MAX HAD BEEN on the internet. And around the yard. He’d checked every baseboard in the house for nicks and made a list of those he really should putty and dab with some touch-up paint. He put the list on his desk.
And then went back and checked the walls for nicks.
Made a similar list.
Put it next to the one already on his desk.
He looked at the insides of the toilet tanks, making sure the plastic fittings were in good working order. And lay on his back underneath each sink. He wasn’t a plumber, but a guy could tell if fittings were old and giving way. He could turn the shut-off valves and make certain they still worked.
He looked at the tile grout. Made a list of places that needed a little help. Put the list on his desk.
He emptied the trash.
And looked over the furniture, making a list of pieces and parts that could do with a spot of the furniture varnish he kept out in the shed.
The shed.
Meri had been in there. Presumably the same day she’d cleaned. He’d have known if she’d been home twice since she’d left.
Meri? Oh...please...Meri.
He didn’t know what to ask. Didn’t know what she wanted. To come home to him?
To be free?
Dropping to the floor, pen and furniture list in one of the hands linked behind his head, he did a sit-up. And then another.
He lost count somewhere in the fifties.
But he didn’t stop doing sit-ups.
Nope, he wasn’t going to stop sitting up.
* * *
MERI. MERI. MEERRRIII....
She heard the voice. It was an angel. A man? A woman? Just an angel. She was being called home.
Meredith wanted to go home. She was ready, wasn’t she?
She couldn’t have Max, not with Steve still claiming ownership of her. And Steve wasn’t going to let her go. She was no longer afraid.
Not afraid to die.
Home.
Bed.
A big bed. With soft sheets.
She liked the way it looked.
So she floated some more and let herself go....
* * *
MAX WAS STILL doing sit-ups when the phone rang. Grabbing it out of the breast pocket of the purple scrub shirt he’d pulled on after getting home, he pushed the answer button without breaking his rhythm.
Down. Up. He could do it one-handed.
“We’ve got something, Max.”
Down up. Down up.
“One of the cars...they found the only one sold that didn’t match a name and address on the release forms. The company definitely has shady business practices, but they came through in the end. We have the VIN number and license plate.”
Down up. Down up.
“He paid cash, with the agreement that there’d be no paperwork other than the mandatory release form, which only requires an odometer reading. Fortunately for us, the other green car sales over the past months were legitimate, so...”
“Address?” He pushed the word out as he sat up.
“It’s bogus, unfortunately, but he bragged to that old buddy of his that he had a place on the beach, right? We’ve had someone watching months of tape of cams on the public beaches....”
Up. “You know where he is?”
“We have the vicinity. He’s been caught on camera several times at The Santa Raquel public beach. But there are hundreds of homes in the area....”
“Then you need hundreds of people knocking on doors. I’m in.”
Jumping up, he pulled on the jeans he’d exchanged for old sweat shorts sometime during the day. If she thought he was going to stay home when Meri needed him and there was something he could actually do....
“I know you are, hon,” Chantel said, her tone laced with friendly affection. “I’m just around the corner from you. Bailey’s going to stay at your place and you’re coming with me.”
“Okay. Good. I’m ready.”
He said the words. He was tying up his purple high-tops—because purple was Meri’s favorite color—as they spoke.
But he wasn’t sure if he was ready.
Ready for what?
To find Meri? Bring her home?
Or to find another pool of blood?
Either way, he had to go.
* * *
MAX’S HAND SMOOTHED its way up her side, over a scar, lingering there to kiss the silken line.
“No,” she murmured sleepily, wanting so much more than a simple touch from him. “It represents pain,” she told him her secret. “It reminds me.”
“Which scar is it, Meri?” His whisper covered the scar and it vanished.
“You are so hot,” he said. “And I can’t get enough....”
She knew the feeling. Oh, God she knew the feeling. Arching her back, Meredith met him, body to body, strength to strength, partner to partner, as his naked body entered hers.
She took him into her.
“And the two become one,” he said.
The words were beautiful. But it was the catch in his voice that stole her heart....
Oh...God...her heart....
She hurt so much and didn’t want to hurt anymore. The elephant was back. He was big and mad. He’d been on the table but now he was on the floor.
And so was she.
He was going to trample her.
* * *
FOUR DIFFERENT, LARGE neighborhoods were located directly across Highway One from the Santa Raquel beach. The two-lane highway that ran up and down the entire coast of California was the access point to some of the nicest homes in that part of the state.
Max was out of Chantel’s car and off up the street before she’d pulled to a stop at the entrance of the first neighborhood. Going door to door with others who were searching and asking neighbors to help with the search. He ran into her again when she hunted him down at the end of the next street.
“Max!” She was on foot, running toward him at full speed, like a linebacker, grabbing at him as she reached him.
“What?” He pulled his arm out of her grasp. She wasn’t slowing him down.
“Max.” She touched his arm again, getting his attention. And when he looked at her, she said, “They’ve got him, Max. Wayne just called. They’ve got him.” She was panting as she spoke. Out of breath. “He walked over to a cop guarding the entrance to the neighborhood and turned himself in.”
He understood every glorious word. He just couldn’t believe it.
“So Meri’s okay?” She’d said they had him. She hadn’t said anything about Meri.
“We don’t know.” She was catching her breath. “Now listen,” she said when he was about to head off up the road, continuing knocking on doors, searching yards....
“They were together,” she said. “We know that much. He had some crazy story about Meredith trying to kill him, but he was crying and just kept saying he was sorry. Over and over. He had blood on his hands, Max.”
The word that spewed out of his mouth wasn’t one he’d ever heard growing up.
“Max...hold on. We have to stay calm,” Chantel said, giving his arm another squeeze. “We have to find her, Max.”
“Doesn’t he know where she is?”
“He isn’t saying, Max. Says that if he can’t have her then he sure as hell isn’t serving her up to you. He said that his life is over, and it’s fitting that hers is, too. He said she wanted to die, and now she’ll get her wish. She needs us, Max. But it’s pretty clear we don’t have much time. We’ve got extra patrols out. And the volunteer group that is already forming. We’re going to find her.”
He heard the words. All of them. But his head was roaring. Like he was at the ocean. With Meri. Just the two of them.
“We have to assume she’s hurt pretty bad.” Chantel didn’t spare him. “There’s an ambulance on the way.” Whatever else Chantel had been about to say was lost as Max ran up to the next house. And the next.
He already knew the plan. Had his orders.
Knock on doors. Ask the appropriate questions and apologize for the intrusion.
Somewhere along the way, he forgot about the apology.
His wife needed a doctor. And he was one.
He just had to get to her.
* * *
“NO! NO! NO! NO!”
“Get up Meri! Get up! You are not going to die. Not going to die. Not going to die....”
“Not going to die. Not going to die....”
Meredith choked as her dry, clogged throat worked its way around the words. “Not going to die.”
She heard a voice. Didn’t recognize it as her own. But knew that it was. Repeating what the white figure in her dream had been telling her. “No. No. No. Get up. You are not going to die.” Trying to move, to figure out where she was, all she knew was that she had to get up. Something was telling her to get up.
She opened her eyes, and cringed as the light brought flashing pain to the top of her head. She was in a small room. Alone.
The pain was familiar. One she knew.
She had to get up.
And it all came flooding back to her. Steve. Her ultimatum. The beating.
She had to get up.
She was supposed to be free or dead.
Instead she was on the bathroom floor of the home Steve had bought for them. The home he’d been coming to for four years, spying on her and her family. Stalking her.
She had to get up.
He’d locked her in. He always locked her in. There was a window. Up high. Could she get to it?
She had to get up.
Meredith tried to move her tongue. Touched the tip of it to her lips. Her neck hurt. She tasted blood. And salt.
But didn’t think she’d cried.
She had to get up.
There was moisture on her face. And her neck. Beneath her, everywhere. A pool of her own blood.
She had to get up.
And so she did.
All at once. Moving her arms and legs at the same time, she almost vomited again as the agonizing pain took over her entire body.
She wasn’t going to last long. She knew that. Wasn’t going to get far.
But she could not die in a pool of her own blood.
Didn’t want to die in a bathroom.
On her hands and knees she almost crumbled. Sweat poured from her body. She was so hot. Dying.
No.
She wasn’t supposed to die. Had her father told her that?
With one hand she grasped for the edge of the sink. Pulled herself up and lunged for the doorknob to hold herself up on the other side while she tried to climb on the garden tub and get to the window. She could break it by putting her fist through it.
One more cut wasn’t going to matter.
Her sticky, wet—was that blood—hand got to the knob. But it didn’t hold her steady as she’d thought it would.
As it should have.
As she’d expected.
It moved. Turned as her weight fell against it. And the door.
They moved in unison, she and that hard wooden door.
He hadn’t locked it.
* * *
MAX HAD NO idea how many people cased those four neighborhoods. Dozens. Maybe more.
He didn’t slow down enough to make eye contact or exchange words with anyone. He was going to find Meri.
House after house received his thundering footsteps, his brusque knock, his hurried questions and piercing gaze, and then he was gone. Off to the next.
For every house where someone didn’t answer the door, he called over an officer to investigate. And then he moved on.
I will find you, Meri. The mantra was all he knew. He remembered making the promise to her once before, in person, when she’d been having a particularly hard day.
She’d been pregnant, as he remembered it. And scared to death that Steve was close by. That he was going to come steal her away from Max.
He’d held her in his arms. Loving her for all he was worth. So certain that all they were dealing with was post-traumatic stress. A medical issue, really. Right up his alley.
He’d whispered a lot of words to her that afternoon.
She’d ask what-if and he’d have an answer.
I will find you, Meri.
He finished one street and moved to the next. And the next.
I will find you.
What he found, as he turned a corner, was a mass of people rushing down the street.
Panic consumed him. He’d seen this scene before. A street. People rushing to the scene. A pool of blood. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
And then he could. He was a doctor. If anyone was in trouble he could help. Because life was about everyone helping everyone else.
He’d heard the words from his cradle, from a mother who was older than all the other mothers, and so much wiser.
A mother who’d imparted her wisdom to her baby before he’d been old enough to form the words that would let her know that he was taking it all in. Every single word.
Into his mind and his heart. Into his soul.
With more strength than any one man could possibly have, Max tore up the street and pushed through the moving crowd to the front of the pack. He had to assess the situation to know how to help.
Breaking through the front edge of rushing people, he was only a couple of yards away from their target when he saw her.
A stumbling, bruised and bleeding woman. Arms outstretched.
Calling his name.
* * *
THE SKY WAS black as night as Max paced outside the private exam room where they’d taken Meri as soon as they’d reached the hospital.
He’d done what he could for her on the ride over in the ambulance, started an IV, ordered blood, patched up the worst of her wounds, splinted fingers that were obviously broken. But he’d had no way of knowing what other bones were broken, or what internal damage had been done.
And she couldn’t tell him.
The second she’d run into his arms out on the street two hours before, she’d passed out and hadn’t regained consciousness.
“Her pulse was good.”
Coming up behind him, Chantel offered the cup of coffee she’d gone to collect.
“That’s right.”
“She’s young and she’s got good reason to live.”
He’d told her that, too. And he nodded.
“She’s not going to die, Max, you know that,” Chantel said now, giving him a sideways look as she joined him as he paced the hallway. To and fro. To and fro. “She got herself to you, though after seeing the scene, God knows how. But she did. She came to find you. You were calling to her. She has plenty to live for.”
Chantel was a beautiful woman. And a good friend. “You do, too, Chantel. What you did for me. You’re... I... We owe you.”
“Is that an invitation to Thanksgiving dinner?” she asked him with a smile that wasn’t at all sad.
“I think it was.”
“Then I accept. I’m looking forward to getting to know this woman who inspired such faith in you.”
He didn’t know what to say to that.
“It amazes me, you know? How much you believed in her. You just knew....”
Shrugging, he said the only thing that came to his mind. “I guess that’s what love does to you.”
“Yeah, well, watching you...I think that I never knew what love was before. I’ve never felt like that...so sure....”
“Your time will come. If you let it....”
She started to say something, but didn’t get a chance.
“Max?”
Turning on his heel, Max spun around. “Yeah, Ben....”
The doctor was pulling off his surgical gloves. “She’s going to be fine,” he said. “I wanted you to know immediately.”
“She is?” There were a million medical questions he should be asking, but he couldn’t think of anything but Meri’s sweet smile.
“She’s a very lucky woman.”
He’d said those same words himself, about a child who’d been in an accident and survived in spite of the odds, one who’d come through a surgery better than expected....
“She’ll be sore for a while, of course. She’s got a broken rib, which I’ve taped, but I could see from the X-rays that it wasn’t the first one or even the first time for that one. Someone said the man who did this to her is in custody.”
Ben asked to be called to testify. He rattled off specific medical diagnoses for each of Meri’s seventeen specific injuries. And then he said, “But there was no internal damage. I don’t see how....”
He paused. And the grin on the other doctor’s face seemed to be mixed with a bit of emotion, too, when he said, “We were able to save the baby, Max. She’ll need extra bed rest for the rest of the first trimester. And maybe throughout the pregnancy. The placenta was damaged. But not alarmingly so....”
“B-b...” Max shook his head, foggy headed, a bit unsteady—all things he recognized as symptoms of shock. “Did you say baby?”
“You didn’t know she was pregnant?”
“As far as I’m aware, Meri didn’t even know. We’ve been trying for a second child for a while, but it was taking longer than it did with Caleb....”
He was blubbering. Just like any other husband or father. And he grinned. “Is she awake? Can I see her?”
“She’s asking for you.”
“Did you tell her about the baby?”
“I thought she knew. I wanted to assure her that all was well.”
“What did she say?”
“I just told you, she asked for you.”
“Go to her, Max. I’ll see you at home later,” Chantel said. Bailey was picking her up and Chantel was leaving her car for Max.
Chantel’s and Ben’s grins followed him into the rest of life.
* * *
MEREDITH DIDN’T REMEMBER much about the day she’d faced her demon and won. Not even the part before she’d been beaten.
It was all a hazy nightmare that ended when Max was there with open arms, catching her as she fell.
And she knew, over the next few days in the hospital, and then at home, with Caleb so careful and sweet as he climbed up next to her in the recliner, with Max never more than a foot away from her, that she’d finally, for the first time since she’d been a twelve-year-old kid standing on the side of the highway, completely and fully woken up from her nightmare.
“You guys ready?” she asked, standing up slowly as she slid from the van and supervised as Max unbuckled Caleb from his car seat and helped him down.
They were both dressed in black suits—Caleb an exact replica of his father—with light purple shirts, dark purple ties, and deep purple high-top tennis shoes.
“You promised you’d tell me the second you start to feel tired,” Max said, one hand holding on to their son’s and the other arm around her waist as they started slowly moving forward.
“The doctor said I’m fine, Max,” she reminded him. “I’ve even been cleared to go back to work.”
“Part time. And only as long as I drive you.”
“Only for another week. Six weeks he said. And it’s been five.”
“Are you forgetting that I’m a doctor, too?”
“No.” That was all she said. Because she trusted that it was all she’d have to say.
“I’m doing it again, huh?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll get better, Meri, I swear. I will not smother you with my overprotectiveness. It’s just...when I thought I’d lost you....”
“Sshhh.” Stopping in the private parking lot, she put a finger to his lips. “Don’t ever, ever apologize for loving me, Max. Or for taking care of me. Because I can promise you, I’m going to spend the rest of my life protecting, loving and caring for you and Caleb, and whoever our new little one turns out to be.”
“Ma...sit....” Caleb pulled at Meredith’s hand.
“Mama doesn’t have to sit, Caleb,” she said, wishing she could bend down to him like she used to be able to. And would be able to do again. She’d pick him up and hold him on her hip. She’d carry him.
For now, she was content to change his diaper one-handed. For another week, until the cast on her hand came off.
They had to go in. Lila was expecting them. And she hoped, Renee, too. She’d asked Lila to see if Renee was free that Sunday evening to meet Max and Caleb.
They’d just come from having a family photo done because while she’d been away for those weeks it had dawned on her that they’d never had a professional family photo taken and she’d been afraid that had been a sign that Max and Caleb weren’t meant to be her family.
She’d taken care of that one. As soon as Max had asked her what she wanted to do on her first day out and about.
And bringing the two of them here, on this very special visit to The Lemonade Stand had been the second.
It wasn’t often that husbands were welcome inside the shelter’s walls.
But Max was a very special husband. A very special man. And Meredith wanted her friends to know that men like Max really did exist.
“Ma...ady.” Ady? Caleb had so many new words that Meredith was having a hard time keeping up with them. But he was pointing. And she understood. Lila was there, standing in the open gate.
“Yes, Caleb, that is very much a true lady,” she said, and with slow steps and her husband’s support at her back, she moved her small family forward.
“Surprise!”
One voice, one body, jumped out at them. A very pregnant Maddie Bishop, all dressed up in a pretty blue maternity dress and matching shoes, with a bow in her blond hair.
Beyond that, Meredith didn’t have time to assess everyone as they came up to the gate and a chorus of voices, more voices than she could determine or count called, “Surprise!”
She caught a glimpse of the immaculate, flower-filled grounds just beyond the gate and stopped. Pink and blue ribbons floated from trees. At least twenty tables, each with about ten chairs arranged around them were set up in rows and each one was decorated with a white tablecloth and a pink-and-blue flower arrangement. The chairs all had balloons tied to them.
Turning, she looked up at Max, and said, “You knew about this.” Just as Lila bent down to Caleb, “You must be Caleb,” she said. “Would you like to come with me?”
The little boy didn’t answer immediately. His hesitation obvious, he looked up at his parents, who looked at each other.
Lila waited patiently for his answer, a serene, comforting look on her face.
“Go ahead, buddy,” Max said.
“I’ll bet Lila has some fun games for you to play, Caleb,” Meredith added. “Go ahead, sweetie. Mommy and Daddy will be right here.”
Caleb grinned and seemed to be strutting as he walked away with Lila.
“So, this is Max.” Renee appeared in the opening of the gate then. And Maddie said, “Would you like me to help Lila with Caleb, Jenna?”
Jenna.
She felt the small touch as Max reacted to Maddie’s words. “Yes, Maddie, I would love that,” she said, and turned to introduce her husband to Renee—and then to Carly and Latoya. And many of the other women she’d had the pleasure of getting to know during one of the absolute worst times of her life.
It wasn’t easy, living with the aftermath of domestic abuse. There were parts of Meredith that would never be what they once were. She was wiser. Less naive. Her innocence was gone.
She was aware of a depth of pain, mental, emotional and physical, that many people would never understand.
“I love you, sweetheart,” Max whispered in her ear as she sat with him at the head table and listened while one after another of the residents stopped by and told her that they’d been praying for her, that it was so good to see her, and that she was an inspiration to them.
“I love you, too,” she told Max. And stood up.
Lila had used a microphone earlier, and now Meredith picked it up.
“Excuse me,” she said and waited until she had everyone’s attention. “First off, I want to thank you....” She stopped, started to cry, got herself under control, and then continued, looking at Max, “We want to thank you.” His smile was warm. Tender. Imbued with an emotion she fully understood, a very private message to her that would be with her forever, in this life and beyond. And for her alone.
Someone coughed.
“Sorry,” Meredith said, trying to smile, but not doing such a great job of it. What she had to say was extremely important.
“Ladies, apparently I am the guest of honor at this party because I’m having a baby....” She broke off as the yard filled with cheers and applause. “But!” She held up a hand. “But...” she said again. “I am not the heroine of anyone’s story. I made a very, very serious mistake, my sisters. I almost paid with my life.”
She searched the crowd. Looking for one face. Not knowing if it was out there or not.
“I was offered help,” she said, still searching. “I had the chance to trust. And I didn’t do it. I thought I could handle my situation on my own. I was certain I had to. Because....” She paused again. Swallowed back the tears. “Because I was so certain I’d done all of my work, that I was cured and my only problem was the fact that my abuser wouldn’t leave me alone. I felt like the system had let me down. Counseling and shelters had let me down. And I was so, so wrong. I wasn’t healed. I was as much a victim of Steve Smith’s abuse while I was here among you, as I was during all those years he hunted me. Because he made me believe that I was all alone. He had me so deeply manipulated that I felt like I was alone when I was sleeping next to the man I love with all my heart.” She looked at Max, whose expression was filled with an emotion and strength she would never forget. “I felt alone no matter where I was. Even when I was here with you all, especially when I was here with you all, I felt alone.”
She broke off and searched the crowd again.
“But I wasn’t alone. And one woman showed me that. Without counseling. Without knowing my story or giving me any advice, she somehow managed to show me, with the help of each and every one of you, that I wasn’t alone at all.
“And when I lay on that bathroom floor...dying....” She stopped. Waited until she could speak again, and focused on the trees in the distance, the ones that lined the Garden of Renewal. “That one face was there,” she continued. “And the voice. It was in my head. I can’t tell you what it said. It was drowned out by my husband’s,” she said with complete honesty and a grin toward Max, and the entire crowd laughed through their tears. “What I’m trying to say is you aren’t alone. Please, please, if I am to be any kind of example, let it be an example of what not to do. Don’t ever think you have to face your abuser alone.”
She glanced at Max, and snippets from every one of the late night talks they’d shared over the past five weeks floated in and out of her mind.
“You can’t have Max, he’s mine,” she said, pausing while everyone laughed again. “But there is always someone. Someone who’s been there. Someone who understands. Who knows exactly how the pain feels, whether it be mental, emotional or physical. Find that someone, my sisters, each and every time you are struggling, anytime you feel alone, most certainly anytime you think you have to handle something on your own, find that someone. I guarantee you, she’s there.”
As she said the last words, a movement by the Garden caught her eye. And she saw the woman she’d been seeking. She was coming out of the Garden, but as her face turned toward her, Meredith knew that Lila had heard every word she’d said.
And knew she’d been talking about her.
* * *
“WOULD IT BE crass to say that I miss having sex with my wife?” Max half groaned the words as he lay next to Meredith in their bed that Sunday night. He was admittedly a little full of himself.
He had the most amazing wife in the world. He’d arranged that evening to volunteer at The Lemonade Stand, and to be a part of a growing list of financial donors to the facility, as well. He’d married a victim of domestic violence. The truth wasn’t going to go away.
And while Steve Smith was being held without bail on charges of kidnapping, abuse and first degree murder, he knew that there was a chance the man would be free again someday. He also knew that nothing that could happen on earth was going to take Meredith out of his heart or away from him.
“It wouldn’t be crass,” she said. And then, when he did no more than nudge his nose against her neck, said, “So are you saying it?”
Was there doubt in that voice? He reared up, looking down at her perfect features in the glow of the night-light plugged into the wall. “You’re kidding, right?”
She wasn’t kidding.
“Hell, Meri, it’s about killing me not to make love to you. I wake up with a hard-on at least twice a night....” He probably hadn’t needed to be that crude, but if she thought...
“I... You haven’t even French kissed me once since...”
Up on one elbow now, he smoothed the hair away from her forehead, careful not to touch the soft spot on her skull where her ex had hit her. “You’re recovering from a very brutal beating, Meredith,” he said in his best doctor’s voice. “And your mouth needed time to heal.”
“It’s been healed for weeks.”
The doctor voice wasn’t doing it. “I didn’t want to...”
“You don’t have to be afraid of me, Max.” Her soft words fell into the night air. “I won’t break.”
“You were...” He couldn’t repeat what that bastard had done to her. “By a man you trusted. I can understand completely that having a man touch you might be traumatic.”
“Max Bennet, are you trying to think for me again?”
Shit. “Maybe.”
“Well, don’t. And for your information, you want to know what I was doing on that bathroom floor after Steve beat the living crap out of me?”
He knew. She’d been bleeding to death. He got sick to his stomach every time he thought about it.
But he did think about it. Because he wasn’t ever going to make light of anything in their lives. His head was out of the sand and it was staying that way.
“I was dreaming about this,” she said, grabbing a hold of his penis and holding on.
He shifted, growing hard in her grasp, afraid he was going to explode in her hand. “You were inside me,” she said, “and doing this....”
Her hand moved up and down along the entire length of him. Yep, he was definitely going to explode.
“You said, ‘and two become one,’” she told him.
“I said that on our wedding night.”
“I know.”
Was she trying to drive him crazy? If so, she was succeeding.
He moved against her hand, beyond caring if he embarrassed himself all over her.
“Your words were there, Max,” she said, licking his nipple as she continued to ride him with her unbroken hand. “In my head and in my heart. You....” She squeezed his shaft and he was right there. “This.”
And then she kissed him, full on the lips, tongue to tongue, before lowering her mouth to kiss the head of his penis.
Max could have died a thousand deaths that night, but he didn’t. He was too busy finding inventive ways to make love with his wife that didn’t hurt her or their baby.
Because Max was going to spend the rest of his life making certain that his wife, Meredith Jenna Bennet, as he now thought of her, was never going to know pain from a man’s hand again.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from DESERT HEAT by Kathleen Pickering.