Mother by Fate. Tara Taylor Quinn

the night before, wasn’t new to her. Or unwelcome. The detour from normal had come in her inability to find peace once she’d come home.

      Sara wasn’t a workaholic; she’d simply answered her calling and loved what she did. And she’d found a place where she was needed.

      Who didn’t want to be needed?

      She had a calming effect on people. An ability to assess their internal struggles and help sort them out.

      Last night’s domestic-abuse victim, Nicole Kramer, had been...different. Her genuine desperation had drawn Sara in more than most. The woman was alive only so that she could see her son to safety. Her own life didn’t seem to hold all that much value to her.

      Sara valued that life. She’d brought Nicole’s situation home with her. And let it keep her up most of the night.

      “You have to understand,” Nicole had said. “In Trevor’s reality, he is a god. He has hundreds of strong, armed and angry young men who will do whatever he tells them to do...”

      Sara knew about victims being manipulated to the point of feeling as though their abusers were the rulers of their worlds. But she’d never come up against a victim whose abuser truly was that powerful.

      Nor had she ever counseled a victim who not only had low self-esteem due to abuse, but who also valued herself less because of her cultural environment. To white supremacists, women were second-class citizens...

      “He has a cop on the LA police force, a dirty cop, who supports the cause. I’m not sure, but I think there are others, too. Trevor gives them information and they protect him. Anytime I do anything that Trevor doesn’t like, there’s another trumped-up charge against me. The charges are always dropped, but only after I’m so beaten and hopeless I comply with Trevor’s demands...”

      Nicole had come armed with a flash drive filled with photos that, she said, would verify everything she was telling them.

      While Sara had been sitting with Nicole, Lila McDaniels, managing director of the Lemonade Stand, the shelter where they worked, had called the High Risk Team—a newly formed team of professionals who tried to bridge the gap of noncommunication between official reporting agencies in an effort to prevent domestic-violence deaths. Sara was the Stand’s representative on the team. There were police officers, medical personnel, lawyers, child-protection workers and school guidance counselors.

      Sara turned her head on the lounge chair. She had to clear her mind. To relax. Or she wasn’t going to be any good to anyone.

      She gave herself up to the sun’s relaxing warmth. Mmm. The rays touched the bare skin of her back, sliding over her bikini-clad butt to her thighs. She focused on the heat, willing it to relax muscles that were determined to remain at strict attention. Ready for action.

      She listened to the sound of the ocean, of waves gently washing to shore. The privacy wall between her and the vastness beyond the affluent complex in which she lived muted the sounds from the beach below.

      Her upper back and shoulders weren’t nearly hot enough yet. She’d opted for the easy-to-undo pink-and-green bikini top for one reason only. The straps, both at the neck and around her back, were easy to undo. She didn’t need any more pressure on muscles already stressed beyond anything she’d ever felt.

      Focus. She repeated the word. Willing her pores to open and soak in the vitamin D being offered, as best they could with the high-level SPF she’d smeared all over herself.

       Accept the heat. Accept the help...

      Metal scraped against cement. Sara’s eyes flew open. The small private pool boasted eight luxury pool loungers—one of which she was lying on. The other heretofore-unoccupied seven were spread out on either side of her. The one to her far right was no longer empty.

      Sara closed her eyes as quickly as she’d opened them.

      Damn. She’d hoped to have the pool to herself. Though she’d known it to be unlikely on a warm Saturday afternoon. Still, it was August. Beach weather. There’d been the possibility that everyone else would opt for the private beach just a few yards and a long stone staircase away.

      Sara feigned sleep.

      It was no good.

      The nebulous peace she’d been seeking had been invaded. She’d started to relax, to give herself up to the healing energy of the sun’s heat, but every time the stranger moved, she was catapulted back to the netted fabric of her chair. When her nerves started to crawl around inside her and lying motionless was more painful than not, Sara gave up, reached behind her to fasten the straps at her back and neck, turned over and sat up.

      The thirtysomething, dark-haired, bare-chested source of her irritability glanced her way. But left her alone.

      He was a stranger to her, as were a good many of the owners with whom she shared common ground. She appreciated his respectful distance.

      But...what was he doing? Usually when someone sunbathed they didn’t just sit straight up like that. And if that someone was a guy and he wasn’t reading, or drinking and socializing, if he didn’t have kids to watch, or women to ogle, he laid back and closed his eyes.

      She knew these things. Human nature was her business.

      “Have you lived here long?” The sexy tenor of his voice broke the silence.

      “Two years in this complex. Three in Santa Raquel. You?” Might as well talk. It was better than sitting there thinking about Nicole. Wondering what effect she could have on a woman running from her white-supremacist husband.

      Her question garnered no more than a shake of the handsome stranger’s head.

      “Are you a guest?” Sara didn’t typically socialize with men at pools. In her current life—working in a secured shelter filled with damaged women—she rarely dealt with men at all.

      This whole day was turning into an aberration. She couldn’t find her calm. Was lying at the pool. And encouraging a man to get to know her better.

      No. He was shaking his head again.

      “You’re an owner, then,” she ventured, coming to the only other conclusion available. There were only two ways to gain entrance to the pool. As an owner. Or as the guest of an owner.

      Part of the exclusivity of Sara’s community was that it didn’t allow units to be rented out. Her brother, a financial guru in LA, had made certain of that stipulation before he’d reluctantly agreed to quit badgering Sara over her choice to live in a condominium complex rather than in a far too big luxury mansion like everyone else in the family did. She’d owned her place for over a year at that point—and had known without his help that property values would remain steadier if rentals weren’t allowed.

      The man had fallen silent. He was clearly a man of few words.

      Nice. Sometimes the best company—at least for someone like her, who spent her days, and a lot of her nights, listening to other people talk about their problems—was the silent type.

      Sometimes, but not that afternoon. Sara was restless.

      She needed to rest.

      He wasn’t wearing a ring.

      She didn’t care. Hadn’t needed to know. It was just what she did—notice all of the little things about people. They were the “tells.”

      His were telling her something she wasn’t prepared to hear.

      It didn’t matter that he might be available. She wasn’t looking.

      Men tended to feel a bit intimidated by her job—as if they feared she’d see some sign of aggression in them, or assumed she went around assessing all men and spotting abusive tendencies. Her last date had had a problem taking a backseat to her work. But when a battered woman showed up at the shelter, you bet she was going to leave a dinner date to tend to her.

      Glancing the stranger’s way, Sara tried