Sunset Hearts Read online

  A new start.

  “Could they send me to Wyoming?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  He remained silent while she thought about it. “What do I have to do?”

  * * * *

  Alan and Jerald couldn’t be in the courtroom because they were witnesses. They sat in the heavily guarded witness room, longing for a glimpse of Daphne, but they didn’t spot her. After their testimony, the federal prosecutor came in to talk with them at recess. “You can go home. If we need you to come back, we’ll call.”

  Jerald’s desperation mounted. “Can’t we see Daphne? Please?”

  “She’s not here today. She won’t be testifying until next week.”

  “Oh.”

  Alan tried to talk to Jerald on the way home, but he slumped in the passenger seat and stewed while Alan drove. They watched cable coverage of her testifying. Jerald taped it and watched it over and over again, way into the night, even though they never showed her face to protect her identity. All they could do was hear her voice.

  She sounded so quiet.

  Sad.

  It killed him he couldn’t see her. He wanted to reach through the screen and hold her.

  The TV went dark. Alan stood there with the remote. “Come to bed, tough guy. This isn’t doing you any good.”

  The next Tuesday, Jerald’s cell rang from a number he didn’t recognize. Alan was out on a charter.

  “It’s Special Agent Williams. Ms. Peres’ last day of testimony is tomorrow.”

  “Then we can come get her?”

  He didn’t reply at first. “She’s entering the witness protection program.”

  He felt the breath socked out of him. “What?”

  “A few months ago, she requested to be put into the witness protection program after the trial. Between you and me, there’s something seriously wrong with her. Emotionally. I raised three daughters. If I didn’t know any better, Mr. Carter, I’d say her heart’s been broken.”

  Jerald realized he was squeezing his phone. He relaxed his grip before he broke it. “We won’t be able to see her again?”

  Another pause. “I will meet you and Mr. Walker and escort you back to a secure witness room so you can have a few minutes with her. You won’t be able to be alone, I’ll have an armed agent with her. It’s against protocol, and I damn sure wouldn’t do it for anyone else, but maybe if you can talk to her it will help her and you both.” He told him when and where to meet him, and when Williams hung up, Jerald tried to get the nasty feeling out of his stomach.

  She wasn’t coming back.

  Ever.

  * * * *

  When Alan returned home a little after six, he immediately asked what was wrong. Jerald broke down crying and told him.

  Alan held him. “It’s okay. I’ll cancel tomorrow’s charter and we’ll go. Maybe we can talk her into changing her mind.”

  “I’m sorry. This is all my fault. If I hadn’t forced her into protective custody, she wouldn’t be mad at me. She wouldn’t be leaving us.”

  “You did what you had to do to keep her safe.” He rocked Jerald in his arms. Since they’d lost her, Alan had witnessed the change in his lover. Gone was the sure and steady rock. Every day, Jerald’s pain and guilt radiated from him, never improving. As much as Alan loved and missed her, he had to focus on Jerald and trying to get him to forgive himself.

  “Maybe if I leave, maybe she’d come back to you,” Jerald quietly said.

  Alan angrily held him at arm’s length. “You think I’m fucking letting you go anywhere, think again. I love you. I loved you before we met her, and I love you now. No matter what. You quit that shit right now.”

  The next morning, they drove to the federal courthouse in Tampa and met Williams. He led them through security and into a witness room where an armed marshal stood guard. “This is all the privacy I can give you,” he said, nodding to the guard. “You can have ten minutes with her. If she decides she doesn’t want to go into the program after all, she can go home with you, if she wants. It’s up to her.”

  “Thank you,” Alan said.

  Jerald nervously paced. Alan knew he was probably practicing a thousand different lines in his head that he wanted to say.

  All Alan wanted was to tell her he loved her.

  An hour later, they heard the door open and a bailiff led her in. She looked up, obviously startled to see them.

  The bailiff stepped out and closed the door as she silently stood there and stared at them.

  Alan didn’t know what to say, it turned out.

  Jerald beat him to it. “Hi, honey.” Alan hated the forced joviality in the other man’s voice, that he tried so hard when the stiff set of her body language told Alan all he needed to hear.

  She was leaving. In her mind, she’d already gone, only her body still stood there. Her heart was a million uncrossable miles from them.

  “Sweetie,” Jerald said, “we love you so much. We’ve missed you, and I’m so sorry. Please, don’t leave us! Come home with us!”

  She stared at them, not speaking.

  Alan couldn’t take it anymore. He stepped over to Jerald’s side and put his hand on his shoulder. “Stop,” he softly said. “She’s going. She won’t change her mind. She won’t stay.” He couldn’t hold back his anger. “We’ve spent the last seven months missing you like fucking crazy. Then Williams tells us you signed the paperwork to go into witness protection months ago. If our love isn’t enough to keep you here, the least you could have done was have the balls to send us a message so we could move on with our lives instead of keeping us hanging and waiting for you like this.”

  Daphne gasped, shocked by Alan’s anger as much as by his words. “I—”

  He cut her off. “No. We love you, and we’d do anything for you including giving you up so you wouldn’t get killed. Then we have to find out from the fucking marshals that you’re leaving after we spent all these months counting the time until you could come home? Thanks a lot. Nice to know we don’t mean anything to you. Were we just a convenient place to hide and you mercy fucked us out of guilt? Was that all we were?”

  The fury in his usually sweet brown eyes, the ones she’d dreamed about for so many months, crumpled her heart. “I do love you,” she whispered.

  Jerald’s composure snapped. He sank to his knees as Alan kept a steadying arm around him. “Please,” the large man sobbed, “if you hate me so much, I’ll leave if it means you’ll stay with him at least.”

  She couldn’t process this. This couldn’t be Jerald, the cold, emotionless man she’d demonized as well as loved and missed for all these months. Or her sweet, gentle Alan. She watched as Alan knelt and protectively wrapped his arms around Jerald and held him while the larger man cried.

  “If this is what you wanted to see,” Alan angrily said, “then I hope it lived up to your expectations. I knew this was a bad idea. I never should have let him come today. But maybe now he can let you go. I hoped you’d come back, but honestly? I had a bad feeling a few months ago when we never heard anything from you that you wouldn’t want to come back. I just wish you’d said something before now to spare him this. Did you want revenge for him sending you into protective custody?”

  She stepped forward, reaching for them, her men. They still wanted her!

  Alan pointed at her. “Not another fucking step. Just get the hell out of here and have a good life. You’ve hurt him enough. I hope you know you’re taking our hearts with you. I hope it was worth it to you.” He wrapped his arms around Jerald as the man sobbed even harder.

  The marshal, who’d quietly watched from the corner, stepped over to her. “Come on, Ms. Peres,” he softly said. “Let’s go.”

  She didn’t want to go. She wanted to stay, to cry in their arms. They still wanted her? They loved her?

  “No, can’t I just talk to them—”

  “Goddammit, would you get her the fuck out of here!” Alan shouted.

  The marshal hustled her out the door
and down a hallway. A group of marshals surrounded her, escorting her quickly down a series of corridors. Before she knew it, she was in another SUV, one of a series of black, armored vehicles they drove her around in. She couldn’t see through her tears.

  She couldn’t feel anything past the memory of watching Jerald sink to his knees, crying, and Alan’s angry voice as he ordered her out.

  The female marshal, Agent Smith today, touched her arm. “I brought your purse, Ms. Hemingway.”

  “Thank you.”

  She held it in her lap. Inside, her wallet with her new ID, her paperwork. As of this day, she was no longer Daphne Peres, but Jenny Hemingway.

  It also held the stack of unopened letters she couldn’t bear to read or throw away. There had been no more after the last.

  Then again, she had asked Jerald to stop writing, hadn’t she?

  A few minutes later, they pulled up to the general aviation gate at Tampa International where the agents hustled her onto a small private jet.

  Smith was explaining they’d emptied her storage unit. Her things had already been moved to her new home. It would take nearly a full day to get her to Wyoming, because they would route her throughout the country in a series of almost random moves designed to throw anyone off the trail. They’d packed all her things from the motel and loaded them on the plane.

  Daphne nodded, but she didn’t really hear the agent’s words. All she could hear in her mind was Alan’s angry voice and Jerald’s tortured sobs.

  Her men.

  They’d thought she was coming home. Instead, she was walking away from them.

  * * * *

  They were in the air for an hour before Daphne opened her purse with trembling hands and removed the letters. She stared at the stack of envelopes for a long time before she opened the first one. She realized she’d have to open them all and put them in order. Jerald had handwritten each letter, several pages each, not typed on the computer. He’d dated each one.

  After opening all thirteen of them, she started at the first one.

  Hey, Sweetie…

  She held her hand over her mouth to muffle her sobs.

  I’m sorry. I am so sorry. When you quit being angry at me, you’ll understand this is for your own good. And we’re going to sit here and wait for you and miss you. When we get you home, I promise you we’re going to take off a couple of weeks and go anywhere you want to celebrate. We’ll take you anywhere in the world. We can go to Yellowstone, if you want.

  I can’t stand the thought of them hurting you. I love you too much to risk that…

  The words blurred as she cried.

  …and almost losing him nearly killed me. The thought of them hurting you too, I can’t handle it. If I thought they’d take Alan, I’d send him into protective custody with you to keep him safe, too…

  She sobbed as she read and re-read the first letter several times. Agent Smith walked over to check on her, brought her a box of tissues, and left her alone again.

  She carefully folded the first letter after she finished it, dug a pen out of her purse, and wrote the letter’s date on the envelope. Then she tucked the letter back inside and read the second.

  It took her thirty minutes of crying and re-reading to get through it.

  …and the doctors say he’s going to be fine, babe. I’ll take good care of him until you come home to kick our asses, I promise I will. I hope you’re okay. I hope you’re not still mad at me. Williams said they can pass messages to us from you, it just can’t go directly through the mail. So I’ll keep sending these to you. Hell, I’ll write you every day and drive them to Tampa if you tell me to, just say the word…

  She finished it and put it back in its envelope after she wrote the date on the outside.

  He asked about you again. I brought him home yesterday. I don’t know what to tell him. Please, Daph, don’t be angry at him. He didn’t know I was doing this until after the fact. If you want to ignore me, okay, I understand, but please write to him, okay? It’d really make him feel better to hear from you. We love you so much, and it’s so damned lonely around here without you…

  Had she really thought Jerald Carter was an insensitive rock wall? A statue? Incapable of emotion?

  His letters, had she read them before, would have moved her to tears then.

  Would have made her forgive him.

  I’m a fucking idiot. I don’t deserve to live.

  She rested her head against the seat in front of her. It was just her and five agents riding as passengers on the small jet. And now…it was too late to turn back. Daphne Peres no longer existed. Months after jumping from Paulie’s boat, Daphne Peres had finally drowned in an ocean of paperwork, resurrected with a fake name and a fake history and a fake life.

  All that remained of Daphne were the memories of the love she’d left behind and the pain she’d carry with her for the rest of her life.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Alan worked his ass off all week to coax a single smile out of Jerald. He didn’t think he would manage it, but finally, he did.

  Not all the changes in Jerald since the shooting had been bad. Where before he would be leery of public displays of affection, now the large man wasn’t ashamed to grab Alan’s hand or even slip his arm around his waist or shoulders while they walked somewhere. Wanting contact with him, as if afraid to let him go.

  Afraid to lose him.

  Alan wouldn’t talk about her. Didn’t want Jerald thinking about her if he could help it. Easier said than done. But as the weeks wore on, until a month after that final showdown in the courthouse, he saw signs of life returning to Jerald Carter’s heart.

  He acted even quieter now than ever before. Spent a lot of time reading or just staring out at Alan’s backyard.

  The new house was ready for move-in. Alan didn’t tell Jerald he’d used the cabinets and flooring and paint she’d picked. Despite his heartache, they were the perfect accents for the house. He’d envisioned them all during construction and why should he let the fact that she picked them stop him? What, to spite a woman they’d never see again?

  Then again, part of him had hoped she’d come home, that they could surprise her with the house.

  They made the move over the course of a week, leaving them enough time to paint the old house the weekend before the new tenants moved in. The rent would more than cover the expenses for that house, and over half of their monthly mortgage on the new one.

  Their first night in the new house, Alan cooked Jerald a nice dinner. He lit candles in their bedroom and gave him a long, sensual massage. Then Alan stretched out next to him, propped on one arm. “Home sweet home,” he said with a smile.

  That coaxed a smile out of Jerald. “Home sweet home.”

  “Our home. Our first house together.” He rolled on top of Jerald and kissed him. “Yours and mine.”

  Jerald’s hands settled on his ass. “Ours.” Jerald’s eyes seemed to study his face. “Thank you for being patient with me all these years.”

  “Hasn’t been that long. You make it sound like we’ve been together decades.”

  “You know what I mean. For taking so long to…”

  “Come out?”

  He smiled. “Yeah.”

  “I know a good thing when I see it, buddy. No way in hell I was letting you get away once I knew you were interested.”

  “Maybe we can take a vacation fairly soon,” Jerald suggested. “I think we need it.”

  Jerald wanting to take a vacation?

  “Why don’t we go to Yellowstone?” Jerald continued. “I know you’ve been wanting to go.”

  “Maybe we can do that next spring. It’s going to be damn cold there now. Let’s go take a cruise or something for Christmas. Go party. See the Caribbean.”

  “Okay, I like that idea.” They’d mixed their finances, getting a joint account and credit cards. They’d even done paperwork giving each other medical power of attorney and other authority. They’d made their wills.

  Jeral
d touched Alan’s hair. “Go ahead and call tomorrow and book us a cruise. If you don’t book now, they might all be full.”

  “Okay.” Alan relaxed, happy Jerald wanted to go. It meant a distraction, fun, relaxation.

  It meant not sitting at home thinking about the last Christmas, when Daph was with them, or her absence during what should have been a joyous holiday celebration in their new home.

  He damn sure didn’t feel like putting up a Christmas tree this year.

  * * * *

  Daphne read and re-read the letters countless times. She photocopied them and read the copies because she cried so much she worried she’d ruin the originals. Every night, her ritual was to start with the first and read through them all.

  She cried every time.

  She bought a prepaid cell phone and had it activated with a Tampa area code, but hadn’t worked up the nerve to call. It was against the rules the U.S. Marshals had given her to contact Alan and Jerald without going through the marshals to do it.

  After being in her new home for two months, she finally tried Alan’s home number.

  Her heart sank when the automated tone sounded, followed by the recorded message, “The number you are trying to reach is no longer in service…”

  They must have finally ditched the land line.

  She couldn’t remember their cell numbers.

  She looked up Alan’s charter reservation number online, which would ring to his cell. When she called, one of the Aripeka marina shop clerks answered.

  “Is Alan Walker there?” Daphne asked.

  “We’re taking his bookings for him.”

  “Do you have his cell number? I need to reach him.”

  “We’re not allowed to give that out. We can pass along a message for you.”

  “Oh. Thanks. Never mind.”

  She’d fucked up. They’d never stopped loving her, and she’d been too damn angry and immature to see the truth at the time.

  It felt like she’d spent the last year crying or in a freaking daze. Time to take action.