She paused, and silence stretched in the brightly lit room. Only the sound of the clock ticking broke the quiet.
“I never got to call you. I checked in to the motel, and a man grabbed me from behind just as I unlocked my door. He shoved me into the room and attacked me.” Her sentences were short and choppy, but her voice was blank, without emotion. “When he left, he put the Do Not Disturb sign on the outside doorknob. The motel cleaning staff didn’t find me for two days. They called the ambulance. The hospital called my mother. After I was released from the hospital, Mother rented an apartment for me in Great Falls so that I could stay in therapy. It was three weeks before I realized that I was pregnant.”
Josh made an inarticulate noise in his throat and she looked up at him. A muscle ticked in his jaw, and his eyes were alive with tortured emotion.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I wanted to, at first, but later…” Her voice drifted off, pain and regret throbbing in the husky tones. She forced herself to continue her story. “Anyway, I was pregnant. Mother demanded that I have an abortion.”
“Why didn’t you?” Josh couldn’t hold back the question.
“Because I didn’t know if it was our baby.” Her gaze met his, unconsciously pleading for his understanding. “I was barely able to function—both emotionally and physically—but I knew I wanted our baby. I couldn’t bring myself to destroy a child that we might have created when we’d made love.”
The instant, leaping blaze of emotion in his eyes reassured her and she dropped her glance.
“Mother finally conceded that I was too unwell to make the decision, but she insisted that I give the baby up for adoption at birth. I agreed. I felt I would know when the baby was born whether or not you were the father. I was sure that your genes would dominate over mine and your baby would have black hair and turquoise-blue eyes, not my blond hair and light blue eyes.” She shrugged slightly. “But the truth was, after I carried J.J. in my body for nine months, I couldn’t bear to give him to someone else to love. He was mine, regardless of who his father was. And then he was born. His hair was silver-blond, like mine, and his eyes were emerald green.” Sarah looked Josh squarely in the eye. “No one in my family has green eyes— except for Caitlin, and hers are like her father’s. The man who raped me had dark blond hair and brown eyes.”
Josh didn’t flinch. “What happened to the son of a bitch?” He ground out the question. “Was he arrested?”
“Yes.” Sarah nodded. “But I never had to testify at a trial. He confessed to a string of robberies and rapes across Colorado and Montana and was returned to Colorado for trial. He was killed in a prison fight a year later.”
Josh wasn’t sure if he was glad or not. He ached to get his hands on the man; red-hot rage at the man who’d dared to hurt her filled him with blood lust. “I see,” he managed to say.
“Mother was furious when I told her I was going to keep J.J.,” Sarah continued. “She told me that I couldn’t bring him home to Butte Creek. She said our reputation would be ruined and the disgrace would be unbearable.”
Josh leaned forward, his body tense. “You let your mother keep you away all this time?”
“Partly, but it wasn’t just my mother, Josh.” Sarah’s own body tensed, her fingers holding on to her cup with punishing force, as if the action would ground her. “By the time J.J. was born, I’d been in therapy for nine months, learning to deal with the trauma of being attacked. I remained in intensive counseling for three months after his birth, but I couldn’t get past my fear of men.” She lifted her gaze to his, her expression sad but resigned. “I just couldn’t, Josh. I’m still incapable of enduring physical contact with a male. It took months for me to be able to get on an elevator if there was a man inside.” She gestured with her hand at the kitchen. “That’s why J.J. and I are here instead of Aunt Molly’s. Uncle Wes is used to giving me affectionate hugs—but I can’t bear to have him put his arms around me. I can’t tell him why.” A brief, bitter smile twisted her mouth. “He might understand, but the truth is, most people don’t want to hear about it. They don’t want to know this happened to someone they love.”
“Is that why you didn’t tell me?” Josh asked tightly.
“Partly,” Sarah admitted. “But more because I had nothing to offer you, Josh. I’ll never be able to be physically intimate with a man, so marriage is out of the question. I’m incapable of giving any man what he has a right to expect from his wife— an intimate, satisfying male-female relationship.”
“Did he…” Josh stopped and cleared his throat. “Did he hurt you? Was there physical—”
“No,” Sarah said hastily. “It’s emotional. I can’t control my emotional reaction—I know it’s not rational. The counselor said it was like being claustrophobic—I just can’t seem to get past the terror.”
“And that’s why you wrote me that letter?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you’d found someone else.”
“I’m sorry, Josh.” Her heart hurt at the brief flash of desolation in his blue eyes. “I thought I was doing the right thing,” she whispered painfully. “There was no future for us, and I wanted you to forget me and go on, to be happy—”
“Happy?” Josh searched the fragile contours of her face. “Is that what you are? Happy?”
Sarah was silent for a moment, considering. “I don’t know that I’m happy, Josh. I’ve come to accept that my life is limited to my work and J.J.”
Josh struggled with rage at the man who’d hurt her, frustration that she’d waited five years to tell him, pain for the struggle she’d endured, and his own anger and hurt that she hadn’t trusted him enough to share that struggle with him.
He sighed heavily and scrubbed his hand over his face. “Sarah…” he said wearily. “What the hell are we going to do about this?”
“Nothing,” she answered softly. He looked up quickly, disbelievingly. “Nothing. There isn’t anything we can do without one of us getting hurt even more. A long time ago I accepted that I only have J.J. to love. He’s the only male I’ll ever be able to hold.”
Josh disagreed. He had an instinctive, primal need to deny that her future held only J.J.
“If none of this had happened five years ago,” he said, his gaze intent on hers, “did you love me enough to marry me?”
Sarah didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
He didn’t doubt her. The soft, emotion-filled, single word ripped through his chest and straight into his heart.
“And I loved you.” He watched tears spring into her eyes as he said the quiet words, and hope budded slowly, unfurling tiny green shoots in the desert wasteland that for so long had been his heart. He reached for her, his hands closing over hers where they wrapped around her mug. With careful patience his fingers gently pried hers loose and cradled them in his own. “If we’d been married back then, before it happened, what would you have done, Sarah?”
Sarah stared at him. His lashes were lowered, his gaze fastened on the tabletop where her hands lay sheltered in his much bigger, darker ones. Callused palms up, his hands held hers loosely, her palms resting against his while his thumbs moved in gentle, soothing, rhythmic strokes across the backs of her hands.
“What would I have done?” Distracted by the slow, brushing movements of his thumbs over her skin, she waited with sick expectancy for the debilitating panic, revulsion and the brassy taste of fear that always accompanied being touched. It didn’t come. Sarah’s gaze left the sight of their joined hands and lifted to his. He was watching her intently and she frowned faintly. “About what?”
“About us,” he said softly. “If you’d legally been my wife, would you have come home to me? Or would you have written that letter?”
“I…” Sarah faltered. Silence stretched while she considered. “I wouldn’t have written you a letter,” she said finally. “I would have told you in person…and I would have told you the truth.”
Josh knew a surge of relief. “A
nd then what?”
“Then…” She paused again, gazing helplessly at him. “I guess what happened next would have been up to you. But, Josh, I still wouldn’t have been able to let you touch me.”
Josh glanced significantly down at their hands, palm to palm, atop the table.
“I’m touching you now.”
“I know,” Sarah acceded, her fingertips pressing tentatively, testingly against the hard warmth of his. “And it’s more than I’ve been able to deal with from anyone else—even Uncle Wes. But there’s a big difference between holding hands and making love.”
“True.” Josh nodded. Silence reigned in the kitchen while he considered what she’d told him. “You said you were in therapy for—how long? Nine months?”
“Closer to twelve.”
“Were you alone? Or were there other women there?”
“Both. I had individual counseling and then, later, group meetings.”
“So you talked to other women who’d been through this?”
“Yes.”
“Were any of them married?”
“Yes, quite a few of them were.”
“Did they all have the same feelings you have about being touched?”
Sarah nodded slowly. “All of us had difficulties of one sort or another.”
“How did the married ones deal with their husbands?”
“You mean, how did they deal with making love?”
“Yeah.” Josh’s thumbs continued their slow, calming strokes across her hands.
Sarah shrugged. “Some of the men couldn’t deal with it. They treated their wives as if they’d been unfaithful. Several of the women in my group were divorced by their husbands within a year or two.”
Disgusted, Josh swore under his breath. “What about the others?”
“They struggled,” Sarah said simply. “But for most of them, it got better with time.”
“So some women do get past this,” he said thoughtfully. “Tell me what you feel when you’re touched, Sarah. I want to understand.”
“Afraid,” she whispered. “And threatened—terrified.” Her vision lost focus, her gaze turned inward. “And that’s just when a man moves within a few feet. I’ve learned to control the fear—until I’m touched. Then I get cold, sick—all I can see is his face, the noises he made, the pain…” She broke off, visibly collecting herself. “I’m sorry, Josh. I hate that I have no control over my reactions, and I hate talking about this.”
Josh fought down the need to grab her and hold her close, forcing himself to speak deliberately and calmly. “Then don’t. Instead, let’s talk about the married women you knew who got better with time. How did they get well?”
Sarah thought about the women who, supported by loving husbands, had fought their way through the nightmare and survived with their marriages intact.
“They had husbands with infinite patience,” she said. His thumbs paused, his fingers tightening against hers. “But none of them were as paranoid about being touched as I was, Josh—as I still am,” she added.
“Maybe,” he responded quietly. “But you never tried, Sarah. You never let me try.”
“I know, but…” Infinite patience. Memories of making love with Josh the first time flashed through her mind. He’d had infinite patience with her innocence, even though he’d been shaking with need, sweat pouring from his big body as he held himself in check to assure her pleasure.
Josh watched doubt chase rejection from her expressive features, to be replaced by a tiny flash of hope. That small spark gave him the courage to go on.
“I loved you more than life five years ago, Sarah,” he said quietly. “When you left, you took my heart with you. I never got it back. I’ve been walking around breathing, but I’m dead inside.” Tears welled in her eyes, trembling on her lower lashes before spilling over to slide slowly down her cheeks. Josh cupped her chin in one big hand and smoothed a salty drop from the corner of her mouth with the pad of his thumb. “I still love you—I always will. You’re mine—you’ve been mine since the first time we made love. In my heart we’re as married as a man and woman can get, even if we didn’t have the preacher say the words.”
“Josh…” Sarah breathed, tears painfully clogging her throat, stopping her words. His gaze held her, his turquoise eyes dark, intense with emotion.
“Shh,” he said softly. “I want my heart back. I want you, Sarah. Well or not, I don’t care. I want you to let us try to heal each other. Give us a chance.”
She teetered on the edge of indecision, her face giving away the hope that warred with the fear within her. Josh managed a small smile and gently tucked a pale strand of hair behind her ear. He purposely let his fingers linger in the blond silk; though she stiffened with apprehension, she didn’t flinch and move away. By the time his fingers brushed the soft skin of her cheek, Sarah was visibly trembling. Still, Josh was encouraged by the yearning that lay beneath the fear in her eyes and the electricity that arced between them when his fingertips stroked gently against the smooth satin skin. He’d often dealt with damaged, abused horses during his many years spent training; he was banking heavily that the same methods of patience and love that had worked for him in the past would work again. Never had he gambled so much, and he refused to contemplate losing.
“Come on,” he coaxed gently. “All you have to do is promise to cooperate and trust me not to hurt you. I promise I’ll let you make all the moves, and I’ll be patient for as long as it takes.”
Tempted but unconvinced, Sarah managed a wobbly smile of her own. “What if it takes years?”
Josh shrugged. “It might—or it might not. You’ve already spent a year in therapy and four more years coming to terms with what happened to you. But even if it takes days, weeks, months or years, we’ll be together while we’re getting there.”
Sarah’s face sobered. “I don’t want you to waste your life waiting for something that might never happen.”
“I don’t have a life without you, Sarah.” His voice held deep conviction.
Regret flooded Sarah. She’d thought she’d saved him pain by keeping him from becoming involved in her limited recovery. Instead, the opposite had happened. Much as she dreaded the strong possibility of failure, she owed him. the chance he asked.
She drew a deep breath and withdrew her hand from his. “I don’t know that I believe anything we do will cure me, Josh. But you’re right. I never gave you—us—the chance to work through the fear together.” She squared her shoulders, pushed back her chair and stood to look down at him. ’’Where do we start?”
Josh smiled at her, relief flooding through him. “You’re a brave woman, sweetheart. Thank you.”
Sarah shook her head at him. “I think we both must be slightly insane. You realize we could both get hurt by this?”
“Nothing could hurt worse than the last five years without you.” He shoved back his chair and rose.
“You’re right,” she said softly. Their gazes tangled, the pain of long years without each other lying unspoken between them. “So…” Sarah’s voice was husky with emotion. “Where do we start?”
“You decide,” he answered.
Sarah stared at him. He was so big—broader than her, taller than her, stronger than her and easily a hundred pounds heavier than her. Still, he waited patiently, his very lack of motion quieting her instinctive uneasiness.
“Do you want to go upstairs?” she asked, testing him.
Josh’s muscles tensed, his body responding to her words with a surge of hot arousal. “If that’s what you want, honey.”
“All right,” she said with decision. “We’ll go upstairs.” She turned on her heel and left the kitchen. And even though Josh allowed several feet of space between them, her spine tingled with awareness, anticipation and dread.
The door to her bedroom stood open and Sarah halted abruptly on the threshold. She’d switched the lamp on earlier, and the small globe cast a circle of golden light over turned-down sheets on the fourpost
er bed. The rest of the room was in shadows, creating a mysterious, seductive intimacy from the familiar furnishings.
Uneasy, Sarah forced herself to step into the room, watching Josh as he, too, moved over the threshold and then past her. He stopped, slowly surveying the room and its furnishings before his gaze returned to rest on her.
“We won’t do anything you don’t want, honey,” he said softly, assessing the swift throb of her pulse at the base of her throat and her fingers clenched around the sash of her robe. “Do you want to go back downstairs?”
Through sheer will, Sarah managed to force her tense muscles to ease slightly. She shook her head. “No.”
“All right.” He stood perfectly still, hands thrust into his pockets, and waited. The silence stretched. “What do you want to do first?”
Sarah tugged the fingers of one hand through her hair. “I don’t know, Josh. I’ve never had a man in my bedroom before.” Nerves strung tight, she frowned at him. “Can’t we just get into bed and get this over with?”
If Josh’s emotions hadn’t already been walking a tightrope, he would have laughed aloud at the exasperation in her voice and on her face.
“We can get in bed,” he agreed solemnly. “But first I have to take off my boots.” He crossed the room with slow, steady strides. Bending, he caught the top sheet and light blanket, half tossing, half folding them to the foot of the bed before he sat on the edge of the mattress, his thigh nudging the lace-edged pillow. Expecting any moment for her to tell him to stop, he tugged off his boots and set them aside before he looked back at her. “Do you want me to take off anything else?”
Understanding dawned slowly and Sarah’s pulse quickened. “Do I get to decide everything we do?” she asked carefully, determined to define the limits of her control and understand the rules.
He's Got His Daddy's Eyes Page 15
