More than an hour had gone tediously by when Blythe entered the clubroom. She was freshly scrubbed and void of makeup, wearing her terry robe, her feet bare. Padding noiselessly to the bar, she joined Nate.

Handing her a tequila-filled shot glass, he waited for her to throw back her head and down the contents. He poured her another. "Are you hungry? Ma left dinner in the oven. I'll get it for you."

"No thanks. Listen...I did some soul searching while I was upstairs. If you can handle it, I owe you the entire story. You have a right to know. Then however you deal with the information is up to you."

Glancing at his reflection in the smoked glass mirror, she knew he watched her intensely but his expression was unreadable.

"I did some thinkin', too. I don't want to make you deal with more than you're ready for. It's not fair of me to ask you to relive this...this..."

"Nightmare? Living nightmare, Nate. I live with it always. No, the time is now. I was wrong to believe I could go on as though it never happened...to believe you'd never find out. But I loved you so much, I thought that love would somehow make the past go away."

He left the bar stool for the comfort of the sofa and patted the cushion. "Sit here by me."

Blythe shook her head and began pacing about the room, her voice a lifeless monotone when she spoke. "I told you about my family, Ringwald and the estate. It's located on the edge of town on several acres, but not like this. It was within walking distance of town. It was a great place to grow up. We had creeks and woods with little clearings. We had secret places where the girls would hang out and we'd build campfires and talk about boys, tell ghost stories...those sorts of things.

"My parents always knew about the secret places though. We weren't too sneaky. I didn't realize it at the time, but they'd always send one of the employees out when we'd get home to check things out, make sure we hadn't started a forest fire or done anything dastardly. I guess if I'd thought about it, I'd have realized you could see the smoke from our house...smell it. I don't know, when you're young, you think you're invincible.

"Anyway, I matured really fast and was more than a little aware of boys...men, the way they looked at me. I was hardly thirteen when one old lecher of a teacher had the nerve to blatantly proposition me. Back then you didn't report those things because you'd be accused of lying or it being your fault. I can remember thinking it was so funny. I learned to laugh those things off. It was all I could do. I suppose I learned to laugh at the entire male species."

Emitting a deep sigh, she went on, "But it was because I didn't know enough about love or sex to take any of it seriously. It became fun...a game, that's all. I learned to flaunt and flirt at an early age, yet I truly didn't know what I was doing. You'd call it teasing.

"Even then, Connie was my best friend. We'd almost been raised together. Her parents had money, hung around with mine. She's a year older...was fifteen when it happened. She had this outrageous I'll die if I don't spend time alone with him crush on Beau Coleman Bledsoe. So, this one night, our parents were going out and they let us double to a movie. That was the only way either of us was going to leave our houses...together or not at all. "

Blythe paused and looked at Nate who hadn't taken his eyes off her as she paced and his expression was unreadable. She took a couple of deep breaths. "We devised this little scheme. I'd spend the night with Connie. Once we'd gotten out, we'd split up and meet later at an agreed on location at a certain time. The only thing was, we had to be really careful where we went and who saw us. It was a small town. Everyone knew us and our parents.

"The kicker was that I got stuck with poor Teddy Rosenfield. He was my age, had not car. Beau, on the other hand, was sixteen and had this fabulous fifty-seven Chevy. There wasn't much for Ted and me to do, so Connie and Beau let us off close to my house and we went back into the woods. There was a special spot my brother and his friends used to go to. It was way across the creek at the edge of the property."

Stopping in front of one of the windows flanking the fireplace, she leaned against the casement and stared out at the wet night, her back to Nate. "It's strange, but I can remember it clearly...wondering as I watched them drive off if they were having sex. I wasn't exactly sure what having sex was all about, but I remember wondering about it and why Connie hadn't trusted me enough to tell me." Bending her head, Blythe closed her eyes.

"You don't have to go on," Nate said behind her.

Keeping her back to him, she raised her head and began speaking again. "I guess I was showing off or something...you know kids. I took Ted back to this place...hadn't been there in years...since Phil and the others had taken me there when I was small. I was so sure no one would remember it, yet still nervous my folks would come back and catch us. Hell, I was nervous period. I'd never been alone with a boy.

"We wasted time searching for sticks and dry leaves. It was early spring, still chilly at night. When we finally got this pitiful little fire built, we sat on an old log and talked. Ted was sweet...shy. It took him a long time to get the nerve to even put his arm around me. I remember thinking, if he wants to kiss me, I'll let him. I don't want to hurt his feelings. He's too nice. Besides, contrary to what everyone thought and the way I looked, I'd never been kissed before and was kind of anxious to see what all the excitement was about.

"We were having a good time joking around. He was an okay guy. Then out of the blue, he grabbed me to him and awkwardly started kissing me and that was...uh, the...it was the last thing I remember about that night."

Nate's voice quaked in anger. "Was he the guy...this...this Ted? Did he do--"

"No!" Blythe groaned, whirling to face her husband. Then a bittersweet smile briefly tilted the corners of her mouth, making her eyes glimmer all the more with sadness. "No, not poor Ted. He suffered, too. You've got to understand something. The rest of what I tell you isn't from memory. It's bits and pieces of what I've been told...what I've read. In some way, it's as if it all happened to someone else. But the scars are there, physical and emotional. Connie's the only person who'd talk openly about it with me...except for psychiatrists, shrinks. So this version's probably a little slanted toward their viewpoint."

Her brow creased and drew together as she pivoted back to the window before continuing. "Connie was scared to death when I didn't show up at the meeting place. They waited for over an hour before starting to look for us and eventually ended up asking about us around town. She didn't know what to do. It was past her curfew and she was afraid her dad would be out looking for her, so she had Beau take her home. Her parents had left the party early and were already there. She made up a quick lie about me getting sick and Beau taking me back to my house. They had no reason to doubt her. We hadn't been in any trouble before.

"I had my own phone line. Connie called and called, hoping I'd lost track of time and had gone on home. When I never answered, she got in touch with Beau. He hadn't been able to find or reach Ted either. It was around two in the morning when my mother finally answered my phone. They had just gotten home. Connie panicked and hung up on her. I suppose common sense eventually prevailed, because she woke her parents up and told them the truth.

"They called Mom and Dad, the Bledsoes, Ted's parents, who were frantic, and the search was on. Someone contacted the sheriff...Daddy, I think, and the main street in and out of town was immediately blocked off."

"Didn't they check the clearings? Didn't they realize you kids went there?"

"Yes! But Connie was sure I'd have stayed around our normal place. They took lanterns and flashlights and still couldn't find us. Everyone involved in the search was meeting at our house. It was around dawn when Daddy went outside for some air. The wind must have shifted. It wasn't till then he smelled the faint hint of smoke. That's what finally led them to us. That awful little fire, built mostly with damp green wood, was still smoldering."

"But why didn't they think to look there before?" Nate asked in confusion. "Surely, someone would have remembered the boys old meeting place."

Blythe shrugged. "Phil...his friends, maybe. But that was all and they were away at college by then. No, I was one of the few people out of their immediate group that had ever been there. It was sort of a hiding place where they'd go to smoke, do a little weed. They'd made me swear not to tell and I hadn't...until then anyway."

She turned and met her husband's eyes. There was a need inside her to face him, to see his reaction to the words that came next. "We were both on the ground...unconscious. Ted had been hit in the head with a small log. It was found tossed into the woods, blood from his wound still on it. I...had...I had lost a lot of blood. I was caked in it...dirt and dried blood. There was a gash across my right breast, the inside of both thighs. You've seen the scars. You can picture it."

Blythe's breathing became shallow, her face pale and when she went on, her voice was deep and trembling as she tried to force back the emotions that welled with her remembered agony and defilement.

"My slacks had been ripped...cut off. My shirt lay in shreds around me. They never found my panties." She sighed deeply. "I...uh, I don't know. Evidently, I wasn't lucky enough to have been hit in the head and knocked out. They say I had to have been awake during the entire ordeal then blessedly passed out or fainted later from the loss of blood. That's what they surmised. I just love that word, don't you? Surmised? Well, they surmised that he left me for dead after I blacked out on him, quit struggling...oh, they knew that from the bruises and slashes all over my arms and hands.

"They got us to the local hospital. Ted had a concussion. They confirmed I'd been raped. Daddy called in some favors and a surgeon was brought in from Dallas. They say I was on the operating table for quite a while. It was really something, trying to get me stitched back together. When I woke up, I didn't remember anything. People kept asking me questions, but I didn't have any idea what they were talking about. I wouldn't listen when they tried to tell me what had happened. It was the proverbial denial stage. I convinced myself they were confused, that I'd been in a horrific accident, a wreck.

"There was a young nurse. She didn't like me. The reason's not important. A lot of people didn't like me. Anyway, when I was getting ready to check out of the hospital, she left a newspaper from a neighboring town. It was on the bed when I got out of the shower."

Blythe shook her head in small motions, glancing away from the look on Nate's face then back again, chewing uneasily on her lower lip, deciding how best to describe what she'd seen.

"The article was pretty hard core, graphic...real down and dirty, right there on the front page. Big bold headlines about Gentry Blythe MacLarren, spoiled daughter of the wealthy and hated Angus MacLarren, being brutalized and...and next to the headline was a picture. It...it was of me...at the scene, just after being laid on a stretcher.

"Sensationalism has always sold newspapers...always will. So, you see, Nate, I can actually understand...relate, if you will, to how you felt all those years. The town knew...and the neighboring towns. Ask J.T. He knew and remembered. I saw the recognition in his eyes. He'll have put it all together by now. See, he did and does know Daddy."

"I'm sorry," Nate whispered, anguish contorting his face.

"Don't be! Dead's dead, right? So don't confuse love with pity. It was just something that happened. It's life, reality, as you so wisely call it."

He let the barb pass, knowing he deserved it. "What happened next?"

She shrugged. "more surgeries, shrinks, all trying to heal the scars. It was hard on my parents. They're older like your mother. I guess we were luckier than you. We had money. Daddy tried his best but after a while, he simply couldn't deal with it anymore and we moved to Tulsa away from everything that reminded them of what had happened to their princess, who was now soiled and tainted."

The pieces were all coming together for Nate. "The way you flirt...the hot and cold bit, the fear of sex, keeping your eyes closed, afraid of seeing whoever, whatever's in your nightmares...then the dreams themselves."

"Oh, very good, Dr. Stevens." There was the sharp glint of resentment in her eyes, but it quickly faded. "Yeah, all that stuff locked up in my subconscious, screaming to get out. See, I guess I was what's considered frigid after that...all show and no go. That's why I was so afraid of my feelings for you. In a strange way, you were my first."

Nate gazed at her a moment, putting his thoughts together. "David...why did you marry him?"

"He was older, a friend of the family. He knew everything. I was completely open and honest with him. I didn't enjoy sex. He understood that. But he was so good and kind and he loved me so awfully much that it didn't matter to him. I grew to care about him. He was my friend and I was naïve enough to think I could learn to love him. But I didn't. I was just so plain tired of being lonely...alone. But you can't run away from yourself and you sure as hell can't hide behind someone else. All I did was hurt him."

Blythe trudged to a chair, wearily sat across from her husband and waited for the onslaught of questions she knew he must ask to satisfy his curiosity.

"When we were in Mexico, that first nightmare, what brought it on?"

"I was too close to you. I wanted you so much. We almost made love, remember...there on the beach? But I backed away and you were angry. I knew if I gave myself over to you, the sex...that it would trigger the nightmares again."

"But not lately, you've been fine."

"To a lesser degree, yes, but the dreams...there have been dreams, disturbing but not as horrendous. Sometimes they wake me and I lie in bed and watch you sleep, afraid to close my eyes again."

"That's why you thrive on the night. You seem to wake up when it gets dark. You come alive." His head lowered. "A nightchild," he whispered to himself.

"And if I don't...if I sleep then I dream."

Nate sighed deeply and sitting up leaned towards her. "Tell me about them. What are they about?"

Avoiding his eyes, her own darted nervously about the room like those of an animal caught in a wolf's lair.

"What do you see in the nightmares?"

"I don't remember!" Blythe cried fervently. "I truly don't remember!"

He stared at her, his eyes unwavering.

"Oh, alright, there is something. There's this fire and the shape...no, the silhouette of a man. I can feel his hands on me. Then something flashes from his hand. It catches the firelight and everything else goes blank. I wake up and can't remember any details...just terror. It's all a blur."

Nate was relentless. "What's in his hand? Can you picture it? Is it a knife?"

"Damn it, I don't know!" She sighed, "Don't you think I've tried to remember? It probably is the knife. I don't know. I just don't..." Trembling, tears poured silently down her face.

"I'm sorry...I'm so, so sorry," Nate cooed, going to her. Lifting her in his arms, he sat back down with her in his lap and held her to him.