Laid Bear by Eve Vaughn (e books for reading .TXT) 📕

him. He seemed to accept that. My mother never liked him and I couldn’t understand why, but I soon learned after I married him.”

Tears fell freely down Rayna’s cheeks now, but she didn’t bother to wipe them away.

“Darren was sweet in the beginning, but I think it started to get to him how I couldn’t love him the way he thought I eventually would. He started going to church more. He became almost fanatical and he got verbally abusive. I hadn’t finished college and didn’t have skills and I had you to think about. So I took it. And when you were old enough to understand what was going on, he got fixated on you. He’d throw my indiscretions back at me. He beat me down mentally so by the time he hit me physically, I was already an emotional wreck. Oh, he never did it with any witnesses and he always made sure he hit me in a place where the bruise could easily be covered. The only time he threatened to hurt you was when I would show affection to you. He hated me giving attention to anyone. So I, please forgive me Zora, but I shut you out. I thought I was doing the right thing by you, but I know now I made a terrible mistake. I know I was cold toward you at times, but in my mind I thought I was protecting you. Not long before you left for college, I noticed him looking at you in a way that wasn’t right. I was worried he might touch you. I caught him watching you in the bathroom. It was one of the few times I stood up to him. He beat me pretty bad after that.”

Zora gasped in horror. How had she not noticed? She’d been so wrapped up in her own pain she hadn’t recognized her mother’s. “Oh, Mom.” For the first time, she reached out and grabbed her mother’s hand. “I didn’t know.”

“There was no way you would. He was very careful to hide his true nature.”

“Not really. He’d call me names and treat me like crap.

Didn’t you see that?”

Rayna squeezed her eyes shut. “I did, but in my mind I thought things would be okay as long as he didn’t touch you.

I was so glad when you left because I felt you would be safe.

Shortly after our last talk, he joined a church that was by anyone’s standards strict. He became even more of a zealot and he started saying crazy things, especially about you. He wanted to bring you back and teach you the right way.

Sometimes it was like he was speaking to no one at all. When we found out what happened with you and that boy, he kind of just snapped. He was already slipping into another reality, but he felt you had betrayed him. He claimed he’d find you and bring you back.

“By this time, I knew I had to leave but each time I tried, he’d find me. It was only recently we discovered you were staying with my mom. And that’s another regret I have. He basically destroyed the relationship I had with her. I didn’t see her buried either. You bore that alone. I can’t apologize enough, Zora.”

“It’s okay. The rest I can pretty much fill in for myself. He found me and he planned on handling me.”

“Yes.” Rayna nodded. “He went after me first. Told me he was going to send me to hell with those three bastards and then he’d take care of my whore daughter. That’s when I realized he had something to do with Calvin and his brothers’

disappearances. I could never prove it, but he basically admitted it. He said he went hunting. I think I lost it then. For the first time I fought him and he beat me and locked me in the trunk. I don’t know how long I was there. A few days had passed. The next thing I knew, your guys saved me and I’m here.”

“I see.”

“Do you?” Rayna asked. “I know