Combatting Fear
Page 26
A special mention to Rowena Holloway, my partner in crime. We have shared book tours, soul searching, and presented workshops together. I couldn’t do it without her. Also Lynn Wallace, who is subjected to my very rough drafts and is responsible for the delicious lamb shank recipe that gets a mention.
The remaining members of my support network are so numerous, I must mention them in general terms, but they are no less a precious resource. Anyone who has ever listened to me ramble about my latest character, helped unravel a plot twist, or generously reviewed by books has kept me motivated.
And I love my merry band of newsletter subscribers, who had a great time helping me come up with a name for this book. I’d like to say a special thanks to Wendy Leslie and Sue Guest for their suggestions.
Finally, I must thank Tara at Crimson Romance for taking a chance on this Aussie author, Julie for digging deep to see my vision and making my rough manuscript shine, and all of the other hard-working folks involved in the production process.
Happy reading to all.
About the Author
Thanks for taking the time to read this book. If you enjoyed it, I’d really appreciate you leaving a review on Amazon.
You can also connect with me via my website: www.sandyvaile.com, on Facebook, www.facebook.com/SandyVaile, or Twitter @Sandy_Vaile (www.twitter.com/Sandy_Vaile).
My motto in life: I’ll try anything once. By taking every opportunity that presents itself, I have amassed a wealth of life experiences to draw from when writing, including jumping out of a plane, swimming with a shark, riding a motorbike, and carrying the Olympic flame.
I was captivated by creative writing from a young age, with a career in journalism mapped out. Unfortunately, I received some early lessons in the unexpected nature of life and was diverted from my true calling. It wasn’t until I was forty years old that I rediscovered the joy of reading and writing.
Home is the picturesque McLaren Vale wine region, on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia. It is one of the most beautiful places on earth, which is why I set most of my stories here.
As well as writing for fun, I run the Novelist’s Circle critiquing group, judge competitions for the Romance Writers of Australia and the Romance Writers of America, run workshops about literary craft, and write procedures for high-risk industrial activities. (Yes, I’m a word nerd through and through.)
My goal when writing is always for readers to connect with my characters and their hardships as closely as I do. If you’d like to stay in touch, subscribe to my newsletter at www.sandyvaile.com/contact-me.
More from This Author
Inheriting Fear
Sandy Vaile
Her brown combat boots pounded the bike track as her eyes searched the shadows on either side. Mya had made the same short journey five days a week for eleven years, but at night it still made the back of her neck prickle. She could buy a car and live in fear. Not a chance. Fear could go to hell.
Intermittent puddles of lamplight dripped onto the tarmac. Laughter and evening TV programs carried through the open windows of weatherboard houses along the railway track, and she inhaled a waft of grilled chops with the rail grease. She pushed her chef’s skull-cap into the back pocket of her jeans and wrapped an elastic band around her long hair. On the other side of the tracks, the Croydon Hotel emitted a bass beat that vibrated in the viscous humidity.
She glanced at her watch and picked up the pace. It was supposed to be her night off work, but the sous-chef wanted to leave early for a party, and it was Mya’s responsibility to make sure the kitchen ran smoothly. It wasn’t like she had a social life anyway.
An androgynous shadow ambled from the bushes ahead, hands shoved deep into the pockets of a hooded jacket. She moved to the opposite side of the track. As the shadow solidified it looked taller, broader, with a hairy chin protruding from the obscurity of the hood. A flickering fluorescent streetlight alternated the image of a man and an ominous silhouette.
They passed one another and he looked up. Red, glassy eyes devoured her from head to toe. A shiver ran up the back of Mya’s legs to her scalp. One side of his mouth lifted in a half-smile, so she nodded a greeting but kept walking.
With her eyes ahead and ears trained on his retreating footsteps, she breathed easier as each second passed. Walking the bike track at night certainly had its hazards, but it just wasn’t worth getting the motorbike out of the shed and donning all the gear to go a few hundred metres. Besides, she had as much right as anyone to be there, and she’d made herself a promise a long time ago to never let anything or anyone stop her from doing what she wanted. Fear was just an emotion and she could overcome those with steely resolve.
The footsteps behind her ceased and her heart flip-flopped into her throat.
Mya turned around slowly. The hood guy had turned around too, and his left hand held a beer stubby, but not at the base like he was about to take a swig. His long fingers were wrapped around the neck of the bottle, making it look more like a weapon.
A lump of panic stuck in her throat. Best to get the hell out of there, but it went against her training to leave her back unprotected. Her kick-boxing mentor, Ned, would clip her around the ear if she let anyone get the upper hand on her. When the thug finally took a long draught from the stubby, she hurried in the direction of the Croydon Hotel again.
“Whocha doin’ out ’ere in the dark, Mya?” he slurred.
She spun around and narrowed her eyes at the blackness beneath his hood. “Do I know you?”
He swayed closer. “Nah, but I know you.”
“Look, I’m going to work. I don’t want any trouble.”
“Oh, you’re in a lotta trouble, love.”
Something glinted in the faltering light; his other hand strangled the hilt of a long blade. Her pulse thundered in her ears, drowning out the crickets in the grass. The hood slid back as they sized each other up. He looked a bit older than her, maybe mid-thirties, half a foot taller and beefy—although height and weight didn’t always mean much in a fight.
After a deep, calming breath, she drew on the long hours spent in the gym facing her demons. She wasn’t the angry teenager Ned had taken under his wing all those years ago. Learning how to kickbox had given her courage. No longer a victim, but in control. Another deep breath. Her pulse slowed fractionally. She was in control.
The thug leered with a mouthful of mangled teeth. She’d seen that look before, and it meant trouble. Whether it was trouble for him or her remained to be seen.
“I’ve gotta deliver a message.” He tapped the corner of a white envelope that protruded from his pocket, sloshing beer down the side of his jeans. “She says it doesn’t matter if I mess you up a bit, s’long as you’re alive enough to read it.”
“What? Who says?” Maybe he was hallucinating from drugs. Unpredictable, but she’d been taught to deal with that. A long time ago she decided no man was going to beat her the way she’d watched her mother get beaten. She summoned an inner calm, relaxed her stance, and held his gaze. “You know, alcohol slows your reflexes. Be careful with that knife.”
A crease formed between his brows, but any doubts he had appeared to pass because he clenched the knife tighter and took a step toward her. She took a step backward and waited with feet shoulder-width apart, knees soft. The rumble of a train built in the distance.
Hood-man lunged, but his depth perception must have been distorted, because the blade was half a metre shy. He looked at it with a confused expression.
It was probably a waste of breath, but… “You could just give me the letter.”
“And leave a fine piece of tail like you alone?” He lunged again.
This time she lifted onto her toes, raised a knee, and snapped the ball of her foot into his gut. He grunted and dropped the stubby in preference of clutching his stomach. Brown glass shattered and latte-looking foam pooled on the tarmac, circulating a yeasty smell. She was relieved to see the knife had slumped downward with his shoulders.
“You’re gonna be sorry for that, bitch.”
“I doubt it,” she muttered.
She’d spent too many years living in fear as a child. Now she was in charge of her own destiny, and no man was going to dictate to her. His eyes were wider now, and the whites were yellow with red capillaries tangled like a mess of string around the irises. Definitely drugs. Dark hair flopped across his face, and he pushed it back with a twitch. His weight shifted left and he feinted right.
Mya stood her ground.
“Why don’t you give me the letter and we can call it a night?”
The sounds of crickets and a baby crying were swallowed by the rumble of the passing train. As he thrust the knife again, she pinned his wrist in her armpit, and elbowed him in the gut. He hunched over, and she snapped her arm back. Knuckles connected with his nose. Crunch.
He yowled and stumbled back, dropped the blade to better clutch his bleeding nose. Quickly, she snatched up the knife—cheap army disposals crap—and tucked it through a belt loop.
“Message delivered,” she told him as she grabbed the envelope from his pocket.
He remained bent over, nursing his nose, as she jogged along a strip of moonlit track to the footpath. The envelope felt like a hot coal in her hand. She glanced over her shoulder. No hood-man, so she slid the blade up her sleeve, cupping the hilt in her palm, and crossed the railway track.
It looked like local band Shamrock had pulled a big Saturday-night crowd. Windows vibrated in time with the thud of the bass. Party-goers leaned against the faded blue pub front, and she held her breath to pass through the haze of smoke drifting in the warm air. She stepped through the back door of the pub and … breathed. It felt safe here, almost like home. She’d worked her way from apprentice to head chef at the Croydon and was practically part of the furniture.
At the back of the store room, she stashed the knife behind a sack of rice, then wiggled a finger into the back of the envelope and split it open. Inside there was a lined page with a jagged edge, like it had been torn from a spiral-bound pad. The handwriting had a backward slant, but the note wasn’t signed.
She could just throw the letter in the bin and pretend she’d never seen it, but whoever this woman was, she had gone to the trouble of paying off a druggie to deliver it, maybe hoping Mya would get roughed up some. The guy had said “she,” and he didn’t look in any position to improvise, so the author must be a woman.
More worrying, the woman knew her by name. That took motivation, and Mya needed to know what kind of person would go to those lengths. Sure, she’d pissed off a few people over the years—especially in the boxing ring—but an enemy? She couldn’t think of anyone who hated her enough to bother.
After a fortifying breath, she read the letter.
You’re good at running and hiding, aren’t you, Mya? But I know who you are. I bet you thought I’d forgotten about you and your retarded mother. Thought you could hide from me, but I’m coming for you, bitch.
I’ll be watching … sleep well.
Something slimy slid down her throat and into her gut: familiarity. There was no way it could be who she thought it was, but the note gave her a sense of panic from a long time ago. It felt like when she was eighteen, standing in front of her government-appointed housing with a thirty-something redhead yelling at her.
The conversation had started civilly. The woman wanted to know about Jack Roach, but Mya’s father had been dead a year by then, and good riddance to him. But carrot-top wouldn’t leave her alone, insisting Jack had another family, and wanting to know things about Mya. Things she wasn’t ready to share.
Bloody Jack had been the one who tore apart everything she knew and devastated the only person she cared about, her mum. There were only tatters of her life left, but they were hers and no sham relative was going to turn up for a hand-out and stop her from taking care of her mum.
It couldn’t be possible for Rhonda to have tracked her down. Mya had changed her name and moved. It wasn’t feasible. She forced short breaths out of her tight lungs. A shudder started at the crown of her head and made its way down her spine. She glanced at the darkness beyond the hotel’s back door and then hurried to the bright kitchen. Service was in full swing and the din of the exhaust fan, crockery, and sizzling food soothed her raw nerves.
She’d left Jack behind, but the prick was still tormenting her a decade after he died.
“Hey, Mya, you look like you saw a ghost.” Jilly tucked a pen behind her ear and dropped an order pad into the pocket on the front of her apron.
“You okay?” Marion, the sous-chef, stepped away from the grill.
Even the dish pig had stopped feeding greasy plates into the commercial dishwasher to stare.
“I-I’m fine. Just had a run in with a punk on the bike track, that’s all.”
Marion nodded knowingly. “Why you insist on walking along there in the dark is beyond me. It’s not safe for a woman.”
“I’m not scared of any man,” Mya snapped a little too forcefully to be convincing.
Marion shrugged. “Well, thanks for covering for me tonight. I just put a medium-well rump on the grill and a salmon in the oven.”
“Sure. You’re still okay to work tomorrow?”
“Don’t worry, I won’t get smashed at the party. I’ll be here at ten a.m. Enjoy your day off.” Marion tossed her tea towel at Mya and circled her hand at the kitchen. “Have fun, peeps.”
“Enjoy the party,” everyone called.
With a shake to clear her head, Mya tucked the tea towel into the front pocket of her jeans, slid the white skull-cap onto her head, and familiarised herself with the dockets clipped beside the grill.
Worrying about the letter would have to wait until after service. God knew she’d lived through enough bad news to last a life time, but she wasn’t the same girl now. Whoever sent the threat would have to wait their turn and, when the time came, she’d face them head on.
Praise for Inheriting Fear:
“The chemistry between these two was off the charts.” —4 stars, Pure Jonel
Published by
Crimson Romance™
An imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020. U.S.A.
www.crimsonromance.com
Copyright © 2017 by Sandy Vaile.
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.
ISBN 10: 1-5072-0344-6
ISBN 13: 978-1-5072-0344-6
eISBN 10: 1-5072-0345-4
eISBN 13: 978-1-5072-0345-3
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover art © Andrey Armyagov/123RF; moji1980/123RF.
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