Deep in the Heart by Sharon Sala Read Free Book Online

can’t help you, Samantha. You can run—and you can hide—but you’ll never get away. Not from me. You must pay with your life. Don’t you understand yet? Why do you fight me? Why don’t you just wait and let it come? Blood cleanses as it flows.
    The voice had been electronically altered. That was obvious by the computerized sound of the message.
    John Thomas felt helpless. He felt rage. And he felt Samantha coming apart in his arms. He reached over and unplugged the entire answering machine without waiting for it to finish, then made her face him.
    “Look at me, Sam.” Her body quivered beneath his hands as the blue in her eyes turned a dull, lifeless gray. “Dammit, look at me!” he yelled.
    She slowly complied.
    “Don’t! Don’t let that sick bastard kill you with nothing but words. That’s all they are, Sam, words! He hasn’t touched you yet, and so help me God, he’s not going to get the chance. Do you understand?” He shook her gently to punctuate his promise.
    She bit her lower lip to keep from screaming, drawing desperately on Johnny’s strength because at the moment, she had none of her own.
    “Good!” He hugged her once then set her firmly aside.
    He could sense how close she was to breaking, and knew that too much sympathy could be all it would take to push her over the edge.
    Besides, he had no intention of getting emotionally involved with her again. He’d protect her, but he wouldn’t love her. Not a woman who didn’t know how to say good-bye.
    She watched as he began pacing back and forth across the floor. Samantha had a momentary vision of a mountain lion hovering, waiting to pounce.
    “We can’t take much,” he said. “We don’t want him to know that you’re leaving. We just want him to think that when we leave, it’s for no more than a day’s outing.”
    “What? Take where?” Samantha said, lost for the moment at the turn of the conversation.
    “To Texas. Don’t you remember? I’m taking you home.”
    Her chin quivered and in spite of the sharp bite she gave the inside of her jaw, the tears still came.
    “Well, hell,” he said softly, and pulled her back into his arms. “You don’t have to be so damned happy about it.”

    Many hours later, Samantha stirred as the wheels of John Thomas’s truck turned off the highway onto a rough, graveled road. She blinked and opened her eyes only to see darkness all around.
    The trip from L.A. to Dallas had been frantic. Storing her car in a rental unit had been Johnny’s idea. They’d gone from there to a bank for Samantha to withdraw money, and then on to a restaurant, where they stunned the hostess by refusing a table, calling another cab, and disappearing out the back door of the same restaurant on their way to the airport.
    Once in Dallas, John Thomas had dumped her and her small bag of belongings into his truck, paid the airport parking attendant for services rendered, and headed east out of the city with the sun low at their backs.
    Somewhere between Terrell and Tyler, she’d fallen asleep. She never noticed when they passed through Cotton on their way to Johnny’s place. But she did notice, after all sense of sound and motion had stopped, that they were in front of a small frame house.
    The darker outline of the building silhouetted against the abundance of trees around it was visible, even though the moonlight was nearly nonexistent. The tension of the last few hours began to seep out of her body as the trees surrounded and protected. The silence of the country enveloped her. Samantha’s heart expanded from the newfound peace.
    “Where are we?” she asked.
    “Home.”
    She’d never heard a more beautiful word. She crawled stiffly from his truck and then stopped and inhaled. Tears sprang quickly as memories overwhelmed her. It might have been years since she’d been here, but forgetting East Texas would have been impossible.
    The scent of pine, sharp and tangy, filled the air. Samantha smiled as she also recognized