BRAVE, Episode Three - the Color of Danger Read Free

Chloe. Spill.”
    Logan took up her small hand in his. Thumb to thumb, length of finger to length of finger, lifeline to lifeline and palm to palm, he matched each part of the whole and folded them together, then stroked her. It was one of the most erotic non-sexual sensations, and a jolt of electricity charged from her belly to her breasts.
    Logan smiled. Not in a snide, know-it-all way, but with the upbeat candor, reveling making someone else happy.
    “Okay, you flatfooted interrogator. You win. I’ll talk.”
    “Attagirl.” He laced his fingers through hers again, then scrunched comfortably in place.
    She stared down at their linked hands, and gathered her thoughts. “There was so much about David that I could never tell anyone,” she murmured. “I guess it’s been bottled up since I ran away. You know that no matter how hard I tried to please him, I don’t think my father ever really approved of me. I know that David didn’t. He wanted me only because he couldn’t have me.”
    David loved just one woman. His mother. And that was exactly the way she liked it. She’d taught him to believe that no one else would ever be good enough to meet his impossibly high standards.
    “I didn’t realize all this until much later,” she confided.
    “No wonder he turned out so ugly,” Logan gave his blunt opinion. “What a sick relationship.”
    David knew, with the supreme confidence of an egomaniac, whatever he coveted would be his; if not, then it wasn’t worth having. By his sixteenth birthday, he was caught up in the net of excused by his parents as boyish behavior: boozing and using, carousing, games of chance, sex with loads of willing partners. He crashed the flashy Audi his father had bought him. His punishment? He survived the accident. The replacement model, purchased within a week, was a year older.
    His substance abuse and physical abuse went hand in hand. He left behind the wreckage of two more totaled cars, an early failed marriage, three discarded girlfriends (and the miscarriage of one), broken promises, and personal bankruptcy.
    To some, first on the college campus and then later in the surrounding community, the scandals clinging to his coattails only made him more exciting. To naïve Chloe, the rumors and aspersions had been spread by jealousy. No one was that heinous.
    Logan pursed his lips into a soundless whistle. “Geez. This guy’s a real piece of work, isn’t he? D’ja feel sorry for him, Chloe?”
    “Dumb ass,” she muttered. “I was such a total dumb ass.”
    “It’s allowed,” he told her gently. “We all get to make those mistakes. It’s called growin’ up and gettin’ mature.”
    “Pfffft. I believed every lie he told me. At least, until after we were married.”
    His infidelities started just after they returned from their honeymoon.
    “Actually, I think they started during our honeymoon,” she reflected. She didn’t let a hint of how that had devastated her as a new wife. She’d been so trusting, so ready for that life-long commitment with a gorgeous man. The man of her dreams. “Times he was gone for a while, leaving me alone in the room, or on Flamenco Beach, in Puerto Rico. When he returned, he always had this sort of a—I don’t know…smug look on his face, and I’d catch a whiff of some exotic perfume.”
    “Bastard,” Logan spat. “It’s tough enough thinkin’ that might be true; it’s a lot tougher havin’ to find out it is.”
    “Bet your bumpus it is. And so it went.”
    But the extramarital sex in his social circle couldn’t prevent David’s jealousy. He criticized the clothing she wore, the stores she shopped in, the friends she chose, even the charitable events she went to. He made her small so he could be big. Better than her. He read her emails, listened to her phone calls, ordered her secretary to report on her whereabouts any time she was away from the desk.
    He could do whatever he wanted and she couldn’t.
    “I felt so stifled. There