Sharon Sala - Blown Away (Storm Front)

Praise for the novels of SHARON SALA

Salas characters are vivid and engaging.

Publishers Weekly on Cut Throat

Sharon Sala is not only a top romance novelist, she is an inspiration for people everywhere who wish to live their dreams.

John St. Augustine,
Host, Power! Talk Radio WDBC-AM, Michigan

Veteran romance writer Sala lives up to her reputation with this well-crafted thriller.

Publishers Weekly on Remember Me

[A] well-written, fast-paced ride.

Publishers Weekly on Nine Lives

Perfect entertainment for those looking for a suspense novel with emotional intensity.

Publishers Weekly on Out of the Dark

Also by Sharon Sala

THE WARRIOR

BAD PENNY

THE HEALER

CUT THROAT

NINE LIVES

THE CHOSEN

MISSING

WHIPPOORWILL

DARK WATER

OUT OF THE DARK

SNOWFALL

BUTTERFLY

REMEMBER ME

REUNION

SWEET BABY

Originally Published as Dinah McCall

THE RETURN

Look for Sharon Salas next novel

TORN APART

Available July 2010

SHARON SALA

Blown Away

The only thing certain in life is that its over too fast. Its a fact Ive learned the hard way. As the oldest of my mothers three children, I am the only one still alive.

As a native Oklahoman, I grew up knowing that, for a certain period of time every year, we will be faced with tornados. I learned young when to run for cover, and learned the hard way that sometimes the only way to live through one is to be underground.

Life is full of many things, but certainty is not one of them.

One moment someone is alive, and before another breath can be drawn, they are gone.

I watched my father die from health complications, lost my younger sister less than two months later to clinical depression, and had the love of my life die in my arms from liver cancer.

And every time I thought Id learned the lesson I was meant to learn from the heartbreak, yet another would be dumped in my life.

What I do know is that Im still here.

There are many reasons to rejoice in being alive, but for me, and because my loved ones are not, it is my job to live each day that Im given with as much grace as I can muster.

This is why Im dedicating this book to usthe people left behind.

Contents

One

S weat poured from Lance Morgans hairline, despite the rising wind, as he continued to dig deep into the loamy earth in the woods outside of Bordelaise, Louisiana. Austin Balls rental car, the car hed used to get here, was just a few feet away. Lance wouldnt look at the body, rolled up in the rug behind him, which he intended to bury, or think about the fact that his great-great-great-grandmother had saved that very rug from the Yankees during the War of Northern Aggression. What hed done, he couldnt take back, which was a metaphor for his life. It was what hed done to begin with that had gotten him into this mess.

He stabbed the shovel back into the Louisiana loam, scooped out yet another shovelful of dirt and threw it on top of the growing pile as he thought back over the mistake hed made that had brought him to this end.

Borrowing money from a Chicago loan shark like Dominic Martinelli and using the family estate, Morgans Reach, as collateral had been risky. It had been in the Morgan family for over two hundred years, and being responsible for losing it was simply not a possibility. He couldnt be known as the Morgan whod squandered the family estate.

At first hed had no trouble meeting his payments, and then weather and bad crop prices had combined, and hed started falling behind on payments. Hed made excuses, sent e-mails promising money that never arrived. Before he knew it, he was six months in arrears.

Yesterday, when hed received a phone call from Austin Ball, of Meacham and Ball, Esquire, who represented Martinelli, informing Lance that he was bringing some papers for him to sign, Lance had just assumed it was an extension on his outstanding loan.

He had prepared a lunch for two of Caesar salad, lobster rolls and some of his favorite brownies from a bakery in town. Hed even brought up a bottle of wine from the old wine cellar, and pulled out his mothers best china and crystal on which to serve the meal.

Ball had arrived on time, driving a black rental car, and sweating profusely beneath his gray worsted suit. Lance had taken some satisfaction in the lawyers discomfort. Any fool worth his salt would have known not to wear wool in Louisiana during the month of September.

It wasnt until after the meal that Ball had announced Martinellis intentions to foreclose and produced papers to that effect, instead of the ones Lance had expected.

Lances disbelief had been palpable. Heart-thumping. Hand-sweating. Gut-wrenching. Hed presented a logical solution: more time. It had been rejected, with the failing economy as an excuse. That was when Lance begged. When that failed, he lost his mind.

The moment Ball turned his back to pick up his briefcase, Lance grabbed a baseball bat that had been hanging on the library wall since his high school days and hit the lawyer in the back of the head with the same fervor as when hed hit the ball over the fence and sealed the county championship during his senior year of high school. That swing had ended the game. This one ended Balls life. Austin Ball dropped without uttering a sound. Even though he was down, and very obviously dead, Lance continued to swing. By the time he got himself together, nearly every bone in Balls body was broken, and blood was everywhere.

That was when panic hit.

He dropped the bat beside the body, rolled them up together into the rug on which Ball had dropped and dragged it out of the house and into the rental car Ball had driven out to his property.

Still in a state of hysteria, and fearing someone would drive up at any minute and catch him in such a bloody mess, he ran back inside and began cleaning up all the blood splatter. With one eye on the clock, he tore off all his clothing and threw it into the washing machine, then raced through the house to his bedroom naked and dressed again. Minutes later he was in the rental car, driving on a narrow, single-lane road that led into the woods behind the family home. He needed to hide the body, and though hed never dug anything deeper than a hole to plant flower bulbs, he was about to dig his first grave.

Now here he was, almost an hour later, battling panic and regret. The palms of his hands were burning. He would definitely have blisters. His back was aching, and his heart was pounding so hard he feared he might have a heart attack and die in the grave he was digging for Austin Ball.

As a gust of wind swirled the loose leaves into an eddy, then sent them flying across the forest floor toward where he was digging, he glanced up at the sky. A storm predicted earlier in the day was almost upon him.

Son of a bitch, he muttered, and dug a little harder.

It was getting darker. The hurricane in the Gulf was going to miss them, but it had obviously stirred up some rough weather. He had to get Balls body buried before it started to rain or, with Louisianas loamy soil and an elevation barely above sea level, the damn thing was likely to float out. He jabbed the point of the shovel back into the earth. Just as he was about to throw out another scoop, he heard what sounded like a gasp, then a scream. The sound was so unexpected that he nearly died on the spot. He pivoted in panic, then stared in disbelief.

The hair rose on the back of Carolina Norths neck as she rubbed her finger and thumb together, smearing the droplet that shed found on the leaves of the forest floor. Her morning walk had just taken a startling turn.