Chapter One

        When Emma Jean Barker was sixteen, Laura Mae Wheeler got the flu. This wouldn’t be a relative bit of information at this juncture except that having the flu made Laura Mae weak and shaky. Weak and shaky are not the qualities one desires in the base of the Medicine Wheel High cheerleading squad’s pyramid. Having a weak foundation, even if it was only one block, brought the whole pyramid down. Emma Jean, being the top, fell the farthest and landed the hardest on the brand new synthetic track the high school had just had installed.

        That fall left Emma Jean with a broken wrist, a mild concussion, and top to bottom bruising. It was the worst pain she’d ever experienced in her life.

But that was before Cody.

***

        The room spun around her as she tried in vain to regain her balance. It had been bad before, but it had never been this  bad.

        “You stupid whore,” he spat, his spittle, more alcohol than actual saliva, landing on her cheek. “Fuckin’ worthless.”

        The last blow to her face had brought her down. She hadn’t seen that one coming. Hadn’t had time to brace. She tried to stand, but her knees gave out, once again bringing her face-to-face with the checkered linoleum of the kitchen floor.

        He laughed as she stumbled. “Look at you! Pathetic! Weak!”

        She reached out to brace herself on the wall but missed. She and the floor were becoming well acquainted.

        His next blow was a kick to her ribs, knocking the wind out of her.

As she toppled over, she groaned. “Cody, please…”

“Shut up!” This time his foot met her face, and all she saw was black.

***

Life with Cody Sampson hadn’t always been this way. They were high school sweethearts. She, the cheerleader and he, the star quarterback. Cody was undoubtedly the most popular kid in school, and the entire student body let her, Emma Jean Barker, know just how damn lucky she was to have caught his eye. They dated all through their junior and senior years of high school.

He had been a lot of her firsts.

Her first kiss.

Her first boyfriend.

Her first time.

They had talked about getting married right after graduation, but Cody had a football scholarship to the University of Montana, and he was going to be a star. Everyone knew if anyone could go pro, it’d be Cody. Unfortunately, a shredded ACL early in his freshman season sidelined his dream. Unable to play and unwilling to continue his academic career without his athletic scholarship, Cody returned to Medicine Wheel and took a job at his father’s used car lot. Emma Jean, who had wanted to become a veterinarian, was enrolled in Montana State University’s pre-veterinary program and was commuting to Bozeman a couple times a week. When Cody came home and declared that they should get married, he insisted she drop out of school in order to be a homemaker.

Emma Jean, believing that love meant sacrifice, abandoned her dream. They’d gotten married quickly. In retrospect, Emma Jean should have seen the red flags, but she was still starry-eyed over the high school football star, failing to see the man he was becoming. His underlying vile nature didn’t become obvious to her until it was far too late.

***

Waking up on the kitchen floor, Emma Jean was confused as to how sunlight could be shining in the windows. The last she knew it was roughly ten o’clock at night, and Cody had been yelling about how they were out of beer. She cautiously lifted her head off the floor before pressing her palms into the linoleum. Her chest only made it about two inches off the floor when her ribs violently protested. Choking on a gasp, she laid back down and prayed she could right herself before Cody reappeared.

It took several attempts before she could get herself into a sitting position without screaming out in pain. Her head ached and her torso burned from his blows. Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was nearly ten A.M. She had been out for nearly twelve hours. Not daring to even try to stand, she scooched , on her butt, down the hall toward their bedroom. The trip seemed to take forever, but once she made it, she realized that Cody wasn’t there. He wasn’t home at all. Which means, that when he left for, presumably, work, he had to have stepped over her prone body on his way out the door. And he just left her there. Emma Jean hadn’t thought she could be brought much lower than she already was, but that particular piece of knowledge set her at rock bottom.

She finally made it to the chair that sat next to the bed and dug around in her purse for her cell phone. She stared at the screen for what seemed like hours but was probably more like ten minutes. The pain made time move slowly. Who was she going to call? She supposed the obvious answer was the police, but she had passed the sheriff on the street on numerous occasions, and he never seemed all that concerned with the bruises she sported. Maybe he wouldn’t care this time, either. Emma Jean didn’t have a lot of friends. Okay, she didn’t really have any friends anymore. Her life revolved around Cody. But there was at least one person Emma Jean knew she could count on.

Someone who had shown her kindness recently.

Concern.

Someone who had seen the evidence of the nightmare she was living and wanted to wake her up.

Someone who had once been her best friend.

She lifted the phone and dialed.