Cold Hearts

by Sharon Sala

  “Agreed,” he said.

  “How would you feel if we just got married one morning by a justice of the peace and then went about our day as if nothing had changed?”

  He smiled. “No honeymoon, either?”

  She yawned. “We couldn’t afford one the first time, and I don’t feel much like a honeymoon while your Dad’s murder remains unsolved.”

  Mack sat down on the side of the bed and then scooped her up and into his arms.

  “You’re going to hurt yourself!” Lissa cried.

  “But I didn’t,” he said. “I just had to hold you. You are, without doubt, the most precious thing in my life. We always were on the same page. It’s nice to know some things never change.”

  Then he leaned down and kissed her, first on the lips until he heard her groan, and then the top of her head where the curls were the thickest, taking care not to get too close to the healing wound.

  “One of these days, when we no longer have staples or sores, or scabs or black eyes, I am going to take you to bed for a week. Think you can handle that?”

  “I look forward to the experience,” she drawled.

  Mack threw back his head and laughed, and then was shocked at the joy in his heart on this saddest of days.

  “We’re going to live a long and happy life,” he said.

  “Just as we always planned,” she added.

  He shrugged. “Better now than never?”

  She cupped a hand against his cheek as she watched the expressions changing on his face.

  “We got our chance, Matthew...our second chance. We owe it to ourselves to live it to the fullest.”

  He kissed her again, this time longer. Reluctantly, he finally stopped.

  “Rest now. We’ll pack in the morning and sleep in our own bed tomorrow night.”

  She grinned. “That bed with all the fertility cherubs?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “I can hardly wait,” she said softly. When he pulled the covers up over her shoulders, she was still smiling as she closed her eyes.

  * * *

  The killer grabbed a piece of cake and began forking small bites into his mouth as he moved among the people. He was still reeling from the shock of the chief’s announcement and feeling just the tiniest bit vulnerable. Instead of leaving right away as he’d planned, now he wanted people to remember he was there if the need for an alibi ever arose.

  One of the first people he saw was Betsy Jakes, and then he noticed her daughter, Trina, just a short distance away. Betsy was being inundated with people who were both curious and concerned on her behalf. She must have known that announcement was coming, he thought, which meant she had been forewarned, as well. Now there would be all kinds of people helping keep watch on her. He had to act quickly, while everyone was still absorbing the shock.

  He casually strolled up close to where she was standing, eating his cake and smiling at people passing by, but listening carefully to everything Betsy said.

  Then he heard his name being called and scanned the crowd. When he saw an old friend waving, he headed toward him to visit while keeping an eye on the time. As soon as he’d circled the room at least twice and spoken to a goodly number of the people who were there, he set down his plate, nodded at Mack and Melissa, who were already on their way out, and slipped out of the church by a back door and left town.

  He needed to be in place when Betsy and her daughter drove home. It was unfortunate they were together. He had no desire to kill Trina Jakes, but leaving her alive as a witness wasn’t happening.

  * * *

  Betsy saw Mack leaving and noticed the pallor of Melissa’s face and felt sorry for their misery. They weren’t only grieving a loss, but were trying to heal from their nearly fatal experiences. Another fifteen minutes passed before Betsy began looking around for her daughter. With Mack gone, the other guests had gravitated to her and quickly overwhelmed her with their concern, until she was ready to get away.

  When she finally spotted Trina, she was surprised to see her over in a corner talking to Lee, which made her hesitate. If they were trying to work things out, she didn’t want to be the one to mess up a good thing. But she couldn’t leave without letting Trina know and decided she would just text her. It was be less problematic all around.

  * * *

  Trina was in tears and trying not to break down. The last thing she had expected was for Lee to approach her in public and try to make up, although she should have expected something, since she’d been refusing to answer his calls and texts.

  Lee was heartsick. He had known within minutes of their fight that he’d made the biggest mistake of his life, and he desperately wanted her back. He was willing to do anything she asked to make that happen.

  “Please, Trina. Can’t we just go get a Coke together? We can sit together and talk. No pressure, and I’ll take you home anytime you say. I made a mistake flying off the handle like that. My jealousy is an ugly fault, and I’ve been working on it all my life. You know my story. You know my mom left my dad for another man when my three brothers and I were just babies. I should have trusted you. I shouldn’t have let that asshole get to me, but I did. I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”

  It was everything she’d wanted to hear, but she didn’t know if it was wise to trust him again.

  “How can I believe this won’t happen over and over throughout our lives? I work with the public. I interact with people on a daily basis, and I enjoy spending time with my friends. I was trying to tell you that he was just pissed off at me because I kept turning him down. He wanted to hurt me, so he lied to you. You don’t even know him. You do know me. You believed the ranting of a man you barely know by name, but not the woman you’re supposed to love. I don’t intend to live my entire life being afraid of making you mad. Just let it be, Lee.”

  Lee groaned. “Please don’t let this be the end. Give it more time. I’m good with that. I’ll wait. I’ll wait as long as you need.”

  She wanted to say yes. She loved him. God help her, she loved him to distraction, but she was afraid.

  “I don’t know. Maybe,” she said.

  Relief surged through Lee so fast his knees nearly buckled.

  “Thank you, Trina! Thank you. I swear on my daddy’s grave that I will never let you down again.”

  She frowned. “I didn’t say yes. I said maybe.”

  “I know, and I’ll take a maybe any day. I love you. You’re all that matters to me.”

  Trina’s phone began signaling a text. She glanced down, then saw it was from her mom and read it.

  “That was from Mom. She’s ready to go home. Look, call me tomorrow evening after I get off work. We’ll talk, okay?”

  “Yes, yes,” Lee said, and then he took her by both hands and kissed them, one after the other. “I love you, Trina. Thank you for giving me a second chance.”

  She sighed. “I love you, too, Lee. That’s why it hurt so much.”

  She pulled her hands away and left him standing, but it was more than he’d hoped for when he had come here today. He took a long shaky breath, and then left the church and headed for his car.

  Trina went over to her mother, slid a hand across her shoulders and gave her a quick hug. “You’ve had quite an afternoon. So you’re ready to get out of here, huh?”

  “Yes, but I saw you talking to Lee, and if you’d rather stay and spend some time with him, feel free. I just didn’t want to leave without letting you know I was going.”

  Trina shook her head. “No, I’m ready to leave, too. I told him to call me tomorrow after I get home from work. I said I’d talk.”

  Betsy smiled. “If you love him, this is good. Forgiveness is a powerful thing, and no one’s perfect.”

  Trina smiled. “I know, Mama, but I’ve given him all the time he deserves today. Let’s go. I’m ready to get out of these shoes.”

  “Then, we’re gone,” Betsy said.

  She got in the car, sent Trey a text that they were going home and buckled
up.

  A few minutes later she and Trina passed the city-limit sign on their way out of town. The drive home usually took around fifteen minutes, and they were eager to get back. They were both talked out and rode in comfortable silence, each locked into her own memories of the day.

  It wasn’t until Betsy topped the hill leading down to their drive that she noticed a car stalled on the side of the road. The hood was up, but she couldn’t see the driver. “Looks like someone is having car trouble,” she said.

  Trina sat up, and then straightened the seat belt over her breasts. “I’m sure they used their cell to call for help,” she said.

  “Most likely, but I can hardly drive by without checking. We don’t have to get out, okay?”

  Trina frowned. “Mama, your life is in danger.”

  Betsy sighed. “Sweetheart, you cannot hide from life and then say you’re living. Understand?”

  Trina rolled her eyes. “I hear you, but I don’t have to agree.”

  Betsy laughed and began to brake as they approached. Then the driver stepped out from behind the raised hood, and Betsy snorted as she put the car in Park.

  “See. Hardly the big bad wolf. Roll your window down a second. We’ll make sure help is on the way.”

  “Hey!” Betsy said as the man bent down to look in the window. “Looks like you’re having a little car trouble. Do you need any help?”

  “Not a bit,” he said. Then he raised the handgun and shot Trina point-blank in the chest and Betsy before she had time to scream.

  Then he went back to his car, lowered the hood and drove away, leaving the women’s car idling and the two of them dead where they sat.

  It was the squawk of a crow sitting on a nearby fence that Trina heard first, then she heard herself moan as she fought her way back to consciousness. She didn’t know where she was or what was happening, but her chest felt like it was on fire.

  “Mama, Mama, I’m sick,” she mumbled, and was grabbing at her breasts as she opened her eyes.

  Then she saw where they were and the blood—God, the blood. Her mother was slumped over the steering wheel with a hole in the side of her face, and Trina knew she was dead. The pain of that loss was beyond measure. She wanted to scream, but she had no breath to spare, and in that moment she knew if she didn’t do something, she was going to be dead, too.

  She was struggling to stay conscious when she felt something in her hand. Her phone! It was her phone. She managed to punch in 911. She was trying to stay conscious, but by the time the call was answered she was slumped sideways, her head hanging partway out the window.

  * * *

  When the call first came in, dispatcher Avery Jones got no answer, but he kept repeating, “911, what is your emergency? Hello! This is 911. What is your emergency, please?”

  Trey was standing in the hallway outside his office when he heard the dispatcher repeating himself and walked over.

  “Got a hang-up?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Avery said. “I can hear an engine running, like a car. The line is still open. I think someone called and passed out. It’s a cell phone, so it’s not registering an address.”

  Trey frowned. “Give me the number. I’ll see if we can triangulate from the location.”

  Even before the dispatcher was through reading out the last two digits of the number, every muscle in Trey’s body had turned to stone. His ears were roaring, and he felt like he was going to throw up.

  “Did you get it?” the dispatcher asked. “Want me to read it out to you again?”

  “No need,” Trey said. “That’s my sister’s number. She and Mom were on their way home from the church.”

  His hands were shaking as he tried his mother’s cell, but the call rang unanswered, then went to voice mail. He tried Trina’s number, but just as he’d expected, it went straight to voice mail.

  “I’m going out to the farm. Get an ambulance en route to the farm.”

  “Yes, sir,” Avery said. “Do you want company? Earl is on patrol.”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  Trey ran for his patrol car, and left town with lights and sirens blasting. He wanted to pray, but the only words that would come to mind were No, please, please, no.

  The miles flew past so fast that the roadside was a blur, and then he topped the hill just above the driveway to their farm and his heart dropped. Betsy’s car was idling in the middle of the blacktop only a few yards away from the mailbox. He could see someone’s head hanging partway out of the passenger side window, and he started to scream.

  “No, damn it, no!”

  He slammed the patrol car into Park as soon as he was close and got out on the run.

  The driver’s-side window was covered in blood and brain matter, and he was struggling with the need to vomit as he opened the door and slid a hand along his mother’s neck checking for a pulse that he already knew wasn’t there.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” he sobbed, staggering around to the other side of the car with tears rolling down his face and a pain he couldn’t describe in his chest.

  Trina’s head was lying partway out the window, and it was quickly obvious that she’d been shot in the chest. When he saw the phone in her hand, he thought about how scared she must have been to call for help.

  He ran his hand down the side of her neck, feeling desperately for a pulse, and when it kicked faintly beneath his fingertips he was so shocked he almost forgot what to do.

  “Shit! She’s alive,” he mumbled, and ran back to his patrol car to call it in.

  “This is Chief Jakes. Radio the ambulance en route to 19929 West Covell Road that I have a live one. Gunshot wound to the chest. Then contact the coroner’s office and dispatch him to the same address. Then contact the county sheriff and get him here ASAP. I need all available deputies at this site.”

  “Yes, sir. Dispatching, sir.”

  Trey threw the mike down, popped the trunk for the first-aid kit and then ran back to the car. Within seconds he had made pressure bandages out of some disposable towels and was holding them on both Trina’s entrance and exit wounds, trying to stop the bleeding. He couldn’t look at his mother because he knew he would lose his mind. There was still a chance, albeit a slim one, to save his sister’s life, and he wasn’t going to fail her if he could help it.

  And so he stood in the road, engulfed by the scent of blood and exhaust fumes, his sister’s body sandwiched between the two pressure bandages he was holding, unaware that he was sobbing. The blood continued to ooze between his fingers as he prayed.

  He didn’t think about the fact that every local with a scanner had heard his broadcast, or that a good number of listeners would recognize the address of the Jakes farm, but it was apparent to everyone who’d heard him that his call for help at the church earlier had come too late. Someone was dead, and someone else was probably dying. They’d all seen Betsy and her daughter together. Which one of them was still alive?

  The killer heard the news as he was gassing up his car and nearly dropped the hose. The chief had requested an ambulance and the coroner. That couldn’t happen. That couldn’t be true. He’d completed kill shots to the both of them. One in the heart. One in the head. What the fuck had gone wrong?

  * * ***

  Don’t miss

  DARK HEARTS,

  the final book in

  New York Times bestselling author

  Sharon Sala’s

  SECRETS AND LIES trilogy.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from WILD HEARTS by Sharon Sala.

  “Skillfully balancing suspense and romance, Sala gives readers a nonstop breath-holding adventure.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Going Once

  Looking for more heart-pounding romantic suspense from New York Times bestselling author Sharon Sala? Don’t miss Wild Hearts, book 1 in the action-packed Secrets and Lies series

  Also from Sharon Sala, be sure to catch the adrenaline-fueled Forces of Nature series, available now in ebook format:r />
  Going Once

  Going Twice

  Going Gone

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  Wild Hearts

  by Sharon Sala

  One

  The cackle of hens and the occasional squawk of a pissed-off rooster were the beginning to Dick Phillips’s day as he went about his morning chores. He opened the coop and began scattering chicken feed, laughing at the rush that ensued as he went in to gather the eggs.

  A few years back his wife, Marcy, had got an itch to raise chickens, so he’d built a coop and bought her a few hens to make her happy, and then she died. Afterward, he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of them, so they stayed. As time passed, the flock grew, and now, with over forty laying hens, he was selling the surplus to regular customers, who came to the farm to pick up eggs for their family use.

  He took the fresh eggs down to the barn to what he called the egg room. He was favoring his right shoulder. He’d taken a bad fall last week and was certain he’d torn something vital. He couldn’t lift his arm above his head, and it hurt to carry anything, although there was still work to be done. He stood at the worktable, sorting, cleaning and crating eggs, and then stored them in a small walk-in cooler at the back of the room.

  He’d just walked out into the breezeway and was getting ready to feed his cows when he heard a car. He paused in the doorway, absently scratching at the old scar on his forehead, and then raised his hand in greeting when he recognized the driver, then eyed the large sack he was carrying, thinking he was about to make a big sale.

  “Hey, how goes it?” he called. “You comin’ after eggs?”