Heartbeat, p.1
Heartbeat, page 1
Also by Sharon Sala
The Next Best Day
Don’t Back Down
Last Rites
BLESSINGS, GEORGIA
Count Your Blessings (novella)
You and Only You
I’ll Stand by You
Saving Jake
A Piece of My Heart
The Color of Love
Come Back to Me
Forever My Hero
A Rainbow Above Us
The Way Back to You
Once in a Blue Moon
Somebody to Love
The Christmas Wish
The Best of Me
Copyright © 2024 by Sharon Sala
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Cover design by Ervin Serrano
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Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Excerpt from Left Behind
Chapter 1
About the Author
Back Cover
Chapter 1
The day was new, and the sun was in Amalie Lincoln’s eyes.
She was driving eastbound on the Tulsa Crosstown Expressway, coming up on a pretzel loop of rebar and concrete, also known as the Interstate 244 and Highway 169 junction, when her very normal day turned into chaos.
Suddenly, the car a few yards in front of her swerved, overcorrected, spun sideways, then overcorrected again, and broadsided Amalie’s car. It sent her into a spin before hitting her again, then slamming her car into a concrete abutment. When everything finally came to a stop, the ensuing pileup had traffic at a standstill.
Amalie was dazed, bleeding, and trying to unbuckle her seat belt when her car suddenly burst into flames.
“No, no, no,!” she cried, then began screaming for help, still trying to unbuckle her seat belt as smoke rolled up around her.
She kept screaming and screaming, trying to open the door even as the first fingers of fire were licking at the legs of her slacks, then the arm of her jacket, when all of a sudden, the door came open! She could hear voices shouting, and the whoosh and hiss of fire extinguishers, and then some man’s voice in her ear, telling her, “I got you, lady. I got you,” and a voice whispering inside her head…You’re going to be okay.
Then everything went black.
The time afterward was a blur. Amalie went from an emergency room to a burn unit in Hillcrest Medical Center and ensuing days and nights of living hell. Time was measured by recurring debridement, the administration of pain meds, and wrapping and unwrapping the burns, and complete isolation.
It was a week before Dan Worthy, her across-the-hall neighbor in her apartment building learned what had happened to her.
He was an accident lawyer. He knew she had no family and called the burn unit, asked a nurse to deliver a message to her, and said he’d wait for the answer.
The nurse listened, wrote down what Dan Worthy said, and headed for Amalie’s room, gowned up, then moved to the side of Amalie’s bed.
“Amalie, can you hear me?”
Amalie moaned, opened her eyes, and then nodded.
“Do you know a man named Dan Worthy?”
“Neighbor,” Amalie said.
“He says he’s an accident lawyer. Is this so?”
Amalie blinked. “Yes.”
“He says he just heard about what happened to you, and if you say the word, then he’s going to sue the pants off the drunk who hit you.”
Amalie chuckled, but tears were rolling.
“Tell him yes and thank you.”
“Consider it done,” the nurse said. “Oh, and by the way, your next round of pain meds are on the way.”
Tears were still rolling when Amalie closed her eyes.
The nurse went back to the phone. “Mr. Worthy, are you still there?”
“Yes, ma’am. What’s the verdict?”
“She says, ‘Yes and thank you.’”
“Awesome,” Dan said and disconnected.
After that phone call, Dan went into action. He had the accident report. The man’s blood alcohol level was off the charts when he was arrested, and it wasn’t his first DUI. Dan filed a lawsuit on Amalie’s behalf against the man and his insurance company for all they were worth, suing for loss of wages, emotional distress, criminal intent, all medical costs, legal fees, and the list went on. He was fighting for Amalie as she was fighting for her life.
The first wave of condolences from her colleagues at the CPA firm where she worked came in the midst of her worst days, and then as she began to heal, they dwindled to no contact at all.
In the months she spent healing, her job had been filled, her so-called friends had moved on, and then ones she happened to see either couldn’t stop staring or looked away. She didn’t look like she had before. There was a white streak in her hair that had never been there before. From shock, the doctors said. She had pink healing scars and grafts on the left side of her neck, shoulder, arm, and hand, and down the left side of her lower leg.
There was a healing scar on her lower jaw from being cut from broken glass. She didn’t like to look at herself in the mirror, but she felt selfish for caring because so many people had worked hard to save her life.
The upside to it all was when Dan won the case on her behalf, to the tune of millions. A year to the day of her accident, he knocked on her door to tell her the only good news Amalie had had in months. When she opened the door, Dan was standing on her doorstep with a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates.
Amalie smiled. “It’s not Christmas. What’s up?” she asked, as she let him in, then led him into the living room.
He handed her the flowers and put the candy on the table between them. “We did it, Amalie. The courts awarded you everything I asked for on your behalf.”
Amalie gasped. That had to mean millions.
“Everything?”
“Yes, ma’am. Everything.”
Amalie leaned back in her chair, holding the bouquet like a talisman. “You are a rare man, Dan Worthy. We’ve traded cookies and wine at Christmas for four years, and barely said more than hello in passing. I don’t know what prompted you to take all this on for me, but I will be grateful for the rest of my life.”
Dan shrugged. “I get paid, too, but I chose this job because I’ve witnessed the system shafting people who needed help most, and seen the ones with the most money and power get away with murder. The bastard who hit you had already been let off twice for driving drunk with little more than a hand slap, and look what he did to you. They don’t change. And the only options left to the victims is to, literally, make them pay. As we discussed, it was deposited directly into your bank account. You are good to go.”
“Thank you. The trucker who pulled me out of the burning car saved my life, and now you’ve just saved my future. I owe both of you more than I can ever repay.”
“Just pay it forward, and we’re even,” he said. “Gotta go or I’ll be late to court. Take care, neighbor. I’ll let myself out.”
November-One Year Later
Amalie Lincoln had come a long way since her accident two years ago and was tired of being overlooked. No matter how many résumés she submitted after her accident, she’d never gotten past the first interview. The moment they saw the pink scars, their expressions froze in the smiles they’d been wearing, and they never looked her in the eyes again.
That’s when she decided the only way to get work was to be her own boss. But she was done with Oklahoma. She needed a fresh start, and since she’d never been farther east than Arkansas and Missouri, she started looking for other options, which was not unusual, because Amalie had been looking for answers most of her life.
The day she turned eighteen, she sent off for a DNA test kit from Ancestry.com. By the time it arrived, she was having second thoughts about submitting it. Whoever had abandoned her didn’t want her to begin with. Why was she doing this? Then rationale wo n out. If for no other reason, knowing medical history of your people was valid, so she took the test and sent it.
The results came back weeks later. Like most Americans, she had ancestors in different countries, obviously on the move from one place, looking for something better in another. She saw the irony. That was her to a T.
But she never got a hit from the website, and was never contacted by anyone claiming to be related. Nobody wanted her when she was born, and obviously nobody wanted her now, so she forgot about it. However, Amalie had dreams and a life yet to be lived. It was time to get out of Tulsa, and out of this rut.
Now the holidays were upon her, and with no office parties to go to, and no friends left to invite her over for Thanksgiving or Christmas, she decided to spend the time on her own, and in a new place. Somewhere she’d never been before.
After a little research, she found a tourist attraction she’d never heard of, in a place called Jubilee, in the state of Kentucky. She scanned the website, admiring the shops and the little valley in the Cumberland Mountains where it was nestled, and decided this was it! She loved country music and mountains, and the draw of stepping into a place that not only held onto their past, but had found a way to share it with tourists, seemed delightful. She made a reservation at a hotel called the Serenity Inn for two weeks, arriving the week of Thanksgiving.
Once she arrived, she knew she’d made the right choice. The changing color of fall leaves visible from her hotel window covered the mountains like a patchwork quilt. The days were sunny but brisk, and every day she lost herself within the hustle and bustle of tourists and shops, and the friendly faces of the storekeepers.
She ate Thanksgiving dinner in the hotel dining room along with dozens of other diners. Every day she became the tourist going in and out of shops, watching fudge being made and quilt makers at work. She watched the blacksmith at the forge, and wandered into a store with Native American jewelry and bought a handmade ring made of silver with a turquoise setting. She walked the streets eating funnel cake and listening to fiddlers playing bluegrass music in the square. She went to a Reagan Bullard concert at one of the music venues and caught a matinee performance of a different musician at another.
When she learned the mountain looming above Jubilee was called Pope Mountain, she felt a connection, like being introduced to someone new.
Every day afterward as she looked toward the mountain, she felt something she’d never felt before. A connection—a longing—a sense of wanting to stay, and she began thinking about living here. It didn’t take long to fall in love with the concept.
At that point, she thought of work and started scoping out options. The first thing she noticed was the lack of public accountants. There was only one small CPA firm in the whole town. But she wasn’t looking for a job there. She was checking out the competition.
A couple of days before she was due to leave, she rented office space in the business complex next to the bank, with a window facing the street. Hired a sign painter to mark her presence in that place, then rented a house in the residential area of the town. On the morning she left Jubilee, it was with the knowing that she was coming back to stay. It took a while to pack up her life in Tulsa and get out of her lease, but she’d done it.
It was just the first week in January when she returned to Jubilee, and when she drove into town, her eyes went straight to the mountain. The colorful leaves were gone, but there was green from the ancient growth of evergreen and pines, and the mystery of it still called to her.
There was a new sign on the window next to the First National Bank in Jubilee, painted in gold lettering.
A. LINCOLN, CPA
It was an impressive sign, in big bold letters.
Amalie had been back in Jubilee for a week, knee-deep in setting up her new home, ordering furniture and technology for the office, and when she went to make a deposit at the bank next door, she asked the teller for tech-support recommendations.
The woman gave her a name. Sean Pope.
As in Pope Mountain?
When she heard the name, a chill ran up her spine. It was as if the mountain was now aware of her presence and sending an emissary to meet her.
She contacted Sean Pope via his website, made an appointment with him to come set up the system, then woke up anxious on the day he was to arrive.
She kept telling herself to get over the nerves. She’d be dealing with clients one-on-one on a daily basis, and her appearance was immaterial. He wasn’t her boss. She’d hired him to do a job.
Because of the cold weather, and because the office wasn’t yet open, she wore jeans, a soft baby-blue sweatshirt the same color as her eyes, and her favorite pair of running shoes to work.
Her hair had grown out to the length it was before the accident—still thick and straight and the color of dark chocolate, except for the addition of a white streak that had appeared just to the right of the widow’s peak. She could have colored it, but she’d made peace with it, just as she had the scars. After a quick breakfast of coffee and cereal, she grabbed her coat, keys, and a tote bag, and headed out the door.
Amalie loved cold mornings, with the chill on her face and the scent of air without industry. No factories. No haze. No burning dump sites. Just the sun rising above the treetops as she drove her red SUV to the office and parked in the lot behind the building.
The back entrance into the building opened up into a long hallway, accessing the other businesses on the bottom floor. The walk up the hall to where her office was located was a distance, but it was well lit and warm, and she counted off the doors as she went.
The first on her right was an insurance company, then a Realtor’s office on her left, a travel agency on the left next to that, and her office, the last one on the right, but the first office for people coming in from the street.
The simple act of unlocking the door was empowering. She knew building a new business would take time, but she was good at her job. As soon as she was up and running, she intended to put an ad in the local paper and hold an open house. Free food was always a draw, and curiosity the second.
She turned up the thermostat, took her coat and purse to the back room, checked the bathroom to make sure the roll of paper towels and toilet paper were in place. She put a new bottle of fresh-linen-scented hand soap on the vanity, started a pot of coffee, and then checked to make sure the small, apartment-size refrigerator was working before going back to the front.
The big plate-glass window gave her a clear view of morning traffic already moving at a fast clip. The mountain loomed above it all. As time passed, she began to feel tense. It was a quarter to nine. Sean Pope would be arriving soon.
Please, God, I don’t need to see “that look” again on anyone’s face. Not this morning.
She sighed, mentally chastising herself for even thinking about how he’d react to her appearance. All she needed was for him to get her up and running. What he thought about her was immaterial, so she moved on to something she could control.
She turned toward the room, her hands on her hips, and began assessing the arrangement of furniture and the boxes containing her technology. She had a landline installed for business, and phone jacks in three places in case she needed to move the computers around, but something was off.
Maybe if she moved the long desk to the back wall, then moved the small desk to the front, like a reception area? Then she made herself calm down. This was just the beginning. Eventually, she’d figure it out and it would be fine.
Miami, Florida
Wolfgang Outen was a self-made man who’d hit billionaire status by never taking no for an answer and never giving up.
He was a striking man in his midfifties, with a full head of iron-gray hair. He was fit from daily workouts, accustomed now to the finer things in life. He had loved one woman in his life, and when she died giving birth to a stillborn baby girl, he left his heart with her in the grave, and her family cursing his name. He left without looking back, and went out to prove to himself that he had been worthy of her love. And over the years, he made his fortune and his bed, marrying and divorcing a second wife. Then four years earlier, he’d taken a third wife, Fiona Rangely—a hot blond in her late thirties.
But Fiona wasn’t just a pretty face. She had a degree in engineering and a successful career of her own, and as far as he was concerned, they were happy. The only thing he didn’t have in his life was a child, and no living kin, something he deeply regretted.
