Officer in Pursuit by Ranae Rose

Author:Ranae Rose [Rose, Ranae]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Romance, Contemporary, Romantic Suspense, Mystery & Suspense, Suspense
Amazon: B00QJBCWSW
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

“I said open your damn eyes!”

Kerry braced herself against the cheap polyester bedspread and tried to comprehend how this – Brad looming over her, God only knew how drunk, and her cheek stinging from his hand – had become her reality.

She didn’t understand, but she knew it wasn’t a dream. On the contrary: it was as if, after three years, the other shoe had finally fallen. It was terrifying, but it didn’t feel wrong. It felt terribly familiar.

Had she really changed at all?

As she looked into Brad’s eyes, she tried hard to summon up enough outrage to overcome her paralyzing fear.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” He made the demand over and over.

She figured she had two options. She could tell him she didn’t owe him an explanation, that she’d been entitled to take every action she had and that it was none of his business. Or she could pander to his asinine urges, his sense of entitlement. She knew how his brain worked and the thought of trying to appease him crossed her mind, an old habit that filled her with shame now.

She wouldn’t do it. Even if she’d been willing, it wouldn’t have saved her anyway. She’d learned that lesson time and time again, had finally left him when she’d grasped the reality of it.

There was nothing she could do to diminish his anger, not when he was like this.

“I don’t have anything to say to you.” She pushed herself up into a sitting position, bracing herself to be knocked back down.

His face was red; now it turned blotchy with pale patches, like his anger was so absolute it threatened to rend him colorless.

It felt like she was back in their house in Kentucky. She could almost see it: the aging 1960’s ranch with its kitchen dated by yellowing Formica and linoleum, its faded carpets and scratched hardwoods. She recalled the smell of the place, a combination of heating fuel and dampness, underlaid by whiskey and always with a certain staleness that reflected the way her life had stagnated within those walls.

She’d hated that house, and hated remembering it so clearly now, feeling as if she might at any moment find herself standing at the sink in the dated kitchen, soaking soda and whiskey rings out of the bottoms of glasses.

“You slut! You were always a slut!” Brad was as eloquent as always. “I saw you with that son of a bitch back in North Carolina!”

Back in North Carolina? Where were they? Kerry’s frayed nerves unraveled a little more. She looked toward the window, but the curtains were drawn.

“It’s none of your business! Nothing I do is any of your business. We’re not married!”

He shook his head, the motion exaggerated, his eyes ticking ever so slightly from side to side in the telltale fashion of a drunk. “You think you can just run away? You think you can humiliate me like that and go and live the rest of your damned life by the beach – you think it’s that easy?”

No, it had never been easy.

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