Sacred Hart Read Online Free PDF Page B

It wasn’t until she blushed and her lips parted that I realized she was appraising me in a way I hadn’t been privy to in a long-ass time.
    Prison hadn’t dulled my senses. Time hadn’t erased the fact that I was a man, but I didn’t have anything to offer a woman, so what would be the point.
    Maggie.
    Tony had told me her name after she’d left.
     
    “She’s a good girl, that one.” His smirk was obvious and I ignored him, keeping my eyes trained on the grill and the three burgers I was cooking. “Got a raw deal, poor girl. Her little one sure is cute. Lots of attitude.” He chuckled, and the mention of the little girl made my chest tight.
    “What’s her name?” I asked but kept my attention on the food.
    He laughed again. “Maggie Wright. Beth is her daughter. She’s six years old and, from what I know, the dad’s not in the picture. Don’t know much, but I do know she went down to Utah for nursing school, graduated, and after a minute, came home knocked up. Utah!” He snorted. “You’d never think your daughter would come home knocked up from that state.”
    My lips twitched at the corners. Tony loved to make himself laugh and, at times, it was hard not to smile when he was around. His laughter died down and he became silent. The sudden change in mood caused me to finally look up from the grill.
    “Her parents died five years ago. They were on vacation in Oregon, and they’d been out sailing. A storm came in, and the story is they lost direction somehow, ended up heading out to sea instead of back to the harbor. Her dad, Richard, he was experienced, I couldn’t believe it when I found out. I just couldn’t believe it.”
    “That’s horrible.” Death was an inevitability, but to die in tragedy, it wasn’t right, and we’re supposed to believe in a god… I’d never believe it.
    “It was a great loss. Richard and Peggy were good people. I was so wrapped up in Harlow, in Red, and her cancer treatments, I missed their funeral.”
    “So they were recovered then? I mean, at least she had that closure.”
    He shook his head. “No. Just the vessel was found. They were presumed dead a week later.” Tony grabbed the fryer and lifted the fries from the grease. The smell of burnt hamburger meat assaulted my nose.
    “Shit.” I flipped the burgers, but it was too late. They were overdone.
    “Nah, don’t worry about it, Ryan. Just serve ‘em. No one will notice.”
    “The girl… she looks a lot like—” I couldn’t say her name; I couldn’t say how much seeing her hurt. She was so full of life. A life Belle would never have. “Death is death, Tony. It’s never going to get easier, not for you, not for me, and not for Maggie Wright and her daughter.”
     
    Death took something I’d never get back… time. When I saw Beth this morning, time mocked me, and it showed me a future that would never be. Maggie could look at me like I was something special, something to want, and it wouldn’t matter because underneath the sinew and bones was a dead heart, a shell of who I could’ve been.
    I closed my eyes and rolled heavily to my right side. Maggie. I permitted myself to think her name one last time as my breaths fell to a measured and shallowed hum. I was almost asleep when Maggie’s smile flashed behind my lids. Her eyes on mine and the way her lips were shy around the corners, the image haunted me. But, it was the first time in over ten years I thought of something other than myself and the miserable hole I’d become. I thought of her and I slept. I fucking slept, and it was dreamless, silent — it was heaven.
     

     
    The weather remained dry the next morning and, even though the humid air chilled me to the core and my breath hung in the air like fog, I used the break to get some work done on my truck. It was an old, beat up Ford F250, made back in 1978. It was mostly white with a red panel down the sides and enough rust to make it dangerous. The damp earth tried to swallow the wheels