Description
I was born Jessica Andrews, but that was eighteen years ago. I go by Annabelle now. And Jessica? Jessica is dead. Three years ago, Anna Grayson's life took a one-eighty. With her father dead and her mother remarried to a monster, life was nowhere near what it used to be. Blinded by grief and denial, Anna's mother refused to acknowledge the truth going on under her own roof, leaving her daughter to suffer in a world filled of the very worst kind of abuse. At the age of seventeen, Anna managed to escape from the small California town, making her way cross country until, now eighteen, she winds up in the town of Carolina Shores, North Carolina, where she picks up work as a waitress. Her apartment is tiny, and the job is tough on the body. But she finds that anything is better than what used to be her everyday, even if that includes long hours and the ever present nightmares. It is in this small town that Anna meets Justin Donovan, a young man who is drawn to her due to his own past and can't seem to leave her alone despite how many times she asks him to. What he begins to learn is that Anna suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, and has a hard time trusting anybody, let alone a man. Through hard work and determination, will Justin be able to break Anna's silence? And will she begin to learn the difference between being a victim and being a survivor?
Chapter One
