Deadlier Than the Male: The Fiercest Heart / Lethal Lessons

Her car was still in the garage. It had been a present from her grandmother on her sixteenth birthday. The title was in her name, which was good, because she was taking it with her.

She tossed her things into the trunk, then backed out of the garage and drove away without once looking back.

When the bank opened at 9:00 a.m. the next morning, Haley was waiting at the door. She’d already been to the police department, and recovered her purse and diploma. Chief Bullard had been kind and gentle, asking if she wanted to press charges against her father, which she promptly refused.

She’d walked out of the department with a hand to her midsection. The more time passed, the stiffer and sorer she became. She knew what she looked like: as if she’d been through a wreck, which she had, and beaten to a pulp, which she also had. She felt shattered in every way that mattered, but she still had her pride.

She passed through the bank lobby without looking to her right or her left, and walked straight up to the first teller she saw.

“I want to withdraw my savings,” she said, and put her passbook on the counter. “I’ll take fifteen hundred dollars in cash, and the rest in traveler’s checks.”

Stars Crossing was a small town. Everyone knew everyone else’s business. They knew her brother had died in a wreck last night, and that Mack Brolin’s athletic career had come to an end in the same wreck. And they also knew the only common denominator between them was the girl at the window.

They also knew that her father had been arrested for assaulting her, and that her mother wished her dead.

The teller’s heart ached for Haley, but there was nothing to be said.

“Do you want that fifteen hundred dollars in big bills?” she asked.

Haley thought about it for a moment, then said, “All of it in hundreds except for four hundred dollars. I’ll take that in twenties.”

“I’ll have to get an okay to—”

Haley stiffened, and then her voice rose. “An okay for what? It’s my money! I’ve spent the past seven summers of my life working for it. It’s in my name, and my name only, and I’m of age. You don’t need anyone’s permission except mine to hand it over.”

The bank president heard the commotion and hurried to the window to put out the fire.

“Do as she asks,” he told the teller, and then gently laid a hand on Haley’s shoulder. “We’re so sorry for your loss,” he said softly.

Haley nodded.

Twenty minutes later, she was in her car and heading out of Stars Crossing.

She never looked back.

Chapter 3

Dallas, Texas Ten years later: November

“Easy now, Mr. Wyatt … Let me move your leg for you, okay?”

“‘Kay, Ha-ley. I kee for-geh you in sharge.”

Haley grinned at the elderly gentleman on her exercise table, proud of how far he’d come since the stroke he’d suffered six months earlier. His first trip to therapy he’d been unable to speak, and the entire right side of his body had been paralyzed. Now he smiled and spoke, albeit a little slowly and not always with perfect clarity, and he was making good progress on regaining mobility, however limited.

Her entire life revolved around her patients, and when she wasn’t at the physical therapy facility where she was employed, she was usually making house calls.

She rarely thought about her life before Dallas, and when she did, it was only briefly. Even now, after ten long years, the pain of what she’d lost was brutally real.

A short while later, a timer went off and Haley eased Mr. Wyatt’s withered leg down slowly, then helped him sit up.

“That’s it for today. How do you feel?”

“Re-dy ta dans.”

“Dance? Wow! Then I’d better warn Millie to shine up her dancing shoes.”

The old man laughed. Millie lived at the same nursing home as he did, and he’d informed Haley months ago that Millie was his girl.

Haley marveled that at their age they were still optimistic enough to want a romance. She’d decided long ago that relationships weren’t worth the effort it took to keep them alive and thrown herself into her job instead.

She helped Mr. Wyatt into his wheelchair, then pushed him back to the lobby, where a driver was waiting to take him back to the nursing home.

“Here you go,” she said. “Do your exercises like I showed you. Stay out of trouble, and I’ll see you again in about a week, okay?”

The old man grinned and winked, and then he was gone.

Haley glanced at the clock as she turned back around, and then frowned. Where had the afternoon gone? It was already quitting time.

She moved to the employee lounge, clocked out, gathered up her things and then, with a casual wave to another employee on her way out, she was gone.

Haley had decided years ago that Dallas traffic at five o’clock in the afternoon was, most surely, the road to the ninth gate of hell.

By the time she pulled up to her apartment building and parked, it was dark. She paused inside the car long enough to ensure that the path to the apartment building appeared safe, and then she got out.

The air was cold and felt damp, like it might snow. She pulled her coat collar up around her neck as she started toward the front door—her long legs making short work of the distance.

Once inside, she nodded to the security guard.

“Hi, Marsh … how’s it going?”

Marshall French, a widower from Austin, had retired twice, but at sixty-seven, had been bored staying at home and had taken this job for something to do. He admired this tall, elegant woman with green eyes and thick, dark hair, but he didn’t know anything more about her now than he had the day he’d taken this job two years earlier.

“Fine, just fine,” he said, then handed her her mail. “Have a nice evening.”

“You too,” Haley said, then put the mail under her arm and walked into the elevator without looking back.

She chose the seventh floor, then leaned against the elevator wall as the car began to move silently upward. Once the door opened, she took a right and within ten steps was at her door. She thrust her key in the lock almost without looking and, once inside, turned and locked the door behind her—turning all three locks before she even took off her coat.

She never felt safe. Not since the night when the world had abandoned her. Even though she had no reason to fear living alone, she did. The three locks were her security blanket, and she wasn’t ashamed to admit it.

It was the sound of those three metallic clicks that signaled safe haven for Haley. She hung her coat in the hall closet, dumped her bag and keys on the table, then scanned her assortment of mail.

There were a half dozen envelopes and a couple of magazines—Taste of Home and her favorite, Southern Living. She tossed everything on the kitchen counter as she passed through on her way to her room. She did nothing at home until she’d shed her scrubs and showered. It was a mental “putting aside” of her professional self so she could relax.

Afterward, dressed in old sweats and a long-sleeved tee, Haley was leafing through the rest of the mail as she poured Coke into a glass full of ice when she noticed the postmark on a legal-size envelope.

Stars Crossing, Kentucky.