Heartland (25 page)

She hugged his warm solid body against her and kissed his forehead. He smelled of bubblegum-scented bath bubbles and little boy. If Austin had accepted her, she had more than fallen in love with the toddler as well. “Okay, I’ll sing one song.”

Despite Austin’s antics, he yawned and laid his head on her shoulder. “Momma, sing to me.”

EJ stood and smiled, moving to the side.

Emily laid Austin back into his rumpled bed and pulled the covers to his chin. She took EJ’s place by his side, then sang the lullaby she’d written while sitting with Cadence in the hospital and hoped to record for her new record in the spring.
A Mother’s Heart
was soft and soothing. By the time she reached the end, Austin’s eyelids fluttered closed over his bright blue eyes. She hummed for a few more minutes until EJ gestured toward the door with a jerk of his chin.

At the door, she flipped off the light switch and gazed at the sleeping form on the bed as the fullness of the love she felt for her children expanded her heart to bursting.

EJ startled her when he took her hand and led her down the hall to their room.

To her parents’ disappointment, she hadn’t moved back to the Double K after leaving the hospital. EJ had asked her to move in with him, and she’d agreed. The Arrowhead Ranch was her home. He and their kids were her life. With a little bit of music mixed in.

He opened the door, and she drew in a breath as she stepped over the threshold. The room was aglow with dozens of candles, and on the dresser sat a tray holding two delicate fluted glasses. A moment of apprehension slithered through her when she picked a bottle out of a glass bowl filled with ice. A spurt of nervous laughter escaped as she set the non-alcoholic champagne bottle back in the makeshift chiller and turned toward him.

He smiled and reached past her to pick up the bottle, then poured the glasses half full. “Come over here.” Gesturing with a cock of his head, he turned toward the bay window.

Distracted as she was upon entering the room by the candles and the
wine,
she hadn’t noticed what was spread over the floor in front of the window. She rounded the side of the bed. “Is this a bear skin?”

He nodded and handed her one of the glasses. “Yeah. I found it in the attic when I stowed the bed. Come, sit.”

With her heart pounding in her ears and all thought of her earlier exhaustion gone, she sat on the rug next to him. He’d opened the blinds and pulled back the curtains, to reveal the star-filled sky. The late September moon hung low in the eastern horizon, its big, silvery roundness filling the center of the window.

She pulled her attention away from the beauty of nature to look at EJ. Tiny beads of moisture glimmered over his forehead in the candlelight. The room was comfortable, but wasn’t hot. Was he nervous?

He set his glass to the side on the hardwood floor. When he turned back to her, she looked around and set her glass on the floor, then shifted to face him. Once she settled again, he took both of her hands in his warm, work-roughened palms.

“Emily, I love you.” His voice came out in a low sexy rumble, and her breath caught in her throat. “You and Cadence and Austin are the best things that ever happened to me.”

He let go of her left hand and reached into his jeans pocket. She gasped when the pear-shaped diamond caught and splinted the candlelight.

“Oh, EJ.” She met his beautiful pewter gaze and held her breath as he held the ring at the tip of her left ring finger.

“Will you marry me?”

A deep bone-affirming happiness settled over her, and she let out a sob of utter joy as she shifted her finger forward, allowing the ring to slip over her first joint. “Yes.” She leaned in until her lips almost touched his, and before he could close the gap, she sang the hook of the song she’d written while sitting on the porch in July before all hell broke loose.

“Over blazing deserts or raging seas,

You are always there leading me,

No matter the chaos, you are my peace,

My love, my anchor, my forever guarantee.”

“God, I love you,” she whispered, then kissed him.

Be sure not to miss fellow Lyrical author Melissa Shirley’s:

Breaking Hearts

Read on for a special sneak peek of the next book in the Storybook Lake series!

Learn more about Melissa Shirley

http://www.kensingtonbooks.com/author.aspx/31684

Chapter 1

Opening Statements

“All rise!”

Being on trial for my life taught me two things. One, when the bailiff says “all rise,” everyone in the courtroom should immediately shut up and stand; two, the business end of being on trial and the tremors associated with it did not couple well with coffee drinking and silk blouses.

I blotted at my shirt while my lawyer leaned in close to advise me, yet again, of the possible outcomes of the case should I lose. Grace Wade turned to face me head-on and recommended I at least consider the prosecutions deal of life in prison with the possibility of parole in twenty-five years. Twenty-five years? I decided to gamble on a jury trial and a possible life sentence. Surely, at least one of the twelve people would realize I didn’t kill Sean, no matter how badly I wanted to, and no matter how much unwavering gratitude, trial talk taboo, I harbored for the person who’d actually done the job.

The jurors filed into the courtroom, seven women between the ages of thirty and late sixties and five men from early twenties to late forties. A school teacher, bus driver, street sweeper, an accountant, landscaper, college student, and three food service professionals--translation: waiters and waitresses--a dog trainer, boutique owner, and a hairdresser, all had been chosen as my peers. Somehow, being accused of murder changed how I evaluated my peers, especially since I had no choice but to put my life in their hands.

Calvin Coolidge Connor, the prosecutor and apparent love child of Beetlejuice and Mr. Frodo--dark black hair, a slender waist, and a suit swallowing him almost whole--looked over at me with slits for eyes and a grim smirk on his lips. As green as any other small town thirty five-year-old prosecutor eager to make a name for himself, he probably jumped at the chance to take this case. He’d been an opportunist in high school, too, but as friends back then, I’d overlooked it. In this moment, with a gallery full of TV cameras, former friends, and reporters with pens poised to capture every detail, I hated him for it.

My attorney, the only lawyer I’d ever met, had been my best friend growing up, and though ten years had passed since we did more than make small talk on the phone, she took my case, no questions asked. Even though Grace had been career dormant as of late, I sat next to her not at all worried. She’d always been wrapped in some karmically blessed aura of greatness. At least, that’s what I told myself in the morning before I dressed for trial.

She smoothed her skirt as we sat and waited for the prosecutor to begin his opening statement. At seventeen months older than me, Grace had movie star beauty. Along with her dramatic good looks, she capitalized on her porn star figure by wearing short, mostly respectable skirts, and blouses opened at the throat, thoroughly enhancing her pushed up C cups.

Without looking at me, checking her notes, or picking up a pen, she stared at the troll and waited. To anyone else, she appeared calm, poised for battle, but her fingers trembled as they sat idle against the table. A light sheen of sweat dotted her forehead and upper lip. We ignored the whirring of cameras, crinkling of papers, muffled coughs, hushed whispers in the court room, and most of our childhood friends on the witness list. For a former glory hound like Grace, ignoring it all said something.

As much as I’d come to love Storybook Lake over the last year, we weren’t holding the trial at home. Storybook Lake would never let something so tainted as murder touch its cobblestoned, gas-lit streets. The proceedings had been transferred to neighboring Bloomington and my friends and former neighbors, all with ready-formed opinions as to my innocence or guilt, elbowed for space in the tiny courtroom.

Cal, whose grades in high school mirrored his initials, stood and walked to the center of the room, facing the jury, his back to me. While I understood he had a job to do, it irked me he’d been able to start without as much as a glance at the pile of notes on his table. Executing a perfect military turn in his too-shiny clown shoes, he took three paces toward the judge parallel to the jury, pulled in tight, turned a hard left and stalked to his original spot. He stopped abruptly, facing the twelve people instructed to hang on his every word.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Calvin Connor and I represent you, the good people of the State of Illinois.”

I nudged Grace and mouthed the words, “suck up.” She shot me a glare and then went back to ignoring me.

“Storybook Lake, Illinois is an innocent little tourist town with a quiet character based on works of literary greatness. Its existence celebrates the lives of those who let us borrow their words to transport ourselves through whatever carefully woven life they have created in their pages. On June fourth, this woman”--he pointed at me without turning his head or body--“shattered the calm normally floating over the quiet little city. She lured her husband away from his home in California with the promise he would get to see the son she kidnapped.”

I scanned the room for the Academy Award presenters and shrugged when no little gold statue or red carpet actress appeared.

Grace leaped to her feet. “Objection, Your Honor. Mrs. Turner had, and continues to have, sole custody of the child. There was no kidnapping involved and absolutely no evidence she lured her husband here. In fact, all evidence points otherwise.” Grace turned to me, eyes wide and the hint of a smile on her lips.

The judge turned her attention to Cal. “Mr. Cooper?”

He simply lifted one shoulder, cocked his head toward it with an off-handed smile, offering no explanation.

“Sustained.”

The judge shot him a dirty look.

He refocused on the jury and continued. “This woman, the defendant, is a cold, calculating killer who involved herself in a relationship with another man while still married to Sean Turner. She knew in order to be with the love of her life”--Air quotes?--“and raise her son with him, she needed to get rid of her husband. She had to make sure he didn’t have the ability to interfere. So, what did she do? She took a knife and stabbed Sean Turner, not once, not twice, but seven times. And, in a matter of seconds, her burden of marriage disappeared.”

He shook his head and clucked his tongue. “But then, Sean turner refused to die, to let her take his son away and live with another man. He refused to give up his hold on his wife and on life. She couldn’t let him live, especially not now. Attempted murder? She would have lost her son, anyway. So, she ran to her purse, took out the gun she stole from her boyfriend, a former chief of police, and shot Mr. Turner in the face.” He made a pistol with his fingers, flicked his arm out in aim. and shot me. “She lied to investigators, not once, but three times. She lied to her friends, her family, and to her son.”

Grace rocket-launched out of her chair again. “Objection, Your Honor. May we approach?” Without waiting for an answer, she stomped to the front of the courtroom and stood, hands on hips, feet apart. Grace Wade, princess warrior, ready for battle.

After an animated discussion--her hands flailing, his head bobbing and the judge jerking her head back and forth ping pong style--she returned to her seat next to mine and picked up her pen. She scribbled, No worries. I got this.

I aspired to worried.

The judge glanced at Cal, then the jury. “The objection is sustained. Ladies and gentleman, there is no evidence the gun used to shoot Mr. Turner was, in fact, the gun belonging to Simon Hunter.” Cal received his second stink-eye from the judge in a matter of minutes. “Proceed, Mr. Connor.”

“The point isn’t who this defendant lied to or whose gun she used, or why Sean Turner turned up in Illinois. The point is she lied and she lied a lot. She left Mr. Turner in his hotel room bleeding to death.”

Nope. By the time I arrived, he’d been stabbed and shot and died alone. The way I always knew he would.

“The relationship between the defendant and Mr. Turner was born in the back of a limousine where the defendant conceived the couple’s child. After trying unsuccessfully to dupe Keaton Shaw into believing the child belonged to him, a DNA test proved her a liar. Another lie in her long list. With no other choice after being chased out of Storybook Lake in shame, she sought out Sean Turner and married him, then quit her job.”

I hadn’t quit my job. My job didn’t require a desk or an office, just a pen and piece of paper. I designed kids’ clothes for a living.

“Then she moved to California to be with her husband. After a few thousand arguments over money, she left the marital home, taking the child with her. When she returned over the Christmas holiday, she visited Storybook Lake with her husband, and while they were there, together, as a couple, she flaunted her desire to be with Mr. Hunter in Sean Turner’s face.”