One (Count to Ten Book 1)

by Jane Blythe

  For the moment at least, he was just going to be happy that he had her back alive and that she was recovering. He leaned over the bed, tracing his fingertips over her face, trying to convince himself that she was really here. That he really had a chance to begin a relationship with her.

  A whoosh behind him announced the arrival of his partner. He sighed. “You should be home resting, Kate, you’re injured.”

  “Just a bruise.”

  “And cracked ribs, and you’re pregnant,” he reminded her reproachfully. “Go home, take some painkillers, and get some rest.”

  “I will. How’s she doing?” Kate asked softly.

  “She hasn’t woken up again, but she’s stable.”

  “And how’re you doing?”

  “I'm okay.”

  She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I meant, how are you doing really?”

  He sighed. “I’m tired. I’m grateful Belle’s alive, but guilty that I had to let Ricky Preston go to get her back. I’m angry that he’s got her thinking that she’s weak and to blame for him still being on the loose. And I’m terrified that he might come back and finish what he started. I'm scared that I'm going to mess things up with her before we’ve even started, or that she’s going to walk away as soon as she’s through the worst of this… I guess that about sums it up.”

  “Well, as much as I’d love to fix all those things for you, I can’t. I do, however, have something that may at least help you sort out one of your problems. I dropped by your place to grab you some clean clothes.” She set a bag down on the floor beside him, trying to hide her wince and failing terribly. “And to feed your rabbits. I picked up your mail, I didn’t mean to look but I couldn’t help noticing this one,” she held out an envelope.

  He took it tentatively; it was from Julia.

  “I hope it gives you some closure. I’m going to go home now, get some sleep. Call me if there’s any change in Annabelle's condition, or if you need to talk.” She paused at the door. “Once you’ve read the letter, try to get some sleep. You need it, and Annabelle needs you.”

  Once he was alone, Xavier tore open the envelope and slid out a single piece of paper. Turning on the light beside Annabelle’s bed and pulling his chair closer, he slowly unfolded the letter.

  Dear Xavier,

  I'm writing to say good-bye. I don’t want you to come and visit me again. It’s time for you to let me go. You’re holding on to me for all the wrong reasons. You’re doing it out of guilt and responsibility, not out of love. I know you love me, but I also know that I love you more than you ever loved me. Now that I look back, I've always known it. I don’t want to cause you any more pain, but as long as you hold on to me, I am. I did horrible things, and yet you never turned on me. You’ve stood by me when most men would have walked away. I’ll always love you, Xavier, but I've accepted the fact that you no longer love me, and I love you enough to want you to be happy. So please move on. I’m your past. I’m not your future. I want you to let me go and let yourself be happy. That’s the way you can honor our daughter, by having a life. I hope that you’ll always remember me as not a completely unpleasant part of your past. You know where your future lies, so go get it. Be happy with this Annabelle. Be happy enough for both of us.

  Love,

  Julia

  He stared at the letter for a full minute before folding it and returning it to its envelope.

  He considered Julia’s words.

  That she had loved him more than he had loved her. He supposed that was true. He’d been bewitched by Julia’s beauty, fallen hard for her, but they had never had much in common. That didn’t mean he didn’t love Julia. He did. And it hurt to know that Julia thought he’d only stuck by her because of guilt and a sense of responsibility. Hurt mostly because if he was honest, she was probably right.

  He switched off the light and stood beside the bed, watching as Annabelle’s chest rose and fell evenly as she slept. She whimpered quietly, her face creasing in fear. Xavier reached out a hand to smooth the lines in her forehead.

  He remembered the nights he’d come home late from work or hanging out with friends when he used to lie in bed and watch Julia sleep. Then he’d pull her close and fall asleep with her tangled in his arms. He’d missed that. The intimacy of having someone special in his life. He wanted it again. With Annabelle.

  Gently, he moved Annabelle over a little, carefully so as not to mess with the wires and tubes still attached to her, so he could stretch out on the bed beside her.

  “Xavier?” her faint voice mumbled sleepily.

  “I’m here,” he assured her.

  “Don’t leave me,” she begged, turning into him and burrowing her head against his neck.

  “Never.” He pulled her closer, pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away from you.”

  MAY 15th

  10:29 A.M.

  “How’re you doing?” Xavier asked as he pushed her wheelchair toward the hospital’s cafeteria.

  “My head’s a little fuzzy,” Annabelle replied. This was the first time she’d properly sat up since Ricky had cut the ropes binding her to the punching bag nearly forty-eight hours ago, and her head was protesting a little. Still, she was tired of being cooped up, and when Xavier had offered to take her to the cafeteria, she had readily agreed.

  “You want me to take you back to your room?” he asked.

  “No.” She wanted to at least pretend she was on the road back to being a normal person.

  “Good,” he smiled down at her. “What do you want to eat?”

  Her stomach churned at the very thought of food. “I'm not really hungry.”

  “You need to eat; you need to keep your strength up so you can get better. What about some fruit salad?”

  “I guess,” she reluctantly complied.

  “All right, I’ll be right back.” He pushed her wheelchair up to a table, kissed the top of her head, and then went to the counter to order.

  Annabelle’s chest tightened a little in panic as she watched him walk away. She couldn’t seem to cope with being alone anymore. More specifically, she couldn’t seem to cope without Xavier by her side. He’d stayed with her all night, slept in the bed beside her, only leaving briefly this morning to attend a meeting at work.

  “Hey, I’m back,” Xavier appeared before her.

  She let out a relieved breath.

  “Try to eat as much as you can.” He set a cup of fruit salad in front of her.

  Her stomach lurched, but Xavier was watching her intently, so Annabelle picked up the fork and forced herself to swallow a few pieces of fruit.

  Nodding approvingly, Xavier sat beside her. “We need to talk,” he announced.

  “About what?” She could hear the panic in her voice. Xavier was going to tell her that he wasn’t interested in her after all. That he had just wanted to keep her safe. That he was still in love with Julia.

  “Relax,” Xavier soothed, taking her hands. “There are just some things we need to discuss so that we can make our relationship successful. I want this to work, Belle.” His hazel eyes were serious.

  Nervous anticipation fluttered in her stomach. She still wasn’t sure if she was ready for a relationship, but at the same time, she wanted this to work, too.

  “I need to know what you’re so scared of. I need to know why you don’t date, why you keep getting surprised every time I do something I said I'd do, like you don’t think you deserve it.”

  She chewed on her lip. She wasn’t sure she could face telling someone her secrets again after Ricky. She considered telling Xavier that she was tired and wanted to go back to bed. It wasn’t a lie, she was still exhausted—the doctors had said she could expect to feel drained and tired for the next several days at least.

  Sensing her reluctance, Xavier cupped her face with his hand. “Belle, you can trust me. Tell me why you think you're weak. I want to know what’s going on inside your head so I can help you.”

  “The scars,�
�� she whispered quickly, before she could talk herself out of it.

  “How did you get them?” he asked gently.

  Her eyes grew wide as she realized something. “You already knew I had them. Before you found me in the cellar. In the shower, after I found out what Ricky did to my family, you would have seen them then. But you never mentioned them, never asked me about them. Why?”

  “Because I knew you’d tell me when you were ready.” He gave her an encouraging smile. “How old were you when you got them?”

  “I was four.”

  “Your parents?” he asked tightly. She could see the fury crackling in his eyes.

  “No.” It warmed her to see how outraged he was over what had happened to her.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t really know; I don’t remember it properly.”

  “What do you remember?” he pressed.

  “A man with a scary face and lots of screaming, and we were in a dark room. But that’s it, then I remember police officers coming, and then I was back home.” Annabelle had spent the last twenty years debating whether or not she wanted to know exactly what had happened.

  “What happened after? When you were back home?”

  “Everything changed,” she replied softly.

  Reaching over, Xavier lifted her out of the wheelchair and settled her on his lap. “Changed how?”

  “They didn’t love me anymore,” her voice wobbled.

  He wrapped his arms tighter around her. “How do you know that?”

  Resting her head on his strong shoulder, she said, “They were cold and distant. They didn’t love me anymore. How could they?”

  “That’s why you don’t date? Because you think if your parents couldn’t love you, no one else could?” He pulled her back so he could see her face. “Belle, listen to me, I'm sure your parents still loved you. Maybe they blamed themselves and that’s why they couldn’t be affectionate with you anymore. I don’t know. But I do know that I don’t want you to feel like you're unloved ever again, because I love you.”

  Annabelle wanted to believe that. She really wanted to believe that. When she’d been tied up in her basement, she had convinced herself that she believed it. But now that she was safe, she wasn’t sure if she really did.

  “It’s okay, Belle.” Xavier was smiling at her. “If you can't believe it just yet, you will. If you just trust me, then you’ll believe it one day. Now, about Julia…”

  “You don’t have to explain, Xavier,” she cut him off. “I understand. I'm not sure I believe quite yet that you’ll never leave me for her, but I will,” she finished firmly. She had been given a second chance at life, and this time she wasn’t going to waste it by being weak and scared.

  “There’s something else we need to talk about,” he announced.

  “What?” She rested her head again against his shoulder. It was beginning to ache, and she was starting to feel sleepy.

  “You need counseling,” he said gently. “You haven’t even had time to process losing your family, then Ricky abducting you, assaulting you. You need to get help. I don’t want it to destroy you.”

  Annabelle understood that given what had happened with his ex-wife, Xavier needed her not only to get help but also to not shut him out like Julia had.

  “It’s not just for you; I need counseling, too. Kate said to me just after we met you that I was in no place to be helping anyone deal with trauma. She was right. I haven’t dealt with what happened with Julia, but I’m going to. If you’re willing, I’d like us to do it together.”

  Catching the nervousness in his voice, Annabelle realized that he was as anxious about starting a relationship as she was, and that knowledge was comforting. “I'd like that, too,” she murmured, fighting to keep her eyes open now.

  “Time to go back to your room, I think.” Xavier gently set her back in the wheelchair.

  They were halfway to her room when a thought occurred to her. “Xavier, where am I going to go when I get released from here? I can't go back to my house. I can sell it and buy another, but that will take time. I don’t want to go back to the motel where Ricky abducted me. Obviously I can’t go and stay with him, and I don’t have any other friends…” She was rambling but unable to stop.

  “Shh,” Xavier knelt in front of her. “You know I want you to stay with me, but I don’t want you to feel pressured. If you want, we can find another hotel. Or maybe you could stay with Kate and her husband; I'm sure she wouldn’t mind. Whatever makes you feel safe and comfortable.”

  She hesitated. “I want to stay with you, but…”

  “But what, honey?” he asked, when she didn’t continue.

  “I'm scared. I don’t want to hurt you. I think that I’m…I’m falling in love with you. But what if I'm just scared? What if I just don’t want to be alone, and I'm just deluding myself into believing that I love you because I need someone with me?” Annabelle thought that she was truly falling for Xavier, but she couldn’t deny the possibility that he had been her rock through all this, and maybe that was all he’d ever be.

  He rested his elbows on the arms of the wheelchair so his face hovered just inches from hers. “I've already thought of that.”

  “Then why are you still here?” For the life of her, Annabelle couldn’t understand what it was Xavier thought he saw in her that was so attractive.

  “I've already told you, I’m falling in love with you,” he answered simply.

  “Why?”

  “There is no why.” He brought his face closer. “We fall for whomever we fall for, and I've fallen for you. I'm going to take some time off work.”

  “Because of me?” Annabelle couldn’t deny that knowing Xavier could be by her side every day was comforting, but she didn’t want to disrupt his life any more than she already had.

  “Yes and no.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” She wasn’t used to people wanting to help her.

  “It’s not just for you; it’s for me, too. We both need some time to sort things out. So I don’t want you to worry about being alone. I'm not going anywhere.” His voice dropped to a whisper and he brushed his lips softly against hers. “All right, back to bed for you, you're wiped out.”

  He pushed her back to her room, then lifted her into his arms. Xavier paused for a moment and she felt his contented sigh. When he placed her on the bed, he arranged the blankets around her.

  Half asleep now, she grabbed his hand. “Hold me. Please.”

  “Gladly.”

  Just as he had last night, he stretched out beside her, spooning her against him. Tucking her hand under her cheek, Annabelle froze as she felt a piece of paper under her pillow. Thinking that seemed odd she picked it up. “Xavier?”

  “What is it, Belle?”

  “This was under my pillow.” She passed him the folded piece of paper.

  He took it, read it, and his body tensed.

  Immediately on edge, she asked, “What is it?”

  “Go to sleep now, Belle,” Xavier commanded quietly.

  “What is it?” she repeated, wearily pushing herself up so she could see him properly.

  “Go to sleep,” Xavier was sitting now, reaching for his phone.

  “Xavier?” Annabelle couldn’t quite keep the whimper from her voice as panic was rapidly welling up inside her.

  Sighing, he paused, his hazel eyes met hers. “It’s a note from Ricky.”

  Trembling, she asked, “What does it say?”

  “It says, ‘Annabelle, thanks for the good times, until we meet again’,” he answered reluctantly, watching her closely.

  “Oh,” was all she could utter. It was bad enough knowing Ricky was still out there somewhere, but to know he intended to come back was beyond terrifying.

  He crushed her fiercely against his chest. “I’ll find him, Belle.”

  Xavier kept hold of her with one arm, with his other he dialed Kate and explained about the note.

  Tuning out his voice, Annabelle tried
to let his warmth soothe her, his beating heart comfort her, his promises reassure her. She tried to believe that somehow there could one day be a light at the end of the dark tunnel she was trapped in.

  * * * * *

  12:00 P.M.

  Ricky felt pleased with how things had turned out.

  Barney Adams was still alive, but he’d lost his parents, his wife, and his son. All he had left was his troublesome teenage daughter. Perhaps that was enough to make him suffer just as Ricky himself had suffered all these years. And, if he changed his mind, he could always come back and kill them both.

  He’d come back for Annabelle, too.

  Knew he wouldn’t be able to resist.

  There was something about that girl that intrigued him. She was weak and scared and pathetic, and yet at the same time strong and resilient. He knew he would enjoy finally taking her out. In the meantime, he could revel in the knowledge that she was tormented knowing he was out there somewhere waiting to come back and get her.

  He tingled delightedly as he thought of all the fun he could still have. He was free. Free to kill over and over again. Nothing could make him stop. He was addicted. When he’d started on this journey, Ricky had simply been after revenge for his mother’s murder. He’d never realized he would enjoy killing so much. But enjoy it he did. And the bloodier, the better.

  Relaxed and happier than he’d ever been, Ricky breathed in the spring sunshine. With a last look at the hospital, he smiled. “Until we meet again, Annabelle,” he murmured as he climbed into the cab.

  Also by Jane Blythe

  Detective Parker Bell Series

  A SECRET TO THE GRAVE

  WINTER WONDERLAND

  DEAD OR ALIVE

  LITTLE GIRL LOST

  FORGOTTEN