His Secret Heart (Crown Creek) Read online

  His Secret Heart

  A Crown Creek Novel

  Theresa Leigh

  Copyright © 2018 by Theresa Leigh

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  To the makers of dictation software and the creators of HemingwayApp.com

  THANK YOU.

  If you build yourself up tall you can tell me what the future holds

  Will you settle where you stand or keep it to yourself?

  Will you go?

  Will you go?

  Will you go?

  Will you go?

  Waxahatchee - “Chapel of Pines

  I say

  You will hit the bottom harder each time

  I say

  You can leave all of your failure behind

  Take it out

  Take it out

  Take it out on me baby

  Waxahatchee - “Takes So Much”

  More to read

  The Crown Creek Series

  The Kings:

  Sweet Crazy Song

  Jonah and Ruby’s story

  READ IT FOR FREE!

  Cocky Jonah never wanted to come home to Crown Creek. But a chance meeting with kindergarten teacher Ruby has him wanting to stay forever.

  Lost Perfect Kiss

  Gabe and Everly’s story

  A risk taking bad boy. A girl-next-door nurse. And the kiss that never should have happened. Gabe has to convince Everly to take the biggest risk of her life. Him.

  Soft Wild Ache

  Beau and Rachel’s story

  Growing up in a repressive religious cult meant that Rachel always believed the outside world was evil. But when sensitive rocker Beau opens her eyes to life outside the compound walls, she learns that he’s the sweetest sin she’s ever seen.

  His Secret Heart

  Finn and Sky’s story

  Sky was certain she knew everything she needed to know about volatile, unpredictable bad boy Finn King. But when her world turns upside down, she realizes everything she thought she knew is wrong.

  Coming Soon:

  Claire’s story

  Crown Creek Standalone:

  Last Good Man

  Cooper and Willa’s story

  Willa hates Cooper. But when she wakes up in a hospital room, he’s the one who’s there waiting - rumpled, frantic… And swearing she’s his fiancee.

  Coming soon:

  Ryan and Naomi’s story

  Sadie’s story

  Visit theresaleighromance.com for more

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  A quick note to readers

  Prologue

  1. Sky

  2. Sky

  3. Finn

  4. Finn

  5. Finn

  6. Sky

  7. Finn

  8. Sky

  9. Finn

  10. Sky

  11. Finn

  12. Sky

  13. Sky

  14. Finn

  15. Sky

  16. Finn

  17. Finn

  18. Sky

  19. Sky

  20. Finn

  21. Sky

  22. Finn

  23. Sky

  24. Finn

  25. Sky

  26. Sky

  27. Finn

  28. Sky

  29. Finn

  30. Finn

  31. Sky

  32. Finn

  33. Sky

  34. Finn

  35. Sky

  36. Finn

  37. Sky

  38. Finn

  39. Sky

  40. Finn

  41. Finn

  42. Sky

  43. Sky

  44. Finn

  45. Sky

  46. Finn

  47. Sky

  48. Sky

  49. Finn

  50. Sky

  51. Sky

  52. Finn

  53. Sky

  54. Sky

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Sweet Crazy Song

  Ruby

  Excerpt from Fool Me Once

  Autumn

  Cole

  Books by Theresa Leigh

  Don’t miss a thing!

  More ways to connect!

  Author’s Note

  Finn King is a character with undiagnosed mental illness. As such, this book touches on topics of depression and briefly mentions suicide. If these subjects are at all triggering for you, please proceed with caution.

  A quick note to readers

  As I wrote His Secret Heart, it became clear that I needed to tell what happened in the gap between when Soft Wild Ache ends and this book begins. I filled in that gap with four brand new chapters at the end of SoftWild Ache. If you have not read those chapters, you can read them at my website! If you’d like to read them now, before starting His Secret Heart, Click here!

  Prologue

  Sky

  I unfolded my cramping legs and stumbled from the driver’s seat. Steadying myself against the door, I blinked at the sign in front of me. As if I could somehow rearrange the words into an order that made sense.

  Blink.

  Blink.

  But even as the letters swam together in my confused tears, they still formed the same three words.

  Lowry Funeral Home.

  This was it. This was where my father’s funeral was being held.

  But what I couldn’t understand was… why?

  Was it strange that I was stuck on that? Not on the fact that my father was dead. No, his sudden death while I was on the road - unaware that he’d even been ill - was not what was tripping me up.

  The loss of my sole remaining parent? The loss of my hope for home and security now that I lost my job? I skipped right over that. The shock, the confusion, the grief - it all glanced right off of me without even sticking.

  But the fact that his funeral was here? In a town I’d never been in? Almost an hour away from where he’d lived?

  That was what my free-falling mind had chosen to grab onto. That was what had taken on the most importance to me. I clung to that question like a drowning woman grips a piece of wreckage after her ship sinks. That question gave me a purpose. A reason not to fall to pieces.

  Why was his funeral… here?

  A stiff breeze blew past, sharply colder than the still-warm September air. It carried the smell of campfire and the promise of autumn around the corner as it lifted my hair away from my face.

  Except for the few pieces still stuck fast in the tracks of my tears.

  I palmed them away and wiped at my eyes with my sleeves. I hadn’t even known I was crying, but it made sense. Grief kept sneaking up on me, sniffing around like a dog in search of a place to spend the night, but I kept shoving it away. I knew that I’d feel the throbbing hurt later, because pushing things to the side was a particular talent of mine. I could go go go for months on end, running too fast for the exhaustion and loneliness to catch up. But it always did.

  But not now. Now I had questions.

  I shut my car door and scanned the cars. As if I’d recognize someone from Reckless Falls. As if somehow I’d find answers immediately. I’d almost hoped to be able to wave an old neighbor down. “How did he die?” I imagined asking one of the Abbott boys. “Was he alone?”

  There were no Abbotts here. Or anyone else that might know these things. No one that could tell me why I’d only learned about the swift, merciless cancer once he was gone. No one waiti
ng around to explain why he’d never called his only daughter to say goodbye.

  Grief nudged at me again. I shoved it away with more questions, firing them out one after another like a reporter hot on the heels of a scoop. Who paid for his care? Who sat by his bedside? Who arranged this funeral?

  Why were they holding in a town that didn’t know Bill Clarence?

  I blinked at the cars again and amended that last question.

  How did so many people here in Crown Creek know Bill Clarence?

  An elderly couple emerged from their pristine Cadillac and shuffled towards the entrance. The old woman clutched a tiny white dog to her chest, and the old man had a paper bag of groceries tucked under his arm. I'd never seen them before. But I was confused and they weren't scary, so I fell in step behind them with a nervous smile tugging at my lips.

  They didn't acknowledge me at all, even when we entered the funeral home together. .

  The door swung shut behind us, leaving us in a silence so sudden it made my ears ring. I’d always felt a little claustrophobic indoors. Like the four walls surrounded my heart as well as my body, encasing it in concrete so that each beat was a struggle.

  I tried to take a deep breath to slow my panic. But my nose filled with the sickeningly fake scent of flowers and I sneezed instead.

  I was surrounded by lilies. Lilies on the tables. Lilies on the floor. They lined the walls like an honor guard, waiting for me to start walking.

  So I did. The carpet was a deep burgundy the exact shade of dried blood. And it was so thickly padded that it swallowed the sound of my footsteps entirely as it led me down the hall.

  I slowed and then stopped in front of the sign set up in the very center.

  Once again, it took several tries before I could get the letters to arrange themselves into words. Names, I suddenly realized. These were the names of the people for whom the wakes were being held. Mourners for Dennis Ridge should head to the right. And mourners for William Knight needed to go left.

  William Knight?

  A faint, slippery hope skipped across my chest when I saw the wrong last name. I wanted to reach out and cling to it the way I was clinging to the strangeness of the funeral location. Yes, yes of course! I wanted to cry with relief. This was all a mistake! Of course my Dad isn’t dead! How could I have ever thought otherwise?

  This is all just a very bad dream!

  When you try to read in dreams, the words never stay in one place. They skip around the page, flitting like butterflies and refusing to stay put.

  I read and re-read the name William Knight. If this was a nightmare, it would surely start changing.

  When it didn't, I knew this wasn't a nightmare. This was real life. I had arrived in a strange town to attend my Daddy's wake. But the name on this sign wasn't Bill Clarence.

  A sick heave of dread turned over in my stomach. I didn’t know what it meant that it wasn’t the right name, but the hair on my arms was standing up all the same.

  I swallowed down the lump of fear in my throat. Then I turned to the left.

  Towards the wake of William Knight.

  My feet sank into the deep carpet as I dragged myself to the room where the casket lay. I could turn around now, and follow a trail of my own footprints right out of this surreal waking nightmare.

  But I had to know. Questions raced around in my head, searching for answers I wouldn't get if I turned and left right now. So I forced myself to keep moving forward until I finally burst into the room.

  And stopped short.

  A throng of people gathered in tight clumps in front of an ornate wooden casket. I searched their faces as I approached, but didn't recognize any of them.

  Except the face of the man in the casket.

  Lying there, his hands folded across his chest, was the answer to one of my questions. A simple, straightforward answer, but it hit me like a blow to the chest.

  Question: Was my father really dead?

  Answer: Yes.

  My breath left my lungs. I staggered to the kneeler and sank down as the strength left my legs. Then I knelt over him and whispered, "Daddy?"

  His hair was longer, slicked back from a wasted face ravaged by a disease I didn’t even know he’d had. I reached out, wanting to touch him. Then pulled back when I felt the unnatural cold that clung to him. My hand hovered over his face and then I lost my nerve and put it lightly over his hands. “Daddy?”

  His hands were icy, the cold piercing and strangely metallic. I snatched my hand away and stared.

  There on his left hand was a wedding ring. It was solid and silver and heavy.

  And it didn’t belong there at all.

  My father and mother never married. Before she split, my mother sometimes wore earrings she said were a gift from my Daddy. But her hands - and his hands - were always unadorned.

  I swallowed. Then swallowed again. But I couldn’t dislodge the terror that stuck in my throat. As I brushed my fingertip over the ice-cold, inexplicable ring, a wave of nausea hit me so hard I had to push back.

  Standing, whirling, I clapped my hands over my mouth before I lost everything in my stomach. Frantically, I searched the crowd of mourners, looking for Janet, for Bee, for Harper… Anyone who’d known my father... Who knew me and could tell me… anything…

  But in the sea of faces, there wasn’t a single familiar one. There wasn't a single friendly one either.

  I saw open-mouthed shock. I saw distaste and contempt. I saw pure hatred that I didn’t understand on faces I didn’t recognize at all. Not a single one - except..,

  I stopped short when a man around my age stood up from where he’d been leaning over a sobbing woman. When he looked at me it was with my father’s eyes. My eyes. The ones that stared back at me when I looked in a mirror. The same deep-set blue framed by heavy dark brows that slashed across his face.

  They were eyes that were so familiar I almost smiled at him. But he was a complete stranger.

  He stood up straighter when he saw me. Then he stepped back, dropping into a defensive pose like he expected me to spring at him. He dropped his hand down to shoulder of the sobbing woman. It looked like he was trying hold her down. Trying to keep her from turning and seeing… me.

  “Don’t,” the man with my father’s eyes warned. Whether he was talking to her or to me, I wasn’t sure.

  But either way…

  It was too late.

  She saw me.

  It took half a breath for me to take her in - same age as me, same hair as mine, same build, same height - and for her to do the same to me. Her face went from sorrow to surprise...

  To rage.

  With a hoarse cry, she threw the restraining hand off her shoulder and vaulted to her feet. Her face contorted into a mask of such pure hatred that I faltered backwards and nearly lost my footing.

  “You!” she shouted. Her voice rang out, echoing off the walls in spite of the deadening silence. She stabbed her finger at me like she wished it was a knife. “You… bitch! How dare you?” I clutched at the kneeler as her voice rose to a piercing shriek. “You have got some nerve, you little cunt! How dare you show your face here? How dare you?”

  Chapter One

  Sky

  Eighteen years ago

  I am seven years old - though I will correct you if you forget to add the “and one-quarter.” It’s a bright October day two weeks before Halloween and I’ve known what I want my costume to be for weeks now. I’ve already told everyone I know about my plans to be a black cat. “Because they’re supposed to be unlucky, right? And my birthday is on Friday the thirteenth too,” I’d explain. “But I don’t believe in bad luck.”

  My Daddy would like that. He doesn’t believe in bad luck either. He believes - like I do - that you make your own luck. So I know he’ll chuckle when I tell him my costume plan. He’ll see the significance right away.

  I hate that he’s going to be the last to know.