Lying Hearts

by Kelli Callahan

  “That makes no sense. If you claim to be who you say you are, then your last name is Hopkins.”

  “Yes, but your mother’s name was Hampton.”

  Which would make my mother a Hampton, but why wouldn’t she have said anything?

  “Glenn Hampton was the last heir,” I said, remembering the story Easton told me.

  “Glenn Hampton and his wife had twin girls, your mother and Tessa. Glenn and his wife died, but the girls didn’t. You were born right up the road from here,” he said. “We were going to stay near the family home until the bitch tried to take you from me and bring you here. She tried to burn me, and the house we were going to raise you in caught on fire instead.”

  No. No. That was impossible.

  “I tried to burn this place down five years ago, but it just wouldn’t burn fast enough.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said and glanced out the window when sirens rang in the distance.

  “It does matter. You’re changing my life in a matter of minutes and a bedtime story. I deserve the truth.”

  “I told you the truth!” he roared, slapping me again. “I am your father. You were taken from me. I wanted to kill everyone who got in the way.” He pushed my hair behind my ear. “You look just like her, your mom. She was such a beautiful woman.” He hummed, appreciating my beauty and mapped my face with his finger.

  I turned away from him, not wanting his touch.

  “Kathy and Rocky came to visit me and made me sign away my parental rights. I figured I should, you know. I thought I was going to die in prison. Fucking Kathy and her lawyer brother, they had to pay for what they did.”

  “You need help,” I said. “Let me go, and we can get you help,” I cried.

  “I don’t want your help, Nora. I just want you. My daughter. I lived long enough without you,” he said. I watched Willard walk out of the room, his black leather boots thudded against the floorboard, leaving me alone with the most dangerous thing in the world.

  My thoughts.

  Everything he said made sense. No one knew the real story of Glenn Hampton, but my parents, they would have told me the truth. I couldn’t be related to this… murderer. I had murderer blood running through my veins, and it made me wonder if I was capable of such a thing. If it was in my DNA, then it was possible, right?

  The smell of gasoline wafted in the air, and as Willard came back, a silver tank poured liquid over the floorboard with large chugs. It splashed as it hit the ground, and when he got to the doorway, he tossed the empty can down the stairs. When he came back inside the room, he kneeled on the bed, his eyes watering, either from the fumes or emotions, but it had to be the fumes.

  I didn’t see this guy having an emotional bone in his body.

  “Your birthday is tomorrow,” he said. “And you are going to go out of the world the same way you came in.” He lit a match and watched as the flames danced for him. “Through fire and smoke.” And with a flick of his wrist, he tossed the match toward the door, and the gasoline ignited, the fire igniting down the path he made. He covered me with his body, hugging me close.

  He was comforted that we were going to die together.

  I was terrified.

  The only place I wanted to die was in Easton’s arms.

  This couldn’t happen. Not when I just got Easton back, and we got the life we deserved.

  “I love you, Nora.”

  “My name is Luna,” I gritted. I refused to give the man what he wanted. Maybe he told the truth, but the thing that he didn’t know about me was, I wasn’t going to let the past interfere with my life anymore. He was nothing to me. I wouldn’t change who I was for him in the last minute because of fear, because of dying.

  No, if I was dying, I was going to stay true to myself.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  The sound could have been a million things.

  The rest of the house falling.

  My heart breaking.

  The old ghost in the house rocking the chair.

  At this point, I’d believe in anything.

  Willard tightened his arms around me and laid his head on my breast. I wept, not for him, but for me, for Easton, for my parents, for the life I’d never know. The air choked me, the smoke infiltrated my lungs, burned my throat and eyes as the flames got hotter, higher, and hellish. Sweat broke over my skin. The fire inched into the room, traveling up the doorframe, reminding me of a monster reaching out from under the bed, the fiery tendrils grasping the wall in a sensual manner, teasing me with its danger.

  It was becoming harder to breathe.

  I coughed, and my vision swayed. I glanced to my left, seeing the wooden letter blocks hanging from the ceiling.

  N. O. R. A. and they slowly fell to the ground as the heat melted the strings attaching them to the ceiling.

  He brought me to the room his wife built for his daughter.

  For me.

  No. He was wrong.

  “Easton,” I croaked for him through the soot gathering in my throat. “Easton.” A tear left my eye, not even the heat of the fire could extinguish the pain in my tears or the love I had for him.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  My entire world was falling apart around me.

  This damn house was cursed, but not for anyone else, just for me.

  If I was a Hampton, death wanted me to crumble with the rest of the house just like the past had. I’d be cremated into the ground, become what used to be. I closed my eyes as the flames roared and let my mind drift.

  My life flashed before my eyes, and all I saw was a flipbook of me and Easton. I smiled when all I felt was happiness and love.

  “I love you,” I whispered to him, hoping he could hear me. I regretted never telling him that I loved him because I loved him all along.

  “I love you too,” Willard said as the roar of the fire wrapped around the room, and the glass of the window shattered from the heat.

  It was wrong of me.

  But I imagined Willard being Ethan telling me he loved me. I ran with it in my dreams and let the fire consume me.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Easton

  We checked everywhere for Luna, but when the call came in that another fire had lit up the Hampton mansion, I knew that she was there. It was a sick feeling, something that took over my body and paralyzed me with fear.

  I wasn’t on duty. I was on leave until my arm healed, so Evan was with me when we pulled up to the house to see black smoke curling over the roof of the Hampton house.

  “Don’t even think about going in there,” Evan slapped a hand against my chest. “Let the firefighters do their job.”

  I pushed him away, angry and ready to kill. “Fuck you. That’s Luna. My Luna.” I pounded my chest, spit flying in all directions. “Our Luna. You’re going to let me in there.” I was determined to get in that house, and I didn’t care who I had to take down to get inside. The love of my life was in there, waiting for me, and honestly, if anyone dared get in my way, I might kill someone. I didn’t want to think about if this was a diversion, if this was a trick, and she wasn’t in there. I had no idea how I’d live my life.

  “You’re going to die if you do.”

  “I don’t care.”

  ‘We do!” he shouted and took out his cuffs. “I’m sorry, but I have to do this.” He unclipped his handcuffs. Before he could get them on me, I lifted my leg and kicked him right between the balls and then punched him in the face with the arm that was cast. He fell to the ground in a useless heap as the firefighters hooked up the hose and started to spray water on the house.

  I only had a minute to get in there.

  I ran toward the entrance while my name was shouted behind me, but I didn’t care about that. My main goal was Luna and to get to her. I kicked open the door and immediately smelled gasoline. To the right, half of the house was already on the ground in ruin from the fire from so many years ago, but to the left, a new fired was alive
and well. I didn’t care about getting burned again; I didn’t care about dying; I just needed to get to Luna.

  Fire licked the staircase, and the stairs gave way when I stepped on them to get upstairs. I don’t know why I felt like I had to get up there, but I just knew. Maybe it was the way the steps were on fire, in a straight line, and that could only happen if it was set intentionally. I gripped the hot rail of the staircase, my palm burning from the touch, but it wasn’t enough to stop me. I lifted myself up with my good arm, I pulled myself up the rail, doing my best to go around the steps. The rail groaned, threatening to give.

  “Easton! You crazy fuck! Where are you?” Keaton, a fellow firefighter yelled from the main entrance, but I was already gone in the black smoke.

  When I got to the top, one room had the fire leading to it. She was in there. I knew it. I ran down the hall and saw a smoky bathroom with an old fabric shower curtain. I ripped it off its hinges and dunked the nasty curtain in the toilet. Water would help prevent the fire from touching my skin. I wrapped it around me and ran back to the room. I didn’t even hesitate. I jumped through the portal of flames, and when my feet landed on the ground, it was like I was in another realm when I saw her on the bed, tied, with that fucking psychopath laying on her with a smile on his face.

  I picked the man up, and he didn’t move, he was unconscious. I didn’t want to feed the fire by throwing him out the window. Oxygen would get in and let it rage. So I did the second-best thing, I tossed him in the flames and started to untie Luna. He woke up though, screaming for his life at the top of his lungs. I ignored him and hissed as I untied Luna from the bed. The rope was on fire, and her wrists had started to burn.

  I laid the curtain over her and got to work on her ankles when he gripped my wrist with his hand that was on fire, and I yelled in agony and kicked him off me.

  “You can’t take her from me! Nora, my sweet Nora!” he yelled, and the flames made their way into his mouth, silencing him forever as the fire burned him from the inside out.

  I picked up Luna, leaving the soaked curtain on her and jumped back through the fire portal, and Keaton was there.

  “Take her. Her first!” I said, and, with a grim expression, he lifted her into his arms and slid down the rail like they did the pole at the fire station. I tried to do the same, but the smoke had gotten to my lungs, and I couldn’t breathe. I leaned right until I was halfway down the rail, and I fell six-feet. My cast shattered under me as my arm broke my fall.

  Suddenly, I was being lifted into the air and carried out into the fresh air. Someone dropped me on the ground. The last person I expected to see was Vincent. He slapped my face gently, concern on his brows. “You crazy bastard!” he said, laying an oxygen mask over my nose. I gasped as it rushed through my lungs. Fuck, that felt good. “You have burns on your hands, second-degree all over your body. You stupid asshole. I should have let you burn in there for your stupidity!” he yelled.

  I didn’t think he would have cared, honestly.

  Another person fell beside me, and when I turned my head, I saw Luna, her eyes fluttering as she stared at me. “Heaven,” she croaked.

  I reached for her hand and shook my head, trying to tell her we were alive.

  “I love you,” she said before her eyes rolled back into unconsciousness again.

  I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming, if I was in heaven, or if I lived in reality, but I smiled and drifted off to sleep. I’d die a happy man knowing Luna loved me. Nothing else mattered.

  Nothing.

  I woke up to the sound of beeping again. It was starting to become my pet peeve. Beep. Beep. Beep. It was so annoying. When I woke up, the familiar hiss of the oxygen mask cooled my nose, and when I tried to take it off, I couldn’t. My hands were wrapped, and I had a new cast on now.

  “Hey asshole.” Evan got in my vision, and that was when I noticed his black eye. In the distance, I saw Ethan waving. I tried to wave back but couldn’t move.

  “I have too many people I love in this damn unit,” my mom said.

  “Me too,” Ms. Nightingale said.

  “Mom?” Luna’s voice brought me out of my stupor, and I turned my head to see her curling her hand around the rail. “Easton,” she called out for me. “Easton!” she said again, but I couldn’t speak. My throat was killing me.

  “He’s next to you, Star,” her dad said, and Luna turned her curly mess of a head to me and grinned.

  “Easton,” she said and reached for me, but I couldn’t move my hands. “I love you,” she said again, and my chest broke. Tears dripped from my eyes, and I wanted nothing more than to tell her I loved her back.

  I took the mask off and licked my dry, chapped lips. “I love you,” I replied, my voice so hoarse it was nearly unrecognizable.

  Zeke waited in uniform to take her statement since she was awake.

  There was so much going on; I almost couldn’t focus.

  “Are you okay with talking?” Zeke asked, taking out his notepad.

  She inhaled through the mask and stared at me, waiting for me to give her the go ahead. I nodded, and she took the mask off and licked her beautiful lips. “He got me from the hospital. Ethan. Water bottle,” she spoke in choppy sentences to make it quicker. She didn’t want to strain her voice.

  “Okay,” Zeke cleared his throat, obviously the emotion getting to him.

  “Woke up. At Hampton. Man called me Nora.”

  “What did you just say?” her mother asked in horror, her big eyes wide with fear and her hands trembled as she covered her mouth.

  “He said he was…” she took a deep breath in. “My father. He was mad.”

  “Oh my god,” Tessa cried and shook her head, turning away from everyone as she took a seat.

  “It’s true?” Luna asked.

  “Star,” her dad began to say then shook his head. “Yes, it’s true.”

  I expected Luna to scream. I didn’t understand fully what was happening. Luna’s name was Nora? Her parents weren’t her biological parents?

  “Shit, that makes you the last heir to the Hampton fortune,” Zeke said in awe. “Ms. Nightingale, why didn’t you want the money?”

  “Because nothing but death happens when the Hamptons spend the Hampton fortune,” she hissed. “I wanted nothing to do with it, and then they placed my beautiful niece in my arms, and I knew she was better off with me. My sister… she had problems. Your father and I couldn’t get pregnant, Luna. We didn’t want you to be reminded of them, so we changed your name. Oh god, I hope you can forgive us.” Tessa reached out and took Luna’s hand and gripped it as she wept.

  “Shit,” Ezra said from next to me. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

  Me either.

  We all waited for what Luna had to say. It took a few minutes. Her chest rose and fell slowly, eyes closed, but she squeezed her mom’s hand, and Tessa met Luna’s eyes with her watery gaze. “I will always be Luna. I am your daughter. No one else’s,” she said, leaning her head back on the pillow. “Past means nothing to me. I only care about the future.” Luna turned to me when she said that, and my heart sped up on the monitor.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  “Marry me,” I said through an oxygen mask. I wanted to kick myself because I didn’t have the ring in my hand, and I was bandaged to hell, but everyone we loved stood in this room, and while it wasn’t romantic, it was in front of everyone.

  She blinked at me, and then her brilliant emerald eyes shined with unshed tears, and she nodded. “Yes, Easton Moore. I’ll marry you. I’ve always been yours.”

  My damn heart was sped up like it was running a marathon, and I tapped Evan on the shoulder and pointed to my jean pocket. I had been carrying around a moonstone engagement ring since my senior year of high school.

  It really had only been Luna for me. I didn’t deserve her or the second chance she gave me, but I wouldn’t take it for granted.

  Ethan grabbed my pants in a huff, clearly still mad at me, and searched through my jeans until he
slowly pulled out a blue velvet box. “Holy shit,” he said under his breath.

  “Luna. Give to my Moon,” I said to him and wished like hell I could be holding her right now. I turned to her as he set the box on her belly and she opened it, crying her eyes out, I didn’t think she’d be able to see the ring.

  “Oh god,” she said, tilting the box to show a two-carat moonstone surrounded by emeralds because they reminded me of her eyes. She slipped it on her hand, and I was right, the ring was made to go there.

  My heart beat wildly for Luna Nightingale, even in smoke and flame, nothing could stop our love.

  Our story had been written in the stars, right next to the moon.

  Epilogue

  Luna

  One year later

  It had been a crazy year of many things.

  Of healing.

  Of building.

  Of moving on.

  The boutique had finally been finished. The Hampton house had been demolished, and I begged Easton not to rebuild the same house. I wanted our home in a different spot on the land, nowhere near where my biological father tied me to a bed and tried to kill me.

  He agreed. He didn’t fight me or anything of that nature. He only wanted me happy. So Easton and his brothers built a beautiful mansion on the other side of the property. It looked like an old Victorian home, and I couldn’t wait until it was finished. Between work and having a life, the brothers took their time building our home.

  We stayed in Easton’s apartment for now, and his brothers visited all the time. We all couldn’t wait to live together. Ethan was the most excited. I was so proud of his progress. He had burns from his chest down except for his arms. He always wore a shirt, even when the other guys took their shirts off. He was insecure about how he looked, but to me, he was handsome and still one of the best men I knew.

  But something had changed in him, respectfully. He didn’t have as much confidence as he used to, and there were parts of him that remained the same. I hoped whenever he found someone; they loved him for who he was, scars and all.