Stronger than Secrets by N/A (if you liked this book .TXT) 📖

When Cat’s mum was tossed down the stairs, she could only hide. Her fragile 6 year old mind couldn’t comprehend the anger she could see in her fathers’ eyes. The hatred making them at least three shades darker than usual. He father had hit her mother before plenty of times. He had even hit her. But she had never seen it get this bad. Cat could feel the bad vibes running off him.

She was hiding behind the stairs looking at her mothers fragile, un moving form at the bottom of the stairs. Blood pounding in her ears. She didn’t dare run to get the phone to ring 999 like she knew she should. She didn’t want to end up in the same state. Her father didn’t know that she was there. And even her young self knew better than to change that. Eventually after what seemed like hours and not even a stir from her mother. Her father retreated. He left the house. He already stunk of ‘dirty beer’ As her mother always called it. And when he left, he went straight to the nearest bar.

Cat had no idea what to do. If she rang the police her father wouldn’t be pleased. But if somebody came, without her telling them to come it wouldn’t be her fault. In the end she relented, appealing to anybody walking by, or her neighbours that might hear her.

“Help!” She screamed it from the top of her lungs, using all of the energy she could find.

“Please!” Nobody was coming. She started to beg, as she realised that her mother hadn’t moved for at least ten minutes. She began to cry endlessly as a pain hit her heart.

“Mummy no! You can’t leave me! Help!” She screamed and cried as loud as she could until somebody would come. Still nobody came. Nobody. She screamed more and more, for hours until finally, by a stroke of luck somebody came. She had no clue who it was, but they shouted things like,

“Are you all right?” “what happened?” and “where’s the phone?” Cat couldn’t do or say anything. She was exhausted. She had screamed for hours. Her throat was roar, and her head pounding, blood rushed to her feet as black spots appeared in her vision, leaving her to collapse on top of her mother’s dead body.

Boxes covered all of the floors in their new house. Cat’s father had wanted to start fresh. It had been 13 years since his wife’s death. His daughter looked just like her. He couldn’t help getting angry from time to time. When he looked at her all he saw was her mother with that other man. He’d hit her daily, he controlled her life. If it was up to him, she would live with him until he died. But as it was, he was planning to marry her off to some rich client. Being a business man, it was the easiest things to do. He was a lawyer, everything about him screamed, ‘you will always lose’ Well that’s what Cat thought anyway.

A new town, to start fresh. Well that’s what he thought. But that’s what he thought the last time as well. But this time, she had a feeling it would be better. She didn’t know why. It was just a feeling.

Cat and her Father didn’t go to church often, they only really went at holidays, like Christmas and Easter, but in this small town, everybody seemed to attend, so the best place to meet new potential clients as well as the rest of the town was to go to church. Not that Cat minded, not at all. It would give her a chance to meet people. If her father would allow it.

Father Waters finished his service by welcoming the new family. Harold and his daughter Caitria Frost, He asked them to stand up and they obliged. Well Mr. Frost stood up. Cat was on crutches, still from the last time he beat her. She still smiled and looked around. Her eyes caught a deep blue gaze as she travelled, the owner of that gaze was a man. He had thick raven black hair and full perfectly coloured lips that any girl would kill for. He had lot’s of muscle, his shoulders were bulky but lead to a taught waist. His lips turned up at the sides, when he caught her staring, and she instantly looked away, blushing a few shades. It was just lucky that her father didn’t see. She would have heard about it other wise. Well felt about it. Her eyes swam around the rest of the crowd, obverting them from the smirking man, she had ogled before.

As people began to leave the church, Father Waters called to the Frost’s to come as well as shouting for a ‘Dominic’ As a man, came into view, on his way to the front of the church where Cat was standing with Father Waters and her Father, she realised that ‘Dominic’ was the man she had been ogling earlier. She quickly busied herself, setting her crutches right.

“Oh! I am sorry sit down Caitria. I forgot.” Father Waters tried to help, but she shook her head saying,

“No it’s fine, it wont get any better if I don’t use it a little.” He nodded but then ‘Dominic’ said

“You should sit down, after a little though, or it will get worse.” Cat was about to say something along the lines of ‘what do you know’ when Father Waters said,

“Dominic here, is our towns doctor, I wanted to introduce you, because I thought that you had probably left you old physician. And by the looks of it, that pot, shouldn’t be on for too much longer.” Cat nodded, but her Father spoke first.

“Yes, that would be marvellous, will she need to book an appointment? Because I’m sure you’d like to have a look soon, to see if it’s all healing well.” Her fathers voice sickened her, the way he made everybody feel small. ‘Well maybe not everybody’ She thought as she looked to Dominic, He was by no means small. He towered above her and her father. Her being 5’8” and by no means small. Dominic must have stood at, at least 6’7” maybe bigger. He was massive. ‘But in a good way‘. Before she had chance to mentally scold herself, Dominic spoke to her.

“No you wont need an appointment. Actually, I haven’t got an appointment booked until noon, so you can come now, and I’ll get somebody to take you home afterwards?” Mr Frost, nodded his head and smiled,

“Yes that would be fine, is that okay with you Cat?” Cat was a little bit shocked at that, but answered with a stiff,

“Yes Father.” Before looking to Dominic

“That would be really helpful, thank you.” He nodded and ushered them out of the church. Her father said a ‘good bye’ and that he would see her later as Dominic opened the passenger side door for her and taking her crutches. The car wasn’t really a car. It was a pick up truck. A Mitsubishi Warrior to be precise, and Cat loved it.

“So how did you brake it?” Dominic was the first to start conversation. Cat, visibly winced thinking about how her father had actually broken it, before answering, with a simple,

“I fell down the stairs.” Dominic, smiled, a little,

“Are you clumsy then?” Car smiled a bit at that, glad that he hadn’t seen the wince, but then gave a small laugh saying a truthful,

“I’m always getting hurt.” She didn’t like to lie, or tell the truth, so she just got it as close to the truth as possible.

“Well, don’t worry, if you ever get hurt and I can’t help you, the hospital’s not too far up the road.” Cat knew he was joking, but that kind of hit a soft spot. Her had always moved them near to a hospital, because he knew with out a doubt that Cat would end up there at some point or another. When Cat didn’t reply, Dominic took it as she was bored of the conversation. There was something about her that he couldn’t figure out. He was intrigued, not to mention getting harder by the second, with just her presence, getting to him. That never happened! She was beautiful though, she had blonde hair, that any man, would drool over, just wanting for their hands to be running through it. Then those gorgeous blue eyes, that were strangely a very similar colour to his own. She was really getting t him. Luckily they were at the surgery.

“Go and sit in the room that says Dr. D. Jackson, That’ me if you hadn’t figured out.” The smile that came with that comment made Cat smile, and a small laugh erupted Dr. Jackson rolled his eyes and said,

“I’ll be in, in a minute.”Truthfully he could have gone straight in there with her, but he decided that a better course of action would be to hide his obvious attraction to her, by taking a few minutes to calm down.

Cat was sat in the doctors office waiting for Dominic, wondering what he could be doing, she envisioned him changing his shirt, those taught muscles that she saw before, moving under his skin in her imagination. Suddenly she was snapped out of her imagination and was back in the room, with Dominic coming through the door.

“I’m just going to keep this short, and then I’ll try to find your folder, and get it from your old doctor.” Cat nodded her head as she struggled to get her leg with the pot up onto the examination bed, so that Dominic could take a look. In the end, Dominic saw her struggles and helped her, he gently placed the pot on the table, noticing as she winced, when he held her shoulder to turn her around slightly. He ignored it thinking, ‘she fell down the stairs, she’s obviously going to