“No, no. I’d rather walk. Fresh air. I’m so sorry, Mrs. Macey.” Nell fumbled with her files, almost sobbing when they slipped through her trembling fingers. “I’ll call you. Reschedule.”

“I don’t want you to think a thing of it. Nell, sweetheart, you’re shaking.”

“I just need to go home.” With a last terrified glance at the television screen, she bolted for the door.

She forced herself not to run. When you ran, people noticed you, and they wondered. They asked questions. Fitting in, that was essential. Blending. Doing nothing to draw attention. But even as she ordered herself to breathe slow and steady, the air wheezed in her lungs, clogged there until she was gulping for it.

Do you think I’ll let you go?

Sweat ran cold and clammy on her skin, and she smelled her own fear. The edges of her vision blurred as she shot a single wild look over her shoulder. The minute she was through the door of her cottage, the nausea hit, a bright bite of pain.

She stumbled to the bathroom, was hideously ill. When she was empty, she lay on the narrow floor and waited for the shaking to pass.

When she could stand again, she peeled off her clothes, leaving them in a heap as she stepped into the shower. She ran the hot water, as hot as she could bear, imagining the spray penetrating her skin until it warmed her icy bones.

Wrapped in a towel, she crawled into bed, pulled the covers over her head, and let herself slide into oblivion.

Diego climbed agilely up the bedskirt, stretched out alongside her. And lay still and silent as a sentry.

She wasn’t sure how long she slept, but she woke as if from a long illness that had left her body heavy and tender and her stomach raw. She was tempted simply to roll back into sleep and stay there. But that would solve nothing.

It was doing that got her through, and always had.

She sat on the edge of the bed, like an old woman testing bone and balance. The image of Evan’s face could float back into her mind if she let it. So she closed her eyes, let it form.

That, too, was a kind of test.

She could look at him, would look at him. Remember what had been, and what had changed. To deal, she reminded herself, with what had happened.

For comfort, she gathered the kitten into her lap and rocked.

She had run again. After almost a year, the sight of him on a television screen had terrorized her to the point of blind flight. Had made her ill and stripped away every bit of the hard-won armor she’d built until she’d been a quivering, quaking mass of panic.