I See You (31 page)

Placing our drinks on the small table between us, she settles back into her own chair and smiles at me. “You’re looking good.”

I grin and nod, taking a large breath. “I am. I am good.” I never thought I would utter those words again, yet here I am.

“Is it over?”

I ponder Heather’s question. I know she means personally, in my head, and finally, I nod. “It’s over.”

Tipping her head, she regards me when a tear leaks from my eyes. “What’s upsetting you?”

I pick up my drink and take a sip. She even knows how much cream and sugar I take without having to ask me. I’m sure it was covered in one of our casual conversations somewhere. “I can’t help but feel stupid.”

“Why stupid?”

“Well, come on. I fell in love with the very man that brutalized me for four very long hours. How could I not tell?”

She nods, sipping her own drink. “I think that’s understandable, Nina. However, how much do you actually know about Dissociative Identity Disorder?”

“A lot more than I used to,” I answer wryly.

“Yes, I would imagine.” She shifts from her seat and approaches her desk, slipping out some printed sheets before handing them to me. “I took the liberty of getting some information on the subject for you.”

I take the sheets from her but sigh. “What I don’t get is, his voice, his eyes . . .”

“Nina,” Heather says quietly as she reaches over and takes my hand. “In most cases, those with DID, their alter egos are completely different people. Some take on a completely different accent, some even speak in a foreign tongue. Devon and Noah were, if you like, two completely different men.”

“Like Jekyll and Hyde?”

“Exactly like that. Devon will have had no memory of Noah’s interactions, and vice versa.” She sighs and leans back again. “It is thought that a trauma in childhood triggers the onset. And in Devon’s case, the death of his whole family, at his hands, would have most likely been the trigger. It was his only way of coping. His brother, Noah, no matter how evil a person, was still his brother, and Devon felt bonded to him. So his mind gave him Noah, albeit out of himself, but to Devon he was very real, alive and most definitely a separate entity to him.”

She senses my dilemma and smiles at me as she reaches forwards again. “Nina, it’s okay to love him.”

I nod. She’d hit the nail on the head. “It sickens me. Yet I can’t help this ache inside me. I hate that I miss him, that I’m grieving for him.”

“It’s good that you’re grieving for him. You need to. It was Noah who assaulted you, Noah who broke you and I would imagine, Noah who broke Devon in the end. But you have to remember that Devon loved you. Yes, his life was full of atrocious acts but then, with what I’ve learned about his childhood, who would have come out of that mentally unscathed? I’m not condoning what he, or rather, they did, but when you’ve been in my line of business for so long, you get to realize that no one is ‘normal’. Normal isn’t even a word I would ever use because we’re all different, in every way.”

My mouth dries and I sigh. “Luke thinks I’m crazy that I want to visit his grave.”

“It doesn’t matter what Luke or anyone else thinks, Nina. You need to do what is best for you, and if visiting Devon’s grave, once or every day, is what you need to help you move on then that’s what you do. It is your life and you’re the only one who can find a way of moving on.”

“I’m still finding it hard to trust. I’m not sure what to think about Tricia and the fact she’s gone and I can never get to the truth.”

“And that is something we will continue to work on. Getting you to a place where you can accept the things out of your control. We don’t always know why people do the things they do, I’m afraid. Life would be a lot simpler if we did.”

Placing my empty cup on the table, I stand up. She stands with me and walks out into the reception area where Luke is waiting for me. He quickly gets up from the couch. “Okay?”

“I’m glad you’re up and about Sheriff Logan.”

He shakes his head and offers his hand. “Please, you can call me Luke. And I have a few scars but I survived.” He looks over at me with a glaze in his eyes and takes my hand in his. “We survived.”

Heather smiles as she looks down at our hands and I giggle lightly at the proud glint in her eyes.

“So, we good?” he asks.

I look up to him and smile. “Yeah.” I nod, “Yeah, I think we will be.”

He gives me that smile that’s only reserved for me and nods. “Then let’s go home.”

“Home,” I whisper to myself with a smile. A smile that hasn’t graced my face for two years. A real one, a smile full of hope and optimism. Because after everything, I’m a stronger person, a woman who can now cope with whatever life throws at me. And by God, if I’m not eager for it.

Devon has, in some ways, taught me the most important lesson of all. Grab what life gives you and cherish it because we never knew when it will be whipped from under us. In his case, it had been his family. And as I look slyly at Luke gazing softly at me, I know that it’s my turn for a family. A family that will finally love me for exactly who I am. A strong and tough woman.

Nina Francis Drake.

The End

Coming Soon

Night Fires

By D H Sidebottom

I would watch him watch the ocean. He would build fires and sit, all night waiting.

For her. For his dead wife.

She never came. I never expected her to. But he did. And he never let go.

Even when I fell in love with him he never let go.

Until the night of the storm. The night my worst nightmares came to life.

And I lost everything to her when she finally returned.

For us both.

Coming Soon

TEN (A Brother’s
best
friend romance)

By Ker Dukey

Alexandria (alex)

My brother Jonah was possessive when it came to the things he owned; this unfortunately included the people in his life. The forbidden love between his best friend and me was just that . . . forbidden.

Our families were from different walks of life and as a sheriff’s daughter being with a Moore’s kid would never be tolerated. To my parents their son and Dalton Moore were on different paths and their friendship would end as soon as college began but it was my brother who had a craving for trouble. He was always looking for danger, committing petty crimes and getting away with it because Dalton would take the fall, blackening his already stained name. When Jonah found out we broke the rules by loving each other, his consequences impacted us all with immeasurable suffering.

Betrayal comes with a debt and it would be paid by all of us.

One with their heart,

one with their mind

and one would pay in blood.

Thank you to everyone who made this title possible. Our wonderful betas

Our amazing ‘Kinky Kittens’ street team, who work so hard and selflessly promoting us.

Stacey our incredible formatter and Kyra our awesome editor