When Bruce Met Cyn

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Authors: Lori Foster
believed she needed to talk, and he wanted to be the one she talked to. “If you’re comfortable with me, I’m a very good listener.”
    â€œThey teach you listening skills in preacher school?”
    She had a biting wit that would have been more amusing under less tragic circumstances. “Yes, and I aced my classes.”
    â€œWhy would you want to listen to people whine and complain? I got my fill of that with the johns who paid me. Pathetic bozos, all of them.”
    â€œBut I’m not a pathetic bozo, right?” He didn’t give her a chance to answer, just in case her answer wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “I just want to help, that’s all.”
    â€œYou’d have been a helluva lot more help when I was a kid.” She slipped her hand away.
    â€œI wish I’d been there.” He wished that more than anything.
    Her disbelief was plain, and fired by anger. “It wouldn’t have mattered. Problems like that are a hell of a lot easier to ignore. Neighbors don’t want to get involved. Relatives look the other way. What makes you think you’d have been any different?”
    A heavy weight settled around his heart. “It’s unforgivable not to intervene if you know someone is hurt.”
    â€œYep. Un forgivable.” She pinned him with her shrewd gaze. “You got that much right.”
    â€œThey don’t deserve your forgiveness, Cyn, that’s true. But you deserve to forgive and move on. To let it go from your life so it can’t bother you anymore.”
    She eyed him, then shook her head with a rusty laugh. “You’re not going to let this drop, are you?”
    He didn’t want to. He stared into her mocking eyes, searching for the right words, when suddenly she pushed to her feet.
    â€œI’m going to show you something.”
    The abrupt change took him by surprise. “All right.”
    She turned and headed back upstairs. Bruce watched her exit, saw she was still limping a bit, but also saw the anticipation in her body language. She wanted to share—she was ready to take that next step.
    He was grateful to be the man she confided in.
    Cyn returned moments later with a stack of books. Out of all the things Bruce had expected, books hadn’t figured in.
    She plunked the pile on the table. “You wanna know about me? Well, here I am.” She indicated the books with a wave of her hand. “This is why I don’t need you or your sympathy or your help.”
    Dumbfounded, at a complete loss, Bruce watched her pick up one slim volume.
    â€œAfter I ran off,” she said, her eyes still narrowed and her attitude aggressive, “I didn’t trust anyone. I couldn’t. It would have been dumb.”
    Bruce took the book from her. His heart twisted at the title: The Roots of Child Abuse and Neglect. He looked at Cyn. “The books helped?”
    As if she clenched her teeth, her jaw worked. “Friendships were out. Can’t be friends with people you can’t trust, and most everyone on the street would steal you blind with a smile. Public places like the movies or malls were too iffy. So I read.”
    He remembered her telling him that her reading interests varied. Apparently, she educated herself on whatever she thought she needed to know.
    â€œThere were two independent bookstores near my corner. One was run by foreigners. They didn’t care who bought a book, as long as you had cash. They’d even order titles for me.”
    Bruce felt such admiration, he couldn’t bring himself to look away from her. “This is some heavy reading.”
    â€œI guess.” She opened the cover on the book, flipped idly through the pages. “Remember I said I watched the other hookers, and knew I didn’t want to end up that way? Well, I watched my mother and Palmer, too, and God knows, I sure didn’t want to be like them. They disgusted me. So I figured I had to learn as

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