Come To Me (Dare With Me #3) - J.H. Croix Page 0,27

our parents together. Our parents had collectively reported everything to the school and to the police, but nothing happened. Nothing. Happened.

Well, unless you counted the school hiring an additional assistant coach and establishing new rules that none of the coaches for any of the sports teams could be alone with any of the students at any point. Aside from just what a mindfuck it was to have a man who I trusted and admired violate me that way, the nothing that happened to him resulted in bitterness and an almost suffocating sense of powerlessness.

After that, my promising softball career that might have resulted in a collegiate scholarship crashed and burned. Although I thought it was crazy in hindsight, I had actually tried to stay on the team for my senior year. I got injured, and that was that.

That injury led me to yoga classes and eventually to what I was doing now. All along, the specter of what happened with Coach Winston was there. He never took things too far. It had only been three incidents. If there was such a thing as only in a situation like that.

I tried to act like a normal teenage girl. I tried to date. It wasn’t horrible, but I felt so out of place. I never felt like I could relax with anyone. I went on to college and still dated here and there. Sex was a mechanical exercise of going through the motions.

And now, years later, Coach Winston was arrested. After his high school coaching career, he’d gone on to greater glory with a college team and another championship. I wondered if he would somehow escape justice again and slide out from accountability. With the increased scrutiny in the media of mostly men in power abusing that power in sexual ways, I remember thinking none of it surprised me. Despite the alleged greater awareness in our society around these issues, I had little faith genuine change would happen.

I gave Charlie a last stroke along the side of his neck before going to check on Shasta. With the other two horses owned by others, I took care of feeding them, but that was it. Charlie and Shasta were owned by the owners of the barn, and they’d asked me to spoil them accordingly. I loved it.

“Hey, Shasta,” I said when I stopped in front of his stall.

He leaned his head over the stall door and nudged my shoulder with his nose. I stroked his forehead and slipped a treat out of my pocket. When I held it out on my flat palm, he nibbled it up. After he returned to chew on his evening hay, I made sure everything was put away for the night.

“Good night,” I called as I left the barn.

When I closed the barn door behind me, I stopped for a moment, absorbing the sounds of night falling. The swooshing sound of wings beating in the trees nearby, followed by the call of a raven, and an owl hooting in reply. There were no crickets in Alaska, which I thought was kind of amusing. I hadn’t expected to miss the sound, but I did.

My footsteps crunched on the gravel as I crossed the parking area over to the house. Scanning myself, I checked to see how I felt considering the news my brother had shared. I was surprised to discover I actually felt okay. The specter of what happened years before was something I had wrestled with already. Maybe, just maybe, I’d moved beyond it.

As I puttered in the kitchen, making tea and settling in on the couch to watch some television, I contemplated offering to be a corroborating witness if they thought it would help the case. I wasn’t ready to make the decision yet, but I was standing at the edge of it.

I returned to the kitchen to get some honey for my tea. Opening a cabinet, I was suddenly struck with the realization that this very place on the counter was where Diego had sent me flying. He had done what I thought impossible. He’d made me forget myself.

Chapter Fourteen

Diego

“Oh, my God,” my sister said, placing her hand over her heart for emphasis. “This is incredible, Daphne.”

Harley, my youngest sister, took another bite of Daphne’s concoction for the evening. She’d made this subtly spicy Thai stir fry with rice noodles, marinated chicken, and veggies. It was one of our staff evenings, and Harley’s arrival was well-timed.

Daphne smiled at her. “Glad you like it. Diego is my best