The Damaged Heroes Collection [Box Set #1: The Damaged Heroes Collection] (BookStrand Publishing Mainstream)

by James, Sandy

  “She should be named after my mother,” Bela insisted, gesturing his insistence with his index finger. “It is fitting. A Romungro tradition that must be honored.”

  “We were thinking about naming her after my mother,” Lucas countered as Bela shook his head.

  Joy sighed and cuddled her new daughter a little closer. Kissing the dark curls on the top of the baby’s head, Joy whispered, “What’s your name, little one?”

  “I don’t think she’s going to be able to answer that one, Noverke,” Janos said with a chuckle. “Silly little sister.”

  “Aren’t you helpful, big brother?” Joy drawled. “So what would you name her, Janos?”

  Rubbing his chin and considering his options, Janos looked over at Lucas. “What was your mother’s name?”

  “Susan,” Lucas replied. “It’s a great name. Not trendy like Lindsey or Caitlin. Susan would never go out of style.”

  “Papa, you’ve got to admit that Borbala would get the poor girl teased to death at school.” Janos looked to his father.

  Bela furrowed his brow. “It’s a good name. A strong name. Borbala Kovacs.”

  “Mitchell,” Lucas corrected. “And I’m not naming my daughter Borbala. It would make her sound like some Arnold Schwarzenegger movie character.”

  Janos watched while Bela and Lucas bickered for a few minutes then interceded when Joy glanced at him with eyes pleading for mercy. “I’ve got a suggestion, Shortstuff. Why not Suzika? It’s Hungarian for Susan.”

  “Suzika,” Joy said, stroking the baby’s cheek. “Are you Suzika?”

  Lucas seemed to contemplate the suggestion before he finally nodded. “I like it. We can call her Susie.”

  Bela stepped to the bed and stroked his new granddaughter’s head. “Not Susie. Suzika. Suzika Kovacs.”

  “Suzika Mitchell,” Lucas said, a little louder than necessary.

  Bela narrowed his eyes at Lucas for a moment before his face softened. “Very well, Suzika Mitchell.” He leaned over to kiss Joy on the cheek. “You did very well, Jozsa. She is beautiful.”

  “Lucas had something to do with her too, Papa.”

  “I would prefer to forget that,” he replied even as a grin tugged on the corners of his mouth.

  Illona came breezing into the room with an enormous bouquet of Mylar balloons. Setting the small weight on the nightstand so the balloons could hover behind Joy, she turned to face the men. Her brows knit for a moment. “You have a look of conspiracy. What did I miss?”

  “We named your granddaughter,” Janos replied.

  “Ah. I leave for five minutes and an important decision is made. What worries me is that the decision was made by men. Jozsa, what do you think?”

  Joy smiled. “For once, I think they made a good choice. We’re going to call her Suzika.”

  Illona smiled and nodded. “A very good choice. A beautiful name for your beautiful daughter.”

  Janos stood and stretched. “I need to leave for the track. I’m taking Lucas’s paddock tonight.” He chuckled. “He’s a little busy right now.”

  Lucas sat next to Joy on the bed and put his finger in Suzika’s tiny palm. Her fingers immediately tightened around it. He kissed the top of her head then kissed his wife’s cheek.

  “Yeah, I’m a little busy,” Lucas said with a smile. “I’m spending time with my family.”

  THE END

  WWW.SANDY-JAMES.COM

  Damaged Heroes 4

  Faith of the Heart

  Investigative reporter Joshua Miller has turned his back on life. Since cancer claimed his wife, he can't bring himself to write another story. Then he hears about a fascinating woman who piques his curiosity.

  After being struck by lightning, Sarah Reid finds herself with a gift... and a curse. She can heal the sick and dying. She soon realizes that along with the special gift also comes danger to her own life. Feeling responsible for the death of her best friend, Sarah reasons that perhaps she has received the gift to make amends, no matter the personal cost.

  Neither expects sparks to fly when they meet. Sarah discourages Josh's persistence in investigating her while he fights his attraction, refusing to acknowledge that she can truly save people.

  Can Sarah break through Josh's stubborn cynicism and show him that miracles really can come true by leading him back to love?

  Genre: Contemporary, Women’s Fiction

  Length: 82,895 words

  FAITH OF THE HEART

  Damaged Heroes 4

  SANDY JAMES

  Copyright © 2009

  Prologue

  The child would die. Soon. Very soon. It would be all Sarah could do to prevent it. She could already see the shadow of death draped over him like a cloak.

  The pain would be sharp, exquisite. Yes, this one would be with her for a good long while. Sarah didn’t care. She would stoically bear the burden that had been asked of her, a burden she’d never bargained for but the price she knew she had to pay.

  The boy squirmed in his father’s arms. As the man set his precious burden on Sarah’s lap, skepticism had been plain in his eyes. But she focused on the child before her.

  “What’s your name?” she asked the little boy. Although his complexion seemed pale, his cherubic face told her he couldn’t be more than five.

  “Isaac,” he replied with that heart-warming lisp children tend to have when a few teeth are missing.

  “A good name. A strong name. A Bible name. Abraham named his son Isaac, and his father loved him dearly. I’m Sarah.” The words spilled from her, but they had no real purpose. She’d set her hands upon the boy. The process had already begun.

  No matter how many times she’d been through it before, even though she knew exactly how it would feel, exactly what to expect from the laying of hands, the pain still stole her breath away. She dropped all of her walls of defense and let the agony sweep into her mind and body. It was the only way to save the beautiful child from the cruel hand of death. The boy was too young to die, had too much left to share with the world. If her suffering was the cost of his survival, she would gladly pay it.

  Sarah panted from the pain as it left Isaac’s body and flooded into her own. The world rotated and swam in her eyes. Her words became unintelligible as she lost herself in the torture of the child’s cancer. Squeezing her eyes closed, she fought to stay focused on her task. Save him. Save him. You must save him.

  And then suddenly her mind was free, her body limp and exhausted but still throbbing. Sarah collapsed back, letting her hands drop away from the child.

  Isaac slipped from her lap and ran to his mother. Sarah could barely hear the woman’s happy weeping over a child who had been too sick to walk suddenly racing into her arms. Glancing at the boy who now found himself enfolded in his mother’s embrace, Sarah wanted to smile, would have smiled had she possessed the strength. His color returned as the shadow of death receded from his face. Thank you. Thank you for helping me save him.

  Have I paid enough for my sins yet?

  Sarah blinked against the darkness that threatened to embrace her, not wanting a fainting spell to frighten the child. He’d suffered enough.

  Isaac suddenly broke away from his mother. Running to Sarah, he threw himself into her arms. She raised a trembling hand to stroke his bald head. No words were necessary. She knew the bond between them would be eternal.

  “I love you, Sarah.”

  “I love you too, Isaac.”

  And then he was gone, and Sarah let the darkness sweep her away.

  Chapter 1

  There is no remedy for love but to love more.—Henry David Thoreau

  He couldn’t make himself do it. He just couldn’t.

  Caressing the cool, smooth stone with shaking fingers, Joshua Miller stared out at the calm lake, the water so clear he could see the fish swimming near the shore. He had come to the Montana ranch to try to find some closure, an end to this tragic Chapter of his life. He’d come to say, “Goodbye.”

  But
he couldn’t do it.

  The stone felt slick, the moisture coming from his own sweaty palm. Turning the small, black rock over, Josh stared at it. Such a macabre little remembrance. What exactly had possessed him to grab it that day?

  The funeral had been like some bad dream from which he couldn’t wake. It hadn’t happened to him. Someone else had picked out the casket that was more pink than bronze. Someone else had shuffled through her clothes, trying to find an outfit that wouldn’t drown Miranda’s fragile frame. Someone else had stood next to the open grave with a fist full of dirt that he’d squeezed into a big ball, his hand refusing to release it. The memories washed over him like the waves slapping against the lake’s shore.

  It was me.

  I watched her die. I watched the cancer and the chemo eat away at her, stealing what strength she had ever enjoyed. I watched her slip away a little more each day.

  I lost her.

  I put her in the ground.

  Josh choked back the tears that still seemed so fresh. He smoothed his fingers over the stone. As he stood at her graveside that day, he had seen the little, black rock lying in the pile of dirt—the pile of dirt the workers who stood to the side would be heaping over his wife. Over his Miranda. He’d reached out to pluck the stone from the earth and slid it silently into the pocket of his dreary black suit.

  The smooth, ebony rock had been his constant companion, his stalwart since that fateful day. The weight, slight though it was, represented the grief he knew he would never shed.

  He just couldn’t throw it into the cold lake. He couldn’t let it sink to the bottom and rest below the water the way Miranda slept below the ground. In her pink coffin.

  Splaying his fingers through his brown hair that had in the last year developed more gray than he cared to acknowledge, Josh willed himself to think about something else, something other than his dead wife. Nothing came to mind.

  The insistent ringing of his cell phone intruded on his dismal reverie. He welcomed the interruption. Popping the saving grace from the clip on his belt, Josh read the ID and opened the phone to greet the husband of his favorite cousin. “What’s up, Ross?”

  Attorney Ross Kennedy returned Josh’s greeting in his usual no-nonsense manner. “I need you to check something out for me.”

  “I’m at the Circle M,” Josh explained, hoping that excuse would suffice to keep the pit-bull in Ross’s personality placated. Surely even a workaholic like Ross could understand that people who traveled to the Miller family ranch came to escape real life. It was too soon to go back to work. Too soon to put the smothering grief aside. Too soon to leave his daughter Libby alone as he jetted around in search of some new story.

  “So what? You can’t look into things in Montana? I know it’s isolated at the ranch, but it’s not like the entire state is lacking Internet access,” Ross insisted in his usual bossy tone. “I know you’re probably busy, but this is important.”

  Busy? Doing what? Cursing at God? Hating Him for taking Miranda away from us? “I haven’t gone back to work yet.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Josh tried not to take offense. Ross had a wife. A wife who hadn’t wasted away right in front of his eyes. How could Ross possibly understand? “No, I’m not. I brought Libby out here to relax.”

  “It’s been a year, Josh. Laurie is worried about you. She’s worried about your daughter, too. She thinks it would be in Libby’s best interest if you could get back into the swing of things.”

  A year. A whole damn year. Life had gone right on without him. “Tell your wife I’m not one of her patients. She might be a great psychologist, and I know she means well, but I really don’t need her advice.” Josh didn’t bother hiding the curtness he felt. “I’m not ready.”

  “Look, I know you don’t need the money. You Millers have more than enough. I wouldn’t ask for your help if it wasn’t important. This is right up your journalistic alley. I need you to expose a fraud.” Ross dangled the lure as if Josh was a large-mouthed bass who would eagerly take the bait.

  Josh saw right through what he figured was a ruse, refusing to let Ross’s story tempt him. “Your wife just wants me to go back to work.” He thought he heard an extraordinarily quiet and irritated count of ten before Ross spoke again.

  “This has nothing to do with Laurie. A faith healer ripped off my sister. Took Cheryl for five grand. It’s not the damn money, it’s the principle of the thing. I need a muckraker like you to blow the cheat out of the water before she rips off someone else.”

  For the first time in what seemed like forever, the itch was back. Just an irritating little itch, not enough to scratch. Not yet. “A faith healer? Why would your sister go to a faith healer?” Okay, maybe he would scratch it. But just a little bit.

  “I’m so pissed at Cheryl, I could shake her,” Ross explained. “She’s not stupid; she’s just desperate. The doctor told her she might be looking at a kidney transplant real soon, and she freaked.” Josh could hear the hurt buried in Ross’s anger. “Damn lupus. You know, I’d give her a kidney if she needed it.”

  “I know you would. I know how you feel about Cheryl. So is it the typical guy traveling the country with his enormous tent and a dog-and-pony show? When Miranda was sick, I thought I’d seen them all.” Josh simply had to scratch, couldn’t resist the urge.

  “A woman. And she’s a solo act. Works out of her house.”

  “A woman?” Josh asked. “Really? That’s not very common.”

  Josh heard Ross snort his disgust. “Women can steal just as easily as men. This one really made Cheryl think she was cured. She’s stopped taking her meds, and she’s stopped seeing her doctor. I’m worried sick.”

  “How did the woman ‘heal’ Cheryl? Laying hands? Power of prayer? Magic potion?” The damned itch was driving Josh crazy.

  “Laying hands. Cheryl went to the woman’s place in Indiana. She was gone all day. Came back saying she’d felt this con artist suck the disease right out of her. Swears she’s cured.”

  Sliding the little stone into his pocket, Josh was already planning his attack. “Where in Indiana?” How fast could he get back there? Which magazine would be interested in this exposé? Time? Newsweek?

  Turning on his heel and striding away from the lake, Josh began to fire a litany of pertinent questions at Ross, questions Josh would spend the next few weeks exploring and answering. A great story was calling, a great story that might allow him to save some people from their own folly.

  Cheerful for the first time in God knew how long, Josh decided to scratch his itch.

  * * * *

  Sarah tried to keep her eyes open, but the task was almost beyond her control. With a heavy sigh, she lifted her coffee cup to her lips and took a drink. The brew was still too hot, scorching her tongue and scalding the roof of her mouth. She had a passing thought that she should be able to heal herself as well as she could heal others. Evidently, that skill hadn’t been part of the divine bargain.

  “You really need to talk to this guy, Sarah,” Hannah grumbled. “A little publicity couldn’t hurt, and he’s really hot to do a big story on you.”

  From where he sat across the ancient kitchen table, Doug nodded enthusiastically. “A little publicity couldn’t hurt.”

  Sarah sighed again, thinking that her brother-in-law sounded like a parrot and her sister like its master. It was easy to see who had become the alpha in that marriage. Dougie want a cracker?

  “I don’t want any publicity,” Sarah finally said. “People who really need me seem to find me just fine. And I hate reporters. Don’t you remember what happened last time?”

  With a flipping wave of her hand, Hannah replied, “That was some guy writing for rags like the National Enquirer. This one has a great track record. Time. Newsweek. He’s even got a book.” She went back to eating one of the powdered donuts she’d piled on her plate. Sarah wondered if her sister knew she had flecks of white on her upper lip. It seemed the proper accessory for the frumpy hou
secoat Hannah wore.

  “A book,” Doug echoed. “He’s got a book.”

  Sarah half-expected him to squawk and flap his elbows like wings. “The only reason a reporter would want to talk to me is to try to convince everyone I’m nothing but a fraud. Why would I waste my time and energy on someone who wants to hurt me just to make a name for himself?” Blowing across her coffee, fascinated by the tiny ripples, Sarah finally ventured another sip. Before she could enjoy the drink, a terrifying thought crossed her mind. “You’re not charging people again, are you?”

  Hannah abruptly stood up and dropped her dish in the sink. Turning back around, she smoothed her mousey-brown hair back into the tight bun she always wore that reminded Sarah of some Old West spinster schoolmarm. “Now, Sarah...”

  Sarah had to resist the urge to slap her sister. “Hannah, we’ve talked about this. My God, you can’t take money from these people. I don’t heal the sick for profit.”

  “Now, Sarah...,” Doug chimed in, shaking his balding head that seemed to grow a little worse every day.

  “No, no, no!” Sarah gave them both an emphatic shake of her head. “I will not take money from these people. We’ve still got some trust fund left. I can get a job.” Sarah tried to rein in her temper, but some days it was difficult. Hannah and Doug both possessed the motivation of a couple of sloths. “Or one of you could get a job.” She thought she saw Doug shudder at her words.

  Sure, the place looked a bit...weathered. Okay, in all honesty, it was falling down around their ears. Sarah looked at the kitchen and saw the peeling wallpaper, the water spots on the ceiling, and the chipped paint on the cabinets. The house was old. Ancient, to be exact. But that didn’t change how Sarah felt about the blasphemy of taking fees to help people who might otherwise die. That wasn’t why she received her gift. “If you’re taking anything from the people who come to me, it looks like I’m a shyster. I will not take money from someone who needs healing.”