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Back When She Returned Save as PDF
Chapters (48)
  1. TITLE PAGE
  2. COPYRIGHT
  3. CONTENTS
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. ONE
  6. TWO
  7. THREE
  8. FOUR
  9. FIVE
  10. SIX
  11. SEVEN
  12. EIGHT
  13. NINE
  14. TEN
  15. ELEVEN
  16. TWELVE
  17. THIRTEEN
  18. FOURTEEN
  19. FIFTEEN
  20. SIXTEEN
  21. SEVENTEEN
  22. EIGHTEEN
  23. NINETEEN
  24. TWENTY
  25. TWENTY-ONE
  26. TWENTY-TWO
  27. TWENTY-THREE
  28. TWENTY-FOUR
  29. TWENTY-FIVE
  30. TWENTY-SIX
  31. TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. TWENTY-NINE
  34. THIRTY
  35. THIRTY-ONE
  36. THIRTY-TWO
  37. THIRTY-THREE
  38. THIRTY-FOUR
  39. THIRTY-FIVE
  40. THIRTY-SIX
  41. THIRTY-SEVEN
  42. THIRTY-EIGHT
  43. THIRTY-NINE
  44. FORTY
  45. FORTY-ONE
  46. FORTY-TWO
  47. FORTY-THREE
  48. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I smiled back. It was nice to see her, even if she wouldn’t give me any hints to help ground me. Willow and I got along well enough, but she was twenty-four and had been raised to be a free spirit, since her parents were retired hippies from the sixties. The only thing we had in common was Love International, which was fine, but sometimes it was nice to talk about other things, and that was where our commonality ended. Margo was closer to my age and understood sacrifice, since she’d given up a successful law practice to join. It wasn’t the same as my family, but it was something.

“I missed you,” I said.

“I missed you too.” She squeezed my shoulders. “How are your caretakers?”

I shrugged. “They’re all right.”

The only other people at the cabin were two women whose sole purpose was to tend to our needs so we could focus solely on our spiritual growth and development. They cooked and cleaned for us, speaking to us like children while they did it. We weren’t even allowed to bathe ourselves. I didn’t like being reduced to such an infantile state and hadn’t gotten used to it. Probably wouldn’t.

Margo grabbed my hand and scrubbed underneath my fingernails, but it didn’t matter how hard she scrubbed, the dirt buried underneath them from the hours we spent scrubbing the floors on our knees was never coming out. Not that Scott would mind. He wouldn’t be paying attention to my hands. My cheeks flushed at the thought of seeing him again.

“I still can’t believe Ray is letting you see Scott.”

“It’s important for my spiritual growth,” I said. It was the same thing I had said to Ray each time I pleaded my case to him, and I’d asked so many times before he’d finally agreed that I’d lost count. Phase One of discipleship focused on letting go of our worldly attachments, and I couldn’t do that without having a chance to explain things to Scott myself. Ray had tried speaking with him on numerous occasions, but he was too furious about what I’d done to listen to him. I was hoping he would understand if it came from me.

She wrung her washcloth out in one of the basins she was using before dipping it into the other one filled with warm, sudsy water. “Lean forward and let’s see what we can do about those,” she said, referring to the broken skin on my back.