Ransomed Dreams Read Online Free

responsible, but Sheridan thought he fit the bill. The bottom line was that if not for their silly games of intrigue, Eliot would still be the ambassador. She would still be engaged in real work, not nursing an invalid.
    In the past, whenever she voiced concerns to Eliot about fomenters and turmoil, he would smile and say, “Welcome to life in the diplomatic lane. We’ll just keep our heads down and pretend they’re not here, all right?” His chipper spin was unflagging.
    Then came the shooting. It took little effort for her to connect the presence of Luke Traynor with her husband’s being chosen as a target. If Luke perpetrated the unrest, the backlash could naturally strike out at the ambassador. It was her personal theory, one she never bothered sharing.
    The irony of it all was that the man responsible for the violence was the one who saved her from it. Perpetrator and rescuer. Bad guy, guardian angel. The man she fell in love with when she wasn’t looking.
    She blamed it on how he went above and beyond angel duty. In the chaos of that awful day and in subsequent weeks, he stayed with her like stickiness on glue. She was whisked with her injured husband from one hospital to another, from Venezuela to the States. Friends and embassy staff could not get to her. Luke, though, never left her side.
    He guided her through her own medical care for a broken arm and cracked ribs. He deciphered needs she could not articulate and arranged to have them met. Through doctors’ pronouncements that Eliot was not going to make it, Luke held her tightly and would not let her imagine the funeral.
    She figured he did it all out of a guilty conscience.
    And yet she would not have survived the ordeal without him.
    Whatever. It was over.
    Luke broke into her thoughts. “I’m sorry, but I did have to come.”
    “You bring the past with you, and I just can’t go there.”
    “I don’t want you to. Tell me about now.”
    “I don’t talk about now either, about how Eliot and I are now. We just are. Okay? I say we’re fine, and that keeps me moving forward.”
    “You passed the one-year anniversary. Did you celebrate it in some way?”
    She stared at him, struck as always by his understanding. “We had champagne and lobster. Caviar, too.”
    “Cake?”
    “Sure. An entire sheet cake. One candle, U.S. and Venezuelan flags outlined in full color on vanilla icing. Invited the whole village.”
    He smiled in a gentle way. “Seriously, Sher. You’ve lived with this for over a year now. Through birthdays and holidays. Your wedding anniversary. You made it. That is a huge deal.”
    She had hoped so. She had hoped it would mark a turning point, that Eliot would finally just buck up and be present despite everything. That he would lose the deaf-mute persona. That their ordeal with post-trauma symptoms would fade into oblivion.
    But when she had told Eliot the date and hinted at new days ahead, he’d moved a bony shoulder, the closest semblance to a shrug that he could muster. The anniversary was far from a huge deal. Another six months had passed with no hint of change.
    “What’s life like here in Topala? What do you do for fun? Any volleyball teams around?”
    She clenched her hands into fists on her lap. Luke was coercing her to talk about herself. It both repelled and comforted her that he could still do that.
    “Yeah, right. Volleyball.” She winced. The lack of physical exercise was bad enough, but even worse was the lack of camaraderie she’d always enjoyed through team sports. “I walk.”
    “Great vertical climbs here.”
    “Yeah. And I paint.”
    “Really?”
    “No, not really. It’s about as artistic as a paint-by-numbers kit. It’s a tool, a way to work out anxiety. A counselor suggested it.”
    “What exactly do you paint?”
    She exhaled in frustration. “Local scenes. Acrylics on four-by-six pieces of Masonite. The sculptor sells them in his shop to tourists. Can you believe it? People actually pay money for