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But if he saved Heather from a possible life of unhappiness caused by him, he’d choose to walk that line every time.
CHAPTER FOUR (#udc7d5650-032c-5356-81ff-d9f7219f9482)
HEATHER WENT STRAIGHT back to work. Her salad hadn’t been delivered when she’d walked out on Cedar, but she didn’t stop to pick up anything. Food would just choke her. Getting air past the lump in her throat was struggle enough.
She had to work. To focus outside of herself.
To quit shaking.
The drive back to her office was a blur. Pedestrians. Stoplights. Lanes. And...blur. Blur. Blur. Blur. She couldn’t let anything else in. Couldn’t let herself feel him.
He’d stolen her faith in herself.
It made sense that seeing him again would bring up the old pain. She’d miscalculated that point. The reality that she’d feel...something...based on a post-traumatic-stress kind of theory.
She didn’t really want him.
Her body just remembered sexual reflexes where he was concerned.
He’d given her a chance to help him right one of the horrible wrongs he’d done.
That thought kept her driving. Got her past the floor’s shared receptionist to her private suite and in the door without dropping her keys.
Inside, she moved immediately to her desk and took a long sip from the water bottle she’d left there. Sinking into her chair, she reached for the closed file in front of her computer screen. Lorraine Donahue would be there in a little less than an hour. The divorced woman was being accused of abusing her twelve-year-old daughter—by her daughter’s father, not by the daughter.
The family lived in Santa Barbara, and, at the request of Lorraine’s defense attorney, Heather was looking for the truth. Her goal was to keep that twelve-year-old girl safe. She’d already done preliminary interviews, reading them over would put her mind firmly in the Donahue household. She’d made a list of questions she was going to ask while the woman was hooked up to the polygraph machine. She had other questions ready, depending on the results of the first round. Not the way the test was generally run, but she wasn’t a typical polygraphist.
Her combination of skills had resulted in more confessions, acquittals and convictions in their region of the state than any other approach. She was good at ferreting out the truth. Or at least a meaningful portion of it.
That afternoon, she was hoping to find out if Lorraine was a decent parent or a horrible one. After first sitting with the woman—and separately with the child—Heather had been fairly convinced that Lorraine was more a victim of her husband’s divorce attorney than a child abuser. But she wasn’t sure enough to form an opinion she was willing to write.
Criminal charges had been filed. Lorraine, who’d been the sole caregiver for her daughter, since her ex had traveled all the time, was now allowed only supervised visits. Mother and daughter both desperately wanted to be reunited, to the point that Lorraine had chosen to forgo a trial by jury.
Heather’s opinion would likely have a huge impact on the judge’s final decision.
The mother’s and daughter’s desires couldn’t come into play. Children commonly fought to be with a parent who’d abused them. And Lorraine didn’t want to go to jail.
The truth was needed and—
Heather jumped as a knock sounded on the solid wooden door of her two-room suite. She was in the front room and had rounded her desk as she glanced at the clock on the wall. Lorraine was early...
Pulling the door open, she felt the clenching inside, like a steel band around her rib cage, even before she consciously acknowledged that Cedar, not Lorraine, was standing in the hall in front of her.
“Sheila wasn’t at her desk, so I came on back...”
He still had her security code to get from reception to the offices beyond. He’d just needed to type the numbers into the keypad on the wall...
He was the only one she’d ever given it to.
She could have changed it after they broke up. Should have. Had actually thought about it and hadn’t done it.
Mouth slightly open, she stared up at him. Afraid of the erroneous conclusions he’d draw about why she hadn’t changed her code.
Whatever they were...they’d be wrong. He couldn’t possibly know why she hadn’t done something when she didn’t even know herself.
There’d been some vague feeling along the lines of...if he used the code, that would prove he was untrustworthy. And if he didn’t, she’d know she hadn’t been completely insane to trust him. Maybe he wouldn’t care enough to try to surprise her with the little gifts he used to bring in an effort to win her back. But maybe he cared enough to respect her wishes and leave her completely alone. The whole thing was a little ambiguous. The choice had been made a year ago. So much had happened since then...
“I brought your lunch.” Cedar held out the restaurant’s to-go bag she’d failed to notice until then. “It’s your favorite.”
“Thank you.” As she took the bag, his gaze met hers. She continued to stare back at him. Like the proverbial deer in the headlights. She just stared. It was either that or flounder.
And then, with a quick nod, he was gone.
* * *
HER AFTERNOON SESSION was a clockwork example of why she did what she did. The truth wasn’t always what it seemed. Asking the right questions, after building her way to them with questions whose answers led her down an unexpected path, Heather got the truth out of Lorraine Donahue. She wasn’t hurting her daughter. Neither was her husband. The twelve-year-old was hurting herself, and Lorraine was afraid the courts would take the girl away from her. That they’d lock her up when she was certain that what the child needed more than anything was a stable, battle-free household, filled with the kind of love only a mother could give. That was the reason she’d filed for divorce from a man she still loved, but who argued about everything. She believed their relationship was at the root of their daughter’s problems.
Lorraine could be right. The answers ahead weren’t up to Heather. Writing her report was all she could do, but as she ushered Lorraine out, she wished she could give her a hug big enough to absorb some of the worry she was carrying inside.
Determining that she’d create a more honest, unbiased report if she took the night to distance herself from the situation, Heather put away the extensive notes she’d taken that afternoon, locked up her office and headed out to the Mustang convertible she’d purchased the previous fall. It was early. She wasn’t due for dinner with Charles until seven. A drive down the coast with the top down, the salty air against her skin, the ocean right there beside her, would be good therapy.
Not that she needed therapy. She just had to clear her mind. To take a couple of deep, cleansing breaths. To talk to Raine.
In the back of her mind, she’d known that if the drive alone didn’t do the trick, she could always stop in at YoYo, Raine’s—who would have believed it?—incredibly successful yoga and yogurt studio on the beach between Santa Barbara and LA. A certified yoga and reiki instructor, Raine also had a handful of employees who were as calming and as nurturing as she was.
Raine might not be earning millions, but she was supporting herself comfortably enough to be happy. But then, it took a lot less to make Raine happy than some people.
“I had lunch with Cedar,” she blurted out the second she and her college roommate were privately ensconced in Raine’s apartment above the studio. Then she corrected herself. “Or rather, I walked out on a business lunch meeting, and he brought me my lunch and I ate it alone. At my office. Before my afternoon appointment.”
There. She’d put it all out there, which would clear her mind. Like taking a pill for a headache.
And Raine was her “pill” when her thoughts were trying to trip her up.
“Why’d you walk out on him?” In bold, multicolored leggings and an orange tank top, Raine could’ve been any man’s dream. But she hadn’t met anyone who made her heart beat faster just by walking into the room.
That was a definition of love they’d come up with together during their freshman year of college. One that hadn’t panned out in the long run for Heather, either—with Cedar, as the first case in point, her heart had definitely beat faster, but...and Charles as the second—he was going to be the love of her life and her heart remained steady every time he walked into a room.
Cedar still turns me on.
“Because I’m not going to let him suck me back in.”
“And that was happening?”
She thought about the conversation she and Cedar had at the restaurant. Really thought about it, being completely honest with herself. “No,” she said. “He asked me for a favor. He used his knowledge of me to get what he wanted, starting with the suit he chose, ordering my tea, even mentioning The Lemonade Stand. I knew it. I saw it, Raine. My walls were firmly in place. It’s like I told you, I’m over him.”
“And you left. Good.” Raine’s blue-eyed gaze seemed more concerned than celebratory. Although Heather had looked away from her friend, she caught the glance in the mirror they were both facing. It was oblong, decorative, almost a chair rail along one wall of the living room. There to make the room appear larger, Heather assumed. It had been there when Raine bought the place. She’d put her couch against the opposite wall, with her television mounted above the long mirror.
There they sat, two thirty-year-old women, both blonde and blue-eyed, looking not much different than they had when they’d met a decade before. Heather’s hair was pulled neatly into a ponytail at her nape, while Raine’s was tucked in a scrunchie on top of her head.
In college, they’d been called the Bobbsey Twins a time or two. Completely inaccurate, of course, as those twins from the books her mother used to read to her were two sets and a boy and a girl.
“Hey.” Raine touched her arm, and Heather looked directly at her. It was why she’d come. To see herself reflected back at her with no judgment—and not just in the mirror. She wasn’t afraid. Wasn’t feeling weak. Didn’t need reassurance or a kick in the pants. Lianna would’ve been closer to run to, but she didn’t need strength. She needed understanding.
“I didn’t tell Charles that I was meeting him,” she said. She hadn’t lied to her fiancé, but she’d been duplicitous all the same by deliberately keeping the information to herself, until after the meeting. It wasn’t like her.
Unless Cedar and his manipulative ways had worn off on her without her being aware of it.
Raine’s expression seemed to ease. As though she wasn’t so worried anymore. Which eased Heather’s level of tension, too.
Good. She’d been right to come. She’d been overreacting and...
“And when you did tell him, he got upset?” Raine asked.
“I haven’t told him yet.”
“Lunch was what...three hours ago?”
She shrugged. “About that.”
“And you haven’t called Charles in all that time?”
“It’s been a busy afternoon.”
“Yet you had the time to drive here.”
If she’d been sitting with Lianna, the statement would have sounded more like an accusation. But the point being made was the same. Just more delicately put.
Was that why she’d come to Raine? To be treated like a hothouse flower, rather than the strong, capable woman she expected herself to be?
She unloaded in a rush. “I have to do the favor Cedar asked,” she said. “Charles is going to think it’s because I’m not really over him, or that he has some kind of hold on me. But I swear to you, Raine, I had no problem telling him like it is.” She told her about Dominic Miller’s woman-friend. About Cedar giving her a chance to help right an egregious wrong. “I might be the only one who can get through to her in the little time we’ll have. Residents can’t stay at the Stand for longer than six weeks max. At least, not without special permission.” The Stand didn’t have to adhere to state mandates, and sometimes residents did stay on...
“You don’t need to convince me, sweetie.” Raine’s brow was creased, but she was smiling, too. “This sounds like any number of other jobs you’ve done. It’s precisely why people call you.”
She had a good point.
“So...you think Charles will understand why I have to at least go talk to the woman?”
Raine’s shrug was noncommittal. “I can’t speak for Charles and don’t know him well enough to make an educated guess.”
Raine had given the problem right back to her. What was she missing that her friend could see? And expected her to get? Or was she slowly losing her mind, thinking everyone was seeing things she couldn’t?
She shook her head. There was a shadow side to everything. Doubt and uncertainty... And when it came to her ability to put herself in others’ shoes, to read them more accurately than most, that shadow side could interfere.
No...that problem hadn’t surfaced until Cedar had used her. She hadn’t questioned herself until then. Not like she had since.
“You think I’m overreacting as a side effect of having seen Cedar?”
Raine shrugged again. “Maybe.”
“What else would it be?”
“I could see you needing some space to process the whole Cedar thing before being ready to defend it to someone else.”
Yes. For the first time since Saturday night, when she’d agreed to the meeting with Cedar, her stomach settled.
“What I went through with him...the intense love and then the horrible betrayal... Of course I need time to process seeing him again.” It all made sense now.
“Which is why I was worried about you and Charles getting engaged so soon.”
Heather’s stomach clenched again. “You think I’m not over Cedar?”
“I think you’re over being in a relationship with him. You’re over some parts of having been in love with him. The rest... I don’t know...”
“What rest? What else is there?”
“The residual effects. I don’t know,” she repeated. “I’m not a professional counselor.” Heather had seen a counselor the year before, when she’d broken up with Cedar. Because of her job, she’d had to make sure her head was on straight. “It seems to me that the damage Cedar did... Well, you need to give yourself time to cope with that. And then to find out who you are when you come out the other side.”
How was it possible that a heavy weight would lift at the same time that that one settled on her? That peace would come with dread attached.
“I’m ready to be with Charles. Just not ready to be engaged...” She said the words aloud, but she’d recognized the truth of them before she spoke. “I need to learn how to be in a relationship in a healthy way before I commit myself to anyone... I have to be fully recovered...”
She wasn’t sure she’d ever fully get over the damage that Cedar had caused her psyche, her heart. She’d thought she had, until she’d seen him again.
Whenever she’d thought about him since seeing him at the party—and he’d been on her mind far too often because of the “secret” meeting she’d agreed to have with him—those thoughts had been accompanied by a horrible feeling inside her.
“I don’t know about a full recovery,” Raine said with a real, no-frown-attached grin. “But I’d say that you at least need to be able to talk to your fiancé about him.”
Her fiancé.
Oh, God. “I have to give Charles his ring back.”
“Or take it off for now. Postpone the engagement.”
Charles was in such a hurry to get married. Remarried. The first time hadn’t worked out, and his chances of being young enough to be the kind of involved father he wanted to be were diminishing.
He’d been completely honest with her, and she’d understood. But that didn’t make the quick engagement right for her...
“He’s the man for me,” she said now, still certain of that. She enjoyed being with Charles. Looked forward to their visits. Was entertained by his company. And felt absolutely none of the debilitating emotional-rollercoaster ride Cedar had taken her on. Charles was steady and affectionate, even in the hard times. Understanding.
He was going to be devastated.
“I’m having dinner with him at his place tonight,” she said, sitting forward. “At seven. He’s grilling steaks, and we were going to share a bottle of wine on the upper deck and talk about the wedding.” She’d been looking forward to the upper-deck dinner, the wine. The ocean view, the handsome man.
Raine was meeting her gaze, silent.
“Don’t worry, I’m going to talk to him.”
“I wasn’t worried about that. I’m just... I’m here if you need to talk, okay?”
