CHAPTER 76

Tess leaned against the glass. Now she realized she should have taken the wheelchair that the Nurse Ratched look-alike had recommended. Her feet burned and the stitches pinched and pulled with little provocation. Her chest ached, and it was still difficult to breathe. She had been wrong about the ribs, two cracked, two bruised. The other cuts and bruises would heal. In time she would forget about the madman they called Albert Stucky. She would forget his cold, black eyes pinning her to the table like the leather shackles that had held her wrists and ankles. She would forget his hot breath on her face, his hands and body violating her in ways she thought were not possible.

She gathered the front of the thin robe in her fist, warding off the shiver, the icy fingers that could still strangle her whenever she thought about him. Why fool herself? She knew she would never forget. It was one more chapter to try to erase. She was so very tired of rewriting her past in order to survive her future. Now she struggled to find a reason why she should even bother. Perhaps that was what had brought her here.

She looked past her battered reflection in the window and watched the wrinkled red faces. Little chunky fists batted at the air. She listened to the newborns’ persistent cries and coos. Tess smiled. What a cliché to come here looking for the answers.

“Girlfriend, what are you doing out of bed?”

Tess glanced over her shoulder to find Delores Heston in a bright red suit, lighting up the sterile white corridor as she marched toward her. She wrapped her arms around Tess, carefully and gently hugging her. When she pulled away, the hard-nosed business owner had tears in her eyes.

“Oh mercy, I promised myself I wouldn’t do this.” Delores swiped at her eyes and the running mascara. “How are you feeling, Tess?”

“I’m fine,” she lied, and tried to smile. Her jaw hurt where he had punched her. She found herself checking over her teeth again with the tip of her tongue. It amazed her that none of them had been chipped or broken.

She realized Delores was studying her, examining for herself whether Tess was fine. She lifted Tess’s chin with her soft hand, taking a closer look at the bite marks on her neck. She didn’t want to see the horror and pity in Delores’s face so she looked away. Without a word, Delores wrapped her arms around her again, this time holding her, stroking her hair and rubbing her back.

“I’m making it my job to take care of you, Tess,” she said emphatically as she pulled away. “And I don’t want a single argument, you hear me?”

Tess had never had anyone make her such an offer. She wasn’t sure what the correct response was. But of all her choices, tears did not seem appropriate. Not now. Delores took out a tissue and dabbed at Tess’s cheeks, smiling at her like a mother preparing her child for school.

“You have a handsome visitor waiting for you in your room.”

Tess’s insides clenched. Oh God, she couldn’t handle facing Daniel. Not like this.

“Could you tell him I’ll call later and thank him for the roses?”

“Roses?” Delores looked confused. “Looked like a bunch of purple violets he was clutching. He’s squeezing those flowers so tight, they’re probably potpourri by now.”

“Violets?”

She looked over Delores’s shoulder, and Tess could see Will Finley, watching, hesitating at the end of the corridor. He looked incredibly handsome in dark trousers, a blue shirt and, if her blurred vision served her correctly, a bunch of violets in his left hand.

Maybe there were a few new chapters in her life that needed writing, after all.