to Kansas City. All too quickly he would also learn how painful it was to tell that somebody goodbye.
* * *
THEY WERE BOTH QUIET as they ate their meal. Tamara had no idea what was going on in Seth’s head, but in her own was a cluster of emotions and thoughts that battled against each other.
The meat loaf and potatoes couldn’t begin to take away the taste of fear that lingered in the back of her throat as the sensations of being at the rest area played again and again in her head.
There was no question in her mind that was where she’d been taken. Whether the man with his dog had anything to do with her abduction or somebody else who she didn’t remember had come along and taken her, she couldn’t answer. She only knew that standing in the lush grass just outside the building had shot a sense of terror into the back of her throat that she couldn’t quite swallow.
As bad as that was, she felt like an utter failure. She’d remembered so much, being at the rest stop, anticipating the last of her drive to her surrogate aunt’s house, even the man with his little dog. But she hadn’t been able to identify anything about the man. She hadn’t noticed a vehicle in the parking area.
Why hadn’t she been more careful? She was a grown woman, one who rarely took chances of any kind. So why would she allow a strange man to get close enough to her to grab her or do whatever he’d done to her? It didn’t make sense. Nothing about all of this made any sense at all.
It wasn’t until they were finished eating and had moved to the living room that she finally talked to Seth about all that was going on in her brain.
“I’m not a careless woman. I know about personal space and checking my surroundings when I’m out shopping or running errands,” she said. “Yet, I’m positive when whoever took me approached, I felt no danger.”
“Maybe because of the dog?”
She hesitated and then shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’ve heard the stories of perverts dragging around dogs to entice children and vulnerable women closer to them. There has to be another reason I felt safe enough to let him get close enough to grab me. For all I know the man with the dog had nothing to do with it. Maybe he drove away and somebody else arrived before I got into my car.”
A sigh of frustration escaped her. “I feel like such a failure. I was so sure once the memories started coming back I’d have a face, or at least an impression of the man who took me. But I’ve got nothing. And now you have nothing.”
“That’s not true,” he protested. “We now have the scene of the initial kidnapping. Who knows what the crime scene investigators might find that will lead us to the killer. Tamara, don’t beat yourself up.”
“I can’t help it. I feel so stupid. How did I allow myself to become a victim?”
She grabbed his arm and held tight. “I’m not just scared, but I’m also so angry about it all. I want to find the man who did this to me and kill him, I want to stab his eyes out and bury him in the sand.” Seth pulled her into his arms.
Leaning weakly against him she hit his chest with her fist, an ineffectual blow that caused him no pain but that he knew released some of hers.
She hadn’t shown anger since the moment of her rescue and he considered her rage now to be healthy and healing.
He had no idea how much time passed with her hitting his chest, venting the depth of her anger at an unknown assailant who had forever changed her life. Finally she leaned against him weakly, obviously spent.
He stroked her hair and simply held her. Once again his wealth of love for her buoyed up inside him, tormenting the tip of his tongue in a need to be spoken. But he knew that telling her how he felt about her would only make things worse for them both.
He had no idea what filled her with dread about returning to her home in Amarillo, but sooner than later she’d have to go back and face it—she had to go back to the life she’d had before she’d been kidnapped from a rest area, kept someplace for hours and then buried in a