A Blazing Little Christmas(82)

But all that complaining didn’t match the serene look on her face.

“Why do you do it?”

“I don’t anymore,” she reminded him.

Semantics. Cory rephrased. “Why did you do it?”

Rebecca pulled the towel off her hair, and started to brush. A hundred strokes. He counted. “Because stuff happens.”

“Like what?” he asked, hoping to coax another laugh from her.

She took so long to answer, he thought she hadn’t heard. Finally she moved to stand in front of the bedroom mirror, and slowly she began to brush again.

“There was a kid I knew once. Every year they had Christmas at her grandparents’ house. Twenty-three relatives divided among two bedrooms. It was total chaos. Anyway, one Christmas morning, early—she always got up early on Christmas morning—her second cousin, Marty, cornered her in the bathroom. He’d always been really skanky, creepy, and in trouble with the law, but everybody wanted to believe he was good inside because he was ‘family.’”

She stopped brushing, paused and then started again.

“He bent her over the sink and raped her. And told her not to scream, so she didn’t. Not once. She kept waiting for someone to come and save her. They never did. And when he was done, she was pissed. Man, she was so pissed. Spitting mad. And she wanted to hurt him. Like he’d hurt her. She told him that Santa Claus would get him for what he had done. He laughed, told her that Santa Claus didn’t exist, and walked out the door. He knew she wouldn’t say anything. She was only nine, only a little girl. She’d looked in the mirror. Looked at herself. There was this emptiness in her eyes. Something was gone and she wanted it back. She never got it. But she tried.”

He sat quietly, frozen in place.

Rebecca turned away from the mirror, hairbrush in hand. When she looked at him, her blond hair was still damp from the shower, and there was an emptiness in her eyes.

Rapid-fire images shot like machine-gun fire in his brain. Silent screams,

milk-white flesh and innocence lost. Carefully he dug his nails into his palms, focusing on the pain there until the pain inside him was gone. It was a trick he used a lifetime ago.

He’d never thrown up, never allowed himself. But he wanted to now. His mouth was full of rage and terror and partially digested scrambled eggs. None of which would do her any good. Quickly though, his control returned and he swallowed it all.

Instead of cutting half-moons into her palms, Rebecca didn’t play the victim, she fought back. She became head cheerleader, homecoming queen and a teacher who most likely stuck her nose where it didn’t belong.

Then Rebecca smiled tightly and went back to brushing her hair.

What was a man supposed to do? Cory wanted to comfort her, pull her into his arms and tell her that everything would be all right.

The hell it was. He knew that nothing would ever be right. So did she, but she didn’t want pity any more than he wanted it. They had survived. Life went on—but it had changed for him.

“Do you still want to do that sleigh ride today?” she asked.

Rebecca seemed to want casual conversation, while he was still trying to keep his guts inside.

“How does she face Christmas every year?” he asked, his voice quiet. He had to know, had to understand her, had to go deeper into the dark places that he hated to delve. This was for Rebecca.

She shook her head nervously, the blond strands flying as she brushed faster. “She has to. She won’t let anybody steal her Christmas. Not anybody.”

“She ever tell anyone besides you?”

“Nah. She’s tougher than she looks. Her business, nobody else’s.”

“What happened to the guy?” Cory asked in a whisper.

“Murdered in a Florida prison. Seems inmates don’t like deviants any more than Santa Claus.”

His fists unclenched. “I’m glad.”

“Me, too. No kid should go through that.”

“No, they shouldn’t.” She didn’t say any more, and he knew the subject was now closed. Rebecca didn’t look back. Ever.

He watched her with new respect, watching as she never missed a step. He’d always judged her through his high school eyes and overlooked her, dismissed her. He’d never been more wrong.

“So when are you going to get your job back?” he asked.

Rebecca brushed her cheeks with pink powder, back and forth.

“I’m thinking of moving to retail.”

That brought Cory to his feet. There was no way. “You can’t do that. You can’t give up on your kids. There are people that need you.”

“Nobody needs me, Cory. Those kids will be fine.”

She was so confused. Clueless about it, but that didn’t change the fact that Rebecca Neumann was one of the few things right in the world. And he’d make sure she got her job back, if he had to go there himself…