Breaking Hearts

by Melissa Shirley

  The wind picked up the scent of his aftershave and delighted my nose as it sent the powerful aroma my way. “I have so much to tell you.” My heart jackhammered a path through my chest. We stood silently staring at one another. I had no power to move, to speak, to breathe. This was my chance to come clean, to let him know the reason I had kept such a big secret. Yet, I stood mute, my pulse pounding in my ears.

  “I shouldn’t have said those things to you about Kieran’s dad. It isn’t my business.” He leaned with his back against the truck and his gaze on my face. “Is it?”

  My eyes drifted closed. “Yes.” For as matter-of-fact as my voice sounded my heart beat so loud I had to believe he could hear it. “I know you don’t remember the day I left here to go to Arizona, but you were in the stable.” I looked toward the woods behind him. “We had a little chat, then…” God. I didn’t want to tell him this way. Honestly, in the beginning, I didn’t know if I would ever even get the chance to say the words to him. “Do you remember any of it?”

  He shook his head and frowned.

  I investigated my shoes. “I asked you if you could think of any reason for me to stay here, and you didn’t answer.” I sighed. The words choked me. “I wanted to marry you, and I thought we were almost there. Then you… You broke my heart. I stuck around here for as long as I could, but seeing you hurt so bad.” So I ran away with his friend.

  “Dani--”

  He reached out and grabbed my hand, but I ignored him and kept going. “Anyway, one minute, I was saddling a horse and the next we were…” I took a deep breath. “We were making Kieran.”

  “I know.”

  “What?” I looked at him.

  “My mom and Joss were at the grocery store when Bart and Kieran came in looking for ice cream.”

  He hardly ever called my dad by his name.

  “Joss said she knew right then. She said he looked like me when I was a kid.” With a hand on each of my shoulders, he took a few steps backward. “I waited for you to tell me. I wanted you to tell me, then, the other day, when you were going to, I panicked.” He cupped my face with his palm. “I was afraid. He’s a cool kid and you made him that way. You taught him things and made him who he is. You got him through all the mess with Sean. I don’t even know him.”

  I nodded, though Simon didn’t see it as he had quit looking at me.

  “I never knew my dad. I don’t know how to be a dad. What if I do it wrong?”

  My big strong firefighter was afraid of a six-year-old. I pressed a kiss to his cheek. “He likes you and you’re amazing with him. I heard your little conversation the last day you were here.”

  “I made him cry.”

  I sighed and looked up at him. “Simon… ” I raised a hand to his cheek. It took a minute, but finally, his eyes met mine. “Kids cry. Sometimes, it’s our fault and sometimes it isn’t, but they always smile again.”

  “Does he know?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  He pushed me back gently and felt around in his pocket. “For years, I haven’t been very connected to my life. I always felt like I was watching everyone else live theirs, and I was lost. So much has been erased from my brain--memories you all share, or have, and I don’t.”

  I stepped back into his personal space, wrapped myself around him.

  He grinned and tilted his head. “Okay. We can do this your way. As I started to say, I haven’t felt connected to anyone since the shooting. Except you. I’m attached to you in a way I can’t explain, in a way that makes my sister crazy. You brought me back to life.” He had one hand in my hair and the other on my hip.

  I moved in closer, instinctively seeking out the boy who’d always been my forever.

  “I want to grow old with you. I want to watch our kids grow up, and I want to live with you, and wake up with you, and know no matter what happens in our lives, we’ll face it together. We’ll make new memories. I am tired of living without you. Will you marry me?” He slipped a brilliantly sparkling diamond on my finger.

  I threw my arms around him as tears of real happiness flooded my eyes. “Simon, I’ve wanted to marry you since our high school prom.” I stood there holding the man of my dreams, looking at the ring over his shoulder. I couldn’t find my voice or my ability to form a thought.

  His eyes got bigger. “Are you gonna answer me or not?”

  I reached up to kiss him. “The only thing I’ve ever wanted was to marry you.”

  He half chuckled on a cough. “Even now? After everything?”

  “Especially now after everything.”

  * * * *

  Later on my mother’s patio as we snuggled together in a lounger, I ran a hand across his stomach and smiled as he gulped in a big breath. “How long have you known about Kieran?”

  “Since about a week after you got back.”

  If Joss knew, then Keaton knew and probably the rest of the group, too, along with whoever was on the call tree. “And you never said anything? No one said anything?”

  He chuckled. “That was a tough one to manage. Joss wanted to come over here and make you confess all of it, but I wanted you to be able to tell me when you were ready and when I was ready.”

  “You are going to make such a great husband.”

  He shrugged and lifted my hand to examine the ring. “Are we really going to do this?”

  “I think if Simon says so, we have to, right?”

  “Simon says.”

  Be sure not to miss fellow Lyrical Press author Sara Walter Ellwood’s sequel to Heartsong

  Heartland

  Read on for a special sneak peek of the next book in the Singing to the Heart series!

  Learn more about Sara Walter Ellwood at http://www.kensingtonbooks.com/author.aspx/29486

  Chapter 1

  Emily Kendall was tired of life-changing events. She’d had enough. But God or whatever fate controlled the universe wasn’t done fucking with her life. “Are you sure? Hell, it’s been weeks since I’ve even seen my husband, let alone had sex. Maybe the test was wrong.”

  She’d heard many life-changing words in her twenty-two years of life. The first had come when she was only fourteen and discovered superstar country singer Seth Kendall was her biological father. A few weeks after that revelation, the man she’d grown up loving as her father had shot her real dad and planned to kidnap her to sell into sex slavery.

  Since then, a lot had happened. She’d become famous. Most people would even argue she was more famous than her dad, who helped her get her first record deal when she was barely fifteen. She broke sales records set by some of the best singers in the business, won countless awards, and sponsored everything from acne creams to jeans.

  When she was three months shy of turning twenty, she’d met the British pop star Fabian McPhee. They’d collaborated on a TV special for the CMT network. He was fifteen years older than she was, mega famous, and super sexy. A month later while she was on tour in Australia, he’d asked her out to a nightclub.

  That night had been full of firsts. Fabian introduced her to what would become her drugs of choice--cocaine and gin. Then, she’d lost her virginity to him. She’d thought she was in love. He was like no one she’d ever known. Despite her parents’ outrage over their tabloid-crazed, whirlwind relationship, only two months after that first date they were married by Fabian’s drummer, who happened to be an ordained minister from some online course he’d taken.

  The medical director of the facility sitting across the wide, gleaming oak desk leaned forward and clasped his hands. “Your blood test isn’t wrong. You are pregnant.”

  “Fuck.” She was on a birth control shot, but she’d forgotten to get it. The last time she’d seen Fabian had been about six weeks ago. They’d had sex, but she thought he’d used a condom. She couldn’t remember much of the event, like most of their two years of married life together. They’d split up ten months ago, but neither of them had gotten around to filing for divo
rce or could resist an occasional tumble in the sack or getting high together.

  Not able to sit still any longer, she stood to pace the length of the posh office and folded her arms tightly around herself. She’d only been here for three days and already wanted to get the hell out of the medical facility. “How far along am I?”

  Dr. Barton slid his finger over the screen of the computer tablet on his desk. “According to the history you gave the nurse who checked you in and your hCG level…” When she furrowed her brows trying to remember what the letters stood for, he clarified, “Pregnancy hormone. You would have to be six weeks.”

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her skin was too tight and hot. A coating of sweat caused her fingers to stick together, and she wiped her shaky hands on her jeans. Turning toward the window, she stared out at the woodland park surrounding the Fernwood Rehabilitation Center. In the past three years, she’d checked into the facility’s drug and alcohol program to sober up three times, and each admission had been against her will. She didn’t belong here because she wasn’t an addict. So what if she went a little too far this last time and was booed off stage? The venue, if the college auditorium could justify that name, sucked anyway.

  This news was the very last thing she needed to hear. She turned and vigorously rubbed her arms, really needing a hit right now. The desire for a line of coke brought to mind another issue. She remembered when her mother had been pregnant with her brother five years ago she wouldn’t even take Tylenol for her headaches. Did she honestly want to know the answer to what all the coke she’d snorted could have done to her baby if her mother had been afraid to take something as harmless as over-the-counter pain pills? But she had to know if she’d harmed her child. “Do you know if the baby is okay?”

  Dr. Barton stood to come around his desk. He leaned his backside on the heavy oak edge and folded his hands before him. “I don’t know. Emily, there is a chance your baby will be born with problems. You are an addict.” He held up his hand when she started to protest. “No, I’m not listening to your rationalizations. You’ve got to stop the drugs.”

  “I can quit. I have before.”

  He took a deep breath that made his shoulders rise, then fall. “And yet here you are again. Why were you admitted this time?”

  She needed to get the hell away. “My manager has gotten a little too big for her pants.” Maybe she should fire Trish Russell for talking her into even thinking about this place again. Trish had been her manager for three years, ever since she was promoted by her father-in-law and took Emily on as one of her first clients. She considered Trish one of her few true friends, but, sometimes, the older woman was a pain in the ass.

  She spun on her heels, which made her lose her balance as dizziness whipped her world out of control. Grabbing the back of the chair to keep from falling over, she tossed over her shoulder, “I think we’re done here.”

  “Emily, I’ll let you go as soon as you tell me why you are here.”

  She stopped halfway to the door. If she didn’t answer him, he’d only follow her. Letting out a long breath, she stared at the white-painted ceiling. “I’m here because I was too high to sing.”

  The past five shows were a blur. Nothing fun or amazing about any of them. No fans waiting for her to autograph their T-shirts. But then again, when was the last time she took time to talk to her fans after a show? When was the last time she did anything special for her fans? Once upon a time, she’d put on massive productions in front of stadiums full to bursting with screaming, adoring fans.

  Her last tour hadn’t even sold out to rundown opera houses and college auditoriums. In the early days, she’d arrange spontaneous private showings for more fans than had showed up for her current tour. She’d simply leave a date, time, and place on Twitter and a hundred or so of her fans would show up for a show. When had she last sent one of her own Tweets? She knew Kelly, her assistant, did all of her social media crap for her these days.

  “I’m here because my record label said if I don’t sober up, they’re cutting me.”

  “They aren’t happy with you?”

  She shrugged and started pacing again. The cagy feeling was getting worse. “No. My last album is six months past due its production deadline. But I can’t help that all the songs suck.”

  “Why do they suck?”

  Turning, she met the doctor’s steady gaze. She wanted to tell Dr. Barton that her label and her manager had sabotaged her by giving her shit songs, but she couldn’t say that. Were the songs bad? Her father’s old friend, pop superstar Amanda Lang, had written four of them and had given them to Emily as a gift, despite three other singers wanting them. The other two songs she’d recorded were from an award-winning songwriter, and they, too, had been sought after by the best in the business.

  She blinked when the realization hit her. The songs weren’t the problem nor were the studio musicians playing on the record. She was. “I don’t want to talk about my career. I want to talk about my baby. Is there any way we can determine if it’s okay?” As she laid her trembling hand on her belly, she silently prayed to a God she doubted would listen to anything she asked of Him. Please let my baby be okay.

  Dr. Barton looked down at his hands, then went back to his big leather chair and sat. “I’d like you to meet with a colleague of mine. Doctor Marcella Summers is an OB/Gynecologist who specializes in babies born to addicted mothers. She’d be the person who might know the answer to your question.”

  She faced the wide windows again, but the early summer day and the forested mountains surrounding the center weren’t what she saw. “Okay.”

  How was she going to handle a baby? Hell, she could barely take care of herself. What if it had a major problem from all the crap she’d put into her body?

  She closed her eyes and fisted her hand over her belly. Dear God, what would Fabian say about the baby? He’d warned her when they got married he didn’t want any kids. Would he blame the pregnancy on her as he had so many other things over the past two years?

  “Emily, I don’t know an addict who easily admits they are one.” Dr. Barton broke into a tirade of questions, bombarding her. “By your own admission, you use cocaine at least four times a week, but most weeks you use it every day.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at him. He swiped his finger over his tablet, the paused to read more of her medical record. “In August twenty-eighteen, your father admitted you to Fernwood when he found you passed out on your tour bus. According to your blood toxin levels, you were only a snort of coke away from overdosing; then in June of last year, you were admitted after falling off stage and breaking your arm. Again, your blood work showed dangerous amounts of cocaine and alcohol.”

  Although she snickered at the memory, the humor was short lived, and she sobered. That had been her last stadium show. Tabloid and entertainment reporters hounded her after her release from Fernwood. Fabian’s own career also took a nosedive when he was arrested for drunk driving and resisting arrest. The two of them and their antics had been a favorite topic in even mainstream news since then.

  He cleared his throat and folded his hands in front of him. “Your blood results weren’t as toxic this time, but if you don’t make an honest attempt to get clean and stay clean, not only will you jeopardize your child, you’re going to end up dead.”

  The truth smacked her hard in the gut. She was an addict. Up until now, she never believed she was one. She used coke and drank gin because she liked them, not because she couldn’t live without them. But the reality was she used drugs to deal with life and all of its shit.

  Would she have become so screwed up if she’d never met Fabian McPhee? Or had she been destined to a life of drug use due to her messed up childhood and sudden super stardom? Who knew? But in that moment, she hated the man who first introduced her to drugs and destroyed so much of her life. Her country music career was dead, and the fans she’d garnered when she put out a total pop album a year and
half ago at Fabian’s insistence had abandoned her. She hadn’t spoken to or seen her parents, except from a distance at award shows, since her marriage. Since severing her ties with her mom and dad, she hadn’t seen her four-year-old brother. Now, she was responsible for developing a tiny baby who may very well end up paying for her lousy judgment.

  She turned and met the doctor’s patient brown eyes. The man had to be a saint to manage the care of spoiled brat idiots like her. “Okay, Dr. Barton. I’m an addict. I use coke because I can’t deal with life.” She squared her shoulders and let out a breath. “There, I admitted it. Set up the appointment with the OB. But there’s something else I’d like you to do.” One of the conditions of admission into Fernwood was no contact with the outside world except for approved visitors on an extremely short list. “I want to file for divorce before I tell Fabian about the baby.”

  The doctor’s surprise registered in the slightest widening of his eyes. “If that is want you want.”

  Emily couldn’t help the snort as she sat in the chair in front of the desk again. “Oh, don’t be coy, Dr. Barton. I know you’ve been hoping I’d ditch Fabian McPhee since the first time my father dragged my sorry ass into this place a year and a half ago.” She looked at her hands as a rare moment of clarity blasted away the rosy sheen she’d painted over her life with her husband. “My counselor is right. Fabian and I do have a crazy love type of relationship. He might not beat me, but he has made me dependant on him by making me an addict.”

  For the first time in years, she felt relief flood over her. She smiled and met the doctor’s eyes again. “For my baby and for me, I have to get away from him.”

  * * * *

  Emily laid a t-shirt in her suitcase and turned at the knock on the doorframe. She smiled at the willowy woman as she entered the room. “I’m glad to see you. I’m ready to get out of here.”