PRAISE FOR SHARON SALA

“Perfect entertainment for those looking for a

suspense novel with emotional intensity.”

—Publishers Weekly on Out of the Dark

“Sharon Sala is not only a top romance novelist,

she is an inspiration for people everywhere who wish

to live their dreams. Her work has a higher purpose

and she takes readers with her on an incredible

journey of overcoming adversity and increased

self-awareness in every book.”

—John St. Augustine, Host, Power! Talk Radio

“Chilling and relentless …”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on The Chosen

PRAISE FOR COLLEEN THOMPSON

“Thompson takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride

full of surprising twists and turns … She more than

holds her own in territory blazed by Tami Hoag

and Tess Gerritsen.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Fast-paced, chilling, and sexy …”

—Library Journal on Fatal Error

About the Authors

New York Times and USA Today best-selling author SHARON SALA has written more than eighty books that regularly hit the best-seller lists. She’s a seven-time Romance Writers of America RITA® finalist, five-time winner of the National Reader’s Choice Award, five-time winner of the Colorado Romance Writer’s Award of Excellence, and has also won many other industry awards too numerous to mention. During that time, she has captured the hearts of countless readers.

She was born and raised in rural Oklahoma and still calls the state her home. Being with her family is her ultimate joy, and she finds great satisfaction in creating her stories, then sharing them with people worldwide who love to read.

COLLEEN THOMPSON lives in the Houston area with her husband, son, and the latest representatives in a string of rescue dogs that keep life interesting. Her books have been honoured with nominations for the RITA®, Daphne du Maurier, Romantic Times Reviewers Choice, and Dorothy Parker Award of Excellence, along with the Texas Gold Award and Romantic Times Top Picks.

A former teacher, Colleen enjoys hiking and observing wildlife, along with researching, writing, reading, and discussing her favorite obsession—books!—at every opportunity. She’ll happily discuss them with you, too, if you’ll contact her through her website at www.colleenthompson.com, where you can also learn about her past, present, and future releases.

Deadlier Than
The Male

SHARON SALA

&

COLLEEN THOMPSON

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Fiercest
Heart

Sharon Sala

I am dedicating this story to all the lucky ones

who never had to kiss a frog to find their prince.

There’s an old song that begins with the words,

“You were my first love … and you’ll be my last love.”

Every time I hear that song, I can’t help but have a

moment of regret for what passed me by.

First love is the sweetest, and the most intense.

When someone is fortunate enough to have it also

be their last love, they are truly blessed.

“When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,

They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.

‘Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale,

For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.”

—Rudyard Kipling, The Female of the Species

Chapter 1

Stars Crossing, Kentucky Ten years ago

Eighteen-year-old Haley Shore was teetering on a maturity milestone. Tonight she was graduating high school. Excitement abounded as her father drove into the high school parking lot. She kept moving from one side of the backseat to the other, scanning the scene to see what her classmates were wearing and how they’d done their hair.

Haley had left her dark hair loose, letting the length brush the shoulders of her sleeveless jade-green dress, and chosen instead to focus on her makeup. A little eye shadow to highlight her green, almond-shaped eyes, a cherry-red gloss on her lips and she was good to go.

Her mother had spent the better part of Haley’s life criticizing everything about her, especially her height and her mouth. She was five-ten in her bare feet, with sensuously full lips that had been the bane of Haley’s existence until Angelina Jolie had burst onto the fame scene. At that point, Haley’s attitude had shifted. Suddenly the face God gave her had become an asset, not a hindrance. While her mother continued to point out her flaws, Haley had grown old enough to realize Lena Shore was never going to approve of anything about her.

As her dad pulled in to a parking space, she leaned forward from the backseat of the car and tapped her mother on the shoulder.

“Mom. You brought the camera, right? Daddy … you have to get a picture of me with Retta after graduation.”

Lena Shore frowned at the question as she stared around the high school parking lot, checking to see if Mack Brolin’s red sports car was anywhere in sight. Even though she didn’t see it, she knew it didn’t mean he wasn’t there. She wasn’t stupid. The fact that she had refused to let her daughter date a Brolin didn’t mean it wasn’t happening.

“No. I didn’t bring the camera,” Lena said.

Haley’s heart dropped. “Mom! It’s my graduation! How could you forget something that important!”

“I just did,” Lena snapped. “Get over it. There will be plenty of people taking pictures. Ask for a copy.”

“You shot four rolls of film the night Stewart graduated,” Haley muttered.

Lena’s face flushed. There was no arguing with the truth, but she wasn’t going to discuss the fact that her older child—and only son—was her favorite. Getting pregnant with Haley had been an accident, and she never let Haley forget it.

Ever the referee within his family, Judd Shore pulled into a parking space. “I’ll go down to Kennedy’s and get one of those disposable ones,” he said.

But Haley’s joy was gone. “Don’t bother,” she said. “Mom’s right. There will be plenty of people taking pictures because they’re excited, and proud of their kids who are graduating, even if you guys aren’t.”

Haley flew out of the backseat before her father could respond and stomped off toward the gym with her red mortarboard in her hand and the red gown over her arm.

Judd looked at his wife. In all their years of marriage, he’d never understood her. She made no attempt to hide her favoritism.

“You could at least have pretended you were sorry you forgot the damn camera,” he said.

But Lena was too locked into her own thoughts to care what Judd Shore thought. She’d just seen Tom and Chloe Brolin pulling up a few cars over. The rage that she’d lived with for the past twenty years surged upward, flushing her face to a dark, angry red.

“What the hell are they doing here?” she muttered.

“Chloe’s niece, Betty, is in Haley’s class, remember?”

Lena’s frown turned into an ugly grimace, but she didn’t comment. Instead, she got out of the car, grabbed Judd’s arm and walked into the gym with her head high and her eyes straight ahead.

Inside, Haley’s hurt was already fading as she gathered with her classmates in the lobby of the gym, waiting for the signal that would indicate the processional was about to begin. Within the hour, she would be officially graduated, ready to go off to college in the fall.

She was ready to get out of her house on so many levels, she didn’t know where to start. All she knew was that living on her own, however lonely, would be far better than living another year at home with Judd and Lena Shore.

Excited, she kept peeking through the doorway of the lobby, watching families filing into the gym, then climbing up the bleachers, trying to grab seats as close as possible to the makeshift stage the graduates would cross to receive their diplomas.

The second best part of Haley’s night was that Mack would be here. Even though he was finishing up his second year of college, he was still living at home and wouldn’t miss her graduation.

She scanned the crowd, wondering where her parents were going to sit. It was for damn sure it wouldn’t be close to the front. Her mother made no bones about the fact that Haley’s exodus to college was nothing to be sad about.

The only thing Haley had ever done that wound up on her mother’s radar was fall for Mack Brolin. To say the Shores and Brolins did not get along was an understatement, even though no one ever talked about why. The few times Haley had asked, she’d gotten slapped for her trouble, and that had been that. Lena Shore might control her household and her husband, and even her son, but she could not control her only daughter. Haley was having none of it. Her mother and father’s personal issues had nothing to do with her. She loved Mack, and he loved her.

The end. And after tonight … maybe a new beginning, as well.

Haley had always made sure there were plenty of opportunities for them to be together without her parents noticing. From the time she’d been old enough to date, Mack Brolin had been the first in line. And he hadn’t needed to ask twice.

After tonight, everything about their relationship was going to change. They’d talked about it at length, and while Haley still felt unhappy about their decision, she knew it was for the best.

With two years at the local college behind him, Mack’s plans were in motion. After having led the small college football team to nationals twice—the second time to a championship—he’d caught the eye of several big-time college scouts. A couple of weeks ago he had received an offer from UCLA for a full-ride football scholarship for his last two years of college, and he’d accepted.

Haley’s first thought on hearing the news had been, I will die if he leaves. But that wasn’t what she told him. She pretended excitement, knowing he couldn’t and shouldn’t turn it down. It meant everything to his family, not having to come up with the money to put him through the last two years of college, and now his future as a professional football player was looking brighter every day.

Haley knew her family would never agree to let her attend the same college, and so, for the next two years, their lives were going to take them farther apart than they’d ever been before.

She also knew that if it was meant to be, Mack would still love her no matter how much time passed. She might appear to be a fragile female, but she had a fierce heart. She wasn’t afraid to fight for who she loved and what she wanted out of life—even if her strongest opponent was her own mother.

A few minutes later the band director stood, tapped the podium in front of him and then lifted his baton. On cue, the band started playing, and the fifty-seven graduating seniors of Boone High School began to march onto the gym floor to take their seats.

Haley took a deep breath, put a smile on her face, lifted her chin and moved into step—in alphabetical order, just as she had for the past thirteen years—right behind Charley Samuels. The moment she entered the gym, she started searching the crowd, but she was no longer looking for her family. She was looking for Mack.

Mack Brolin had driven into the school parking lot within seconds of the Shores. He watched Haley get out first, and he could tell by the way she was walking that she must have had another fight with her mom. It was hard for him to understand how a mother could be so cold toward her child, when his own mother was such a warm and loving person.

Still, he waited until Haley’s family got out of their car and started toward the gymnasium before making his move. The parking lot was awash in families and graduating seniors in their red caps and gowns. He remembered vividly only two years earlier being where they were tonight—excited and at the same time a little anxious, knowing his whole life was ahead of him. He’d had so many dreams and aspirations, but everything he wanted included Haley Shore.

He couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t loved her, but they’d made it official the night of her sixteenth birthday by making love in the backseat of his car.

He still considered it the highlight of his life. Despite every nightmare he’d ever heard about virgins and first times for girls being painful, Haley’s experience had apparently been just the opposite. If she had suffered, she’d never said a word.

What she had done was laugh when it was over and ask to do it again. That was the moment that had sealed it for him. How could a guy go wrong with a girl that amazing? Everything he’d done since revolved around how to make their lives better.

Now, here he was, two years of college behind him and within weeks leaving for a bigger college on the other side of the country. Living in California would put him in virtual isolation from Haley for two long years. All this time he’d been waiting for her to grow up and catch up, and now they were about to be divided by time and space. It was hard to be elated about his college prospects without her at his side.

Oddly enough, it had been Haley who’d urged him to go. The joy in her voice had been evident the day they’d picnicked at Willow Lake. As he waited for the coast to clear so he could sneak into the gym, he thought of it again, as he had every day since it happened.

Willow Lake, just outside Stars Crossing, was a hot spot in the summer. But Mack and Haley had their special place that no one knew about: a tiny inlet between two heavily wooded areas that no one ever went to. And so he’d taken her there by boat, wanting everything to be perfect when he gave her the news about his scholarship….

“Today is gorgeous,” Haley said, as Mack ran the boat aground and then helped her out.

“Just like you,” Mack said, eyeing her long tan legs and slender body beneath the jean shorts and T-shirt she was wearing.

Haley grinned. “Are you angling for something besides a fish?”

Mack chuckled. He loved her sense of humor almost as much as he loved her.

“I wouldn’t angle. I’d just come right out and say it, and you know it.”

“Okay, okay. I was just teasing, anyway,” Haley said. “Bring the food. I’ve got the blanket. I’m starving. Are you?”

“Always,” he said softly, watching the sway of her hips as she walked ahead of him.

A few moments later they had the blanket spread out in “their spot”—a large open space beneath the overhanging limbs of a giant weeping willow. Haley sat cross-legged on the blanket, poking through the picnic basket as Mack dug through the small ice chest for cold drinks to go with their food.

Soon they were eating their way through subs and chips, and washing it all down with cold lemonade, but it didn’t take long for her to realize he had something on his mind. And Haley, being Haley, didn’t mince words.

“What’s up, and don’t say ‘nothing,’ because I know better than that.”

Mack sighed, then wiped his hands on his jeans and put his leftover stuff backinto the picnic basket. She knew him well enough to know that if he wasn’t eating, it couldn’t be good. She dumped her own leftovers back in the basket, as well, and then leaned forward.

“Talk to me,” she said.

Mack took a deep breath, then almost smiled. “Part of it is good news. I’ve accepted an offer to play quarterback at UCLA for my last two years of college. It’s a full-ride scholarship, so Mom and Dad are off the hook. I couldn’t turn it down.”

She surprised him then, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him with all her might.

“Oh, Mack! That’s fantastic! Why were you nervous to tell me?”

“Because it means two years away from you,” he said.

“It’ll be okay, Mack. You’ll graduate from UCLA, probably get drafted into the NFL, which is something you’ve always wanted. And two years down the road, if you still want me, I’ll be here.”

“Want you? Are you crazy?” Mack muttered.

That was when he’d laid her down in the grass and, in the bright light of day, stripped them both naked and slid between her legs.

Mack paused only once to look down at the girl beneath him—at the spill of her long dark hair, her Angelina Jolie lips and the green fire in her eyes—and then he started moving.

Haley sighed as he filled her. She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him deeper without taking her gaze from his face. He knew she liked to watch his changing expressions as they made love, though what she saw in his square face, straight nose and wide-set blue eyes, he didn’t know. Once, she had called him beautiful. His pleasure had been an instant turn-on for them both—just like the passion he could see on her face now.

The sun was warm on their bodies, even though they were shaded by the sweep of willow branches brushing the ground. Birds were chirping in nearby trees, as if spreading the word of their union. A turtle slid off a rock and into the water only yards away, but neither one of them heard or cared. Right now, it was all about the moment and the feeling, the rhythm of making love.

Moments turned into a minute, and then another, and another, when all of a sudden he sensed Haley’s focus begin to shift and he knew she was about to lose control. That was all it took.

Suddenly he stiffened, then groaned.

Haley gasped, then closed her eyes as his thrusts became harder and faster, and arched upward to meet him as a gut-deep moan slipped out from between her lips.

It was all Mack had been waiting for. With one last heroic thrust, he came … showering his seed into her womb in a powerful and continuous burst, then collapsing on top of her, a sweating, quivering mass of muscle. He couldn’t have moved at that moment if he’d tried.

“Haley, Haley … I love you, so much. So much. How am I going to live without this … without you … for the next two years?” Then he began to rain kisses all over her face.

It was then he heard the catch in her breath and knew she was crying.

“Haley, baby … please don’t cry,” he whispered.

Haley laughed, though he thought it didn’t sound entirely convincing.

“I’m not crying,” she said. “I’m just trying to breathe.”

“Oh. Sorry,” he said, and rolled so that his weight was no longer on top of her.

Haley hid her face against his chest and—

Suddenly a horn honked. Mack jumped, his daydreaming brought to an abrupt end. When he realized the Shores were no longer in sight, he got out of his car and started inside. Within seconds, people were stopping him and congratulating him on his news.

“Hey, hey, hey … look who’s here! It’s Mack! Heard your news, son. We’re wishing you all the best in L.A. Don’t let all those pretty movie starlets turn your head now, you hear?”

Mack grinned. Milt and Patty House owned the local newspaper, and Mack’s first job had been delivering papers for them.

“I’ll sure try,” Mack said, nodded to Mrs. House and kept on walking.

All the way into the gym, it was more of the same. Everyone wanted to congratulate the hometown boy who was making good, and he kept smiling and walking until he got inside, then paused long enough to locate where the Shore family was seated. He circled the end of the bleachers, then took a seat above them. That way, when Haley spotted him, and looked up and waved, her parents would think she was waving at them.

He didn’t like the deception, but like Haley, he had lived his whole life under the cloud of their parents’ feud. And he wasn’t giving her up for anyone. The next two years were going to be hell; he was scared to death that once she got to college, she would find someone new and that would be that. She’d voiced the fear that he might do the same, and he’d laughed. He didn’t have the words to explain how crazy that concept was to him. All he knew how to do was love her.

Stewart Shore hid in the shadows and watched. He wasn’t quite six feet tall and blond, while Mack was tall and dark. He hated Mack Brolin—partly because he’d been raised that way, and partly because Mack was everything he wished he could be, including a hotshot athlete.

Stewart had been a good athlete, but not outstanding. He’d been a good student, but not valedictorian, like Mack. This fall, when he went back to college, he would be going back to the one in Bowling Green, not off to the other side of the country. And the fact that his own sister chose to defy their parents’ wishes by sneaking around with Mack only added to his indignation. He’d heard the gossip. He knew Haley was planning to meet Mack after the ceremony tonight. If his parents knew about it, they would have a fit.

Haley entered the gym as if she were walking on air. She saw her mother’s face only seconds after she saw Mack and realized he’d chosen to sit in direct alignment with them so she could wave, which she did. Amazingly, her mother actually smiled and waved back.

And then the seniors were seated and the ceremony began. Haley thought it was somehow very anticlimactic. Thirteen years had just been condensed to a prayer, a song and two five-minute speeches. When they began calling out names, she felt as if the room had become a vacuum. Sound faded, until everything was a faint echo and the loudest things she could hear as she walked across the stage to get her diploma were the whisper of her own breath and the thunder of her heartbeat in her ears.

Then it was over, and flashbulbs were going off everywhere. Just in case, she kept a permanent smile on her face. Suddenly the air was full of red caps and tassels, and she was jumping up and down and laughing. Charley Samuels grabbed her around the waist and hugged her hard.

“We did it, Haley. We did it!” he cried, and then danced off through the crowd, laughing all the way.

Haley’s glance went straight to the bleachers. Her mom and dad were already standing and looking for a way to get out. She wouldn’t let herself care that everyone else was meeting up with their parents for pictures. She didn’t need a picture to remind her of how little they cared. That was already branded into her soul.

As for her, she was off to Retta’s house. Retta’s parents were throwing a graduation party, and Haley had a twelve-o’clock curfew. She intended to say hi to everyone, then ditch the party and spend every spare moment she had tonight with Mack.

They were on their way out to the bluff. It was where everyone went to make out, and Haley wanted Mack’s arms around her so bad that she ached. He drove with the windows down and the radio blasting. Her hair was whipping around her face and eyes like crazy, which for some reason made everything funny.

She was laughing at something Mack said when they suddenly realized there was a car coming up behind them, and coming fast.

“What the hell?” Mack muttered, as he glanced up into the rearview mirror.

Haley frowned as she turned to look. Even though she couldn’t see anything but headlights, all of a sudden she knew.

“That’s Stewart!” she cried, and grabbed Mack’s arm. “I swear to God, that’s Stewart.”

“Damn,” Mack said. “Couldn’t we have this one last night without drama?”

“Maybe he’ll go around,” Haley said.

No sooner had the words come out of her mouth than Stewart began flicking his lights from dim to bright and back again, signaling for them to pull over.

Haley grabbed her cell phone and dialed Stewart’s phone. He answered on the second ring.

“What the hell are you doing?” she screamed. “You’re going to cause a wreck!”

“Tell that bastard to stop the car. Mom sent me after you, and I’m not going home without you.”

“I’m not going home with you, and I don’t care what Mom wants,” Haley said, and hung up.

Mack frowned. “If you want to go home, I’ll take you.”

Before she could answer, Stewart rammed Mack’s bumper.

“Son of a bitch!” Mack yelled, and fought to keep the car on the road. “He’s crazy. He’s going to get us all killed.”

Mack started to slow down when Stewart hit them again.

Haley felt their car starting to skid, and then suddenly Stewart broadsided them. The shocked look on his face told her that he hadn’t meant to do it, but when their car suddenly went sideways, he couldn’t stop.

The sound was like an explosion, and then they were rolling and rolling and everything went black.

It was the hissing sound and the smell of burning rubber that woke Haley. Her head was hurting. She was upside-down, and couldn’t remember where she was or how she’d gotten there. Then she heard a groan, turned her head to the left and saw Mack. Blood was dripping from his head and his arm and his leg, and she remembered.

Stewart! He’d hit them.

“Mack. Mack. You’ve got to wake up!” she cried, then realized his leg was pinned beneath the steering wheel and a mass of crumpled metal.

“Mack!” she screamed again, but he still didn’t answer.

Her hands were shaking as she reached for the seat belt, and as she released herself, she dropped down with a thump, hitting her head and shoulder against the roof. After maneuvering herself around inside the confines of the crumpled car, she tried to release Mack’s seat belt, but it wouldn’t budge. He wasn’t moving, and he wasn’t answering her, and she was starting to panic. His leg was still caught, and the hiss of steam and smoke was getting worse.

The phone. She needed to find her phone to call for help. She’d dropped it back into her purse. But where was her purse?

“God, oh, God, oh, God, help me,” Haley whispered, but it was nowhere in sight. It was then that she thought of her brother again. He’d hit them! He’d caused the wreck. Surely he wouldn’t have driven away and left them. He would help.

She crawled out through a broken window and then dragged herself up to a standing position. Within seconds everything started spinning, and she dropped back to her knees, then rocked back on her heels and started screaming.

“Help! Help! Somebody help!”

But the night was silent and the road was dark, and there was no one coming to the rescue. Once more she pulled herself upright, and this time she steadied herself against a wheel until the world stopped spinning. When she finally walked out from behind the wreck, the first thing she saw was Stewart’s car, smashed headfirst into a tree on the other side of the road.

“No, God, no,” she moaned, and started running, stumbling, trying to get to her brother.

The windows of his car were all broken, and the passenger’s side door had popped open. Haley crawled into the front seat and then fell onto her knees beside her brother. Blood was bubbling from the corner of his mouth, and coming out of his nose and ears.

“Stewart? Stewart! Can you hear me? Why in God’s name did you do this?” she asked.

But like Mack, Stewart wasn’t talking. In a panic, she backed out of the car, and as she did, she felt something beneath the palm of her hand.

Stewart’s cell!

“Thank God,” she said, and hit 9-1-1.

“Stars Crossing Police Department. How may I help you?”

“God … oh, God … I need help. We had a wreck. My brother and my boyfriend crashed their cars. They’re hurt bad.”

Suddenly the dispatcher was all business.

“Who is this?” she asked.

“Haley Shore. My brother, Stewart, and my boyfriend, Mack Brolin … they’re both trapped in their cars. I can’t get them out, and they’re both bleeding. We’re about two miles west of town on North Hollow Road.”

“Stay on the line with me, Haley,” the dispatcher said. “I’m going to send ambulances and the police. Don’t hang up while I do that, okay?”

“Okay,” Haley said, and then started to cry as she ran back across the road to Mack.

A few seconds later, the dispatcher was back on the line.

“Are you hurt, Haley?”

“I don’t know…. I don’t think so. I got out of the car on my own, and I’m walking.”

“I want you to sit down,” the dispatcher said. “You could have internal injuries. Just sit still and stay on the line with me. Help is on the way.”

Haley sank to the ground right beside Mack’s door, reached in the window and wrapped her hand around his wrist, then drew her knees up and lowered her head to keep from passing out.

“I’m here, Mack, I’m here,” she mumbled. “Stay with me. Help is coming.”

She was starting to crash from the adrenaline surge that had gotten her out of the wreck and across the road, and she could feel herself coming undone. Her voice began to shake, and when she started to talk, it came out in sobs.

“Haley … talk to me,” the dispatcher said.

“You need to call my mom and dad,” Haley said. “And Tom and Chloe Brolin. You need to tell them Mack and Stewart are hurt.”

“We will, honey. Just sit tight. You’ll hear the sirens any minute now. Can you hear them yet?”

In the distance, Haley could just make out the thin, high-pitched wail.

“Yes. I can hear them,” she said.

“You’re doing fine, Haley. You’re doing fine. Help is on the way.”

Chapter 2

When word of the wreck began spreading through Stars Crossing, it abruptly brought post-graduation parties to an end. The emergency room quickly became packed with Haley’s classmates, who had come to be with her.

Judd and Lena Shore arrived within minutes of Tom and Chloe Brolin and their daughters, and the two couples sat on opposite sides of the waiting room, glaring at one another in stoic silence. Neither couple had spoken to Haley or bothered to ask after her welfare. The fact that she was mobile and alert was enough for them, even her own parents. They didn’t seem to care that she was pale and shaking and covered in blood, or that she had three stitches in her hairline, bruises rising on the side of her face and kept breaking into sobs every time another friend called her name.

Her best friend, Retta, a short, perky blonde, was sitting with her, running interference every time someone asked too many questions for which Haley had no answers.

An outpouring of blood donations had come in from friends and families alike, but the boys’ conditions were as yet unknown.

It wasn’t until Jack Bullard, the chief of police, arrived to speak to Haley that Judd and Lena got up from where they were sitting and moved toward her.

“Hey, Haley … how you doin’, honey?” Chief Bullard asked.

She shrugged, her chin quivering too much to answer.

“I know this is a rough time for you, but do you think you can talk to me for a bit?”

She nodded

Bullard smiled, and then sat down in the seat beside her.

“I need to ask you some questions about the accident.”

“Okay,” Haley said, and swiped her hands across her face, wiping away tears and smoothing back the tangles of her hair.

Bullard waited until she seemed to settle, then said, “I need you to tell me, in your own words, what happened.”

Suddenly Lena Shore pushed forward and started screaming. The rage in her voice was impossible to mistake.

“I’ll tell you what happened!” she shrieked. “My slut of a daughter was sneaking around with a damned Brolin. If it wasn’t for her, none of this would have happened.”

The minute the Brolins heard their name being slurred, they were up in the chief’s face and shouting back at Lena.

“There’s nothing wrong with our son,” Tom said. “Your daughter is the one who kept chasing after him.”

Haley shuddered and covered her face with her hands. This nightmare just kept getting worse and worse.

Chief Bullard stood abruptly and put one hand on Tom Brolin’s chest and the other on Judd Shore’s before they came to blows.

“Shut up!” he yelled. “Both of you. I’m talking to Haley, and unless you were in one of those cars, I want you all to be quiet.”

Judd cursed.

Tom puffed out his chest.

And in the middle of the melee, Haley slowly stood. Something inside of her had finally come unwound. After all these years, she’d had enough. Suddenly the room went quiet as all eyes turned to her. Her words were angry, her own rage evident as her hands curled into fists as she spoke.

“Just for the record, Mother, not once during the two years Mack and I have been seeing each other did I ever sneak anywhere. Just because you people have issues with one another, that didn’t mean we did. I love Mack, and he loves me. I don’t know what’s wrong between you and the Brolins, and frankly, I don’t care. You people have wasted eighteen years of my life acting like children. You can hate one another … and you can all hate me … if that’s what’s going to make you happy. I don’t care anymore. I don’t care about anything but knowing Stewart and Mack are okay. After that, you can all go to hell!”

Her mother’s face had gone from pale to purple, her father’s to a dark, angry red. The Brolins wouldn’t look at her, and her classmates seemed to be in shock.

At that point, Haley turned around to face Chief Bullard.

“Mack and I were driving north out of town in his car. We were just listening to music and talking when lights appeared out of nowhere in the rearview mirror. All we knew was someone was coming up behind us too fast. When I thought I recognized Stewart’s car, I called him on my cell phone to be sure. When he answered, he began screaming at us to stop, that Mom had sent him to get me. I told him Mom didn’t run my life, and that we weren’t stopping, and for him to go home.”

Lena gasped, and before anyone could stop her, she lashed out and slapped Haley’s face so hard her lip split.

Chief Bullard grabbed Lena, but it was too late. “Ma’am, if you do that again, I will arrest you for assault.”

“She’s my daughter. I can—”

Haley pushed herself into Lena’s face. Her voice was soft, but her tone was hard and clipped.

“I’m of age, Mother, and that’s the last time you’ll ever lay a hand on me, so back off.”

Lena reeled as if Haley had just slapped her back. The fury in her daughter’s face was so virulent, she didn’t know how to react.

Bullard decided to let the issue go. “Then what happened?” he prompted.

Haley turned her back on her mother as if she no longer existed.

“Instead of going home, Stewart accelerated even more and rammed Mack’s bumper.”

At that point the Brolins gasped and started shouting at Judd and Lena, blaming them for Stewart’s actions.

Once again Chief Bullard was forced to intervene. Within seconds, he put out a call for two deputies. They quickly arrived, and with orders from Bullard were told to keep the families apart.

“Now. If I have to calm you people down one more time, I’ll arrest the whole damn lot of you. Are we clear?”

They didn’t answer and wouldn’t look at him. Once again, he chose to ignore them.

“What did Mack do when his car was struck?” he asked Haley.

She shuddered, remembering their panic. “Mack managed to keep the car on the road. The trouble came when Stewart rammed us the second time, even harder. Mack’s car started to skid sideways, and before he could straighten it out, Stewart hit our car on the driver’s side. I don’t think he meant to, but he was going too fast to stop. After that … we started rolling. I don’t know how many times, because I blacked out. When I came to, we were upside-down and off the road, and Mack was unconscious and bleeding badly. I saw his leg was trapped and tried to get him out, but I couldn’t. Then I couldn’t find my phone to call for help. I managed to unbuckle my seat belt and get out. Then I saw Stewart’s car. He’d hit a tree head-on. When I went to check on him, he was unconscious, too. I found his cell phone, and that’s when I called for help.”

Lena was sobbing loudly. Chloe was weeping without making a sound. Both men were glaring at Haley as if she’d grown horns.

“It’s ironic. The bitch causing all the trouble is the only one not to get injured,” Tom snapped.

Haley flinched but didn’t acknowledge the insult, and then, before any more slurs could be cast, a surgeon suddenly came out of a doorway at the end of the hall and started toward them.

“Is the Brolin family here?” he asked.

Haley held her breath as Tom and Chloe and Mack’s sisters crowded forward, all talking at once.

“Is he alive? How bad was it? Will he be able to walk?”

“Wait … wait … let me explain what we did,” the doctor said. “First of all, he came through the surgery fine. We were able to stop the bleeding and save his leg. He’ll walk just fine.”

“Thank the Lord,” Tom muttered.

“But his athletic career is over,” the doctor added.

“No … no!” his mother screamed, and leaned against her husband. Tom Brolin glared at Haley, then reached for his wife.

The doctor began explaining the intricacies of the surgery, how many pins he’d had to put in the leg and the muscle damage, but Haley had phased out. All she could think was that Mack was going to hate her. UCLA wasn’t going to happen. His plans for a career in the NFL had ended before they began.

She dropped into a chair and covered her face with her hands. She heard Retta’s voice, but not what she was saying. All she could think was, Why, God, why?

Then she heard her mother cry out. When she looked up, another doctor had appeared in the crowd—the one who had operated on Stewart—and he was saying something to her parents.

“No!” Lena screamed, and dropped to her knees. “No, no! Not my beautiful boy! If someone had to die, why wasn’t it Haley? I never wanted her. Why couldn’t she have been the one to die? “

Everyone in the room gasped, then turned to stare at Haley. Even her classmates were stunned by Lena Shore’s words.

Haley froze. God … oh, God, oh, God. Stewart? Dead?

Judd spun, and before anyone could stop him, he yanked Haley up by the arm and began beating her with his fists.

“Daddy! No, Daddy, no!” she screamed, then doubled over, trying to block his blows by covering her face with her arms.

When she dropped to the floor, he fell on top of her and began pummeling her with every ounce of strength he had in him.

It took both deputies to pull him off.

“Lena is right! If someone had to die, why wasn’t it you?” he roared.

Haley crawled to her knees, then pulled herself up. Blood was pouring from her nose and mouth. She was too dazed by the assault to even answer.

Judd Shore was still cursing and crying as the deputies dragged him out of the hospital.

A nurse came to Haley’s aid and led her away, leaving Chief Bullard to see that Lena Shore was taken home. All the way out the door she kept screaming at God, angry that he’d let Haley live and taken her boy instead.

Haley found herself back on a gurney. Her stitches had to be replaced, and another three added. By the time they took her to X-ray, one eye was nearly swollen shut, and it hurt to open her mouth. When they finally finished working on her, it was after midnight.

The doctor who had been stitching her up stepped back to eye his work.

“I think that takes care of it,” he said. “Where’s your family? I’ll have the nurse tell them you’re ready to go home.”

Haley shook her head, slid off the gurney, paused a moment to steady herself, then headed toward the door.

“No, Miss Shore. You need to wait for your family,” the doctor said.

“I don’t have any,” she muttered, putting a hand to her rib cage as if to hold back the pain, and walked away. But she wasn’t leaving the hospital. Not until she’d seen Mack.

There was no one in the intensive care waiting room except the Brolins, who were taking turns going in to see their son.

When they looked up and saw Haley standing in the doorway, whatever anger they had left turned swiftly to shock. Her face was so swollen that, had she not still been wearing her graduation dress, they wouldn’t have recognized her.

Still, she was the last person they wanted to talk to.

“You have no business here,” Chloe Brolin said. “Go home, girl. Go home.”

Even though it hurt to breathe, Haley wouldn’t let them know how deeply she’d been wounded. She lifted her chin, defying them to deny her when she said, “I want to see Mack. I have to see him.”

“Well, you’re not going to, because he doesn’t want to see you. Ever,” Chloe snapped.

Haley reeled, the words shredding her soul.

“You’re lying,” she whispered.

“No. I’m not,” Chloe said. “You need to go home where you belong.”

Before Haley could stop them, tears suddenly welled and spilled down her cheeks.

“I don’t have a home,” she said. “The only place I ever belonged was with Mack.”

Haley stared at the Brolins, eyeing Tom and Chloe until, ashamed, they looked away, then her gaze slid to Mack’s sisters, Jenna and Carla.

“You people … what’s wrong with you people?” Haley whispered, then she turned around and walked away.

It took her an hour to walk home. By the time she got there, it was almost 2:00 a.m. She got the spare key from the birdhouse and let herself in the back door.

She couldn’t believe how this night had ended. This morning she’d been on top of the world, and less than twelve hours later, that world had been permanently shattered.

She paused in the kitchen, listening to the house. As she stood, she heard a slight pop as the water heater came on, followed by the hum of the refrigerator. There was a drip at the sink.

She shuddered and sighed.

Daddy never did turn the faucets far enough off.

The ache in her belly deepened. Daddy. He’d tried to kill her tonight. If it hadn’t been for the police, he might never have stopped beating her.

She took off her shoes and started through the house. There was a light on beneath her parents’ door as she passed it on her way down the hall. She didn’t bother to stop. There was nothing left to say to either of them. The fact that her brother was dead didn’t seem real, but she took no blame for it happening. He’d done it to himself, even after she’d begged him to stop.

When she got to her room, she stripped out of her dress and underwear, leaving everything in a pile in the floor as she went into the bathroom. A short while later, after having showered and washed the blood and glass from her hair, she dressed in an old pair of jeans and her softest T-shirt, then pulled a suitcase from the back of her closet.

Her face was expressionless as she began packing it with only the necessities, trying not to think of the things she was leaving behind: toys she’d saved from her childhood; her grandmother’s wedding dress, which had been bequeathed to her; all the things she’d been saving for her own home that were stored in her hope chest.

She didn’t remember, until she was looking for ID, that her diploma was most likely lying somewhere along the highway, with her purse. She would stop by Chief Bullard’s office in the morning to see if anyone had found it when they’d towed in the cars.

Finally there was no more room left in the bag or her small backpack. She sat down on the side of the bed, then stood again. She was in so much pain she knew she couldn’t sleep. She downed a couple of painkillers, got her checkbook and the passbook to her savings account and added them to the rest of the stuff in the backpack.

Just before she started to close the bag, she remembered Mack’s photo. She kept it taped to the back of her dresser mirror. She took it down, then removed a family photo from a frame on the wall and put Mack’s photo in it instead.

Her heart was broken. Mack might not want anything to do with her anymore, but that didn’t mean she didn’t love him. She put the newly framed photo inside her backpack and slung it over her shoulders, then wheeled the suitcase out of her room.

It made no sound on the carpeted hallway floor, and once she got to the kitchen, she picked it up and carried it the rest of the way out of the house. The last thing she wanted was to look at her parents again. As far as she was concerned, her entire family—not just Stewart—had died tonight.

Her car was still in the garage. It had been a present from her grandmother on her sixteenth birthday. The title was in her name, which was good, because she was taking it with her.

She tossed her things into the trunk, then backed out of the garage and drove away without once looking back.

When the bank opened at 9:00 a.m. the next morning, Haley was waiting at the door. She’d already been to the police department, and recovered her purse and diploma. Chief Bullard had been kind and gentle, asking if she wanted to press charges against her father, which she promptly refused.

She’d walked out of the department with a hand to her midsection. The more time passed, the stiffer and sorer she became. She knew what she looked like: as if she’d been through a wreck, which she had, and beaten to a pulp, which she also had. She felt shattered in every way that mattered, but she still had her pride.

She passed through the bank lobby without looking to her right or her left, and walked straight up to the first teller she saw.

“I want to withdraw my savings,” she said, and put her passbook on the counter. “I’ll take fifteen hundred dollars in cash, and the rest in traveler’s checks.”

Stars Crossing was a small town. Everyone knew everyone else’s business. They knew her brother had died in a wreck last night, and that Mack Brolin’s athletic career had come to an end in the same wreck. And they also knew the only common denominator between them was the girl at the window.

They also knew that her father had been arrested for assaulting her, and that her mother wished her dead.

The teller’s heart ached for Haley, but there was nothing to be said.

“Do you want that fifteen hundred dollars in big bills?” she asked.

Haley thought about it for a moment, then said, “All of it in hundreds except for four hundred dollars. I’ll take that in twenties.”

“I’ll have to get an okay to—”

Haley stiffened, and then her voice rose. “An okay for what? It’s my money! I’ve spent the past seven summers of my life working for it. It’s in my name, and my name only, and I’m of age. You don’t need anyone’s permission except mine to hand it over.”

The bank president heard the commotion and hurried to the window to put out the fire.

“Do as she asks,” he told the teller, and then gently laid a hand on Haley’s shoulder. “We’re so sorry for your loss,” he said softly.

Haley nodded.

Twenty minutes later, she was in her car and heading out of Stars Crossing.

She never looked back.

Chapter 3

Dallas, Texas Ten years later: November

“Easy now, Mr. Wyatt … Let me move your leg for you, okay?”

“‘Kay, Ha-ley. I kee for-geh you in sharge.”

Haley grinned at the elderly gentleman on her exercise table, proud of how far he’d come since the stroke he’d suffered six months earlier. His first trip to therapy he’d been unable to speak, and the entire right side of his body had been paralyzed. Now he smiled and spoke, albeit a little slowly and not always with perfect clarity, and he was making good progress on regaining mobility, however limited.

Her entire life revolved around her patients, and when she wasn’t at the physical therapy facility where she was employed, she was usually making house calls.

She rarely thought about her life before Dallas, and when she did, it was only briefly. Even now, after ten long years, the pain of what she’d lost was brutally real.

A short while later, a timer went off and Haley eased Mr. Wyatt’s withered leg down slowly, then helped him sit up.

“That’s it for today. How do you feel?”

“Re-dy ta dans.”

“Dance? Wow! Then I’d better warn Millie to shine up her dancing shoes.”

The old man laughed. Millie lived at the same nursing home as he did, and he’d informed Haley months ago that Millie was his girl.

Haley marveled that at their age they were still optimistic enough to want a romance. She’d decided long ago that relationships weren’t worth the effort it took to keep them alive and thrown herself into her job instead.

She helped Mr. Wyatt into his wheelchair, then pushed him back to the lobby, where a driver was waiting to take him back to the nursing home.

“Here you go,” she said. “Do your exercises like I showed you. Stay out of trouble, and I’ll see you again in about a week, okay?”

The old man grinned and winked, and then he was gone.

Haley glanced at the clock as she turned back around, and then frowned. Where had the afternoon gone? It was already quitting time.

She moved to the employee lounge, clocked out, gathered up her things and then, with a casual wave to another employee on her way out, she was gone.

Haley had decided years ago that Dallas traffic at five o’clock in the afternoon was, most surely, the road to the ninth gate of hell.

By the time she pulled up to her apartment building and parked, it was dark. She paused inside the car long enough to ensure that the path to the apartment building appeared safe, and then she got out.

The air was cold and felt damp, like it might snow. She pulled her coat collar up around her neck as she started toward the front door—her long legs making short work of the distance.

Once inside, she nodded to the security guard.

“Hi, Marsh … how’s it going?”

Marshall French, a widower from Austin, had retired twice, but at sixty-seven, had been bored staying at home and had taken this job for something to do. He admired this tall, elegant woman with green eyes and thick, dark hair, but he didn’t know anything more about her now than he had the day he’d taken this job two years earlier.

“Fine, just fine,” he said, then handed her her mail. “Have a nice evening.”

“You too,” Haley said, then put the mail under her arm and walked into the elevator without looking back.

She chose the seventh floor, then leaned against the elevator wall as the car began to move silently upward. Once the door opened, she took a right and within ten steps was at her door. She thrust her key in the lock almost without looking and, once inside, turned and locked the door behind her—turning all three locks before she even took off her coat.

She never felt safe. Not since the night when the world had abandoned her. Even though she had no reason to fear living alone, she did. The three locks were her security blanket, and she wasn’t ashamed to admit it.

It was the sound of those three metallic clicks that signaled safe haven for Haley. She hung her coat in the hall closet, dumped her bag and keys on the table, then scanned her assortment of mail.

There were a half dozen envelopes and a couple of magazines—Taste of Home and her favorite, Southern Living. She tossed everything on the kitchen counter as she passed through on her way to her room. She did nothing at home until she’d shed her scrubs and showered. It was a mental “putting aside” of her professional self so she could relax.

Afterward, dressed in old sweats and a long-sleeved tee, Haley was leafing through the rest of the mail as she poured Coke into a glass full of ice when she noticed the postmark on a legal-size envelope.

Stars Crossing, Kentucky.

At that point, she froze. Coke slopped over the top of the glass and onto the counter, bringing her back to reality. By the time she’d cleaned up the mess, she had braced herself to open the envelope.

All she knew was, whatever it said—whoever it was from—it couldn’t be good.

Your father is dead.

Haley staggered, then braced herself against the cabinets, shocked that she felt any kind of emotion at the news. What was left of her family had been dead to her for so long that she hardly ever thought about what had come before Dallas—except for Mack. No matter how hard she’d tried, he still haunted her dreams. Her response to this news had taken her completely by surprise. She pulled herself together and looked back at the letter.

His funeral service will be held Saturday, November 13, at 3:00 p.m., witha family/friends supper afterward at the First Baptist Church.

“That’s tomorrow. Pretty obvious I’m not wanted if they waited this long to let me know,” Haley muttered, then took a deep, shuddering breath, tossed the letter down on the counter and walked away. Her heart was racing, her thoughts tumbling from one scenario to another.

Why now—after all these years—would her mother even bother? Assuming it even was her mother who’d sent the impersonally typed and unsigned letter.

After her first year in Dallas, Haley had been the one to wave the white flag by sending her parents a quick note, telling them where she was and what she was doing. She stuffed it into an envelope and mailed it at the same time she mailed her weekly letter to Mack. He never answered, but for a while she’d thought her mother might. She waited for a reply for almost a month, then accepted the fact that no one cared and never wrote again. A year later she gave in to the inevitable and stopped writing to Mack, too.

A few minutes later Haley returned to the kitchen. The letter was still on the cabinet—like a bomb, waiting to detonate. If she went back, what wounds would she open? She’d spent years building a wall around her heart. She didn’t want to feel, didn’t want to hope—didn’t want to care—like that ever again.

“I’ll sleep on it,” she said aloud, then fixed herself some supper, did some chores, paid a few bills and finally did an hour of Pilates just because she was afraid to go to bed and close her eyes. She didn’t want to remember.

But maybe this would be the way to end the bitterness she still lived with. Maybe going back would be what she needed to move forward with her life, rather than the imposed lockdown in which she’d been existing.

It was after 10:00 p.m. when she finally went to bed, and, as usual, Mack Brolin came calling in her sleep.

Haley was standing beside an immense body of water. When she turned to get her bearings, she saw a large weeping willow, with low-hanging limbs that swept the ground. The place looked familiar, but it took her a few moments to realize it was where she and Mack used to go to make love.

As she watched, the branches parted and Mack stepped out, waving for her to come closer. She tried to move, but her legs wouldn’t work. He kept urging her—begging her to come—but she couldn’t seem to move. And then Mack’s image began to fade, which increased her anxiety even more. Just before he disappeared from sight, she heard him call out, “Go home.”

And then he was gone.

Haley woke up with a start, her heart pounding, her body bathed in sweat, even though the room was cool. She threw back the covers, then glanced at the clock as she sat up. Just before midnight. The dream had been weird, but it solidified her next move.

“What the hell could it hurt?” she asked herself, then got up, pausing in the hallway long enough to turn up the heat before heading for the kitchen.

Her steps were long, her stride purposeful—almost angry. She didn’t want this, but it was here just the same. She started the coffeepot, then headed to the extra bedroom, got a suitcase from the closet and returned to her room.

By the time the apartment was warm enough to be comfortable, she was already dressed and packed. She emailed her employer that she was going home for her father’s funeral, and to please reschedule her patients’ appointments or give them to someone else.

She filled her to-go cup with hot, black coffee, then made herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, stuffed it into a Baggie and dropped it into her purse. If she didn’t dawdle, she just might get back to Stars Crossing in time to see her father buried. It wasn’t what she wanted to do—but there were lots of things in life that were unpleasant and still had to be done. This came under that heading.

Within minutes she was out the door and in the elevator. The night guard was asleep at the reception desk as she passed by. She didn’t bother to speak and just kept on walking. Thirty minutes later, she was on the crosstown expressway, pushing past the speed limit with a lump in her throat and a knot in her belly. She wasn’t sure if she was going back for the funeral or from a subconscious hope she would see Mack. Either way, the outcome was unlikely to be good.

Saturday dawned in Stars Crossing with a raw wind and a threat of rain. Not a good day for a funeral, although weather didn’t really mean much on such occasions. There was never a good day for a funeral.

Lena Shore stared at herself in the mirror, practicing expressions. Once she’d been a pretty girl, but disappointments and grief had taken that away. Now her expression was most often either dissatisfied or grim. The frown lines between her eyebrows and at the corners of her eyes had long ago become permanent and deep.

While she’d been bound to Judd Shore by their marriage and her lies, that part of her life was finally over, and she wasn’t going to pretend to herself that she was sad. Still, there was a certain cachet to being a widow, and she intended to use it to her best advantage. She smoothed her hands down the front of her dress, giving herself a mental pat on the back for giving in to impulse and buying this dress a couple of months ago. With Judd’s bad heart, this day had always been a possibility. She would never have admitted to herself that she was planning for his funeral, but when the opportunity had presented itself last week, she had done nothing to stop Judd’s fate.

She gave her hair a quick spray to hold the style in place. Although it was still thick and wavy, it was entirely gray now, and she’d chosen to pull it loosely away from her face and fasten it in a thick fall at the back of her neck. Sedate and somber was the mood of the day.

“That should do it,” she said, then put down the hair spray, gave herself one last look in the full-length mirror and headed for the living room to get her coat.

Across town, Mack Brolin was pacing the living room floor of his childhood home, wondering if he was setting himself up for another heartbreak. His father had been dead ten years—dying from anaphylactic shock after being stung by a swarm of bees only days after Mack got out of the hospital. Mack was still wearing the cast from his wreck and dealing with the pain of losing Haley when they’d had to bury his father. At the time, it had felt as if he would never be happy again. With the passing of time, he’d come to accept what was. And then last month his mother had passed away in her sleep, and with that, except for his two older sisters, his last link with his childhood was over.

After the funeral, and at his sisters’ request, he’d stayed on at the family home to ready the house for sale. He had been a successful building contractor for several years now, so the job had naturally fallen to him. Walls needed painting, carpet and appliances needed replacing, and as the days had passed, he’d found one thing after another that needed some TLC before the house would be fit to put on the market.

He’d called in a team from his company to do the rough work—replacing kitchen cabinets, countertops and the like—but he was doing the painting himself.

It was during the renovation that he’d found the letters from Haley in his mother’s things, tied in a bundle with a faded yellow ribbon—unopened.

Everything from shock to disbelief had gone through his mind as he tore into the first one with shaking hands. By the time he had finished, he was crying. The last one, postmarked almost eight years ago, had ended on a sad, disappointed note. At that point Mack was so angry he couldn’t think. All these years he’d been led to believe that she’d walked out—angry with him because Stewart had died and, after learning his athletic career was over, unwilling to tie herself to a loser.

After reading the letters, his first instinct had been to find her, but there was no way of knowing if she was still in Dallas, the city of the last postmark. Eight years was a long time. She could be anywhere—most likely married, with children, and happily living her life.

He felt sad and cheated, but didn’t know what his next move should be. He could hardly confront the perpetrators of the lie, because they were both dead. Then he thought of his sisters. They were due to come by the next day to see how the renovations were coming, so he confronted them with the letters. When he learned they’d been a part of the lies, he’d exploded.

“You knew about these? You knew she still loved me, and yet you let Mom and Dad feed me that pack of lies?”

Jenna, his oldest sister, shrugged. “It wasn’t our business to interfere.”

Carla, who was only two years older than Mack, ducked her head. “I wanted to tell, but Mom threatened us with murder.”

Mack was so furious he couldn’t think. “Some family! You’re no better than the Shores … lying because of that stupid feud.”

Carla started to cry. “I’m sorry, Mack. But you didn’t see what happened in the hospital the night of the wreck. We were all afraid to make the wrong move. It was hell in that waiting room, especially for Haley.”

“Damn it, Carla, let it go,” Jenna snapped. “It’s old business.”

Mack rounded on her and jammed a finger so close to her chest that she flinched, as if afraid he was going to hit her.

“Shut up or get out,” he said softly.

Jenna shuddered, then sat.

Mack turned to Carla. “What happened to Haley?”

“Our parents were sitting on opposite sides of the room.”

“I don’t give a damn about where our parents were,” Mack said. “Where was Haley? What happened to Haley?”

Carla looked down at the floor, hesitated, then met her brother’s gaze.

“Her family didn’t ask about her injuries, or sit with her or anything. She—”

“Was she hurt? Mom and Dad always said she walked away without a scratch.”

“She had stitches and bruises, but from what she told Chief Bullard when he came to talk to her, it sounded to me as if she saved your life. She regained consciousness in the wreck and tried to get you free but couldn’t, and then she couldn’t find her phone. She crawled out, saw her brother’s car on the other side of the road and went to see about him. He was unconscious, like you. She found his phone and called for help.”

“Damn it!” Mack muttered. “I am so pissed I can’t think straight. So, back to the hospital. What happened to Haley?”

“When they came to tell us you were okay and that you were going to live, we were so relieved, but then they told us you would never play sports again, and Mom and Dad lost it. They went off on Haley, blaming her, calling her names. Then another doctor came out and told the Shores that Stewart had died, and her parents flipped out. Her mother started screaming, and asking God why he’d taken Stewart and let Haley live. She kept saying she’d never wanted Haley, and that it was all her fault.”

“God in heaven,” Mack said, and shoved a hand through his hair in disbelief. “Poor Haley. I knew her family was screwy, but I had no idea—”

“Oh, that wasn’t the worst,” Carla said. “When her mother freaked out and started screaming, so did her father. He jumped on Haley and began beating her up … right in front of everybody. It took two deputies to pull him off her. They had to stitch her back up again, and I heard she had a broken nose and ribs, but that was just gossip. I don’t know that for sure.”

Mack stared at his sisters. Their faces were familiar, but he felt as if he was seeing them as they really were—and for the very first time.

“I’m sorry, Mack,” Carla said.

Mack’s gaze shifted to Jenna.

She glared back until she saw the tears on his cheeks. At that point she threw her hands over her face, as if she couldn’t bear the sight.

“What happened after that? Did you see her again? Did she ask about me?” Mack asked.

Jenna flinched, then looked at her sister warningly.

Carla shook her head. “He knows this much. He may as well know the rest.”

“What rest?” Mack snapped.

“Late that night she came to the waiting room outside intensive care and asked to see you. She looked terrible. Stitches everywhere … Her nose and lips were so swollen, her eyes were turning black. It was awful.”

“Ah, God … I didn’t remember that,” Mack muttered.

“That’s because Mom and Dad wouldn’t let her. Mom told her you didn’t want to see her and to go away, to go home.” Then Carla’s voice broke and she started to weep. “That’s when she said she didn’t have any home, and that the only place she’d ever belonged was with you.”

Mack felt as if he’d been sucker punched. For the longest time, he couldn’t think past that image.

And then Carla started to speak again.

“Mack, can you—”

He pointed to the door. “Get out. Both of you. I’ll stay and fix the house like I promised, but when I’m through, I don’t want to see either of you again.”

Carla wailed and started toward him, her arms outstretched. “You mean never? You never want to see us again?”

Mack shook his head, then stopped her before she launched herself into his arms. “You’re both strangers to me. I don’t know either one of you, and the little I do know, right now I don’t like.”

Jenna jumped up from her seat, grabbed her purse and hurried out the door. Carla was still pleading and asking forgiveness when Mack shut the door in her face.

And that had been two weeks ago. At the moment they were persona non grata around the family home, and they knew it.

But after the revelations of that day, Mack became obsessed with finding Haley. He even searched “Haley Shore Dallas Texas” on Google just to see what came up.

There were quite a few hits, but nowhere did he find an address or phone for her, and only one link came with a photo attached to a newspaper article, and it was his Haley—shown as the physical therapist helping rehabilitate a member of the famous Dallas Cowboys football team.

After that, he’d stared at the grainy photo for hours, trying to find the girl he’d known in the tall, Amazonian beauty with long dark hair and a sensuous smile, then debating with himself as to what he should do.

The debate was still ongoing when Judd Shore died and gave him the answer. He marched down to the police station and confronted the chief.

Chief Bullard was ten years older than he’d been when Haley Shore disappeared from Stars Crossing, but he never had gotten over witnessing the beating her own father had given her the night Stewart Shore died. And because of that, when Mack Brolin marched into the police station asking for help in getting an updated address for Haley, he ignored police procedure and obliged.

“You know I’m not supposed to be doing this,” Bullard said, as he handed over an address he’d obtained through the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Mack stuffed the address into his pocket before the chief changed his mind.

“You know I’m not gonna stalk her,” he said. “But she deserves to know her old man died, even if he was a bastard.”

Bullard nodded. “That thing between your families … what’s it about, anyway?”

Mack shrugged. “I have no idea. None of us kids ever knew. We were just raised to shun one another, which, as you remember, turned into a recipe for disaster.”

“That’s for sure,” Bullard said, then eyed Mack curiously. “So … you really never saw her again? I mean, after that night?”

Mack shook his head. “The last thing I remember about Haley Shore was that she was screaming as the car started to roll.”

Bullard nodded. “Well, if she shows up, I hope this doesn’t turn into another mess.”

“Maybe that’s what needs to happen,” Mack said. “The only person still living who knows what the hell it’s all about is her mother, Lena.” Then he patted his pocket. “Thanks again for the address,” he said, and headed out the door.

When Mack got home, and before he could change his mind, he sent her a letter with the information concerning her father’s funeral. He had no way of knowing whether or not Lena and Haley had stayed in touch, but after what he’d learned, he would have bet on not.

He was counting on the fact that if she got the letter, she would most likely believe it was from her mother. He hated the deception, but it was the only way he could think of to see her without just showing up on her doorstep. He’d know, when he saw her—if he saw her—if she belonged to someone else. And if she didn’t, he was going after her again, with just as much intent and passion as he had when they were kids. In Mack’s heart, Haley Shore had belonged to him first, and he wanted her back.

But that had been days ago. He had no idea whether she’d received the letter, or if she was going to come.

Then he glanced at the clock. It was twenty minutes after two. Seating at the small church would be limited, and while neither Judd nor Lena had large extended families, enough people would show up that he needed to get there soon to get a seat.

With a reluctant look back at the bedroom he had yet to paint, he went to get his coat and keys. It was a damned cold day for a funeral, but he supposed Judd Shore would no longer be concerned with the weather. The man was most surely in a place where grudges no longer existed.

Mack ducked his head against the cold wind as he stepped off the porch and headed for his car, and moments later he was on his way to the church.

Haley arrived in Stars Crossing just before noon, cold and exhausted from the twelve-hour drive. She’d been somewhat disconcerted by how little things had changed but at the same time glad to find there were signs of growth, like the new motel where she’d chosen to stay.

Even though her mother had undoubtedly sent the letter, Haley was certain she didn’t want to spend the night in the same house with her. And she certainly didn’t want to show up at mealtime. The house was probably filled with extended family, and there was no way she was going to face her mother on her mother’s home ground in the middle of a hostile army.

Once inside the motel room, she lay down on the bed, set the alarm for two-thirty and then closed her eyes. It seemed like she had just fallen asleep when the alarm went off.

“Oh, Lord,” she moaned, as her feet hit the floor.

With less than thirty minutes to dress and get to the church, she dug a makeup bag from her things, shook out the black dress she had packed, then went into the bathroom.

At first glance she looked like she felt—exhausted and sleep-deprived. However, she might have left Stars Crossing with her tail between her legs, but she wasn’t coming back the same way. She’d grown up and, in the process, grown tougher. If people were going to talk about her—which she fully expected—she intended to look her best, and that black dress and the high heels she’d brought to go with it weren’t going to hurt.

There was no need to pretend grief for her father’s passing. Her grief had been spent years ago upon realizing that she just didn’t matter to either of her parents.

But, on the off chance that Mack Brolin was anywhere inside that church, she wanted him to see her for who she was now—a strong and vital woman.

By choice, Mack was sitting at the back of the church. If Haley did show up, he needed time to get his emotions in order before facing her. There were so many things he wanted to say to her, not the least of which was, I’m sorry.

The family had just been seated, and the pastor was about to announce the first hymn, when the church doors opened, sending in a blast of cold air.

All eyes except the widow’s turned as the door slammed shut, and the gasp that came afterward was so loud even Lena Shore turned to look.

The last thing she had expected to see on this day was the woman walking down the aisle. All Lena could think was, How did Haley find out?

Every stitch of clothing Haley was wearing had been chosen with one thing in mind: to show her miserable excuse for a family that not only was she fine, she was thriving.

She knew her height was to her advantage, and with the three-inch black heels she was wearing, she was more than six feet tall. Her long-sleeved black dress buttoned all the way up the front, coming to a halt at a V-neck that covered her shapely breasts—high enough not to be racy, but low enough to accentuate what she’d been blessed with.

The lanky girl Haley had been was now a woman grown, with the body to match. Her breasts accentuated a slim, well-toned body. She’d left her long, dark hair loose in a cascade of soft waves. The only splash of color was on her lips—those Angelina Jolie lips—which she’d painted fire-engine red.

She didn’t look to the right or the left as she moved, because her gaze was fixed upon her mother, who had risen to her feet and was standing at the end of the aisle, as if daring her to come any closer.

From the look on her mother’s face, Haley immediately knew that her appearance was a shock.

So it wasn’t you who sent the letter. No matter. I’m here, anyway.

Lena was so shocked she couldn’t move.

When Haley reached the pews where the family was sitting, no one moved over for her to sit. The old Haley would have turned tail and run. But not this one.

“Move over, Uncle Saul,” she said shortly.

And despite the ripple of shock that went through her family, her mother’s brother moved.

Haley sat without once looking at her mother again.

Dumbstruck as to what to do next, Lena had but one option. She turned around and resumed her own seat.

The preacher cleared his throat.

And the service began.

The moment people recognized Haley, they turned to look at Mack. He felt their stares but wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of knowing how dumbstruck he felt.

That grainy newspaper photo hadn’t done her justice. His childhood sweetheart had turned into a knockout.

Even though it had been ten years—even though the woman who’d just walked down that aisle was as far removed from the girl he’d loved as she could be—he knew he’d done the right thing. No matter how this turned out, there were things he needed to say to Haley Shore.

Chapter 4

The funeral was a blur. At first Haley’s heart had been beating so loudly that she hadn’t heard a word the preacher said; then she began to realize that she could feel her mother’s anger as if it was a living, breathing thing.

And Lena was seething, not only angry that Haley had shown up unannounced, but that the day was no longer about Lena the widow. It had turned into “the prodigal daughter returns.”

Haley’s first “welcome home” moment came when the congregation began moving down the aisle past the family, passing the casket to pay their respects on their way out the door. Someone squeezed her shoulder, then leaned down and kissed the side of her cheek.

“So sorry, honey,” the woman said, and then quickly moved past.

Haley belatedly realized that it was Retta—obviously pregnant and with shorter hair, but once her best friend, just the same. By the time the church had emptied and the only ones left were the family, a good dozen of the congregation had paused to either give her a hug or a kiss, or shake her hand. When her mother suddenly turned and glared at her, Haley didn’t even notice. Her eyes were blurred with unshed tears.

Then she heard the doors shut and realized they were giving the family some private time before removing the casket and taking it to the cemetery. She wasn’t certain what was going to happen, but there was one thing she knew for sure: this time, she wasn’t going to run.

Lena didn’t even pretend to be polite. The moment there was no one left inside the sanctuary but the family, she stood and pointed at Haley.

“What do you think you’re doing, coming back here now, looking like the slut you obviously are?”

Haley unfolded her long length from the pew and stepped out into the aisle. She glanced at her mother, then arched an eyebrow.

“Well, I obviously came to my father’s funeral. As to how I look, the DNA came from you and Daddy, so if you don’t like my looks, you have only yourselves to blame … Mommy dearest.”

Lena was shocked. Where had that cold sarcasm come from? Finally she managed to sputter, “What are you doing here?”

Haley glanced at the others—her extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins, who’d always used her mother’s behavior as a guide to how they should treat her, as well.

“Oddly enough, I got a letter informing me of the services. I assumed it was from you. My bad.”

Then she picked up her purse, turned her back and started walking up the aisle toward the exit.

“Where are you going?” Lena screamed.

Haley paused, then stopped and turned around. “Why, Mother, I didn’t think you cared.”

Lena doubled up her fists and started toward Haley when Saul suddenly grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back.

“Let it go, Lena. This is neither the time nor the place.”

Lena shrugged him off, but she couldn’t stop her anger from boiling over.

“You have no business being here,” she accused Haley. “You ran away before your brother was even buried. The brother you killed. You don’t belong to this family anymore.”

Haley sighed. “Mother, Mother, you sound like a broken record. As for Stewart’s death … that responsibility falls on your head.”

All the blood drained from Lena’s face. Even the others began to mutter beneath their breath, thinking Haley had gone too far.

“That’s not true. If you hadn’t been with that damned Brolin—”

“No!” Haley said, interrupting her before she could finish. “That’s

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