“During my marriage, my mantra changed to, ‘I can’t,’” she confessed tremulously. “Instead of believing in my strengths, I started focusing on my weaknesses, and pretty soon I became that person, a weak, spineless woman held prisoner in a penthouse behind unlocked doors. I’m still that person, even now. Don’t you see? I think that’s why I have the dreams about being lost—because I can’t find the old me anymore. It’s as if that part of me shriveled up and died.”
There were a number of things Parker might have said to her right then, but when he ran them through his head, they all sounded canned and trite. Time to share more secrets. “I used to have horrible dreams about bein’ lost.”
“You did?”
“Yep. I was a lot younger than you are, so my dreams were probably simpler and more straightforward, at least on the surface, but when we’re hurtin’ and feelin’ confused, I don’t guess age is a factor in how lost we feel.”
“What were your dreams about?” she asked, the faint note of hope in her voice unmistakable.
“Losin’ my way and not bein’ able to get back home. I had two different versions. In one, I’d search and search for our house, but I couldn’t find it. In the other version, I’d think I found it, only to reach the front door to discover it locked. I know it sounds silly, but I was only a little tyke, and the dreams terrified me. I’d wake up pantin’ for breath, my heart poundin’ and my body drenched in sweat.”
“It’s like that for me, too.” Her gaze still clung to his. “And the feeling won’t go away. It stays with me long after I wake up.”
He peered out from under the porch overhang. Like a curved shard of fine bone china, the moon hung surrounded by stars that twinkled like diamonds sprinkled willy-nilly on a drape of blue-black velvet. In the distance, ponderosa pines rose in silhouette against the sky, their conical tops swaying slightly in the breeze. Their scent, mingled with the faint perfume of alfalfa, grass hay, and clover, traveled to him on the chill night breeze.
With a push of his booted foot, he set the swing to moving again. The rhythmic creak of the chains above them soothed him somehow, and he hoped it would soothe her as well. “My dreams started right after my mother died. Lookin’ back on it now, I think they stemmed from my real-life situation. My home was no longer the home I’d always known, and no matter how hard I wished for things to be the same again, they couldn’t be, not with my mother gone. I was a very troubled, grief-stricken kid, tryin’ to deal with a loss that a lot of adults couldn’t have handled.
“One night, I got to missin’ my mother so bad I left the house so nobody would catch me cryin’.” He winked at her. “Bein’ all grown-up is serious business to a five-year-old boy. I was afraid my brothers would see me blubberin’ and call me a bawl baby. Anyway, my dad got scared when he realized I was missin’. After traipsin’ all over the ranch in the dark, he finally found me in one of the horse pastures with my back to a fence post. Instead of scoldin’ me for runnin’ off, he just sat beside me and let me talk.”
“He’s a wonderful man, your dad.”
“Yes, he is. As an adult I realize that he was probably in as much pain as I was, if not more, but when you’re a little kid, you tend to be pretty self-centered. I didn’t think anyone else missed my mother quite as much as I did. To me, it felt as if my whole world had been destroyed and could never be fixed. I yearned to feel her arms around me one more time, to hear her voice, to have her read me just one more bedtime story. My dad tried to fill her shoes, but he had a brand-new baby to care for, all us boys to mind, a house to run, and a ranch to keep afloat. He did his best, but he didn’t know the songs she’d always sung to me, and he read the stories different, in a deep, growly voice that was nothin’ like hers. Plus, he tried to skip passages so he could move on to the next kid and get all of us tucked in for the night. I missed my mother so much. It’s difficult for me to describe the pain of it even now.”
“I didn’t realize you were so young when you lost her,” she whispered.
“Young, old, and everywhere in between, we all suffer when we lose someone dear, and she was dear.” After studying her pale, upturned face for a moment, Parker decided that she seemed calmer now. He didn’t know if it was the rhythmic creak of the porch swing or the drone of his voice that was helping her to calm down, but he’d settle for either one. “She left a huge void in our lives that nothin’ could fill.”
“Did your dad manage to make you feel better?” she asked.
Parker sighed. “He taught me how to find the North Star so I would always be able to find my way home when I had bad dreams about gettin’ lost. That helped a lot. The next time I had the nightmare, I had that star to guide me.”
She followed his gaze to search the heavens. “How do you find it? There are so many satellites nowadays that I can’t find Polaris anymore.”
Parker helped her find the pointer stars in the Big Dipper, which led to Polaris, the last star in the handle of the Little Dipper. “If you can locate the Big or Little Dipper, you can always find the North Star. My dad didn’t call it the North Star, though.”
“He didn’t? What did he call it?”
Parker smiled at the memory. “He told me that all of us have a bright light inside of us that can never be snuffed out, and that when we die, that light becomes a star. He convinced me that Polaris was my mother’s light. Whenever I got lost, he said she would be up there to help me find my way home.”
Rainie sniffed and rubbed under her nose. “How sweet. And you really believed him?”
Parker nodded. “Call me crazy if you want, but I still do to this day. In a symbolic way, of course. As a little boy, I saw the star with the trustin’ eyes of a child, believin’ with all my heart that it was my mother’s light, always there to guide me. It was such a comfort to me. When I got to missin’ her, all I had to do was look up, and there she was. Later, along about the time I got into middle school, I learned that my mother’s star was called Polaris and had been in the heavens for centuries. But instead of bein’ pissed at my dad for tellin’ me a whopper, I found a deeper meanin’ in the story he told me that night, one that comforted me even more. It still does even now.”
“Which was?”
“That there truly is a light within all of us, a brightness way deep inside that can never be dimmed or snuffed out, not by anyone or anything, not even death.” He paused a moment to let that settle in her mind. “We can be down and out. We can be on our knees, drownin’ in the darkness without any hope, and suddenly there it is, that tiny glimmer of brightness inside of us to help us get back on our feet. Nothin’ can take that away from us, Rainie mine. Some folks call it grit, others call it the soul, others an aura. I’m not well versed on all the New Age stuff, but I’m sure there are other names for it, too. In the end, what we call it isn’t important. What matters is that practically everyone senses that there’s more to each of us than mere flesh and bone. Even an aborigine in a remote place untouched by civilization knows that some indefinable part of his spirit is invincible.” He turned to meet her uncertain gaze. “You feel it, too. That’s why it’s hauntin’ you in your dreams. Way deep down, you know it’s there inside of you, waiting to flare bright again. You only have to find it.”
“I don’t feel any light inside me at all right now,” she whispered.
“Ah, but it’s there, sweetheart.” He looped an arm around her shoulders and drew her close to share his body heat. “When I look at you, it shines so bright it damn near blinds me.”
She rested her head against his shoulder. “Thank you for being such a good friend, Parker. Somehow you always manage to make me feel better.”
He bent to press a soft kiss to the curls at her crown. “Maybe that’s because you can see your light reflected in my eyes when I look at you, a little reminder of who you really are.”
A few minutes later, when Rainie returned to her room, she knelt before the window to stare up at the sky. It took her a moment to find the Little Dipper, but once she d
id, she focused on Polaris. Unlike Parker, who’d chosen to think of the star as his mother’s light, she preferred to claim it as her own, a way to remind herself that there truly was a bright place within her that Peter’s ugliness had never been able to touch.
“‘Star light, star bright, the first star I see tonight,’” she whispered. “‘I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight.’”
She closed her eyes, wishing with all her heart that she could wake up in the morning feeling more in touch with who she really was, not the woman she had become during her marriage to Peter, but who she’d been before meeting him, a brave, confident, ambitious girl who had never felt truly afraid of anyone or anything.
When she lifted her lashes to gaze at Polaris again, she felt a little foolish for reciting a child’s nursery rhyme and seeking comfort in a star. But at the same time, she felt more at peace than she had in years. There was a bright place within her that couldn’t be snuffed out, that would never be snuffed out.
Peter had done his damnedest to destroy her, and he would try again if she gave him an opportunity. But that wasn’t going to happen. I can, she thought with fierce resolve. I can. She was through hiding behind unlocked doors. She was finished with being a coward. Granted, she still felt a bone-chilling fear when she thought of her husband, but some of the greatest acts of bravery were committed by individuals who felt afraid.
Her feelings of fear didn’t define her as a person. Only her actions could do that.
The following morning, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, frying bacon, and other delicious but indefinable scents brought Rainie slowly awake. Yum. The air itself smelled good enough to eat. Next to her ear, a low humming droned irregularly. Reaching out, she found Thomas’s warm, furry body curled up on the other pillow. Just as Parker had predicted, the cat had calmed down and come to find her sometime during the night. Rainie gathered him into her arms and stroked his back for a couple of minutes, relieved that he was no longer so terrified by the strange surroundings. It’s going to be okay, she thought. If Thomas can be brave, so can I.
After the brief cuddle session, she sat up in bed, stretched her arms high above her head to enjoy a wake-up yawn, and then swung her feet to the floor. Judging by the smells wafting to her nose, Parker was cooking one of those gargantuan breakfasts he’d told her about. Rainie wasn’t much for large repasts when she first awakened, but she did dearly enjoy her morning caffeine. Normally she stumbled out to the kitchen in her nightwear, with her hair going every which way, to grab a mug of wake-me-up before taking a shower, but here in Parker’s house, she wanted to be fully clothed when she ventured downstairs.
After quickly performing her ablutions, she slipped into a pair of white capri pants and a blue knit top with cap sleeves. No makeup, she decided. She was still so groggy that she might impale her eye with the eyeliner pencil. Besides, it was high time that Parker saw her without cosmetic enhancements. He kept saying she was beautiful, but he might change his mind when he saw how pale and drab she looked without blush, mascara, and tinted lip gloss.
He was singing when she entered the kitchen, his deep baritone thrumming in the aromatic air. “She’s got freckles on her cheeks, she’s got dimples on her . . . but she’s purty.”
Rainie gulped back a startled laugh. A cowboy’s version of an off-color ditty? At least he’d blanked out the word ass. “Good morning.”
Standing at the stove with his broad back to her, he jumped as if she’d stuck him with a pin. Whirling with a spatula clutched in one big fist, he grinned sheepishly. “You caught me.”
“I did. I’ve never heard that particular song. Where’d you learn it?”
“My dad, I think. Or maybe it was Clint who taught it to me.” A flush colored his muscular neck. “How’d you sleep? No more bad dreams, I hope.”
This morning he wore a cardinal red shirt, the collar opened to reveal a smattering of black chest hair, the sleeves rolled back over corded, sun-bronzed forearms. Rainie ran her gaze over him, thinking, not for the first time, that he was, hands down, the handsomest man she’d ever seen. How he managed to make such an impact in faded Wranglers and dusty boots, she’d never know, but she felt like a chocolate addict who’d just wandered into a fudge shop. Not good. She wasn’t ready for any kind of physical intimacy yet, and he might think different if she started sending him mixed messages.
“No more bad dreams, thank heavens. I slept pretty well after I went back to bed.”
He poured a measure of coffee into a mug and strode toward the table. “Cream, sugar?” he asked as he set down the cup. “I’ve even got some flavored syrups if you’re into that kind of thing, amaretto, hazelnut, Irish cream. I keep them for Sam. When she drinks coffee over here, she wants a taste experience, maybe because I tend to brew it so strong.”
“I’ll stick with my usual black, thanks.” Rainie sat at the table, eager for the first sip. “Yum,” she said as she cupped the mug in her hands. “It smells divine.”
He returned to the stove to turn something in a skillet. Rainie glimpsed round cakes. Flapjacks? When she splurged and fixed what she considered to be a full-fledged breakfast, she had flapjacks and eggs or bacon and eggs, always either/or, never everything at once. She found herself wondering how much of the food he planned to eat himself. Most of it, she hoped. She would feel terrible if he’d gone to all this trouble for her.
“About last night.” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “I shouldn’t have gotten off on all that stuff about bright lights. You were upset, and I went to bed feelin’ bad about it.”
Rainie remembered the peace she’d felt while kneeling before the window and flashed him a look of genuine surprise. “Why did you feel bad?”
The stove timer chimed, and he leaned sideways to turn it off. As he enveloped his hands in protective mitts, he said, “Because it wasn’t about me and my experiences. I tend to run at the mouth, and I should have just listened to what you had to say.” He drew a pan of what appeared to be homemade biscuits from the oven and set it on the granite countertop. Then, with a grin, he added, “Maybe I would have learned somethin’.”
An ache of pure happiness spread through Rainie’s chest. Never once had Peter expressed regret for dominating one of their conversations, let alone acknowledged that she might have had a thought worth hearing.
“I didn’t mind.” She set down the coffee mug and rested her chin on her folded hands. “In fact, what you said really helped me to sort things out.”
“It did?” He flicked an incredulous look at her. “How’s that?”
“I think you’re right, that there’s something within each of us that’s inextinguishable, a part of me that Peter was never able to touch.” Rainie’s throat went tight and her eyes burned. “Last night after we talked, I thought about that, and I’ve decided that I’m ready to fight back. He tried to destroy me, and he’ll try again if I give him half a chance. I’m not going to let that happen.”
He straightened from the stove, slowly removing the baker’s mitts and tossing them on the counter. “Good for you.”
Taut with nerves, Rainie pushed out, “I’ve decided to contact the police.”
He settled his hips against the counter and folded his arms. “You sure?”
She managed a stiff nod. “I’m positive. I’m terrified. Don’t get me wrong. But it’s time for me to face him down.”
His dark eyes searched hers. “If that’s your decision, I’m behind you a hundred percent. So is my family. You won’t face him alone.”
Rainie already knew that. “I think my wisest course of action is to let Loni put out some feelers, like she suggested. When she thinks it’s safe for me to step forward, we’ll take it from there.”
He rubbed his jaw. “Dad had a good point about getting you a top-notch lawyer. If the authorities believe Loni’s story, it probably won’t be necessary, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.”
“Like I said yesterday, I don’t have the money
for legal representation.”
“My offer of a loan still stands.”
Peter would have tacked a price onto the offer, but Parker just reminded her that he would be there for her, no strings attached. No leverage, no emotional blackmail. That meant more to her than he would ever know. “I’ll want to make monthly installments to pay you back.”
He nodded and turned back to the stove. “Now for breakfast. Come grab a plate, honey, and load up.”
“I don’t usually eat much for breakfast.”
“You’ll need to be changin’ your habits now that you’re goin’ into trainin’.”
“Training?”
“Yep. I’m fixin’ to teach you some Harrigan-style judo, and to excel at it, you need to build up your strength.”
“What kind of judo did you say?”
“Harrigan-style.” He grinned as he slid three eggs onto a plate and handed it to her. “Eat hearty. I’ve covered all the bases. Even made potato cakes. If you don’t eat, you’ll be starvin’ come lunchtime.”
“I can’t eat three eggs, and I’ve never had any desire to learn judo, Harrigan-style or otherwise.”
“Develop a desire.” He plopped a biscuit slathered with butter on her plate and then added a potato cake and three slices of bacon. “If you’re gonna contact the authorities, Peter will soon know where you are.” He bent to kiss her forehead, his manner brotherly. “I don’t intend to give the bastard an opportunity to catch you somewhere alone, but on the off chance that he somehow does, I need to know that you’ll be able to kick his sorry, city-boy ass.”
Just the thought gave Rainie a rush. “You can teach me how to do that?”
“Absolutely. Samantha trained with my dad when she was a teenager. She hated it at the time, but he insisted.”
“Has she ever actually kicked anyone’s butt? Without rendering him unconscious with a kitchen chair, I mean?”
“A couple of times, actually. And don’t knock her for usin’ a kitchen chair to take her first husband down. It doesn’t matter how you kick a man’s ass, only that you’re standin’ over him when the dust settles. Sam used a chair to even up the playin’ field with her ex, but the next time around, all she had to fight with were her fists and feet. She still kicked ass.”