On Lavender Lane (9 page)

Appearing totally at ease with being naked, he got out of bed, stood in front of her, and smoothed his palms over her bare shoulders.

“Spend the day with me, sweetheart. If we don’t explore what’s happening, if we let this moment pass, we could end up regretting it the rest of our lives.”

Logic warred with emotion. “I can’t think,” she moaned as his mouth moved to her throat.

“Don’t think.” His lips burned a trail along her jawline. “Just feel.”

He was everything Stephanie had waited for her entire life. Everything she’d dreamed of. So why was she hesitating?

“Yes.” Her breath hitched as one of those wickedly clever hands cupped a breast. “Oh yes.”

He responded by kissing her long and deep.

“Good girl,” he murmured against her lips as he drew her back down to the bed.

They stayed there for the next four days, only calling out for room service. She resigned her job, but, as he’d assured her, waitress jobs were a dime a dozen. She could get another. If she wanted one.

Or, he suggested, they could get married.

Although she knew it cost him a great deal of pride, her father had allowed Peter’s family to pay for the wedding, which, Stephanie’s future mother-in-law insisted, must be held in Denver to accommodate all the family’s friends and her husband’s business associates.

Since Peter had insisted on a fall wedding, Stephanie dropped out of college—she could always transfer to UC Denver later, he’d assured her—and moved to Colorado.

A mere two months after he’d changed her life when he’d walked into that dining room, she was walking down a
white satin runner in front of five hundred wedding guests at Denver’s exclusive Coldwater Creek Country Club, where they spent the night before flying to his family’s Maui home.

He’d taken advantage of the first-class perks, drinking the free liquor nearly the entire flight to Hawaii. When she’d tried, discreetly, to suggest he might want to slow down, he’d responded that he was only celebrating their marriage. Which, if true, a niggling little voice inside her had suggested, he wouldn’t have been flirting with the blond, ever-so-attentive flight attendant.

She’d been Peter Fletcher’s wife for less than forty-eight hours when she belatedly discovered that the problem with fairy tales was that they didn’t warn impressionable young girls that the prince could turn out to be a frog once he took off that gleaming suit of armor.

And that when a man hit you, it hurt.

A lot.

The doorbell rang, sending a burst of adrenaline rushing through Stephanie’s blood and dragging her mind from that honeymoon three years ago when her life had begun its downhill slide into hell.

With nerves tangled and anxiety gnawing at her gut, she crossed the massive foyer of the stone mansion that had become a prison, pausing in front of the heavy, gilt-framed mirror that had, according to the designer Peter had hired, once hung on the wall of a French palace.

The blond woman reflected back at her from that mirror, with her sleek, chin-length bob, was a stranger. The only recognizable things were the stress lines around her mouth and the fear in her hazel eyes. And the purple mark on the side of her face, which, if you looked carefully, wasn’t as concealed beneath her makeup as she’d hoped. At least the turtleneck sweater covered up the fingerprint bruises on her throat.

Stephanie looked through the thick wooden door’s judas hole and blew out a relieved breath when she saw the
silver-haired woman standing on the other side of the door. A woman whose chic silk blouse and ladylike pearls looked totally appropriate in this gated community.

“All right,” the “conductor” she knew only as Karen said as she entered the foyer. “Are you all packed?”

She’d been advised to travel light, which was exactly what she’d done. “My bag’s upstairs. I hid it in the back of the guest-room closet. Just in case.”

She didn’t need to add that if Peter had arrived home from Cheyenne early, her carefully constructed escape plan would have had to be put on hold.

“Good thinking. Why don’t you retrieve it; then we’ll get going?”

Her bruised hip had her moving a bit gingerly up the Scarlett O’Hara staircase that she’d so often dreamed of someday having while growing up, when she’d been young, foolish, and romantic.

After pulling the cheap carry-on, which she’d bought specifically because it was at the opposite end of the spectrum from her matching Louis Vuitton luggage, from beneath a shelf of linens, and heading back down the hallway, she paused in the doorway of the overdone master bedroom, which looked as if it had been decorated by Marie Antoinette.

It was here, in that heavily carved Louis XVI bed, where she’d learned that a married woman, could, indeed, be raped.

Peter’s escalating violence had contradicted everything she’d been taught about life, love, and the sanctity of marriage.

The day she’d walked down that aisle in Vera Wang purchased by her mother-in-law-to-be, wife beating had been beyond her imagination.

Even after he’d first hit her, she’d not fully been able to believe that it had happened. That Peter, her husband, could have done such a thing to her.

And even when the handprint on her cheek gave evidence
to the contrary, she’d believed him when he’d assured her that it wouldn’t happen again.

Because he was her
husband
.

The next time, desperately wanting—needing—to believe in him, Stephanie had accepted his excuse. It was an accident. A mistake.

When it happened yet again, then again, she blamed the stress of his life outside the home. Of course, she’d tearfully admitted to him, she didn’t know the pressure that came with being the only son of a family of overachievers. No, she had no idea of the difficulties involved in international oil trading, where fortunes were made. And could be just as easily lost.

It was only these outside problems that explained his behavior.

Which meant that it was up to her to find a way to soothe. To ease his frustrations.

And when she failed, as she always seemed to do, Stephanie had only had herself to blame.

So she became quieter. More submissive. More of what Peter Fletcher wanted in a wife. Less of what he disliked. The map of her world narrowed, until it centered solely around her husband and her home as she slavishly conformed to every behavior that would demonstrate that she was a good wife.

And when she could no longer lie to herself, when she was forced to accept the painful truth that the devoted, sincere, loving man Stephanie had believed she’d married was, in fact, cold, calculating, manipulative, and violent, some last lingering scrap of pride had her lying to others to convince them that her life was, indeed, that fairy tale she’d dreamed of. Rather than the nightmare that more and more often had her waking up in a cold sweat.

“No more,” she whispered, even as icy fingers of fear skimmed up her spine.

When she returned to the foyer, Karen reached into an
oversized tote bag and took out an envelope. “How are you doing?”

“I’m worried.” And wasn’t that an understatement? “Actually, I’m scared.”

“You should be. What you’re doing isn’t going to be easy. And I’m not going to lie to you. It could be dangerous. But you’re already facing danger every time you drive on a freeway. Or,” she pointed out significantly, “remain in this house.”

“I’ve never broken the law before.” That was the absolute truth. As far as she could remember, Stephanie had never even jaywalked.

“Perhaps you’ve never had an important enough reason before.” The woman gave her a long look that was laced with both sympathy and steel. “You’re always free to change your mind.”

“No.” Stephanie shook her head. “I’m not going to.”

After agonizing over the decision, she’d come to the conclusion she didn’t have any choice. Hadn’t the mothers of Moses and Jesus smuggled their sons to safety to protect them from infanticide? What she was doing was no different.

“I’ll be fine,” she said when Karen didn’t immediately respond, but continued to study her. “I know what I’m doing.”

“All right, then. Here’s your new ID. You’re now officially Phoebe Tyler.”

Stephanie had chosen the name after a great deal of research, because not only had Phoebe been a Titan goddess in Greek myth, but it was also the name of an Amazon warrior. She knew, despite all the help she was receiving, that she was going to need all the strength she could muster. There was also the fact that Phoebe had been her favorite character on
Friends
.

“I like the sound of it.” She’d tried out dozens of names in front of the mirror until this one had struck a chord. But
this was the first time she’d heard anyone, other than herself, say it out loud.

“So do I, and I’m so glad you went with it. At first the engineer was leaning toward Sarah, which, being the fifth-most-popular name the year you were born, allows more anonymity, but one of the mistakes people make when choosing a new identity is to choose a name beginning with the same letter of the original one, which we didn’t want to risk. Also, she and I agreed that Phoebe fits this new, strong woman you’re becoming.”

Stephanie—
No,
she thought, having been told that she’d have to embrace her new identity to make this work,
Phoebe
—
smiled at that idea. When she felt the tug of unused muscles on either side of her mouth, she realized she couldn’t remember the last time she’d smiled.

“Your first station will be San Diego. Christy will be your stationmaster there. I’m sorry I can’t give you any information, but she’ll be e-mailed your photo and will meet you at baggage claim.

“You’ll stay with her overnight; then the next morning another conductor, whose name you’ll learn right before you leave San Diego, will put you on a plane to Seattle, where you’ll spend another night.

“Then you’ll take the Amtrak Cascades down to Portland,” Karen continued. Her brisk, matter-of-fact tone had Phoebe wondering how many travelers she’d dealt with. “You’ll be booked in the train’s business-class section because there are usually less travelers and they’re more likely to be concentrating on their work than chatting with seatmates. I’m told the route has some gorgeous scenery, so that’s a plus.”

Although she found it ironic that she’d be taking an actual train on this underground railroad she’d entered, scenery was the last thing on Phoebe’s mind right now.

“Your final conductor will meet your train and drive you down the coast to your final destination, which, depending
on the traffic, could take another two hours. Perhaps a bit more if there’s an accident tie-up on the coast road. But you should definitely be settled in Shelter Bay by that evening.”

Three days and a few hours until freedom.
The idea had, not that long ago, been incomprehensible.

“I don’t know how to thank you.” Phoebe brushed at the tears that had begun trailing down her cheeks.

“Just have a good life,” Karen said, her tone softening a bit. “And, someday, if you’re able, pay it forward.”

“Oh, I totally intend to do that.”

For victims of abuse, the shadowy network of volunteers and shelters were literally lifesavers. Stephanie also knew that every one of them understood that police and federal agents could show up on their doorstep any day due to the falsification of records they specialized in. Also, the very same dangerous abusers they were helping women to escape could find them.

These women weren’t just saving
her
life.

As she pressed a hand against her still flat stomach, Phoebe vowed that whatever it took, whatever she’d have to do, she would keep her unborn child safe.

9

Lucas had already seen the sex video before showing up at Sofia’s farm the afternoon after his father’s burial. Although he’d never considered himself a masochist, Sofia’s mention of Maddy possibly returning home to oversee the remodeling of the farmhouse had him Googling her name to see what was happening with her life, other than the TV shows he’d spent too much time watching like some lovesick teenager.

It did not take long. The first thing that came up was a mention of her husband’s sex video. With another woman.

Wondering how widespread the video had become, he typed in the French celebrity chef’s name. In a mere nineteen seconds, the search engine offered up 695,000 results.

Oh, hell.

After a hot night dreaming—in vivid, Technicolor detail—of the last time he and Maddy had made love, in the cave on the beach, with the moonlight streaming over her body, he’d awakened with the mother of all hard-ons and the crazy idea that just maybe, fate had decided to give him a second chance with the only female who’d ever gotten not only under his skin, but into his heart.

Not that he would ever hit on a married woman. Having lived through the pain of two of his father’s divorces—first to his mother, and second to Charity’s—there was no way
Lucas would ever try to get between a woman and her husband.

But whatever Sofia had not said had led him to believe that just maybe things were not all copacetic at Chez Durand. And if that was the case…

It wouldn’t be easy. He was fully prepared for bitterness. Anger. Accusations that he couldn’t deny, and even if he tried to explain his reason for his boneheaded behavior, he’d undoubtedly only end up getting blasted even more for having been an ass. A stupid, ignorant ass who deserved to be skinned and parboiled.

Which, except for that skinning and boiling part, was pretty much true.

He’d screwed up big time ten years ago. But, dammit, it had been in her best interest, he’d reminded himself as he waited impatiently for the coffee to drip through the machine.

Yeah.
Lucas rubbed his hand over his heart, which had begun to ache in that old, familiar way.
Try that line on her and see how it goes.

Spending several weeks every summer at the coast, he’d seen her over the years. Watched her grow from a sad, slightly pudgy young teenager to a pretty girl whose curves had caused boys to follow her around like lovesick puppies. Boys she’d appeared not to notice, so intent had she been on her goal of becoming a chef like her late parents.