Authors: Billi Jean

Safe in His Arms (38 page)

Tabithia didn’t waste time admiring her aunt’s work. She’d seen it before. Too many times. Instead, she hiked her butt to the car, ducked in the still-open door, spotted the black briefcase, grabbed it by its silver handle and backed out of the lush interior before Trouble had even finished weeping all over Mr Good Samaritan.

Job done. Satisfaction filtered through her enough to cause a little bubble of happiness. A smile tipped her lips, her first of the night. She had to admit that, although the chase might be getting old, the results always gave her a bit of a high. And shot down the darkness for a few minutes at least.

Tabithia glanced over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. Trouble had wrapped her arms around the vampire’s shoulders, leaning every inch of her into every inch of him.

She’d seen that before, too. Maybe if she followed Trouble’s example, Tabithia wouldn’t feel this overwhelming darkness. This ache. The past rose up like a cloud of bats at the thought of letting any man touch her. The disgust, the horrors of the past, swelled and grew so gigantic that they winged across her vision, blocking the present with images she worked hard at suppressing.

Heart racing wildly against her ribs, Tabithia clutched the handle of the case hard enough to hurt her hand before slowly, finger by finger, loosening her grip.

Not daring to look over at her aunt again, Tabithia headed home. She’d need to hurry. The blade called, promising her the cure for all her suffering. The razor edge would slice more than her skin tonight. Tonight, she would cut deeply enough to slice the memories into pieces—pieces small enough to shove back under the lid.

Not for good. Never for good. But for a time.

Sometimes you had to take what you could and work with it because no one else could. The burden belonged to her. Alone.

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About the Author

Billi Jean has been writing since high school when she couldn’t wait for Robert Jordon to write his
Wheel of Time
series faster. She writes from home in a little two hundred year old farm house in Western Massachusetts where she shares her space with her active children, an old dog, and two lazy cats.