Stone Cold by Cheryl Douglas Page A

wasn’t a showpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but she claimed it had sentimental value.
    “It was stolen… from the center. I guess one of the residents was desperate for drug money.” She lifted a shoulder and he could tell how much it was costing her to act nonchalant about losing such a big part of herself. “They wouldn’t have gotten much for it.” She forced a smile. “I didn’t think it was worth anything to anyone but me.”
    “How do you write without access to instruments?”
    “I usually borrow from the guys in the band when I can. You know, write the lyrics first and then work out the melody when I can snag a guitar for a couple of hours at a time.”
    He caught her rubbing the bare spot on the ring finger of her left hand. “I’m sorry that bastard took your ring.”
    Her eyes welled up with tears but she quickly looked away, hiding her eyes from him. “He demanded the ring, but I put up a fight. I know it was stupid, but I told him he couldn’t have it. That’s when things got really ugly.”
    Drake hated the fact that she’d almost lost her life over a material possession that represented a week’s salary for him. “It wasn’t worth it,” he said, watching her carefully, hoping he could convince her to let her guard down and talk about what happened that night.
    “It was worth it to me,” she said quietly. “He was trying to take not one, but two things that are precious to me.”
    He frowned, trying to follow her train of thought. “Two things? What else did he want? The car?”
    “My body,” she whispered.
    It was nearly impossible for Drake to suppress the rage when he thought about how that night must have impacted Cassidy.
    “There was a time when I gave my body freely and hated myself for it.”
    He remembered her confiding in him about her promiscuity during her teen years. She said she just wanted to feel loved, so she began to equate sex with love in her drug-induced state. It wasn’t until she went into a recovery program that she began to see acknowledge how wrong she was.
    “So I decided I wouldn’t have sex again unless…” She glanced at him quickly before tearing her eyes away. “I was married.”
    He couldn’t hide his shock at that statement. He’d often used sex as a coping mechanism this past year and assumed she had been doing the same. “Are you serious?”
    “I guess you could say I’m a born-again virgin.” She smiled. “It’s been good for me.”
    Drake couldn’t imagine how living without sex could be a good thing. He didn’t know if she was sharing this information because she wanted him to know she hadn’t been with anyone else or because she was trying to tell him she didn’t intend to let the kiss they’d shared evolve in to something more.
    She cleared her throat delicately. “After the mistake I made with Lee, I couldn’t even think about being intimate with someone else.”
    He didn’t want to talk about what happened that night, but he sensed it was an important part of her healing process so he let her continue without interrupting her.
    “He used me and I hated that I let him.”
    Drake still had so much repressed anger about that night. He hadn’t seen or spoken to his brother since, nor did he want to, yet here he was with the woman who’d betrayed him. He knew letting Cassidy back in to his life wasn’t the smartest decision he’d ever made, but his conscience wouldn’t let him rest knowing she’d been forced to go back to that center.
    When the silence lingered, she pointed at the piano. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”
    “By all means.” He watched her slide on to the bench carefully and he knew her body had a long way to go before it was fully healed. He was glad she was here with him, so he could make sure she took care of herself.
    Caressing the keys with her slim fingers, she closed her eyes and the room filled with the sweet melody of a song he’d never heard before.
    He stared at her,