The Shocking Truth About Ramsey Read Free Page B

stay away from that man.  Do you hear me?" 
    For the first time in her life Ramsey did a very, very disrespectful thing to her mother.  She hung up on her.  She pressed the red button so hard it jammed in its recess and would not come out.  She threw the phone across the room.  Rage swelled in her chest and splintered into sorrow for the sixteen-year-old boy who'd made a mistake.  She cried and cried until her associates came in and told her to go home. They were more than willing to cover her patients for her.  
    To be honest no one knew what to think about Ramsey's fit.  She was not an emotional female and to see her sobbing scared the wits out of them all.  They wondered who had died.  All watched sorrowfully as she left the office and wondered when she'd be composed enough to tell them which family member she had lost.  

CHAPTER 4
    There was only one person in the world that Ramsey would dare discuss Jackson with.  That was her father.  Herby Laughterdale was a kind and unassuming man.  He'd had the same job for thirty years and was neither educated nor wealthy.   He was simple and often saw things in black and white, as is the case with most simple-minded people.   He was easy to talk to and had a wisdom that's only gifted to those who don't give a darn about what other people think.  
    When Ramsey had called him out of the blue on her eighteenth birthday and asked why he left them, he'd said, "If you think you're grown enough to know the answer to that question, then prove it and tell Pam you're coming to see me."  
    Well, needless to say, Ramsey never got the answer to that question, because she would have sooner gouged her own eyes out than tell her militant mother that she was going to see her daddy.   So, she opted for the easy way out and began spending time with Herby behind Pam's back.  That was eleven years ago and Pam still had no idea that Ramsey and Herby had a healthy father-daughter relationship.  
    "Dad, can you talk," Ramsey sobbed into the phone.
    "Girl, what's wrong with you," he asked anxiously. 
    "I need to tell you about something that happened when I was sixteen.  It’s a long story.  Do you have time?" she asked again. 
    Herby backed up to his old ratted recliner and settled into it.  He waited as Ramsey tried to compose herself enough to make sense.  He was concerned, but he sensed and wisely so, that the less he said the better things would go.  
    He listened to her for about thirty minutes as she told of how she had lost her virginity to a boy named Jackson Steele and how she'd kept it to herself all these years thinking it was her secret.  When she got to Pamela's involvement in the incident, Herby clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut.  That woman was a menace.  He must have been out of his mind to let her have his children.  He'd pacified himself over the years with the thought that even though she was a controlling maniac and verbally abusive wife, she'd been a good mother.  His kids, after all, were college educated and had everything they needed and more.  
    "I…I haven't been with anyone since then, because the act was just too intimate and when I see men, I think about where it all leads and I just haven't wanted that.  Does that make me crazy?" 
    Herby came out of his own ruminations with a start.  Did he just hear her correctly?  Did his beautiful and well-educated daughter just say she hadn't had sex since the boy took her virginity?  Herby's mind scrambled numbers and came up with twenty-nine. She was twenty-nine years old and she hadn't had sex since her virginity was taken at age sixteen.  He could have understood if it was for religious reasons and for the sake of chastity, but this was something else and he knew something was very wrong. 
    "Ramsey." He knew his voice sounded strangled.  He cleared his throat. "The first time is always bad for girls, but you're a doctor.  You know why the first time hurts a female." 
    "It's