“Fabian Holloway called to schedule me an appointment,” Francesca told the woman. “My name is Francesca Ormonde.”
“Of course!” The assistant grabbed a clipboard. “If you could just fill this out, Dr. Thorpe will be with you presently.”
“Thank you.” Francesca said it though she didn’t feel it. So, she took the clipboard and sat down.
She had always hated these questionnaires. They were horribly invasive and sort of rude in tone. She didn’t particularly want to tell this stranger what her sleep habits were or who she confided in, in her regular life. She didn’t feel like it was Dr. Thorpe’s business if she was sleeping with someone or whether or not she drank socially. Still, Francesca dutifully filled out the long patient information packet and provided as many details as possible. She could only hope that the more stuff she put down on this packet, the less she would have to say out loud. It rarely worked like that, but a girl could hope.
QUENTIN STARED AT Francesca’s car neatly parallel parked on the curb in front of 101 Bowdoin Street. He paced back and forth in front of the little vehicle two or three times as he tried to decide how to proceed. It wasn’t necessarily certain how she would greet him. If the therapist’s reaction to those very minimal facts about his service record were any indicator, she wasn’t going to be very supportive of any relationship that Francesca might want to have with Quentin.
It was so damn frustrating! The same things that won you a purple heart or some medal of merit during wartime made people shrink away in horror when you got home to civilization. Coming back from war to his hometown had been a disaster. Quentin was hailed as a hero, and yet they looked at him as though he were a pariah or some kind of rabid beast that they were secretly afraid would eat their children. Eventually, it had driven him to seek solace in the bottom of a bottle, with extremely negative results.
A man could only get drunk and disorderly so many times before he was thrown in jail and considered a menace to society. During that time, his family had made him see a psychiatrist. He had been diagnosed with PTSD—a big “duh” moment for him—and then they had tried to medicate the shit out of him. It didn’t work. The cortisol drops had worked. He had taken those. But trying to numb his brain with antidepressants had only made him feel worse.
He looked up at the building. It reeked of an upscale office building. It was one of those places where someone had converted a stately old home—a huge one—into the sort of offices that cost an arm and a leg every month to rent. There was a feeling in the pit of Quentin’s stomach that told him he knew exactly what was up there. Something else told him that Francesca had as much of an aversion to that sort of doctor as he did.
I’m not leaving her up there alone.
Resolution filled him with strength. Quentin strode toward the building with a renewed sense of purpose. He would go upstairs, and he would wait. And even if Francesca told him to leave, he wouldn’t do it. Not until they had a chance to talk things out.
His boots echoed in the stairwell. He marched up those stairs. One flight. Two flights, three flights, and then he pushed his way through the door into a dazzling scene of mental serenity. At least he was pretty sure that’s what they wanted people to think. Mental serenity. It was something that people purchased at a premium while simultaneously trying to pretend that it worked. At least that had been his experience with that sort of thing.
“Can I help you, sir?” The perky administrative assistant peered at him through the window.
“I’m looking for Francesca Ormonde.” He was glad that he could remember her last name correctly. He hated calling her Hyde-Pierson. He knew Ava wasn’t all that fond of her married name either. Understandably so, when you thought about it.
“Please have a seat.” The assistant looked uncomfortable. “Are you a family member?”
He cocked his head to one side. “I’m her bodyguard.” Ah, the joys of the privacy laws.
“Right.” The assistant looked even more uncertain. “Please just have a seat, then.”
“Of course.” Quentin settled down to wait. He could be a little bit patient. For a while.
FRANCESCA WAS ALREADY feeling panicky, and the psychologist had only asked about the most basic medical history. She did not want to do this. The room didn’t feel safe. It felt sterile. The walls were stark white and filled floor to ceiling with framed degrees, awards, and photographs of the office’s occupant with prominent members of the community—mostly politicians. There were thick books on the shelves that had never been touched.
The psychologist doing the assessment had a snarky expression on her face, and it was readily apparent that she very much liked having the approval of a judge who would send her clients, regardless of whether or not they wanted to be there.
“And who diagnosed you with PTSD?” Dr. Grimes cocked her head to one side and stared at Francesca as though she were on display in a museum. “It’s a rather odd diagnosis. Don’t you think?”
Francesca blinked. Didn’t she think? It was her diagnosis! There was no yes-or-no answer to that question. She bit her lower lip and tried desperately to tamp down on the urge to flee. She should not have come here alone. It was stupid to be mad at Quentin. He was a soldier. No matter what Josie Waller said, Francesca felt as though she could not judge Quentin without at least hearing him out. He was like a wolf or a bear. She couldn’t be mad at a predator for behaving like one.
Dr. Grimes snapped her fingers in Francesca’s face. “Excuse me?”
“Sorry, I have a lot on my mind,” Francesca murmured.
“One would think you would be focused on this if you’re truly capable of taking care of yourself,” Dr. Grimes said in a snide tone of voice. “Although, I find that women who have been cared for all their lives have difficulty understanding the true gravity of the responsibilities of handling their own affairs.”
“So, basically, you’ve already made your decision,” Francesca said quietly. “How lovely. You’ve asked me four questions about my family medical history. You’ve decided that the diagnosis given to me by my therapist and by a prominent psychiatrist here in Boston is not to your liking. And, essentially, your attitude suggests that my late husband’s brother, Stedman Hyde-Pierson, is pulling your strings.” Francesca stood up.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Dr. Grimes stood as well. She was still scribbling furiously on her clipboard.
Francesca snorted. “I’m leaving. You’re rude. You appear to be ethically compromised, and I assure you that my attorney will be subpoenaing any pertinent information to that fact in order to supplement my case. Give my best regards to my ex-brother-in-law.”
“You’re obviously very paranoid.” Dr. Grimes’s expression left Francesca feeling almost hunted. “I’m going to have to make a recommendation to the court in accordance with that.”
“You go right ahead,” Francesca retorted. “And you can kiss your license goodbye while you’re at it. Didn’t Stedman tell you? People who side with him go down hard. Look at the example of my late husband.”
With those final words, Francesca stomped her way out of Dr. Grimes’s unfriendly office. She was so close to tears that her breathing was ragged. She stumbled into the sunny reception room and wondered how the atmosphere of that room could be so warm and welcoming when the doctor behind the door was such a horrid person.
“Francesca?”
She looked up, tripping and nearly falling. Her knees would have hit the floor if Quentin hadn’t reached out and so very gently steadied her on her feet.
“Are you all right?”
A tear snaked down her cheek. “Please just get me out of here.”
Chapter Thirteen
The blood pumping furiously through Quentin’s veins was filled with a mixture of adrenaline and cortisol. He could recognize this. He felt it in the battle reflexes that caused him to jump each time he heard a door slam, or to startle if he scented something that triggered a particular memory.
Ri
ght now, he was struggling to calm down. Everything inside him wanted to fight. It would have been so much easier had there been an identifiable foe. If he could have kicked someone’s ass right now, he would have been fine. The anger would burn off, and he could return to normal. Sort of.
Instead, he was stuck with a reality that made him feel helpless. Francesca was sitting on the sofa with a cup of hot tea in her hands. The way she was holding it—with her hands wrapped around the delicate little china cup—made it seem as though she were trying to soak up as much of the welcome heat as possible. Her expression was vacant. He’d seen her look that way plenty of times before. This time was different. This time, he felt responsible somehow.
“Stop pacing, please?”
He stopped moving mid-stride. The abrupt cessation of movement caused his body to settle immediately into parade rest. Quentin glanced up at Francesca and was so glad to see something approaching life in her eyes that he didn’t particularly care that her tone had been exasperated.
Quentin cleared his throat. “Can you talk about it? What happened? How did you wind up there to begin with?”
“Calm down,” she said. Then she laughed. “I feel as though you should be the one telling me to calm down.”
A thought struck him. He moved toward her, squatting down and resting on his heels. “You actually seem quite calm. That’s good, right?”
“It is good.” She seemed almost surprised.
Nona bustled into the room at that moment. Both she and Emily had appeared at the house just after Quentin had brought Francesca home. Now, Nona gently took the teacup from Francesca’s fingers and set it on the side table. She placed a small plate of what appeared to be butter cookies beside it.
“Eat some of these, honey,” Nona coaxed. “You need to get your blood sugar up just a little. When you’re ready for something more, you just let me know.”
“Thank you,” Francesca whispered. She touched the older woman’s arm. “You’re so good to me. I don’t thank you enough for that.”
“You thank me plenty,” Nona argued. “Emily and I have been so happy here with you ever since Mr. Lyle passed away. The whole house has come alive. I can’t thank you enough for that.”
Something in the center of Quentin’s chest tightened up as he saw the exchange between the two women. The nature of their friendship was very real. It was a tangible presence in the room, and Quentin could not help but envy such a close kinship with another person. Soldiers felt a kind of camaraderie on the battlefield, but it was much different than what he sensed between Francesca, Nona, and Emily.
Francesca flung her arms around Nona’s neck, and the two embraced. Then Nona turned to look at Quentin. She whispered something in Francesca’s ear before getting up to leave. Nona touched Quentin’s arm, patting it softly before quitting the room and closing the door with a soft click.
“She says I should go easy on you,” Francesca told him suddenly.
Quentin swallowed. He felt nervous without truly knowing why. It shouldn’t have made any difference what Francesca thought of him, and yet her opinion was all that mattered to him right now.
“You never told me what you did in the marines.” Her voice was quiet and without a hint of accusation.
Francesca picked up a butter cookie and nibbled one edge. Standing up, she meandered over to the windows. She touched the sash of one absently, as though she just needed something to do with her hands. All the while, she was still nibbling her cookie while Quentin waited to see where this was going.
She turned and gazed at him. “You don’t strike me as a violent man.”
“Violence is the wrong word.” His voice sounded scratchy. He cleared his throat. “Violence is a blanket term. I don’t consider myself a violent man, but I consider myself capable of violence if the situation calls for it.”
“What situation?” she challenged. “What situation would ever call for such behavior?”
“Interrogation,” he offered. “My job was to interrogate the men who wanted to kill American soldiers. I sought information about bombs, about ambushes, about anything that might cause the wholesale destruction of the men who had come to depend on me for their safety.”
“And for information to help your country?” she prodded. “Isn’t that what the purpose was?”
HIS BITTER LAUGHTER caused Francesca to take a mental step back. The expression on his face was hard. There was no other word for it. Those features that she had memorized so many times in her mind looked almost foreign. What was happening?
“Sometimes the general public has no idea what’s really going on in a warzone.” Quentin turned his back on her and looked up at the vaulted ceiling. “We would all like to think that there is some overarching goal or a point to all the dying, but after a little time goes by, the only thing that matters is survival by any means necessary.”
“Even cruelty to another human being?” She could not believe that he was that type of man. She could not believe that he was the type of person who would use waterboarding, or other nameless horrors, as a way to get information. “You’re so gentle to me. Is that just because you don’t need anything from me? Is there a point where you’ll turn on me the way you did on others?”
He held up his hands, palms out. “Hold on just a second here. You make it sound like I was pulling people’s fingernails out, or randomly torturing people who were once my friends. It isn’t like that at all. I was a marine, and I was following orders, Francesca.”
She stared at him and tried to make sense of it all. For some reason, she had never truly thought about what it might be like to be a soldier, to be under the command of someone else, and to have to follow orders that she didn’t believe in or agree with.
“Why do you think I understand your PTSD so well?” he whispered. His expression was bleak. “I understand it because sometimes at night when I close my eyes, I can’t stop seeing those men that I hurt. I smell their blood, and I hear their screams nearly every single day of my life. I cannot walk through my day without seeing or hearing something that brings it all rushing back. And I know that’s what you feel too.”
Francesca could not speak. She didn’t want to go there. Not with him, and not with anyone else. How dare he presume to know what she had been through—or was going through—or whatever!
She swung around and turned her back to him. Gazing out the window, she felt tears prickling at the corners of her eyes as she remembered that morning so many years ago when Lyle had ended any dreams of motherhood that Francesca might have had. She had been so hopeful! There had been so many thoughts in her head about what a baby could do for her and for Lyle. How having a child would bring them closer together. She had longed for the sensation of motherhood and of having a family. Then one horrible morning had ended it all.
“You don’t know me,” Francesca whispered. “You can’t possibly think that whatever you’ve gone through could help you understand me.”
“PTSD manifests the same way across the board,” he said harshly. “Get a clue. The mental images aren’t the same. The triggers aren’t the same. But I can for damn sure tell you that the physiological response, the cortisol levels, the adrenaline response, the neuroscience behind it all is the same.” He chuckled again, but this time she heard disdain. “But if you want to stand there and believe that you’re somehow special, then you go ahead. After all, you’re just a Hyde-Pierson. All of you Hyde-Piersons believe that you’re the only people to have whatever mental disorders you might have going on. You’re all superior. You’re better than everyone else. Your problems are more compelling. And in the end, when you use people, you do it more thoroughly.”
With those cutting words, Quentin turned and stalked out of the room. Francesca was left staring after him with her lips parted and words of protest on her tongue. She didn’t want him to leave. She wanted him to stay and promise her that he wasn’t a violent man. She wanted him to prove it, to show her in some way, shape, or form that he would n
ever touch her in anger the way that Lyle had done.
Sinking back into her seat on the sofa, Francesca had to admit to herself that there was no way to know what Quentin was like on a daily basis. She had only known him for a short while. Sure. He was pleasant and easy to get along with now. He was quiet and kept to himself unless he was helping her with something—or helping Nona—or Emily.
How odd. The man was forever doing something around the house. How had she never really noticed that before? He would find something to fix, or ask if there were heavy chores that needed taking care of. He was probably the most helpful man she had ever met who was not specifically hired for that sort of handyman kind of existence. He wasn’t an employee. He wasn’t her employee.
Francesca put her face in her hands. The cookie she had eaten felt like a lump in her belly. What had she done? Why had she been so defensive with him? What could it possibly harm to hear him out or even to accept that he might know a little of what he was talking about when it came to PTSD. How arrogant she was to think that her case was the worst, or more complicated, or even “special” at all.
“I’m exactly what he said I am,” she whispered. “I’m acting like a Hyde-Pierson. How despicable.”
She felt convicted of her own behavior, but there was nothing for it. Not right now. She would have to redeem herself eventually. In the meantime, she needed to figure out the next step in this plan to keep Stedman from taking over her life. She was doing a pretty bang-up job of screwing things up on her own. She certainly didn’t need the sort of disaster that Stedman would most certainly bring with him.
Chapter Fourteen
“I’m sorry, the psychologist said what?” Fabian Holloway’s elegant eyebrows shot up so fast that Francesca was afraid they might launch right off his face.
The lawyer cursed and shoved his fingers through his perfectly styled hair. With the amount of product the guy appeared to put in his hair, Francesca was surprised that his hand didn’t get stuck. All in all, Mr. Holloway did not look nearly as put together as he had the first time that Francesca had met with him. He looked positively disheveled in comparison.
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