guess I do at that.” Silence reigned for a few moments. Finally he said, “You know, my culture believes strongly in special gifts—strange, inexplicable talents that only a few people have.”
“Obviously. Look at what you can do. People would have to be pretty cynical if they could still doubt that extra-sensory talents exist after witnessing your connection with that horse out there.”
He turned until he was fully facing her. “I wasn’t talking about me.”
“Oh.” She glanced away, blushing despite her best efforts not to. “Then—”
“You understand things you’re too young to know about. You see things others can’t.”
“Yes.”
“So can I ask you a question about that?”
“You mean you haven’t already?”
He laughed. It sounded kind of rusty, as if he’d almost forgotten how. “I’m serious. What do you see when you look at me?”
Too much. She saw too much when she looked at him. She saw the surface—the handsomest, sexiest, most amazing man in the whole world. She saw the brilliant horse trainer, the one who walked in the minds of animals. She saw loneliness, the self-imposed isolation, though she didn’t know why. And clearly, so clearly, she saw what he would be for the Triple H and for her. The future. Her future.
But she couldn’t tell him any of that. Not this man whom she had just met. This man who was too old for her, too serious and too hard by far. So she said simply, “A guy who works for my father.” It was lame, but she didn’t know how else to answer.
She wasn’t ready for him yet and he certainly wasn’t ready for her.
DESI CAME BACK TO herself with a start, turning the pages of the journal as she skimmed through the next few months’ worth of entries. There was nothing much of interest there—at least not for a soon-to-be-divorced woman of forty-nine.
After all, her response to his question had set the tone for the next eighteen months of their relationship. She had chased after him, wanting to spend every waking moment with him and he put up with it, though he never again opened himself up to her. Until one night, when everything between them changed with one random act of violence.
Out of habit, and a need she refused to admit even to herself, Desiree flipped to the seventh entry in the book, one she—and her daughter—knew by heart.
I was seventeen the first time Jesse ever touched me. I mean really touched me, not just a pat on the back or an affectionate ruffle of my hair. It was prom night and I was all dressed up—hot-pink halter dress, skyscraper heels, a new haircut and more makeup on my face than I normally wore in a year. I was uncomfortable, miserable, convinced I would humiliate myself by losing my balance in the five-inch heels and tumbling onto my butt in front of my date and the entire senior class.
I hadn’t wanted to go to the stupid dance, hadn’t wanted to waste time I could spend with Jesse on a stupid high school boy. But Mama had insisted, had finally convinced me that I would regret missing this dance for the rest of my life. She even went so far as to line up my date for me—I think she was afraid I would buck tradition and go by myself. Fear that was, truthfully, well-grounded.
Mama was tenacious. Before I knew what was happening, I’d been whisked into her favorite salon for a facial, manicure, pedicure, haircut and some other tortures too painful to mention. She found the dress, bought the shoes, even presented me with my very first pair of diamond earrings on the day of the dance.
The evening started out ordinarily enough. Steven picked me up in his father’s Cadillac, took me out to dinner then danced with me for hours once we arrived at prom. I tried to be enthusiastic, tried to enjoy the dancing and the festivities despite my awkward nervousness and aching feet. Steven was a gentleman—funny, attentive, interesting—and eventually I relaxed enough to enjoy the dance and the party he took me to afterward.
When we got back to the ranch sometime after three in the morning, I was happy, a little excited and too restless to sleep. So I took off my shoes and invited Steven, a city boy, to the stables to meet Jezebel. When he reached for my hand, I let him, because it had been a nice night and the gesture seemed harmless.
I introduced him to my horse, laughed as he fed Jezebel sugar cubes and cracked jokes at his own expense. When he wrapped an arm around me and lowered his head to mine, I didn’t protest because I was curious. Obsessed with Jesse from the first moment I had laid eyes on him, I had missed out on the many dating rituals of my peers. I was seventeen and had never been kissed, had never been held by an attractive boy, had never felt the rush of desire as hands smoothed over my body.
His lips met mine and the sensation was mildly pleasant—not earth-shattering, not arousing, not even very interesting. I pulled back with a smile, said something funny, turned to leave. And just then suddenly he changed. He grabbed me, pulled me to him, his hands moving hard and fast over my arms, my back, my breasts. I tried to pull away, tried to shove him back, but he was strong and aroused and I had nowhere to go.
DESI SCREAMED AS Steven dragged her to the ground, his hand slipping inside her dress to fondle her bare breast even as he thrust his tongue deep into her mouth. She gagged and turned her head, her body bucking desperately beneath his.
“Stop it! Steven, I mean it. I want you to stop.”
“You don’t mean that.” His breathing was harsh as he forced her legs apart, settling himself between her thighs and rubbing himself against her. “You can’t.”
“I do. I do. Steven, no!” Her voice was panicked, her hands shaking as she shoved against his face. Annoyance gave way to anger and anger to fear as time stood still and she realized that she couldn’t move, that he had her pinned beneath him and that there was no one around to hear her screams.
She strained against him, her body inching along the ground as she fought to escape him. “Come on, Des, stop fighting.” Steven’s voice was low, but she could hear the strain in it as he struggled to keep her beneath him. “You’ll like it. I promise.”
Adrenaline surged through her and she put her hands on his forehead, pushing against him with every ounce of strength she possessed. His head snapped back, an almost comical look of surprise replacing the desire in his eyes. It only took a second for him to come to his senses, but that second was all Desi needed.
She rolled away from him and ran. Dirt and hay clung to her dress but she didn’t notice as she raced for the door. He caught her mere seconds from freedom, his hands grabbing the hem of her dress and tugging so hard that she stumbled and the material ripped.
She kicked out as she fell, her foot catching him squarely in the chest. She heard the air rush from his lungs as her heel connected and she scrambled, on all fours, desperate to escape this nightmare that was spiraling completely out of her control.
Spying a shovel near the door, Desiree extended her body, reached for it, pausing only a second as she waited to feel her hand close around the wooden handle. But that moment of hesitation was all it took for him to be on her, one hand shoving her face into the ground as his other lifted her dress and ripped frantically at her pink lace underwear.
“No! Please, no!” The words were torn from her against her will, shrill cries that sounded nothing like her voice. She tried to move, her fingers clawing at the ground as she twisted against him. But he was on top of her and he outweighed her by at least sixty pounds.
Tears streamed down her face as strangled sobs tore through her chest. She wanted to scream, to beg, to plead, but he was too heavy and she couldn’t breathe. She heard the rasp of his zipper, felt her dress tear again as the lack of air caught up to her and the world slowly turned gray around the edges.
“Steven, please.” The words were hardly more than a whisper, the fight all but gone from her as she began to float silently away. Her lungs shuddered, desperate for air as tears leaked slowly down her chin to mingle with the dirt beneath her cheek.
She