced around the empty parking lot. The lonely country road beyond that. Her stomach knotted.
Suddenly, she was irrationally angry at this man who, on the surface, only wanted to help her.
“You shouldn’t have brought me here,” she bit out.
Under the white glow from the spotlights illuminating the building and parking lot, a flash of something raced across his features. For the second time since she had met him earlier tonight, she noticed the vulnerability in his face. He turned to her, a look of apology in his eyes. “Let my sister take a look. Just a look. If after that you want to go home, I’ll take you. No questions asked.” He cracked his door and the dome light popped on.
Nodding, Sarah squinted against the brightness. Her stomach felt queasy.
The first rule of disappearing—her personal rule—was not to get involved with anyone. Nick Jennings looked a lot like someone who might be worth breaking a rule for.
If only he weren’t a police officer.
Sarah knew more than anyone that sometimes even the guys who were supposed to be good weren’t.
Jimmy Braeden, her stalker ex-boyfriend, was a prime example. Her ex was a cop. And if tonight was any indication, he may have finally found her.
Goose bumps raced across her arms and she shuddered. She turned and saw her hollow eyes in the reflection of the passenger window.
“Okay,” she said, part agreement, part sigh, “I’ll let your sister take a look.” Her acquiescence was mostly to get inside, out of the open. Away from the crosshairs of an abusive man who threatened he’d kill her before he’d ever let her go.
Sarah’s vision narrowed tunnellike as she climbed out of the deputy’s vehicle in the parking lot of the health-care clinic. In a flash, Nick moved next to her and grabbed her arm. Her first instinct was to pull away.
Run.
She blinked up at him.
“Are you okay? Here, sit.” His words sounded distant, jumbled in her ears. She was only partially aware of him yanking open the car door she had just slammed shut and ushering her to a seated position inside his vehicle. He crouched down in front of her and studied her eyes. “Are you dizzy?”
“I stood up too fast.” She had learned to make excuses to cover her panic attacks. It was less embarrassing this way. Her feelings were irrational, self-created, yet she couldn’t always control them.
“You’ve had a head injury.”
Sarah absentmindedly reached up and touched her head and pulled her fingers away, sticky with her own blood. Her stomach lurched and she shoved back a million memories of another time her head had been bleeding. Back then, the man with her hadn’t offered to help. No, it took several hours and a heaping dose of remorse before he came back to her, pleading for forgiveness with a promise to never lift a hand to her again.
Until the next time.
“Do you think you can make it into the clinic? If not, I can get a wheelchair from inside.”
Embarrassment edged out her feelings of anxiety, two emotions that twined around her lungs and made it difficult to breathe. “I can walk in.” One thing her ex-boyfriend had taught her was to pretend to be tough.
She had gotten good at pretending. At a lot of things.
Sarah stood and the officer hung close by her side, holding her elbow. He obviously wasn’t convinced. When they reached the door of the health-care clinic, it was locked. He buzzed the intercom and a crackling voice responded. “Who is it?”
“Christina, it’s Nick. I have a patient for you to examine.” He was talking into the intercom but his intense brown eyes were locked on hers, unnerving her.
“Urgent?” came his sister’s one word response.
“No, a few stitches.”
“Not a good idea,” Sarah muttered. She tried to pull away, but Nick gripped her arm tighter. She winced and he eased his hold, but not completely. She must have appeared as unsteady as she felt.
“I’m not going to let you go home with a head wound. I don’t want to get a call that you ended up dying in your sleep.”
Sarah wasn’t sure if his words were an exaggeration to wear down her resistance or a flat-out lie. She hardly thought her injury was that serious. “I was cut by glass, not hit by the rock.” She lifted her eyebrows and could feel the stiffness of the dried blood on her forehead.
The annoying buzzer released the lock on the door. As the deputy pulled it open, he whispered, “I’m trying to help you. Are you going to fight me every step of the way?”
She shrugged. She imagined she’d thank him one day for insisting she be treated for the cut on her head, sparing her from a lifetime of explaining how she got the scar, but today wasn’t that day.
They reached the dated waiting room. Dark stains—including a now-black piece of bubblegum—marred the bluish-gray carpet. Nick didn’t ask her to sit down on one of the blue plastic chairs, something her pounding head definitely would have appreciated. Instead he guided her through the office with a gentle hand on her waist and found his sister on the phone in the back.
The attractive woman, her long dark hair pulled up into a messy bun, mouthed without making a sound, “Give me a minute.” Her gaze traveled the length of Sarah, a scrutiny Sarah had tried to avoid at all costs since she had moved into the small cottage in Apple Creek and set up her quiet practice through the church.
Sarah’s face heated and the urge to flee nearly overwhelmed her. Don’t have a panic attack. Don’t have a panic attack.
The physician pointed at the open door of an adjacent examination room. Nick understood the silent directive and led Sarah into the room. At his insistence, she sat on the exam table, the white, protective paper crinkling as she scooted back. Nick stood sentinel at her side, and an awkward silence
