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“Already preapproved.”

I remained quiet.

“Just allow me to bring you one to meet. Just a meeting. Okay?”

I pounded on the door calling for the guards. But as soon as Mark threw it open, I looked back at her. It was one of the toughest things I’d done in my life but as I glanced at the photographs again, I finally nodded.

What the hell did I have to lose?

CHAPTER 3

Noel

“You look like hell, Noel.”

Dr. Jeffrey Mallard was considered the best at what he did, highly respected in his field. I’d been seeing him since moving to Colorado Springs on a whim a few years before. The truth was I’d run away from everyone and everything I knew, trying to chase away the nightmares.

That hadn’t worked.

“Well, thanks so much. Is that the kind of bedside manner they teach you in your fancy-dancy school?”

He was sitting behind his throne, as I liked to call it, turning his pen over and over again as he always did. The man’s nervous tic had always gotten on my nerves. “I’m not your gynecologist, Noel, just your shrink. I don’t need to have a bedside manner. I tell it like it is, which is what you need to hear.”

“Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.” I slid into the seat, refusing to lie down on his comfy couch. The sessions didn’t really help but I continued to come, hoping that maybe one day I could be cured. Yeah, right.

Sighing, he tossed his pen and leaned over his massive mahogany desk, folding his hands together. He was old enough that with his gray hair, he had that fatherly thing going on. He wanted to chastise me for allowing the horrible incident to continue to plague my life while longing to comfort me as well. Neither would work.

“You’re having nightmares again.”

“Yes, hence the reason I called and I’m here.”

He rubbed his jaw, staring at me as if I was a specimen underneath a microscope. “We could try a low dose of antidepressants.”

I threw out my hand before he continued. “I’m a bestselling author, Doctor. I need to be on my mental game at all times in order to create the characters who’ve helped me earn a damn good living. More than you do, I might add. I can’t have my senses dulled because of some ridiculous nightmares.”

“Your ridiculous nightmares are keeping you from leaving your house and living a normal life. You do realize that, don’t you?”

Ridiculous? Did he just call my night terrors ridiculous? It showed how much the man cared. I would usually lash out at any asshole who reacted this way but as of late, I was no longer anything like the vivacious woman I used to be. “I do just fine, Doc-tor Mallard. I have friends. I have a beautiful house with a mountain view. I have money and the ability to do anything I want.”

“Yet, you don’t. When was the last time you went out with your friends?”

I had no answer.

“O-kay. When was the last time you invited one of them over?”

I opened and closed my mouth, uncertain of when that was. Since the nightmares had picked up in intensity, I’d retreated even more into my little world than normal.

The monster had won after all, something I’d promised myself would never happen.

“Fine, Doctor. You’ve made your point but I’m not taking drugs.”

“Then I have an idea for you, one that’s a little avant-garde but I think something you might approve of.” He slid a file across his desk.

I hesitated before bringing it closer. As soon as I opened and read the contents, I narrowed my eyes. “The Abused Dog Rehabilitation Program?”

He nodded. “It’s quite well known and expanding into this area. I think having an emotional support animal, one who will also protect you might be the answer.”

I read the details over a second time and sighed. “Wait a minute. These dogs are all abused then sent to be retrained or rehabilitated by fucking criminals?”

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