by Joanne Rock
But she’d been in Austin, hospitalized with a mystery ailment and scared out of her mind. What would her mother have said if she’d called with the news? That she must be lazing around because she didn’t like working?
Mom’s comment about Amy made her all the more grateful she’d kept the incident to herself.
Erin playfully tugged on Remy’s hair. “He’s just kidding me because I’m convinced I’m going to be eaten by an alligator while we’re there.” Her breakfast wardrobe seemed more in line with her normal clothes—a dreamy white poet’s blouse and a blue wraparound skirt with an iron-on transfer of a rococo painting, The Swing. “Apparently his mother’s dock is frequently visited by large reptiles.”
“If you need to leave the swamp, I hear New Orleans is only an hour away.” She was so happy for Erin, just as she’d been happy for Mack when he and Nina had gotten engaged. But sometimes seeing that kind of love hurt when it remained so very absent in her own life. She felt that pang now as she moved from Erin to give Remy a hug goodbye.
“Don’t you give her ideas, cher,” Remy warned her, wrapping her in strong arms and planting a kiss on her cheek. “She’s not getting far from me for the next two weeks.”
Erin hugged their mother and then, when Remy moved to do the same, Erin whispered in Heather’s ear.
“Thank you for staying last night.” Erin squeezed her hand. “I know you’re anxious to get to Charlotte and I’m excited for you, but it was really nice having at least one of my sisters here all weekend.”
Guilt pinched at the reminder since she’d been so close to leaving town last night. Would have, if she’d been smart enough to fill the gas tank.
“I had fun.” She walked downstairs with Erin while Remy got the last of their suitcases for the trip. “Have you heard from Sarah? Did she and Lucas make it back to school okay?”
Remy’s daughter and her boyfriend attended college in Louisiana near where Sarah grew up.
“Yes. But she’ll be back for Thanksgiving, so I want to make sure I have her room ready.” Erin grabbed two bottled waters from the fridge before they headed out the front door. “And I forgot to tell you goodbye from Zach. He left with Sam Reyes a few minutes after he talked to you and they both looked superserious.”
“Really?” She remembered the sheriff had needed to speak to Zach privately. “Must have been police business.”
“Maybe.” Erin backed toward the car, where Remy secured the last bag in the trunk. “A cow got out of Harlan’s pen again, maybe. Or our one traffic light went out. You can hear about it at the Tastee Freeze, tomorrow, I’m sure.” The local ice-cream shop with outdoor picnic tables was a good spot for gossip from spring through fall. “But as for me, I’ll be sleeping late.”
Heather hoped Erin was right and whatever Sheriff Reyes had wanted wasn’t a big deal. She’d see Zach tomorrow since she’d told him she would let him know before she left town. And as luck would have it, she’d gotten a text from TJ earlier saying her car would be ready Tuesday morning.
That meant tomorrow would be her last day in Heartache for—she hoped—a long time.
CHAPTER FIVE
LULLED BY THE scroll of data files across his computer screen, Zach was straining to keep his eyes open, when his cell phone rang.
“Ellie?” he answered at the same time he processed his sister’s name on the caller ID, brain moving slow after a long night of work. “What are you doing up so late?”
Tipping back in his leather chair, he closed gritty eyes and pushed back from the desk. He’d set up his office in the basement of the house where he’d spent his high school years, another facet of his father’s ruined world that Zach had felt compelled to reclaim.
“Late? Zachary, it’s seven o’clock in the morning. Do you feel okay?” His sister immediately went into maternal mode even though she lived on the West Coast, almost two thousand miles away.
“I’m fine.” He straightened, though, needing to check his agenda for the day. He had a ribbon-cutting ceremony today and he had told Sam he’d check in after he went through the old city computers for any hint of unusual bookkeeping. “Just lost track of time after pulling an all-nighter.”
The basement office made a great place to work—he kept it temperature controlled, with high-tech security in place to protect his clients’ sensitive information. But the lack of windows made it tough to tell day from night.
“Really?” Her voice shifted, a hint of pleasure chasing away the worry. “Well, I can’t thank you enough for helping me put the finishing touches on the victim-support website last week. We’re gaining a really strong sense of community online already and it’s so good to see. Especially for the women who remain at risk from stalkers, Zach. It’s scary to think I have friends still living that nightmare.”
“It scares the hell out of me every day.” Switching off the computer screen, he let the program continue to run on the copy he’d made of the former mayor’s hard drive. “And I’m sorry I didn’t follow up to see how the launch went, but something came up in town—”
“Heartache.” The word was sharp with the animosity she felt for the town, the house they’d once lived in and the world she’d left behind. “I will never understand why you have the need to help out that godforsaken little map-dot.”
He couldn’t explain what had drawn him back to Heartache, especially after so many things had gone wrong in the little town. Maybe it was the charm of rural Tennessee.
“I sleep better at night listening to crickets instead of the traffic on US 101.” He climbed the stairs to the main floor two at a time. Stepping into the kitchen, he opened a cabinet over the coffee bar and pulled down a mug. The stainless-steel coffee machine required no warm-up. He pressed a button and the scent of dark roast wafted in the air.
“If you say so,” Ellie said. “But the analytics tracker you gave me shows we’re reaching a lot more people than I’d imagined with the website.”
Zach smiled. Ellie headed up a large movement online to draw awareness to cyberbullying and cyberstalking, using an anonymous identity, which he’d insisted upon in order to protect her privacy. The site she’d designed gave potential victims tools for protecting themselves from cybercrime. “I can’t wait until we launch the portion of the site where users can create an account and document harassment.”
In the background, he could hear the wind-flute music she favored for her morning yoga workouts. He pictured her relaxing on the roof of her condo, which had been built to look like a brownstone. She ran a public garden up there, too—or at least, public in that she’d opened it to everyone in the building.
With her legally changed name, Ellie was as safe as she could be in California on her own. Zach had made sure she lived in the most secure building, fortified with another layer of cybersecurity to keep her protected online.
“We have to ensure the security on your site is rock solid since the criminals we’re going up against are naturally tech-savvy consumers.” He gulped his coffee too fast, in a hurry to get his brain in gear.
“Right. They are committing digital crimes by using the internet and texting to intimidate their victims. I understand that much.”
“So we need to protect the data our users collect as they log it in the systems. Because if we create more tools that a stalker can use to harass and intimidate them...” Zach knew he was being excessively cautious, but he kept imagining some scared teenage girl trying to use the site’s tracking system and then having her account hacked. Her stalker would know that she had collected evidence to mount a case against him. What if an incident like that actually propelled a stalker to take action?
He drained his coffee, then left the mug in the kitchen and searched the pantry for something edible.
“I know you want this to be perfect.” Ellie spoke softly, reasonably. “I do, too. But ma
ybe you should think about the twenty people your tools could be helping already instead of worrying about that fraction of a percentage that something goes wrong.”
Except that in his model, a fraction of a percentage equaled one human being. One anonymous teenage girl like his sister had once been alone and vulnerable out in the woods near the quarry.
“It’s almost ready.” He slammed the pantry shut, vowing to look at the second stage of his sister’s website tonight. “I’ve got a meeting with Sam this morning. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Tell Sam I said hi.” Her voice shifted again, her old crush on their friend obvious. “I hear they miss him on the force here.”
“I’ll tell him.” Disconnecting the call, Zach checked his agenda and realized he needed to be at the ribbon-cutting ceremony in an hour. Tiffany McCord sat on the town council, and she owned the rod-and-reel store in Heartache with her husband, Cole, a decorated war veteran. Since their arrival, the McCords had been a strong force for getting things done, and Tiffany would be voting against every motion Zach put in front of the council for a month if he missed her big grand opening today.
He had the sense she’d run for mayor in a nanosecond. But as much as Zach wanted out of the job, he also didn’t want the town overrun by a woman who would have a fast-food chain on either end of Main Street within the year.
Switching on the shower in the master suite, he set his phone on the vanity just as it buzzed. He read the text from Sam.
You know my background. I can’t afford to keep secrets.
Zach closed his eyes. He understood what the terse note meant. Sam had become a cop despite his troubled teen years. There were things Sam wouldn’t want to resurface in this town again. Keeping a lid on the missing town funds from the citizens of Heartache could be construed as complicity if Sam knew and didn’t say anything.
Corruption in the town or in the sheriff himself. And yeah, Zach knew how it felt to be the kind of man people suspected of wrongdoing. His father had hung that albatross on him before he graduated high school. He wanted no part of digging up more trouble from the past that would only slow down his own efforts to track the incident reports from the quarry.
Give me until the end of the day, he texted back. He’d let his digital programs run and he’d tell Heather what he’d found so she could give her family a warning. Then Sam would have to go to the media with the report.
* * *
TEARS FELL ON her guitar.
Normally, Heather would never allow the strings to get wet, let alone any part of her favorite Gibson acoustic. It was her songwriting guitar. Her comfort instrument.
And this morning, she couldn’t play it for crap.
She had grabbed it first thing, not really paying attention to the fact that her hands were stiff. It had happened overnight. She’d swear her fingers were fine yesterday. Today, the universe took perverse pleasure in rattling her to the core. She was finally ready to pursue her dreams of playing music professionally and she couldn’t hold down the strings for a freaking F chord.
She dropped her head to rest on the rounded mahogany shoulder and let the tears flow in a way she hadn’t since finding out about the rheumatoid arthritis. She’d told herself to use the disease as a wake-up call. A motivating force to live the life she truly wanted and not the one that happened all around her.
Now, still sitting on her unmade bed, her cotton nightgown strap sliding off one shoulder, she fell apart as she clutched the beautiful instrument she couldn’t play. Her fingers throbbed. Her knuckles were on fire. Swollen, too. The upper joints were puffy, especially on the ring and middle fingers of her right hand. The index and middle finger pulsated on her left.
The music in her heart—the song that had been teasing the corners of her brain—muted and vanished. She tightened her grip on the neck of the Gibson, as much as her sore fingers allowed, and experienced the urge to smash it on the floor.
Hard.
Through the haze of hurt and anger, the chime of her cell phone pulled her back to reality. She reached for the device on her nightstand and took a deep breath.
“Hello?” She hadn’t checked the caller ID.
“Heather? Are you okay?” Zach’s voice, gentle with concern, cut through her hurt until she wanted to curl up against him and sob out all her problems.
A solution that would not be helpful.
“Fine,” she lied, trying to keep her voice light. She used the hem of her long nightgown to swipe her face dry. “Just tired from the wedding revelry, I guess.”
“I wanted to see if you were coming to the ribbon cutting for Upstream. I’m going by your house, if you’d like a ride.”
“A ribbon-cutting ceremony? I didn’t take the mayor job, remember?” She hadn’t even left Heartache yet. She wouldn’t get sucked back into town politics already.
“But you’re such an advocate for local business,” he reminded her.
“Am I?” She caught a glimpse of herself in her vanity’s tiny mirror. She must have had some mascara on when she went to sleep as she had raccoon eyes. “I’m trying to be a musician, Zach.”
Maybe a little too much “real” crept into her voice, because he went quiet for an extra beat.
“You will be a success at whatever you do, Heather,” he said finally.
The kind words of a friend. The kind of thing her mom never said to her kids. Not that she blamed her mom or anything. It was simply one of those mornings. Her emotions bubbled under the surface.
“You see why you are the better mayor than me? You have a knack for knowing when to say the diplomatic thing. Unless...” She set her guitar in the stand beside the vanity. “You’re using that gift for tact to lure me into attending Tiffany McCord’s much-hyped store opening.”
She had planned to attend. The woman had spent many hours volunteering at the rec department last summer while Heather had been out of town. But she would have gladly missed the commitment if she’d been in Charlotte already.
Unfortunately, she still sat right here in town.
Zach chuckled. “Funny thing about that. I happened to be completely sincere on your probability of success in life. But I also can’t face the thought of a McCord event on my own at nine o’clock on a Monday morning.”
“You wouldn’t suggest this if you could see what I look like right now.” She dug in the vanity drawer for cold cream and a cloth, considering his offer. She liked Zach, and talking to him was a welcome distraction from the crushing fear in her chest. She couldn’t play her guitar.
If she didn’t go, she’d end up crying again and she refused to sit around feeling sorry for herself. She’d figure out what to do about her audition later, when she wasn’t an emotional wreck. Later, she’d email her friend Sylvia, the fellow musician and former student from Heartache who’d moved to Nashville a few months ago. But since Sylvia was only available to her online and Zach was here—in person—Heather sure was tempted.
“I already have an extra cup of coffee for you,” he said.
“You can’t make me feel guilty about a one-dollar expenditure.” Gently, she cleaned her face, wincing as she bent a swollen knuckle.
“We’re not talking about gas station coffee. I went to Mack and Nina’s new restaurant, and Nina hooked me up with some kind of latte that smells nutty. She said it’s your favorite.”
“You really didn’t want to go to that event alone, did you? Their restaurant isn’t even open at this hour.” She smiled a little, some of the despair in her chest lightening at the unfamiliar sensation of having a supremely attractive, intelligent man woo her.
Even if it was only because he wanted her to take a job.
“I spotted Nina sweeping up out front and she said she had the espresso machine warmed up anyhow. Did I mention being the mayor has its privileges?”
She had to laugh. That in itself seemed kind of amazing, given the way she’d wanted to smash her guitar before he had called. She definitely needed to get out of the house. Stop brooding for a little while.
“I believe you’ve hit that point a few times.” She pulled clean clothes out of the closet and then climbed down the loft’s narrow stairs. “If I say yes to this painful suggestion of yours, I feel like I should be rewarded with more than a latte.”
“Such as?”
“Well, since you’re kind enough to remember that I don’t have a car today, maybe the Mercedes would be a good loaner since you have a garage full of vehicles.”
“I’ll take it under advisement.”
“Really?” She slid into a soft, full skirt, which even Erin would approve of. Heather liked it because it was comfortable. Tossing aside her nightgown, she put the phone on speaker so she could wriggle into a bra.
“Of course not.”
“The Porsche then.” She cursed the back closure as her fingers struggled to fasten the hooks. She vowed to buy all new—less complicated—underwear before her hands became any worse.
“I was thinking more along the lines of dinner.”
She stilled, her fingers pulsing with heated pain. Only now, her heart pulsed harder, too. And not in a painful way.
“Hello?”
“I’m here.” Why would Zach ask her out after the big fuss she made about leaving town? Although, there had been that electric current between them when he’d touched her. Still, she couldn’t help thinking he was hiding something from her. Angling her into position like the skilled politician he was—even if he didn’t give himself that credit.
“You force me to wonder if the thought of sharing a meal with me is more horrible than a press event with Tiffany McCord.”
“Of course not.” She tugged a short-sleeved sweater over her head. “There are simply more implications with a shared dinner.”
“We can discuss those implications at length, now that I’m in your driveway.”
