Breaking Hearts (26 page)

“She lied to you about your kid.” He chuckled. “It’s his, right?”

“That’s between me and her. Now let her go.”

He shifted his body from side to side. “How’s your aim since your little accident?”

Joey sat on the ground behind us. “I don’t know about his, but mine is great, and the chances of me missing at this distance aren’t in your favor.”

The events of the next few seconds happened one on top of another in such rapid fashion I couldn’t focus on anything other than being pulled into Simon’s arms, crushed against him as Joey fired (and missed) and McHuney took off running. Officers and agents had Wintani and Smiter in custody, and we all watched as a couple guys with guns took off after McHuney, tripping him as he almost made it to the small crossing at the creek bordering the tree line. He landed hard on his face before they pulled him up, slapped on the cuffs, and dragged him to the car.

Another agent knelt next to Joey and told him to stay still until the ambulance arrived. The blood had drained from his face, but he looked up at me and smiled. “You had me worried there for a minute. I wasn’t so sure about you.”

Simon walked over to talk with Luke, but every few seconds glanced over at me as though he was afraid I’d disappear.

Joey grinned. “I didn’t think we’d be friends anymore after I put half of California on your tail.”

I plopped down on the ground next to him. “I was rethinking it, but everything worked out.”

He folded his hands in his lap. “I would never have let them hurt you.”

I nodded. “So, just to get this straight, you knew all along I didn’t do it?”

He nodded. “Of course I did. You’re not a killer.” He cracked his neck. “So, I suppose you’re going home with your boyfriend now?” His eyes remained glued to his hands, but his voice cracked with a moderate note of hope.

“It’s up to him, but I hope so.” I spoke softly, with my own bit of optimism.

“You gonna tell him about Kieran?”

I nodded. It was time.

Simon waited for me by the truck he and Luke had arrived in.

“You saved my life.”

“You saved mine first.” He reached out, pulled me close, and buried his head in my hair. After a few deeps breaths, he cupped my face with his palm. “After…” He pointed to the scar on his head. “I thought the way my heart beat was the way it would for the rest of my life--kind of shallow and just wrong. Then you came back and my heartbeat, my everything, was right again.”

The wind picked up the scent of his aftershave and delighted my nose as it sent the powerful aroma my way. “I have so much to tell you.” My heart jackhammered a path through my chest. We stood silently staring at one another. I had no power to move, to speak, to breathe. This was my chance to come clean, to let him know the reason I had kept such a big secret. Yet, I stood mute, my pulse pounding in my ears.

“I shouldn’t have said those things to you about Kieran’s dad. It isn’t my business.” He leaned with his back against the truck and his gaze on my face. “Is it?”

My eyes drifted closed. “Yes.” For as matter-of-fact as my voice sounded my heart beat so loud I had to believe he could hear it. “I know you don’t remember the day I left here to go to Arizona, but you were in the stable.” I looked toward the woods behind him. “We had a little chat, then…” God. I didn’t want to tell him this way. Honestly, in the beginning, I didn’t know if I would ever even get the chance to say the words to him. “Do you remember any of it?”

He shook his head and frowned.

I investigated my shoes. “I asked you if you could think of any reason for me to stay here, and you didn’t answer.” I sighed. The words choked me. “I wanted to marry you, and I thought we were almost there. Then you… You broke my heart. I stuck around here for as long as I could, but seeing you hurt so bad.” So I ran away with his friend.

“Dani--”

He reached out and grabbed my hand, but I ignored him and kept going. “Anyway, one minute, I was saddling a horse and the next we were…” I took a deep breath. “We were making Kieran.”

“I know.”

“What?” I looked at him.

“My mom and Joss were at the grocery store when Bart and Kieran came in looking for ice cream.”

He hardly ever called my dad by his name.

“Joss said she knew right then. She said he looked like me when I was a kid.” With a hand on each of my shoulders, he took a few steps backward. “I waited for you to tell me. I wanted you to tell me, then, the other day, when you were going to, I panicked.” He cupped my face with his palm. “I was afraid. He’s a cool kid and you made him that way. You taught him things and made him who he is. You got him through all the mess with Sean. I don’t even know him.”

I nodded, though Simon didn’t see it as he had quit looking at me.

“I never knew my dad. I don’t know how to be a dad. What if I do it wrong?”

My big strong firefighter was afraid of a six-year-old. I pressed a kiss to his cheek. “He likes you and you’re amazing with him. I heard your little conversation the last day you were here.”

“I made him cry.”

I sighed and looked up at him. “Simon… ” I raised a hand to his cheek. It took a minute, but finally, his eyes met mine. “Kids cry. Sometimes, it’s our fault and sometimes it isn’t, but they always smile again.”

“Does he know?”

I shook my head. “No.”

He pushed me back gently and felt around in his pocket. “For years, I haven’t been very connected to my life. I always felt like I was watching everyone else live theirs, and I was lost. So much has been erased from my brain--memories you all share, or have, and I don’t.”

I stepped back into his personal space, wrapped myself around him.

He grinned and tilted his head. “Okay. We can do this your way. As I started to say, I haven’t felt connected to anyone since the shooting. Except you. I’m attached to you in a way I can’t explain, in a way that makes my sister crazy. You brought me back to life.” He had one hand in my hair and the other on my hip.

I moved in closer, instinctively seeking out the boy who’d always been my forever.

“I want to grow old with you. I want to watch our kids grow up, and I want to live with you, and wake up with you, and know no matter what happens in our lives, we’ll face it together. We’ll make new memories. I am tired of living without you. Will you marry me?” He slipped a brilliantly sparkling diamond on my finger.

I threw my arms around him as tears of real happiness flooded my eyes. “Simon, I’ve wanted to marry you since our high school prom.” I stood there holding the man of my dreams, looking at the ring over his shoulder. I couldn’t find my voice or my ability to form a thought.

His eyes got bigger. “Are you gonna answer me or not?”

I reached up to kiss him. “The only thing I’ve ever wanted was to marry you.”

He half chuckled on a cough. “Even now? After everything?”

“Especially now after everything.”

* * * *

Later on my mother’s patio as we snuggled together in a lounger, I ran a hand across his stomach and smiled as he gulped in a big breath. “How long have you known about Kieran?”

“Since about a week after you got back.”

If Joss knew, then Keaton knew and probably the rest of the group, too, along with whoever was on the call tree. “And you never said anything? No one said anything?”

He chuckled. “That was a tough one to manage. Joss wanted to come over here and make you confess all of it, but I wanted you to be able to tell me when you were ready and when I was ready.”

“You are going to make such a great husband.”

He shrugged and lifted my hand to examine the ring. “Are we really going to do this?”

“I think if Simon says so, we have to, right?”

“Simon says.”

Be sure not to miss fellow Lyrical Press author Sara Walter Ellwood’s sequel to Heartsong

Read on for a special sneak peek of the next book in the Singing to the Heart series!

Learn more about Sara Walter Ellwood at
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com/author.aspx/29486

Emily Kendall was tired of life-changing events. She’d had enough. But God or whatever fate controlled the universe wasn’t done fucking with her life. “Are you sure? Hell, it’s been weeks since I’ve even seen my husband, let alone had sex. Maybe the test was wrong.”

She’d heard many life-changing words in her twenty-two years of life. The first had come when she was only fourteen and discovered superstar country singer Seth Kendall was her biological father. A few weeks after that revelation, the man she’d grown up loving as her father had shot her real dad and planned to kidnap her to sell into sex slavery.

Since then, a lot had happened. She’d become famous. Most people would even argue she was more famous than her dad, who helped her get her first record deal when she was barely fifteen. She broke sales records set by some of the best singers in the business, won countless awards, and sponsored everything from acne creams to jeans.

When she was three months shy of turning twenty, she’d met the British pop star Fabian McPhee. They’d collaborated on a TV special for the CMT network. He was fifteen years older than she was, mega famous, and super sexy. A month later while she was on tour in Australia, he’d asked her out to a nightclub.

That night had been full of firsts. Fabian introduced her to what would become her drugs of choice--cocaine and gin. Then, she’d lost her virginity to him. She’d thought she was in love. He was like no one she’d ever known. Despite her parents’ outrage over their tabloid-crazed, whirlwind relationship, only two months after that first date they were married by Fabian’s drummer, who happened to be an ordained minister from some online course he’d taken.

The medical director of the facility sitting across the wide, gleaming oak desk leaned forward and clasped his hands. “Your blood test isn’t wrong. You are pregnant.”

“Fuck.” She was on a birth control shot, but she’d forgotten to get it. The last time she’d seen Fabian had been about six weeks ago. They’d had sex, but she thought he’d used a condom. She couldn’t remember much of the event, like most of their two years of married life together. They’d split up ten months ago, but neither of them had gotten around to filing for divorce or could resist an occasional tumble in the sack or getting high together.

Not able to sit still any longer, she stood to pace the length of the posh office and folded her arms tightly around herself. She’d only been here for three days and already wanted to get the hell out of the medical facility. “How far along am I?”

Dr. Barton slid his finger over the screen of the computer tablet on his desk. “According to the history you gave the nurse who checked you in and your hCG level…” When she furrowed her brows trying to remember what the letters stood for, he clarified, “Pregnancy hormone. You would have to be six weeks.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her skin was too tight and hot. A coating of sweat caused her fingers to stick together, and she wiped her shaky hands on her jeans. Turning toward the window, she stared out at the woodland park surrounding the Fernwood Rehabilitation Center. In the past three years, she’d checked into the facility’s drug and alcohol program to sober up three times, and each admission had been against her will. She didn’t belong here because she wasn’t an addict. So what if she went a little too far this last time and was booed off stage? The venue, if the college auditorium could justify that name, sucked anyway.

This news was the very last thing she needed to hear. She turned and vigorously rubbed her arms, really needing a hit right now. The desire for a line of coke brought to mind another issue. She remembered when her mother had been pregnant with her brother five years ago she wouldn’t even take Tylenol for her headaches. Did she honestly want to know the answer to what all the coke she’d snorted could have done to her baby if her mother had been afraid to take something as harmless as over-the-counter pain pills? But she had to know if she’d harmed her child. “Do you know if the baby is okay?”

Dr. Barton stood to come around his desk. He leaned his backside on the heavy oak edge and folded his hands before him. “I don’t know. Emily, there is a chance your baby will be born with problems. You are an addict.” He held up his hand when she started to protest. “No, I’m not listening to your rationalizations. You’ve got to stop the drugs.”

“I can quit. I have before.”

He took a deep breath that made his shoulders rise, then fall. “And yet here you are again. Why were you admitted this time?”

She needed to get the hell away. “My manager has gotten a little too big for her pants.” Maybe she should fire Trish Russell for talking her into even thinking about this place again. Trish had been her manager for three years, ever since she was promoted by her father-in-law and took Emily on as one of her first clients. She considered Trish one of her few true friends, but, sometimes, the older woman was a pain in the ass.

She spun on her heels, which made her lose her balance as dizziness whipped her world out of control. Grabbing the back of the chair to keep from falling over, she tossed over her shoulder, “I think we’re done here.”

“Emily, I’ll let you go as soon as you tell me why you are here.”

She stopped halfway to the door. If she didn’t answer him, he’d only follow her. Letting out a long breath, she stared at the white-painted ceiling. “I’m here because I was too high to sing.”

The past five shows were a blur. Nothing fun or amazing about any of them. No fans waiting for her to autograph their T-shirts. But then again, when was the last time she took time to talk to her fans after a show? When was the last time she did anything special for her fans? Once upon a time, she’d put on massive productions in front of stadiums full to bursting with screaming, adoring fans.

Her last tour hadn’t even sold out to rundown opera houses and college auditoriums. In the early days, she’d arrange spontaneous private showings for more fans than had showed up for her current tour. She’d simply leave a date, time, and place on Twitter and a hundred or so of her fans would show up for a show. When had she last sent one of her own Tweets? She knew Kelly, her assistant, did all of her social media crap for her these days.