Keara laughed. “I’m not going to talk about this.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m okay, Maeve. I’ll be moving a bit slow for a day or two, but I’m okay. This was just a stupid accident.
Even as she said it, her face grew hot and tight and her throat closed up. She blinked at stinging tears, feeling as if her world was spinning out of control. If she didn’t even have control of her mind, if her brain could play tricks on her like it had been, what did that mean? How could she control anything?
She looked at Maeve and blinked back the tears. “I didn’t tell you exactly why I came here.”
Maeve regarded her solemnly. “Well, I knew it wasn’t for a holiday.”
“No.” Keara gripped her hands together in her lap. “The robbery shook me up.”
“It would shake anyone up, going through something like that.”
“But it seems to have affected me…a lot.” She rubbed the back of one hand across her nose. “I’ve been off work ever since the robbery. I was seeing a psychologist. They told me I had to, to deal with the trauma. I was supposed to go back to work last week, on Monday. Two days before I called you, I had gone in to work for a visit. I…had some kind of strange episode. Apparently it was a panic attack. Just slightly humiliating.” She struggled to get the words out, hating the way her voice was all shaky and pathetic. “And then, the night before I called you, I thought someone tried to break into my condo.”
“Oh no.” Maeve’s eyes widened and she set down her spoon.
“Except, it was nothing. I called the police and they came and it was all very embarrassing, but there was nothing there. My nerves were still shot from the robbery thing.” She swallowed. “Then I was terrified to stay there alone. That’s why I came here.”
She twisted her trembling fingers tightly. “Now this happens. And I did it again. Let my nerves get to me. I probably thought that SUV was closer than it was, and I panicked and overreacted and…I could have killed myself. I’m just glad nobody else was with me.”
“Oh, muirnín.” Maeve’s face softened and she stood up and held out her arms. “Come here and give me a hug.”
Keara stood, muscles aching, and stepped into Maeve’s embrace. She held onto her aunt, let her hold her, soothe her.
“It will be okay,” Maeve murmured.
Keara gathered up everything she had and stepped out of Maeve’s arms. She had no right to dump this on her poor old great-aunt, no right to worry Maeve, when she was just being silly.
“Yes, I’ll be okay,” she agreed with a tight smile. “Actually this week I was feeling pretty good. I had fun last night at Dunstans’. And then flirting with Shane kind of took my mind off things.”
Maeve drew back and smiled at her. “See? I was right. Sex is what you need. A good round of hot, shake-the-bed sex.”
The sound that emerged from Keara’s throat was half laugh, half sob. “Maybe you are right,” she said, dragging her fingers across wet eyes. “But now it’s going to have to wait until all these bruises are gone.”
“Perhaps.” Maeve returned to her chair and picked up her spoon again. “Eat your soup. And tell me about the robbery. Maybe it will help to talk about it.”
“I talked about it to the psychologist.” Keara obediently lifted her spoon. “I don’t need to talk about it anymore.”
“Well, I’m not a psychologist, but people tell me I’m a good listener. And keeping stuff inside you isn’t healthy.”
So Keara talked as she ate her soup, telling Maeve about the robbery and the hostage-taking. She didn’t tell her everything. Because some things were just too awful to even think, never mind tell someone else. Because she didn’t want Maeve to be disgusted with her, to know the whole thing had been her fault. She kept that part of the incident closed away in a partitioned-off part of her brain, where she didn’t have to examine it or deal with it.
And to a certain extent, telling Maeve and hearing her sympathetic comments did make her feel better.
They’d just finished their dinner when Shane arrived, buzzing at the back door, now locked.
Shane walked into Maeve’s apartment, still in his uniform. He hadn’t even gone home to eat yet. He sought out Keara and found her seated on the couch, cross-legged, a cushion clutched on her lap.
“Should you be out of bed?” he asked with a frown.
“I’m fine,” she replied, with a roll of her eyes. “Sore, but fine. I want to keep moving around so I don’t stiffen up too much. What are you doing here?”
“Just checking to see how you’re doing.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
He ignored her. “Will you be up to coming in to the station to make your report tomorrow?”
“I think so. I just have no way to get there.”
“You can use my car,” Maeve offered.
“I’ll pick you up,” Shane said at the same time.
“Do you offer that service to every crash victim?” she asked, frowning.
“No. Not everyone. It’s no trouble. I’ll come around lunchtime and we’ll get it done.”
She gave him a look—chin tilted down, up through her eyelashes—and his chest tightened. She looked so damn vulnerable and lost. What was it about her?
“Fine,” she finally said with a sigh.
“I called your insurance company,” he said, taking a seat on the other end of the couch from her. “An adjuster will have a look at the car to see if it can be repaired. But first thing tomorrow Joe and I will go have a look at it also. See if there’s any evidence of another car hitting you.”
“There won’t be.” She looked down at the cushion on her lap then back up to him. “I think I imagined that.”
He stared at her. “You think you imagined it. Why do you say that?”
Her lips pressed together. “I just do. I think I probably overreacted to the guy tailing me close. So I’m sure the accident was all my fault.”
He said nothing. It was possible. And yet, she’d seemed so certain earlier. “Is that what you’re going to say in your statement?”
“I…I don’t know. I just want to tell the truth.”
He nodded. “Well, you figure it out, honey, and we’ll go from there. I’m willing to investigate if you think someone deliberately tried to force you off the road.”
“There’s probably no point in it.” She sighed. “I don’t want to put you to a lot of work for nothing.”
He nodded, not sure how to respond to her. Keara wasn’t the type of person to try to blame someone else for something that was her fault. He was pretty sure of that. Some drivers would make up a story like that to take the blame off themselves, maybe thinking they’d be charged with something. But he didn’t believe she would.
So what had really happened up on San Marcos Pass? He found himself hoping unreasonably that he’d find something on her car the next day, even though he knew it unlikely, and even though he knew if he did, he had a helluva bigger problem on his hands. But…Keara’s new admission that she might have overreacted and the sadness on her face as she said it tugged at something inside him. He wanted to pull her onto his lap and wrap his arms around her.
“Everyone makes mistakes,” he finally said, not sure if she was going to take that as reassuring or an indictment. She just nodded, her morose lethargy heart-tugging.
“You look tired,” he said, standing. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
As Maeve walked him to the door, he asked her in a low voice, “Is she okay?”
Maeve nodded, her mouth tightened into a thin scarlet line, eyes narrowed. “Shane. I’m worried about her.”
He stopped, glanced over Maeve’s shoulder at Keara, staring into space.
“You think she’s hurt? Did they miss something at the hospital?”