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out of bed when he started to snore. Throwing on her bathrobe, she quietly went downstairs to the game room and slid behind the bar. She grabbed a wine cooler and cracked it open, taking a swig as she scanned the pool table. It had been a while since the last time she held a cue stick. She racked the balls and broke, raising her eyebrows as three balls found their way into the pockets. “Not bad.”
    “Everything all right?” Daniel rounded the corner into the room.
    “I couldn’t sleep. I hope you don’t mind.” She waved at the table.
    “Not at all.” He pulled out his cue stick. “Mind if I join you?”
    “It’s your table.” Jessica took another shot and missed. “I’m a little rusty.”
    He cleared the table and she shook her head as she re-racked for another game. “You still can shoot rings around me.”
    “What really happened to you Jess?”
    “Danny,” she sighed. “You saw enough on television. You really don’t need to know.”
    He walked over to her and touched her face. “I’m sorry if I hurt you,” he said. “I thought you were dead and LeAnn...”
    “ —I know, you fell in love with her and I can see why. She really is a sweetheart. Besides, I’m not sure I could have come back anyway, even if LeAnn wasn’t in your life.”
    Daniel took a step back; his eyebrows rose and his lips slightly parted. After a moment, he snapped his mouth closed, the muscles in his jaw tightening. He turned away from Jessica, studying the pool table.
    “Danny, what I went through. It was horrifying and you don’t just leave that behind. It follows you for the rest of your life. Tom and I have a connection. He was there; he saw what I went through, what it did to me. I didn’t think I’d ever feel safe again, but he gave that to me down there and it meant the world to me. He protected me when he could, and the times he couldn’t still haunt him,” she paused and Daniel looked over his shoulder at her. “As much as I loved you and the life we had together I never would have been able to go back. I would have never felt safe here.” She caught the raw hurt in his eyes and diverted her gaze to the pool table, lining up her next shot, the red-three-ball plunked into the pocket.
    “Emily will be all right,” she added, changing the subject.
    “Jess, she has cancer.”
    “We’ll see.” She looked at the table assessing her next move, crossing to the bar and taking another swig of her wine cooler before returning her attention to the game.
    Daniel grabbed her arm as she walked past him. “Cancer, Jess,” he emphasized.
    Jessica stopped and looked into his eyes. “Not anymore.”
    He let go of her, his mouth slowly dropping.
    “I fixed her,” Jessica replied to his shocked gaze and took her next shot; the ball went into the pocket where she expected it to. She continued to clear the table and he stared at her, blinking every few seconds.
    Jessica finished off her cooler after the last ball plunked into the pocket. “I think I’m gonna call it a night.” With that, she left her ex-husband staring at her dumbfounded.
    Tom stirred a little as she crawled back into bed. He wrapped his arms around her again and yes, she still felt safe in his strong grasp.

Chapter 12
     
    The next morning, Jessica woke early and slipped into her jogging clothes and shook Tom. “You coming?”
    Confusion lit up his face for a moment and he glanced around the room, wiping the sleep from his eyes. He blinked and brought his gaze back to her with a nod. “In a sec,” he said and headed to the bathroom.
    Jessica brushed her hair in the mirror and wrapped a hair band around her ponytail when the temperature in the room plummeted. Goose pimples peppered her flesh and she rubbed her arms glancing up at the air conditioning duct, the most logical source of the sudden cold draft. She returned her gaze to the mirror and gasped. Frank stood behind her in the reflection and he smiled the sadistic smile that promised