Excerpt
“Why can’t I go to breakfast with you?” asked eight year old Wally from his hospital bed.

“I want to talk to Heather alone. We’ll be back in a little while, son.”

Wally examined his breakfast tray and saw a sugarcoated cinnamon bun. “You’ll come back after you eat, won’t you, Heather?” he asked.

“I sure will,” Heather replied, smiling.

Observing Wally’s attachment to Heather, Tony realized she was the best thing that ever happened to his son. He made an important decision at that moment. He wanted Heather in Wally’s life—indefinitely, and there was only one way to achieve that.


The cafeteria was busy with hospital staff. Heather was aware of the hush that seemed to fall about them. Gossip traveled fast and Heather sensed she was the subject of a great deal of it lately. Any association with Anthony Hampton was big news, and news traveled fast.

A table emptied in the center of the cafeteria and they quickly claimed it. Glancing about her, Heather felt she was on center stage. Everywhere she glanced, she saw someone looking at them. A glance at Tony showed a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth as he studied her with mild amusement.

“You’re staring at me,” she informed him.

“So I am, and with good reason,” he said and left his comment hanging.

“Do you plan to tell me why?”

“Because you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”

Heather snorted. “I think you need black coffee to open your eyes.”

“My vision is perfectly normal, Heather. I know beauty when I see it.”

Then changing the subject, Tony gazed deeply into her eyes. “Is there someone in your life, Heather, someone you’re close to?”

“I have my family.”

“I don’t mean your family,” he said. “I think you know what I mean?”

“I have a friend I’m close to.”

“How close? Are you engaged to him? Do you plan to marry him?”

She frowned. “That’s really none of your business, but why do you want to know?”

“I want you to marry me.”

Heather nearly choked on her coffee. Her eyes swelled with instant surprise. The clatter of someone’s fork on a plate startled her back to reality.

She gasped a deep cleansing breath of air—just before laughing. “I’m not used to frivolous jokes so early in the morning,” she chuckled comically.

Tony ignored the barb.

“Heather, don’t take me lightly. You may think it funny, but I have every intention of marrying you.”

EXCERPT: Conflict

“No more lies, Heather. I’m sick of them,” he snarled, his jaw clamping down and the muscle in it working steadily.

He had given this woman his heart, had opened up that place where he kept his wounds buried, giving rise to feelings he had been afraid to feel since youth. She had taken his love as heartlessly as she’d taken the money in exchange for Wally’s life, likely laughing at both of them for being such fools to believe and trust her.

She had betrayed him, used him, and he hated her now more than he’d even hated his dominating, dictating, and abusive father.

'Always. Always, Tony', she had said at a time when nothing meant more to him than those words she’d used to declare her love. She had invited his trust, had nurtured it, and now destroyed it.

Wally put the ladder away and came to the waiting room to join them, unaware of the problem at hand. “Wow! Look at all that money,” he said just before he noticed Heather sprawled on the floor. Then his young face contorted in confusion. “Heather, what’s wrong?” he asked.

A glance at his father’s face answered his question. "What have you done? Leave her alone,” Wally cried and pounded his fist on Tony’s chest.

Tony suddenly remembered another little boy, one who didn’t have the courage to beat on his father’s chest, a little boy who cried himself to sleep every night because the man who was supposed to care for him had tormented his ever-waking moment to make life a living hell.

Tony caught Wally’s wrists and held him off. “Wally, I want you to go get in the car with Buddy and tell him to take you home and then come back for me.”

“No, I won’t leave Heather so you can be mean to her. Why did you push her down? Why do you always have to hurt people?”

Tony bodily lifted Wally off the floor and carried him to the door while he struggled furiously.” Take my boy to the limo,” he told the guard. “Tell Buddy to take him home and then come back.”

“Put me down!” Wally kicked and screamed at the guard whose strength was no match for him. Bursting into tears, frustrated, he kicked at the floorboard when the guard dumped him on the seat next to Buddy.

When Tony saw Detective Miller coming up the walkway after just leaving a few minutes ago, he eyed him with a dangerous glint in his eyes. “What do you want?” Tony demanded, his paranoid mind conjuring up images of the man holding Heather in his arms and making love to her.

Detective Miller took out his badge and flashed it. “A call came over the frequency. I was close by so I said I’d look into it, Mr. Hampton."

“Why were you here earlier?”

“Your wife asked me to stop by.”

“Any business you have with my wife will no doubt be official from here on out.” He pulled the door open wider to let him pass. “My lovely wife had the ransom money hidden in her attic all along. She’s all yours. Get her the hell out of here. I don’t want to see her face again.”

Heather still lay sprawled where he had shoved her. Tears washed down her cheeks. Mike quickly went and helped her up.

“Heather, are you all right? What has happened here?” he asked, seeing the case of money spilled at her feet.