A Love Worth Living Read Online Free Page A

heavy tension. “You don’t wake in a cold sweat, screaming, from sweet dreams.”
    The nightmare images swamped her and she relived the whole thing as David drove through the relatively calm streets of Crystal City. Dread paralyzed her vocal cords. She locked away the fear until it faded from her consciousness, something she’d nearly perfected after Afghani insurgents had held their camp at gunpoint a few years back. Her panic attacks had earned her more than one gutshot from their steel-toed boots.
    The technique didn’t always work, but today she was in luck. “I’m sorry to have worried you. It’s nothing.” She was impressed by the evenness in her voice, even as she felt echoes of nightmare-David’s phantom hands around her neck.
    At the stoplight, he turned to her and swept an angry thumb across her cheek. It came back wet and Carrie’s hands flew to her face, skin heating in shame.
    “Yeah, nothing. Like Wednesday was nothing.” His lips pressed into a thin line as he made his retreat and sped toward the courthouse. “I just want to make sure you are okay.”
    Despite her embarrassment and reluctance to talk about her issues, part of her wanted David to ask about the nightmares. She’d dealt with her fair share of psychologists, therapists and psychiatrists after the death of her father and Grace, and none had helped. “David—” She cut herself off. Now wasn’t the time or the place. Instead, she shifted her focus to the trial. “Thank you for driving me.”
    “It’s nothing.”
    She recognized the resignation in his posture from the one time she’d heard him talk with his mother—the only time she’d seen him upset. Something deep within her knew once he dropped her off, the ball was in her court.
    Losing him would hurt like a flock of carrion birds pecking at her flesh. And though needing someone—needing him —terrified her, so did being alone without the promise of a long, exhausting workday to distract her.
    David made her feel part of something beyond her small existence. She credited him with her tenuous hold on sanity over the past taxing months, though she’d just come to understand that while in Rwanda.
    He screeched to a stop in front of the courthouse seven minutes before she was due to take the stand. She popped open her door and the muted sounds of traffic filled the car.
    Shifting back into Drive, David looked at her tote bag expectantly, and she snatched it off the floor before she got out. Wrong, wrong, wrong. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. Desperate, she ducked her head back into the car. Words worked free from her throat. “Don’t go.”
    He looked at her and shook his head. “That’s not how it works, Carrie, not after Wednesday night. I understand why you ran, but it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.”
    She winced at his words. Her muscles ached from her nightmare and protested the motion. “About that—”
    He shifted the car back into Park and jabbed at the hazard-lights button with resignation twisting his features. “You don’t get to brush that aside or say it didn’t mean anything.” He got out and shut his door so gently the car barely moved. She’d just closed hers when he spun her around and pulled her against his chest. For a psychologist, he had a remarkably muscled body.
    The heat of his skin shook away the lingering chills from her nightmare. When his fingers speared into her hair and brought her eyes to meet his, all other thoughts fled her mind. Thank God.
    “You used me, damn it.”
    “Yes.” The ugly truth painted her in self-loathing.
    He leaned in, then grimaced and backed off, hands out by his sides. Her skin froze where she missed his touch. “I’ll be in the parking garage, waiting to take you home. We’ll finish this later.”
    With that brush-off, she stumbled up the courthouse steps and found the assigned trial room.
    Gunnerson half stood when she slipped through the doors, but Carrie waved him off. From