Forever My Hero

  Also by Sharon Sala

  Blessings, Georgia

  Count Your Blessings (novella)

  You and Only You

  I’ll Stand By You

  Saving Jake

  A Piece of My Heart

  The Color of Love

  Come Back to Me

  Thank you for downloading this Sourcebooks eBook!

  You are just one click away from…

  • Being the first to hear about author happenings

  • VIP deals and steals

  • Exclusive giveaways

  • Free bonus content

  • Early access to interactive activities

  • Sneak peeks at our newest titles

  Happy reading!

  CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

  Books. Change. Lives.

  Copyright © 2019 by Sharon Sala

  Cover and internal design © 2019 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover design by Dawn Adams/Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover image © DenisTangneyJr/Getty Images

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  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—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  Fax: (630) 961-2168

  sourcebooks.com

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  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

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Sneak peek at A Rainbow Above Us

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  Life is in a constant state of evolution. As long as we’re breathing, we’re changing.

  Life is also a journey with lessons. How we react to the changes are the lessons. Do we let the changes destroy us, or do we figure out another way to incorporate the change and move on?

  This sweet story, about two people trying to figure out where they belong, is a story of hope, perseverance, and the revelation that love is fluid and never-ending.

  We don’t lose love. It just moves to another place and waits for us to catch up.

  Chapter 1

  The morning sun was still wet behind the ears as Danner Amos walked out of his house to get the Sunday paper. As he bent over to pick it up, he heard the sound of a car engine rev up and noticed his neighbor, Elliot Graham, was backing from his drive. It was obvious from where he was standing that Elliot was on a collision course with one of two small shrubs at the end of his driveway, but he was going too fast for Dan to warn him.

  Sure enough, Elliot rolled right over it, then braked, put the car in drive, and rolled over it again as he went back up his driveway to try again.

  Dan was trying not to laugh, but when Elliot put the car in reverse and took another try at backing out, he rolled right over the one on the other side instead.

  Dan laughed at the expression of disgust on Elliot’s face. Then Elliot saw him, rolled down his window, and yelled, “I meant to do that!” Then he smiled and waved before zipping off down the street.

  Dan was still chuckling as he headed back inside. His plan for the day was food and watching football on TV. If the renters he was responsible for didn’t have any issues, it would be great.

  * * *

  Elliot’s plan was completely different. He’d had a dream last night about Gray Goose Lake, which made him remember the overlook where he and his wife, Helena, had always picnicked. Today, he was going back to that overlook to paint the scene from that viewpoint. It would be a wonderful reminder of happier times that he could frame, and he had the perfect place to hang it.

  His drive out to the lake was relaxing, and when he parked and got out, he put on his painting hat—an old, paint-stained Panama hat with a wide, floppy brim—then began to gather up what he wanted to take with him.

  It had been a few years since he’d been to the lake, and the hiking trail was a bit overgrown. Elliot stumbled once and dropped his paint box, then had to gather up the tubes of oil paint that fell out. Even after all that, he reached his destination only slightly out of breath. Once he set up his folding easel and the little portable folding stool, he opened his box of paints, prepared his brushes, and then sat for a few moments, just enjoying the view and talking to his long-deceased wife.

  “Look, Helena! There is an eagle perched at the top of that big pine straight across the lake. Oh, how magnificent. I must remember to put him in the painting…just for you.”

  He felt a slight breeze against the back of his neck and smiled. There was no wind today. Only his love.

  Without any further delay, he picked up a piece of charcoal pencil and began to rough in the scene, delineating the horizon, then where the tree line would be. He sketched in the shape of the shoreline, and then the boat ramp just to the left, and tossed the charcoal back into the box.

  His first choice of paint was to mix what would be the darkest colors in the lake. Dark was depth, and a painting was nothing without depth—like a person was nothing without depth of character—and he applied the paint to the canvas with a palette knife, giving contour and texture. The lighter colors would come in later on top of the darker, and then the lightest color, which would be glints of sunlight on the ripples, would be added last.

  The sun rose higher, but Elliot’s hat kept the sun from his face. He was totally into the work, oblivious of everything around him.

  * * *

  While most of the people this morning were just sitting down to breakfast, Junior and Albert Rankin had headed straight to their granny’s old cabin at the back side of their land. Today was sale day, and they were ready to load up their latest marijuana harvest, which they’d let cure at the cabin. They wasted no time loading the boat they were pulling, and as soon as they were finished, they covered it with a tarp, and then drove off their property and headed for the woods around Gray Goose Lake to check their grow patches before heading down to the lake to meet their buyer.

  They’d been growing weed under their daddy’s nose for two years now. They might be accused of being too confident, but Big Tom Rankin had a girlfriend, and when he wasn’t at his job at the local feed store in Blessings, his
spare time was taken up with her.

  Big Tom’s wife, Lillian, had died when her sons were twelve and fourteen, leaving Big Tom in grief and his sons on their own too much. By the time both boys were in high school, they were raising a small patch of tobacco on the farm to help subsidize their dad’s small paycheck.

  Many years later, they were still growing tobacco, taking care of the family’s small herd of cattle, and keeping everything in running order. But the dividends they received as small-time farmers weren’t enough to suit them anymore.

  Once they were satisfied all was well at their grow sites, they headed for the lake to their usual boat ramp, unloaded the boat into the water, then started the outboard motor and headed out to the middle of the lake to fish while they waited for their buyer, Oscar Langston, to arrive from Savannah.

  Oscar used the same cover that the Rankin brothers used to meet his suppliers, by arriving with his boat and fishing gear. Once he reached the lake and got his boat out on the water, he would meet up with the Rankin brothers and go to their boat ramp, where they unloaded the packaged products from one boat to the other, exchanged money, and then went their separate ways.

  They were still out on the lake fishing when Oscar arrived, but he didn’t head for the boat ramp as usual. He was red in the face and angry, which made them nervous. Then Oscar circled their boat, making them bob in the wake of his larger boat as he pulled up beside them.

  “What’s going on?” Junior asked.

  “I’m in a hurry. One of my other suppliers shorted me, and I have pissed-off buyers waiting for product. I don’t have time to follow you to shore. Start passing me the goods. Here’s the money,” he said, and handed over a large envelope.

  Albert counted the pay while Junior pulled the tarp aside and started handing over package after package of weed. They were down to the very last packages when Albert noticed someone up on the cliff on the west side of the lake. Someone who had a ringside seat to what they’d been doing.

  “Junior! Someone is on the cliff!”

  Junior Rankin looked up, saw a man sitting on the cliff looking straight at them. “What the hell?”

  Oscar’s voice deepened in anger. “Hurry up. Unload those last two packages ASAP. I’m outta here!”

  Junior tossed the last two packages into the boat.

  “You don’t leave witnesses. Get rid of him!” Oscar said.

  Albert gasped. “We don’t kill people!”

  Oscar pointed a finger straight at Albert’s face. “Well, I do.”

  Junior paled. He got the message. If they didn’t get rid of the witness, Oscar would get rid of them.

  “Don’t worry, Oscar. I’ll make sure we’re in the clear,” he said.

  Oscar glared, started the engine, and took off across the lake, then soon disappeared from view.

  Junior glanced at the man up on the overlook across the lake. “Well, hell.”

  Albert was already shaking his head.

  “Just come with me to keep watch. I’ll do it,” Junior said.

  Albert was a grown man, but he started to cry. “I won’t have a part in this. Not even to keep watch. You take me back to the shore. I’ll walk home.”

  Junior frowned. “Dammit, Albert! You’re just as much a part of this as I am.”

  “No! No, I’m not!” Albert shouted. “I help you grow weed…but I don’t help anybody commit murder.”

  “Well, you’re coming with me, so shut the hell up and—”

  Before Junior knew what was happening, Albert kicked off his shoes and went headfirst out of their boat and started swimming for the opposite shore.

  “Shit,” Junior said. He knew his brother. When he said no, he meant it, regardless of the reason, so this was definitely left up to him.

  He started up their outboard engine and headed for a spot farther down on the west shore.

  He reached shore out of sight of his target, pulled the boat up far enough that it wouldn’t float back out on the lake, then started running up through the trees. The closer he got to the man, the more anxious he became. Could he really do this? Could he kill another human being?

  But if he didn’t, what was going to happen to him and Albert? What if Daddy found out? What if the law found out and arrested both of them? He would never get over the shame of going to prison. It would kill Daddy. He and Albert would be the first Rankins ever to be in trouble with the law. All the generations before them had been honorable men, and he and Albert would be the ones to ruin their name. And while he was berating himself for the mess they were in, he walked right up on the man he’d come to kill.

  What the hell? He’s an old man, and he’s just painting a picture. I don’t have to do this. I’m not going to do this.

  But as he stood there, unobserved, his focus shifted from the man to the picture he was painting, and he stifled a groan. The man was painting the scene before him, and squarely in the middle of the lake, he’d painted the two boats and men loading packages from one boat to the other.

  Of course no one would ever know who it was in the boats. He’d painted them very small and hardly more than blobs of color, but people in Blessings would wonder, and if asked, the old man could obviously elaborate on what he’d seen. People in Blessings would question what possible reason men would have to be loading goods from one boat to another out in the middle of Gray Goose Lake.

  Junior felt like crying. God, he just wanted to be a kid again. This wasn’t something he could let go after all. He looked all around beneath the trees for a weapon before taking a step because he knew the sound would give him away. There were dead limbs beneath a tree to his left, so he focused on one and picked it up as he came out of the trees, swinging as he went without giving the old man time to react to the sounds behind him.

  The limb made a solid thunk against the old man’s head, somewhat reminiscent of the sound a watermelon makes as it bursts apart. The sound startled Junior, but not as much as the sight of the old man sliding off his stool and crumpling onto the ground.

  For a heartbeat, Junior was frozen in place, and then he thought about what he’d just done and ran over to make sure it was a one-blow deal. He felt for a pulse, but was shaking so hard he couldn’t tell if the man was dead or alive. He thought about tossing him over the cliff and down into the water, but couldn’t do it. He looked down at the painting and without thinking, jammed a hole in the canvas where the old man had painted the two boats. Then he broke a limb off a nearby bush and used it to scrub out his footprints as he backed away, and kept brushing them out until he was a long ways away.

  At that point, he dropped the limb and ran the rest of the way back to his boat. He fell twice trying to push the boat back into the water and was soaked by the time he got it far enough offshore to float. He crawled in, tripped and stumbled all the way back to the outboard motor to start the engine, then left a rooster tail of water in his wake.

  He couldn’t get the sound of breaking the old man’s skull out of his head and was crying by the time he finally reached the other shore. He loaded the boat back up on their trailer, jumped in the truck, and headed for home.

  But the thought of home reminded him of Albert. Was he already there? Did he call Daddy and tell him what they’d done, or would he just keep quiet about everything? Junior wasn’t sure. All he knew was this shit was far from over. If he was still alive when day broke tomorrow, he was going to destroy every grow patch they had and call it quits.

  * * *

  Albert had his own tribulations getting to shore, and there was a time or two he wasn’t sure he’d make it. By the time he felt solid ground beneath his feet, he was neck deep in water and as exhausted as he’d ever been as he walked the rest of the way to the shore.

  He was shaking from the chill of the water when he started toward home, which was a good three miles as the crow flies. Even though he was going to
do this barefoot, he started running, taking the crow’s route, which was for him a shortcut through the woods.

  The ground was covered in fallen leaves and brambles, hidden rocks and broken limbs, but he was so scared he barely felt the pain. By the time he reached the fence around the pasture behind their house, there was a sharp pain in his side and he was gasping for breath. The muscles in his legs were shaking so hard that he was afraid if he stopped, he’d pass out where he stood.

  Thank God his daddy had gone to church with his girlfriend that morning. He’d have the house to himself to get cleaned up. But his feet were going to be another matter. They were beginning to burn. He was afraid to look at how many cuts and thorns were likely in his feet, and God knows when he’d be able to put shoes on again.

  He didn’t know yet how he was going to explain that away, but he’d think of something. These days, their father-son relationship was down to hellos and goodbyes.

  He was still moving as he stumbled through the cow lot, and beginning to hobble as he reached their backyard. The familiar sight of the old two-story home made his vision blur. He and Junior had ruined everything. Almost two hundred and fifty years of the Rankin family living on Georgia soil, and look what they’d done. There wouldn’t be any others born to take over if he and Junior were in prison.

  Albert choked on a sob when he couldn’t go any farther and dropped to his hands and knees, crawling the rest of the way to the house, then up the back steps and straight into the kitchen. He crawled all the way through the house and up the stairs to the bathroom, grabbed some tweezers and a bottle of alcohol, and sat down with the bathtub at his back and finally looked at his feet. They looked like raw hamburger.

  “Oh man…I’m gonna need stitches,” he muttered, then leaned back against the tub and passed out.

  * * *

  Junior got home, grabbed Albert’s shoes out of the boat, and headed for the house. When he saw a blood trail on the back porch, he panicked and started running as he followed the trail upstairs, trying to imagine what had happened to Albert to have caused it. He found his brother passed out on the bathroom floor, saw the bottoms of his feet, and started crying all over again.