"Spindler, Erica - See Jane Die" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spindler Erica)

"Jane? Are you all right?"

She turned. Ian, her husband of less than a year, stood in the doorway to her art studio. Several emotions hit her at once: love, wonder, disbelief. Dr. Ian WestbrookЧsmart, charming and James Bond handsomeЧloved her.

Jane frowned at his expression. "I screamed, didn't I?"

He nodded. "I'm worried about you."

She was worried, too. She had awakened screaming three times in recent weeks. Not from a nightmare. Not from a manifestation of her subconscious, but one of her memory. The memory of the day that had changed her life forever. The day that had transformed her from a pretty, popular and happy teenager to a modern-day, female Quasimodo.

"Want to tell me about it?"

"Same old thing. Boater runs down teenager. The boat's prop chews up half her face, takes her right eye, comes damn close to severing her head. The girl survives. The boat captain is never caught and the police classify the incident as an accident. End of story."

Except in the dream, the boat captain doubles back to make another pass at her.

And she awakens screaming.

"Far from the end of the story," Ian murmured. "Not only does the girl survive, she triumphs. Over years of painful reconstructive surgeries, years enduring the stares of strangers, their whispers."

Their expressions of horror at her face. Their pity.

"Then she meets a dashing doctor," Jane continued. "They fall in love and live happily ever after. Sounds like a made-for-TV, triple-hankie special event. I'm thinking the Lifetime channel."

Ian crossed to her, drew her to her feet and into his arms. The cold night air clung to him and she rubbed her cheek against his sweater, realizing he'd been outside.

"You don't have to be flip with me, Jane. I'm your husband."

"But it's what I do best."

He smiled. "No, it's not."

She returned his smile, pleased. Acknowledging that every minute she grew to love him more than the last. "Would you be referring to an ability passed in great secrecy from one generation of Dallas debutante to the next? A subject not fit for proper society?"

"I would, indeed."

"Glad to hear that, since it happens to be one of my favorite subjects, Dr. Westbrook."

He sobered, searched her gaze. "Typical Dallas deb, you're not. Never will be."

"Tell me something I don't know, stud."

He frowned at her reply. "You're doing it again."

"Sorry. Sometimes I breathe, too."

He cupped her face in his palms. "If I had wanted a perfectly coiffed doll in pearls and a little black dress, I could have had one. I fell in love with you." She didn't reply and he trailed his thumbs across her cheekbones. "You did triumph, Jane. You're so much stronger than you know."

His belief in her made her feel like a fraud. How could she have beaten the past when the memory of that day still had such power over her?