An hour later, they all took one last look at what was no longer their home. Bags in hands carrying as much as they possibly could, tears flowing freely, and without their husband and father, six lost souls left the Sacred Gardens forever, without much hope of ever being able to look back.
As they sat on the transport, one of the guards pressed a note in her hand so quickly that Vinia had to feel it twice with her fingers to make sure she hadn’t imaged it. She adjusted Sarah in her lap so she could peek at the note without being seen. Colton noticed, but Vinia shook her head not to say anything. She read the words and then tucked the note into Sarah’s diaper.
The guard wouldn’t look at her, and Vinia had about two seconds to decide if she trusted him. She recognized the man as a friend of Jeremiah’s, even though at this point, he could never admit it.
The driver was to ask her one time where she wanted to go. Taking a deep breath, Vinia repeated the words from the note. “Manitou Springs, Colorado.” There was also a name on the note for a person she needed to find when they arrived. Fear choked her as they started to move. The guard met her eyes once and he gave her a slight wink. Being the only person to show her the slightest bit of kindness, she sent up a silent prayer that he was sincere. Her children were counting on it.
Chapter Two: Setting the Stage
Ellie Dampier
Twenty Years Later
Ellie straddled the railing of her balcony, the bottle of wine firmly in her grip. She gazed out over the Friday night lights of the city far below as tears turned them into one big blur.
A door below slammed; the force reverberated in the quiet evening.
Her temper flared. “You better hope you didn’t break the window.”
Mumbling reached her ears, but nothing discernible. The door to his truck slammed with a bang and again broke the night air. The muffler rumbled as the motor was revved higher than necessary. Smoke poured as he squealed the tires against the pavement as before he burst out of his parking spot.
She watched the taillights grow smaller as they flew down her long drive. They stopped when he had to wait for the gate to open.
I should have gotten the remote and locked the damned thing just so he had to sit there and wait.
Curtis Sandberg. Her co-star and want-to-be boyfriend.
She took a long drink straight from the wine bottle. She pushed her hair away from her cheek and could already imagine the streaks of mascara smeared under her eyes and across her usual perfectly made-up face. She hated getting so pissed off that she cried, but Curtis had certainly brought that out in her tonight.
"Do you know how many women would give anything to be in your position?" he had asked her after his initial attempts failed.
"I don't care, Curt. I'm not like most women."
"I know," he had agreed. "That's why I want you."
"You're not listening. What you want, and what I want, are two totally different things that don't cross." She had tried to make him understand. "You deserve someone that will appreciate you. Why would you want to settle for less than that with someone who can't do that, like me?"
"You'd learn."
His cocky attitude had further irritated her. "No, I don't want to learn. Relationships are supposed to be easy, not work."
"I can ruin you; you know this. You do realize that, right?"
She hadn't taken him seriously even though her temper had kicked up a notch. "You won't. I make you too much money by keeping our characters relevant. I'm one of the stars in the soap. They can't just ditch my character."
"I can do whatever the hell I want." He had pointed at her. "You're not that good. And you certainly aren't as valuable as you think you are. I'll go to the tabloids and give them a scoop."
Those words had hurt, and her temper had exploded. "How dare you! You can't force me to go out with you. We have a good professional, working relationship. We need to just leave it at that, and you just need to leave."
"I'm leaving, but this isn't over. Not by a long shot."
That's when the tears of anger and frustration had started. She wiped a smudge of black off her cheek and wiped her finger on her jeans.Oh well. Suzanna can fix it.There were benefits of having a personal makeup artist at her disposal, and she planned to exploit every one of them.
She reached up and pulled out the pins that held her long, blonde locks in place. Her hair fell almost to the middle of her back once it was free. She tossed the pins over the railing and listened to see if she could hear the tinyplinksas they hit the pavement below. She sighed when she heard nothing. She was too high up.
Her house, more of a mansion, was her pride and joy and she had earned every concrete block of it. From assistant to lead actress in record time, she had put blood, sweat, and tears in every dollar she’d earned, which were substantial. Her movies always topped the rankings, and she was a Hollywood A-lister, which she took every bit of credit for. She had nothing that hadn’t been earned.
Ellie watched the truck disappear out the gate. She wondered if the tabloids would be full of drama and lies about her, if Curtis chose to go in that direction and leak a little information, or if he would avoid any drama about being turned down point blank. He had asked her out before, but she had always been able to laugh it off and distract him. Tonight, though, he had come to her house so she had no option but to talk to him. When she turned him down and made herself crystal clear, he had gotten mad and not handled the rejection well.
