Prologue
Darkness surrounded Emily, pressing her down, down,
down. Thick, heavy smoke obliterated everything in its path,
spreading throughout the room and taking away the very air she
breathed. Dropping to her knees, she called out to Stuart. She
could barely see him.
“Get on the floor and
stay there,” Stuart said. “Crawl toward the door. I’m right behind
you. ”
He tugged on her foot.
Sighing, Emily lowered herself to the carpet, careful not to bear
all her weight on her stomach. Above all else, she had to protect
her unborn child.
A thunderous boom shook
the building. Emily screamed Stuart reached out for her, grabbing
her ankle. She gazed up into the swirling black mass above her. A
burst of flames shot down from the ceiling.
Sirens sang a
high-pitched, never-ending song somewhere outside. Emily prayed
that help would reach them in time.
Stuart released his
hold on her ankle. “Crawl, Em. Get to the
door.”
Following his
directions, she inched her way across the living room, past the
sofa, and toward the closed door. Only a few more feet. The hem of
Emily’s nightgown caught on the edge of the magazine rack by
Stuart’s recliner. Jerking to free herself, she ripped the pink
silk.
Surely the firemen
would find them quickly. Their apartment was only on the third
floor. Any minute now their rescuers would burst through the front
door and carry Stuart and her to safety.
Suddenly a shattering
rumble shook the room. A hot, fiery weight hit Emily’s back and
flattened her to the floor. She cried out once, twice, three times.
The pain! Dear God, the unbearable pain!
“Help us! Stuart! Oh,
God, someone help us!”
Moaning, Emily lifted her head, then
eased back down on the pillow. Tears seeped from the corners of her
eyes. “Stuart? Help us. Stuart!”
She didn’t have the strength to open
her eyes. The fierce reality of the dream had drained her
physically as well as emotionally, and the pain eating away at her
flesh was as strong as it had been two years ago when burning
shards of the ceiling had fallen across her back.
She had lost everything that mattered
to her. She had longed to die, had pleaded with Uncle Fowler to let
her die, but he had willed her to live. Stuart’s uncle had prayed
for her life when she had begged God to let her die. He had given
her his strength when she had none of her own.
“I’m here, Emily. I’m here.” Fowler
Jordan leaned over his niece’s bed. He placed his slender hand on
Emily’s head and petted her tenderly.
“It hurts, Uncle Fowler.” Even the
soothing touch of Fowler Jordan’s hand could not ease her
suffering.
Opening her eyes a fraction, Emily
stared up at her husband’s much loved uncle and noted the sorrow
and worry in his dark blue eyes. Uncle Fowler loves
me so dearly that he can’t bear to see me confined to my stomach
and suffering again, after yet another
operation.
“I know how it must hurt,” Fowler said.
“But it’ll stop hurting very soon now. I promise you, my sweet
girl.”
Emily gripped a piece of the sheet that
lay beneath her hand, wadding it tightly in her grip. Parting her
lips, she tried to speak, but emitted only a breathy moan. Her
eyelids closed.
“I don’t think she can hear you, Mr.
Jordan,” the nurse said. “She doesn’t seem to be fully conscious.
She’s probably just talking in her sleep.”
“Yes, she does that a lot these days,”
Fowler said. “She’s reliving that horrible morning.”
But I’m awake!
Emily wanted to tell them. I’m not talking in my
sleep. She tried to open her eyes once again, wanting
desperately to communicate with her uncle, to tell the man who had
been her lifeline these past two years that she needed more
medication. How long had it been since the last injection? Dear
God, it didn’t matter whether it had been four hours or thirty
minutes. She needed something not just to ease the pain, but to put
her into a deep, dreamless sleep.
But the nurse wouldn’t give her a shot
if it wasn’t time for one. They doled out the medication as if it
were liquid gold.
Concentrate, dammit,
concentrate on something other than the pain. You’ve endured worse
than this; you can defeat the pain if you try hard
enough.
Sighing heavily, Emily eased her
eyelids open again and in her peripheral vision caught a glimpse of
the private nurse her uncle had hired for the twelve-hour day
shift. Ann Loggins. That was the woman’s name. She was sweet,
attentive, caring, but a bit nosy and such a
chatterbox.
“That terrible fire happened nearly two
years ago, didn’t it?” Ms. Loggins spoke softly. “Your Emily’s been
a real trouper, I’ll say that for her. She never complains, except
in her sleep, like she just did. And to think this sixth surgery
won’t be enough. How on earth will she endure another
one?”
“She’ll endure it the way she’s endured
everything else that has happened to her.” With his gaze centered
on Emily’s misty, half-focused eyes, Fowler smoothed back the dark,
damp strands of hair that stuck to his niece’s pale cheek. “Are you
sure she’s not fully conscious?” Fowler asked. “She keeps opening
her eyes.”
“She may be partially conscious, Mr.
Jordan,” Nurse Loggins said. “She’s drifting in and out, but I
doubt if she understands anything we’re saying. She’s heavily
medicated.”
“My poor sweet darling. When she lost
Stuart and the baby, she didn’t want to live. She’s gone from
wanting to die to unemotional acceptance of whatever comes her
way.”
“Someday she’ll marry again and have
another child. She’s too young and beautiful to mourn forever.” Ann
Loggins opened the window blinds, letting in slivers of bright
morning sunshine.
Emily blinked several times. The light
hurt her eyes.
“I’m afraid Emily will never consider
herself a beautiful woman again,” Fowler whispered. “Dr. Morris has
told us that no amount of surgery will ever completely erase those
ugly scars from her back.”
“The right man won’t care that she’s
scarred. He’ll love Emily for all the reasons you love
her.”
“The right man will have his work cut
out for him.” Fowler sighed. “Emily’s grandmother raised her to be
a bit old-fashioned. She always wanted a husband and children as
much as she wanted a career. Now she’s afraid to care about anyone
or anything.”
Emily closed her eyes and clenched her
teeth, bitterness rising in her throat. Didn’t Uncle Fowler
understand? Didn’t anyone understand that she couldn’t let herself
care, that she didn’t dare dream of a happy future? It would have
been better if she had died, too. When the apartment building where
she and Stuart had lived for less than a year had collapsed and
caught on fire, why had God taken Stuart and the baby and allowed
her to live—to suffer so unbearably?
After Stuart’s death, she had been
hospitalized for months, so Uncle Fowler, on her behalf, had joined
forces with the residents of Ocean Breeze Apartments. They had
brought suit against the contractors who had cut comers, used
substandard materials and paid off a building inspector when they’d
built the apartment complex.
Consumed with grief and pain and rage,
she had been determined to see Styles and Hayden bankrupted, and
had rejoiced in their ruin. If she’d had her way, the two men would
be rotting in jail right now. But Randall Styles had disappeared
off the face of the earth before the trial. Then shortly after the
jury awarded a settlement to the Ocean Breeze residents and no
criminal charges were brought against him, M. R. Hayden had left
town.
For months afterward, Emily had longed
for revenge. She had told herself that if there was any justice in
this world, the two men responsible for her torment would learn the
real meaning of pain. And even now, two years later, after reading
and rereading the transcripts from the trial and learning that M.
R. Hayden had been duped by Randall Styles, she could not find it
in her heart to forgive him any more than she could forgive his
guilty partner. She hoped they both burned in hell.
The policeman tried to
hold him back, but he rammed his way through the barricade, only to
be stopped by two other officers blocking the entrance to Ocean
Breeze Apartments.
“Just where do you
think you’re going?” the young, frecklefaced cop asked. “If you’ve
got family inside, take it easy. They’ve gotten nearly everyone
out. There are just a few people left.”
“Please, if there’s
anyone trapped in there, let me help,” Mitchell Ray Hayden begged
the policemen.
“Look, check over
there,” the older officer said “Whoever you’re looking for is
probably in that crowd yonder.”
Mitch glanced at the
men, women and children huddled in small groups near the row of
emergency vehicles. Most of them wore pajamas, gowns, robes or
hastily pulled-on jeans. Some of the children clung to their
mothers; others sat in their fathers’ laps, their frightened eyes
filled with fears. All their sootstreaked faces blurred together in
front of Mitch’s eyes.
Dear God, how had this
happened? But he knew. The proof of what he had suspected for
several weeks now, and had only confirmed yesterday, stood in front
of him. The collapsed apartment building, in flames, its residents
barely escaping death, told him more than he wanted to know about
his own stupidity.
He had been a fool to
trust Randy Styles. A greedy, egotistical fool! He had wanted it
all, and had been willing to do whatever it took to make it big.
But he’d never agreed to Randy cutting comers, using substandard
material or paying off the building inspector.
Mitch had never meant
for something like this to happen. If only he had uncovered the
truth a little sooner, maybe, just maybe, this disaster could have
been prevented.
“Please, sir, move out
of the way. ” The redheaded policeman nudged Mitch. “They’re
bringing someone out now. ”
A fireman rushed
through the front entrance, a still body lying in his arms. Medical
attendants scurried toward him to take the woman and place her
facedown on a stretcher.
“She’s badly burned,”
the fireman said. “Not much flesh left on her
back.”
Pain hit Mitch square
in the gut. No, please, no!
“But she’s better off
than her husband, I guess. ” The fireman shook his head. “We didn’t
get to him in time to save him.”
I’m sorry! Mitch
screamed silently as he stepped backward, his glazed stare darting
back and forth from the burning building—a Styles and Hayden
building—to the ambulance speeding off down the street, carrying a
severely burned woman to the hospital.
He glanced at the
sidewalk. A shiny spot of something pink caught his eye. Bending
over, he picked it up. A tattered piece of the woman’s nightgown!
Mitch clutched the silk fragment in his hand.
He walked aimlessly
down the street, accidently bumping into several bystanders,
curiosity seekers gathered half a block away. In his mind’s eye, he
kept seeing the seared, sootsmeared, satin gown hanging on the
woman’s body, and the length of her long, dark, singed hair falling
over the fireman’s shoulder.
The smell of smoke
filled his nostrils. The sound of weeping children and women echoed
in his ears.
He was responsible for
this nightmare. He and Randy. If he ever got his hands around his
partner’s neck, he’d strangle the life out of
him.
“I’m sorry,” Mitch
cried out. “I’m so sorry. I never meant for anything like this to
happen. Forgive me. Dear God, forgive me for being such a blind
fool!”
Mitch awoke with a start, his body
drenched in sweat. He shot straight up in bed. His heart hammered
at breakneck speed.
Running a trembling hand over his face,
he took several deep breaths. Two years, dammit! Two years, and yet
he couldn’t escape. Neither awake nor asleep.
Flinging back the light covers, he
crawled out of bed, then heard someone snoring. He looked back at
the bed. A naked woman lay sprawled on the wrinkled
yellow-and-green striped sheet. Her bleached white-blond hair
spread across the pillow like thin strands of dried straw. Smeared
mascara circled her closed eyes. One large breast lay uncovered,
its rosy nipple staring up at Mitch.
Carly. Carly something or other. He’d
known her about a week. He’d met her at the Gold Digger the night
he’d ridden into town. Into Hartsville, Kentucky.
Glancing around the room, he realized
he was in Carly’s apartment. He had spent the past few nights here
with her, the two of them drinking and messing around. He’d won at
poker last night and they had celebrated with a pizza and
beer.
As he made his way to the bathroom, he
stepped on an empty beer can. Early-morning sunlight illuminated
the tiny living room, which he could see from where he stood in the
square hallway. The place was a mess. Carly might be damn good in
bed, but she wasn’t much of a housekeeper. The place looked as
though it hadn’t seen a decent cleaning in months.
He flipped on the bathroom light,
raised the commode lid and relieved himself. Turning on the water
faucets, he leaned over the sink, then made the mistake of glancing
into the mirror. Bloodshot blue eyes stared back at him from a face
he barely recognized. Three days’ growth of light-brown beard
stubble covered his jaw and upper lip. Deep lines marred the
corners of his eyes. And he was in bad need of a
haircut.
But haircuts cost money. He wondered
how much of his poker winnings he had left. Enough for a haircut?
Enough for a few decent meals? Enough for gas so he could ride his
Harley out of town?
He splashed cold water on his face,
then lathered himself with soap, cleaning the remnants of sex from
his body. He wondered if Carly kept any razors and shave cream
around. He thought he remembered her saying something about having
her legs waxed at her cousin’s beauty salon.
He opened the medicine cabinet and
found it empty except for a few bandages and some cotton swabs.
Without thinking, Mitch looked down at the wastepaper basket
beneath the sink. He sighed. Two used condoms rested atop the
trash. Thank God he hadn’t been too drunk to remember to use
protection.
He lived daily with the memories of a
cool April morning two years ago when his successful life had come
to an end—the day the Ocean Breeze Apartments in Mobile, Alabama
had collapsed and burned.
He’d been lucky, he supposed, to walk
away without going to jail. But it really didn’t matter that the
state hadn’t prosecuted him; that, legally, he’d been innocent.
He’d been living in a prison of his own making, trapped behind the
bars of regret.
M. R. Hayden had lost everything that
mattered to him. His business, his good reputation, his hefty bank
account, his luxurious apartment in Mobile, his Jaguar, his closet
of expensive clothes—and his fiancée. When the dust had settled and
he’d been left with nothing, Loni had walked out on him. She had
reinforced the bitter lesson Randy Styles had taught him. Never
trust anybody.
Mitch returned to the bedroom, picked
up his clothes off the floor and slipped into them. He pulled out
his old, battered wallet, removed a couple of twenties and tossed
them onto the nightstand. He figured he owed Carly a little
something for his room and board the last few days. The sex had
been free. She’d made that fact perfectly clear.
On his way out, he picked up his jacket
off the back of the sofa. After closing the front door behind him,
he walked down the steps to the ground floor.
Glaring sunshine nearly blinded him
when he emerged from the two-story apartment building. He opened
his saddlebags and stuffed his jacket inside, then lifted his
helmet, put it on and jumped astride his Harley.
Revving the motorcycle, Mitch tossed
his head back, took a deep breath of crisp Kentucky morning air and
willed the memories out of his mind. Memories of long, dark hair
cascading over a fireman’s shoulder. Memories of burned flesh and
scorched pink satin. Memories of a woman named Emily.