Her Perfect Life

by Hinze, Vicki

  “I’ve always loved you, Angel.” His eyes shone earnest. “But I’ve never before spent a night with you when we weren’t at work.”

  “I know.” She stroked his chest, his neck and arm. “That’s why I apologized.”

  “That’s why you shouldn’t apologize,” he said. “I can’t decide if you’re refusing to see the truth because, despite what you say, you can’t forgive me for costing you six years of your life and your marriage, or if it’s just too soon.”

  “See the truth?” Perplexed, she frowned. “What truth?”

  “You see it and even say it, but you don’t get it. I love you, Katie,” he said sharply. “That’s the only reason I’m with you. Because I love you.”

  Her heart raced and her blood thrummed through her veins, pounded in her temples. “Are you telling me that you’re in love with me, C.D.?” She didn’t dare believe it. Didn’t dare dream of it. The letdown would be—she’d never recover. Never. That could not be endured nor conquered.

  He stared at her a long time, either unsure what to say or unwilling to say it. Finally, he answered with a question. “You asked me why I never married, remember?”

  She nodded.

  “I told you I always measure other women against you, remember?”

  Her heart raced faster still, and she nodded again.

  “What would you say if I told you I didn’t just fall in love with you, I have always been in love with you?”

  “I’d say for a man in love, you sure worked your way through a wide swath of women.”

  “What if that was because you were married, and I was looking for a woman who made me feel everything I feel for you and I couldn’t find one?”

  He wasn’t kidding. He wasn’t committing—he was sticking to hypotheticals—but he definitely wasn’t kidding. “I—I don’t know what I’d say,” she answered honestly. “You really think you’re in love with me?”

  “Since the first time we met and you kicked me off your plane.”

  “I—I don’t know what to say. I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around that.”

  “Then let’s forget it for now,” he whispered against her lips, “and communicate in a way we clearly understand.”

  Reeling, Katie welcomed him and lost herself in sensation.

  * * *

  By noon, Katie and C.D. had bought Katie a new loaded silver Highlander with gray leather interior and a sound system that would blast you out of your seat.

  By 1:00, there was a yellow magnetic ribbon on the backend above the bumper that read Support our Troops, and Katie and C.D. were on I-10 midway between Pensacola and Mobile.

  It was just after 4:00 when they pulled into the wooded driveway that led to the secluded twenty acres North of Lake Ponchartrain outside New Orleans her parents called home. By the time she stopped the car in front of the farmhouse and opened the door, her dad was down the porch steps, heading to her with his arms open and his jaw trembling.

  “Katie girl.” Emotion waved ripples in his voice that washed his relief over her. He closed his arms around her and sobbed. “My baby. My baby.” He clutched her to him and she felt his shoulders shudder, the sobs wrack his frail arthritic body.

  “Hi, Daddy.” Hot tears slid down her face and soaked his blue work shirt. She hugged him hard, letting him know she was strong and well and really here.

  C.D. got their bags from the car and went on to the house, not wanting to intrude on this moment. It belonged to Katie and her dad, and that was as it should be.

  When he walked inside, Grace, Katie’s mom, was sitting on the sofa. C.D. set their bags down next to the staircase, walked over and kissed her hello. “Hi, Grace. It’s good to see you again.”

  She didn’t respond, and hope fell in C.D. It was a bad day. Katie just couldn’t seem to catch a break with both hands. He sat down by the door, willing Grace to come around, so at least this reunion would be a happy one for Katie.

  Minutes later, she and her dad walked in laughing. Grace didn’t acknowledge hearing them.

  Frank walked over to her. “Grace, Katie’s home.”

  Katie moved closer, dropped to her knees on the carpet at her mother’s feet. “Hi, Mom.” She looked so much older. Frail and thin-skinned, and her eyes were not glistening with recognition. “Mom, it’s me, Katie.”

  “Of course it is, dear.” She patted Katie’s arm, looked at C.D. and frowned. “I thought you divorced Wonder Man.”

  C.D. smiled.

  “I did.” Katie flushed. “That’s C.D., Mom.”

  “C.D.” She winked. “I always liked you best. You love my Katie. Wonder Man and Sam never did.”

  Frank cleared his throat. “Mmm, Katie, why don’t you get you and C.D. something cold to drink. That’s a long ride.” He patted Grace’s hand and whispered something to her—no doubt, asking her to be quiet or at least a little more discreet.

  “I have always liked him best and I won’t lie about it, Frank. She’s my daughter. I get an opinion.”

  C.D. walked back over, bent down and planted a tender kiss on Grace’s cheek. “You’re right, Grace. I’ve always loved her.”

  She beamed. “See Frank.” She swatted at his arm the same way Katie did at C.D.’s. “You think I’m not all here,” she tapped her head, “but truth is truth, and I know what I know.”

  “Of course, Grace.”

  Looking over at C.D., she whispered, “He never believed I was psychic.”

  “Katie told me.” Grace had, too, when he’d visited to check on her and Frank. Then her mind started going, but she never failed to mention Wonder Man, which he was sure mortified Katie, or her dislike for Sam, or that she liked C.D. best because he loved Katie. Why those things stood out in her mind when so much else failed, C.D. had no idea. Neither did Frank or Grace’s doctors, and they were the best. C.D. had seen to that.

  Katie returned with lemonade for everyone, and soon they were lost in conversation, and only twice, did Katie have to tell her beloved father that she didn’t want to talk about her time in captivity.

  He still asked questions in roundabout ways, but her mother, being as protective as she always had been, caught him every time and intervened with a sharp, “She doesn’t want to discuss it, Frank,” which put to rest Katie’s greatest fear that her mother wouldn’t recognize her.

  And every time her mother reprimanded him, her father would groan and say, “I know, Grace.”

  To which she’d come back with a “Well, if you know, then why are you nagging the girl? Stop nagging the girl, Frank.”

  And every time, C.D. and Katie would exchange a private glance, as couples do, and try their best not to laugh out loud.

  It was a very good day.

  Chapter Nine

  It was very bad night.

  The sand had blown nonstop for three days, choking man and beast and whipping into Katie’s cell through every crevice, stinging her skin, keeping her constantly on her toes, trying to protect her eyes. Her eyelids were bruised, her face tender, and the backs of her knees hurt so much, she could barely bend them. There was no escape from it.

  Sand got into her food, her water, her bed. Though covered with her tattered flight suit, her arms and legs, neck and throat, were raw from the constant pelting, and her nose had been bleeding for the last two days from filtering out the coarse grains inhaled in breathing.

  All up and down the row of cells, men complained and cursed, facing her same challenges. Tempers were short, the guards were mean, and Lieutenant Ustead was meanest of them all.

  Darkness fell, whether due to the storm or because it was night, she had no way of knowing. Three guards appeared at her cell and dragged Katie to the interrogation room.

  “Sit down,” Ustead ordered her, then for the next two hours taunted her with the deaths of her family.

  But he’d done that before, and while she cringed and cried inside, she showed no emotion outwardly.

  Angered more because she didn’t, he beat her and lite
rally threw her to the guards, screaming at them, “Take her back to her cell! Get her out of my sight—now!”

  His punching her in the face drove the flesh of her inner cheek into her teeth and it split and bled. Before she stopped spitting blood, the guards returned for her, pushed and shoved her back to the interrogation room.

  Ustead slammed her against the wall, then stripped her down to her skin and stood her in front of a window where the wind-driven sand drove into her back like nails. He asked her questions, demanded she not move or he’d lash her to within an inch of her life, and she feared the pain of the sand firing into her back would drive her to her knees. She locked them, retreated in her mind to a place he couldn’t reach, and by some miracle stayed upright.

  His anger deepened, as if her lack of response was a personal sleight against him in front of his men, and he beat her again, then ordered his men to take her back to her cell.

  Oh, God. The humiliation of being shoved naked down that row of cells. Jeering. Ribald, lurid comments from the men locked in them, hanging on the bars, watching her. Like her, those men were tortured, but unlike her, they saw humor in her degradation. The guards tossed her into her cell then threw her flight suit in after her. It fell to the floor in a crumpled heap, and Katie’s gaze lit on the patch of the American flag sewn to its sleeve. Freedom. And she prayed, “Please, God. Please, help me.”

  Her back, shoulders to heels, stung like fire. So strong, it had her stomach threatening to revolt, and it took all she had to pull herself to her feet. She bent to pick up her flight suit. A wave of pain crashed through her so intense she broke into a sweat and saw spots before her eyes.

  It took forever to pull on the flight suit. Rough and abrasive, sand-ridden, it scratched her raw skin and brought tears to her eyes. By the time she had it on, she shook so hard she could barely zip it. When she had, she huddled against the wall in the corner to keep the sand from hurting her anymore. She closed her eyes and prayed for mercy, and then she prayed for death.

  But neither came.

  The guards did, and they took her back to the interrogation room for the third time that endless night.

  And this time, Ustead stripped her while his men watched, and then he raped her.

  Inside she screamed and rebelled and then she retreated, and somehow she was no longer a victim inside her body, but a distant observer standing outside herself, across the room. He was beyond furious, he was a raging madman, trying everything humanly possible to hurt her, to make her scream and cry and resist him so that he could degrade her more, violate her more. But observing from a distance, she felt nothing. In her, he touched nothing. She sensed nothing.

  Mercy had come, after all…

  Asleep in the bed she slept in as a child and knowing exactly where she was—home in New Orleans—she dreamed the dream and heard his every curse, felt his every blow. She suffered every rip and tear of her flesh and slap and punch and abuse to her body. And she wept. And she screamed…

  “Katie.” C.D. touched her shoulder.

  She came up out of the bed swinging, landed a right hook to his jaw that had his head spinning.

  “Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare touch me!”

  “Okay. Okay.” He held up his hands. “I’m not touching you. I won’t touch you.” C.D. paused, giving her a second for his words to sink in. “It’s me, Katie. It’s C.D. You were dreaming.” Her eyes were still wild. “You’re safe now. You were dreaming.”

  Her heart knocking against her ribs, Katie dropped her fist and held her hand to her chest. The last haze of sleep left her, though the vivid images in the dream remained. She took in several cleansing breaths, willed the images to fade, and finally saw past them to a worried C.D., standing beside her bed.

  “What are you doing in here?” He was sleeping in the bedroom next door.

  “You were screaming. I came to see if you were okay.”

  “I’m not okay, C.D.” She shuddered at the memory of Ustead’s violation. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay again.” She plopped down on the edge of the bed. “I need a shower.”

  C.D. stepped back. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  She stopped dead in her tracks, turned and stared at him.

  “What they did to you.” He blinked hard and fast and held her gaze. “None of it was your fault.”

  He knew she’d been raped. Embarrassment, shame threaded with fear warred with the logic. Her mouth dry, she swallowed hard. “I know that.”

  “Then why do you need a shower?”

  Her throat thickened. “Because I feel him on me and I want him off.” She shoved her hair back from her face. “I can still smell his skin, his breath, and it makes me sick.”

  “I’m so sorry.” C.D. stepped toward her. “If I could change—”

  It wasn’t just a dream. It was real. It had happened… She shuddered. “You can’t. No one can. It just has to be endured.” She had wrestled with this issue a thousand times and she’d sworn to herself that if the dream proved true, she would not let the people and events in it ruin any more of her life. She was going to be disgustingly healthy or die trying. Now all doubt was gone. She knew she had been raped. That was a fact and it wouldn’t change. But the rape had been an act of violence, and it’d had nothing to do with sex and certainly nothing to do with lovemaking. In her eyes, that’s the way it was, and that was the end of it.

  But how was it in C.D.’s eyes?

  She worried at her lower lip, but couldn’t summon the courage to look at him, so she kept her back to him. “I need to know something.”

  “Anything.”

  “You know what happened to me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Does it change the way you feel about me? I mean, after the divorce, if this between us works out and we . . . settle. Does it change the way you feel about being with me?”

  “Yes,” he answered honestly.

  His response hung heavily in the air between them. Katie couldn’t move. Couldn’t make herself not feel the fear of losing him.

  “Of course it changes my feelings, Angel. Now I know being with me . . . it will take courage from you because of what happened, and yet you still want that for us. You still want me.” He swallowed hard. “I didn’t believe it possible, but now . . . us, together . . . even more special.”

  Tears leaked down her cheeks, and she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She turned and rushed to him, hugged him tightly. “Don’t change, C.D.” She sniffed. “Everything else has changed and that’s okay. I can deal with it. Just as long as you don’t change, I can deal with anything.”

  “I won’t.” He kissed her hair and held her tight. “You’re in my soul, Katie. I’ll love you forever. I swear it on my wings.”

  He’d love her, yes. But stay in love with her? That was a different matter.

  * * *

  By one o’clock on Sunday afternoon, Katie and C.D. had returned to Florida. She walked into the cottage and straight to the kitchen to refill her travel mug with water. The red light on the answering machine was blinking. On her way to the fridge for ice, she tapped it.

  “Hi,” a girl said then hesitated, seemingly unsure what to call Katie. “Um, this is Molly. Jake and I would like to come plant in the garden. Call us if that’s okay.”

  A second message played. “Mom, it’s Jake. I guess you’re not back from Gran and Grandpa’s yet, but when you get back, me and Molly are waiting to come over. Call us, okay?”

  Eager. They were eager. Excited, she hurried to the porch and called up to C.D. He was just about to enter his apartment over the bar. “Hey, C.D. Come hear this.”

  He came down the stairs and joined her on the porch. “You summoned, ma’am.”

  She elbowed him in the ribs. “Knock it off, hotshot. I’m excited.” His breath swooshed out, and she laughed. “The kids want to come over. They want to be with me.”

  A slow smile curled his lips and lighted his eyes. “I have to say, tha
t’s worth the walk back down the stairs.”

  She stroked his arm. “Knee’s sore?”

  “Yeah. I banged it pretty good getting to you when you woke up. . .”

  “Screaming.” Contrite, she looked him in the eye. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, no.”

  “I wish I could promise it won’t happen again, but…”

  “Nightmares are normal, Katie. We’ll work through them.”

  “Thank you.” She cupped his face. “The truth is I wanted to share this with you. Hearing it made me so happy and I—I wanted you . . .”

  He smiled. “You wanting me with you? I’ll tackle steps anytime for that.”

  He would. “Mmm, that’s good to know.”

  “Knowledge is power.” He dropped a line of kisses along her neck and throat. “But I’m safe.”

  Total trust. Oh, but it felt good. “Careful,” she teased. “Knowledge is power and I know just how to wield it with you.”

  “I knew telling you everything would come back to bite me one day.”

  “I’ll be gentle,” she promised, smiled and rubbed their noses.

  “I’m sure of it, Angel.” He curled his arms around her. “And things aren’t that one sided. I have power, too.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “I’m the keeper of your secrets. Always have been.”

  He was, and maybe it should have bothered her, but it didn’t. The trust ran both ways. Comforted in ways she couldn’t begin to explain by that, she smiled. “Ah, détente.”

  “Always.” He winked.

  A hour later, armed with iris bulbs, rose bushes, marigolds and peonies, Katie, C.D., Molly and Jake were all down on their knees planting the garden. Like Katie, Molly loved digging in the dirt. Jake gave it a shot, but didn’t really care for it. He’d brought his guitar and just wanted to hang out, so he’d found himself a spot in the shade under a massive old oak and strummed his guitar, playing song after song for them.