Summer Lovin': A Wounded Hearts Novella (9 page)
Read Summer Lovin': A Wounded Hearts Novella Online
Authors: Jacquie Biggar
R
ebecca sipped
her coffee and smiled absently to Susan’s chatter, until she mentioned how lucky she was, and how her mom would have a conniption fit if she knew what happened.
“Don’t call her, Susan, please.” She met the worried gaze of her mom’s best friend and reached out to grasp her hand. “I’m fine. Mom’s having the holiday she always dreamed of. I don’t want her to cut it short because of me.”
Susan set the coffee pot on the café tabletop and leaned over to give her a swift hug. “Okay, sugar, but don’t you go scarin’ me like that again, you hear?”
Becky laughed. “Not if I can help it.”
She was just grateful Jack’s deputies had arrived in time to assist in the arrest of Tommy and Jasper’s uncle and his asshole friend.
Someone hollered down the way, and Susan grimaced “Hold yer horses, Phil, I’m coming.”
She picked up the pot, winked at Becky, and was gone, a bright ray of sunshine with her bleached blonde hair highlighted by a neon green streak running down the side, and her crazy assortment of jewelry. Today she wore Elvis Presley earrings from his Vegas show, the cape and belt glowing with rhinestones.
The bell tinkling above the door drew Rebecca’s attention. Her heart stuttered as Mitch walked in, his arms loaded with the biggest bouquet of daisies she’d ever seen. The room grew quiet as he drew closer, but Becky barely noticed. This man was her husband. Why did it take a near catastrophe for her to realize how very important he was to her existence?
“Hi,” he murmured, handing the flowers over.
She buried her face in them until she could get her thoughts together. She’d mentioned how much she loved daisies way back when they’d spent that evening in Las Vegas getting to know each other.
And he’d remembered.
His big body slid onto the bench beside her and his arm went around her waist before she felt able to lift her head without bursting into tears.
“They’re beautiful,” she whispered, her gaze on his dear face.
“So… are you ready to give us a shot now?” he asked, his expression vulnerable.
Happy beyond words, she nodded and threw herself into the haven of his arms.
“Yay, the teacher said yes,” Tommy cried.
Becky looked up, surprised, and noticed their friends surrounding the table. From a grinning Jack, his arms wrapped around Laurel and Tina, who hadn’t been harmed in the incident, thank God. Becky would never forget her fear when Pete opened the kitchen door and Tina was there. She’d fought with her dad and come searching for the boys after finding out the shocking news that they were her stepbrothers. It would take some time but Jack was a great father—he’d work it out.
Next, Becky’s teary gaze moved on to Ty and Katy, Katy’s baby bump pronounced in the summer dress she was wearing.
Mitch’s buddy, Jared, stood off to the side, a knowing smirk on his lips, his wife-to-be, Annie, tucked in front of him. Grace stepped forward, a gorgeous wedding cake in her hands.
Becky turned a bemused gaze on Mitch. “They know?”
He turned faintly red. “I wasn’t going to give you a chance to run away this time.”
Rebecca didn’t know what to say.
“Miss Sorenson.” Tommy stood at her elbow, his hand held out to show a fragile gold chain.
Tears leaked down Becky’s face as she reached out and lifted the locket from his palm.
“You found it.”
She ran a finger over the filigree workmanship and gave Tommy a watery smile before glancing shyly at Mitch. “Do you remember this?”
A look of wonder turned his eyes almost the same shade of gold. “I bought you that for a wedding gift. You kept it,” he said with a quiet satisfaction.
“Of course,” she answered. “When the man you love buys you a gift, you hang on to it.”
Mitch leaned down and placed his lips to hers.
“Forever,” he said.
“Forever,” she agreed.
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Jacquie Biggar
J
acquie writes
Romantic Suspense with tough, alpha males who know what they want, until they're gob-smacked by heroines who are strong, contemporary women willing to show them that what they really need is love.
She has been blessed with a long, happy marriage and enjoys writing romance novels that end with happy-ever-afters.
Jacquie lives in paradise along the west coast of Canada with her family and loves reading, writing, and flower gardening. She swears she can't function without coffee, preferably at the beach with her sweetheart. :)
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C
hapter
One
I
f Lucas Carmichael
had known he was going to wake up dead, he might have kept sleeping.
There was some sort of a thin sheet covering him from head to toe, but it didn’t do anything to stop his body from shaking or his heels from vibrating on the table beneath him. His chest pumped like a set of bellows on steroids. He blinked repeatedly to get his bearings, but still couldn’t see a fricking thing.
What the hell was going on?
A white-hot pain hit him between the brows.
Ow.
He rubbed his forehead. Except—his palms were still on the cold metal of the table. He could feel them there. So, whose…?
Adrenaline spiked, shooting adrenaline though his system.
Terrified, he shoved off the choking hold of the sheet and threw himself to the floor, crouching for a moment to get his bearings, every muscle tensed. Reaction set in and perspiration broke over his naked body, rattling his teeth. A high-pitched whistle rang in his ears, and his heart pounded harder than his old base speaker beating out a Black Sabbath tune.
He squinted against the lights, blindingly bright after the darkness of the sheet. A man and a woman stood a few feet away behind another table with a blanket shrouded figure. Weird. They hadn’t even glanced up when he performed his gymnastics. Something strange was going on here.
“It’s too bad. She had her whole life in front of her,” the woman said as she took some sort of vise and lodged it in the poor sucker’s chest. “I heard they were headed from a party when it happened.”
The other guy in a white jacket shook his head. “These guys never learn. They think just because they’re the newest hot item and have more money than God, nothing’s ever going to happen to them.”
He reached into the cavity and carefully removed what looked like the heart and placed it in a pan resting on the corpse’s legs. “At least she’ll make a good research candidate.”
Holy shit.
He was in a freaking morgue. How the hell did that happen? Last thing he remembered was cruisin’ down the highway in his new 911 Porsche with the music blaring so loud he could barely hear himself think. His best friend, Scott, with his younger sister, Natalya, on his lap in the passenger seat, had just glanced over her blond head and smiled the quirky grin that had won him instant box office success.
Lucas remembered thinking they were so freaking lucky—to come from where they had, to where they were now? A miracle.
He’d laughed and turned back to the curves of the road, but his vision went wonky for a second. When it straightened out his eyes had widened in shock. The sharp tang of copper flooded his mouth. The windshield was filled with the terrified faces of the family in a van hurtling straight toward them. Shit, he must have swerved over the center line.
They were going to crash.
Time simultaneously slowed to a crawl, and jumped to warp speed. The man was frantically trying to turn the wheel and avoid the collision, while the woman’s horrified face stared accusingly at him out the window before she turned to the back seat in a vain effort to protect her babies. Those images would haunt him for the rest of his days.
A litany of prayers Lucas hadn’t uttered since he’d been a young child rattled off his lips while Scott’s “What the fuck?” vibrated with fear. He felt more than saw his friend bracing for impact, his arms tightening around Nat as he buried her face in his shoulder.
Then there was a horrendous screech of metal on metal. His chest slammed into the steering wheel with bruising force, knocking the breath from his lungs. The momentum propelled the car to skid sideways and collide with the van again, this time from the rear. The collision sent his body smashing against the driver’s door. Natalya’s scream reverberated and then was abruptly cut off. His head cracked hard against the window. The last thing he remembered was the suffocating sensation of the deployed airbags.
Lucas rose and backed away from those bloody gloved hands doing God knows what to whoever was on that table. He bumped into another tray filled with instruments of torture and froze at the resultant clang. He covered his privates and met the startled gaze of the doc. Except, she looked right through him, her pretty green eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“That’s not funny, Hank. I told you I don’t like your games.”
The man, Hank, threw his hands up in the classic ‘hold on there’ pose. “Hey, it wasn’t me this time, I swear.” He moved closer to the tools, as though to defend himself with a scalpel or something, the idiot.
The woman’s eyes pierced the shadows, only marginally relaxing when she found the room empty. Well, except for the stiffs and him of course. Lucas had a very bad feeling. The only reason for those two not to be able to see him was if he were invisible. And since he was reasonably sure he hadn’t received a bite from a radioactive spider, he must be a… ghost.
No sooner did the thought flutter wraithlike through his mind than Lucas’ feet lifted from the tiled floor, pulled up by a brilliant white light encircling his body. He groaned, the heat a benediction on his aching bones. So it was true, there was another realm after death. He’d always believed when he died, that was it. He’d become just another shit-stain on the fabric of mankind. It’s how he’d lived his life, no harm, no foul. But, this. This felt… divine.
If there really was a heaven, he didn’t deserve a spot. Not after everything he’d done.
It seemed like only seconds later the beam transported him to a textured surface sort of like the topping on his favorite dessert of lemon meringue pie. There were hills and hollows all in creamy shades of tan and white as far as the eye could see. It made him queasy.
He looked around but didn’t see another soul, living or otherwise.
N
ice to know he hadn’t lost his rather dubious sense of humor when he died.
Christ.
He was dead.
The stark truth hit him and drove him to his knees. Little tufts of cloud bounced crazily, temporarily obscuring his vision. Not that he was missing much; he was the only freaking person up here.
Was this his fate then? To spend an endless eternity wandering around the perimeter between this world and the next, not allowed to enter either dimension? It was no more than he deserved, but he’d give anything to know what happened to Scott, Natalya, and that family. He didn’t care what lay in store for him as long as they were okay.
Please.
A sensation crept over his skin like a warm breeze. Someone was watching. His head flipped around like
Beetlejuice
, searching the ever-changing monochromatic landscape around him, but there was nothing.
And then, suddenly—there was.
A figure appeared out of the mist. Completely covered in a glowing white robe from head to toe, the ethereal body floated across the distance and came to a halt about a metre away. The… thing stood with its head bowed and arms crossed in front of him. He could have easily passed for an albino monk.
Holy shit.
If Lucas wasn’t dead already, this place would have done the trick. He’d never been a fan of fun houses. The creepy mirrors, moving floors, and freaky characters appearing out of nowhere pretty much negated the whole
fun
aspect.
He rose on unsteady legs and waited, heart in his throat, ready to turn tail and run if that robe uncovered a creature from his nightmares.
“Who are you? Why am I here?” he demanded.
The guy rocking the bed sheet fashion accessories wasn’t talking. Why was this happening? Okay, he got it. He’d fucked up, but it was a little late to do anything about it. If he was dead, fine. Drop him in a hole somewhere and leave him the hell alone.
This is bullshit
.
“We agree.”
The words, spoken in a soft baritone, seemed to enter his head without ever being uttered. Lucas raised his hands for protection against he knew not what. His heart threatened to bounce from his chest. He closed his eyes and prayed to a God who’d never listened that he was just in shock and this was all a bad dream. It had to be. But when he chanced opening them a few moments later, nothing had changed. It seemed this was to be his new reality.
“Come,” the voice said. Without waiting on his compliance—though really, where was he going to go—the figure turned and drifted over a nearby peak.
Lucas hesitated, torn between throwing himself over the nearest cloud-bank, and trailing behind to see just what the future held in store for him.
Curiosity won. He followed.