Their life was
a fairy tale—until it all came tumbling down.
Hearts of the
South, Book 10
Georgia Bureau
of Investigation agent Amy Bennett isn’t sure when her own Prince Charming went
AWOL from their marriage, but she’s certain of one thing. She wants him back.
She and Rob had it all: law-enforcement careers they loved and each other. Yet
somehow he’s wound up sleeping on the couch and emotionally beyond her reach.
Rob is trying
to put the pieces back together, but battling his own demons while starting
over in a small-town sheriff’s department is pushing him—and his marriage—to
the breaking point.
His very first
missing person’s case threatens to end anything but happily ever after for the
families involved. Then a young man goes missing too, and the pressure has Rob
reaching for the nearest lifeline. The one that’s dangling by the barest of
threads—his wife.
And though
Amy’s grip is strong, her love may not be enough to keep Rob from slipping
away.
Product
Warnings
Contains a
husband who’s holding too much in, and a wife who’ll do anything to get him to
let go, even meet him halfway on their last piece of common ground—in bed.
Also: cop bonding between cops who talk like cops.
Buy Links:
Amazon
http://amzn.to/1VFOIQ4
Exclusive Excerpt:
Tall grass, dried from the blazing summer days, crunched
under their duty shoes. Heat hung over the dirt road, and not even the pools of
shade cast by tall water oaks offered relief. The red clay, already rutted and
dusty after the recent rains, baked under the early-afternoon sun, and a black
snake sunned himself beside the ditch.
Zeke’s forlorn truck sat next to the turnoff to the
sprawling fields. On one side of the dirt track, green corn stalks, tassels
golden and silky, reached toward the blue cloudless sky. On the other, neat
rows of peppers and squash, heavy with ripe produce, ran up to the far woods.
Cicadas buzzed in a quivering rise and fall of distant sound. The police radio
beeped and squawked, a garbled transmission between Chris and dispatch, a
license-plate check. Around the abandoned Ford, a bubble of silence pulsed. The
window was down, a cell phone and wallet on the dash. The keys, on a John Deere
fob, dangled from the ignition. Empty fertilizer jugs littered the bed. A tidy
stack of bushel baskets waited next to the vehicle.
Around the truck, the grass was beaten down, trodden low by
farm vehicles, tractors and booted feet. Rob leaned down to better see inside
the truck, but didn’t touch anything. “When was the last time you heard from
him?”
“Yesterday at lunch.” Worry roughened Dale Jenkins’s voice.
“His mama tried to call him last night and there was no answer, but that’s not
real unusual. She called Britt this morning when he still didn’t answer, and he
never came home last night.”
“Why didn’t Brittany call us?” Rob straightened and pulled
out his notebook to begin jotting.
“She said it’s not unusual for him not to come home some
nights.”
Really. That was new. Rob scratched down a note, but kept
his face impassive. “Have you talked to any of his friends today? Other
relatives he’s in contact with?”
“His grandma hasn’t heard from him. My wife’s been calling
his friends, and none of them have seen or heard from him.”
Rob cast a look at the cell phone on the dash. “Did you
touch anything in the truck?”
“No. When I got here and saw his stuff like that, I walked
the field and through the woods down to the stream, just seeing if I could find
him.” Dale wiped a hand across his tense jaw. “I been friends with Tick Calvert
a long time, and my wife likes that Dateline
show. I knew better than to touch anything when I didn’t find him.”
“Okay.” Rob stared at the truck, then down the turnoff and
into the woods. Turning, he nodded at Troy Lee. “Will you get Parker out here
with the dog? And bring me the evidence kit from the trunk.”
With his phone, he snapped a series of photos of the scene
and the truck’s interior.
“Chris is on his way.” Troy Lee stopped beside him and set
down the multiple-compartment box that housed the evidence kit. Rob removed two
pair of latex gloves and snapped them on, one pair over the other. Rather than
open the door, he reached through the open window and retrieved the cell phone.
The home screen glowed to life to reveal myriad missed calls from his parents
and Mike Smithwick, plus various texts from Brittany and a couple of friends. Rob
swiped his thumb across the screen and the keyboard popped up for a passcode
entry.
He glanced sideways at Jenkins. “Do you know his passcode?”
“Four-one-two-zero.” Jenkins cleared his throat. “It’s part
of Emma’s birthday.”
Rob navigated to check for the last outgoing texts and
calls, both of which dated to late the previous morning. A phone call to his
mother around eleven, then a text to Brittany at twelve.
Rob placed the phone in an evidence bag, labeled and sealed
it. He squinted across the field, quiet and deserted under the midday sun. “Mr.
Jenkins, other than the situation with Brittany this week, has Zeke had other difficulties
you know of? Has he been in any trouble or talked to you about any problems
he’s had lately?”
“No.” Jenkins pushed up the bill of his battered cap with
one finger and scrubbed a hand over his forehead. “He’s always been a real good
boy. We weren’t happy about Britt being pregnant with them so young and not
married and all, but since they got married, he works hard to take care of her
and Emma.”
The grass surrounding the produce field showed no evidence
of recent foot traffic. Maybe he’d never even made it into the field. “You said
you talked to his friends. Is it possible he’s with one of them?”
“No.” Jenkins shook his head. “He might ignore Britt and he
might ignore me, but that boy would never ignore his mama.”
Linda Winfree Bio:
How does an English teacher end up plotting
murders? She uses her experiences as a cop’s wife to become a writer of
romantic suspense! Linda Winfree lives in a quintessential small Georgia town
with her husband and grand-dog Poe. By day, she teaches English/Language Arts
and is an all-round education nerd; by night she pens sultry books full of
murder and mayhem.
To learn more about Linda and her books, visit www.lindawinfreewrites.com, follow her on Twitter @lwinfreewrites, or connect with her on Facebook at http://facebook.com/lindawinfreewrites. You can also contact Linda via email at lindawinfreewrites@gmail.com.
To learn more about Linda and her books, visit www.lindawinfreewrites.com, follow her on Twitter @lwinfreewrites, or connect with her on Facebook at http://facebook.com/lindawinfreewrites. You can also contact Linda via email at lindawinfreewrites@gmail.com.
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