Sing to Me (The Highlands Book 1)

by Ali M. Cross

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  1 John 4:18

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Coming Soon

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Sing to Me (The Highlands, Book 1) © 2018 Ali M. Cross

  Cover Design by Steven Novak

  Editing by Lorie Humpherys

  www.alicross.com

  Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  There is no fear in love;

  but perfect love casteth out fear

  1 John 4:18

  FIONA MACDONALD SPED DOWN THE TWO-LANE country road, glaring at the pines, aspen and purple mountain majesty. She wanted cityscape, not landscape. The frustration burned through her veins, but it was a thin veneer over the sorrow that would crush her if she let it.

  Eight weeks ago, she was preparing for her debut with the Metropolitan Opera.

  Six weeks ago, she’d been mugged and everything changed.

  Four weeks ago, the opera company officially fired her.

  Two weeks ago the neck brace came off, but she was still on a strict low-voice diet.

  This morning she’d moved out of her tiny, roach-infested, and completely perfect apartment in downtown New York City, and boarded a plane for the Rocky Mountains.

  And here she was, driving Colorado country roads riddled with potholes the size of the Ford Fiesta the rental company had given her. It had to be a conspiracy—she’d break an axle on the pitiful thing that was never meant to travel these country roads, and the rental place would steal a hefty repair fee from her insurance.

  She gritted her teeth as the right wheel crashed into a crater she’d tried to avoid. Her bones ached. Her whole body ached. Her heart ached.

  How could she return to life at Highlands Lodge after her glamorous—or what-should-have-been-glamorous—life in New York? How could she be a riding coach, a trail guide or a kennel keeper when she was born to be a performer? How could she return home after the way she’d left it six years ago?

  She hadn’t been home once in all that time. Not for holidays, birthdays, or even to see her parents off to Scotland. Oh, she’d met them at JFK airport for their hour and fifteen minute layover—but that didn’t count and she knew it. They’d sat in a small, too-crowded airport café and tried to say everything, yet said nothing real at all. There wasn’t nearly enough time to discuss Fiona’s absence and the sadness it had caused her mom and dad, or the guilt she felt over it all.

  She slowed as she passed the small, brick church she’d attended her whole life until the day she’d escaped to college. The sign on its side announced, “We may be small, but we’re mighty! See you Sunday!” and then “Choir practice Wednesday, 7pm.” Her throat constricted and the familiar burn began behind her eyes. It was just church choir—she’d never been much of a choir singer and she wasn’t about to start now. But the idea that she might not even be able to do that because of her injury…

  The lodge was close now—too close. She couldn’t very well show up after six years all teary-eyed and blotchy. Her siblings would think she was sorry she’d left, and she hadn’t been. Still wasn’t.

  They didn’t know about the attack, about her losing her job—they didn’t know any of it—and she wasn’t about to tell them. It was far too late to change things now. She’d made it abundantly clear years ago that she didn’t need her family; she couldn’t expect them to just forgive and forget.

  When the dirt lot of the old run-down bar Rednecks appeared on her left, she angled for it and pulled in. Panic flooded her body with fire, and her mind reeled. Her chest constricted as if one of those man-eating snakes had wrapped itself around it. With trembling fingers, she managed to press the automatic window button in hopes the cool mountain air would make it into her lungs, but it was too late to help her now. Her vision grew dark as the panic attack entered DefCon 1 and memory overtook reality.

  His hands squeezed her throat, his thumbs pressing on the fragile bones. She grabbed for him, trying to pry his fingers from her neck, but she couldn’t get a grip. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

  “Hang on!” A man’s voice shouted into her ear half a second before he lunged through the open window and pounded on her back. “Come on,” he growled, then yanked the door open.

  Fiona squawked and her throat burned hotter. “Wha—” she tried, but the half-word was only a whisper. She couldn’t make herself heard over the crazy man’s pleas for her to breathe.

  “It’s okay,” he crooned as he manhandled her out of the car.

  She tried to hit him, reaching behind her awkwardly to land her fist on his shoulders and head.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay.” He laid her on the cold gravel, then hovered over her. “Are you okay? Can you hear me?” His chestnut hair flopped over his forehead as she squinted up at him, trying to make sense of what was happening. His dark eyes searched hers for…what? Brain injury? Impending death?

  She blinked, unable to form words. Her throat still felt too tight, too narrow to breathe. Then he laid a hand on her neck.

  She whipped her hands up and pushed his away—just like she would have done to her attacker had she had the chance. Or acted fast enough. Or … something.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded in a hoarse whisper, tugging at the silky scarf around her neck.

  He rocked back onto his heels, pulling his hands to his thighs. His eyes showed too many emotions and seemed to see right inside of her. It was too much reality, too revealing. Too dangerous.

  She scrambled back until she bumped against the car, got in, rolled up the windows and locked the doors. The man still sat there, crouched in the gravel. She threw the car into drive and peeled out of the lot. Driving was a bad idea. Her breath wheezed painfully through her throat and black spots crowded the edges of her vision. But she had to get away. Had to run. A part of her mind, the sensible, rational side, told her what he’d done was just a mistake, but her body still hummed in fight or flight mode.<
br />
  “It’s okay,” she whispered, and her memory flashed, not to the attacker in New York, but to the man with the mellow voice who’d dragged her from her car.

  Nix Elliot shielded his eyes from the spraying dirt and gravel, as the rental car sped away as if he’d just assaulted its driver. He’d only tried to help the woman. He’d saved her life, hadn’t he? Hadn’t she been choking?

  He remembered the look of sheer outrage on her face when he finally got her on the ground. And how she seemed to be breathing just fine once he got a look at her. Thinking back on it, he couldn’t be sure what was wrong with her, just that something was.

  He stood and brushed the dirt from his jeans. When the car pulled into his lot, he hadn’t thought much of it. His club was closed, but plenty of people used the lot as a place to check their map or make a call. It was different to see a rental car, though. And the woman behind the wheel had caught his attention. Golden hair pulled into a high ponytail, dark sunglasses emphasizing her high cheekbones and creamy skin.

  Maybe his gaze had lingered a little longer than strictly necessary, but when her mouth had opened wide and her hands had come to her throat—was he so wrong in thinking she was choking? Two hands around your throat equals Help me! Right?

  “You’re no hero, Romeo.” He kicked at the gravel at his feet. He hadn’t seen a woman as beautiful as this stranger since he’d moved to the tiny, backwoods town eight months ago. He hoped to find a good woman to settle down with, but that was a long way in the future—when he had made things right with God. He wasn’t ready for the effect she’d had on him. It had felt good to be needed—at least until he discovered he wasn’t helping at all.

  But when he’d looked at her face, that smattering of freckles over her nose, lashes that swept over her cheeks like feathers…and that mouth; even pulled tight with whatever her inner struggle, that pouty lower lip had momentarily stunned him.

  He shook his head and turned back to the club, trying to push everything about the experience out of his mind. If God was good—and He was, Nix knew—the woman was just passing through and he’d never see her again. That way he could pretend he’d never yanked her from that ridiculous clown car.

  A pair of sad, brown eyes peered at him through the window of Variety’s front door. His bloodhound, Pops, peered at him. Judging him. Oh, sonny, he imagined Pops saying. Back in my day, gentlemen took the time to carefully lay a woman on his jacket. We didn’t just throw her onto the ground. His suspicion of Pop’s opinion was confirmed when he stepped inside, and instead of leading the way, as Pops usually did, he just sat there, his baleful gaze condemning him as he walked into the club. The most beautiful woman in these-here parts, and you scared her away.

  FIONA WAS SO FOCUSED ON GETTING AWAY FROM THE creep at the bar that she drove fast and far without thinking. It wasn’t until the first cabin came into view through the pine and quaking aspen that she realized with a jolt that she was home.

  Home, as in the place she’d left behind the second she graduated from high school. Home, as in the place she hadn’t been back to in years. Home, as in the place where all her siblings still lived and ran the family business.

  She slowed the car to a crawl. The tires crunched on the dirt-packed surface and she felt every bump like the tightening of a hangman’s noose. Driveways veered off the main road, leading to private cabins she could glimpse through the trees—two on the left and three more on the right. Another lane led left where the two stables were in clear view. When the road she travelled widened, her breath caught in her throat. “Oh, jingle bells,” she breathed.

  She stopped in the middle of the driveway. Took a long, slow breath, then sat up straight, squared her shoulders, and lifted her chin. Her first and favorite voice coach, Madame Jensen, had once told her, “If you want to be a diva, you must first dress and act like one.” It was a lesson she’d taken to heart from that moment forward. She was an opera singer. She was a strong and capable woman—not at all the awkward little sister her siblings remembered. She was only here for some time to recuperate. It wouldn’t be long at all.

  “You can do this.” Her voice didn’t sound like her own, it hadn’t since the attack, but it gave her courage to hear it. She’d made it through the most grueling music program in the country, survived her year as a principal-in-training at the Met, and worked harder than anyone else to win the role of Lakmé. She’d lived through attempted murder—she’d survive seeing her brothers and sister again.

  She began forward, not allowing herself to flinch as the lodge came into view. Before it, the drive looped around a water feature of a horse leaping over a koi-filled pond, her father’s pride and joy. Beyond the drive, the lodge spread wide and tall, a beautiful testament to mountain architecture with its exposed beams and granite walls. It was an impressive sight, she knew, but right now it only terrified her.

  As she pulled through the circular drive, a tall, large man stepped from behind the lodge, a posse of dogs bounding around him, and Fiona’s breath hitched again.

  Maybe she’d survive them.

  The man stopped when he saw her car. He raised his hand to his eyes to block the sun, a smile on his wide, bearded face. Jack, just eleven months older than her, was the biggest of her brothers. Strong as an ox, his thick black beard and penchant for red plaid shirts made him look like the stereotypical lumberjack. She’d recognize his smile anywhere—no one else but Jack could make her feel loved with one smile. No one else but Jack could make her feel so completely out of place.

  She turned off the car just as he started jogging toward her, shouting. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she guessed he was calling for the rest of the clan to come welcome their long-lost sister home. Fiona’s stomach clenched painfully and the panic threatened to make a reappearance. She didn’t belong here. Jack had said so when they were kids. They were a family, but she was a mistake.

  She hadn’t been back, but they hadn’t come to see her, either. Even when she graduated, even when she won her place at the Met, no one seemed to care. Why should she be so concerned about what they thought now?

  Jack reached the car and yanked the driver’s door open. “Fee Fi Fo Fum I think I’ve found Fiona-bum!” he boomed.

  She had no choice now but to climb out of the car and into his arms. “I hate that,” she said weakly against his chest.

  “I know,” he said, a grin clear in his voice. His arms softened around her and he rested his cheek on the top of her head. “I’ve missed you, sis. I’m so glad you’re home.”

  Jack had also been the one to listen to her sing, encourage her, and help her with her college applications. She wanted to melt into his arms—she had missed him, hadn’t she?—but uncertainty kept her affection in check.

  A moment passed before he stepped away so Fiona straightened her shoulders and turned to face the rest of her siblings. Her oldest brother Gavin strode toward her as if she were a problem to be solved. His eyes were hooded beneath his dark brows and cowboy hat. Someone else would assume he was angry, but he rarely was—just a little too serious. When he didn’t crack a smile as their eyes met, Fiona wondered if this was one of those rare times. She braced herself for the cold shoulder or maybe even a lecture, and then for something more declarative like a slap, since he didn’t seem to be slowing down.

  Her breath whooshed out of her as Gavin wrapped his arms around her and hugged her as if his life depended on it. He didn’t say a word, for which Fiona was grateful. She almost gave in to the unexpected tender emotions when Gavin let her go and stepped aside.

  She followed his gaze over her shoulder and slowly turned to face Lindsay. Her only sister stood in front of the porch, looking like a sad rain cloud. Fiona knew her absence hadn’t hurt anyone more than it had Lindsay. She had never understood Fiona’s need for escape; she loved the lodge, the horses, the mountains—she loved it all. Lindsay was a real life Maria, singing the hills are alive in her crackly voice and extolling the glorious virtues of t
he Rockies. She even wore her strawberry-blonde hair in a short, sleek bob like Maria.

  Fiona took a step forward, then lost her courage. Now that she was here, being hugged by her brothers, greeted by the dogs who nudged at her thighs and hands, smelling the sweet smells of pine and spruce and fresh-chopped wood, Fiona felt a keen sense of loss over what she’d so casually thrown away. She loved this place. Loved these people. Yet she’d discarded them the second she had the chance.

  How could she possibly be forgiven for that?

  Her mom used to always quote the scriptures, saying, “There is no fear in love,” and it both reassured her and added to her burden of guilt. She felt so much fear she doubted there was much room for love.

  “Hey Fi,” Lindsay, of the big heart, said. Fiona knew she wasn’t the little sister Lindsay had begged Mom for, but she had always tried hard to hide her disappointment. Fiona imagined flinging herself into her sister’s arms and begging forgiveness, but as always, she felt inadequate. She didn’t move.

  “Hey, Linni.”

  “I read about your…about what happened to you.” Lindsay’s voice cracked on the word you and Fiona’s heart sank. Lindsay may have read about the Met cancelling her contract, but she didn’t know the truth of it. At Fiona’s request, the police hadn’t released her name to the press in association with the attack, and the Met had only stipulated her “inability to perform the role at this time” as their reason for going with her understudy, Jeanine Nowak.

  But now she understood how wrong she’d been. And she had needed Lindsay. She’d needed all of them.

  I’m sorry, she thought, but the words wouldn’t come. She swayed as her vision dimmed.

  Lindsay hurried forward, closing the distance between them and clasping Fiona to her. At 5’2”, Lindsay only came to Fiona’s chin, but her hug was still comforting.

  “Oh, honey,” she murmured. “I’m so sorry.” She drew back, letting her hands trail down Fiona’s arms until she clasped her hands. “What happened?”