Wyoming Strong. Diana Palmer
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down the road from Jacobsville. She wished Michelle was home from college, if only briefly. Michelle would listen and commiserate with her. She would understand. She knew more about Sara than local people did.
Michelle knew that Sara’s stepfather had assaulted her, almost to the point of rape when Gabriel had all but broken her bedroom door to get to him. Sara had to testify at the trial that sent her stepfather to prison, sit in the witness chair and tell total strangers exactly what the animal had done to her. And about the disgusting things he’d said while he was doing it. She couldn’t force herself to tell it all.
The defense attorney had been eloquent about Sara, a young girl teasing an older man and getting him so worked up that he had to have her. It wasn’t that way, but she was sure some people on the jury listened.
Her stepfather had gone to prison. He’d died when he got out. Sara shivered violently, remembering how and why. Sara and Gabriel’s mother had shoved them out the door after the conviction and left them on the streets. One of the public defenders who was in Sara’s corner at a second trial, when her stepfather was shot by police, had a maiden aunt who took them in, spoiled them rotten and left them most of her enormous estate.
She was worth millions, and the public defender refused to hear a word about Sara and Gabriel turning down the inheritance. They still thought of him as family. He’d been kind to them when the world turned against them.
The Brandons’ mother moved away, grieved herself to death over her second husband and refused to have any contact afterward with either of her children. It had been devastating, especially to Sara, who felt responsible.
The experience had sickened her, turned her into a recluse. Sara was twenty-four, beautiful and all alone. She didn’t date anybody. Ever.
The way Wolf Patterson looked at her, though; that was new and unsettling. She...liked it. But she couldn’t afford to let him know. If he pursued her, if things heated up, he’d figure out her secret. She couldn’t hide her reactions to any sort of physical intimacy. She’d tried once, just once, with a boy she liked at school. It had ended with her in tears and him leaving in a temper, calling her a stupid tease. So much for dating.
She locked the door behind her, tossed her purse onto the side table and went upstairs. She’d had a light lunch before she left for the pharmacy, so the rest of the day was hers to do as she pleased. She was rich. She didn’t have to work. But she had no social life. At least, not in the real world. In the virtual world, however...
* * *
SHE TURNED ON her state-of-the-art gaming computer and pulled up the World of Warcraft website. Sara was a secret gamer. She didn’t tell anybody about her habit. Gabriel knew, but nobody else did. She had a beautiful Blood Elf Horde toon, a character with almost white-blond hair and blue eyes—sort of a reverse Sara, she liked to think, chuckling. It was a world away from the black-haired brunette that she really was.
She pulled up her character, Casalese, a powerful warlock, and walked into the game. The minute she came online, she was whispered.
Want to do a raid with me? he asked. “He” was a level 90 Blood Elf death knight named Rednacht. The two had met at an in-game holiday event, started talking and had been online friends for a year or so. They didn’t do the Real ID thing, so she had no idea who he really was. She didn’t want a lover. She only wanted a friend. But they did friend each other, using the generic ID she used for her account, so she knew when he was online. And vice versa. They’d both turned level 90 at the same time. They’d celebrated at an in-game inn with cake and juice, and shot off the fireworks they were gifted with out in the countryside of the new area, Pandaria.
It had been a magical night. Rednacht was fun to be around. He never made really personal remarks, but he did mention things that were going on in his life from time to time. So did she. But only in a generic way. Sara had real issues with her privacy. Because of Gabriel’s profession, she had to be especially careful.
Most people didn’t know what her brother did for a living. He was an independent military contractor who worked frequently for Eb Scott. He was a skilled mercenary. Sara worried about him, because they only had each other. But she understood that he couldn’t give up the excitement. Not yet, anyway. She did wonder how that might change when Michelle, who had become their ward with the sudden death of her stepmother, graduated from college. But that was sometime in the future.
I feel more like a battleground, she typed. Rough morning.
He typed back lol, laughing out loud. Same here. Okay. Shall we slay Alliance until our blades are no longer thirsty?
She laughed back. That sounds very nice.
* * *
A COUPLE OF hours of play, and she felt like a new woman. She signed off, told her friend good-night, had a light dinner and went to bed. She knew that she was hiding from life in her virtual playground, but it was at least some sort of social life. In the real world, she had nothing.
* * *
SARA LOVED OPERA. The local opera house in San Antonio had been closed earlier in the year, although a new opera company was being founded. However, she had to have her opera fix. The only remaining one within reach was in Houston. It was a long drive, but the Houston Grand Opera was performing A Little Night Music. One of the songs was “Send in the Clowns,” her absolute favorite. She was a grown woman. She had a good car. There was no reason that she couldn’t make the drive.
So she got in the Jaguar and took off, in plenty of time to make the curtain. She’d worry about coming home in the dark later.
She loved anything in the arts, including theater and symphony and ballet. She had tickets to the San Antonio Symphony and the San Antonio Ballet companies for the season. But tonight she was treating herself to this out-of-town spectacular performance.
She was looking at her program when she felt movement. She turned as a newcomer sat down, and she looked up into the pale, laughing eyes of her worst enemy in the world.
Oh, darn, was what she should have said. What she did say was far less conventional, and in Farsi.
“Potty mouth,” he returned under his breath in the same language.
She ground her teeth together, waiting for his next remark. She’d stomp on his big booted foot and march right out of the building if he said even one word.
But he was diverted by his beautiful companion before he could say anything else. Like the other woman Sara had seen him with, at another performance, this one was a gorgeous blonde. He didn’t seem to like brunettes, which was certainly to Sara’s advantage.
Why in the world did he always have to sit next to her? She almost groaned. She bought her tickets weeks in advance. Presumably so did he. So how did they manage to sit together, not only in San Antonio at every single event she attended, but in Houston, too? Next time, she promised herself, she’d wait to see where he was sitting before she sat down. Since the seats were numbered, however, that might pose a problem.
The orchestra began tuning its instruments. Minutes later, the curtain rose. As the brilliant Stephen Sondheim score progressed, and dancers performing majestic waltzes floated across the stage, Sara thought she’d landed in heaven. She remembered waltzes like this at an event in Austria. She’d danced with a silver-haired gentleman, an acquaintance of their tour guide, who waltzed divinely. Although she traveled alone, she’d shared sights like this with other people, most of them elderly. Sara didn’t do singles tours, because she wanted nothing to do with men. She’d seen the world, but with Gabriel or senior citizens.
She drank in the exquisite score, her eyes closed as she enjoyed the song that was one of the most beautiful ever written, “Send in the Clowns.”
* * *
INTERMISSION CAME, BUT she didn’t budge. Wolf’s companion left, but he didn’t.
“You like opera, don’t you?” he asked her, his eyes suddenly intent on her, drinking in her long black hair and the black dress that fit her like a glove with