The Nearness of You

Chapter 1

Olivia Perry reached down and prodded her ankle, wincing at the pain. The sudden realization that she had been immature and selfish over the past eighteen months was the least of her worries. Her whole foot was turning a nasty shade purple and it was swollen to almost double its regular size.

So much for her plan to leave the group tomorrow. She had landed herself in quite a predicament.

She had tried to leave the group, referred to as the New Hope, several times over the last three months, but they had always had a reason for her to not leave 'quite yet', whether it had been a promise she had previously made to help with this project or that, or she was needed to help with the harvest, there was always a reason and it always involved them tugging on her guilty conscience.

After her father's death she had wanted to get away and start over, but with very few life skills or ambitions she had been at a loss as to what to do or where to go, and New Hope had been there to take advantage of her weakness.

At the end of his life, her father had been desperate to try anything that might prolong it, so he had turned to new age healing and one Velma Branch. Velma had done her best, but according to her, he didn't believe enough and the cancer was too far a long for her treatments to do him any good. Now, eighteen long months later, Olivia realized just what a sham it all was. But not then; then she had only lived a sheltered life and her father's passing had filled her with such overwhelming grief and emptiness that it had filled up her entire being.

Enter Velma, with promises of healing and hope and of a new family that would care for her and make sure that she was never alone again. Wanting that so much, having never really had a family, she was such an easy target.

Within six months she had realized her mistake. They had hoped that her father's money and assets would be left to her and that she would willingly sign them over to the New Hope organization, and she had to admit to herself that if she had had access to it all she probably would have done that very thing.

When it was realized that she wasn't going to get a penny, her place within the organization diminished to the point that she was just a worker bee who was sent out into the fields or put on a corner to beg for money.

However, all of her plans had been made, she was going to leave tomorrow when it was her turn to work in the city. Today though, had been her day to work in the fields, and she had fallen in a rabbit hole and badly sprained her ankle.

She had made one of the younger girls take her to the hospital, something that was strictly forbidden, where she had used a credit card that she had kept hidden to pay for the care they had given her. It had been the first time she had used it in eighteen months, but she knew she would have to use it again soon.

After her return from the hospital, she had been given a lecture and left to sit alone, all day, in a hard chair in the room that she shared with three other girls. Not one person came to check on her, and she had managed to hobble to the restroom only once. Her stomach ached because she was so hungry and the chill in the damp air was making her shiver.

She had watched through a bedroom window as the sky had turned dark and the rain outside had shown no sign of letting up, and she was considering whether it was worth it to try to get up to turn on the light when there was a banging on the front door downstairs and raised voices.

Knowing that only Pauline and Mildred were downstairs she was concerned, and she was still trying to struggle to stand when the door to the bedroom flew open.

Startled, she looked over her shoulder and up into a familiar pair of cold grey eyes.

Declan Brooks was staring at her with a look of pure anger. She had seen many sides of Declan, but never anger. His massive frame filled the doorway to the room and blocked her from Pauline and Mildred's view. He was soaking wet from the rainwater that ran in rivulets down his face and neck as he looked at her.