Page 45 of Forever His This Christmas

Lisa shrugged but he saw the truth in her face and pulled her close.

“Shh, it’s alright baby. It’s not your fault. That accident wasn’t your fault,” he stated returning her gaze to his. “You were scared. He’d threatened to kill you.”

“I slit his tire before going into the cabin…”

“To keep him from coming after you, right?” her dad asked. “You assumed the tire would be flat before you got out and he wouldn’t be able to drive after you.”

“So-what? He did and in a wheelchair, and he’s still pissed at me for what I took away from him. The reason I didn’t want to come back is because he tried to kill me the last two times I was here. The first was before I went to New York…I saw him intown and went out of my way to avoid him. I got back to my car and noticed what looked like wheel impressions on the ground; they were far too evenly spaced to come from bicycles. I checked both wheel wells and found a makeshift bomb in one. The first time I turned the wheel too much to the left I would have been dead. A week later I got a package at work, I opened it and there were photos of me from when I’d been here. I couldn’t risk him finding out about Abby and I took the promotion to New York.”

“Why did he come after you? It doesn’t make sense,” Gerald stated.

“I pissed him off. Colin had come after me while I was in town. He was saying how much of a slut I was and that I’d do anyone. I came back telling him he never did a thing for me, that he was as horrible and disgusting as my first encounter and I’d rather erase them from my memory completely.”

“What happened the second time?” Corey asked cupping her cheek gently.

“He cornered me when I was coming out of the ladies’ room at a restaurant in town. I told him if he kept coming after me, having people take photos of me, that I’d tell everyone and he’d lose his job, whether there was any worry that he’d be capable of hurting them or not. He pulled out a knife and grabbed my hair, pulling me down until he put the knife to my throat. He said if anyone found out he’d kill every single person I loved and cared about, that they’d all be dead and told me the statute of limitations had run out and that he was positive I no longer had the proof I once did. I came back here and looked for the tape, but it was gone. He just didn’t realize it was a copy of the original. That’s why I was so cautious about Abby. If he knew about her, knew that there is definitive proof, it wouldn’t matter if he was convicted of anything, he wouldn’t teach again…he’d lose the only thing that made him who he was anymore.”

“He’s not going to get anywhere near you or Abby,” her father said shaking his head in anger at what had happened.

“He’s not,” Corey agreed. “Money may not be able to solve everything but it sure as hell can pay for protection. No one is going to get near either of you—I promise baby. I love you so much and it doesn’t matter what happened or why you did what…I love you always, you’re mine always.”

“It’s not just me though,” she warned him letting Abby sit next to her as she hugged her tightly.

“You’re both mine…always mine, say yes Lisa. Choose me, let me love you,” Corey said softly, and she felt her heart open completely to him.

“You’ve been my choice since we met. I love you Corey…and it scares the hell out of me, but I can’t stop, and I can’t be without you anymore. It’s too hard, I miss you too much,” she admitted, and he hugged them both as a sense of relief came over him.

Chapter 15

“What are we going to do?” Ashton asked the others quietly as they watched Corey, Abby and Lisa talk in the family room. “He’s not getting away with this…we can’t let him continue to teach…”

“We’re not doing anything tonight,” Elaine said giving all of them long looks. “I will not put her under more stress tonight. What happens is as much her choice as it is any of ours. She is scared that someone will hurt Abby, and I will not have my granddaughter hurt.”

“They’re both much stronger than you think,” Diane stated ushering them further into the dining room. “Abby hasn’t had it easy in school. The moment people saw Lisa with her they’d know that she had her when she was young, and some parents wouldn’t let their children interact with Abby. Lisa knows what this town is like, what it’s put on her, and now with Abby being here she knows it won’t be just her that’s scrutinized. Abby left to go to New York because the girls who were supposed to be her friends began to bully her simply because a boy asked her to dance instead of them at the spring fling. Both of them have had to deal with far more than they should have, and they’ve made it out. Don’t think they can’t fight for themselves.”

“Did you know who had hurt her?” Edward asked.

“No, when Lisa came to me, I knew she was pregnant. She’d written me a letter in December telling me she was, asking if she could come stay with me and have the baby. I just thought she had made a mistake and gotten pregnant. I knew what this town was like, and I knew how she felt living here. I told her she could come to stay with me anytime. I knew you would never allow it, but I didn’t want Lisa to run away. She threatened to when she was with me, the day before she had Abby. I told her I would do anything to make sure she and the baby were taken care of—I didn’t want them out there trying to make it on their own. Once Abby was here, I saw how much she adored her and I gave her the idea to leave Abby with me, that I would take care of her while she went back to school. I told her that if she could convince you to let her come stay with me, she and Abby could live there as long as they needed or wanted.”

“But she eventually told you what happened I take it?” Gerald asked.

“Not until Abby was five, she was seeing someone in college—and she didn’t party or sleep around the way you boys assumed. She let the image get out there so no one would be looking at her outside of those situations. She had been seeing someone and he was pressing her to sleep with him. She didn’t feel that it was going in the direction he believed it was and broke up with him. He didn’t take kindly to that and came after her. Someone intervened and the police drove her home. She had a bloody lip, a puffy cheek, and the beginning of a black eye…there was something so haunted in her eyes and I knew that Abby wasn’t because of a mistake she’d made, that someone had hurt her,” Diane admitted.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone once she told you? It would have been within the statute of limitations, and we could have kept Abby quiet,” Elaine asked.

“It’s taken me thirteen years to get the entire story from her, the same as you. She refused to tell me who, she just said it was someone no one would have believed. She never began to hint that it was her teacher. Lisa told me that if he found out he’d kill her and Abby, and I wouldn’t begin to put them at risk. She promised me that no other girls were in danger from him the way she’d been, and I thought she meant that he was simply obsessed with her. Maybe I should have pushed harder but I didn’t want her to break. You didn’t see how much effort it took her to build herself up, put on the armor she wore in order to live here and face everyone—face him every day terrified that one tiny little slip would have her entire world unraveling. I was privileged to see Lisa at her most vulnerable, at her sincerest part and it is so beautiful. I couldn’t go against the trust she had in me,” Diane told them.

“But that still doesn’t help us figure out what to do about everyone else in town—what to do when he finds out,” Kirby stated.

“We make sure Lisa and Abby are safe,” Gerald replied. “No one leaves them alone, not even here in the house. We can all act like everything’s normal tonight, bring dinner over for them and if anyone says anything about seeing Lisa or Corey here, we’ll say they were tired and didn’t want to come over tonight.”

“For tonight I think that’s best,” Diane agreed. “Give Lisa some time to work through this and we’ll see what she wants to do in the morning.”

“I say we call the cops and, in the morning, go down and spit on that sick son of a bitch,” Ashton stated.

“It’s Lisa’s choice, she’s the only one who can tell the police the name of the town she went to that has the evidence she’d need against him,” Elaine warned them. “Whatever she decides we will stand behind her fully, all of us as one family.”

“But…” Gerald started.

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