Hope Heals Read online

  Hope Heals

  Sarah’s world shatters when her husband is killed in the wreck that injures her young son, Jason. Worse, Sarah discovers painful betrayals that make remaining in New York City with her hateful mother-in-law impossible. Moving home to Florida to live with her widowed father is their only option.

  You can go home again, but it’s not the home she remembers. The hunky next door neighbors are also her new employers, cousins Sam and Pete Hope. She went to school with the men, but they’re all grown up. It’s soon clear they have their sights set on winning her heart.

  Unfortunately, her mother-in-law doesn’t give up quite so easily. She’s determined to get Sarah and Jason back to New York by any means necessary. Despite an escape-artist steer nicknamed Moodini, asshole ninja assassin pet goats, and learning how to love again, Sarah rebuilds her and Jason’s lives and soon discovers that, just maybe, two Hopes can heal her heart better than one.

  Note: There is no sexual relationship or touching for titillation between or among cousins.

  Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre

  Length: 66,530 words

  HOPE HEALS

  Tymber Dalton

  MENAGE EVERLASTING

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting

  HOPE HEALS

  Copyright © 2013 by Tymber Dalton

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-62740-685-7

  First E-book Publication: September 2013

  Cover design by Les Byerley

  All art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Hope Heals by Tymber Dalton from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Tymber Dalton’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Dalton’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  DEDICATION

  To Hubby, Sir, and all my furbabies. None of them have made it onto the roof, but they keep life interesting.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  About the Author

  HOPE HEALS

  TYMBER DALTON

  Copyright © 2013

  Chapter One

  Ten hours? Eleven? Sarah wasn’t sure how long they’d been on the road, just that even though it was still Saturday, it felt like she’d been driving for a week already. Construction, traffic, and bad weather had slowed her to a crawl in some areas and would put her arrival in Florida at the far end of her estimated travel time. She didn’t dare look at her cell phone to check the exact time. She knew there were probably several agitated, if not downright angry, texts and voice mails from Isabella d’Antonio, matriarch of the family.

  Former matriarch, now that Sarah was no longer married to Isabella’s youngest son, Michael, due to their sudden divorce by death and dismemberment two weeks ago that very day.

  I don’t want to think about it. Not right now.

  Her eyes darted to her left hand, where her ring finger lay bare but still bore the faint, pale lines where her engagement and wedding rings had, until several days ago, resided for a little over twelve years.

  She’d sold them outright rather than pawn them, getting a slightly better deal when the guy at the jewelry store saw the cast on Jason’s arm, along with the blank, hollow look in her son’s eyes partly due to grief and partly to the painkillers the doctors had prescribed for his injuries.

  She’d desperately needed the money.

  The U-Haul truck, while not the largest in the fleet, definitely didn’t handle like her Mercedes used to, or the Volvo. It felt huge in comparison and taxed her already over-stretched nerves to the brink. She knew she wasn’t pushing the vehicle as fast as it could safely go, but she didn’t care. Every time a semi roared past her in the next lane she held on for dear life, feeling the wash of air shoving the high-profile box truck all over the place.

  Hell, getting it out of Long Island early that morning had been a massive feat requiring stainless steel nerves, much less making her way down the busy turnpike until she reached I-95.

  I miss my Mercedes.

  That still brought up a lump in her throat. Thank god Michael had been driving the Volvo instead of her little Mercedes, or Jase—

  She clamped down on that as her knuckles tightened around the steering wheel. She couldn’t look at her phone anyway. Too much risk of Jase waking up and catching her doing it, even if it was just to check the time or to use the map feature. Then he’d freak out and she’d have to give him another of the anti-anxiety pills the doctor had prescribed for him when she took him in for a follow-up to make sure it was safe for him to make the trip.

  After all the time he’d already spent sleeping since getting out
of the hospital, she didn’t want to give him medicine that would make him even more sleepy if she didn’t have to.

  She glanced over at him. The sun was setting on his side of the truck, backlighting him with a golden, ethereal glow as he lay sleeping against a pillow resting between him and the passenger door.

  My angel.

  A ragged sob nearly escaped her, accompanied by an almost hysterically panicked thought of how close that had been to coming true in a literal sense.

  Not that she was a religious woman, much to Isabella d’Antonio’s staunchly Catholic dismay.

  But if there was a hell, Sarah hoped Michael d’Antonio was sweating his fucking balls off there.

  * * * *

  At seven that evening it was close to dark, they needed dinner, and she desperately needed time out from behind the wheel of that truck. It wouldn’t hurt to top off the gas tank, either. Following the exit signs, she pulled off I-95 into a large, well-lit, and very busy truck stop just south of the state line in North Carolina.

  Jase stirred as she carefully found a place to park a short distance away from the main building, where she could easily maneuver the box truck.

  “Mom?” he sleepily asked as she shifted it into park and shut the engine off with a relieved breath.

  “Yeah, baby?”

  “Where are we?”

  “North Carolina.”

  He finally opened his eyes and looked at her. She’d carefully packed a cooler between the seats and loaded pillows and blankets on top of it to help cradle his left arm in a more comfortable position.

  “How much longer until we get to Grandpa’s?”

  She forced a smile. She’d gotten better at that over the past two weeks, even in front of Isabella.

  Especially in front of Isabella.

  “I don’t know exactly, sweetheart. I need to figure out the miles with a map. Normally, by car, it takes about eleven or twelve hours to get to Tampa from North Carolina. But we’re not going that fast.”

  He lifted his head and squinted through sleep-filled eyes at her. “He doesn’t live in Tampa, Mom. He lives in Odessa.”

  She smiled, but genuinely that time. A little typical child attitude had slipped into his voice and she was glad to hear it.

  It was the first time since the accident his true personality had peeked through. “Yes, I know, kiddo. It’s a rough estimate.”

  “Oh. Okay.” His head flopped back over onto the pillow wedged against the door. He breathed out an exhausted, ancient-sounding sigh. “I’m hungry.”

  Glancing at the building, she studied the signs for the available restaurants. “They have pizza here. And subs.”

  Another sigh. “Subs.”

  “Good.”

  “Can I just stay here, Mom?”

  Biting back the urge to scream it, she forced a smile. “No, kiddo. You have to come in with me.”

  No way in hell was she letting him out of her sight, not for a second. Especially not in a truck stop parking lot.

  Letting him out of her sight had nearly gotten him killed.

  At the hospital, the psychologist who’d talked with Jase before his discharge had sat with her for a free session and told her it was a normal reaction to be so overprotective at first after an incident like this. Especially in light of all the extenuating circumstances.

  Incident. Extenuating circumstances.

  Those phrases still made her want to giggle, but in a psychotic, the-Joker’s-about-to-poison-Gotham’s-water-supply-again kind of way, not the fun and friendly kind of way.

  Michael had gotten into a fight on his cell phone with someone while doing almost eighty on the LIE. He wasn’t paying attention, and according to Jason he swerved to avoid a tire in his lane, lost control, and wrecked.

  It had taken his head off and injured her son.

  Incident, my ass.

  Maybe divine intervention for all of the “extenuating circumstances” Michael’s treachery was now putting her and Jason through.

  Except that she didn’t believe in religious stuff.

  Jason started reaching for his seat belt buckle and she helped him with it. “Wait, let me get some money,” she said.

  “What about gas?”

  “We’ll fill up when we leave.” She turned and reached behind the cooler, to where she kept a large canvas tote filled with stuff they’d need for an overnight stay at a hotel, if she decided to stop. From inside a box of tampons she’d stashed there, she withdrew two twenties, thought about it, and then added a third.

  Jase might want something. Even broke, she wouldn’t deny him anything if she could get it for him. There was only $4,380 left in the secret tampon stash, pretty much all the money she had in the world, but she knew it was more than enough to get them to Florida.

  Hell, if they robbed her, she’d hand them her wallet. All that was in it were her credit cards, and all but one of those were totally useless. She kept her driver’s license and cash in her pocket.

  She doubted any man would look in a tampon box for cash. Wasn’t the most secure safe in the world, but for now, it held all they had.

  She returned the box to the bag, grabbed her small purse, and smiled at him. “Let’s go eat.”

  * * * *

  Jase had started working on the second half of his turkey and cheese sub when the family caught her eye. A young mother and father, with two little blonde girls the spitting image of their mom, had entered the building’s lobby and made their way to the restaurant area.

  Her heart heavy, Sarah watched as they walked over to the food counter and got in line to order. They looked happy.

  Something she thought she was two weeks earlier.

  Before the “incident” that exposed the “extenuating circumstances” that had brought her entire world crashing down around her.

  “Mom?”

  She ripped her gaze away and back to Jason, who sat across from her in the booth. He still looked far paler than his usually tanned complexion. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I’m fine, kiddo.”

  “Grandpa told me I can help him work on the tractors when we get there.” She had noticed his tone seemed to take on more spark when he talked about his grandpa, who until a couple of weeks earlier he’d barely known.

  “You have to be careful of your arm,” she cautioned. “You can’t get it dirty under the cast.”

  “I’ll be careful. He said he could tape a trash bag over my cast so it doesn’t get dirty. And use duct tape to hold it in place. Did you know they have duct tape in zebra patterns? Grandpa told me that. He said he’d buy me any color duct tape I wanted to hold the bag in place. More than one if I wanted.”

  If she didn’t swallow back the evil giggles and hold them at bay, she’d end up breaking down in hysterics right there in the Flying J dining room.

  And that wouldn’t be good for Jason.

  So, instead, she forced another smile. “Grandpa’s smart like that.”

  Another little white lie. Considering she hadn’t seen him in nearly six years until two weeks ago, she honestly didn’t know what her retired father had been up to. She’d called him every couple of weeks to talk since her mom’s funeral, but every conversation had felt like trying to pull Excalibur out of the damn rock, with similar results.

  “He said he’s going to take me over to Flywheelers for the weekend and we’re going to camp out. It’s next month. I can go, can’t I?”

  Fear shredded her anew. The hopeful look on his face outweighed her terror over something happening to him. She knew Walt Heckman would never pull the kind of stunt Michael d’Antonio had. “If Grandpa says you can go, you can go.”

  He gave a little fist pump with his right hand. “Yes!”

  It was the first happy emotion she’d seen out of him since…then.

  Since the incident.

  Thankfully, Jason was too young to know about any of the extenuating circumstances.

  “Eat up, kiddo.”

  He pic
ked up his sandwich again, one-handed, and started eating.

  * * * *

  They got back on the road over an hour later. She knew she wouldn’t be able to push all the way through, between her exhaustion and nerves. Unfortunately, there weren’t any hotels at that exit that she liked the look of enough to stop.

  About twenty miles south, she found another exit where they had several nicer hotels to choose from. After finding a parking spot in the truck area, they went inside. A few minutes later, they had a clean room with double beds, free breakfast, and her tampon stash was $129 lighter.

  Before she helped Jason take a bath, she sent her dad a quick text telling him they’d stopped for the night. Then she put her phone down, resisting the temptation to look at any other texts or missed calls. After Jason was in bed and sound asleep with the TV tuned to Cartoon Network, she drew herself a bath and slid down into the hot water.

  It didn’t hold a candle to the deep, sunken tub she’d enjoyed in her master bath at the Long Island townhouse where she thought she’d raise her son.

  That they would raise her son.

  The tears came. She let them fall, hot and heavy.

  What kind of a person does it make me that I miss my house more than I miss my husband? Especially when, just fifteen days ago, she thought she was living a dream, that she had the perfect husband and a storybook life.

  How sad was it that, with just a short amount of time and distance between the day her world fell apart and now, her husband’s death wasn’t the worst part of everything? Finding out his secrets crushed her. And even worse, that her in-laws had known about them and enabled him. All his lies.