Killer Love (33 page)

“Forget it.” He shifted around and started the motor, slamming the gearshift into drive. “Where to?”

“Uhm...” She couldn’t think straight. Heart shrinking in misery, she realized she was getting what she wanted. He’d given up. If it was what she wanted, why did she feel this agonizing pain ripping through her heart?

“I’ll take you to the Colorado Inn,” he said without looking at her. “That way, you won’t have to be in the same hotel with me, let alone the same room.”

She nodded but he didn’t see. His eyes were fixed on the road ahead.

He didn’t speak until they pulled in front of the hotel. “I’m sure you won’t have a problem getting a room but if you do, call me. I’ll have someone pick you up and take you to another hotel.”

“Okay.” She reached for the door handle. “Thank you for everything, Luke. I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “No need to be sorry. Shit happens. But, if you ever decide to stop punishing me for your father’s mistakes, give me a call. Maybe it won’t be too late for us.”

On legs weighted down by gloom, Jade stepped out of the car and trudged through the snow to the hotel door. She heard Luke leave but didn’t turn around. When her hand touched the door, a sense of emptiness, urgent and severe, rocked her, shuddering through her with the speed of a freight train.

“Luke.” Her voice was panicky, desperate. She whirled and saw his taillights as he prepared to pull onto the road. A sense of doom washed over her. She was certain that if she didn’t stop him now, it would be too late. May already be too late.

If it is, I’ll live with this pain forever.

“Luke!” Jade screamed his name as she ran, sliding on the ice. She stumbled and went to her knees in the snow. She looked up just as his car pulled onto the street.

She knelt on the ground, tears sliding down her frozen cheeks.

You’re a fool. A stubborn, frightened fool...

Over the thumping of her heart, she heard the slam of a car door and raised her head to find Luke coming toward her.

A grin tugged at his mouth as he gripped her shoulders and pulled her into his arms. “You know, you could have just called.”

Joy seared her...warming her veins as giddy relief swept through her soul. “I was afraid if I let you go, it would be too late.” Her breath caught on a sob. “That I’d lose you forever.”

“No, baby. I was only bluffing.” He pulled her closer and brushed a strand of hair from her face. “It could never be too late.”

She clung to him, barely aware of the freezing wind whipping around her. She tilted her head back and looked into his eyes. “You know how you said I was more afraid of loving you than I was of Bryce?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s not true. I’m more afraid of losing you than anything.”

His arms tightened around her. He leaned his forehead against hers, his eyes closed. “You’ll never lose me,” he whispered, his words almost lost in the screech of the wind. “I’ll fight this thing at home, come back to you as soon as I can.”

She put her hands on his face and lifted his head, staring up at him. “I want to go with you. I’ll stay until we see this thing through, together.”

His eyes shone, radiating happiness in their whiskey depths. He smiled. “You have to promise me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

He winced and glanced down at his shoulder. “You won’t shoot me again.”

She laughed. “Only if you can promise you won’t make me angry again.”

“Ah, I can see that life with you will be a bit of an adventure.”

“Not really,” she said softly. “I think I’ve had enough adventure to last me a lifetime.”

He bent his head and touched his lips to hers. “You know,” he murmured against her mouth. “We can continue this conversation somewhere a little less arctic.”

She gave a short laugh that was quickly squelched by the heat of his mouth. Sighing, she relaxed against him, linking her hands behind his neck as she returned the kiss.

She no longer felt the cold. In its place was a thrilling warmth that pounded through her heart, filling it with love until there was no more room for the darkness...no more room for the fear.

Truly Madly

by

Alicia Dean

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Truly Madly

COPYRIGHT © 2008 by Alicia Dean

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contact Information: [email protected]

Cover Art by
Nicola Martinez

The Wild Rose Press

PO Box 706

Adams Basin, NY 14410-0706

Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

Publishing History

First Crimson Rose Edition, 2008

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

To Ruth and Sheri,

my wonderful sisters who have always stood by me.

And to J, for her tireless dedication to

making my stories better.

Chapter One

“I heard that after Daniel Connelly killed his wife, he wrote her name in blood on the wall. Then, he shot himself.”

“The way I heard it, he wrote the name of her
lover
in her blood.”

The voices came from the next aisle over, but they were increasing in volume, getting closer. I froze, my face burning with mortification and rage. They were talking about me, or rather, about my parents.

I recognized Deanna Summers’ voice, but I couldn’t identify her companion. I closed my eyes, willing their hateful voices away. When I opened them, the cashier at Truelove’s Grocery, Brandon, was looking at me, his kind, brown eyes sympathetic.

Although it made me feel mean and small, I hated the pity almost as much as the gossip.

“You know,” Deanna continued, “Carmen, Isabelle’s sister, is locked up in some crazy hospital out in California.”

The two women rounded the aisle then faltered when they saw me standing at the counter. I recognized the woman Deanna was with as Mindy Crawford, the librarian. Mindy had the decency to look ashamed; Deanna only gave me a self-satisfied smile.

“Brandon,” Deanna said as she and her items crowded in next to where I stood waiting for Brandon to finish bagging my purchases, “I’ll take an apple pie, too.”

“Ah, I’m sorry, Deanna. I just sold the last one to Isabelle.” He turned to the bakery case behind him and retrieved a pie. He slipped it into a bag and added it to my purchases. I hadn’t bought the pie. It was Brandon’s sweet little dose of revenge. All the sweeter since Deanna was his sister.

Brandon was twenty-two, six years younger than my twenty eight, and he had a huge crush on me. I don’t think it was so much my looks—which I thought were, at best, average—as it was the ‘town bad girl’ thing I had going.

Not that I’m
un
attractive. To use one of my father’s expressions, I wasn’t so ugly I had to sneak up on a water fountain to take a drink, but I’m far from beautiful.

People said I looked like my mother, but the features I shared with her were somehow muted on me, plainer. Where my mother’s jet black hair had been long and glossy, I was a brunette with shoulder-length hair that sometimes seemed to have a mind of its own. My unruly mane almost always made me appear as if I’d just crawled out of bed, no matter how much I tried to tame it. Where my mother’s eyes were a dynamic, electrifying, sapphire, mine were simply blue. Her skin had been flawless, her full lips always smiling, her makeup seemingly applied with an artist’s brush. Although I made my living creating art, I was doing well if I managed to slap on eyeliner and lip gloss.

The appeal I held for Brandon might have more to do with the fact that I was something of a pariah in the small town of Jessup, Missouri, where I’d grown up, escaped from seven years ago, then returned to almost a year ago.

Just as Deanna and Mindy were doing now, people in town seemed to shrink from me, as if whatever had made my relatives lunatics might be contagious.

Although the two women thought they knew a great deal about my family, they had some of their facts wrong. My father did not write my mother’s name, or her lover’s, in blood. He simply shot her, wrote a note, and shot himself. My sister, Carmen, was not in a mental hospital. She was living in sunny California, and frequently visited a luxury spa in Palm Springs.

I had also been living in California until the murder/suicide, at which time I’d returned to Jessup. I intended to stay only long enough to settle my parents’ estate and tie up loose ends, but here it was nearly a year later, and I was still here. I’d given up a successful design business to stay in Jessup and take abuse from the townspeople.

Maybe what they said about my family being insane was true, because only a crazy person would have stayed here this long.

Eyes down, anxious to flee from Deanna’s not-so-subtle hostility, I grabbed the plastic bags from the counter and headed out of the store. I walked briskly toward my Jeep Cherokee, but before I made it, I collided with something large and solid, almost dropping the pie Brandon had given me.

“Oh, God, Isabelle, I’m sorry.” Sheriff Rick ‘Hutch’ Hutchings grabbed my upper arms to steady me, and I looked up and found myself staring into his eyes. Concern had darkened their silver hue to gunmetal grey. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. It was my fault. I wasn’t paying attention.”

He studied me a moment then dropped his hands. He indicated his cruiser, which was parked near my jeep. “Damn thing won’t start. You’d think a county vehicle could get better maintenance than this, but I’ve had it in the shop twice this month.”

I nodded, not sure what kind of response that required. Hutch was wearing his uniform, including the hat that concealed most of his dark hair. He had a smudge of grease on one sleeve, and a bit on his cheek.

He took a rag from his back pocket and wiped at the grease on his hands, not very successfully. “Did I get any on you?” he asked, studying my torso for the effects of our collision.

“No, don’t think so. No big deal.”

“Good.” He smiled. “I haven’t seen you around much lately. How have you been?”

I shifted uneasily, adjusting the grocery bags in my arms. Every time I saw him, which fortunately wasn’t often, I thought about our past, about how things had been between us when we were both much too young to know anything about life, or love.

I looked away, afraid he could read the emotion in my eyes. “I’m fine.”

“Here, let me get those bags for you.”

I stepped back and shook my head. “No, I’ve got them. Thanks, though. See you around.”

I carried my bags to the jeep, threw them inside, and drove out of the parking lot, tempted to take the highway that led out of Jessup to freedom. Freedom from the gossip, freedom from the lingering attraction I felt for Hutch, and freedom from the strange hold this town had on me.

****

It was almost dusk by the time I finished my errands and headed home. As I drove, I squinted through my windshield at the overcast sky. Ominous black clouds seemed ready, at any moment, to spew a torrent of water on the land. I felt a kinship with them. My mood was also black, and I was ready to do some spewing of my own.

Even though I empathized with the clouds, I hoped they’d hold off until after I arrived home. The road that led uphill to my property could be tricky under normal conditions. It was positively treacherous in a heavy rain.

If my mood had been rotten before, when I pulled into my drive, it became as rancid as an open, festering wound.

An older model, baby-blue, Ford pickup sat in my driveway.

Patrick
. Damn.

Patrick was my uncle, my father’s brother, but he and I were not on the best of terms. I’d never been close to him. He and my father had been estranged because of an argument over their inheritance. My father had invested his share and done quite well. Patrick spent his on booze and women.

I climbed out of the jeep and waited. The truck’s door gave a creaking protest as Patrick shoved it open. I could smell the rain in the air, and I took a deep, soothing lungful of it, bracing myself for the battle ahead.

Patrick staggered toward me and when he was within six feet or so, the smell of sour booze eradicated the sweet smell of the rain.

Patrick had once been good-looking, a ladies’ man, but years of hard living and heavy drinking had changed that. His longish, dark brown hair was scraggly, and although he was only thirty-eight, it was mostly gray. His blue eyes were rheumy and yellowed. Purplish veins spidered over his always red nose.

He pointed a finger at me, but missed his aim and directed it somewhere to the left of me. “You owe me some money, missy. You’re nothin’ but a damn thief.” He ran the words together, canting slightly to the side as he spoke.

Since my parents died, Patrick had been regularly dunning me for ‘his fair share’ of the money my parents had left me and my sister. I refused to give him a dime. Partly because he wasn’t entitled to it, partly because I didn’t particularly like him, and partly because it would never be enough. Whatever I gave him, he’d drink up, and then he’d be back for more.

“I can’t deal with this today, Patrick.” I started around him, but he lurched into my path. I drew back, not wanting to get any closer to him than I was already.

“You’re
gonna
deal with it. I want what’s rightly mine.”

I shook my head. “You need to get help.”

“Get help?” He tried for a sneer, but all he managed was a drunken, clownish grimace. “Did you tell your loony-toons daddy to
get help
before he offed your mama?”