Read Knocking at Her Heart (Conover Circle #1) Online
Authors: Beverly Long
“I don’t understand.”
“Dirt poor. Living off other people’s
charity. She saw a chance to maybe change her life forever and she took
it.”
The woman had been a fool. “I
wish you’d have told me,” she said. “It would have made what happened easier to
understand.” She reached out to touch his hand, but he pulled
away.
“I was wrong, Maddie, very wrong.
I hurt you and I’m about to hurt you more.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know you’re on your way to
meet Percy Monaghan. Don’t sign those papers, Maddie. Don’t sell your home, your
business. It’s too important to you.”
“How do you know about Percy?”
“Because he’s been working for
Tom and Donald and me. We’re his clients. And everything bad that’s happened to
you over the last two weeks is our fault.”
“What?”
“We wanted to buy the daycare so
we could move our practice here. Put in an outpatient surgery center.”
No. It couldn’t be true. Her
heart, so badly injured by his earlier accusations, had started to heal. Now he
was ripping it apart again. Stripping layers, peeling it raw. “When we were up
at your sister’s house, I told you that some attorney was trying to buy my
property. I told you everything and you…you told me nothing.”
Sam looked miserable. “Call
Percy,” he said. “Tell him you changed your mind, that you’re not interested.”
“All the things that happened
here? The roof, the plumbing, the damn mice. You
knew?
”
He stood up, so quickly that she
felt a rush of air. “No! I didn’t know about any of that. You have to believe
me. I would never have let that happen.”
She didn’t know what to believe.
“Was any of it real, Sam? Did your sister even really need daycare?”
“Jean or Kelsie weren’t part of
this. But when Kelsie started here, I agreed to find out what kind of offer
you’d listen to.”
She stood up too and started
pacing around the room. “Were you supposed to sleep with me? Was that part of
the plan? Screw her and then she’ll be a lot more agreeable? See if you can get
some pillow talk?”
“No!” he roared. “No,” he
repeated, more quietly. “Never that. Never.”
“Why are you telling me this,
Sam?”
“Because I don’t want you to sign
those papers, Maddie. Don’t give up your home, your dream.”
“What about your dream? What
about Tom and Donald?”
She could see the fresh pain, and
she realized that Sam had been hurt. He’d trusted his partners and that trust
had been betrayed. “What are you going to do, Sam?” she asked, her own voice
soft.
He rubbed his head. “I’ll have to
move on. That’s what people like me do when the going gets tough. We move on.
We find another place, start over. There are other hospitals.”
He couldn’t be serious. “What
about Jean and Kelsie?”
“I’ll make sure they’re taken
care of.”
He would. Sam took care of his
family, took care of people who had less than he did. But who took care of Sam?
Who took care of the little boy who silently
wanted?
He was willing to leave his home
and his practice. For what?
For her.
It hit her hard. She’d been
righteously clinging to her belief that Sam loved his medicine more than he
loved her.
She’d been wrong.
“I’m going to go meet Percy
Monaghan,” she said.
“Don’t do it, Maddie,” he begged.
“And I’m going to tell him that
he’s lucky I’m not pressing charges. He’s going to write me a check to
reimburse me for my expenses and then,” she paused and gathered her three-inch
red heels of courage and said, “if you’ll have me, we’re getting married.”
He literally staggered back.
“What?”
“I love you. I didn’t want to and
I didn’t expect to. But I do. And real love endures—I learned that recently. It
can take a few knocks. I know that you love medicine and you love being a
doctor. But I know that you’re going to love me and our children more, that
you’re going to provide and protect and always be there for us.”
He wrapped his arms around her
and held her tight. “I’m the luckiest man alive,” he said, his lips close to
her ear.
She pulled back. “I’ve got to
call my mother and see when she has a free weekend so she can get those
barbeque beans started.”
“Your parents? Do you think
they’ll be okay with this?”
“Okay?” She could feel the heat,
the anticipation of the pure joy of what was to come. “They’ll be thrilled.
They always wanted me to marry a doctor.”
THE
END
About the
Author
Beverly Long writes contemporary,
romantic suspense and time travel romance novels. She lives in the Midwest and
enjoys hearing from readers. Connect with Beverly at
www.beverlylong.com
and sign up for her
newsletter. Also at
www.facebook.com/beverlylong.romance
, and
www.twitter.com/bevlongbooks
.
Thank you so much for reading
Knocking
at Her Heart
. It is both a privilege and a joy to write books.
I would very much appreciate it
if you could take a few minutes to provide your honest opinion of the book at
one or both of the following sites. Your thoughts are important to me and reader
reviews can help other book lovers make purchasing decisions.
Also, I am pleased to share with
you the following sample of
Stay With Me
, which was originally my first
published book in 2005. It’s a time-travel romance, where a present day heroine
gets tossed back to 1888 Wyoming Territory. I’m especially fond of the hero,
John Beckett. I think he’s a keeper!
Excerpt
from
Stay With Me
CHAPTER ONE
Present Day
“You can’t just quit.”
Sarah Jane Tremont smiled at
Melody, the woman who had been both her friend and her co-worker for the last
six years. She walked across the office and grabbed her diplomas and her
professional license off the wall. “Actually, I can,” Sarah said,
dropping the frames into the cardboard box, not caring when they scraped
together.
With more care, she removed the
remaining frame. She’d picked up the old black-and-white photo last year
while walking through an antiques mall. Just a simple nine-by-seven
print, it had stopped her in her tracks. It was a picture of a woman,
sitting on a log, facing a campfire. Her back was to the camera, her long
skirt touching the ground, her hair ribbons dancing in the wind. The
photographer had captured the sun just as it slipped behind the mountains in
the distance.
But what had captured Sarah had
been the man. He stood off to the woman’s side, just a foot or so
back. He had one leg propped on a tree stump and his lanky frame was bent
over as he rested an elbow on his thigh. He watched the woman as she
watched the fire.
The photographer had chosen an
angle that offered just a hint of the man’s profile, just a peek at a strong
chin. He wore a cowboy hat and a long coat. Sarah reached out and
traced the man, letting her finger run down the length of his body. A
tingle started in the tip of her finger and traveled across her hand, causing
the hair on her arm to rise.
She yanked her hand back and
rubbed her still tingling fingers together. They felt almost hot.
She raised her hand toward her face and sniffed her fingers. She could
smell the campfire, the burning evergreens.
“What the heck are you doing?”
Melody asked.
Dreaming.
“Nothing,” Sarah
denied. Before she lost her nerve, she reached for the picture, careful
to touch just the frame. She lifted it off the wall and gently laid it on
top of the rest of her things.
She pulled the small nails and
dropped them into the garbage. “Who knows?” Sarah said, waving a hand
toward the faded wall. “Maybe this will be a good excuse for them to
paint the office.”
“I don’t care about paint,”
Melody said, her eyes filling with tears. “I care about you. I
don’t understand why you have to leave.”
That was easy. “Because I
can’t stay,” she said. She stood next to the door, her half-full box
propped on her hip, and took one last look around the small, windowless
office. For the next months, as long as it took, she’d do what she could
for the Lopez family. When that was over, she didn’t have a clue what
she’d do. All she knew is that she couldn’t come back here.
These kids and their families
deserved better—certainly more—but she had nothing else to give. She was
empty.
Melody brushed a tear off her
cheek with an impatient swipe. “For God’s sake, you’re a social worker,
Sarah, not a miracle worker.
That was too bad because Rosa
Lopez and her sweet eight-year-old son had needed a miracle.
“I’ll call you,” Sarah said, as
she wrapped one arm around her friend’s shoulder and pulled her close.
“Maybe not right away. But I will.”
When Sarah left the four-story
brick school, she heard the click of the metal security door as it closed
behind her. Without looking back, she walked across the deserted cement
lot, stepping over the wide cracks. Two basketball hoops, looking forlorn
with their torn netting and scratched poles, swayed in the brisk spring
wind. A slide, more rust than metal, stood off to one end.
During the day, kids played in
the front and staff parked in the back two rows, separated from the busy street
by a wire fence that did little to protect the children from the local drug
dealers but caught every piece of garbage that blew around the gray streets.
When she got to her car, she
threw her box and her purse in the trunk. As she eased her six-year-old
Toyota into traffic and headed west, she saw Mr. Ramirez flip the sign on his
front door. During the day, he sold gas and magazines to the
teachers and candy and soda to the children. At night, he pulled
the grates over his window and got, as the saying went, the hell out of Dodge.
Except this wasn’t Dodge.
It was Salt Flats, the poorest suburb of Los Angeles. Sixty percent of
the population earned under what the government defined as the poverty
level. In actuality, almost everybody in Salt Flats lived in
poverty. If it weren’t for the drug dealers and the hookers, there would
have been no real commerce.
Twenty-five minutes later, Sarah
took her exit, just like every other night, but at the last minute, she turned
left, heading for the ocean. There was no need to go home to her tiny
apartment with its white walls and beige carpet. There were no files to
read, no case reports to dictate, or telephone calls to return.
Well, that was mostly true.
An hour ago the harried school secretary had jammed a note in her hand with a
name and number that she didn’t recognize. Sarah had slipped it in her
pocket. She supposed the least she could do was call from the beach and
let this person know that she wasn’t going to be able to help.
She was done helping.
She needed time to breathe, to
think, to find her center again. She’d sit in the sun, jog in the park,
maybe even take up the piano again. She’d missed the music, the sense of
peace playing gave her.
When she got to the beach, she pulled
into the empty parking lot, grateful that it was really too cool to be
there. She didn’t feel like sharing space with anybody else
tonight. Shifting in her seat, she kicked off her shoes, then reached
under her long silk skirt to yank off her pantyhose. It had felt odd to
have a dress on at work. Her standard uniform was slacks and a blouse,
something that could survive milk carton missiles in the cafeteria, gum on
chairs, and vomit from nervous kids.
She’d dressed up for the
pot-luck, the going-away party that Melody had insisted upon. The
symbolism of the event hadn’t been lost on her. She’d dressed the way she
might for her own funeral, and the well-wishers had milled around, staring at
her, talking in low tones, not really sure what to say. What
was
the right thing to say to someone who was giving up?
All she ever wanted was to make a
difference. But it was too late for that. She wasn’t going to get
her wish.
Sarah opened her car door and, at
the last minute, slipped out of her conservative suit jacket. She’d
freeze in her sleeveless blouse but she wanted to feel the harsh spray of the
cold water on her skin. She grabbed her cell phone and put it and her
keys in her pocket.
Sarah loved the beach, especially
at night when the tide rolled in, each wave more aggressive than the last,
leaving jumbles of seaweed and all kinds of other treasures in its swift
retreat. She could spend hours looking across the water, searching for
the exact point where the dark blue sea met the purple sky, and the two became
one, a perfect welcome mat for the moon.
Tonight’s sky had streaks of pink
and lavender, and a splash of red where the sun barely kissed the horizon as it
slipped away. It would be dark soon. She strolled along the
deserted beach, stopping every so often to examine a pretty shell or an unusual
piece of wood. When she slipped one of the shells into her pocket, her
fingers brushed the message slip. Before the light faded completely, she
needed to return the call.
She’d dialed the first three
numbers when she saw the footprints. They started thirty feet in front of
her. She watched as the bubbles of the gurgling tide swept over the
prints, and she waited for them to disappear.
But they didn’t.
She dialed the remaining four
numbers and took another few steps. A wave washed first against her
calves, then flowed over the footprints. Their perfection remained
undiminished.
The phone rang three times before
a man answered. “This is Sarah Jane Tremont,” she said as she put one
bare foot inside the first print. It stretched inches beyond her
toes. “I’m returning your call.”
“Thank you,” he said, then
paused, as if he was trying to remember why he’d called. “Oh, yeah.
Here’s the file. I’m a customer service representative for Dynasty
Insurance. You had called a couple of weeks ago about a policy that Rosa
Lopez purchased last year.”
She’d called about twenty
times. She wondered which time he was referring to. She took
another step and thought she might be crazy. It almost seemed like the
footprint fit better. “Yes.”
“I’m not sure how to tell you
this, but I think we made a mistake. We…”
Sarah listened and walked and
realized that this was the miracle that Rosa Lopez had been waiting for.
When the call ended, she snapped her cell phone shut, stunned by the turn of
events.
It took her a minute to realize
that the footprints had become a perfect fit.
A sizzle started in her
toes, jumped over the arch of her foot, streaked up her leg, and lodged itself
in the middle of her chest. She felt as if she’d stuck a knife in the
toaster. She wanted to move, to fling herself forward, to hurl herself
back, to protect herself, but she couldn’t.
A jagged spear of lightning split
the now-dark sky and thunder roared. Wind, so strong it pushed her to her
knees, came from behind. Sand whirled around her, biting into her
skin. She squeezed her eyes shut and cupped her hands over her
ears. The ground shook, sending her sprawling face down in the
sand.
Her cell phone flew. “No,”
she cried. She had to call Rosa Lopez. Now.
Then she heard it. The
noise. A hundred times louder than the thunder, a hundred times more
frightening. She opened her eyes. A wall of water swept across the
ocean, heading right toward her. Sarah screamed as the first spray hit
her face.
***
She woke up flat on her
back. Every bone in her body ached, her head throbbed, her eyes felt
glued shut, and her tongue seemed too big for her mouth. She licked her
dry lips and tasted salt.
She’d undoubtedly drowned.
She was dead. Done. Finished. The fat lady had sung.
She wiggled her fingers and her
toes. Everything moved. She patted her arms, her cheeks.
Everything felt pretty solid. So much for all that stuff about ashes to
ashes, dust to dust.
She pried one eye open, then the
other. Rolling to her side, she got to her knees, and then stood
up. She felt a little light-headed, the way she did when she skipped both
breakfast and lunch.
In the moonlight, the trees,
their branches full, cast long shadows. She saw mountains in the
distance. Stars, brighter than any she’d ever seen, sparkled in the
sky. Grass, a whole field of it, tall enough to reach her waist, swayed
in the soft breeze. It smelled sweet, like spring flowers.
It had to be Heaven.
She jumped when she heard a noise
behind her. Whirling around, she saw two yellow eyes, ground level,
staring at her. She screamed, the sound echoing in the quiet night.
The startled squirrel ran up the trunk of the nearest tree.
Just seeing the animal made her
feel a little better. She’d always hoped Tiny, her fat old cat who’d died
last year, had made it to Heaven. If a squirrel got in, Tiny was a sure
thing.
She looked to her left, then to
the right. A narrow dirt road stretched as far as the eye could see in
both directions. Hoping for a bit of divine inspiration, she looked up
and studied the sky.
She tried to pick out the
brightest star. That had, after all, worked out okay for the Wise
Men. She patted the pockets of her still damp skirt. Fresh out of
frankincense or gold. Oh, well.
She turned to the right and began
walking down the dirt road, wincing when she stepped on a sharp rock. She
got another hundred yards before a second rock sliced into her other foot. She
stood first on one foot, then the other, probing the cuts with her
fingers.
When had she had her last Tetanus
booster?
She laughed, feeling giddy.
What did it matter?
She squatted down, rubbed her
hands across the grass, attempting to wipe the blood off. She managed to
smear it up past both wrists. She resisted the urge to use the edge of
her skirt. It might have to last her through eternity. Now she
really regretted that she hadn’t worn her practical slacks and blouse. “I
hope you’ve got some extra bathrobes, God.” She spoke quietly as she
continued down the path. “Some of those white thick ones, the kind they
have in expensive hotels.”
She took a few more steps.
“I always figured Heaven would have pizza and hot chocolate and red
licorice.” Another six steps. “Not that I’m complaining, God.
I’m sure there’s more than this.” She did not want the Big Guy to think
poorly of her. After all, she’d handled this death thing pretty well so
far. No sense letting Him down now.