Brooke said nothing for several long moments. She’d messed up her life royally, and she truly didn’t feel worthy of anyone’s love, especially this wonderful man sitting next to her. He didn’t deserve to get the ruined shell of a woman she’d allowed herself to become. He deserved a woman who was whole, and not so messed up that she needed pills to get through the day!
“So, what have you been up to lately?” she asked, needing to change the subject, but her mind wasn’t quite so cooperative.Peter still wants me? But he doesn’t know all of the things I’ve done. Once he does, he’ll be sorry he came all this way.
“I’ve been helping out with your parents’ ranch.” He paused and gave her time to ask about her mom’s condition. When she didn’t, he offered, “Your dad moved her down to Junction. He found a place there that caters to patients with Alzheimer’s. From what Tyler said, their meals are prepared, laundry and housekeeping is furnished, and your dad had medical advice and assistance whenever he needs it.”
Brooke still said nothing, so he pushed a little, “When was the last time you spoke to your parents?”
“Not since I left Colorado last time. Things here got so messed up and…”
Peter saw several signs for motels up ahead, and chose one in the middle of not being a complete dive, or a plush resort. “Why don’t you stay in the car while I get us a room?”
Brooke nodded her head, and watched as he pulled under the eave and ran inside. Within a few minutes, he returned with a room key in his hand. Without saying a word, he pulled the Mustang around to the back of the motel, hiding it from easy view of the road, and turned the engine off.
Brooke was having trouble keeping her eyes open as more shivers wracked her body. She’d grabbed her spare cosmetic bag from the storage unit, and was hoping there was something in there she could use to take the edge off. Even if just for a few hours!
Peter insisted on carrying both of their bags, and she let him. As soon as they entered the room, she grabbed her duffel bag and headed for the small bathroom. She turned the shower on and stood beneath the scalding water as long as she could before getting out and drying off. She felt marginally better and she opened the bathroom door to let the steam out, having only wrapped herself in a towel.
When she stepped out into the room, she stopped at the look on Peter’s face. Gosh, I’ve become so used to having no modesty, I didn’t even realize what I was doing. Apologizing, she ducked back into the bathroom, and pulled on a t-shirt and a pair of knit shorts.
Peter had stared at her when she exited the bathroom, unsure of how to respond to her towel-clad body. On one hand, he knew she wasn’t operating on all cylinders. And he’d really seen no more of her body than if she’d been in a two-piece swimsuit. What had really captured his attention was the blush and embarrassment that had consumed her when she realized what she’d done. It was as if she was ashamed of herself, and that didn’t sit right with him.
Brooke was a stunning beauty. She had raven black hair, deep grey-blue eyes that changed with her emotions, and a complexion that had at one time graced the cover of several well-known magazines. She was tall for a woman, reaching 5’10” in her bare feet, with a lithe body that had never shown a predilection for carrying excess weight.
She’d always been a beauty, but had also always been humble and not wanting extra attention. When she’d been offered a modeling contract, Peter had been surprised at first that she wanted to take it. But he’d also not wanted to stand in her way, so he’d stepped aside; assuring her he’d be waiting in Cathedral Hills when she came home. The problem was – she had never come home!
He glanced up as she came back into the room, towel drying her hair and muttering an apology.
“What exactly are you apologizing for?” he queried.
“I didn’t mean to come out her almost naked. I really didn’t, it’s just…I guess I’m so used to not wearing much, it didn’t really dawn on me to get dressed before coming out here.”
“Explain that last statement,” Peter requested.
“Well, for the last several months, four to be exact, I really haven’t left the apartment except if I was with Zachary. Sometimes for a photoshoot, and other times for an evening out like tonight. Or rather, last night.”
“Why did you never leave the apartment?” Peter asked.
Brooke sighed and then told him, “Peter’s it’s a really long story that goes all the way back to my time in California. Can we get into this tomorrow?”
Peter wanted to demand answers to his questions tonight, but he could see that she was exhausted and still ill. “Sure. You can take the bed closest to the bathroom. I’ll wash up and be out in a minute.”
Brooke nodded and grabbed her duffle bag, tossing it to the middle of the bed before crawling up and sitting beside it. “Okay.”
Peter emerged from the bedroom a few minutes later, having brushed his teeth and washed up a bit, to see Brooke struggling to get the lid off a prescription bottle. “What are you doing?”
Brooke jumped and then shoved the bottle back into the small cosmetic bag in front of her, “Nothing.”
Peter shook his head and stalked to her bed. He pulled the cosmetic bag away from her, holding it out of reach when she made a grab for it. “Let’s get something straight, right now. I’m going to help you, and that includes helping you from hurting yourself any further.” He dumped the contents of the bag out on to the comforter, sending makeup and other items scattering off the bed and onto the floor.
When the prescription bottle emerged, he grabbed it up and read the label. “Sleeping pills? That’s what these are?”
Brooke nodded, keeping her eye on the bottle of pills, “Please give them back to me.”
“Are you addicted to them?”
Brooke debated about lying to him, but she couldn’t do it. Peter only wanted what was best for her, and the good Lord knew she hadn’t been doing such a bang up job at that task herself. She swallowed and then softly answered him, “I used to be, but I don’t think I am anymore. They’ll take the edge off and let me get a few hours of sleep.”
Peter watched her eyes and could see how desperately she was trying to tell him the truth, but yet wanting to hide it from him at the same time. “Brooke, you said you were suffering withdrawal symptoms. If not from these, then what?”
She shook her head, “I don’t really know. I’ve been trying to wean myself off of whatever the doctor’s been giving me, but I didn’t know Zachary was taking me out tonight. I hadn’t taken any pills since early this morning, and then I only took half of one. I’m doing better, I really am. A few weeks ago I was taking two and three several times a day.”
“What’s Zachary doing to help you get through this?”
Brooke huffed out a loud laugh, “He’s the reason I’m going through this. He told me they were vitamins and I was so loaded up on them and other pills, I just took them. He still thinks I don’t know what he was doing to me.”
“Your husband got you hooked on drugs?” Peter asked, incredulous and thinking Zachary was a dead man when Tyler got wind of this. The man had better count his blessings he lives so far away!
Brooke licked her dry lips, “Please believe me; if I thought I could get through this without some help, I would never take another pill again. But I feel like I’m dying and I need to have my wits about me tomorrow.”
“How many of these were you going to take?” Peter asked, looking at the almost full bottle of pills.
“Just a half. And maybe a couple of aspirin.”
Peter held the bottle out to her and then retrieved a glass of water from the bathroom. He watched as she carefully broke one of the pills in half and then placed the rest back into the bottle. “You know, for the last few weeks, I’ve been tossing the other half down the toilet.” She laughed mirthlessly, and Peter felt his heart break for whatever she’d suffered these last few months.
She handed the glass back to him, and then snuggled down under the com
forter. Peter picked up her duffle bag and set it on the floor. “Get some sleep.”
Brooke closed her eyes, only to open them a few minutes later and ask, “Have you really been waiting all this time for me to come back to Cathedral Hills?”
Peter smiled at her and nodded his head, “I really have. Night, darlin’.”
Brooke closed her eyes, holding the sound of his deep tenor voice deep inside of her mind, and hoping that it would be enough to keep the nightmares at bay.
Chapter 5
Peter watched her sleeping and then grabbed his phone, thankful that he had plenty of service and battery life left. He’d paid the extra fee to gain access to the hotel’s not-so-free Wi-Fi signal. He quickly opened a web browser, and started researching the steps needed to get a divorce in the State of New York. Nothing he found was very useful and worse yet, there wasn’t anything she could do to obtain a quick divorce in the fine State of New York. She’d hadn’t been married long enough!
He finally closed his phone and shut his eyes, needing a few hours’ sleep before the day began again. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep, but Brooke’s cries woke him up.
She was thrashing in the bed, having tangled her legs in the bed covers, and was slapping at imaginary things in the air. Afraid he’d get hit, or accidentally hurt her while trying to contain her arms, he straddled her body, and pinned her hands to either side of her head.
“Brooke! Wake up!”
Brooke struggled to free her arms, the things crawling on her arms and legs were driving her insane. She thrashed about, but something heavy was weighing her down, and her hands had become trapped.
“Brooke!”
She snapped her eyes open, and froze as her brain registered what her eyes were seeing. Peter? What is Peter doing in my dreams?
“Brooke!” Peter called her name a third time, seeing that her eyes were still clouded by her dream.
“Peter?” she asked, stilling her body and allowing her mind to come back to the present.
“Yeah, darlin’. That was some nightmare you were having.” He slid off her body and released her hands, helping her sit up against the headboard. He walked into the bathroom and returned with a glass of water, holding it to her lips when her hands shook too badly to do the job herself.
“Want to talk about it?” he asked when she was finished drinking.
She shook her head, “Not really.” She shivered and looked down at her arms, “I felt like I had things crawling all over my body.”
“That must have been a pretty potent drug your husband was giving you.”
“Yeah. I was really sick, and thought I was going to die when I discovered what was happening to me.”
Peter glanced at the clock, and realized he’d been asleep for three hours. It was 6:48 a.m., and the sun was starting to come up outside. “Well, do you think you could go back to sleep for a bit?”
Brooke shook her head, “No. I doubt it. Did you find out anything about the paperwork I need to sign…”
Peter sighed, and then sat down on the other bed. He clasped his hands together and let them rest between his knees. “Well, I did find out some information, but not much of it was useful. You have to be separated from Zachary for six months to file a contested divorce, or if you could get him to agree to the divorce, you can file immediately, but it still won’t go into effect until the waiting period is over. The court won’t even consider your request until you’ve been married a minimum of six months.”
“Great! He’ll never agree to a divorce and I can’t wait around here for another two months!”
“The other option is to leave New York, take up residency someplace else for six months, and then file from that state.”
“Guess that’s what I’ll have to do then.”
“You can file when you get back to Colorado…”
Brooke shook her head, “I can’t go back to Colorado.”
“Why not?!” Peter demanded to know. “Your family is there and all your friends. Jenna’s even back.”
“Jenna’s back? Wow!” Brooke was speechless for a few minutes, but the reality set in and she shook her head, “I would love to see Jenna again, but I can’t go back there.”
“You can and you will. Believe me, whatever reasons you think are valid for staying away are just plain wrong. There’s nothing you can say, or that you could have done that would make any of us love you any less.”
Brooke felt tears spill over, “Don’t you see, I don’t deserve their love. And if they were ever to see what I let myself become…”
“Brooke, you have to quit judging yourself and assuming you know what others are thinking. No one back home is going to judge you poorly for getting used by a deadbeat like your husband.”
“But that’s just it. Zachary isn’t a deadbeat. Do you know how I met him? I went to the DA’s office to report what my agent was doing and I got to talk to him. He protected me from Marco…”
Brooke stopped talking and dropped her head into her hands. He’s got me so brainwashed I’m defending him now! He is a deadbeat and a user and who knows what else! He deserves to go to jail for a very long time for what he did to me!
Peter watched as Brooke came to the realization that she was defending the man who not only gotten her hooked on drugs, but appeared to have been keeping her confined against her will. Lowering his voice, he told her, “Zachary is a deadbeat and frankly, when Tyler finds out what the man did to you, he’s probably going to be on the first plane to New York to set him straight on how to treat a lady.”
“That’s not going to help. Zachary Grayson’s father was the DA for New York City, and then the State Attorney General before his death. Everyone loves Zachary and supports him, even if some of his actions are a little over the line. He has politicians, law enforcement, and even the Mayor working on his side.”
“Well, then we go above his head and get someone who isn’t on his side to look at things. Who have you already spoken to about this?”
“Just Zachary. I figured the authorities were going to eventually catch on to what Marco was pulling, and I didn’t want to get caught in the middle. I didn’t realize at the time that Zachary was working with him.”
“Zachary is working with your agent?” Peter asked, trying to put everything in some sort of order.
“I don’t know if he was in the beginning, but he is now. I haven’t seen Marco, but since I stopped taking so many of those pills, I’ve been able to concentrate and listen in on his conversations more. That man that was with me on the dance floor last night paid to be seen with me. After dinner, he would have had some professional photographs taken with me as well, and they would have been used to promote his political career back in South America.”
When Peter still didn’t seem to comprehend what she was trying to tell him, she explained it in more blunt terms. “Zachary sold me to that guy as his escort for the evening. A few drinks, some food and some photographs, and Zachary would have received a nice contribution to his slush fund.”
Peter was dumbfounded and after a moment asked, “How long has this been going on?”
“Marco was doing the same thing to me. I found pictures of myself on flyers in his office advertising my escort services for the evening. The ads were all in Spanish, but when I confronted him about them, he didn’t even try to deny it. I purchased the Mustang with a bonus check a few days prior to making my discovery.”
“And yet you kept the car?” Peter asked, wondering why she would do something like that.
“Things were really crazy during that time. I’d had gone home to see my parents, but Marco kept calling my cell phone and threatening me if I didn’t come back to New York and finish out my contract. I changed numbers once I returned, but these men started showing up at my apartment and I got scared.
“I went to the DA’s office hoping that if I provided them enough evidence to put Marco and his cohorts away, I could get a lesser sentence for cooperating with them. I never
spoke to anyone but Zachary about this.”
Peter looked at her, and then realized there was much more to her story than her having gotten hooked on drugs. Was she mixed up in some high class prostitution ring or drug trade?
“I think maybe we should get on the road. I’m going to turn on the television and check the road and weather forecast, and then I think we should head out.”
“I’m going to go take another shower. They seem to help with the withdrawals.”
“Go ahead,” Peter told her, grabbing the remote for the TV and turning it on. He heard the bathroom door shut just as the screen lit up, and he saw a picture of Brooke filling the screen. “Brooke, I think you had better come back out here and see this.”
The bathroom door opened and Brooke came out, staring at the TV screen and listening to the morning news reporter –
“Brooke Grayson was last seen downtown around 88th last night and went missing between the hours of 10:30 p.m. and 11:15 p.m. Her husband, Zachary Grayson, states she had been suffering from psychological and drug-abuse related symptoms for the last several weeks. He believes she simply walked away from the hotel and may not be acting with her safety in mind. She is in need of immediate medical attention and anyone with information on her whereabouts is urged to call the number flashing across your screen immediately. A reward has been posted by Mr. Grayson for anyone who helps locate his missing wife.”
Brooke felt her body start to tremor, and she quickly sank down on the edge of the bed. “He’s made it sound like I’m crazy and need to be locked up at the first available moment.”
“Brooke, look at me.” He waited for her to comply and then he told her, “You are not crazy, and we are going to get you someplace safe. If you think you can forego a shower, let’s get going right now. Does he know about your car?”
“I don’t think so,” she shook her head, “but if he checks DMV records, it’s licensed under my name and everything.”
“Do you have the title?” he asked, already formulating a plan to dump the car as soon as they crossed the state line.
Romance: Brooke and Peter - A Christian Romance as a Love Story: (Romance, Christian Romance, Romance Novel, Romance Book) (Cathedral Hills Book 3) Page 4
