Forbidden Heat

“You weren’t a baby when she gave you up?”

“No. I know a lot of women—especially teenagers—give up their babies when they have an unexpected pregnancy, but that’s not what happened with me.” A lump formed in her throat. “Those kids are lucky because . . . their mothers cared what happened to them . . . or at least gave some thought to it.” She picked up her glass and took a sip. “In my case, my mother just . . . didn’t care.”

“Honey, that’s probably not true.”

“Oh, it’s true.” She stared at her wine as she swirled it in the glass, not willing to allow Suzie to see the anger and hurt in her eyes. “One night when I was four years old, my mother just got sick of my crying and . . . shoved me outside and locked the door.”

Danielle remembered the absolute terror she’d felt standing outside the house . . . all alone. She had banged on the door and cried, pleading with her mother to let her back in, but the door had remained closed. Later, when she was old enough to understand these things, she’d discovered that her mother was an alcoholic, and if she hadn’t been totally plastered, she might have realized what a bad idea it had been to leave her young daughter outside where people could hear her screaming.

Danielle didn’t know how long she’d been out there, alone and crying. It had felt like forever.

Suzie shook her head in disbelief, staring at Danielle to assure herself this wasn’t some kind of strange joke.

“Oh, Danielle, I’m so sorry.” Suzie moved closer.

Knowing Suzie probably wanted to hug her, Danielle stood up and paced the room.

Suzie watched her. “How could she do such a thing?”

“Later, I heard that she’d been pretty drunk that night.”

“But that doesn’t explain how a mother could treat her child that way.” Suzie shook her head. “That was . . . inhuman.”

Danielle found herself blinking back tears. She’d lived with this a long time, thought that she was over it . . . or at least immune to the emotional turmoil remembering the event used to cause her. But clearly that wasn’t true.

“What happened?” Suzie asked. “Did she finally let you back in?”

Danielle shook her head. “After a while, a neighbor heard me. She came to see if I was okay.”

Danielle had backed away, screaming, when the woman had tried to approach her. The poor woman had been frantic to help this scared little girl. She kept saying she just wanted to help, but Danielle had been too frantic . . . too frightened.

“I guess she called someone. I don’t really remember.” She did remember that the woman had stood about twenty yards away, keeping an eye on her. “Not long after that, the police showed up.”

That had terrified her even more. She’d thought they’d come to arrest her and that they’d throw her into a dark jail cell.

“I don’t really remember much after that, except . . . when I finally saw my mother again . . . years later . . .” Danielle’s fists clenched by her sides. “She told me she was glad they took me away. I’d always been a pain in the ass to her and she was glad to be rid of me.”

“She actually said that?” Suzie asked, her eyes gleaming.

Danielle simply nodded, wondering why in hell she had revealed that.

Suzie stepped toward her and gathered Danielle in her arms.

“I can’t believe a mother would do that to a small child. That she would do that to you.”

Danielle stood stiffly in Suzie’s warm embrace. A part of her wanted to relax into the comforting warmth the woman offered her . . . but she couldn’t. Remembering her mother brought it all back. The reality was that she was alone in this life . . . and she had to remember that. It wasn’t safe to let anyone get close. She couldn’t let herself rely on anyone.

“I wish I had been there.” Suzie stroked Danielle’s back. “I wish I could have held you when you were that little child and told you how special you are.”

At those words, tears prickled at Danielle’s eyes again.

How different would her life have been if she’d had someone who’d really cared about her? If she’d had someone who would have held her when she’d cried? Who would have really cared when she’d been hurting?

Who would have loved her.

But she hadn’t, and there was no point crying over what she couldn’t change. She blinked back the tears.

“What’s going on?”