Page 32 of Holiday Grief

It was going to be a long and painful recovery, but things could have been so much worse.

“Jett wouldn’t have. He knew I was where I wanted to be. He can just be a bit of a control freak.” She arched a brow at him.

“Hey, are you implying I am also a control freak?” Adam mock pouted, and she giggled then immediately sucked in a pained breath.

“Note to self: no laughing for a while,” she said, bracing her good arm around her ribs.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” Adam said as he carefully scooped her up and set her in the passenger seat. He buckled her in as though she were a child, then rounded the car and got in the driver’s seat.

The drive to his house was quiet, but the kind of content and companionable silence, and Jasmine knew she’d made the right choice. Going home alone would have been silly and given that she’d been attacked and abducted there she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to go back and live there. Already she’d been sleeping in the pantry because it was small. She could lock herself in, and no intruder would look for her there. What more could she do to feel safe?

Nothing.

This was where she felt safe.

“We’re home, honey,” Adam announced, and she glanced out the window to see his house.

“Home,” she echoed.

“Sorry, I know this isn’t your …”

“No, what you said is perfect. It hasn’t been my home, but maybe one day it could be.” It was what she wanted. Jasmine was done hiding from her past and the mistakes that she’d made. They were done, she’d made them, there was no taking them back, and the consequences were still ones she lived with on a daily basis, but maybe there was a way to move forward, to have a future.

She wanted that future so badly.

It was scary and wouldn’t be easy, but she’d survived a lot, and she could do whatever it took to make peace with the past. Jasmine had the best motivation in the world to do just that and one half of it was sitting beside her right now.

Adam and Claire were worth the hard work it would take to be who they needed.

Reaching out, his large hands closed gently around her good one. “I want this to be your home as soon as you’re ready. Once you're healed if you need space, you take it.”

“I tried space, I tried cutting everyone out, it didn't work.” Admitting your failures wasn’t always easy, but she owed this man who had proven over and over again that he was trustworthy, that she could depend on him, nothing but the truth.

“I'm here for you.”

“I know.”

“Claire too.”

Tears blurred her vision. That little girl was both a blessing and a curse. She was a reminder of what Jasmine had lost when she lost her baby, but also a reminder of what could still be.

“I’m so sorry, green eyes. I know about your loss. I hate that you had to go through that.” The hand that held hers squeezed tightly, and she felt everything he was trying to convey.

“Bobby said he was giving us birth control. I didn't even know I was pregnant until that day.” This wasn’t a story she had shared before, but it was time. Time to honor her daughter who never got to take her first breath. “I realized I'd missed a few periods. I always got them erratically, so I didn't notice at first. Then I noticed my stomach was growing. I stole a pregnancy test and made a doctor’s appointment. Bobby found the test, flipped out, and beat me so badly that I ended up in the hospital. I lost the baby, and that’s when I knew. If I stayed I would die too. So I told a nurse I was in trouble.”

There wasn’t a single doubt in Jasmine’s mind that if she hadn't left then she never would have made it out of her teens. Bobby liked his girls young. When she got too old he would have killed her and replaced her.

“You were brave, sweetheart, so very brave to do that.”

Jasmine shook her head. “Didn't feel very brave. I couldn’t even tell them who had hurt me because I was terrified he would take it out on my sisters. Make them do what he made me do.”

Shame burned through her.

Not just because of her stupidity in believing Bobby, but in all the things she’d done to avoid a beating when she was trapped in that house. Two years locked in a small bedroom, only allowed out when she was taken to service a man who had paid Bobby for the pleasure of taking what she wasn’t offering.

“I did a lot of things I wish I hadn't, Adam.” If he couldn’t handle that, if he thought she was dirty now he knew the truth about her, she’d rather know that now before she got any more invested.

“Oh, baby. Nothing that happened was your fault. He was an adult. You were a kid. He was a predator who preyed on young girls, luring them in and then using threats and physical violence to keep them in line. You were afraid for your life, afraid for your sisters, and if you could have saved your baby you would have. You escaped, you rebuilt your life, you built a successful business from the ground up, and you are going to be an amazing mom.”

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