Jane Blythe – USA Today Bestselling Author

Tag: suspense

  • Week 93 – Love conquers all, I remember my mom saying that, but

    Rachel hadn’t said anything yet.
     
    Drake couldn’t figure out if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
     
    He still held her in his arms, and the fact that she hadn’t pulled away eased some of his nerves. He’d wanted to come before now but fear had held him back. Rachel had asked him to stay away and as much as he had wanted to honour her wishes he just couldn’t stay away. He was under no illusion that this was going to be easy, he’d put her through hell, winning her trust back was going to be some feat.
     
    “Rach?”
     
    “I . . .” she started then stopped, then started again, “I think . . .” she trailed off again.
     
    “You think what, sweetheart?”
     
    “Love conquers all, I remember my mom saying that, but . . .”
     
    Drake felt his stomach drop.
     
    He knew how that sentence finished.
     
    He let his arms dropped and gave Rachel the flowers. “I hope you can find peace one day,” he told her as he turned and headed for his car.
     
    “Drake, wait,” Rachel called after him.
     
    He froze but didn’t turn around. He didn’t think he could look at her again and still walk away.
     
    “I still love you, and all I’ve dreamed about since I thought you died was having you here and being in your arms, I don’t know, Drake. I don’t know how we can work this out, its going to take time, I don’t trust you anymore, but if you understand that this needs to go slowly, then . . .”
     
    “Then?” he asked, still not turning around.
     
    “Then we can try,” Rachel finished.
     
    Drake spun around and ran the couple of steps between them and wrapped his hands around Rachel’s waist and picked her up, spinning her around and then finding his lips and kissing her until they were both breathless. “I love you so much, Rachel. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry my job nearly got you killed, I’m sorry you were hurt, I’m sorry I hurt you worse by not letting you know I was alive, and I’m sorry that we lost our baby.”
     
    The small smile that had lit Rachel’s face faded at the mention of their daughter. Of all the pain he had caused her it was that she had grieved their child alone.
     
    “Instead of dinner, I have something to show you,” he said, setting Rachel back on her feet and taking her hand, tugging her down the path to his car before she could change her mind. She didn’t resist, and he opened the passenger door for her, helped her in, then got in the driver’s seat.
     
    Neither of them spoke as he drove but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. Drake knew that Rachel needed him to earn her trust back, and that was fine with him, she still loved him and that was what was important, in time they could heal.
     
    “We’re here,” he said as he parked the car.
     
    “Here?” Rachel echoed, her brow crinkled in confusion. “What are we doing here?”
     
    “I have something to show you,” he said.
     
    She still looked confused but she climbed out of the car, and her fingers curled around his when he took her hand. She let him lead her without question, through the cemetery stopping in front of a small tombstone in a quiet corner under a large oak tree.
     
    Tears filled Rachel’s eyes and she dropped down to her knees in the grass. “My mommy carried me every day of my life,” she whispered the words engraved on the tombstone. “You did this for her? For me?”
     
    Tears filled his own eyes. His daughter’s death was his fault. Asking Rachel to forgive him for that seemed more than was right.
     
    He dropped down to his knees beside his wife. “Rachel, I’m so sorry. You lost her because of me.”
     
    Rachel turned watery eyes on him. “It wasn’t your fault she died. Your job, we both knew the risks, none of that was your fault and I don’t blame you for it.”
     
    “Rachel,” he whispered, taking her hands. “I don’t deserve you.”
     
    She smiled.
     
    A small smile but a smile just the same.
     
    “We both lost a lot, we both almost died, and we are both grieving our baby. You hurt me so much, but I’ve missed you, I can’t live without you, this isn’t going to be easy, but I’d rather fight to get back what we had than let it slip away. I don’t want to be angry anymore, I don’t want to be sad, I don’t want to cry, I don’t want to walk around in a haze, I just want to . . . live,” Rachel finished.
     
    This woman was so much more than he deserved, and he loved her so much that it physically hurt him that he’d hurt her.
     
    “Hope,” Drake said softly.
     
    “Hope?”
     
    “Our daughter, we should call her Hope.”
     
    Rachel smiled again, bigger this time, a smile that reached her eyes. “I love it.”
     
    “Dinner?” he asked, standing and holding out his hand.
     
    She looked at it for a moment, then took it, and let him pull her to her feet. “I’d love to.”

  • Week 92 – Dead of night, footsteps echoing in the narrows of the upstairs hallway, creeping lightly, ever closer

    “Rach?”

    She didn’t want Drake looking at her like that. She didn’t want to think about him hurting too, he was the cause of all of this.

    Dinner?

    How could she say yes when he’d hurt her so badly?

    How could she say yes when she didn’t know if he would hurt her again?

    How could she take that risk?

    Why couldn’t she hate him?

    She should hate him, but . . .

    She didn’t.

    Rachel closed her eyes, trying to clear her mind, figure out what the right thing to do was. Instead images started to flash through her head. Dead of night, footsteps echoing in the narrows of the upstairs hallway, creeping lightly, ever closer, people in her room, hands hitting her, feet kicking her, cold, dark, blood.

    “Rachel.”

    Someone shook her, popping her eyes open, she was shaking, and cold, and sweat dotted her brown.

    Flashback.

    She hated those.

    “Shh, its okay. I’m here.” Drake’s arms came around her, holding her tightly against his chest. His arms shouldn’t make her feel safe but they did. She was so confused.

    There was one thing she needed to know.

    “Were you really watching the house all these months?” she asked.

    “Yes. I wanted to come to you so many times but I was afraid you would hate me. Kind of like you do right now,” he said, half jokingly, half seriously.

    “I don’t hate you, but I do hate what you did.” Despite her anger and hurt it felt good to be in Drake’s arms again. Wasn’t this what she had dreamed about, prayed for, imagined happening all this time?

    “So?” Drake said slowly, his hands gently stroking her back. “Are things really over between us? Can you forgive me? Can you give me a chance to earn your forgiveness and your trust back?”

    Rachel knew she needed to decide.

    He needed an answer and so did she. The last few months had been hell and she couldn’t keep obsessing over this or she would drive herself insane.

    She still loved Drake but could she forgive him and take him back?

  • Week 91 – This was hard

    A month had passed since Drake had walked out of her hospital room.

    She hadn’t seen him since.

    Just as she’d asked he hadn’t contacted her in anyway, he had just disappeared.

    Again.

    In the last month her body had healed from the stab wound, but her mind was still stuck in that same dark place. Her family still worried about her, she still didn’t eat or sleep or leave the house. She just sat, curled up in her rocking chair, and felt betrayed.

    Drake hadn’t even fought for her.

    Did she want him to?

    Rachel wasn’t sure. She was so angry, so hurt that he could let her think that he was dead, and that he could leave her to grieve the loss of their child alone. But as angry and as hurt as she was it didn’t change one simple little fact.

    She still loved him.

    She hadn’t expected him to give up so easily. She had expected him to teller that he was never letting her go, she had expected him try to winter back, she had expected him sit outside her hospital room and try to convince her to let him drive her home when she was releases, she had expected him to turn up at her door every day, apologising and telling her he loved her.

    But maybe he didn’t.

    Maybe he didn’t love her the same way that she loved him.

    How else could she explain how easily he had walked away from her?

    That hurt her more than anything else.

    Had she wasted the last few years of her life married to a man who didn’t love her, then grieved for him while he tossed her away like an old, no longer needed, security blanket?

    She still had her security blanket. She had taken it with her everywhere she went until she was seven and the taunts of her peers had finally pushed her into giving it up. Although she still had it it had lost he magic it once possessed. Now it was just a dirty, tattered piece of material. Was that how Drake saw her? The old, dirty, tattered, broken wife he had one loved but had now lost its magic?

    This was hard.

    The hardest thing she had ever had to deal with.

    Her doorbell rung and Rachel ignored it. She wasn’t in the mood for another pep talk from her family. She knew they loved her but they didn’t understand. How could they? She didn’t even understand all the emotions swirling around inside her. All she knew was that they were choking her. Bit by bit they were choking the life right out of her.

    The doorbell rung again, and then again, and it was only to put a stop to it that she finally dragged herself out of the rocking chair.

    When she threw open the door she didn’t find her family but Drake. Well new Drake, same eyes, different face, like he had had plastic surgery to change his appearance. He probably had, so the gang-and maybe her as well-would no longer be able to recognise him.

    In his arms Drake held a box of chocolates, and bouquet of flowers. Her favorite flowers. Tulips, in a rainbow of colors.

    She wanted to ask what he was doing here but all she could do was stare at him, her mouth hanging open in shock. He was staring at her too like he never wanted to look at anything else but was fully prepared for the door to be slammed in his face.

    “Dinner?” he finally asked. “Not as husband and wife, just a date, a chance to start over, please, Rach.”

  • Week 90 – There was so much to explain

    He had some major grovelling to do.
     
    Drake knew this wasn’t going to be easy. Rachel was so angry. She had every right to be, he’d hurt her deeply, although the choices he had made were what he thought was best at the time, to try to keep her alive and off the radar of the gang he’d been trying to bring down, now he knew it was a mistake.
     
    He should have taken his pregnant wife and run when he realised his cover was blown.
     
    But he’d been arrogant.
     
    Thinking he was too smart and that he could have it all, his family and the gang brought to their knees.
     
    Instead he’d been almost killed, Rachel had been raped and tortured and ended up losing their unborn daughter and very nearly her own life, and now it looked like he had lost her for good.
     
    There was so much to explain but he didn’t know where to start. The beginning he guessed, it was as good a place as any.
     
    Drawing in a deep breath Drake stepped into Rachel’s hospital room.
     
    He had stayed with her, clutching her in his arms, as cops descended on the house. He had refused to leave her side as she was bundled into the ambulance, and had sat beside her bed until she woke up. Then, like the coward it was turning out he was, he’d left, not wanting to upset her again.
     
    “Hi, Rach,” he said tentatively as he entered her room.
     
    Her eyes snapped towards him, a mixture of anger and hurt shining in them. The anger he could take it was the hurt that knifed straight through his heart. He hated that he had caused the woman he loved pain.
     
    “I was hoping I could talk to you,” Drake ignored Rachel’s glower and sat beside her.
     
    “Leave, Drake,” she ordered, her voice weak. She’d lost a lot of blood from the knife being plunged into her shoulder, but she’d live.
     
    “I can’t. Not until I explain. I never meant to hurt you. I thought I was protecting you. That night, when they were torturing us, knowing it was all my fault that you were being hurt, that crushed me. I blacked out, when I woke up I was in a hospital. The first thing I did was ask about you and they told me that my contact in the gang had somehow gotten us both out alive, that you were alive, and safe, but that our baby hadn’t made it. That killed me, Rach. I wanted to be there for you, but I was too weak, and they told me that the gang believed I was dead, they said if I went to you I’d be putting you in danger all over again. That was the only reason I didn’t tell you I was alive. I couldn’t let you be hurt again because of me. I was supposed to stay away from you but I couldn’t I’ve been watching the house for the last couple months. I should have told you, Rachel, I’m sorry.” Everything he’d been wanting to say to her for the last six months came tumbling out in a rush.
     
    “You’re sorry?” she demanded. “Sorry. You’re so selfish, Drake. You want to make this all about you but I was there too. I was kicked and beaten, cut and burned, raped. I went into premature labor. I had to deliver our baby on my own, without you there. I had to grieve her, I had to grieve you. I went to your funeral. I sat for months thinking I was all alone in the world. I cried for you, I cried for our daughter. Alone. You made me do that alone and you think sorry is good enough?”
     
    “No, I don’t,” he answered. “Sorry is never going to make things better. But I’m here now and whatever you need me to do to make this up to you, you just tell me and I’ll do it.”
     
    “Give me the last six months back,” Rachel shrieked. “Give me back my daughter and my husband. Can you do that? No, of course not. There’s nothing you can do.” Tears were streaming down her face and she quickly becoming hysterical. “Can you take away all the pain I felt? Can you take away all the days I cried until I was drained and empty? Can you take away the hole you put in my heart?”
     
    “No,” he said quietly. He hadn’t expected this to be easy but it was so much harder than he’d imagined. He had thought Rachel would scream at him for faking his death but then throw herself into his arms, so glad to have him back that everything else melted away. Instead she was so hurt he wasn’t sure there was hope for them to reconcile.
     
    “Just go, Drake. Leave me alone. I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want you to contact me or call me.”
     
    He never cried but right now tears stung his eyes. This couldn’t be goodbye, it couldn’t be how things ended between them. “I love you, Rachel.”
     
    “I know you do, thats what makes this hurt so much more. Go, please. You said you’d do whatever I asked, and I’m asking you to go.”
     
    As much as it killed him, Drake had to respect her wishes.
     
    Quietly he stood and walked out the door without one last look back, it was too hard to see her sitting there with her dark eyes twin bottomless pools of pain.
     
    Outside the door, he paused, “Goodbye my Snow White,” he whispered.

  • Week 89 – Bright lights were everywhere, the room was unfamiliar . . . where was she?

    Bright lights were everywhere, the room was unfamiliar . . . where was she?

    Rachel had no idea.

    “Open your eyes right now,” a voice ordered.

    It was Drake’s voice, so she must be dead, right? She didn’t feel dead. The throbbing pain in her shoulder was a huge giveaway.

    “Snap out of it, I’m not losing you again.”

    She was laid down and sudden intense pressure on her bleeding shoulder made her flinch, and like a button had been pressed made her eyes pop open.

    Drake’s eyes looked down at her but from Drake’s face.

    She was so confused.

    “Who are you?” she asked.

    “You know who I am,” the man replied.

    “You can’t be. Drake is dead.”

    “No I’m not. I’m right here.”

    That made no sense. Drake had been tortured to death in front of her. She had been at his funeral. She had spent the last several months grieving him and their stillborn daughter.

    Alone.

    Drake would never have let her go through that.

    “It was the only way to keep you safe. At least I thought it was,” he said, pain written all over his face and his voice.

    This was surreal.

    This was crazy.

    She had been mourning a man who wasn’t really dead.

    Her husband, the man she loved and adored, had let her suffer. Had let her feel the worst pain a person could feel. Had left her alone to cry herself to sleep every night. But every tear she had shed had been a lie, and so was the man she thought she loved.

    With one hand keeping pressure on her wound, he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’ll never leave you again.”

    No.

    He wouldn’t.

    Because she would never be stupid enough to let him back into her life.

    Rachel turned her head away from Drake and closed her eyes, shutting him out.

    Drake’s lies had shattered her heart into a million pieces and she didn’t think she could ever put them back together.

    Exhausted she let the pain spiral her away into unconsciousness.

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