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and closed the shower curtain. “I’m naked!”
    He chuckled. “I have a towel, and Cara gave me some soap and shampoo.”
    “Leave it on the toilet.” Her heartbeat quickened. She’d never been naked with a man before. She waited until he left to open the curtain, then grabbed the soap and shampoo. She picked up a loofa sitting on the tub ledge, poured soap on it and began rubbing her skin. Within a minute the need to wash away the memories, the horror, the pain, overtook her and she scoured her skin until it was raw.
    Natasha emerged thirty minutes later, wrapped in the large blue towel. Her body ached from being scrubbed, but a small piece of her felt cleansed from Daniel and the attack.
    Liam lounged on the now-made bed, complete with clean sheets and blankets. A bowl of cereal and a carton of milk waited for her on a tray.
    “I brought you something to eat. It’s Cara’s, so you’ll need to go get some groceries of your own.”
    She sat, poured the milk into the bowl and ate so fast she barely had time to taste the little squares. Liam watched her without saying a word. When she finished, he got up and refilled the bowl. While he was gone, she dressed in the only clean T-shirt, pair of panties and shorts in her bag.
    He returned and looked over her. “Are you going to sign up for classes at the college?”
    She shrugged. “I don’t know yet.” She ate slower this time.
    He ran his fingers through his hair and scratched his head. “Asha. I know this is difficult for you—”
    “It’s okay, Liam. I appreciate your help, but you don’t have to be my friend.”
    His face hardened, and his voice took on a bitter tone. “You think I’m being harsh telling you to start over and move on, but I’m not. I’m not telling you to do anything I didn’t have to do myself and nothing that I think your parents wouldn’t tell you.”
    “How do you know what they’d say?”
    “Because they sent you here, didn’t they?”
    She stared at him for a long moment. Every word he said made sense, but her heart couldn’t handle that right now. She didn’t want to hear what she should be doing. She didn’t want to be told to move on. Every piece of her hurt so bad she couldn’t see past the next ten seconds. “Right now I don’t even want to live through it.”
    “You don’t now. But you will. And if you try to make a life for yourself, that’ll happen sooner rather than later. That crater in your heart, the one you think will swallow you whole if you look into it, it’ll start to close if you let it.” He checked his watch. “I have to go, but you need to take care of yourself.”
    He headed to the door and then paused. “For the record, I’m not pretending to be anything. Neither is Cara. We want to help.” He left without another word.
    Natasha stared after him and her heart squeezed. Maybe he wasn’t just being nice because of the money.
    She glanced out the window to the icy blue sky. The two phones lying on the other side of the bed caught her attention. She tried to resist them, but they were like flies buzzing in her ear. She just couldn’t leave them alone. She crawled over to the other side of the bed, picked them up and checked for messages.
    There weren’t any.

Chapter Three
    Two days after Liam’s visit to get Asha up and moving, Cara called to say she was still staring at her phones. He left his mechanic shop and went straight over. This time he didn’t give her a chance. He stuffed her phones into the dresser, slung her bag over his shoulder and hefted her down to her car. Jumping in the driver’s side, he drove to the mall for clothes.
    She talked very little, picking things off the rack of Ralph Lauren without even trying them on, setting them on the counter and paying with cash. Then she went into the cosmetic store and bought one of about everything, though she didn’t need any of it. At the grocery store, she got staples and toiletries. The entire endeavor took only an hour and a