by Zoe Dawson
I heard the back door open and close. “I’m in the kitchen,” I called.
My cell phone went off, and I looked down to see it was the sheriff’s office.
I reached for it, but something heavy struck me on the back of the head, and I hit the kitchen floor hard. Boots moved around me, and I smelled gasoline. Then I blacked out.
Samantha! Wake up!
Something heated around my neck roused me. The scent of gasoline was even more intense. I opened my eyes to see AnnClaire beside me, her eyes wide and scared-looking.
When I moved to get up, someone grabbed a fistful of my hair and hauled me up. “Hello, Samantha. Remember me?”
He shoved me hard against the counter, slamming my back into the metal, sending pain radiating through me, adding spikes to my sudden and devastating fear.
Kyle Mayhew.
Out of prison. How could this be?
Icy fear chilled me to the bone.
He had the face of evil. I could see him clearly in the bright, overhead lights. It was a face I would never forget, at first glance handsome, but with each successive expression becoming an object of fear and loathing. He had straight blond hair, cut to accentuate his finely chiseled features. His smile was wide, revealing perfect teeth. His nose narrow, his eyes blue slits. Tall and well-formed, he towered over me, and he liked it that way. He fed off intimidation.
He spread his hands wide, and I couldn’t miss my gun clutched in his left hand. “What, no kiss and hug? I thought we were good friends.”
“No, Kyle. We’re not friends,” I said.
“You cut me to the quick, Sam. Here I thought we had something.”
“What do you want.”
“Where’s your pretty-boy boyfriend? I heard someone’s been messing with him, tires slashed, traps wrecked, and wasn’t his place broken into and trashed, his boats and plane sunk?” He made a tutting noise. “That’s going to cost his insurance company a pretty penny.”
My mouth tightened and anger replaced my fear. “What do you want?”
He lunged at me and caught me by the throat. “To watch you die, bitch…but first, I’m going to give you an opportunity to compare me to your pretty boy.”
“No!” I yelled, and my training kicked in as I stomped on his instep, kicked him in the shin, and went for his eyes. He recovered and slapped me across the face, the stinging pain exploding in my cheek and jaw.
“You killed my brother,” he growled, “my only kin.” He backhanded me this time. “So I took from you. Your husband, he put up one hell of a fight, but your baby boy went without so much as a peep.”
His words were like physical blows, trigging all-consuming anguish and blind rage, and I flew at him, pummeling anything I could reach, raking my nails down his face, making deep gouges as he cried out and backhanded me right into the butcher block. I held on to the edge to regain my balance and spied my rolling pin.
The floodgates of my grief, my loss, opened, and all the anguish, the crushing, soul-destroying pain rushed out in a tsunami of hate. I grabbed the rolling pin, holding it like a baton. I ducked his next blow and dashed around him, hitting him on the outside, mid-thigh going for the peroneal nerve. Then I slammed the wood against his hand, and the gun flew out of his lax fingers and slid across the floor. Hatred for him exploded, an all-encompassing, drenching, drowning hate that washed away control, compunction or restraint. And all of it—the need, the hate, everything exploded. He tried to counter, but I shoved him back with the pin across his chest, and he fell. My blow to his head missed because he rolled at the last minute, then swept my legs out from under me.
He straddled me, but I didn’t give him the chance to get his hands on me. I quickly put my ankle over his and bucked, knocking him forward. I used the pin across his back, compressing his rib cage. He roared in pain and I rolled. The rolling pin was under him, but the handle was visible. I grabbed it and lifted my arm to bring it down on his head. He brought his forearm up blocking me, threw me off and jumped to his feet, grabbed one of my knives.
He threw the knife at me, and I had to duck. Then he rushed me like a linebacker, knocking me to the floor, my head hitting hard enough to make me see stars. He stripped the pin out of my hand and retrieved the knife. He pulled some matches out of his back pocket and the strike of the flame ignited horror in me. “Don’t.”
He looked down at me and smirked as he threw the match, and one corner of the room burst into flame. He rose and dragged me away before dropping down on me again. “I waited for you all night, but you didn’t come home. You had to take that second shift because you were such a good little police officer. While you made the streets safe, I took what was most precious to you.”
“You sick monster,” I shrieked. “He was just a baby. Jeff…he was such a good man.”
The knife descended, and I braced for the cut, but he cut open my shirt, then my bra, before going for my jeans. Smoke filled the air, and I coughed. The shrill wail of the fire alarm sounded, then moments later my sprinkler system kicked in and drenched us.
It revived me, and I came out of my anguished daze fighting. But he slapped me hard, then wrapped his hand around my throat and squeezed. I struggled and kicked, couldn’t breathe, everything starting to go black. When he let go and reached for my jeans again, I knew I’d rather die than let him do this unspeakable thing to me.
Then I heard it, the whispering.
I looked up to see the determined face of AnnClaire, saw the same kind of hate that seethed inside me on her face, in every line of her body, the memory of her rape and murder stark and chilling in her eyes. Her mouth moved with words of protection and the amulet heated red-hot around my neck.
She crouched and, to my utter shock, curled her hand around the gun. She stood and pointed it at Kyle.
He sliced into my jeans, nicking the skin just below my belly button, but something in my face must have alerted him. Swiveling to follow my intent gaze, his face went white when he saw AnnClaire. The sound of the gunshot was deafening in the room, the bullet plowing into him, knocking him off me. Blood spread across his chest, soaking into his T-shirt.
I pushed myself to my knees, heard sirens in the distance, and scrambled away from him, clutching my ruined blouse. He looked at me as the life drained from his eyes. “Who was that,” he choked. “A ghost?”
“No, that was retribution, and her name was AnnClaire. I hope you rot in hell,” I said as he died.
I covered my face. He’d killed Jeff and my sweet boy. Guilt consumed me. Their deaths had been because of me. I heard running footsteps and my name shouted several times. The doors burst open, and Sheriff Dalton charged in, his gun drawn, Chase streaking past when he saw me. Firefighters behind him.
He rushed over to me and gathered me close to him. “Samantha,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “You’re all right.”
I laid my head against his chest, feeling hollow inside. I burst into tears of shock, realization, and renewed grief. “You’re going to be okay.”
I wasn’t sure I would ever be okay again.
***
They stitched me up and attended to my cuts and abrasions, giving me an analgesic for the bruises and the contusions. They wheeled me to a room and a bed for the night…observation for the concussion, they said.
Chase came into the room, obviously distraught, but I couldn’t seem to say anything comforting. I was glad Kyle and his mad dog brother were dead. I had finally learned the truth and confronted the man who brutally murdered my family. Having to hear his gleeful descriptions had opened a door, setting loose a brutal, murderous rage I hadn’t realized was waiting, festering, hidden behind my grief and guilt. There were evil monsters in this world. AnnClaire had stood against her own, and she stood against mine.
“Talk to me, babe,” Chase said, sitting on the edge of my bed. “Please, Sammy.”
“Don’t call me that,” I said, my voice harsh, a knee-jerk reaction.
His face fell, his eyes showing m
e he was concerned, committed. His jaw clenched and he let out a heavy sigh. Even though I was quite sure I was in love with him, I wasn’t sure I deserved him, if I could handle a love even more encompassing, one that filled me to bursting, closing up gaping wounds, and making me as whole as I could be without Scottie.
“Sam, I love you. Let me help you through this. Let me be there for you.”
I shook my head, my tears like acid, and final, the declaration of his love registering and it hurt. “Don’t you see? My Scottie, the terror he must have endured, and I wasn’t there to save him because I accepted an extra shift. That was the real reason I quit the police force. It was the real reason I came to Suttontowne to escape. I couldn’t save the two most important people in my life because I wasn’t there when I should have been.” That truth I tried to deny for two years wouldn’t stay hidden anymore. “No, I can’t do this, Chase. I can’t. Please just leave me alone.”
“Samantha,” his voice hitched. “Don’t do this. Don’t shut me out.”
Hurting him like this killed me, making me shrivel up inside. “Go!” I said, turning away from him, breaking into sobs.
When I could breathe again around the pain, Chase was gone. I was alone.
The next day they discharged me from the hospital. I called Beth to pick me up, and she assured me Imogene’s was undergoing repair. Chase had taken care of it. But the restaurant would be out of commission for two weeks.
I nodded and wearily closed my eyes to avoid conversation. She dropped me home, and I closed and locked the door, heading up to my bed. Crawling onto the coverlet, I let the tears flow.
As the weeks passed, I took the time I needed to recover, but every second I missed Chase so much I wasn’t sure I was going to get through the next hour. The sheriff came by, and I gave him my statement for his official report. When he looked at me like I was crazy, I gave him AnnClaire’s journal and pointed out her fingerprint. He left with a worried, indulgent look.
Shortly after that I woke up and discovered…Imogene. Unlike her daughter, her face was serene. “Punishing yourself is natural, child,” she whispered. “I know a mother’s pain. I know your pain. You will feel your son’s presence at times, sometimes so strongly that it is as if he is dancing just at the edge of your heart. And other times you might not feel his presence at all. Life will not go back, you will never be the same, because a piece of you departed with your son. And that even though the pain does not go away, somehow your soul will eventually make enough room so you can hold it all–the grief, the pain, the joy and the love. Move forward, pretty Samantha. There is so much more to experience when we have the courage to start anew.”
I woke up with her words echoing in my head, and I wasn’t sure whether I had really been visited, or if it was my own subconscious telling me what I already knew and wanted to do.
Her words—or my own damned advice—got me out of bed, and I felt immeasurably better. It was time to go back to work, to live. To make sure that Ann Claire’s actions were not in vain.
It was AnnClaire who wrought the gris-gris to protect me. It was her will behind the protection spell, not mine. So even if I didn’t believe in it and put more stock in my gun and skills, AnnClaire’s spell still worked. Her belief was unshakable. It was her need to protect me, the woman who had resurrected her beloved Imogene’s, that gave her the power to pick up the gun, to force herself to become corporeal. I would forever be grateful for that.
My first day back at Imogene’s felt surreal, but the moment I started baking, smiling when I picked up my rolling pin, it served me well. With determination, I rolled out my crusts, and mixed, and blended, and filled, and thankfully the hate I felt for Kyle Mayhew had faded, replaced by a certain sense of justice. Instead of the hate, I’d replaced it with love. Love for my strong, capable, sweet husband, Jeff. A fountain of love for my precious little boy, Scott, and a new, deep, abiding, sweet love for Chase Sutton.
As soon as I pulled my last pie out of the oven, Beth came rushing into the kitchen. “Chase Sutton is in the town square. He’s going to raze the Colonel’s statue. Everyone is going to watch.”
“He’s going to what?”
“He’s got his truck hooked up with bailing wire, and he intends to drag it right off its high horse.”
I grabbed my car keys, and Beth and I drove over to the town square. I always thought that statue loomed over the town with the kind of self-indulgence known only to a man full of pride and his own self-worth. Traffic was so snarled—shocking in this small town—that we had to park and run.
I heard the sheriff’s voice over a bullhorn. “Chase Sutton, step out of your vehicle. This is town property.”
Winded, I saw Chase, his face offset with defiance and determination. Then he hit the gas, his tires churning in the grass. I saw Chase’s father, mother, sister, and brother arrive. River and her mother looked triumphant, but his father looked pissed. Jake’s expression was so shuttered I couldn’t read him at all.
With a deep, metallic groan, the horse’s hooves detached from the base, and the statue toppled over, clanging as it hit the pavement of the viewing area, detaching the Colonel from his proud steed.
While people cheered and applauded, I hurried over to the truck. Chase stepped out and met his mother’s eyes. She smiled. The sheriff slapped cuffs on him, but his father rushed over. “What do you think you’re doing, Mike? Take those cuffs off him.”
“He destroyed city property.”
“We…I donated that statue to the city; therefore, I’m telling you right now to let him go. I’m not pressing charges.”
Chase wasn’t looking at anyone but me. There were dark circles under his eyes, as if he hadn’t been sleeping, and my heart nearly broke. As soon as the cuffs were off I went to him.
“Samantha,” he said, his voice husky and…hopeful.
Heedless of the people standing around, heedless of the startled look in his eyes, heedless of everything, I launched myself at him. I choked out his name, suddenly blinded by tears, and he caught me as I stumbled into his arms.
Gathering me up in a rough embrace, he caught the back of my head and held me tight against him. “Babe, what are you doing here?”
I tried to answer, but I couldn’t. There was just too much emotion breaking loose—old fear, new fear, desperation. It was as if his love stripped everything away, and I was new. I knew I could never let him go.
He folded me in his arms and dropped his cheek to my hair, rubbing, one hand buried in my hair. “Talk to me, babe.”
I hung onto him, shaking with emotion, suddenly experiencing the same sweet sensation I had when I first laid eyes on him. This was right. He was mine. and he would also be my anchor.
“Please, baby. Talk to me. I’m dying, here.”
I raised my head and met his wonderful, concerned eyes. “I love you, Chase.” Wiping my face, hope driving me, my fears urgent, I said it again. “I love you so much.” I flattened my hand against his heart, feeling it beat in frantic time with mine. “Tell me it’s not too late.”
It couldn’t be too late.
He studied me with an intensity that made my heart climb up my throat and nearly stall. Finally, he hauled in a deep, uneven breath and grasped my face between his hands, his eyes fierce with emotion. He tightened his hold, his voice gruff with affection, “I love you, too. It’s not too late. It’s never too late for love, babe.”
Epilogue
SAMANTHA
Chase and I were living together. Ethan had taken over his residence, and they’d signed their partnership agreement. The sheriff closed the Kyle Mayhew case, and kept the information to himself that AnnClaire, a woman dead for hundreds of years, had pulled the trigger. I figured he wanted to stay out of the looney bin.
Chase had a knock-down drag-out with his family, fighting like a demon for his way, his arguments well-thought out and irrefutable. In the end, he swayed his father to his side. The Founders Day Festival was going to be renamed Suttontowne
Days. Chase was willing to let go of his insistence about changing the name of the town when his father reminded him that the Suttons who came after the Colonel were really the ones who shaped and nurtured the growth of the community. It might have had a rocky, tragic start, but it was going strong.
His father said, “With that journal entry, everything changed, came crashing down, and I realized how we’d treated the Outlaws. I didn’t understand until River Pearl came home and exposed Earl’s deception and treachery. I also realized something else. Even though the Colonel was a coward and blackguard, he was just a man. Our family, all of us, have worked hard for what we have. Our foundation might have been built on blood, but it was our own blood, sweat and hard work that kept it going. You’re right, we should’ve pulled down his statue.
Chase couldn’t argue with that.
But it was what his father said to him after his speech that still choked me up. We were in the library, having a celebratory drink, when he turned to Chase and said, “I’m sorry for how I behaved at the anniversary party. I wanted to make things right, and it got all muddled with hurt feelings and defensive anger. You were right. I had a vision of who I thought we were, and I put you on that path, convinced it was the right one. I thought we were the golden family, entitled. When you left, I didn’t understand. I felt disappointed and angry that you’d throw everything we’d worked for away, your future ruined, gone. The family business, your legacy shunned and rejected. I’m sorry, son for taking away your choices, but I’m damn proud of what you’ve built with your own two hands. Welcome home, son.”
There wasn’t a dry eye in the room. Jake was painfully absent, and he and Chase would have to work to restore their relationship, but Chase was determined to make amends, get his forgiveness and offer his own. He was sure it was a matter of time.
After Chase’s reconciliation with his family, we finally got to play the long-awaited softball game. It was a showdown between Outlaw Landscaping and Outlaws. Ethan and Chase had been roped into playing for Outlaws, and, at the moment Chase was pitching. He had his baseball cap on backwards, and was wearing a baseball jersey with Outlaws across the front and a pair of jeans. His stubble glinted in the sun as he watched Brax giving him signals. Boone and one of his employees were on the mound, and Booker came up to bat.