Sea Haven 02 - Spirit Bound

tears left in the world. She loved him. Loved him with everything she was. How could she have been so deceived?
    She stood in the doorway, staring into her garden, the mist on her face, in her eyes, dripping silver tears into her heart until she was so weighed down with sorrow she had to turn back to her work or succumb to the numbing cold—and she wouldn’t go back there. Not ever again. Not for a man.
    She’d been so stupid falling for a man like Jean-Claude. All the signs were there, she just had been too naive to read them. So many people deferred to him, stepped out of his way, or froze when he came into a room. She’d thought him so commanding of respect, she hadn’t paused to consider it had been fear everyone felt. She found him attractive and engaging, although very intimidating with his supreme confidence, so of course everyone around her had to have felt the same.
    Resolutely she squared her shoulders and walked back inside to look over the artwork. Most of the paintings were seascapes. It was impossible for an artist to live in Sea Haven and not want to capture the beauty of the ocean in her most tempestuous moods. There were a few pictures of old buildings and one of the bluffs with a long broken fence, worn with age and weather, which was a personal favorite.
    She looked at the paintings with a prejudiced eye. The wild sea always frustrated her a little bit. She never felt she actually captured the mood of it in the way she wanted. Grays and blues and swirling purples never quite gave the full effect of an angry sea, moody and temperamental. There was one with the mist veiling the trees so that the forest looked like a great army, shrouded in mystery, hidden in the vague, shadowy interior.
    Pressing her lips together tightly, she forced herself to pull out the first of the stretcher bars, to stretch the canvas, hoping the paint itself wasn’t already damaged on the two acrylics. She focused completely on the work, taking care to keep all four corners perfect as she wrapped the canvas around the bar. Using the stainless steel staples was much more difficult when there was paint on the canvas. One acrylic was definitely damaged and she would have to repair it, if she was going to save it. Had it been another artist’s work, she wouldn’t have hesitated, but there in the privacy of her studio, she could acknowledge she would always associate these paintings with Stefan’s betrayal.
    He’d broken her heart as no one else could ever do. He’d told her half-truths over and over while she’d bared her soul to him. Damn him for that. And damn her for being so stupid to fall into his arms because he looked at her with his soul in his eyes. She tossed the canvas down and shoved back the chair, too upset and restless to contain the bitter, sorrowful emotions welling up and swirling around like a dark whirlpool.
    The cool night air whispered to her and she stepped outside onto the back patio where her flowers and shrubs could surround her with their bright colors and soothing beauty. Her vision blurred, tears swimming in her eyes, brimming over and trickling down her cheeks. She pressed the heel of her hand to her burning eyes.
    A hard hand clamped tight over her mouth as a large body shoved hers against the wall. The scent of expensive male cologne washed over her, throwing her back into another time. Her heart slammed hard in her chest, fear a slick taste in her mouth.
    Jean-Claude kept her against the wall with one hand, while he thrust his finger under her nose. “You ripped out my heart,” he accused in a low hiss, his dark eyes boring into hers. Both hands gripped her shirtfront and dragged her to him, his mouth descending hard on hers. His mouth mashed against hers hard, a display of ownership. His tongue forcing its way into her mouth was a violation.
    She tasted murder. Blood. Her brother’s terror and her own hate. Bile rose and when he broke away from her, she coughed it down, rubbing at her stinging lips with the back of her hand, her gaze never leaving his. She pressed herself against the side of her house, facing the man who had ordered the torture and murder of her brother.
    “Did you think I could just forget you, Judith?” Jean-Claude demanded. He took a long, slow look around. “I know you haven’t forgotten me. I waited all these years and you never came. You never wrote to me. Why, ma belle, did you desert me when I needed you most?”
    “How can you ask me that?” She