I thrash against arms holding me too tightly. Whimper. Beg. “Let me go. Please!”
“You’re home. You’re safe. You’re loved.” AJ’s voice cuts through the fog, and a cold, wet nose swipes over my cheek. “Come back now, darlin’.”
Belle whines, nudges me again. My fingers sink into her wiry fur. She’s tense. Shaking. Or is that me?
“AJ—” My voice cracks. I can’t make my lungs work.
“Breathe, Grace. Just breathe,” he croons.
The room comes back into focus by degrees. The thick rug under my fingers. The warm wood beams overhead. The fire crackling in the hearth. The leather sofa with the thick beige blanket. Belle, her bright eyes locked on me.
Lucas is halfway to the back door. “I’ll…uh…check how Lindsay’s doing outside. Give you a few minutes.”
AJ shifts, pulling me into his lap. “Talk to me.”
I know I can’t keep banishing all my painful memories somewhere they can’t hurt me. But that doesn’t mean I’m strong enough to face them. “Not yet.”
“Grace—”
“Tell me something real,” I whisper. “I need something real to hold onto.”
AJ takes my left hand, his fingers resting on my wedding ring. “This is real.”
“More. Please…” I beg.
He drops his forehead to mine. “You’re real. We’re real.”
I cling to him, still shaking, my cheek pressed to his chest, right over his heart. “I remembered running. That day.”
As if he can sense how close I am to breaking again, AJ presses a gentle kiss to the top of my head. “Our first Thanksgiving in this house, we hosted everyone. But Jas and I caught a case and didn’t wrap it up until early that mornin’. So you had to put the turkey in the oven. You’d never made one before. We’d always gone over to Mom’s house.” He chuckles, and the sound is enough to soothe my raw nerves. “You had no idea the turkey neck and giblets were stuffed inside the bird. Wrapped in wax paper. I came home to a house that reeked of smoke to find you and my mom half drunk on mimosas with at least a dozen Chinese takeout containers on the table. It was one of the best Thanksgivings ever.”
God, I wish I could call up that memory. “I want to meet your mom.”
“She spends most of her time goin’ on cruises with her travel group. Can you imagine? Ten women, all between seventy and eighty-five, with enough Queen of the Seas points built up, they ain’t gotta spend a cent most of the time. She’s cruisin’ around Cape Horn in Africa right about now, but she’ll be back to port in two weeks. You’ll meet her then.”
Comforted by AJ’s story, I let him help me up onto the couch. He settles next to me, his arm around my shoulders.
“My watch read a little over eight miles. I felt so good, AJ. Strong. Like I could have run forever. But then…something hit me.”
I touch my ribs. Just under my breasts. “Here. Then I was on the ground. I couldn’t move. I think…it might have been a taser.”
He asks me question after question, his voice calm, smooth, measured. Did I see their faces? Hear their voices? Did they have a car? A truck? A van? What happened after they tased me?
But I can’t give him any answers. “That’s all I know,” I whisper.
“It’s okay, darlin’. You faced it. You let yourself remember.” He rubs gentle circles over my thigh. “What triggered you? Any idea?”
God, I’m so tired. If I could, I’d crawl back into bed and sleep for a week. But the installers won’t be done for another few hours. “I think…the soldering iron.”
AJ nods. “How about you move into your studio for a while. They finished in that room an hour ago.”
A hard knot clogs my throat. “I…can’t.”
He tilts his head, studying me. “Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t feel like mine.” The words escape before I can stop them. “I walk in there, and I don’t recognize any of it. The walls are too bright. And all the sketches and paintings—I know they’re my sketches and paintings—but it’s like someone else made them. It…hurts.”
Belle nudges my knee, and AJ drapes his hand over mine, his fingers resting on my wedding ring. The contact should be enough for me to shake the hollow, haunting echo I feel every time I look at my own art. But it isn’t.
