But it wasn't until this instant that he understood just how much Vance had hurt her soul. His blow would've awakened nightmare memories of her childhood. Abe didn't have to read very hard between the lines to know that her mother and her mother's boyfriends must've hit Sarah.
"No." Sarah's response was immediate and firm. "That was the first time--and I wouldn't have stood for it even if you and the others hadn't been there to support me. I was never going to be that woman, the one with fist-sized bruises under her shirts and heavy makeup to hide the black eyes."
Abe's gut filled with ice. Suddenly he knew where this was going. "One of them went too far?"
CHAPTER 25
"HE BROKE HER NECK." Tears clogged her voice on the starkly brutal answer, but she kept speaking. "Then he set fire to our trailer. I crawled to her room, tried to drag her out... until I realized... until I realized..."
Striding back to her, Abe tugged her up into his arms. He went to speak but she wasn't finished. "The police caught him. He's serving life in prison." A shuddering sob. "She wasn't a good mom, but she was still my mom and he killed her."
"Fuck, you were a strong kid." He knew she must've testified to send that murderous bastard to prison.
"I got put into foster care after that." She wiped her face on her T-shirt. "It was a bad place. More violence along with a son with wandering hands and a way of looking at me like I was meat."
Abe gritted his teeth together, his muscles rigid.
Sarah continued to talk. "After the prick cornered me one night, grinding his crotch into me and telling me I was going to get it and I better not say a word or his parents would kick me out for being a slut, I packed up what little I had and left."
"How old were you?"
"Fifteen."
He crushed her close, his heart thudding. Fifteen-year-olds didn't last long on the street without attracting the attention of certain predators. Especially fifteen-year-old girls as beautiful and as well-developed as Sarah must've already been. His muscles bunched, his rage returning on a black roar at the idea of her being hurt that way.
"You okay to keep talking?" Abe would never force her back into hell.
"You might as well know the rest," she said, her head turned to one side on his chest and her arms down by her sides instead of around him. "I didn't have any real money. Just a few dollars given to me by a cop who felt sorry for me."
A short pause, her breathing jagged. The next words she spoke were haunted. "After hours walking down the highway alone in the dark"--echoes of fear in her voice--"I hitched a ride out of town with a trucker. And I gave him what he wanted because he told me we'd be together forever, that he'd take care of me, make sure I never had to be alone in the dark again. I'd watched men make promises to my mom and break them over and over, should've known not to believe him, but I was so alone and so scared."
Abe was so far beyond anger now that there was no word to describe it. What the fuck kind of asshole took advantage of a grieving fifteen-year-old? "If you ever see him, point him out and I'll break his nose, and you can kick him in the nuts."
A wet laugh and Sarah's arms slipped around him at last, as if she finally trusted that he wouldn't let go, wouldn't reject her. "He left me in Los Angeles two months later. Just drove out while I was using a restroom." Nails digging into his skin. "I had such dreams of the big city, of the lights and the pretty people, but I found those things don't exist for girls with no one."
His gaze blood red, Abe kissed her temple, braced to hear the worst.
"I was so lonely. Easy prey for the smooth-talking predators." Another rasping breath. "But I'd learned from my experience with the trucker, and then for the first time in my life, I had a stroke of luck. I was squatting in an abandoned building with a bunch of other kids and getting ready to run to avoid a drug dealer I already knew wanted to pimp me out, when the police raided it."
Abe kissed her temple again, so fucking scared and angry for the girl she'd been. "That doesn't sound like good luck."
"The cops didn't want to deal with us kids--they were after the narcotics den in the basement. So they handed us over to a local charity organization. Most of the others ran off first chance they got, but I stayed." She shrugged. "I hadn't been on the streets long enough to make friends or have other loyalties, and at least with the charity, I had a place to sleep where I didn't have to worry about being assaulted."
Abe could feel himself trembling within. "Sarah, sweetheart, why didn't you ever tell me any of this?" She'd said her parents were dead and that she'd been on her own for a while, never once mentioning that she'd been on her own from the time she was fifteen. "Why, baby?"
Sarah pulled away, her movements jerky as she walked to the sink and began to rinse the dishes, put them into the dishwasher. Abe resisted the temptation to demand more from her, resisted the temptation to be the raging bull he so often was. Instead, he helped clear away the detritus of their meal, then grabbed the magnetic notepad she had on her fridge.
It was one of those novelty items with Shopping List in fancy font on the top. Below, Sarah had jotted down a few items in her distinctive handwriting with its wide loops and generous curves. "Milk," Abe said, noting it down. "Eggs. Ham, since I ate all of it. Bacon too." Please, Sarah, talk to me. I won't let you down this time. "Doughnuts. Cake. Chocolate-covered pretzels."
"Abe." Sarah finally spoke, shooting him a scowl at the same time. "Just put vegetables. I'll pick from whatever they have at the Farmers Market."
Wanting to hold her again, he forced himself to stay in place. "What else?"
"I'm nearly out of flour." Dishes all stacked in the dishwasher, Sarah started to open and shut cupboards, calling out items for him to add to the list as she went. "I just wanted to fit in," she said in the middle of checking the cupboard in which she kept her canned goods. "You had such a lovely mother, a great extended family, incredibly strong roots and the kind of friendships that are forever. I didn't want you to think I was a throwaway person."
Abe crushed the grocery list, his fist clenching without his conscious volition. "You were never that."
"I made myself that," Sarah insisted. "I was twenty-one when I met you, and yet I'd made no real friends, not even with the charity workers who helped me take the GED." Her hand tightened on the edge of the cupboard door. "The loneliness was horrible, but I guess I'd been burned so badly that I thought it was safer to keep my distance from people in general." She looked at him after an eternity. "Until you."
And he'd kicked her so goddamn hard in the heart that he'd thrust her into the arms of a manipulative fuckhole who turned out to be an abuser. Right goddamn back into the nightmare she'd tried to escape. "I was only ever interested in your background because it was yours. It didn't matter where you came from or who your parents were."
"You don't understand." Sarah shook her head, her curls wild. "You've always had this solid foundation behind you. Always had the Bellamy name, always had people you could rely on. It's different when you come from nothing and have no one."
"You have me." Abe moved to cup her face. "Whatever happens, however this ends, you have me. Always." Never again would Sarah feel alone and abandoned. "You hear me, Sarah? I'm here for you and our baby. Today, tomorrow, always."
ABE'S PASSIONATE WORDS CONTINUED TO RING IN SARAH'S SKULL as she walked with him through the permanent pathways of the Farmer's Market at 3rd and Fairfax, his hand clasped firmly around hers. It made her afraid that he knew so much about her, had glimpsed the scars that marked her... but then hiding her needs hadn't saved them the last time around. If Abe had known that loneliness was her terror, if he'd understood how her childhood had marked her, would he have left her behind all those times?
"These oranges look good." Abe bagged up a bunch. "Vitamin C is good for you."
"I'm starting to think you're going to be a pain in the butt the entire pregnancy." Sarah mock-scowled, even as bubbles of delight popped through the heavy darkness of this morning's con
versation and the attendant memories.
Abe touched his hand to her lower back after paying for the oranges and taking the bag, then nodded ahead. "Those look like avocados. I heard something about healthy fats."
Shoulders shaking, Sarah walked over to the stall and bought several avocados that weren't too ripe. No one bothered them the entire time they were at the market, and they left it loaded down with fresh goods as well as a huge caramel-covered apple that was Sarah's delicious nemesis.
"I have one every six months," she told Abe as she ate a slice after they got into his SUV. "Otherwise, I'd be here every week, stuffing my face."
"Well, I guess it was once fruit," he said dubiously.
Ignoring him to munch obnoxiously on her treat, she had sticky fingers when he pulled up at the grocery store where they planned to quickly pick up a few other items. "Do you have a bottle of water?" She wiggled the fingers of her right hand at him.
His eyes turned dark, intense.
Gripping her wrist with a gentle but firm hand, Abe tugged her fingers to his mouth and sucked in a finger, swirling his tongue around it to clean off the caramel.
Sarah whimpered.
"There," he murmured after he'd patiently and calmly cleaned off each and every one of her fingers, his eyes locked with her own the entire time. "Done."
Putting a trembling hand on the door, she went to push it open. She needed fresh air, needed to find her senses again. Abe was somehow out of the SUV and around to her side before she knew it. He put his hands on her waist, lifted her down... and she caught the flash of a camera going off.
Flinching, she instinctively angled away her face, while Abe turned toward the man who'd taken the shot. She felt his body bunch, and that was enough to spring her into action. Placing a hand on his chest, she said, "Abe. No drama. I can't handle it."
"Bastards," he muttered but wrenched his attention off the photographer. "We're just going to the freaking grocery store."
Sarah took a deep breath. "At least I look good."
"You always look good." Abe tucked her hair behind her ear. "Why do you straighten your hair? It's so pretty curly."
Sarah had never thought of her hair as pretty. It turned into a tangle if left to do what it would. One of the charity workers had given Sarah her first set of straighteners, an old pair that the woman's teenage daughter had decided to replace. It had been a revelation to see that her hair could be corralled, could be sleek and shiny.
"I don't want to look messy," she admitted.
"Sarah, your messy is blow-off-the-roof sexy." A deep rumble of sound, his chest vibrating against her touch.
Things melted inside her. "I won't straighten it after I wash it tomorrow," she promised him. "But I refuse to go out in public with crazy hair."
Abe snorted, as if the idea of her with crazy hair was simply impossible--and the man had seen the crazy hair any number of times. "Let's go get these groceries. Ignore the vulture."
Locking the SUV, Abe took her hand in his and they walked through the parking lot to the store. The photographer--who really did look like a vulture with his pasty white face and black handlebar mustache--suddenly popped up from behind his camera to give Sarah an oddly delighted smile. "Finally!" He fist-pumped the air. "I get to have a payday. Basil, this is your lucky day!"
Astonished, Sarah paused, making Abe halt. "What?"
"A rock 'n' roll reunion," Basil said in his unexpectedly refined English accent, snapping away. "No one's broken this story yet. I get to have an exclusive." He gave her an ingratiating look. "How about a kiss, love?" He held up his camera. "I mean, it'd make the story."
Sarah was about to shake her head when Abe spun her into his arms and, bending her over, laid one on her. A hot, possessive one. She gripped at him in surprise even as her brain short-circuited, was still breathless when he let her up.
"Now scram," he told Basil. "Go get your exclusive."
The photographer, his eyes near delirious, was already pulling out his phone. "I'm scramming and I'm going to be rich! Rich!"
Sarah didn't find her voice again until they were nearly at the entrance to the grocery store. "What was that?" Abe didn't play to the media, didn't have the patience for it.
"What the hell--the man already had photos. Why not make things clear?" A searing glance that set her aflame just when the air-conditioning inside the store had begun to cool her overheated cheeks. "I want the world to know you're mine."
CHAPTER 26
SARAH SAT IN HER GARDEN a couple of hours after lunch, Abe's words still echoing through her head. He'd gone home to change into fresh clothes but promised to be back by four thirty so they could take Flossie for a walk along a dog-friendly beach.
Right now Sarah's dog was dozing beside her garden chair, protected from the sun by a wisteria-covered wooden awning she'd put up herself after buying the necessary items at the hardware store. It had been hard and she'd made several time-consuming mistakes, but now, each time she glimpsed it, it reminded her that she was strong, that even alone she could survive and thrive.
That didn't mean she didn't still fear loneliness. She always would, the scar too old and too deeply set into her psyche--but she was no longer held hostage to her need. Her friendship with the woman who sat opposite her, a pitcher of fresh lemonade on the small wooden table between them, had been the first step in Sarah's journey to build a social life outside of the man with whom she was in a relationship.
She'd finally confessed to Lola about her renewed relationship with Abe four days ago, but had said nothing about the pregnancy. She couldn't, the fear of speaking too soon and losing her baby keeping her mute. As if the two were connected. It wasn't rational, but Sarah wasn't rational on that point.
Taking a deep, quiet breath, she returned to her earlier thoughts. "If I'd been the woman I am now during our marriage," she said to Lola, "I think it would've had a different outcome."
Lola's face, small and gamine under a cap of exuberant fire-engine-red hair, soured. "That ex of yours making you question yourself?"
Sarah shook her head, because this wasn't about Abe. "No, it's just that I was so passive back then, so afraid of rocking the boat and losing my only anchor that I never called him on his behavior." Yes, she'd gotten upset about his drugs, but not about how he'd left her behind to go on tour.
"If he ever again started to treat me the way he did back then," she said slowly, "I'd not only call him on it, I'd probably throw a few things at his gorgeous head, then kick his ass. Hard."
Lola laughed that big, honest laugh of hers, her blue eyes crinkling at the corners and her pale white skin flushed from exposure to the sunshine. Sarah's friend wasn't a natural redhead, but she burned like one if she wasn't careful.
"The rock star know you're not a wide-eyed ingenue anymore?" Lola asked after the laughter faded off into a smile, her gaze dead serious.
"I was never that." Sarah thought of the book about the entrepreneur Abe had sent her, about how he'd asked after her business more than once. "He knows--and he seems more than okay with it." She drank some lemonade. "I don't know if I'm just imagining it... but I could swear he's proud of what I've achieved."
"He damn well should be," Lola muttered. "You've made it in a town full of broken dreams and lost hopes." Taking a sip of lemonade, too, Lola tilted up her chin in a questioning move. "I'm getting the feeling things are more serious than they were even a couple of days ago."
Sarah told her best friend about the incident in the grocery store parking lot. "He was never so openly possessive of me before."
Lola had been around the block. Twice. Both times with men who appeared wonderful on the surface but turned out to be rotten underneath. The then twenty-year-old father of her son had turned out to be a wanted bank robber who'd disappeared into the ether after discovering she was pregnant; the husband she'd married at twenty-five and divorced at twenty-eight, a serial cheater.
Lola's view of men was slightly jaundiced as a result. Whe
n Sarah pointed out that Lola's son was an amazing young male with a solid core of honor, Lola would respond with, "My kiddo is a rare unicorn and he'll make some woman very happy one day. The rest of us have to deal with the toads."
So Sarah wasn't surprised when Lola raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow and said, "Easy for a man to be possessive and supportive when he wants a woman in bed. You should see what he's like if he's not getting any."
Used to her friend's acerbic ways and well aware Lola had a sweet and generous heart under her spiky battle armor, Sarah grinned. "That would be cutting off my nose to spite my face," she said in a solemn tone. "I love being in bed with Abe."
Lola rolled those eyes that could be as changeable as the clouds. "What am I going to do with you?" She poured them both a second glass of the crisp, cold lemonade. "Seriously though, while I admit your ex is panty-melting hot--"
Sarah almost choked on her lemonade. "Hey!"
"As I was saying," Lola continued, her eyes dancing, "the man is delicious, but do you really believe he's changed? Drug addicts aren't the most reliable people."
"I know." Sarah had lived the nightmare, watched helplessly as the man she loved gave his life over to a destructive, seductive poison. "It feels different this time. Abe feels different."
She paused, tried to find the right words, petting Flossie when the dog raised her head. "Before," she said, Flossie's fur soft under her palm, "he'd go into rehab when the others in the band forced him, but that was it. This time around he's seeing a counselor trained in addiction." He'd mentioned it in passing at the grocery store, after the counselor gave him a call to confirm a meeting later that week.
"He found the counselor himself, is committed to making every session." That was the most crucial thing--Abe had taken cold, hard responsibility for his demons. "If he's on the road, he says they do the session via a phone call."
Lola gave a small nod. "Okay, yeah, that's a big deal coming from a rock star used to making his own rules."
The other woman sat back, her hair glowing in the sunlight that managed to pierce the wisteria canopy. "Look, I trust you to know your ex better than I ever will," she said, "but as your friend, I'm duty bound to remind you that the bastard broke your heart the first time around, broke it so badly you left yourself wide open to a bastard like Jeremy." Lola curled her lip.