Concealed Attractions (Cedar Island Tales) (23 page)

“Come right in,
Dannilynn
. How soon can you get here?”

“I
’ll
have to take the bus. I don’t have a car, and I’m not sure—”

Phoebe
’s clipped
Irish
accent
came through clearly.
“Call your friend, Ben. He can get you here, I’m sure.”

Unable to think of another way,
Danni
called him.

“I’
ll be there in an
hour, tops.” 
When he knocked on her door
forty-five
minut
es later,
she asked
, her voice
quavering
from behind the door
, “Who is it?”

“Me, let me in.
”

When he gathered her into his arms
to give her a hug
, she
began
to struggle
against him
and
then
scream
ed,
“Let me go
. Let
me go!”

She
collapsed on the couch,
weep
ing
.

“What’
s the
matt
er,
Danni
?”

“I’m bleeding. I have to
see Doctor Wright. Right away
.”

He reached for her coat
and slipped it over her shoulders. 

“
I’m just going to hold your elbow—so you don’t
fall
. T
he steps are slippery
.”

They were
minutes
out of town and on a straight stretch of road when
Ben
looked
over at
Danni
.
She
was clutching the handle of the passenger side door
, her face hidden
behind the ebony
curtain of her hair,
her arms
cross
ed over her abdomen
.

“
Pregnant women don’t just start bleeding,
Danni
.
Are you
having contractions?
”

She
shook
her head. “Steve
hit me.”

“
Who
?
That
guy who stopped us at the pizza place?”

She nodded.

He pulled the car into a rest stop and shut off the engine.

“Don’t stop! I have to get to
the doctor
’s offic
e.
I don’t want to
lose the baby.
”

He reached over and clasped
her hand.  “Will you let me
hug
you? F
or comfort
?
I’m not going to
hurt you
.
I promise.”

She turned toward him, and when he put his arms around her, she started to cry
.
He rocked her back and forth
.

“It
’s okay.
You’re safe
now
. No one’s going to hurt you,
” he repeated in a kind of sing
song litany.
Gradually she calmed.

After a few minutes, h
e released her.
“
Your
face is all r
ed and swollen. Did he hit you
here?” One finger
lightly
traced
a
pat
h
down her cheek from hairline to chin. She nodded.

“Where else?”
His voice was tight with barely-concealed anger
.

“
My
stomach, my ribs.” When he started to touch her
where she’d pointed
, she began to weep
again
, pushing his hands away and refusing to
look
at him
.

He started the car and did not stop until they reached A
ngela’s office. He helped
Danni
out of the car
, and
stayed by
her side until she was in the doctor’s
consultation room.

Angela
turned to him before going into the room.
“Do you want to stay
, Ben
?”

“If she’ll let me.
”

“
Dannilynn
, do you want Ben to stay with you, or would you prefer to speak with me privately?”

Danni
’s head bobbed up and then sideways.

“
I think you’d bette
r let me speak with her alone.
First, l
et’s
see why you
’re
bleeding.” She
escorted
Dannilynn
into an exam room.

While he waited,
Ben called the cl
inic and
told Bronnie where he
was
.

“
Joe
l
said to take your time
, Ben. H
e
understands it was an emergency.
Tell her hi for us.”

After the examination,
Dannilynn
couldn’t seem to
stop crying
and had descended into
repetitive rocking in the chair
in Angela’s office
.

Angela
stepped outside to speak with Ben
. “
She wasn’t very coherent.
Do you know what happened?”

He
told her
what
Danni
had said, and
added
, “When I got there and put my arms around her—
just
for comfort—she pulled away and started screaming
. I’ve never seen her like this.” H
is voice crack
ed
. “It’s like she thought I was going to hit her like that guy did.”

“
Okay
. This may take a
while.
You
go back to
work,
and
I’ll
call you. I assume you’ll take her back
to her apartment
—i
f that’s where she wants to go?
Or
home
to her parents?”

“I don’t think they know
about the baby
.
Last time we talked about it, she
was
refus
ing
t
o
tell them.
Do you know if she’
s spilled the beans
yet
?”

“
I’ll ask her
.
”

Angela closed her office door and sat down, her
pat
ient’s chart in front of her. In between occasional bouts of weeping,
Danni
slowly
answered Angela’s
questions.

“Do you
know
why he attacked you?”

“He said something about my
not
telling him if the baby was his,
and other stuff
.” She blew her nose again. “
He
kept
on about
wanting
to know
. I was afraid if
I
told him it was, he would hurt me, and
if I said it wasn’t, he would
do something else
…” She
started to cry again. “Why
did
he
act like that
?”

“Some guys take pleasure to being able to brag that they
have
impregnated
a woman
. Or if it wasn’t his and you were his girlfriend, then maybe it should have been. It’s hard to know.
Regardless, his
behavior was despicable
and it
has to
be reported.
Did
you call the police?
” 

“
Yes. They took pictures of what he did and said they were going to talk to him, maybe tell him not to go near me.
They wanted me to press charges.
He told me not to
call them, but I did anyway
.
”
Her hands trembled as she reached for another tissue.
“I
just hope he doesn’t
come back
like he said he might.
”

Angela
took
additional notes
.
“
Dannilynn
.
Give me the names of the officers you talked to.
I’
m required to report assaults, attempted rapes, rapes, and simil
ar crimes
.
They
need my report
as corroboration of what you told them.
He assaulted you.
”

“They said it was called battery.”

“I know.”
Angela sat with her
for several minutes.
“H
ave you
told
your parents about
the
baby
?”

“No.”

“Then I guess you don’t want
them to know about this, either.
”

“I have to get back to school.
I’ve already missed two days of class
.
I need to keep my grades up.”

When Danni’s gaze rose and met Angela’s eyes,
the doctor
said,
“
I know how important
school
is for you.
But what concerns me even more is
your reaction to
t
his attack
.
Are you
having flashbacks to what happened at the lake,
maybe even
nightmares
?
”

“
Sometimes when
I go
to bed I’m
fine, but then they wake me up.
”
She
put her hands
over her eyes
as if trying to prevent the images from appearing.

“
And, I’ll bet
you’
re not sleeping all that well, are you?”

“
Usually I get up and walk around
before I go back to bed.
And sometimes
keep the lights on.” H
er chin began to tremble. She rock
ed
back and forth again
, her arms across her chest
.
“When I think about it, I can’t seem to stop crying.”

“I
think you nee
d to confront—directly—what
happened to you
at
the lake.
This is important
,
Dannilynn
.
You’
ve been denying what happened
there
and the longer you
pretend
it never happened,
the more it will affect you—emotionally, as it is now, and physically, too.”

“What do you mean?”

Angela pulled out some documents and
looked
through them. “Have you been intimate with anyone since the lake?”

“No!
How could you even think that?”

“I didn’t think
so
, but there may come a time in the future when you fall in
love
and want to express your
love
physically
. How are you going to ex
plain yourself if you freak out
like you did when Ben tried to
hug
you,
because of something that happened
long
before
?”

Dannilynn
wiped her eyes again. “Oh.” She reached for another tissue.

Angela
looked
at her
pat
ient
.
“
Y
ou have to confront what happened to you and accept that it wasn’t your fault
—
” She raised her hands at
Dannilynn
’s p
rotest.  “It was
not
your fault
. You didn’t ask that man to
hit
you
the other day—or
to do
whatever
he did
at the lake
.”