Rocky Mountain Rescue, Elle James [rooftoppers .TXT] 📗

captive? I just wish I knew,” RJ said. “And I wish you felt comfortable enough to tell me. I don’t feel much like a friend if I can’t help you.”

JoJo sighed. What was it Max had said? He’d rappelled and climbed mountains to face his fear of heights. He’d confronted those fears. Maybe it was time that JoJo confronted hers. One of those fears being acceptance. Would people accept her, knowing that she’d been raped? RJ was her dearest and closest friend. If she couldn’t accept her, damaged as she was, who could?

JoJo turned to RJ. “I’ll tell you, but I’d appreciate if you didn’t tell Gunny right now.”

“Let me get ready.” RJ finished scrubbing, rinsed and dried the grill. Then she washed her hands.

JoJo rinsed the suds off her hands, dried them on a towel and then she stood in front of RJ, trying to find the words to tell her friend what had happened to her.

“First of all,” she said, “I’m not exactly sure what happened to me. All I know is what the medic told the nurses and what the nurses told me. This is what I know.” She drew in a deep breath and launched into her nightmare. “I was walking out of a shower unit on our base, and the next thing I know I woke up with my face covered in dirt. The medic said that somebody had beaten me, raped me and buried me alive.”

Chapter 8

RJ’s face blanched white. “Dear, sweet Jesus,” she said, and she pulled JoJo into her arms. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

Like Max feared heights, JoJo had feared rejection. “Though I don’t remember the incident, it made me feel dirty,” JoJo said, “less human.”

RJ hugged her tighter, and then set her at arm’s length. “Did they catch the guy who did it?”

JoJo shook her head. “And that’s the problem, I can’t get closure, knowing he’s still out there and capable of doing this to some other female.”

“Or coming back to finish you off?” RJ shook her head. “Oh, JoJo.”

JoJo’s fists tightened. “That thought has occurred to me. He expected me to die.”

“And you didn’t,” RJ said.

“I never went back to my unit. They took me straight from where they found me to a medical staging unit at an airbase and shipped me out to Ramstein. The only thing I remembered was that my name was JoJo. I didn’t recall anything else until I had been in the hospital for a couple of days.”

“Oh, JoJo,” RJ said, “I wish I had known. I’d have flown to Europe to be with you.”

“It took several weeks for most of my memories to come back, but there is one memory that hasn’t come back at all, and from what I understand may never come back.”

RJ shook her head. “Memories of the incident?”

JoJo nodded. “They say it’s the mind and body’s way of protecting me. But it doesn’t keep me from having nightmares. Until the guy’s caught, there will be no closure.”

“Why did you take an apartment in town?” RJ asked.

“The nightmares,” she said, her tone flat, emotionless. “Sometimes, I wake up screaming.”

Tears filled RJ’s eyes. “You’re staying here,” she said. “You’re not going back to that apartment. You’re staying here with your family. Gunny and I will take care of you.”

JoJo shook her head. “I don’t want that. I need to know that I can live on my own. That I can take care of myself.”

“That’s why you took the Krav Maga lessons?”

JoJo nodded. “Absolutely. I was afraid to go anywhere, to even step outside of my apartment. I don’t feel safe anywhere.”

“Not even here on the ranch?” RJ asked.

“It’s the closest I feel to safe, but there are so many people who come through here, I can’t feel comfortable all the time.”

RJ muttered a curse. “It doesn’t help when a jerk like Roy is pulling you onto his lap at the Watering Hole. You and I should switch places. You can man the bar, and I’ll wait on the tables.”

“No,” JoJo said. “I don’t want your pity, and I don’t need you to treat me like fine china. I need to relearn how to live in this world, how to trust that I can take care of myself.”

“Did your unit launch an investigation?” RJ asked.

“Once I figured out who I was and what unit I belonged to, they did. They launched an investigation, and it’s come up with nothing so far.”

RJ crossed her arms over her chest, her brow furrowing. “You have no memory at all of the man who attacked you?”

JoJo shook her head.

“Well, I’m glad that you’ve had Emily to talk to in the meantime,” RJ said. “If anyone can help you, she can. She’s got a heart of gold, and she’s really good at her job from what I hear.”

“She wants to try hypnosis,” JoJo said. Her stomach roiled at that thought. She wanted to know who’d attacked her, more than anything. And when she remembered?

“How do you feel about that?” RJ asked.

JoJo shrugged. “I don’t know. Kind of feel like it’s hocus pocus. Does it really work?”

“Does it hurt if it doesn’t work? I mean, aren’t you willing to try anything to shake those memories loose?”

“That’s kind of how I feel,” JoJo said. “So, I’m game.”

“I’m glad you told me what happened. It helps me to understand the way you reacted when I set you up on that date with Max. I’m sorry I forced you to go to the Sadie Hawkins Dance with him.”

“No worries. Actually, Max was very nice. Is very nice.”

“He seemed to be a gentleman. You took him out on the trails today, didn’t you? How’d that go?”

“Good. It was quiet. Just the two of us and the mountains.”

“You weren’t uncomfortable being alone with him all that time?” RJ asked.

“Not at all.” Except for when he’d asked her about why she acted the way she did.

“Once again, I’m sorry I pushed you and Max together.”

“And once again, I have to say don’t