Heartland. Sara Walter Ellwood

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СКАЧАТЬ shows, since her marriage. Since severing her ties with her mom and dad, she hadn’t seen her four-year-old brother. Now, she was responsible for developing a tiny baby who may end up paying for her lousy judgment.

      She turned and met the doctor’s patient brown eyes. The man had to be a saint to manage the care of spoiled brat idiots like her. “Okay, Dr. Barton. I’m an addict. I use coke because I can’t deal with life.” She squared her shoulders and let out a breath. “There, I owned it. Set up the appointment with the OB. But there’s something else I’d like you to do.” One of the conditions of admission into Fernwood was no contact with the outside world except for approved visitors on an extremely short list. “I want to file for divorce before I tell Fabian about the baby.”

      The doctor’s surprise registered in the slightest widening of his eyes. “If that is want you want.”

      Emily couldn’t help the snort as she sat in the chair in front of the desk again. “Oh, don’t be coy, Dr. Barton. I know you’ve been hoping I’d ditch Fabian McPhee since the first time my father dragged my sorry ass into this place a year and a half ago.” She looked at her hands as a rare moment of clarity blasted away the rosy sheen she’d painted over her life with her husband. “My counselor is right. Fabian and I do have a crazy love type of relationship. He might not beat me, but he has made me dependent on him by making me an addict.”

      For the first time in years, she felt relief flood over her. She smiled and met the doctor’s eyes again. “For my baby and for me, I have to get away from him.”

      * * * *

      Emily laid a t-shirt in her suitcase and turned at the knock on the doorframe. She smiled at the willowy woman as she entered the room. “I’m glad to see you. I’m ready to get out of here.”

      The eight weeks she’d been a resident of the rehab had been the longest time she’d ever stayed, but once she faced her demons and committed herself, she didn’t want to leave until she was free of her addiction.

      Trish tucked her medium-length bright red hair behind her ear. “Paul isn’t happy about postponing your record,” she said, referring to the CEO of Midland Records. “But I convinced him you needed a break to get completely sober and stay that way.”

      Emily laid another t-shirt in the case. Her reason for being at Fernwood was no secret, but the only person outside of her doctors who knew about her pregnancy was Trish. After telling her, Emily asked her to convince her record company to push her production deadline to sometime in the future. “He doesn’t suspect anything, does he?”

      Trish sat on the overstuffed chair in the corner of the modest room. “No. I made a convincing case about your wanting to finally quit the drugs. He’s not happy, but he’s also glad.”

      Emily moved the suitcase off to the side and sat on the edge of the bed, facing Trish. “Has Fabian signed the divorce papers?”

      “Yes. Reese is filing them today, in fact.” Reese Goodwin was a family friend and a Nashville divorce lawyer. “Your divorce should be final by the end of the month.”

      She closed her eyes and took a deep breath full of relief. Although she hadn’t demanded anything of Fabian, she feared he’d delay signing the papers to end their ill-fated marriage. “Thank God.”

      Trish leaned back in the chair and folded her hands in her lap. “When are you going to tell him about the baby?”

      With a shrug, Emily stood, opened a dresser drawer, and pulled out a stack of bras. As she set them in her bag, she said, “I’ll set up a meeting with him sometime before I go home to Texas.”

      She planned to get out of Nashville before she started showing. At almost four months pregnant, she knew she was on borrowed time.

      “How do you think he’ll take the news?”

      Emily went back to the drawer and took out a stack of panties. “Hopefully, he won’t take the news well and will leave me and my baby the hell alone.”

      She swallowed at the thought of her baby never knowing her father like she hadn’t known Seth, but Fabian wasn’t a good man. Despite being nearly forty years old, he still partied too hard and didn’t take much seriously. He’d wasted most of his own fortune and a large portion of hers on fast cars, drugs, and lavish parties. She gritted her teeth until her jaw hurt at how stupid she’d been to let him manipulate her.

      “He didn’t fight about selling the penthouse and the mansion?” Three months after they were married, Fabian talked her into moving out of her downtown Craftsman home she’d bought on her eighteenth birthday and into buying a twenty-million-dollar estate outside of Nashville. The place was too big and flashy and put a considerable dent into her savings. He’d convinced her by arguing that as two successful entertainers, they were expected to live in such extravagance. Besides, he swore he’d pay his share of the cost. Instead, he conned her into buying a penthouse in Manhattan. He spent a lot of time there, but she hated New York and preferred to live in Nashville.

      “He wants the penthouse.” Trish pulled her iPad out of her purse. The woman never went anywhere without the thing. “But he’s okay with selling the Nashville property and letting you keep the money from the sale if he can keep the penthouse.”

      “I’m glad he wants the penthouse.” Emily closed her suitcase and smiled as she turned to face Trish with her hand over the slight swell of her belly. “Because then I have a bargaining chip to keep him away from us.”

      Chapter 2

      Today marked the second anniversary of his wife’s overdose.

      McAllister County, Texas, sheriff EJ Cowley hated the memory of finding Raquel in the bathtub and of their hungry six-month-old son screaming from his crib. He’d lain in his soiled diaper for at least five hours. Raquel’s body had been colder than the water. Two empty medication bottles were found on the floor by the edge of the tub: one held Adderall and the other Zoloft. She had been given the latter medicine to help deal with her postpartum depression. She’d taken Adderall as a kid for ADHD, but as an adult had outgrown the need for it. He’d discovered afterward she’d bought the pills on the internet using a bank account he hadn’t been aware she had. She’d become addicted to the amphetamine after the birth of their son, which formed a deadly combination with the antidepressant when taken in larger doses than a doctor would prescribe. However, the bottle of Zoloft she’d emptied hadn’t been hers.

      The purr of a high performance car engine broke the silence along the two-lane country road passing his driveway. He shook the memory away and focused down the long straight stretch of road heading toward town. The early morning sun glinted off the windshield of an oncoming car racing toward him.

      “Damn.” He hated ticketing speeders, but not because he disagreed with speeding laws. He disliked the stinking attitude most took up when they were stopped. After a night filled with cold-sweat inducing dreams interspersed with his two-year-old son’s painful cries from a belly ache, the last thing he wanted to deal with was a smart-assed mouth.

      When the fast cherry-red sports car passed, he clocked it at sixty miles per hour in a forty-five speed zone. Putting the portable siren he kept in his Silverado on top of the cab, he pulled out of his driveway and followed. The vehicle in front of him slowed and pulled over as he gained on it.

      As he reached in the glove box for his pad of tickets, he whistled between his teeth. A Maserati with a Tennessee plate. His computer was in СКАЧАТЬ