Sage of Innocence Read online

  He leaned forward and tensed. He was so rigid I could see the tendons in his neck popping out. “I may not get out of here alive, but I promise you this: I’m not writing any fake confession. It’s not happening.”

  Linda’s face clouded with rage.

  I’d seen enough. I crab crawled backward—managing to avoid the thorn bushes this time. Then I made my second decision—the less-than-stellar one.

  * * *

  As I hoofed it back to the golf cart, I listened hard for distant sirens but heard nothing. I couldn’t just sit there while Linda executed Roman. So I did the only thing I could think of.

  I started the golf cart’s engine, smashed the pedal to the bottom of the cart and aimed it straight at Linda’s Florida room. The west wall looked to be my best bet, given the hill between it and me. With luck, I’d pick up enough momentum coming down the hill that when I plowed into the wall, the glass would break.

  Here we go, I thought as I crested the hill and leaned forward, urging the cart to go faster. Just before impact I squeezed my eyes shut. But I could tell as soon as I banged into the wall that it had held. There was no tinkling sound of glass breaking.

  I opened my eyes. The glass hadn’t shattered, but it had cracked. A spider web was spreading across the pane. I threw the cart into reverse, backed halfway up the hill and rammed the wall again.

  This time I kept my eyes open and could see that Roman had taken advantage of the distraction I was providing to wrestle the gun out of Linda’s hand. As I crashed through the window in a spray of broken glass I saw him pushing her against the far wall one-handed and covering her with her gun with his other hand.

  Just before he turned, averting his face from the shower of glass shards, our eyes met. His registered equal parts amazement and fear. I suspected mine registered relief through my tears. I was so afraid I’d break through the wall only to find him with a bullet through his brain.

  My last thought before I tumbled over the front of the golf cart and landed with a thud against a large standing desk was that Roman was okay. I smiled as the room faded to black.

  Chapter 25

  Three hours later, we were standing in the shadows of the tree house. Battered, bruised, and bloodied, but both very much alive.

  "I still can't believe you drove a golf cart through a window," Roman mused.

  "It wasn't my finest moment."

  He tilted my chin up with his hand and I met his eyes. "I don't know about that. You make a kind of cute madwoman."

  "You're not right." I said as I snuggled into his side.

  "I'm right as rain. The bad guy--or gal, in this case--got her comeuppance. Chip got his life back. Which means we get to keep our jobs. Marilee's going to return all the money that Fred extorted from folks, although I kind of wish she wouldn't in Mr. Valetta's case."

  I snickered at that. "And how about Louie? Who pays a hundred thousand dollars to keep such a dumb secret? He takes ballet? Literally, so what?"

  Roman shook his head. "I don't know. I might pay that much not to have to see him in tights." He pulled me closer.

  "One good thing came out of this mess--I mean, besides Louie's freedom to do all the jetés his heart desires. You and Chip have a chance to have a real relationship now that everything's out in the open. That's pretty cool."

  "It is," he said slowly. "It's going to take my mom some time to get used to the idea, but having a dad after all these years ... I don't even have the words to describe how that feels."

  "You don't have to," I said. "Just be open to the feeling."

  “How funny is it that Linda didn’t even know about the blackmail?” he mused. “She just killed him over her fifteen percent.”

  I nodded. Linda had told Roman that Fred was trying to back out of the movie option. It made sense. He must have been nervous about the film makers probing too hard into his life and finding out about the blackmail. But when he told Linda to turn down the option, she calculated fifteen percent of four million dollars and lost her temper.

  “I can’t believe how random it was. She just grabbed the handiest club, which just happened to be Chip’s, and trailed Fred into the locker room.”

  “Totally random,” he agreed. Then his voice deepened to a growl. “I don’t think I thanked you for saving my life.”

  I took a breath. "Don’t mention it.” I stretched up on my toes and laced my arms around his neck. His liquidy amber eyes pinned mine. Then he dipped his head and covered my mouth with a kiss. His lips were somehow yielding but firm at the same time. He pressed hard against me then turned me ninety degrees so that I was leaning back against the trunk of the tree.

  As his mouth traced a path from my lips to the hollow at the base of my neck, I arched my back and tipped my head back. Just then, hushed giggles erupted from above my head. My eyes popped open, and Roman pulled away from me as if I were radioactive.

  I recognized those laughs. I stared up at the landing of the tree house.

  "Sky? Dylan? You guys are supposed to be getting cleaned up for dinner," I called up to them.

  After a moment of rustling, two blond heads appeared, peering down over the edge of the platform.

  "Sage and Roman sittin' in a tree--" Skylar started in a sing-song voice.

  Dylan cut her off. "Hey, if you guys get married, Sage will be our sister, right?"

  "That's true," Roman said, nodding gravely.

  "Nobody's getting married," I told them.

  Roman raised both eyebrows at me. "You say that now. But you haven't tasted my sweet potato pie."

  As my laughter bubbled up and mingled with the kids' giggles, a flash of a feeling I hadn't had in a very long time hit me square in the stomach and took my breath away. Utter joy.

  I didn't know how or if my sisters and I would manage to keep the resort. I didn't know what fallout might result from the arrest of the island's most prominent sports agent and the role I'd played in it. I didn't know if I'd see my face on the cover of tomorrow's Orbit underneath an insane, humiliating headline. Right now, all I knew was I wanted Skylar and Dylan to get their little behinds inside to wash their hands so I could get back to kissing their half-brother.

  <<<<>>>>

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks, as always, to my crack team of editors for polishing my writing so it shines to the best of its ability. A special thanks to Linda Zaharee, who won the right to name a character at the Bouchercon 2015 Charity Auction to support reading and literacy and then promptly endeared herself to me by requesting to be a bad guy in the book. And major thanks to my husband for his nearly infinite patience.

  About the Author

  Melissa F. Miller is a USA TODAY bestselling author of more than a dozen books and a former commercial litigator. She has practiced in the offices of international law firms in Pittsburgh, PA and Washington, D.C. She and her husband have also practiced law together in their two-person firm in South Central Pennsylvania, where they live with their three children, a lazy hound dog, and three overactive gerbils. Now, Melissa writes crime fiction full-time. Like some of her characters, she drinks entirely too much coffee; unlike any of her characters, she cannot kill you with her bare hands.

  Author’s Note

  Thanks for reading Sage’s story; I hope you had as much fun reading it as I had writing it! Next up in this series is youngest sister Thyme’s adventure, Thyme to Live. You can preorder it, and it will appear on your Kindle when it’s released; or you can sign up for my newsletter and I’ll email you when it’s live.

  I’d love to hear from you:

  @melissafmiller

  authormelissafmiller

  www.melissafmiller.com (sign up for mailing list while you’re there!)

  Also by Melissa F. Miller

  The We Sisters Three Mystery Series

  Rosemary’s Gravy

  Thyme to Live (available for preorder)

  The Aroostine Higgins Novel Series

  Critical Vulnerability

  Chilling E
ffect

  The Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller Series

  Irreparable Harm

  Inadvertent Disclosure

  Irretrievably Broken

  Indispensable Party

  Lovers and Madmen: A Novella

  Improper Influence

  A Marriage of True Minds: A Novella

  Irrevocable Trust

  Irrefutable Evidence

  A Mingled Yarn: A Novella

  Informed Consent

  To be the first to know when Melissa releases a new book, sign up for her email newsletter here!