“It couldn’t have been worse than the abuse.”

“Oh, yeah. His whole friggin’ family was there in the courtroom all day, every day. They whispered at me when I came in, and they whispered at me when I came out. They threatened me with everything you could imagine. The day he was sentenced, at Maggie’s insistence, I went back to Illinois with her. That night, they set my house on fire. Burned it to the ground. I lost everything I owned.”

“I’m guessing the police figured it out quickly enough.”

“Oh, sure. One of his brothers and one of his cousins were arrested and brought to trial, but there was no physical evidence and the jury didn’t convict them.”

“Where is he now? Your ex-husband?”

“He’s still in prison. He got seven years and he had to agree to anger management while he’s in prison.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Three years and a couple of months.”

“Any chance he’s out?”

She shook her head. “No. Someone would have contacted me. The district attorney promised me that if I’d testify, they’d make sure that I was notified before he was released.”

“And where did all this happen?”

“Back in Wisconsin.” She sighed. “Anyway, that’s why there’s that scar. And that’s why I didn’t want to turn on the light. I didn’t want you to see how ugly my body is.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

She shook her head.

“Vanessa, there is nothing ugly about your body. If anything, yours is the most beautiful body I’ve ever seen up close and personal.”

“You’re just saying that because you think you’ll get lucky again.”

He cupped her face in his hands.

“I got lucky the day I walked into Hal Garrity’s backyard and stood on his deck and watched this beautiful woman float across it. She took my breath away,” he told her. “She takes my breath away every time I look at her.”

She felt as if something inside her cracked, then broke.

“Stop it.” She swatted at him, tears welling in her eyes.

The tears became a torrent. She had no words, only emotions, too many at one time for her to separate shame from the relief that he had not recoiled in disgust, or from the mind-numbing pain she felt every time she thought about the night that Gene had pushed her back against the kitchen table and sliced through her shirt into her flesh. It had been hard for her to admit even to herself that she’d left one bad marriage only to fall headfirst into another. She was embarrassed to remember what she had been like back then. It had been a long time since she’d talked about it, longer still since she’d cried for the woman she had once been.

“You must think I’m the stupidest woman in the world, to let someone do this to me,” she sobbed.

“I doubt very much that you let him do that, Ness. I don’t think abuse was what you were looking for when you married him.”

“But I took it, and I kept taking it.” She hiccuped. “I let it get worse. I should have walked that first time but…”

“But he promised he wouldn’t do it again, and you believed him because you loved him, right? You made excuses for him because you loved him.”

“I am such a cliché, aren’t I? Pathetic,” she wailed.

“What’s pathetic is a man who is so small that he has to hurt someone else in order to feel like a man.”

He gathered her up, blanket and all, and let her cry until there were no tears left to fall. When finally she stopped, he asked, “What’s his name?”

“Gene Medford.”

“Is that Eugene?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Just curious. He’s in prison in Wisconsin now?”

She nodded, then rested against him, sniffing and wishing she’d left that box of tissues on her nightstand instead of taking them into the bathroom on Saturday morning.

“Damn good thing that makeup woman used the waterproof mascara.” She swiped at her eyes with the back of her hands. “Otherwise, I can’t even begin to imagine what I’d look like. Bad enough the nose is red now but I could have raccoon eyes to go with it.”

Grady leaned back against the pillow and tucked the blanket around them both.

“Grady?” she whispered.

“Hmm?”

“It’s been one hell of a night, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah. It’s been one hell of a night.”

She lay against his chest, watching the shadows from the branches of the tree outside her window move across the floor until she closed her eyes, and, feeling safe for the first time in a very long time, fell asleep.

Grady lay awake in the dark, unable to get the image of a bleeding, terrified, wounded Vanessa out of his mind.

So many times as an agent, he’d seen the victims of vicious attacks not unlike the one Vanessa had survived. Husbands attacking wives, wives attacking husbands, their children, parents, siblings, best friends, strangers… there seemed to be no end to the number of ways in which to hurt someone.

He’d certainly seen injuries a hundred times worse than Vanessa’s. More than once, he’d seen women for whom the threat to cut off one or both breasts had been carried out. But this ate at him. How heartless could a man be that he’d do something so heinous to a woman who loved him? No one deserved to be treated like that.

Vanessa was as sweet, caring, funny, smart, capable, and yes, as beautiful and as sexy, as any woman he’d ever met. She wore her heart on her sleeve when it came to those she cared about and he really liked that about her. In fact, there were a lot of things he liked about her.

And she was strong. She hadn’t fallen apart when she realized her shop-which obviously meant everything to her-had been broken into, nor did she freak out when he told her that he thought both the burglary at the shop and the vandalism to his car were somehow a message intended for her. She hadn’t backed away from what was obviously a strong physical attraction between them, but met it head-on without pretense. She’d been brave enough to walk away from a bad situation, and courageous to have faced her abuser and his entire family in open court, and despite their threats, she hadn’t blinked. And somehow she hadn’t lost her sense of humor. What she had lost, however, was her self-confidence. How could she see herself as anything less than beautiful? Anything less than wonderful? What did that tell him about her? How had she come to believe that her scar defined her?

As if she knew he was thinking about her, she stirred slightly, then sighed in her sleep, one hand on his chest like a badge.

That she’d suffered made his heart ache-that she’d suffered at the hands of someone she’d loved made him sick to his stomach.

The longer he thought about it, the sicker-and more angry-he became.

First thing tomorrow, he was going to contact someone at the Bureau and have him check the release status of Eugene Medford.

He awoke to the sound of water driving against glass. He sat up and realized that Vanessa was not beside him, and the sound was coming from the shower in the bathroom across the hall. He got up and dressed in the tuxedo he’d worn to the wedding. Vanessa came out of the shower, her hair in a towel, a robe wrapped around her.

“Hey, you’re awake.” She came into the room with a smile on her face. “And I know I said it before, but you do look good in that tux.”

“Thanks. Admire it while you can.”

“Oh?” She looked momentarily disappointed. “Are you leaving?”

“Yeah. The tux goes back to the shop tomorrow. And right now, I’m on my way back to the Inn. I want to grab a shower and change. There’s a black-and-white parked out front, by the way, so you won’t be alone. I already checked the rest of the house. There’s been no unwanted visitors overnight.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s already nine-thirty, and the brunch is… what, eleven?”

She nodded.

“So I’ll take your car, and come back to pick you up around ten of eleven?”

“All right.” She found her keys on her dresser and tossed them to him, and he caught them with one hand. “But I’d like to be there on time since I am hosting the brunch. Are you punctual, or are you more of the, I’ll-get-there-when-I-get-there type?”