Deadlier Than the Male: The Fiercest Heart / Lethal Lessons

Chapter 2

When word of the wreck began spreading through Stars Crossing, it abruptly brought post-graduation parties to an end. The emergency room quickly became packed with Haley’s classmates, who had come to be with her.

Judd and Lena Shore arrived within minutes of Tom and Chloe Brolin and their daughters, and the two couples sat on opposite sides of the waiting room, glaring at one another in stoic silence. Neither couple had spoken to Haley or bothered to ask after her welfare. The fact that she was mobile and alert was enough for them, even her own parents. They didn’t seem to care that she was pale and shaking and covered in blood, or that she had three stitches in her hairline, bruises rising on the side of her face and kept breaking into sobs every time another friend called her name.

Her best friend, Retta, a short, perky blonde, was sitting with her, running interference every time someone asked too many questions for which Haley had no answers.

An outpouring of blood donations had come in from friends and families alike, but the boys’ conditions were as yet unknown.

It wasn’t until Jack Bullard, the chief of police, arrived to speak to Haley that Judd and Lena got up from where they were sitting and moved toward her.

“Hey, Haley … how you doin’, honey?” Chief Bullard asked.

She shrugged, her chin quivering too much to answer.

“I know this is a rough time for you, but do you think you can talk to me for a bit?”

She nodded

Bullard smiled, and then sat down in the seat beside her.

“I need to ask you some questions about the accident.”

“Okay,” Haley said, and swiped her hands across her face, wiping away tears and smoothing back the tangles of her hair.

Bullard waited until she seemed to settle, then said, “I need you to tell me, in your own words, what happened.”

Suddenly Lena Shore pushed forward and started screaming. The rage in her voice was impossible to mistake.

“I’ll tell you what happened!” she shrieked. “My slut of a daughter was sneaking around with a damned Brolin. If it wasn’t for her, none of this would have happened.”

The minute the Brolins heard their name being slurred, they were up in the chief’s face and shouting back at Lena.

“There’s nothing wrong with our son,” Tom said. “Your daughter is the one who kept chasing after him.”

Haley shuddered and covered her face with her hands. This nightmare just kept getting worse and worse.

Chief Bullard stood abruptly and put one hand on Tom Brolin’s chest and the other on Judd Shore’s before they came to blows.

“Shut up!” he yelled. “Both of you. I’m talking to Haley, and unless you were in one of those cars, I want you all to be quiet.”

Judd cursed.

Tom puffed out his chest.

And in the middle of the melee, Haley slowly stood. Something inside of her had finally come unwound. After all these years, she’d had enough. Suddenly the room went quiet as all eyes turned to her. Her words were angry, her own rage evident as her hands curled into fists as she spoke.

“Just for the record, Mother, not once during the two years Mack and I have been seeing each other did I ever sneak anywhere. Just because you people have issues with one another, that didn’t mean we did. I love Mack, and he loves me. I don’t know what’s wrong between you and the Brolins, and frankly, I don’t care. You people have wasted eighteen years of my life acting like children. You can hate one another … and you can all hate me … if that’s what’s going to make you happy. I don’t care anymore. I don’t care about anything but knowing Stewart and Mack are okay. After that, you can all go to hell!”

Her mother’s face had gone from pale to purple, her father’s to a dark, angry red. The Brolins wouldn’t look at her, and her classmates seemed to be in shock.

At that point, Haley turned around to face Chief Bullard.

“Mack and I were driving north out of town in his car. We were just listening to music and talking when lights appeared out of nowhere in the rearview mirror. All we knew was someone was coming up behind us too fast. When I thought I recognized Stewart’s car, I called him on my cell phone to be sure. When he answered, he began screaming at us to stop, that Mom had sent him to get me. I told him Mom didn’t run my life, and that we weren’t stopping, and for him to go home.”

Lena gasped, and before anyone could stop her, she lashed out and slapped Haley’s face so hard her lip split.

Chief Bullard grabbed Lena, but it was too late. “Ma’am, if you do that again, I will arrest you for assault.”

“She’s my daughter. I can—”

Haley pushed herself into Lena’s face. Her voice was soft, but her tone was hard and clipped.

“I’m of age, Mother, and that’s the last time you’ll ever lay a hand on me, so back off.”

Lena reeled as if Haley had just slapped her back. The fury in her daughter’s face was so virulent, she didn’t know how to react.

Bullard decided to let the issue go. “Then what happened?” he prompted.

Haley turned her back on her mother as if she no longer existed.

“Instead of going home, Stewart accelerated even more and rammed Mack’s bumper.”

At that point the Brolins gasped and started shouting at Judd and Lena, blaming them for Stewart’s actions.

Once again Chief Bullard was forced to intervene. Within seconds, he put out a call for two deputies. They quickly arrived, and with orders from Bullard were told to keep the families apart.

“Now. If I have to calm you people down one more time, I’ll arrest the whole damn lot of you. Are we clear?”

They didn’t answer and wouldn’t look at him. Once again, he chose to ignore them.

“What did Mack do when his car was struck?” he asked Haley.

She shuddered, remembering their panic. “Mack managed to keep the car on the road. The trouble came when Stewart rammed us the second time, even harder. Mack’s car started to skid sideways, and before he could straighten it out, Stewart hit our car on the driver’s side. I don’t think he meant to, but he was going too fast to stop. After that … we started rolling. I don’t know how many times, because I blacked out. When I came to, we were upside-down and off the road, and Mack was unconscious and bleeding badly. I saw his leg was trapped and tried to get him out, but I couldn’t. Then I couldn’t find my phone to call for help. I managed to unbuckle my seat belt and get out. Then I saw Stewart’s car. He’d hit a tree head-on. When I went to check on him, he was unconscious, too. I found his cell phone, and that’s when I called for help.”

Lena was sobbing loudly. Chloe was weeping without making a sound. Both men were glaring at Haley as if she’d grown horns.

“It’s ironic. The bitch causing all the trouble is the only one not to get injured,” Tom snapped.

Haley flinched but didn’t acknowledge the insult, and then, before any more slurs could be cast, a surgeon suddenly came out of a doorway at the end of the hall and started toward them.

“Is the Brolin family here?” he asked.

Haley held her breath as Tom and Chloe and Mack’s sisters crowded forward, all talking at once.

“Is he alive? How bad was it? Will he be able to walk?”

“Wait … wait … let me explain what we did,” the doctor said. “First of all, he came through the surgery fine. We were able to stop the bleeding and save his leg. He’ll walk just fine.”

“Thank the Lord,” Tom muttered.

“But his athletic career is over,” the doctor added.

“No … no!” his mother screamed, and leaned against her husband. Tom Brolin glared at Haley, then reached for his wife.

The doctor began explaining the intricacies of the surgery, how many pins he’d had to put in the leg and the muscle damage, but Haley had phased out. All she could think was that Mack was going to hate her. UCLA wasn’t going to happen. His plans for a career in the NFL had ended before they began.

She dropped into a chair and covered her face with her hands. She heard Retta’s voice, but not what she was saying. All she could think was, Why, God, why?

Then she heard her mother cry out. When she looked up, another doctor had appeared in the crowd—the one who had operated on Stewart—and he was saying something to her parents.

“No!” Lena screamed, and dropped to her knees. “No, no! Not my beautiful boy! If someone had to die, why wasn’t it Haley? I never wanted her. Why couldn’t she have been the one to die? “

Everyone in the room gasped, then turned to stare at Haley. Even her classmates were stunned by Lena Shore’s words.

Haley froze. God … oh, God, oh, God. Stewart? Dead?

Judd spun, and before anyone could stop him, he yanked Haley up by the arm and began beating her with his fists.

“Daddy! No, Daddy, no!” she screamed, then doubled over, trying to block his blows by covering her face with her arms.

When she dropped to the floor, he fell on top of her and began pummeling her with every ounce of strength he had in him.

It took both deputies to pull him off.

“Lena is right! If someone had to die, why wasn’t it you?” he roared.

Haley crawled to her knees, then pulled herself up. Blood was pouring from her nose and mouth. She was too dazed by the assault to even answer.

Judd Shore was still cursing and crying as the deputies dragged him out of the hospital.

A nurse came to Haley’s aid and led her away, leaving Chief Bullard to see that Lena Shore was taken home. All the way out the door she kept screaming at God, angry that he’d let Haley live and taken her boy instead.

Haley found herself back on a gurney. Her stitches had to be replaced, and another three added. By the time they took her to X-ray, one eye was nearly swollen shut, and it hurt to open her mouth. When they finally finished working on her, it was after midnight.

The doctor who had been stitching her up stepped back to eye his work.

“I think that takes care of it,” he said. “Where’s your family? I’ll have the nurse tell them you’re ready to go home.”

Haley shook her head, slid off the gurney, paused a moment to steady herself, then headed toward the door.

“No, Miss Shore. You need to wait for your family,” the doctor said.

“I don’t have any,” she muttered, putting a hand to her rib cage as if to hold back the pain, and walked away. But she wasn’t leaving the hospital. Not until she’d seen Mack.

There was no one in the intensive care waiting room except the Brolins, who were taking turns going in to see their son.

When they looked up and saw Haley standing in the doorway, whatever anger they had left turned swiftly to shock. Her face was so swollen that, had she not still been wearing her graduation dress, they wouldn’t have recognized her.

Still, she was the last person they wanted to talk to.

“You have no business here,” Chloe Brolin said. “Go home, girl. Go home.”

Even though it hurt to breathe, Haley wouldn’t let them know how deeply she’d been wounded. She lifted her chin, defying them to deny her when she said, “I want to see Mack. I have to see him.”

“Well, you’re not going to, because he doesn’t want to see you. Ever,” Chloe snapped.

Haley reeled, the words shredding her soul.

“You’re lying,” she whispered.

“No. I’m not,” Chloe said. “You need to go home where you belong.”

Before Haley could stop them, tears suddenly welled and spilled down her cheeks.

“I don’t have a home,” she said. “The only place I ever belonged was with Mack.”

Haley stared at the Brolins, eyeing Tom and Chloe until, ashamed, they looked away, then her gaze slid to Mack’s sisters, Jenna and Carla.

“You people … what’s wrong with you people?” Haley whispered, then she turned around and walked away.

It took her an hour to walk home. By the time she got there, it was almost 2:00 a.m. She got the spare key from the birdhouse and let herself in the back door.

She couldn’t believe how this night had ended. This morning she’d been on top of the world, and less than twelve hours later, that world had been permanently shattered.

She paused in the kitchen, listening to the house. As she stood, she heard a slight pop as the water heater came on, followed by the hum of the refrigerator. There was a drip at the sink.

She shuddered and sighed.

Daddy never did turn the faucets far enough off.

The ache in her belly deepened. Daddy. He’d tried to kill her tonight. If it hadn’t been for the police, he might never have stopped beating her.

She took off her shoes and started through the house. There was a light on beneath her parents’ door as she passed it on her way down the hall. She didn’t bother to stop. There was nothing left to say to either of them. The fact that her brother was dead didn’t seem real, but she took no blame for it happening. He’d done it to himself, even after she’d begged him to stop.

When she got to her room, she stripped out of her dress and underwear, leaving everything in a pile in the floor as she went into the bathroom. A short while later, after having showered and washed the blood and glass from her hair, she dressed in an old pair of jeans and her softest T-shirt, then pulled a suitcase from the back of her closet.

Her face was expressionless as she began packing it with only the necessities, trying not to think of the things she was leaving behind: toys she’d saved from her childhood; her grandmother’s wedding dress, which had been bequeathed to her; all the things she’d been saving for her own home that were stored in her hope chest.

She didn’t remember, until she was looking for ID, that her diploma was most likely lying somewhere along the highway, with her purse. She would stop by Chief Bullard’s office in the morning to see if anyone had found it when they’d towed in the cars.

Finally there was no more room left in the bag or her small backpack. She sat down on the side of the bed, then stood again. She was in so much pain she knew she couldn’t sleep. She downed a couple of painkillers, got her checkbook and the passbook to her savings account and added them to the rest of the stuff in the backpack.

Just before she started to close the bag, she remembered Mack’s photo. She kept it taped to the back of her dresser mirror. She took it down, then removed a family photo from a frame on the wall and put Mack’s photo in it instead.

Her heart was broken. Mack might not want anything to do with her anymore, but that didn’t mean she didn’t love him. She put the newly framed photo inside her backpack and slung it over her shoulders, then wheeled the suitcase out of her room.

It made no sound on the carpeted hallway floor, and once she got to the kitchen, she picked it up and carried it the rest of the way out of the house. The last thing she wanted was to look at her parents again. As far as she was concerned, her entire family—not just Stewart—had died tonight.

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.