Page 76 of Colton's Secret Weapon
Not in the future.
Her father was dead. She’d known the second she’d been freed from the locked-up seat belt and could turn around.
She’d called for Mitchell. He might have been there. She hadn’t seen him. She’d been surrounded by emergency personnel scooting her onto and then strapping her down to a stretcher that had been solid, excruciating wood. A spine board, she’d later found out. In case she’d suffered potentially paralyzing spine or neck damage in the crash. At the time all she’d known was that she’d gone from one hellish situation of being held prisoner into another, worse one.
Daddy was dead.
All the energy…all the hope…all for nothing.
Her bold last-ditch effort to save St. James Boats—to give her father a reason to live—had been a waste. A prompting, she’d believed.
Fantasy cooked up by a desperate mind, more like.
It would have been better for all concerned if she’d just kept out of it. Gone on teaching her little classes, believing that there was actually a way for human beings to have a choice in whether to be happy, ways to get rid of the negative energy if one was willing to work at it.
She’d really believed that the inner spirit could get messages if one could keep one’s heart open to accessing them.
Right. That’s why she’d just seen her father’s mangled body in a vision she was never going to forget. No matter how manytimes anyone tried to cleanse her aura.
The kids at school, so many of the people in Shelby who’d looked at her askance had been right all along. The joke was on her.
She’d laugh if she had any humor left inside her.
The doctor had proclaimed her a miracle. Other than the obvious soreness she’d be experiencing over the next days, even into a week or two, she was fine. Cuts and scrapes, but nothing that needed stitches. No broken bones.
She’d been incredibly lucky. Escaping from the horrific accident unscathed.
Physically.
In reality, the body the doctor had been concerned about was all she had left. Her father—and the spirit through which she’d believed she lived—had both been fatalities.
At least one good thing had come of it all—she gave a brief, distorted chuckle at the fact that her poor behind-the-times brain was still trying to combat evil with anything that felt positive—at least her future was clear to her.
Something she’d never had before. The ability to look ahead with a set of clear plans from which she wouldn’t sway. Within the next hour she’d take the police escort she’d been told was waiting for her to the small house she’d purchased not far from the marina, back when she had the power to make good things come to her. She was going to start packing immediately. Put the house up for sale. Cancel the lease on her studio. And let Brad Fletcher have St. James Boats.
He’d won.
She was leaving. No way she could continue to live in a town where she’d established a life that couldn’t possibly sustain her. That was just plain stupid.
Coasting on hope was a pipe dream.
Mitchell had been right all along. Logic, practicality, they were all that mattered in life.
So, lesson learned. A real one, not some make-believe fairy tale.
He was there, at the medical center. Asking to see her.
She’d refused to see him. There was no point. She wasn’t who she’d thought she’d been. Wasn’t who he’d thought he’d known.
There were others there, too, she’d been told, but she’d waved away the nurse’s words before she could tell her more. It was probably Peter Welding.
And maybe a client or two. Hetty Amos.
All of whom believed she was something she was not. They’d find out soon enough it had all been a lie.
She’d do what she could to make it up to them. Find a job and slowly begin to return all the client fees she’d collected over the years. She’d pay Mitchell, too, when she could.
It was the practical thing to do. That or face lawsuits and risk damages being awarded in amounts far greater than those she’d collected. Money to compensate for any pain and suffering she’d caused.
