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  Church Bells

  by Jennifer Rebecca

  Also by Jennifer Rebecca

  THE SOUTHERN HEARTBEATS

  Stand (Vol. 1)

  Joy (A Southern Heartbeats Holiday)

  Whiskey Lullabye (Vol. 2)

  Mercy (A Southern Short Story) Free on Wattpad

  Just A Dream (Vol. 3), Coming Soon

  THE FUNERALS AND OBITUARIES MYSTERIES

  Dead and Buried

  Dead and Gone, Coming 2018

  THE MURDER ON ICE MYSTERIES

  Attack Zone, Coming January 16, 2018

  Contents

  CHURCH BELLS

  Also by Jennifer Rebecca

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Playlist

  About the Author

  Thank You

  Books in the Wanted World

  Dedication

  For Sean,

  You are the stuff that romance novels are made of. you inspire me every day, and every day I thank God that when we were both young and crazy, we got a little tipsy and made out at that party. Who knew a couple of Smirnoff Ices and a pair of killer blue eyes would change my life forever.

  Without you, I’m just me, but with you, I can be anything and everything.

  You’re forever my always. To the moon and back.

  It was only ever you.

  XOXO,

  Jenny

  Prologue

  Abigail

  WHEN I WAS EIGHT YEARS old, my grandmother died. I remember standing in the yard of our small country church after her memorial service as the church bells in the tower rang out.

  “What are the bells for?” I had asked my mother.

  “Those bells are ringing so that Jesus will welcome Nana home, honey bunches,” she’d told me.

  “Because she’s in heaven now?” I answered her.

  “That’s right, honey.” She had smiled at me, her honey blonde curls blowing in the breeze.

  For the rest of my life I thought that I would hear those church bells on the day that I died. That is until Brandon had walked into my life. After we were married, I had often questioned whether I would hear church bells or hell’s bells on the day that I died.

  Today I know for sure.

  Today all of my questions on life and love and fairness were answered when I opened the front door to Tanner’s home and realized that a demon stood on the front steps. A demon who took not only my person, but my hopes and dreams and crushed them under his boot heels.

  I should have known only princesses get happily ever afters with men who are kind and sweet and strong like Tanner—a man I could love for all of my days and who would love me back unconditionally.

  Former strippers from the trailer parks do not.

  “Hello, wife. Did you miss me?” he had asked when I opened the door.

  I never stood a chance against him before, trying to overpower him now would be pointless. My only hope now is to buy enough time until Tanner gets back. I knew that I had to try no matter how hopeless.

  It doesn’t take my husband long to best me, but then again, I always knew that he would. The minute I opened the front door and saw him standing on Tanner’s front porch, I knew that I would lose. I tried my best to slam the door in his face but he blocked it with his foot in the door before shoving me back. When the wood panel of the door slammed open I didn’t even flinch. Years of being married to Brandon had conditioned me to not give a response to a variety of things.

  It wasn’t the first time my husband had put his hands on me, but I knew without a doubt that it would be the last.

  Knowing that this would be my last chance at freedom, at the life that I had dared to live these last few weeks, I fought him with rabid determination, but it wasn’t enough. As much as I kicked and hit and dodged, Brandon blocked better, hit harder, and kicked more aggressively. By the time I had made it to the kitchen, he had me cornered.

  When he landed his last blow I fell to my knees.

  His lips move as he speaks but all I see is movement. It’s kind of like when a parent talks in one of those old cartoons all “whomp, whomp whomp.” He pauses as if he’s asked me a question, but I wasn’t listening. I just nod from where I kneel in front of him. My body bruised and bloody. He holds a gun to my bowed head and I know there is no escape this time. Not so long ago, I made a deal with the devil and now he’s here to collect.

  When the gunshot echoes through the dark room, I know that I was wrong all those years ago. It wasn’t church bells I would hear on the day that I died, it was hell’s bells because the demon had come to drag me straight back. My only regret is having married him six years ago.

  Chapter 1

  Abigail

  I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE. I have to run.

  I can’t stand the feel of Brandon’s hands on my body or the stench of whiskey on his breath. And I know without a doubt that I won’t survive another one of his beatings, no matter how much he tells me I deserve them.

  I should run.

  Lord knows I had tried. Six months ago, I packed a bag and ran away while Brandon was out overseeing his holdings. I drove as far as two towns over and checked into a motel. I was laying in the lumpy motel bed, the sheets scratching my skin, but I didn’t complain. I would never complain. I had less, much less growing up. Especially after my daddy left us and we moved to the trailer park.

  I was laying in bed when the key turned in the lock, it was one of those old school motels that still used real keys. I turned over to see who was coming in my room.

  “I see you’ve been a naughty girl, wife,” Brandon had said.

  I slid up the bed and pulled the blankets up to my neck. My back was to the headboard. My eyes were wide, unblinking. Brandon had stalked to the bed like a jungle cat and ripped the blanket and sheets from my grasp. Then he proceeded to give me a sound beating for thinking of leaving him. When he was done, he cried and begged me not to leave him while he made love to me. I laid there, waiting for it to be over, but the whole time in my head, I was plotting, planning. I would leave again only next time I would be smarter. Next time I wouldn’t make such careless mistakes. And I knew without a doubt, Brandon would never let me go. I would never get out alive.

  I knew without a doubt then that Brandon had to die.

  So, I bided my time. I was the perfect wife. I planned dinner parties. I sang in the choir at church. I looked perfect every time I stepped out of the house, doubly so when I was on Brandon’s arm. I was an upstanding member of the community. And I took the beatings like it was my job.

  And all the while I was poisoning his morning coffee.

  You’d be surprised how far a little rat poison in your coffee will go. Unfortunately, in Brandon’s case, not far enough. That asshole has the constitution of an ox. So, I had to up the dose.

  When Brandon started to feel ill, he became a li
ttle suspicious. He started watching me prepare his morning coffee, mixing in the cream and sugar to the ridiculously expensive and extremely pretentious Colombian brew that he had preferred.

  One day, he came home with the top of the line Keurig machine. Finally, I had to change my plans. So, every morning, when he left for work, I would mix the rat poison that I kept under the kitchen sink with a little bit of water and inject it into the coffee pods.

  Brandon was getting weaker and weaker.

  This morning when he came down for his breakfast, he didn’t look so good. He had bags under his eyes and his clothes hung on his body showcasing how thin his frame had become over the last month. I set his eggs and bacon in front of him at the table and smile sweetly as I handed him his coffee mug.

  “Maybe just the toast and coffee this morning, babe,” he says. “I’m not feeling so well today.”

  “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. Is there anything I can do for you?” I ask.

  “No, honey, I’ll be right as rain before you know it.”

  He takes a bite of toast before finishing his cup of coffee, I am careful to watch him to make sure that Brandon doesn’t notice me watching him. He takes a shaky breath and then keels over right at the breakfast table.

  I immediately walk to the entry hall closet where I had kept hidden a duffle bag with a week’s worth of clothes the gold locket my mother gave me before turning me out into the world, and as much cash as I could secretly collect in six months’ time.

  And then I grab my car keys and walk out the door. Never once looking back.

  I drive all day and all night. By the time I got to Kentucky, I trade my car in and leave in an old pickup with a little more cash in my duffle bag.

  I drove on from there straight to Texas where I stopped in a sleepy little town just this side of the Texas-Louisiana border until the Sheriff there, Holt Stone, started asking too many questions about me. He was a nice enough guy, but I just couldn’t risk it and decided to move on heading south.

  I drive straight for another two days. I see the signs for a sleepy little town in Texas called Mason, that looks like the kind of place I can get lost in for a while. I think I’ll stay.

  Chapter 2

  Tanner

  “HEY, TANNER, HAVE YOU SEEN the new girl? I hear she’s a real looker.”

  “No, man.” I smile. “Not yet.”

  “I’m sure you will soon.” He winks. “Real soon.”

  Who the hell is this mystery woman? Everywhere I go, someone asks me if I have seen the new girl in town. I haven’t, and I should have. This is a small fucking town. We should have crossed paths by now. It makes me wonder if she’s avoiding me. It makes the back of my neck itch. And I don’t like it.

  My family has been in Mason since the 1800’s when they came over from Europe and my Kiowa ancestors have been here forever. My greats settled in Mason and never looked back. Generation after generation was born, lived, and died here, so I’m a little protective of the only home my family has ever had.

  As I walk to the back of the cafe, I can’t stop thinking about how odd it is that there’s a woman in town that everyone has seen but me. Could she be avoiding me? And if so, why? That doesn’t leave me with a feeling of the warm and fuzzies. This is not a train of thought that is going to take me anywhere productive. I’m going to have to do a little bit of good old-fashioned snooping around before I can decide.

  I’m running through my contacts in my head, all of the people I know and love here in Mason that have their ears to the ground as I walk to my usual table. But this moment is anything but usual when I see a woman sitting at a booth halfway towards the back of the cafe with long white wires hanging out of her ears and running all the way down to a phone on the table. Her head is bobbing to the beat that only she can hear and she’s tapping her pen on a yellow legal pad as she studies a copy of the paper so rumpled it has to have been pulled out of the garbage can. She’s beautiful.

  I stop on my boot heel just before her table. I’m pulled into her tractor beam and I haven’t even seen her eyes yet. Sure, I see the honey colored curls bobbing around her head, and the little point to her chin, the thin length of her nose, and full pink lips that have my brain spinning circles . . . and other more eager parts of me stand up and take notice.

  I squeeze my fists so tight that my nails bite into my palms. It’s been a long time since a woman has peaked my interest like this. But it’s just appreciation for a good looking woman and that too, shall pass. She bites her lip as she reads something in the papers and circles it. The way she dances a bit as she reads the paper is cute. I wonder who she is and why I haven’t seen her around before. It’s then that she looks up and her gaze meets mine. I’m not one to wax poetic about anything—the Marine Corps will rid you of all of those notions—but this woman has golden brown eyes the color of smoked whiskey or those amber rocks the scientists pull out the dinosaur juice from in the Jurassic Park movies.

  I let my gaze track down her body, over her full, round breasts that she’s hiding under an oversized t-shirt and down to where her waist hides behind the table and then take my sweet time retracing my steps. I think about what she must look like under that man’s shirt. I hope she doesn’t have a man in her life. That would be disappointing.

  Her pale cheeks flush a gorgeous pink and I can’t help but let my mind wander. Does she blush everywhere? I’m hard just thinking about watching all of that red creep up her neck and across her breasts. I lick my lips and let my eyes meet hers letting her know what I want if she’s up for a little fun, or maybe even more. Who knows? It’s been a long time since I have been interested in a woman like this.

  What I did not expect was her reaction.

  The beautiful blonde watches the tip of my tongue swipe across my lower lip and my teeth nip the flesh in its wake. And she visibly cowers. I have heard of people shrinking in on themselves when afraid, but I have never seen it—not like this. If there was a way for her to make herself any smaller, more hidden, she would have done it. And if the pained whimper that escapes her throat weren’t enough to get the picture, the look on her face is clear as day—she’s afraid of me.

  My lust is immediately cooled by her fear as she trembles on the booth bench. And I know then that this is the mysterious woman from out of town that Jeff was talking about. I see it in the way her eyes take in my larger size and muscular build, the white hat on my head, and the star on my chest. This woman is without a doubt on the run, running from what is yet to be seen, but one thing for certain, she’s t-r-o-u-b-l-e trouble and it’s written all over her face.

  Chapter 3

  Abigail

  I’M POURING OVER YESTERDAY’S WANT ads—or maybe it’s from two days ago, I don’t know—with my music pounding in my ear from an old iPod I found in the bottom of a drawer. Reba’s “Fancy” is blasting in my ears and I’m dancing along.

  This song speaks to me for a number of reasons, one of those being my dad really did run off and leave us destitute after my grandparents passed away. He left my mom with a lot of nothing but debt and empty whiskey bottles and sports betting tickets. Shortly after he bailed, the collectors came and took my grandparents’ ranch turning us out in the process.

  It turns out, my grandparents were the glue holding it all together. They had somehow kept him on the straight and narrow as much as they could, but it was like trying to plug the hole in the Titanic with a wad of chewing gum—it didn’t hold. They had held his feet to the fire and managed to make him walk the family line, making him marry Mama and then be around for me when I came along. They had known all along that my dad had some pretty big demons he couldn’t seem to exorcise.

  After they died and dad hit the road, Mama and I had some pretty big heart to heart conversations in our little trailer. She had told me how my grandparents had made him take care of us or there would be no bailing him out when it came to his bookies or his dealers—he was on his own—or at least he was until they died and the title
on the ranch fell to his hands. Mama and I had watched him blow through all the money and desert the livestock and the land faster than you can say “Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care.” Only problem was Mama and I cared but we were helpless to do anything about it.

  Personally, I just think he was selfish.

  Mama did her best to keep us going for as long as she could, but it just wasn’t enough. When the bank foreclosed on the ranch, Mama moved us to a two-bedroom trailer house on the other side of town. We ate a lot of spaghetti and bologna sandwiches and occasionally the power got turned off when we were late on the bills.

  From an early age I knew that I had to pull my own weight. Mama had never asked anything from me, but even as a little kid I knew that I couldn’t sit back and let her do all the dirty work. So, I had a paper route, I mowed lawns, I carried groceries, and when I was old enough, I babysat the neighborhood kids. Every penny I made went to Mama to keep us going.

  By the time I was fifteen, I had more than my fair share of curves in all the convenient places, and when I was seventeen and fresh out of high school I knew how to work a pole to bring home the bacon and also how to throw a decent right hook. Both were important for a successful career in the club. I hated it but it made the money we needed to support our little family of two. Unfortunately, by the time I was nineteen, I was married to a bastard and completely forgot the latter. Mama was eager for me to grab onto Brandon as a meal ticket, to her he was an express train ride out of the trailer park and she aided that trip by turning me out. No “thanks for the memories” she said “marry him or move on but you’re not going to live like this forever.” If only she could see me now in my ratty clothes and living in a motel. Of course she would be so proud to find out that her daughter was a murderer.

  Nevertheless, I had just circled a promising want ad for a motel maid when I felt tingles up the back of my neck and I knew that someone was watching me. I let my gaze wander without moving, not wanting to giveaway the fact that I know someone is nearby.