When Lightning Strikes

"I was just thinking about Kelly." She sighed, sagged tiredly against his body.

He stroked her hair and said nothing.

"She's my life.... She has been from the moment I conceived her. Until Kelly, I was . .. lost."

Silence fell in after her words, broken only by the crackling hiss of the small fire and the far-off whisper of a breeze. He knew instinctively that she had more to say, so he remained quiet, waiting, offering her the wordless comfort of his arm.

"For a while, you made me forget everything," she said softly. "And I can't tell you what that meant. I've spent a lifetime unable to forget anything. I carry around my past like some dark anchor around my throat, dragging me forever downward. But this morning ... none of that mattered."

"Maybe if you talked about it . .."

"Killian, I've had so much therapy, I could tell the plumber my past. It's not talking that helps you forget something; it's having another moment, another memory to replace it." She turned to him, looked at him through huge, bright eyes. "That's what you gave me just now, Killian. And I'll treasure it forever."

He touched her face, wishing he could simply accept her words and let the matter drop. But he needed her suddenly, needed to soak her up inside him and know everything about her. Before he could ask, though, she leaned toward him, so close that he could see the pain in her eyes.

"I ..." She looked down, bit her lower lip. "I ... want to tell you about my life now." She forced a hollow laugh. "You should know who you're sleeping with."

"Lainie?"

She pressed a finger to his lips and shook her head.

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"Don't stop me, Killian. I've never done this before, not really. I've told, but I've never shared. With you ..." She looked up, met his gaze. "With you I want to be different." He stilled. "Okay."

"I hate to be predictable, but it starts with my folks." She shivered violently and looked away, gazing at the pond in the distance. "They were young, and they never should have had children. Heroin addicts, both of them. I was in withdrawal for the first week of my life." She gave another bitter laugh. "What chance did I have, right? Anyway, they tried to take care of me, but of course, they couldn't, and one day when I was ten years old, they just left." He frowned. "Jesus ..."

"My mom was found dead of a drug overdose a few months later, but Dad .. ." She shrugged. "He never came back. After that, the state stepped in and moved me from one foster home to another. That went on for years. At first I really tried to fit in, but after a while you stop caring." She looked up at him, staring at him through eyes that were heartbreakingly honest. "That's when I started partying pretty heavy. For years I moved in a drug-induced haze, not caring, not being cared about. Just one of the millions of kids who drift on city streets at night. Alone ...

"It was on one of those nights that I was ... raped. It was a bad scene, really stupid. I was at a party, pretty loaded up, way too young, and I met a couple of older guys. We ... got high and they ..." She looked away, her eyes glazing with tears that didn't fall. Her voice fell to a whisper. "They didn't think a girl like me had a right to say no."

He stared at her, feeling a young girl's pain and fear wash over him in a chilling wave. He wanted to say

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something, offer some comfort, but it would have sounded so cheap and hollow. So he said nothing at all.

After a long silence, she went on. "For a long time, I believed them. It sent me into a suicidal tailspin, a downward spiral that ended behind bars. But strangely, it was the bars that saved me. Finally I found a place where I belonged, or thought I did. Oh, at first I fought the orderlies like a wildcat . .. but they had ... ways of keeping you down.

"Then one day, everything changed." She smiled, a sad, wistful curving of the lips that reached her overbright eyes. "Dr. Gray?the institution's head shrink?told me that it wasn't my fault, that every woman has the right to say no. It took a long time, a long time, but after a while I started to believe her. She helped me take control of my life and start over. I got my GED and started writing in the hospital. I tried never to look back, but sometimes, at night ..."

She turned to him, met his gaze, and he could see the challenge in her eyes. She was waiting for him to pull away, to tell her that she wasn't good enough for him.

"Lainie," he said quietly, shaking his head. "I love you."

She gave him a trembling smile. "You don't know how long I've waited to hear that." She squeezed her eyes shut. "It's so damned unfair."

"What is?"

She opened her eyes. "That I would find you now, one hundred years in the past."

It struck him like a blow. Suddenly he thought about all the things she'd said?heroin addicts, withdrawal, foster homes, shrinks, GEDs?and the information took on a new, horrifying meaning. The words that before had meant so little, now meant everything. He stared

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down at her, speechless. It felt as if a huge, unforgiving weight were pressing against his lungs, suffocating him.

Jesus, it was true.