by Molly Evans
“He’s gone for good now.” She spoke to him but still looked out the window.
“Who?”
“Bernard Twist. The rapist.” She’d come to think of him as Bernard Twisted. The things he’d done to women had been gut-wrenchingly awful.
Without answering, he negotiated a turn and then another. “I know. I followed the trial.”
“He’s such a sick bastard, but I have no sympathy for him. None whatsoever.”
“I wanted to kill him.” He pulled up near the side of the firehouse and parked, but kept his hands on the steering-wheel. The tremors inside him were visible, and he clutched the steering wheel harder. “If I’d found him before the police, I think I would have.”
She turned, surprise on her face. “Really? You wouldn’t just have let the police handle it?”
He shook his head in an anger, a hatred so deep even the memory of it scorched him. He blew out a breath. “I don’t think I’d have been able to control myself.”
Emily stared at him, seeming to come to a decision. A small smile lifted one corner of her mouth. She leaned toward him and placed her hand behind his neck, pulling him forward, and pressed her forehead against his.
“I’m glad you didn’t, but thank you for thinking of it.”
“You’re welcome.” That was kind of funny, being thanked for murderous thoughts.
“Sometimes I forget I wasn’t the only one who was raped. You were assaulted in a different way, and I’m sorry for that, Chase.” She stayed that way, not moving, just breathing.
Then he realized she was saying goodbye to him without words. “Wait a minute.”
“I’m going to go now, and I’ll see you at work.”
“I don’t want that.” He pulled back, but took her wrist in his hand and held her hand to his face. “I mean, I don’t want to just see you at work.”
“A relationship between us won’t work. I thought perhaps there might be a chance for us, but I was wrong. I needed to come here to see it for myself. You’ve seen how messed up I still am, probably will be the rest of my life. I want to focus on my work at the hospital, at the studio, and with the new class I’m going to teach.” She gave a watery smile, her lips pressed together for a moment, trying to control her emotions. “That’s enough for me. It has to be. If I want too much, I’ll be disappointed the rest of my life.”
“No, it’s not. It never was. And it’s not enough for me.” Anger began to boil inside him. Being ripped apart at the seams twice wasn’t acceptable. Somehow he had to change this. Somehow he had to get through to her. Somehow he had to make her see.
“The old Emily is gone. I still have the same name, but the rest of me has changed. You need to face that, Chase, the way I did. I’m not the woman you once knew, you once loved.” She pulled the handle on the door and eased out of the car.
Danny was trotting across the parking lot, waving. Any moment Chase would have had to talk to her about their situation now was gone, and he might never get another chance. The walls around her he’d breached for a little while were now as high and strong as ever. Maybe he was chasing the wrong Emily. Maybe he was chasing a ghost that no longer existed, and she was right. Maybe the Emily he’d loved was gone, and he needed to move on for good. Or maybe he needed to chase this Emily and see where she led him.
He wasn’t giving up.
He watched through the window as Danny hugged his sister and met Chase’s look over her head. The man, his best friend, her brother, waved at him, then placed his arm around her shoulders and guided her into the fire station.
This woman had known more pain than she ever should have and it was his fault, his responsibility, his burden for the rest of his life. The rapist was in jail for the rest of his life, and Chase was in a prison without bars for the remainder of his years.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DAYS LATER, CHASE warmed up in the racquetball court at the community center. He wasn’t the kind of man to join a gym, no matter how convenient it seemed to be. With his schedule it wasn’t worth it, and he liked supporting his local community. So he utilized the center whenever he could, like today.
Whap. He hit the ball again with a satisfying slam. This was the way men worked out their issues, by beating something up, even if it was something as insignificant as a hard rubber ball in an enclosed court.
The door opened, and Danny entered. “Starting without me?”
This was their usual date and time. Sometimes they jogged, sometimes they played racquetball, depending on their moods and the weather. Today it was pouring outside, the gloom moving in from the ocean like a living creature sweeping over the land. It matched his temperament.
“Yeah. Feeling stiff, so thought I’d warm up.” Partially true.
“You know, stretching helps.” Whap. Danny entered into the game when the ball came in his direction.
“So I hear.” The words Emily had said echoed in his mind. You’ll be a stiff old man unable to tie his own shoelaces.
“Uh, so how’s it going with you and Emily?” Danny whacked the ball.
“What do you mean?” Had she spoken to Danny about them?
“At work. How’s work going?”
“She’s a great nurse. New skills these days.”
“The martial arts?”
“Yeah. She’s a regular ol’ ninja nurse.” Whack. “Impressive.”
“She is. For more than just that.”
“You never did answer my question about why you didn’t tell me she was coming back.”
“Figured you’d find out soon enough. You hadn’t asked about her for a while. Figured you’d moved on, and I didn’t want to get in the middle of it.”
Moved on. How do you move on from the love of your life?
“I thought I had.” The thought cramped his gut. He’d tried. He’d tried entirely too hard, especially in the beginning, but now seeing Emily again made him want to take it all back and try harder, try to be the man she’d needed him to be back then and he hadn’t been. But it was too late. She’d made that clear the other day.
“And now?”
“Don’t know.”
They finished their game sweaty and worn out, then dropped onto a bench and cooled off.
“Think I’m gonna hit the shower here. Amber doesn’t like it when I come to her place after my workout. Says I smell like a goat,” Danny said with a grin, and took a sniff at one of his armpits. “She’s probably right.” He cleared his throat. “So, uh, you didn’t really answer my question, either.”
“Which one?” He knew, but stalled.
“About you and Emily. What’s going on?” Danny didn’t look directly at Chase, but bounced the ball between his feet.
“Don’t know. Spent some time with her at the studio the other day. She taught me a few moves.”
That got a reaction out of him and a rise of his brows. “That’s amazing. I thought she’d karate chop you to pieces.”
“She probably should have.” That made him smile. The thought of her as a trained martial artist was fascinating.
“So what do you think? Going to get back together?”
“No. I don’t think so. After that she withdrew, wouldn’t talk to me, and I haven’t seen her since.” The real question was did he want to? They were vastly different people now.
“She’s changed, that’s for sure. But she had to. You know that, right?”
“I know. It’s almost painful to watch her now, though.” He rubbed his face with a towel. “Like she’s still struggling every minute with the past riding on her back.”
“I think she is. The physical stuff healed, but it’s the stuff on the inside that’s still broken.” Danny sighed, leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees. “It’s been a long couple of years for her, but sometimes wh
en I look at her I wish the old Emily was still there, still in there.”
“After something like this I don’t know if she can be that Emily ever again. She’s tried to tell me that, and I’m not sure I was listening.” He’d thought about it. She’d alluded to it. He just had to accept it or move on. Again.
“The new Emily is pretty awesome, though. Tough as nails. She even took me at arm wrestling.”
“Yeah. She is.” Flashes of her in the ER, in the apartment, and in the shower hit him hard. “Well, I gotta roll.” He stood. He didn’t have anything else he needed to do but he couldn’t sit there anymore, ruminating about the past and his poor performance, his contribution to Emily’s attack, and his unforgivable absence during her recovery. That was what killed him most. He hadn’t been there for her.
He shoved out the doors of the community center into the drizzle, which had turned into a downright downpour. He made it to his car and got in, turned on the engine and let the wipers do their work. The heat of his body and the rain misted up the windows. He reached out to wipe some of it away with his hand and froze.
It had been a day exactly like today, three years ago, that Emily had been attacked. His heart thundered in his ears as he listened to the blast from the defroster trying to keep up with the condensation on the windshield. Frozen in the driver’s seat, he sat there as memories of the past washed over him. Guilt he’d thought had been long ago dealt with ripped through him with the precision of a surgical blade.
It had eviscerated him then and nearly gutted him now.
He’d raced off in the early morning hours to the hospital, just as always, and had forgotten to lock the door of Emily’s apartment, his mind occupied on the day ahead. Her place had been closer to the hospital and when he’d been on call he’d sometimes stayed with her.
He’d run into surgery and saved the day the way he was supposed to. As soon as the case had finished he’d been called to the ER for another emergency, but had been cornered by the attending physician before he’d been able to see the patient.
Unprepared for what he’d been told, he’d nearly dropped to his knees in disbelief. He’d raced to the side of a woman lying on a gurney in the ER, bloodied, battered, on the ventilator and disfigured beyond recognition.
“That’s not Emily,” he’d said, and had stormed out. “How could you misidentify a patient like that?” The force of his anger had sliced through him at such an egregious error, but the look on the face of the man he’d known and trusted had made him stop. The trembling inside him had escalated, and he’d looked back at her. “Is it?”
The remembered fear, the remembered pain of seeing her like that made him clench the steering-wheel now. How could he have not recognized the woman he loved?
But he’d expected to see her the way he’d last seen her, beautiful and lively. But she’d been near death from the injuries sustained in the attack in her own home.
Both of her eyes had been swollen shut, bruises had covered her face, and blood had trickled from her mouth around the breathing tube. The ambulance crew had placed a neck collar on her for transport and it had been stained red. Her nose had been swollen, obviously broken, and her lips had been cracked and bleeding in several places.
Dumbfounded, he’d moved forward in a fog and picked up one of her battered hands, seeing the broken fingernails, the abrasions and cuts. The ring he’d given her the previous Christmas had screamed out to him from beneath dried blood. “Em?” His voice had cracked, then he’d whipped around to the physician. “Is she going to live?”
“We don’t know.” It had been the bald truth.
Those words had just about killed him. She’d had to go to surgery to repair a broken jaw, multiple lacerations in her mouth, a broken nose and plastic surgery for the lacerations on her face. Her parents had been hysterical when they’d arrived. Seeing their beautiful daughter mauled in such a way had been something no parent should witness.
The windshield began to clear, and Chase looked out at the day of drizzle and gloom, trying to pull himself out of the memory, but unable to as the rain drilled his car, drowning out all other sound. He covered his face with his hands, allowing the guilt of his responsibility to wash over him. Guilt, guilt, guilt. It hung on him like a worn and tattered coat he could never remove.
He should have taken the time to lock the damned door, but he hadn’t. It was his fault.
Days had passed with Chase and Emily’s families standing watch by her side until she’d roused from the coma she’d been put in by heavy sedation. The swelling around her eyes had improved, but they’d still been purple.
Over the next few months her physical condition had improved while the rapist had continued to terrorize his way through the city. He’d violated nine women before being caught for a traffic violation. Stupid, but par for the course.
Getting close to Emily after that had been hard. They’d tried to have a normal life again, but both of them had realized there was no normal any longer.
And he’d been an idiot. He’d been angry and impatient and unable to be the man, the friend, the support she’d needed at the time, and she had been right to kick him out of her life. The first and only time they’d tried to make love had been a disaster.
Her body had finally healed physically and they’d wanted to be close again, each of them aching for it, needing it, but not understanding how long it might take to get there. She’d panicked. Even with the light on so she’d been able to see it had been Chase with her hadn’t helped. She’d vomited when he’d touched her intimately.
All she’d felt had been pain and terror where once they’d experienced great joy together. All they’d had was great sorrow. The strangling sensation in her throat hadn’t stopped and she’d screamed until she couldn’t anymore.
He’d left then, left because he’d been afraid. Afraid of the demons inside her that might never go away. And he’d been selfish. Wanting her back to the same old Emily had been ridiculous. He’d had no concept of grief or recovery of this magnitude. Grief worked in strange ways and now, looking back, he could see it had been his grief that had overwhelmed him and made him act in ways that hadn’t served him or Emily.
Weeks had passed, and she hadn’t contacted him. He hadn’t called her, wanting to give her some space, and then he’d heard she’d taken off on a travel assignment. Without saying goodbye. He’d been hurt beyond measure, but had covered it up with more anger and by convincing himself it had been her loss.
That was when he’d started on a womanizing spree, trying to bury himself in any woman so long as she hadn’t reminded him of Emily.
Chase sighed, turned down the defroster and put the car in gear. Once out of the parking lot he didn’t know where he was going, where to go, but found himself driving past Emily’s apartment, and discovered her car wasn’t there. Minutes later he found it at the martial-arts studio where his car had mysteriously driven to. Puzzled at his need to see her again, he entered and sat on a bench outside the workout room.
Inside the glass-walled studio he found Emily. She hadn’t seen him, didn’t know he was there, and he could watch her without disturbing her.
“Today is a women-only day. No men allowed.” Rose approached and sat on the bench beside him.
“What?”
“It’s Wednesday. Women-Only Wednesdays. No testosterone allowed in the studio.” Though she gave him the info, she didn’t look like she was going to toss him out on his ear.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“She’s very strong, you know.”
Chase turned back to watch Emily as she led a group of women through poses and exercises. “She is. More than she ever was.”
“That’s because she’s done the work.” Rose peered at him, looking like a bird contemplating a bug it was about to eat.
“Training, you mean? I
can see that.”
“She’s done the physical training, yes, but she’s done the emotional and spiritual part of it, as well. Still continues to do it daily.”
“Therapy, you mean?” He’d suspected that.
“Yes, and meditation, and giving over to the universe that which no longer serves her. The anger and the fear. ‘Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe.’ That’s a quote from Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu, a very ancient, very wise man.”
“I never thought of it that way.”
“No. You would not have because you have not done the work she has.”
“Excuse me?” Really? Had she just had the gall to say that to him? After all he’d been through, after all he’d lost?
“It’s true, but you don’t want to admit that, do you? You have not done the work she has, so she is further ahead in her recovery than you are in yours.” Rose shrugged as if it were a simple thing.
“I see.” Anger began to fill him.
“No, you don’t see, which is why you need to come back on Manly Monday, a men-only day, and begin your own recovery.”
“I don’t have the time for that sort of thing.” Frowning, he turned away from Rose. Some sensei she was.
“Then you will never recover, and you will remain stuck where you are in this life.” She stood. “Until you deal with an issue, it will continue to show up in your life over and over again. Then you will be forced to deal with it at some point and it will be more painful for you than if you had dealt with it when you were supposed to.”
“You’re a pretty smart woman, too.” He nodded, acknowledging some part of what she said rang true for him, and the anger fizzled away. Dammit. He hated being wrong and he hated being told he was wrong even more.
“Because I, too, have done the work.”
Recovery. He’d not thought of it that way, that he needed to recover from the trauma that had affected Emily, from the powerlessness of it, the helpless way it made him feel. Squirming a little on the bench from the discomfort of his thoughts, he stood, not wanting to violate the Wednesday rule.
