Bed of Lies (62 page)

"I really just want to stay here," Emma said.

"No," Sam said.

She frowned, knowing that tone well. Sam didn't use it often and certainly not arbitrarily. But he'd made up his mind. She'd never flat-out refused him anything, because she loved him and trusted him. She knew he loved her.

Emma looked across the room at Rye, who'd given her the same argument in much the same way. He'd even sounded like Sam when he did it.

"What did he say?" Rye asked.

Sam had just said the same thing. It echoed in her head.
What did he say?
Not just the words or the tone. The voice.

They
sounded
alike.

Looking up at Rye now, the color and shape of his eyes, that little notch in his chin, the way he simply held himself, he even looked like Sam.

And he'd come here looking for Sam....

Not about business, but something personal, and seemed oddly reluctant to even let Sam know it. Why in the world would he do that?

"Emma?"

They both said it at once, Sam's voice coming through the phone, Rye's from across the room. It was just the same. She forgot all about Mark and the phone calls, the threats, and the bruise on her face.

The voices were the same.

Could it be?

She thought... just maybe, she was standing here with Sam's long-lost brother.

It just hit her out of the blue.

Sam had a brother she'd never seen. One Sam hadn't seen himself in ages. For the longest time, she thought he didn't have anyone at all, and she'd wondered how he'd stood that. She couldn't imagine a world without her siblings, particularly after they'd lost their mother. She'd said something about that one day, and Sam had told her he had a brother but not much else. It had obviously been so hard for him to talk about.

But she'd always been curious. Where had his brother gone? What had happened to him? Why didn't Sam ever see him? Why did it still hurt Sam so much?

Emma stared up at Rye. Rye who'd looked so troubled and so reluctant all along. She thought of the way he was so reluctant for Sam to even know he was here, almost like he was testing the situation first, before deciding whether he was willing to reveal his true identity.

But why? If he really was Sam's brother...

Emma put her hand over the receiver and faced Rye. "Who are you?"

He stared for a second, then turned and looked away, up toward the ceiling and through the window and off the back porch, anywhere but at her.

Wow.

He looked so uncomfortable, she thought he might head for the door and not come back. She couldn't let that happen.

"Sam?" she said into the phone. "I'll do something tonight. I'll go somewhere or have someone come stay at the house. Promise."

"I wish you'd come here," he said.

"I know... I just... I have some things to figure out on my own. I'll talk to you, tomorrow, okay?"

"No, it's not okay."

"Sam—"

"I know. You're not a little girl anymore."

He sounded like such a father then, like such a great father. He was having a really hard time with the idea that she was growing up. Not that she seemed to be doing a good job of taking care of herself at the moment.

But if this was his brother...

She looked back at Rye, pacing the length of the kitchen. Sam would be so surprised. What a wonderful Christmas present that would be.

Edge of Heaven

The McRae's Series

Book Two

by

Teresa Hill

~

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Edge of Heaven

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Unbreak My Heart

Excerpt from

Unbreak My Heart

by

Teresa Hill

USA Today Bestselling Author

A Note from Teresa Hill

There is no Dublin, Kentucky, but people who know Central Kentucky will likely see that the town I made up is on the Kentucky River between Lexington, Winchester, and Richmond. They may also recognize the Winchester Public Library, in the old church complete with stained-glass windows, the old Corner Drug Store, and the Dairy Queen. I waited tables at Hall's Restaurant on the river and my husband-to-be had a way of convincing me to skip classes at Eastern to go to the horse races at Keeneland with him. Somehow all of those places made their way into this book.

When my characters Allie and Stephen talk about a bone-deep sense of recognition for a place, they're speaking for me and the way I feel about Kentucky.

Prologue

Nine-year-old Allie Bennett woke to a hand shaking her shoulder, a light shining in her eyes. "Allie?" Her mother's voice was odd and tense. "Come on. We have to get up now."

"Is it morning?" She squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face in her soft pillow. "Do I have school today?"

"No. No school. It's not morning. But we have to get up. Now."

"Why?" Allie said. Outside, it was dark. Inside, the only light came from the flashlight her mother held.

"You and I are going away. Tonight."

"Away?" she whispered, the first flickering of unease creeping in.

Her sister, Megan, went away. And never came back.

Megan
ran
away six months ago. Allie still missed her desperately. She sneaked into Megan's room sometimes and lay on Megan's bed with her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms clasped around them, and inside she just ached from missing her sister.

"Why are we going away?" Allie whispered, scared now. It seemed she'd been scared the whole time since Megan disappeared.