"I'm going to call one of our lawyers in a few minutes," Gage said. "I'll find out what we need to do next." He continued talking in a measured tone, about how we might need to take photos of my injuries, how to get the divorce over with as quickly as possible, how to minimize my involvement so I wouldn't have to face Nick or talk to him —

"Divorce?" I asked stupidly, while Liberty set a plate in front of me. "I don't know if I'm ready for that."

"You don't think you're ready? Have you looked in the mirror, Haven? How much more of a pounding do you need to be ready?"

I looked at him, so big and decisive and strong-willed, and everything in me rebelled.

"Gage, I just got here. Can I have a break? Just for a little while? Please?"

"The only way for you to get a break is to divorce the son of a"— Gage paused and glanced at his attentive baby — "gun."

I knew my brother was trying to protect me, that he wanted what was best for me. But his protectiveness felt like bullying. And it reminded me of Dad. "I know that," I said. "I just want to think about things before I talk to a lawyer."

"God help me, Haven, if you're actually considering going back to him — "

"I'm not. I'm just tired of being told what to do and when to do it. All the time! I feel like I'm on a runaway train. I don't want you making decisions about what I should do next."

"Fine. Then you make them. Fast. Or I will."

Liberty intervened before I could reply. "Gage," she murmured. Her slim fingers went to the taut surface of his clenched bicep and stroked lightly. His attention was instantly diverted. He looked at her, the lines on his face smoothing out, and he took a deep breath. I had never seen anyone wield that kind of power over my authoritative brother, and I was impressed. "This is a process," she said gently. "I know we want Haven to skip over the middle part and get right to the end . . . but I think the only way for her to get out of it is to go through it. Step by step."

He frowned but didn't argue. They exchanged a private glance. Clearly there would be more discussion later, out of my hearing. He turned back to me. "Haven," he said quietly, "what would you say if one of your friends told you her husband had thrown her out on the doorstep one night? What would your advice be?"

"I . . . I'd tell her to leave him right away," I admitted. "But it's different when it's me."

"Why?" he asked in genuine bewilderment.

"I don't know," I answered helplessly.

Gage rubbed his face with both hands. He stood from the table. "I'm going to get dressed and go to the office for a while. I won't make any calls." He paused deliberately before adding, "Yet." Going to the high chair, he lifted Matthew and held him aloft to make him squeal with delight. Lowering the wriggling body, Gage kissed his neck and cuddled him. "Hey, pardner. You be a good boy for Mommy while I'm gone. I'll come back later and we'll do some guy stuff."

Settling the baby back in the chair, Gage leaned down to kiss his wife, sliding his hand behind the back of her neck. It was more than a casual kiss, turning harder, longer, until she reached up and stroked his face. Breaking it off, he continued to look into her eyes, and it seemed an entire conversation passed between them.

Liberty waited until Gage had gone to take a shower before telling me gently, "He was so upset after he brought you home. He loves you. It drives him crazy, thinking of someone hurting you. It's all he can do to stop himself from going to Dallas and . . . doing something that's not in your best interests."

I blanched. "If he goes to Nick — "

"No, no, he won't. Gage is very self-controlled when it comes to getting the results he wants. Believe me, he'll do whatever is necessary to help you, no matter how hard it is."

"I'm sorry for involving you in this," I said. "I know it's the last thing you or Gage need."

"We're your family." She leaned over and gathered me into another of those long, comfortable hugs. "We'll figure it out. And don't worry about Gage — I'm not going to let him bully you. He just wants you to be safe . . . but he's got to let you be in charge of how it's handled."

I felt a wave of affection and gratitude for her. If there was any lingering trace of resentment or jealousy in my heart, it vanished in that moment.

Once I started talking, I couldn't stop. I told Liberty everything, the way Nick had controlled the household, the shirts I'd had to iron, the way he called me "Marie." Her eyes widened at that last, and she said in a low voice, "Oh, Haven. It's like he was trying to erase you."

We had laid out a big quilt with a barnyard design, and Matthew had crawled among the hand-stitched animals until he drifted to sleep on top of a flock of sheep. Liberty opened a bottle of chilled white wine. "Your prescription instructions say that alcohol may magnify the effects of the medication," she warned.

"Good," I said, holding out my glass. "Don't be stingy."

Lounging on the quilt with the sleeping baby, I tried to find a comfortable position on the pile of pillows Liberty had set out for me. "What's confusing," I told her, still pondering my relationship with Nick, "are the times when he's okay, because then you think everything is getting better. You know what buttons not to push. But then there are new buttons. And no matter how sorry you are, no matter how hard you try, everything you say and do builds up the tension until there's an explosion."

"And the explosions get worse each time," she said with a quiet certainty that got my attention.

"Yeah, exactly. Did you ever date a guy like that?"

"My mother did." Her green eyes were distant. "His name was Louis. A Jekyll and Hyde type. He started out charming and nice, and he led Mama step by step into the relationship, and by the time things got bad enough for her to leave, her self-esteem was shredded. At the time I was too young to understand why she let him treat her so badly."

Her gaze wandered over Matthew's slumbering body, limp and heavy as a sack of flour. "I think the thing you've got to figure out is if Nick's behavior is something that could be helped with counseling. If your leaving him would he enough to make him want to change."

I sipped my wine and considered that for a while. Was Nick's abusiveness something that could be peeled away like an orange rind? Or was it marbled all the way through?

"I think with Nick, it's always going to be about control," I finally said. "I can't see him ever admitting something is his fault, or that he needs to change in any way. The fault is always mine." Set-ting aside my empty wine glass, I rubbed my forehead. "I keep wondering . . . did he ever love me at all? Was I anything more than just someone to push around and manipulate? Because if he never cared about me, it makes me even more of an idiot for having loved him."

"Maybe he cared about you as much as he was capable," Liberty said.

I smiled without humor. "Lucky me." I realized we were talking about my relationship with Nick as if it were already in the past tense. "If I had known him longer," I continued, "dated him longer, maybe I would have seen through the facade. It was my fault for rushing into marriage so quickly."

"No it wasn't," Liberty insisted. "Sometimes an imitation of love can be pretty damn convincing."

The words reminded me of something I'd heard her say a long time ago on her wedding night. A lifetime ago. "Like the imitation you had with Hardy Cates?"

She nodded, her expression turning thoughtful. "Yes, although I wouldn't care to put Hardy in the same company as Nick. He would never hurt a woman. In fact, Hardy had the opposite problem . . . always wanting to rescue someone . . . I forget the name for it . . ."

"A white knight complex."

"Yes. But after the rescue was done, that was Hardy's cue to leave."

"He wasn't such a white knight when he ruined Gage's business deal," I couldn't resist pointing out.

Liberty's smile turned rueful. "You're right But I think Hardy considered that a shot against Gage, not me." She shook her head dismissively. "About you and Nick . . . it's not your fault that he went after you. I've read that abusers choose women they can easily manipulate — they have a kind of radar for it. Like, if you filled the Astrodome with people and put one abusive man and one vulnerable woman in there, they'd find each other."

"Oh, great." I was indignant. "I'm a walking target."

"You're not a target, you're just. . . trusting. Loving. Any normal guy would appreciate that. But I think someone like Nick probably thinks of love as a weakness he can take advantage of."

Regardless of what I wanted to hear, that got to me. It was a truth I couldn't get over, under, or around . . . it stood right in my way, blocking any possible path back to Nick.

No matter how much I loved him, or what I did for him, Nick wouldn't change. The more I tried to please him, the more contempt he would have for me.

"I can't go back to him," I said slowly, "can I?"

Liberty just shook her head.

"I can imagine what Dad will say if I got a divorce," I muttered. "Starting with a big, fat 'I told you so.'"

"No," Liberty said earnestly. "Really. I've talked with Churchill more than once about the way he behaved. He's sorry about having been such a hard-ass."

I wasn't buying that. "Dad lives to be a hard-ass."

Liberty shrugged. "Whatever Churchill says or thinks is not important right now. The point is what you want."

I was about to tell her it might take a long time to figure that out. But as I lowered myself next to the baby's warm body and snuggled close, a few things had become very clear. I wanted to never be hit or yelled at again. I wanted to be called by my own name. I wanted my body to belong to me. I wanted all the things that anyone deserved by virtue of being human. Including love.

And I knew deep down it wasn't love when one person had all the power and the other person was completely dependent. Real love was not possible in a hierarchy.

I nuzzled Matthew's scalp. Nothing in the world smelled as good as a clean baby. How innocent and trusting he was in sleep. How would Nick treat a helpless creature like this?

"I want to talk to the lawyer," I said sleepily. "Because I don't want to be the woman in the Astrodome."

Liberty draped a throw blanket gently over the two of us. "Okay," she whispered. "You're in charge, Haven."

CHAPTER FIVE

In Texas there is an obligatory sixty-day waiting period after you file a petition for divorce. At some point someone in the state legislature had decided that a legally mandated cooling-off period was a good idea for people who wanted a divorce. I'd rather they had left it up to me to decide whether I needed cooling off or not. Once the decision had been made, I wanted to get it over with quickly.On the other hand, I made pretty good use of those two months. I healed outwardly, the bruises fading, and I started going twice a week to a therapist. Having never been to a therapist before, I expected I was going to have to lie back on a sofa and talk while some impersonal white-coated professional took notes.

Instead I was welcomed into a small, cozy office with a sofa upholstered in flowered yellow twill, by a therapist who didn't seem all that much older than me. Her name was Susan Byrnes, and she was dark-haired and bright-eyed and sociable. It was a relief beyond description to unburden myself to her. She was understanding and smart, and as I described things I had felt and gone through, it seemed she had the power to unlock the mysteries of the universe.

Susan said Nick's behavior fit the pattern of someone with narcissistic personality disorder, which was common for abusive husbands. As she told me about the disorder, it felt as if she were describing my life as it had been for the past year. A person with NPD was domineering, blaming, self-absorbed, intolerant of others' needs . . . and they used rage as a control tactic. They didn't respect anyone else's boundaries, which meant they felt entitled to bully and criticize until their victims were an absolute mess.

Having a personality disorder was different from being crazy, as Susan explained, because unlike a crazy person, a narcissist could control when and where he lost his temper. He'd never beat up his boss at work, for example, because that would be against his own interests. Instead he would go home and beat up his wife and kick the dog. And he would never feel guilty about it, because he would justify it and make excuses for himself. No one's pain but his own meant anything to him.

"So you're saying Nick's not crazy, he's a sociopath?" I asked Susan.

"Well . . . basically, yes. Bearing in mind that most sociopaths are not killers, they're just non-empathetic and highly manipulative."

"Can he ever be fixed?"

She shook her head immediately. "It's sad to think about what kind of abuse or neglect might have made him that way. But the end result is that Nick is who he is. Narcissists are notoriously resistant to therapy. Because of their sense of grandiosity, they don't ever see the need to change." Susan had smiled darkly, as if at some unpleasant memory. "Believe me, no therapist wants a narcissist to walk in the door. It only results in massive frustration and a waste of time."

"What about me?" I brought myself to ask "Can I be fixed?" At that point my eyes stung and I had to blow my nose, so Susan had to repeat her answer.

"Of course you can, Haven. We'll work on it. We'll do it."

At first I was afraid I was going to have to work on forgiving Nick. It was an indescribable relief to hear Susan say no, I didn't need to stay trapped in the cycle of abuse and forgiveness. Victims of abuse were often burdened with the so-called responsibility of forgiving, even rehabilitating, their tormentors. That wasn't my job, Susan said. Later we could find some level of resolution so the poison of my relationship with Nick wouldn't spill into other areas of my life. But right now there were other things to concentrate on.

I discovered I was a person with weak boundaries. I had been taught by my parents, especially my mother, that being a good daughter meant having no boundaries at all. I had been raised to let Mother criticize and have her way all the time, and make decisions for me that she had no business making.

"But my brothers didn't have that kind of relationship with her," I told Susan. "They had boundaries. They didn't let her mess with their personal lives."