Even though she had to do what she did, shouldn’t it have been more difficult for her to have pressed that trigger? How much more damage would she have been willing to inflict to get away from him?
She didn’t like the person she had become over the past thirty months. She was beginning to fear that, whatever happened in the future, even if this nightmare were to end, she would never get back the part of herself that she’d had to lock away for her own survival. She was terribly afraid she would never like herself again—and that no one else would, either.
The minutes crept by as she stared blindly at the darkened ceiling.
She didn’t try to cheer herself with pleasant memories—memories had become so painful that she’d locked them away with her other vulnerable emotions.
Nor did she indulge in fantasies of a happier future. Hope was something she’d almost abandoned.
Instead, she passed the time visualizing the one constant during this ordeal. The photographs. She could see each one of them in vivid detail in her mind. They flashed through her mind like color slides on a mental screen, replaying over and over, ghostly silent reminders of what she had to do and why.
And she knew that, no matter how much she would dislike doing so, she would hurt Gabe again to keep him away from her.
She simply had no other choice.
GABE STARED out the windshield of Blake’s van, keeping watch over Page’s room. Blake was stretched out in the back, getting some rest after making the arrangements he and Gabe had agreed upon. It had surprised Gabe how quickly Blake had fallen asleep. The P.I. must have developed the ability to catch some sleep whenever he could.
Gabe wasn’t sure he’d have slept even if he allowed himself to try. His thoughts were too disturbing. He couldn’t help comparing the cool, unapproachable woman he’d confronted to the sweet young woman he’d married.
He had loved her with an unprecedented intensity that had delighted him at first, and had almost destroyed him after she’d left. Only his grim determination to find her again had kept him going for the past two and a half years.
Now he’d found her. And he’d discovered that she’d become a woman who was almost a stranger to him.
He didn’t know what he felt now. Anger was definitely in the forefront. Hurt. Disappointment. Concern, he supposed, about whatever was haunting her.
Love?
Even the word sent a pang through him. He wasn’t even sure he was capable of loving that way again.
And yet, would he be hurting this badly if he didn’t still love her? Why else would he be so devastated by her words, her actions, and most of all, the baffling fear in her eyes when she looked at him?
If nothing else, she owed him an explanation for what she’d done to him. He would remind himself of that every time he questioned whether he had any right to follow through on the plan he and Blake had concocted.
PAGE WAS BLEARY-EYED and groggy when she left her motel room not long after sunrise. Dragging a hand through her unfamiliarly short hair, she unlocked the driver’s door of her small car and slid behind the wheel.
She’d showered, but hadn’t been able to style her hair, since she’d left her hair dryer in Wichita, along with her cosmetics bag and her favorite bathrobe. She’d dressed for comfort in faded jeans, a short-sleeved blue knit shirt and sneakers.
She didn’t think it mattered how she looked today. She planned to spend the day in the car, putting as many miles behind her as possible before she selected the next place she would settle—for a while.
She drove south on Highway 65, thinking she’d cross the Arkansas state line and then turn east, taking winding r
ural roads through the Ozark foothills. Maybe she’d head for Tennessee—Knoxville or Gatlinburg, perhaps. Or some little town in between where no one would think to look for her.
She barely got out of Springfield.
Her car engine coughed and her speed began to fall, though she still had her foot pressed on the accelerator. Frowning, she stared down at the gauges.
She’d filled her tank the day before, yet the car acted as though it were out of gas. It coughed again and lurched forward. She clung to the wheel, cursing beneath her breath.
Her trusty little compact had never given her a moment’s trouble. Why had it chosen today, of all days, to mutiny?
There was little traffic on the highway at this early hour on a Sunday morning. Nor were there any buildings in sight, only rock bluffs and stubby evergreen trees and highway construction equipment abandoned for the weekend.
“Don’t do this to me,” she whispered. “Please.”
She should have known better than to hope for the best Her luck just didn’t run that way. The engine made one more strangled, gasping sound and died. All she could do was guide the silently coasting car to the shoulder of the road and shift into park.
She beat her fist against the steering wheel. “Damn. Damn, damn, damn.”