Redemption by Sharon Cullen

Author:Sharon Cullen [Cullen, Sharon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Contemporary
ISBN: 9781605042176
Google: QNgpcT3jkuQC
Amazon: B001KC6X3K
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Published: 2008-10-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

John awoke disoriented, his knee sore, with a half-formed headache behind his eyes. He stared at the ceiling as images of Angelina drifted through his thoughts. Over the years, his grief had lessened until there was only a pang now and again in his waking hours. Nighttime proved to be his undoing.

He rubbed his face, scratching at the stubble along his jaw and pushed the painful memories back inside him. Into that deep dark hole where they would fester until it became too much and they’d come clawing out again to haunt him.

Angelina. Some days he wondered if he’d loved her at all. He’d known nothing about her, just that she was kind and kindness had been hard to come by where he’d been. On the days when he could look back with at least a modicum of objectivity, he wondered if he’d made it all up. Not Angelina, she’d been real, but his feelings for her. Had she felt for him as he’d felt for her? Or had he been reaching for something honest and good in a place where honesty and goodness had died long ago, if it’d ever been there at all? Then he would remind himself it didn’t matter. She was gone and he was the one who’d killed her.

He flung the covers away and surged off the bed. When he bent to retrieve his jeans, he froze, his gaze glued to the indentation in the second pillow. Denim slipped through lifeless fingers as he straightened and leaned forward to touch the cold sheets on the other side of the bed.

Slowly, other memories emerged. Of Hope standing by the bed. Hope reaching for him, her eyes kind like Angelina’s. Her touch healing like Angelina’s. He closed his eyes and fisted his hand, pressing it into the soft mattress.

The beast within, the demon that held his nightmares and threatened him every time he tried to get close to a woman, awoke. But this time John fought back, refusing to give in, willing to fight. For kindness, for compassion. For hope.

And when the monster inside him retreated, he opened his eyes and stared at the cooled sheets. She’d crawled into bed with him, held him while he emerged from his nightmare, talked him down from his terror. And he’d held her, too.

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