she’d been utterly vulnerable, counting on him, at least, to be a friend. He still didn’t know exactly what had possessed him to be so cruel, but who could understand the mind of a twenty-year-old male anyway? Not even the male involved, evidently. There was more than one stupid act in his youth, although his treatment of Nora probably topped the list.
He ate another mouthful of pie, hardly tasting it, wondering what he could say to start building a bridge he never should have destroyed in the first place. It was clear she didn’t even want to hear an apology.
Finally he said the only thing he could think of. “I wouldn’t have suspected you.”
Her face lifted and she looked straight at him. He felt a pang as he once again saw how thin and pale she had become, how worn she looked. Even her beautiful blond hair seemed to be on the brink of death. He didn’t know, might never know, all that had been done to her.
“Really?” she asked, her voice brittle. “Even my defense attorney wouldn’t agree with you.”
His head jerked a bit, as if she had slapped him. “What do you mean?”
“He agreed with the cops. I’d worked with the guy’s kid, so I must have known him. Must have had an affair with him. Must have tried to conceal his identity to hide the affair. Must have obstructed justice. Never mind that I never met him, only his wife.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sure. Everyone was sorry afterward. But that didn’t get my job back. It didn’t protect me from the endless hounding of the press. It didn’t spare me from people who believed that simply because I was arrested I must be involved somehow. Do you have any idea how that felt?”
“I can’t begin to imagine.” And he honestly couldn’t, although he was trying.
“So they finally let me out, and the D.A. said something to the press about how they had proved unequivocally I was in no way involved with the man before the attack. People avoided me like the plague for all of a week, and then the media were all over me all over again, demanding to know my relationship with the man, what I’d done to make him so mad at me and then...and then...” She stopped, breathing hard, her voice breaking.
“And then he threatened you.”
She looked down, her long hair veiling her face. “Don’t go there,” she whispered. “Don’t go there.”
“You should have had protection.”
“Well, I didn’t. He was an upstanding member of the community, no flight risk... Yeah, I heard it all. Even I didn’t think he’d be stupid enough to make those threats.”
He wanted to reach across the table and take her trembling hands, wanted to promise her a safety no one could promise her.
But before he could say or do anything, she pushed herself out of the booth. “I’m going home. Now.”
Home. The place that had been part of her misery when she had been growing up her. To a dad who had been less than a dad. A dad who had treated her as harshly as her schoolmates.
Maude caught his eye and he saw a frown there as Nora hurried toward the door. Okay, he’d been stupid again, and Maude had heard it all.
Jake hurriedly tossed bills on the table, then followed Nora into the night.
“Wait,” he called after her. “Wait. I said I’d take you home.”
“I don’t want anything from you. Nothing!”
From the looks of her, he doubted she had the energy to keep up that pace, and certainly not for three blocks. Hopping into his cruiser, he did the only thing he could: he followed her.
She didn’t even glance over at him as he drove beside her. She made it to the next street and started up the gentle slope toward her father’s house. Just a couple more blocks.
But she didn’t make it. The small hill defeated her. Her steps slowed, and then she stumbled. He threw the car into Park and climbed out, rushing to her side.
It wasn’t just weakness that was giving her problems, he realized, but the anger, as well. She was gasping as if she’d just run a marathon.
She had enough strength to glare at him, though. He didn’t care. This time he was going to do something right.
Without even asking, he scooped her off her feet and carried her to his car. Ignoring the way her fists pounded weakly at him, he managed to free a hand and open the door, thinking that she couldn’t weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet.
Bending, he put her gently on the seat, and even though she refused to look at him, he touched the side of her face gently.
“Nora,” he said softly. “Nora, honey, you’ve got to take it easy. You’ve been so ill....”
“I’m not your honey!”
Then she coughed, and started panting again.
“Easy,” he said as he would have said to a restless mare. “Easy. I’ll get you home.”
He climbed into the driver’s seat, but before he put the car in Drive, he turned to look at her. “It’ll take time to get your strength back. Give yourself time.”
She gave a short nod, but still wouldn’t look at him.
Okay, he thought. This was it for tonight. He’d just get her home, see her safely to her door, then leave her alone for now.
Everything else would just have to wait.
Chapter 2
Nora awoke with a start in the morning. Confusion filled her momentarily as it often did now that her nights were plagued with nightmares about the attack and the threats to repeat it. Then she recognized the drab, faded curtains on the window, saw the thin slices of a gray morning slipping by them, and knew.
She was at home, at her father’s house. Once the worst place in the world to be, and now only the second-worst place. That didn’t say much for it.
She didn’t want to get up, but she rarely did any longer. She felt tired, lacked energy, lacked the desire to do anything anymore. Depression. Pills for it stood on her nightstand, and she took them only because the alternative was worse. But she had a reason to feel depressed, and she wondered if pills could really help that.
The sheets on her old bed smelled musty enough that she suspected her father hadn’t washed them. They probably hadn’t been washed since the last time she’d been here, for her mother’s funeral. It wouldn’t surprise her.
She listened, hoping it was late enough that her dad would have gone to work. She had nothing to say to him, and he had nothing to say to her. Not anymore.
Unfortunately, the late-night coffee, little as she had drunk of it, insisted she get up anyway. Pulling on her robe and slippers, she left her room and padded to the ancient bathroom off the kitchen. It hadn’t changed. Not one bit. Except maybe the tile had been regrouted. She couldn’t be sure.
A glance at the
