Be Still My Heart: A Romantic Suspense

by Emily McIntire

  “I’m just trying to make him proud,” I say, my voice catching involuntarily. Trying to find a shred of happiness in the midst of the cold, dark world we live in. Satisfaction that comes from within.

  “Oh, baby.” Pushing up on her tiptoes, she wraps her arms around my neck, pulling me into her embrace. “You already have.”

  I get back to my cabin after dark, having spent the entire evening going over a game plan to revitalize the lobster business. It’d mean attempting to utilize the boat year round, even when crustaceans are almost impossible to find.

  There’s no telling if the boat’s been submerged in the water too long to be worth saving at this point, but my mother insisted we at least try it.

  So, that’s what I’m doing. Letting her in.

  Monet barks from inside the house as I unlock the front door, pushing it aside and bending down to stroke the top of his head as I lock us inside. Morgan’s car was impounded for evidence the other night, so as I make my way through the house, flipping on lights as I go, I’m not expecting her to be sitting in the middle of my mattress when I go into the bedroom.

  A plethora of sketches I’ve drawn over the years are fanned out in a circle on the bed, and she studies them intently, like they hold secrets she desperately wants the answers to.

  In a way, maybe they do.

  I pause just inside, every single thought I have coming to a complete and perfect halt as my eyes drink her in for the first time in days.

  It was fucking torture, leaving her behind so I could do my last trawl, after the body that’d been planted on the hood of her car at the Halloween party. I spent ninety percent of the time worrying about her now being a target, wishing I could keep her glued to my side at all times.

  Wishing I could keep her safe, and then ignoring the implication of that thought.

  Wishing I could keep her, period.

  But I know she still considers herself a temporary fixture, and I’m trying to make my peace with that.

  My hand finds the doorknob, squeezing the brass in my palm as I open my mouth to speak.

  But she beats me to it.

  “You drew her.”

  My throat tenses as I walk in farther, taking in the scene the way you might a car wreck; somehow slowly and suddenly all at once, as if time stands still at the same rate it flashes forward.

  Fiddling with the edge of one sheet, she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “This one’s my favorite. You did it right after she went missing, didn’t you?”

  Heart in my throat, I glance briefly at the page she’s referring to, knowing already which piece it is. The only one where the caricature’s eyes are exact—soft and focused, attainable yet somehow out of reach.

  The perfect opalescent blue.

  “I didn’t have any pictures of her for a long time. My parents confiscated the ones in our possession, afraid that seeing her might set me off, I think. Suggestion of one of my many childhood therapists. And the ones Paul had, he refused to give to anyone.”

  My eyes rove over the sketch, noting the frayed edges and lazy strokes, feeling a pang in my stomach. “It was the only way I could feel close to her after she disappeared. The drawings kept our connection, and then one day it severed completely because I went off to become a SEAL, and after that, the sketches were never quite the same.”

  “Would you draw me?” she asks. “When I leave?”

  The thought sours my stomach, nausea curdling like spoiled milk in my core. A reminder. “I’d never be able to do justice to the real thing.”

  I step closer, and she tilts her head up; her eyes are red and puffy, swollen like she’s spent the last several hours crying, though her cheeks are dry.

  She sniffles, and the sound unravels a piece of me I didn’t realize was still wrapped tight, the chains around my heart loosening until they’re falling into a metallic heap at her feet.

  “Jesus, Sloane. Are you okay?”

  She shakes her head, a tiny sob escaping before she has a chance to cover her mouth. It racks through her body, making her tremble, and I’m propelling myself forward, scooping her into my arms and onto my lap as she completely breaks down.

  Turning her head, she muffles her cries into the collar of my shirt, and for a while we just sit like that, curled around each other, letting our pain bleed into the silence.

  After her sobs are reduced to hiccups, she pulls back slightly, sucking in a lungful of air and wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

  “Alex and I talked to Preacher Cartwright today,” she murmurs, her eyes falling to where my flannel’s pulled up and folded at my elbow.

  Her fingers fall to my forearm, tracing the tattoos etched into my skin absently, and I tense beneath her touch. It’s freeing, the way she’s allowing herself this indulgence, even if I’m not sure exactly what it means.

  I also don’t like the idea of her going to that shady motherfucker without me.

  My arms tighten around her. “How’d it go?”

  “I kind of left before it got interesting.”

  “Oh?” I raise an eyebrow.

  “He was talking to us, and the second we sat down in that office, I had this vivid flashback—”

  “I’ll bet,” I grunt, attempting to lighten the mood a bit.

  She snorts, but the sound is hollow. “Please, Linc. This is… important.”

  Miming locking my lips and throwing away the key, I sit back against the headboard, and she settles beside me. She continues tracing my ink, and I wonder if the artwork helps calm her at all. If the slight distraction makes any of this easier.

  Whatever this is.

  “Anyway, he asked if there was anything he could help us with, and I suddenly remembered sitting in that very same spot with you.”

  I blink. “Yeah, last week when I ate—”

  “No, eighteen years ago.”

  Suddenly, my mouth is extremely dry, and I force my tongue between my lips, trying to create a tinge of liquid so I can form a sentence.

  “It was so real, you sitting beside me and giving Cartwright hell for mistreating my mother. Like I was watching a movie; the scene just came rushing back, smacking me in the face with a cold dose of reality.”

  I try to swallow, but I can barely fucking breathe, too focused on what she might say next.

  “I can’t explain it,” she whispers, giving a little shake of her head. “But… I think I believe you, Lincoln.”

  My hand finds her jaw, tilting her head up so I can stare directly into her eyes. “You’re her.”

  Chapter 44

  As I sit on Lincoln’s bed, his artwork strewn around me, a flash of our first kiss hits my psyche; the time when he was drawing eyes that I thought were mine—that I thought were a mockery of my time with The Portland Dresser.

  But he wasn’t mocking me.

  He was drawing her.

  Morgan Jensen.

  I lean back against his pillows, trying to force my brain into another memory, part of me desperate to remember more and the other half of me aching to forget. I’m not sure I’m ready to handle what all of this means.

  Because it means I have no idea who I am.

  It means the foundation of people I’ve loved and trusted my entire life are not who they claim.

  It means that years are missing from my memory, and I’ve never even known they were gone.

  Lincoln’s weight settles on the edge of the bed, his hand coming up to rub under my jaw, and I choke back a sob, his touch sending a rush of comfort through my frazzled edges.

  I feel crazy.

  “Ssh,” he soothes, his thumb rubbing back and forth gently against my cheek. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”

  My fingers wrap around his wrist as I blink rapidly, wishing the tears would stop falling long enough for me to clear my vision and focus on something other than the confusion. “It’s not, Lincoln. I feel insane.”

  I blow out a stuttered breath, hiccuping over the emotion that overflows like a broken tap th
rough my insides. “How do you go your entire life without realizing you’re missing a different one?”

  Another sob works its way up my throat, and my hands leave his to grab at my middle, trying to soothe the ache.

  “What did you remember?” he asks. “At the church.”

  “I don’t know…” I shake my head. “We were asking something about my m—”

  I stumble over the words, another devastating realization hitting me when the word mom is about to pass my lips. Because if this is true—if this is true—my mom isn’t who she says she is.

  How is that even possible?

  “My parents are good people,” I say instead.

  Lincoln’s posture stiffens slightly, his thumbs stuttering as they rub on my face, but he doesn’t withdraw the touch.

  “They’re not—they couldn’t do something like this,” I continue. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  He nods, his large hands moving from my cheeks to wrap in the strands of my hair, tugging me until my ear is pressed flat against his chest and I can hear every beat of his heart. I close my eyes, wishing like hell that I could force mine to match the rhythm.

  “When you asked me about my enemies,” he starts. “There was only one name flowing through my head. Jordan Thomas.”

  My brows pull in, wondering what this has to do with anything, but the sound of his voice is soothing, so I sink into his embrace and listen to what he has to say.

  “That man loved my father. And they worked together for years, a camaraderie that you need to have in Maine lobstering, otherwise you’re shit out of luck,” he chuckles softly. “But even though I knew how close they were, I was certain he was out to get me. I could feel it in my fucking bones. I was half convinced he was killing all these women and carving into their bodies as a personal message.” He huffs. “A vendetta that I created in my head because I didn’t want to admit that maybe the problem was me.”

  I sniffle, my stomach feeling sour from how violently it churns.

  “But…” he blows out a breath. “Turns out, if you don’t give people a chance to speak for themselves, you’ll never really know the truth.”

  His fingers caress the nape of my neck as he softly rocks us back and forth.

  “Only the narrative that you’ve created in your head.”

  “What’s this have to do with anything?” I rasp, my nose so stuffed from crying my voice sounds clogged.

  “It means you never really know a person’s intentions until you ask them to tell you.” He pulls back slightly, his touch sending tingles down my spine as his eyes meet mine. “Creating a thousand different what-if scenarios will drive you insane. Go talk to your family.”

  “What if…” I lick my dry lips, swallowing around the scream that’s scratching up my throat. “What if I don’t like what they have to say?”

  He smiles softly, his palm running down the back of my head. “Then you come back home, and you let me hold you through the pain.”

  Home.

  It’s ridiculous to hear him say it, but nothing has ever resonated so true.

  “What if it never goes away?” I ask again, my nose burning as more tears well in my eyes.

  “The pain?”

  Leaning into his touch, I nod.

  He puffs out his cheeks with his exhale. “It probably won’t.”

  “Great,” I try to joke. “Real inspirational, Lincoln.”

  He chuckles, his thumbs coming up to swipe away the wetness from my cheeks. “Deep wounds always leave a mark, killer. Some scar worse than others, and some don’t ever fully heal. They just scab over, muted and dulled until you prick them a certain way.”

  My chest throbs.

  “But there’s beauty in pain, baby.” His hands tilt my face until our gazes lock. “Your strength is in learning how to breathe through it; how to keep living even when it feels like you want to die.”

  His words sink into my skin and flow into my veins, marinating in my system and coating everything it touches.

  Still, I don’t want him to be right.

  I don’t want to hurt.

  I don’t want to have to feel this.

  Backing out of his reach, my breathing hiccups, the nausea swirling at the base of my gut like a cyclone.

  “I want to believe you.” I press a hand against my stomach. “But, I’m not her, Lincoln.”

  “You are—”

  “No, I mean up here.” I tap my temple. “I don’t know what she liked, or her favorite color. Or-or what her favorite foods were.” Emotion surges up my throat. “What it felt like to live in a lighthouse, or have the same friends since birth.”

  I wipe under my eyes so hard it pulls the skin. “I don’t know whether she was good in school, or if she was a daddy’s girl.” I pause, my esophagus burning. My eyes flick to the drawings. “If she was there with her mom the night she died.”

  “Morgan…”

  “No.” I meet his stare. “I’ll never be her, Lincoln. I’m just me.” I shrug. “And I’m afraid once you realize that...”

  His nostrils flare, his green eyes adopting a glossy sheen.

  “I don’t want to try and live as her ghost, when I can’t even live up to her memory.”

  Lincoln’s jaw clenches, his hands reaching out and grabbing mine, bringing them into his lap as he stares down at our fingers tangling together.

  “Morgan Jensen was my best friend,” he whispers.

  My heart clenches at the way he speaks as if she’s dead. As if he’s trying to accept it as fact even though we both know that technically, she is me.

  “She had this thing about her, you know?” he continues. “This fucking light that swallowed me whole. And when she went missing, a piece of me went missing too.” He lifts his eyes to the ceiling before bringing them back to me. “I’ve carried the weight of guilt on my shoulders every day for eighteen years.”

  He brings up my hand, pressing a kiss to the center of my palm, his lips brushing back and forth, his breath skating up my skin like a warm caress.

  “I loved her like any kid loves their best friend. Their family.” He slides his fingers from my wrist, up my arm, until he’s cupping my neck, his thumb tilting my chin until I’m staring in his eyes.

  “But I never loved her the way I’m falling in love with you.”

  My chest explodes, sparks igniting my nerves, my heart banging against my ribs like a drum.

  “I want you, Morgan. Every day. And every night. Every fucked up, annoying, smart-ass thing you say, I want it all. Not because of who I think you were. But because of who you are.”

  Tears stream down my face, the salty water trailing over my lips and dripping off my chin, but he doesn’t seem to care, tugging me into him until our mouths touch.

  And even though my emotions are ragged, my mind thrown in a thousand different directions, I sink into his kiss, letting Lincoln be the light that guides me through the foggy water.

  Because I’ve never felt home the way I do when I’m with him.

  Chapter 45

  It’s the next day and while I’m still feeling like crap, I’m freshly showered, and have pulled myself together enough to make a quick trip to my parents and try to get some answers; something that will alleviate the chaos in my brain enough to let me focus on the job.

  I just got my car back from the impound lot, and I’m fairly confident I broke every speeding law in existence to make it here.

  And for the past thirty minutes, I’ve been sitting in the same position, my legs crossed on the dusty attic floor, my ass going numb, as I stare down at the papers I found in my mom’s old cherry oak chest.

  It tells me everything I need to know, and everything I wish I didn’t.

  Adoption papers, signed by Camille Sloane. My aunt.

  Medical records documenting CT scans, cognitive tests, and the real kicker: focal retrograde amnesia resulting from blunt force trauma to the temporal lobe.

  I stare numbly at the lines on the pages until they b
lur, not even bothering to look up when the attic door creaks open and the heavy footsteps of my parents walk inside.

  Immediately, I know that they know what I’ve uncovered.

  “Morgan,” my mom whispers, her voice shaky.

  I put my hand up. “Things are not okay.”

  Blowing out a deep breath, I raise my eyes to meet theirs. “I need you to tell me the truth.”

  Both of their faces are ghostly white, my mother’s hand covering her mouth, my father’s jaw clenching.

  I narrow my gaze, my stomach twisting until it feels like I’ll snap in half. I have never felt the need to question them on anything, yet suddenly I’m feeling so stupid that I haven’t.

  I hold the crumpled medical record in my hand, the burn of betrayal cauterizing my insides. “How could you keep this from me?”

  “We didn’t know what to say!” my mom explodes. “We didn’t know what to do. Cammie showed up on our doorstep, saying you had no home, you had nowhere to go. And I was—” She chokes on a sob. “I was desperate to have you.”

  “That’s no excuse,” I snap, the paper shaking in my grip. “Did nobody look for me? I don’t understand.”

  “Nobody knew who you were, Morgan,” my dad’s voice quivers as he speaks. “You were found by fishermen, floating on a piece of wood in the sea with an open wound on the back of your head.”

  “Bullshit!” I yell. “It’s the state’s job to reunite families. It was Aunt Cammie’s job. You expect me to believe she couldn’t do it?”

  My mom shakes her head, tears glistening down her cheeks. But I have no sympathy for her pain. Clearly they didn’t give a damn about anyone else’s when they kept me for themselves and called me their own.

  “Didn’t anyone care?” I ask. “Didn’t any of you think of the people that would be missing me? The ones who had to suffer losing a girl I spent my life not even knowing existed?”

  “We’re not perfect people, Morgan.” My dad’s hand comes up to rub my mother’s back.