When she slowly twisted around to stare at Raphael, half afraid of what she would see, he didn’t have a sinister expression on his face. Of course not. He was not Howard. He was not cruel or mean or hateful. He was good and kind and her own personal archangel. His expression was only curious. Like that name was simply a mini mystery he’d recently discovered and now needed to solve.
“Where did you hear that name?” she asked. She could have been walking on glass she felt so unsteady. Who had ratted her out? Who had told him? Even Lucy didn’t know that name, only the initials.
Raphael uncrossed his arms and approached her. He slid an arm around her shoulders and squeezed her against his side. The hug was a surprise. He didn’t seem angry. He leaned in to whisper, “Did you know that you talk in your sleep, Francine?”
Francine closed her eyes, mortified. She’d spent the night with Raphael and said another man’s name in her sleep? How stupendously impolite.
“Oh, no. I’m so sorry.”
He tipped her chin up, looking her straight in the eyes when he said, “You never have to say sorry to me, Francine.”
“Thank you.” She swallowed hard to keep from weeping in relief. “What did I say?”
“You said, ‘Howard, no. Please, Howard, don’t.’ There was more, but I couldn’t make out all the words you spoke, just that you seemed distressed.”
That was accurate. They were the last words she’d spoken to Howard when she discovered what he’d done, what he was about to do to her.
No. She hadn’t known she talked in her sleep.
“I feel an obligation to ask what he did to you.”
“An obligation?” The horror of the scene that filled her memory was cut short by Raphael’s next unexpected query.
“Did he assault you in some way?” he asked carefully. “Do I need to exact retribution on your behalf? Because, trust me, I will.”
Francine snapped out of her reminiscences and shook her head. “No. He didn’t assault me. But he did betray me. To add insult to injury, he was cruel and hateful about it when he most assuredly didn’t have to be. It took me a long time to get over him, but I did.”
“Are you truly over him?”
She grabbed Raphael by his coat lapels. Staring deeply into his eyes, she said, “Yes. I promise you, I am completely over him. It’s been years.”
“Why do you think you said his name last night?”
“Probably because you are the first romance I’ve had in my life since…well, since that time way back then.”
“You haven’t had a romance with any other man since?” He sounded surprised.
She shook her head. “No. Axel Grey certainly doesn’t count. Though I liked him, I knew from the moment we met that Lucy was in love with him. He was like a brother to me from the start.” She wondered how naive Raphael might think her if she told him he was the first man she’d ever been intimate with.
Francine hadn’t been with Howard intimately, but she’d been close. Several witnesses could attest to what she’d been about to do. She might as well have done what she’d been silently accused of. It was a miracle her parents never found out. If they had, they’d been as silent as a grave about the matter.
A sudden grin shaped his lovely mouth. He wrapped both arms around her even tighter, lifted her in the air a few inches and said, “Are you saying that I was the one who helped you get over this dreadful man from your past?”
Yes. You made me believe in love again.
In his warm embrace, she felt secure, relaxed and optimistic with regard to the possibility of love. “I suppose so. You were the first guy I couldn’t stop thinking about after I saw you.”
“At Valene and Wyatt’s house?” He lowered her to the ground, but kept his arms securely around her.
“No. Walking through the Big Bang Truck Stop with the Grey brothers when Indigo Smith was on the loose on Earth…the first time.”
“Is that so?”
“It is. I’ve had my eye on you for months.”
“I saw you that day, too.”
“You did?”
