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“Then one day I came home from cheerleading practice. No one was around, and I didn’t think twice about taking a shower. That’s when he broke in. Luckily my father had left something at the house—a flyer he needed to print for the Rotary Club. Funny how I remember exactly what was on that flyer—seems silly to remember—but I can’t forget anything about that day. The soap I’d used in the shower, the way my uniform lay crumpled on the bathroom floor, the way that blade felt at my throat. I ran into the kitchen and grabbed a knife—I’d seen too many B movies and thought I could protect myself—but Robbie took it from me. The knife cut me here.” She rolled up her right sleeve to reveal the pink line that ran from mid-forearm to her bicep. It had faded, but the memories had not. Then she pulled down the collar of her shirt to show him the scar on her shoulder. “And here.”
“Addy.” Lucas leaned forward, hands clasping the broad wood arms of the chair. He looked as if he might get up, as if he needed to do something.
She tugged her sleeve over the reminder of what Guidry had given her—not just the wound, but fear itself. “My dad saved me. Hit Robbie with the baseball bat my brother left in the corner of the kitchen. My mother must have told Mike a million times to put it up. Thank goodness my brother had selective hearing. All this happened long ago, but it changed me. I’m cautious, and I fight being afraid. I go to group therapy and I function quite well, but the fear is always there. It’s part of who I am.”
“Jesus.”
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”
His face softened. “Don’t you?”
“Watching you struggle, feeling trapped and very much, I don’t know, alone? Guess I wanted you to understand why I’m private. Why I’m not a girl who can open herself to just any guy.”
Lucas watched her, his hands still clasping the chair. Strong hands with hair sprinkled on his knuckles, hair that caught the sunlight. Lucas’s reaction was odd, almost as if he took it personally. “I assumed something had happened to you by the wariness you displayed, but not...that.”
She pressed her lips together, embarrassment creeping in. Or maybe not embarrassment so much as vulnerability. She hated feeling an eternal victim.
He ran a hand through his dark hair, making it stick up and softening his normally hard look. “So is this guy in prison?”
She nodded, anxiety once again filling her at the thought of Robbie Guidry and the scare tactics he employed from behind bars. Seemed ironic he could still bait her from that locked cell.
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