A Hero's Redemption. Suzanne Mcminn
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sense of it. As much as he’d been ready to, crazily, run away in the storm moments before, now he knew he had to stay. Calla Jones was the key.
But Calla Jones was scared. He had to gamble that, bighearted person that she was, she wasn’t going to think his tromping off in the storm was a good idea.
“No, you can’t do that,” she said finally. “It’s snowing, and it’s supposed to snow harder later. It’s miles into town. You’re already suffering from exposure. You’d never make it.”
She chewed her lip, watched him worriedly from wary eyes. “I couldn’t find any identification on you,” she went on. “I did find a receipt from a dry cleaner’s in town.”
The suit he’d worn at the sentencing, right before he’d been loaded into the transport van, had been cleaned in Haven for his court appearance. The high-priced attorney that Carter Sloane, the Ledger CEO, had hired had taken care of it. Unfortunately Edward Jeffries hadn’t taken care of much else he’d needed. Like getting him off.
She watched him with those deep brown eyes of hers, eyes flecked with amber lights, scared but concerned. They were gentle and sweet eyes.
She didn’t deserve to die, not any more than he deserved to go to prison for the rest of his life. His head reeled again. It was a tall order he was setting himself up to fill, saving the both of them. And he was still in shock and having a hard time accepting this strange new reality.
He propped his elbow on the table and leaned his head into his palm, a wash of disorientation hitting him.
“Are you okay? Are you going to be sick?”
She was there, kneeling at his feet. He lifted his gaze, found hers tight on his.
He swallowed hard over the lump of dread in his throat. “I’m all right.” He had to be all right. “I just feel like I’ve been beaten up by fifty guys, that’s all.”
“My name’s Calla, in case you don’t remember,” she said. “This is Haven Christmas Tree Farm. Haven, West Virginia. It’s December 20.”
She’d been murdered on December 22. Whatever quirk of fate had given him this second chance, it hadn’t been generous with time. He had two days…
And then would it happen all over again?
Calla Jones would die and he would end up in jail? He’d come out to her farm that day, from his office in Parkersburg where Ledger Pharmaceuticals was headquartered. He’d come on routine business—an audit had uncovered a legal form misplaced from her employee records. She hadn’t even worked for Ledger for some time. She’d been in the research department, but he wasn’t aware of much more than that, nor had he been much interested. He’d arrived at the farm and next thing he’d known, he’d been knocked out. He’d woken to the nightmare of her dead body and the rest was documented in court records.
Her hand rested on his knee. She was so damn nice and pretty to boot. Why would anyone want to kill her?
“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I don’t know what I can do to help you, but you’re welcome to stay here, ride out the storm.”
“Thank you. You’re very kind.” Very kind, and perhaps too innocent. Someone had come to her farm that day and killed her, possibly they’d been lying in wait when he’d arrived, taken advantage of the opportunity to set someone else up for the crime. Not that his lawyer had had much luck with any of the conspiracy theories he’d floated. The jury had bought the prosecutor’s premise that he’d had some kind of relationship with her at Ledger, putting it all down to a crime of passion despite evidence that he’d come to Haven for a specific business purpose.
There’d been absolutely no proof that he’d had any kind of affair with Calla Jones at all, no witnesses, but the district attorney had theorized that since relationships between coworkers were frowned on at Ledger, they’d kept it secret. Motive had hardly mattered, not when there was a dead body and his fingerprints all over the murder weapon. He was an outsider in a small and clannish town, accused of killing one of their own, caught seemingly red-handed. The jury had been quick enough to believe what was in front of them, evidence of motive be damned.
He’d never had a chance.
“There’s not much point being anything other than kind,” Calla Jones said now. Calla Jones, alive and well and two days from death. She removed her hand from his knee, straightened.
Oddly, he missed her touch, unfamiliar as it was. He hadn’t been touched with such gentleness in six months. He’d barely felt human touch at all, other than prison guards shackling and unshackling him, guiding him from place to place. The judge hadn’t set a bond. He’d spent six months in the county lockup waiting for trial. The murder had been too shocking. The town had been up in arms. Bail had been a hopeless dream.
“The coffee’s ready,” she added, and he could hear the nervous thread in her voice.
She was kind, but maybe she wasn’t as naive as he’d been thinking. She was scared of him, still. He’d have to break through her wariness. He needed to get to know her, to get to know why someone would want her dead. If it had been a crime of passion, as the “overkilling” suggested, who was passionate about Calla Jones? Passionate enough to shoot her not once but five times?
A minute later, she had a steaming cup of coffee in front of him.
“Sugar? Cream?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Black’s fine.”
She didn’t get herself a cup and sit down with him. Instead she headed toward the back of the house again, coming back with an armful of what looked like empty plastic milk jugs. He watched, sipping the coffee that injected sorely needed heat to his veins.
“Can I help?” He had no idea what she was doing, but he wasn’t going to sit here and let her do all the work.
And he needed to get her talking. Somehow. She was nervous around him and he needed to make her more comfortable.
His brain was starting to work. Now he just had to control the slight blast of nearly uncontainable excitement that hit him. He had a second chance. If this was real, if he really had gone six months back in time, he had a second chance.
And everything around him, including Calla Jones, seemed very real. If this was a dream, he didn’t want to wake up now.
She placed one of the jugs in the deep sink, ignoring his offer to help. “The generator’s not dependable and this storm’s predicted to go through the night, at least. We’re on well water here, and the well needs power to run.” She turned on the faucet, started filling the container. “The generator could go bad and we’ll have no power. Or the pipes could freeze. Either way, we’ll have no water.”
Dane downed the last of the coffee and rose. “Then we’ll have no heat, either. And if this is all the firewood you’ve got in the house—”
She flipped around. “There’s more stacked in the utility room, but you’re right. It’s not enough.”
“Where’s more?”
“Out behind the barn. Under a tarp. Should be pretty dry. I hope. You’re not going out there.”
“Someone has to. If the snow’s going to pick up later, now’s the time.”
Frustration etched her face. Her eyes sparked, making her even prettier. “I’m trying to get you warmed up. Going out in the cold again is not a good idea.”
“Someone has to,” he repeated. “I can always warm up again.”
She took a step toward him as if she might physically stop him.
“I said no.” She stamped her foot.
She actually stamped her foot. He guessed she wasn’t even aware of doing it.
A sudden, unexpected and truly unwanted vision of various ways Calla Jones could