Programmed for Peril

organize her days, set her on some meaningful track. Carson had proved to be that person—with a vengeance.
    Her fiancé listened without replying. She found his silence terrifying. She was forced to try to read his face while tumbling desperate words from her lips. More! She tried to plumb the depths of his heart to judge the breadth of compassion and forgiveness there.
    Even as she explained, tried to some degree to excuse herself, she couldn’t help but be awed by diabolical Carson. It was as though he guessed that she hadn’t dared to totally explain to Foster the Carson years. He was using her reticence as a sledge to slam down the emotional structure she had built with her fiancé. That he should possess such an incriminating tape! More than ever his destructive powers seemed irresistible. He was her devil!
    “You have to understand that we started out together normally, Foster.” She tried to compose some kind of verbal coda to wrap up the long symphony of her frantic monologue. “Little by little I came to understand he was going crazy. But I was so tangled up with him that I didn’t have the will to escape. And I don’t think I ever would have gotten free if I hadn’t met Ron Verner.”
    “I remember his name. He’s Melody’s father.”
    “Yes! A wonderful man I fell in love with. He gave me hope that I could eventually get away from Carson. If he hadn’t had an accident, I might have made the break that much sooner. Just the same, he left me with a little candle of hope that I never let blow out. When the time was right, I got away.”
    Foster sat unmoving, all too much like an attentive judge on the bench. “I thought you told me you were married to this Verner person.”
    Everything was coming back to haunt her! When would she learn to be totally honest? When? “I had intended to explain that I... never married him, Foster. My mother talked me out of spreading that truth. Divorce is more acceptable these days than illegitimacy.” She forced herself to meet his gaze. “Don’t you think? That’s why I won’t be wearing white.” She felt stupid talking about her gown when the whole idea of the wedding was in jeopardy. Worse, she was even sounding like her mother.
    Foster shook his head slowly. “Trish, how could you... do those things with Carson?”
    Underneath the clear anguish in his voice she heard the weakest whine of sexual jealousy, envy even of the fleshy roads she and Carson had traveled together. “I just tried to explain all that, Foster. He was a dominating personality. I was primed to be receptive.” She drew a deep breath. “I’m not that way anymore. I’m using all my strength to try to leave everything in the past. Now Carson’s come forward to try to pull me and Melody back there.”
    “That tape... disgusting!”
    “Everyone has a past, Foster.” Her voice shook as she battled to keep it even. “My past needn’t have been shared, particularly when it contained acts like those you just saw! Carson is using it to destroy our relationship.” She paused. “Has he done it?”
    “I am so bewildered—ahhh!” Foster pulled off his smeared glasses, dropped them to the desk. He stood up quickly and began to walk the book-lined walls. “Who are you, Patricia McMullen Morley? How many other surprises do you have for me? How much more of your past will become my present?”
    “It’s Carson! And he’s crazy. It’s not me!”
    “Through him I learn about you.”
    She hurried to his side. “He’s my devil. He reveals only my dark side. Not what’s good. Think about his motivations!” She held his arms, but he didn’t respond.
    “Trish, if I didn’t love you so much—”
    “Don’t say it! Because you do love me. You do. You do!” Still his arms stayed woodenly at his side.
    Trish straightened her shoulders. She was close to pleading. That didn’t become her, nor was it right. Everyone had the privilege of making mistakes and learning from them. She was struggling to free herself from that destructive relationship and chart a new path for herself and her child. If Foster hadn’t the insight to put her past into perspective, he was less understanding than she imagined. She took a step backward. She met his eyes. “Do you see that what I have become is so much better than what I was?”
    He blinked, as though freed from a hypnotist’s spell. “I—I’m not sure what to think.”
    “Think about loving me. Could one videotape turn that off like a