When You Dare Read Online Free PDF

lethargic, as if the nourishment eased a terrible ache and allowed tiredness to take over again.
    “Molly?”
    “I can’t.” She took another swallow, but her eyes were getting heavy as color seeped back into her cheeks. “Can’t what?”
    Another swallow. The seconds ticked by. “I can’t…can’t talk about this now, can’t give you details, and I can’t go to the hospital.” She lifted her gaze to his. “Please, if we could talk about it in the morning, I’d be grateful.”
    Damn it, he didn’t want to be responsible for her health. He stood to pace, trying to decide.
    “Dare?”
    He turned back to her, left eye twitching, jaw tight.
    “I wasn’t raped. I swear.”
    Something in him eased. He tried to read the truth in her eyes, but saw only bleak resistance there. He rubbed his bristly jaw. “You would tell me if you were sexually abused?”
    “If I had been… I don’t know. I don’t know how I’d feel.” Despite her ordeal, her chin lifted. “But I wasn’t.”
    Dare continued to study her. He could read most people, but this woman had so much emotion in her face, and so many secrets in her eyes, he just wasn’t sure.
    “That…that isn’t what they wanted with me.”
    Remembering how she’d been separated from the other women, kept unclean, neglected instead of primed…he believed her.
    That’s what she wanted to talk about tomorrow, he realized. He nodded. “All right.”
    She started to stand, albeit shakily, and Dare said, “Wait. Let me turn down the bed.”
    He prepared it for her, much like he would for a child, then came back to her. “Do you need the bathroom first?”
    Pale, trembling, she shook her head. “No.”
    Knowing that decision was likely determined by her inability to make it there on her own, Dare took the choice away from her. “Of course you do.” After all, he’d been pushing fluids on her, and she’d obliged him.
    Lifting her up, he carried her into the small tiled room. She weighed next to nothing and felt insubstantial, delicate, in his arms.
    He set her down next to the john. “Okay?”
    She grabbed the sink and held on. “Yes.”
    Hardly, but he’d done as much as he could without causing her further embarrassment. “If you need me, I’ll be right outside the door. Just let me know when you’re finished.” He left her to it.
    Leaning against the wall beside the door, thinking of what he’d learned, and what he hadn’t, Dare waited for her. Seconds later he heard her flush and then run water in the sink.
    The door opened.
    Eyes more closed than open, shuffling along like a zombie, Molly moved past him to the bed. Dare rushed to hold her arm, to steady her and steer her to the sheets.
    “Sorry,” she mumbled as she literally tumbled to the mattress. “ So tired.”
    Worry gnawed on him again. Should he damn her objections and take her to the hospital anyway? Already she looked to be asleep. He knew firsthand how exhaustion, especially when amplified by hunger and dehydration, could weary a body and soul.
    Seeing her there, looking peaceful for a change, he made up his mind. A few more hours shouldn’t hurt. If she wasn’t steadier after sleeping, he’d insist she get checked out by a physician.
    Before he thought better of it, Dare smoothed back her hair. It was so thick that it hadn’t dried much, but a wet head was the least of her worries.
    He pulled the sheet and blanket up to her chin, and heard her sigh. “Rest up, Molly Alexander. In the morning we’ll sort things out.”
    No answer.
    For more than a minute, Dare stared down at her, wondering what he was going to do with her. She’d held it together with an admirable iron will and unwavering determination. Despite her horrific ordeal, she’d been reasonable, practical and intelligent.
    But it was what she hadn’t been that told him even more.
    She hadn’t been anxious to report to the police, hadn’t even looked at his gun or the big knife he carried, and she hadn’t wanted