Her Perfect Match (13 page)

“It looked pretty smashed up, honey, but that’s what insurance is for.”

She scowled, and it made her look so cute and fuzzy-headed that he wanted to hug her. She’s had enough trauma today, he thought sardonically.

“I really liked that car,” she muttered then utterly floored him when she laid her head on his chest.

Feeling her trust seep into his heart, Jackson had
to blink back the tears that sprung to his eyes. “It was a tin can on wheels,” he told her, his voice hoarse and nearly breaking. “We’ll find you a good sturdy one.”

But the first thing he was going to do was teach her how to defend herself the way he had Crystal. Nobody would ever overpower her so quickly again. Crystal could have cleaned Hobart’s clock but good.

The cop had radioed ahead to the ER, and there was a stretcher waiting for Beth when they arrived. Jackson hated giving her over to the care of strangers, but he had little choice. She was no longer in danger from anything but her injuries.

And maybe something in her past that haunted her.

While she’d been confused about time and place for those few interminable minutes on the road and in the car, he was very much afraid she’d given him a glimpse of what had caused her to pull away from his embraces in anger and fear. It looked as if her fight-or-flight reflex was caused by a fear he wasn’t sure how to fight. Jackson pursed his lips and deliberately pushed out of his mind the appalling possibility that she feared physical and not emotional danger.

Resolutely, needing to find a little peace and calm, Jackson headed for the chapel, trying to empty his mind of all but prayers of thanksgiving for her safety. Because if he thought about what her confused pleas for secrecy had meant, he’d lose what was left of his composure.

And there wasn’t much left to lose.

He was angrier than he’d ever been in his life, especially since lifting her out of the car. He hadn’t seen the blood until then—the cuts marring the creamy soft skin of her arms. Her blood stained his shirt and jeans and reminded him every time he glanced at himself of her cries of terror and pain while she’d been out of his reach. Just the thought of Hobart with his hand on Beth—hurting Beth—had been enough without finding her injured. And knowing something similar may have happened to her before was a little more than he could handle on his own.

The last time he felt the urge to pummel someone with his fists in vengeance had been in junior high when he’d come upon Joey King yanking on Crystal’s pigtails and tormenting her. The schoolyard bully also had been calling his little sister filthy, derogatory names because of her Native American heritage. Jackson had gone after the older boy and all but taken him apart before teachers intervened.

His father would say he’d come a long way from that furious preteen who’d refused to apologize to Joey King. And he had. He’d restrained himself today against the urge to do more than subdue Brian Hobart, but he still couldn’t get to a place where it
felt
wrong to use his fists to avenge a loved one against a bully.

As he settled into one of the dark wood pews of the little chapel, he decided restraint must be a lot like forgiveness. It was something you did even if you didn’t feel like it.

E
lizabeth forced her grainy eyes open and found herself in a darkened room. There was ambient light coming from around a miniblind that had been closed so she knew it wasn’t night. Her head hurt less than before, and her mind felt clear. She purposely retraced her steps through the day, looking for holes in her memory.

She’d slept late, not getting up till around ten. After tea and toast for breakfast she’d picked some flowers for her mantel, then had gone to see Amelia Taggert and baby Laurel. She’d stayed too long and had opted to forgo riding Glory to spend her remaining time having lunch with Jack.

She smiled, thinking of her time with him. Who would ever think exchanging stories and pictures of the people in your life could be so much fun? Or that you could learn so much about a person with the use of a few props?

Then she’d kissed him good-bye and had driven straight into a nightmare. She remembered thinking she’d dragged Jack into it by her desperate phone call for help.

The whole thing came back to her in a rush. Being rammed from behind that first time. Then again. The spin. The way Brian Hobart had steered into the side of her car and pinned it against the embankment. Seeing a flash of the tire iron in his hand just before he sent the roof of her special little car crashing down on her head. Then the windshield imploding and the sound and sting of the glass of her driver’s side window exploding inward against her back and arms. Being dragged out of the car, and the sick certainty that leveling blows to the head was a technique Hobart had perfected on Melissa Hobart so no one would see what he’d done. She and Melissa were both lucky to be alive.

She must have made a sound of distress because a chair scraped nearby and Jack’s concerned face came into view.

That’s when she remembered he’d been there when she woke on the side of the road, confused and disoriented. She remembered his tender care of her. And the pain that had rocketed across his features when she’d called him Cole.

What am I going to say to you, Jack? How can I explain?

Then he had called her Beth. Guilt, worry and fear melted away in a millisecond. This was Jack.

“It’s okay. You’re safe,” he had told her.

Something about him saying that bothers me. Why?

“Beth, there’s a detective here to see you. Are you up to telling them what happened?”

Why is he treating me like spun glass?

“They’re pretty sure they can keep a judge from setting bail for Hobart again. So if you don’t want to see them, it’s okay. But they want to prove to the judge that this is related to the charges Melissa Hobart filed against him. They say that would cinch it. I’d feel better if I were sure they could keep him in jail till his trial. I’m sure you would, too.”

Elizabeth frowned. “Of course, I’ll talk to them. Why would you think I wouldn’t?”

He shrugged and turned toward the door. As his eyes slid away, the look she saw there opened yet another memory. When she’d come to on the road, he’d said something to the officer about her making a statement later. And she’d thought he was Cole and was about to break his word about keeping her secret. And that memory answered both her spoken and unspoken questions.

He knew. Somehow he knew.

She looked at Jack, at the pain on his face, and knew she had hurt him. Would continue to hurt him. Until she could face the past and explain it to him. But she couldn’t face the thought of revealing the painful truth of her past in a place so impersonal. “I want to go home after this, Jack.”

He nodded. “I’ll see if I can move things along.”

Elizabeth roused from an uneasy doze, a light metallic click invading her consciousness. She turned her
head and saw Jack carefully close his driver’s side door and stride away from the truck to open the front door of her carriage house. Within seconds he returned and quietly opened the door at her side.

“Glad you could join me,” he quipped when he saw she was awake. His grin clearly wasn’t as lighthearted as he pretended, however. “Planning to stay around long?” he went on. “Or are you going to make a habit of falling asleep in the middle of a sentence?”

“I feel much more rested. I think I can stay awake now.”

“Too little, too late. You have no idea how disturbing it is to be right in the midst of a shortcut and have your guide start snoring in your ear.”

She smiled at his attempt to tease her and appear relaxed. Did he really think she was fooled? While she’d given her statement to the state police detective, Jack had hovered next to her like a mother hen protecting its chicks. When the detective asked if Brian Hobart had touched her in a sexual way, the comparison had notched up closer to that of an angry mama grizzly. And he’d been a bundle of nerves since the doctor gave him the list of instructions for her care, so she wasn’t fooled a bit by his attempt at levity.

“Jack, I’m fine,” she told him, hating the tight look in his eyes, which he was trying to hide. And it was that much worse because it was two parts worry and two parts hurt. “I truly do feel much better,” she
went on, lying for a good cause. “The headache isn’t so bad now.”

“Good. It’s one of the warning signs I promised to watch for. If it gets worse, you have to tell me.” He let out a deep breath and scooped her up into his strong arms.

“Jack!” she shrieked.

“Humor me. They warned me you could get dizzy,” he said and vaulted up the steps.

Though he’d surprised her, Elizabeth realized she’d instinctively looped her arms around his neck. Their lips were a fraction of an inch apart when he looked at her once he reached the front door. The expression on his face was so tender her breath caught. She thought he might kiss her.

“I—I could have walked, Jack.”

“No need. I’ve got you.”

Twenty minutes later, he walked into her cozy parlor with a tray in his hands.

“You don’t have to wait on me.”

He affected the worst imitation of dejection she’d ever seen. “I don’t prepare my special cinnamon and sugar toast for just anyone, you know. And I’m told by connoisseurs worldwide my tea is always brewed to perfection. I am so underappreciated around here. It’s a crying shame.” He set the tray down.

“What’s a crying shame is your dubious acting ability.”

“That means you can always trust me. You’ll always know exactly what I’m thinking by my expression.”

Yes, she would. She couldn’t help but remember the look on his face when she’d called him Cole.

Will that day haunt me forever? And now Jack.

She lay there looking at his beloved face. I can’t let you go, she thought. But I can’t even try to keep you in my life if I can’t get past Jason Lexington—if I can’t at least share it with you so you understand.

“You want to talk about it?” he asked as if reading her mind.

“No. I want to see you smile but I guess that’s asking a bit much.”

He closed his eyes and said on a sigh, “Oh, yeah.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t know you at first when I woke up on the road.”

He shook his head and sat on the ottoman near the sofa. He picked up her hand, holding it gently and stroking it with his fingertips. “Not a problem. You have a concussion. Your vision was probably fuzzy.”

“No. That would be an easy out, but it would be a lie. I think I’ve been lying to myself for long enough. I thought you were Cole. I thought he’d come to save me.”

“Oh. I see,” he said stiffly. The hand stroking hers had gone still.

She carefully shook her head and forced out the words he deserved. The words she had to say if she was ever going to move past that day. If she was ever going to take back her life. Not just parts, but all of it.

“No, you don’t. I thought he’d come to save me—
the way he did once before.” She emphasized the words.

A look of dread entered his blue eyes. He looked like he was ready to bolt. “Before?” he asked, holding his place.

“You don’t have to listen if you don’t want to but I thought you deserved to know. I thought maybe if I said it out loud, I’d finally start to deal with what happened.”

“Then I’m here to listen,” he said, encouraging her with his expression, “but would you let me do something first, Beth? Would you let me pray for you?”

She smiled. She’d never really believed a man like this existed in this I-and-me and sex-sells-everything world they lived in today. “I’m beginning to think I’d be a fool to say no to an offer like that.”

He nodded and closed his eyes. She closed hers, too. He was the expert, after all.

“Father, I praise You and I thank You for Beth. She hasn’t had the best of days, Lord, but You ultimately protected her from evil, and I thank You for that, too. We know that on this earth sometimes evil triumphs, but we also know it’s only for a season. I ask You to release Beth from whatever hold the past has on her. I beg You to strengthen her and help her as she talks about whatever puts such pain in her pretty eyes. Amen.”

“I don’t deserve you,” she whispered.

He squeezed her hand gently. “Suppose you tell me what happened to blind you to how special you are.”

Elizabeth wondered if he’d still feel that way after she explained. She wondered if she could even say the words that would destroy his high opinion of her. She bit her lip and looked at her hands as he let go of them.

She nearly snatched his hand back, feeling suddenly bereft of his touch, but she forced herself to begin her tale. Alone. The way she’d been back then.

“Remember I told you I was an ugly duckling when I was younger? I know you were incensed that I’d ever heard that from my mother, but my family weren’t the only ones who felt that way. Do you remember the story of the ugly duckling?”

He shrugged. “I got stories of coyote and rabbit at home, but I have a vague memory of it.”

“Well, the story is that everyone at the pond made fun of the ugly duckling because he was different. Even his siblings and eventually his mother. In school the other kids made fun of me. One day when I was fourteen, just after my braces came off, they went from calling me Frizzy Lizzie and tinsel teeth to an even nastier, more personal kind of teasing. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I decided to leave the school before the end of the day.”

Elizabeth heard her voice start to lose strength. She nearly gave in to the temptation to stop, but Jack’s thumb started stroking the back of her hand. She hadn’t realized he’d reached out to her again.

“It’s okay, Beth,” he said, his voice low and soothing. “Just take your time. We all have bad memories to contend with.”

“Not like this. And the worst part is that it was all my fault. If I’d only gone back to class.” She sighed. “But I didn’t. I’d gotten a short distance from the main building when I heard someone call my name. It was Jason Lexington. He was a senior, and so popular. He said he’d heard what they’d all been saying to me and he was sorry. He said they were jealous because he could tell I was going to be pretty some day. He said he liked my smile. He wanted to walk home with me. I remember thinking how handsome he was and how nice he was to lie so prettily just to make me feel better.

“That was my second mistake. I was flattered and I went off with him. I didn’t even notice that we weren’t walking toward home at first. He told me all about the car his father bought him for his birthday and about the championship game earlier in the year when he ran for the winning touchdown. When I noticed our direction, he said it was a shortcut through the woods.”

Elizabeth knew she was crying because Jack kept trying to wipe her tears with his free hand, but they kept falling and she forced herself to keep talking. She’d never told it all. Cole had reported what he’d interrupted when he got her home. And her mother had put her in the shower, telling her that if she just didn’t think about it, it would be as if it had never happened. But it hadn’t worked out that way. It had haunted her sleep for years—her waking hours, too. Maybe in the telling some healing would start at last.

“After about fifteen minutes,” she said, “I started
getting nervous and I tried to go back the way we came but he stepped in front of me and said he wanted to kiss me. That he’d been thinking about it since the first time he noticed me. I let him but then he wouldn’t stop.” She sobbed and found herself held against Jack’s chest.

“I tried to run but he was so much bigger. I scratched him and he hit me and then he had a knife in his hand. He pushed me down. He held me down. He told me he’d kill me if I screamed. I thought he’d kill me anyway. I knew who he was, after all. So I screamed anyway. He put his hand on my throat and pressed till I began losing consciousness. Then he came down at my face with the knife but instead of stabbing me, he buried the knife in the ground next to my face. I stopped screaming then and just stared at the knife while he raped me.”

“Beth, you don’t have to tell me anymore,” Jack broke in.

“Yes, I do have to tell you. Please, I have to finally tell someone. I know this will change everything so I don’t know why it has to be you but it does.”

“Then finish it.” he ordered, sounding a little harsh.

She’d expected his anger but still it surprised her in a way. She gathered enough courage to look at him. He had tears on his face, which made no sense. He was supposed to be angry. Think she was damaged and soiled. Not feel her pain. That was all wrong.

Confused, she took a deep breath and did as he ordered. “Cole came before it was over. He pulled
him off me and they fought. Jason finally broke away and ran. Cole put me in his own jacket and took care of me. He took me home, but he didn’t really understand all of it. He didn’t see the knife. Or that it was my fault for trusting Jason. Or about my parents. He told me no one could change who I was inside but he was wrong.

“My mother knew what Jason had done changed me. She told me she’d fix it so no one could see. So no one could tell. They made Cole promise not to tell anyone. They said no one would believe me or him because Jason’s family was so rich and powerful. My father said we’d all be destroyed if I pressed charges, Cole’s father as well as my parents.”

“I’m sure they were trying to protect you,” he whispered, but she could tell he didn’t believe it, either.