Heartland (2 page)

She blinked when the realization hit her. The songs weren’t the problem nor were the studio musicians playing on the record. She was. “I don’t want to talk about my career. I want to talk about my baby. Is there any way we can determine if it’s okay?” As she laid her trembling hand on her belly, she silently prayed to a God she doubted would listen to anything she asked of Him.
Please let my baby be okay.

Dr. Barton looked down at his hands, then went back to his big leather chair and sat. “I’d like you to meet with a colleague of mine. Doctor Marcella Summers is an OB/Gynecologist who specializes in babies born to addicted mothers. She’d be the person who might know the answer to your question.”

She faced the wide windows again, but the early summer day and the forested mountains surrounding the center weren’t what she saw. “Okay.”

How was she going to handle a baby? Hell, she could barely take care of herself. What if it had a major problem from all the crap she’d put into her body?

She closed her eyes and fisted her hand over her belly. Dear God, what would Fabian say about the baby? He’d warned her when they got married he didn’t want any kids. Would he blame the pregnancy on her as he had many other things over the past two years?

“Emily, I don’t know an addict who easily admits they are one.” Dr. Barton broke into a tirade of questions bombarding her. “By your own admission, you use cocaine at least four times a week, but most weeks you use it every day.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. He swiped his finger over his tablet, then paused to read more of her medical record. “In August twenty-eighteen, your father admitted you to Fernwood when he found you passed out on your tour bus. According to your blood toxin levels, you were only a snort of coke away from overdosing; then in June of last year, you were admitted after falling off stage and breaking your arm. Again, your blood work showed dangerous amounts of cocaine and alcohol.”

Although she snickered at the memory, the humor choked in her throat, and she sobered. That had been her last stadium show. Tabloid and entertainment reporters hounded her after her release from Fernwood. Fabian’s own career also took a nosedive when he was arrested for drunk driving and resisting arrest. The two of them and their antics had been a favorite topic in even mainstream news since then.

He cleared his throat and folded his hands in front of him. “Your blood results weren’t as toxic this time, but if you don’t make an honest attempt to get clean and stay clean, not only will you jeopardize your child, you’re going to end up dead.”

The truth smacked her hard in the gut. She was an addict. Up until now, she never believed she was one. She used coke and drank gin because she liked them, not because she couldn’t live without them. At the reality, she curled her hand into a fist over the sour pain in her belly and admitted to herself she used drugs to deal with life and all of its shit.

Would she have become screwed up if she’d never met Fabian McPhee? Or had she been destined to a life of drug use due to her messed up childhood and sudden superstardom? Who knew? She hated the man who first introduced her to drugs and destroyed much of her life. Her country music career was dead, and the fans she’d garnered when she put out a total pop album a year and half ago at Fabian’s insistence had abandoned her. She hadn’t spoken to or seen her parents, except from a distance at award shows, since her marriage. Since severing her ties with her mom and dad, she hadn’t seen her four-year-old brother. Now, she was responsible for developing a tiny baby who may end up paying for her lousy judgment.

She turned and met the doctor’s patient brown eyes. The man had to be a saint to manage the care of spoiled brat idiots like her. “Okay, Dr. Barton. I’m an addict. I use coke because I can’t deal with life.” She squared her shoulders and let out a breath. “There, I owned it. Set up the appointment with the OB. But there’s something else I’d like you to do.” One of the conditions of admission into Fernwood was no contact with the outside world except for approved visitors on an extremely short list. “I want to file for divorce before I tell Fabian about the baby.”

The doctor’s surprise registered in the slightest widening of his eyes. “If that is want you want.”

Emily couldn’t help the snort as she sat in the chair in front of the desk again. “Oh, don’t be coy, Dr. Barton. I know you’ve been hoping I’d ditch Fabian McPhee since the first time my father dragged my sorry ass into this place a year and a half ago.” She looked at her hands as a rare moment of clarity blasted away the rosy sheen she’d painted over her life with her husband. “My counselor is right. Fabian and I do have a crazy love type of relationship. He might not beat me, but he has made me dependent on him by making me an addict.”

For the first time in years, she felt relief flood over her. She smiled and met the doctor’s eyes again. “For my baby and for me, I have to get away from him.”

* * * *

Emily laid a t-shirt in her suitcase and turned at the knock on the doorframe. She smiled at the willowy woman as she entered the room. “I’m glad to see you. I’m ready to get out of here.”

The eight weeks she’d been a resident of the rehab had been the longest time she’d ever stayed, but once she faced her demons and committed herself, she didn’t want to leave until she was free of her addiction.

Trish tucked her medium-length bright red hair behind her ear. “Paul isn’t happy about postponing your record,” she said, referring to the CEO of Midland
Records. “But I convinced him you needed a break to get completely sober and stay that way.”

Emily laid another t-shirt in the case. Her reason for being at Fernwood was no secret, but the only person outside of her doctors who knew about her pregnancy was Trish. After telling her, Emily asked her to convince her record company to push her production deadline to sometime in the future. “He doesn’t suspect anything, does he?”

Trish sat on the overstuffed chair in the corner of the modest room. “No. I made a convincing case about your wanting to finally quit the drugs. He’s not happy, but he’s also glad.”

Emily moved the suitcase off to the side and sat on the edge of the bed, facing Trish. “Has Fabian signed the divorce papers?”

“Yes. Reese is filing them today, in fact.” Reese Goodwin was a family friend and a Nashville divorce lawyer. “Your divorce should be final by the end of the month.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath full of relief. Although she hadn’t demanded anything of Fabian, she feared he’d delay signing the papers to end their ill-fated marriage. “Thank God.”

Trish leaned back in the chair and folded her hands in her lap. “When are you going to tell him about the baby?”

With a shrug, Emily stood, opened a dresser drawer, and pulled out a stack of bras. As she set them in her bag, she said, “I’ll set up a meeting with him sometime before I go home to Texas.”

She planned to get out of Nashville before she started showing. At almost four months pregnant, she knew she was on borrowed time.

“How do you think he’ll take the news?”

Emily went back to the drawer and took out a stack of panties. “Hopefully, he won’t take the news well and will leave me and my baby the hell alone.”

She swallowed at the thought of her baby never knowing her father like she hadn’t known Seth, but Fabian wasn’t a good man. Despite being nearly forty years old, he still partied too hard and didn’t take much seriously. He’d wasted most of his own fortune and a large portion of hers on fast cars, drugs, and lavish parties. She gritted her teeth until her jaw hurt at how stupid she’d been to let him manipulate her.

“He didn’t fight about selling the penthouse and the mansion?” Three months after they were married, Fabian talked her into moving out of her downtown Craftsman home she’d bought on her eighteenth birthday and into buying a twenty-million-dollar estate outside of Nashville. The place was too big and flashy and put a considerable dent into her savings. He’d convinced her by arguing that as two successful entertainers, they were expected to live in such extravagance. Besides, he swore he’d pay his share of the cost. Instead, he conned her into buying a penthouse in Manhattan. He spent a lot of time there, but she hated New York and preferred to live in Nashville.

“He wants the penthouse.” Trish pulled her iPad out of her purse. The woman never went anywhere without the thing. “But he’s okay with selling the Nashville property and letting you keep the money from the sale if he can keep the penthouse.”

“I’m glad he wants the penthouse.” Emily closed her suitcase and smiled as she turned to face Trish with her hand over the slight swell of her belly. “Because then I have a bargaining chip to keep him away from us.”

Chapter 2

Today marked the second anniversary of his wife’s overdose.

McAllister County, Texas, sheriff EJ Cowley hated the memory of finding Raquel in the bathtub and of their hungry six-month-old son screaming from his crib. He’d lain in his soiled diaper for at least five hours. Raquel’s body had been colder than the water. Two empty medication bottles were found on the floor by the edge of the tub: one held Adderall and the other Zoloft. She had been given the latter medicine to help deal with her postpartum depression. She’d taken Adderall as a kid for ADHD, but as an adult had outgrown the need for it. He’d discovered afterward she’d bought the pills on the internet using a bank account he hadn’t been aware she had. She’d become addicted to the amphetamine after the birth of their son, which formed a deadly combination with the antidepressant when taken in larger doses than a doctor would prescribe. However, the bottle of Zoloft she’d emptied hadn’t been hers.

The purr of a high performance car engine broke the silence along the two-lane country road passing his driveway. He shook the memory away and focused down the long straight stretch of road heading toward town. The early morning sun glinted off the windshield of an oncoming car racing toward him.

“Damn.” He hated ticketing speeders, but not because he disagreed with speeding laws. He disliked the stinking attitude most took up when they were stopped. After a night filled with cold-sweat inducing dreams interspersed with his two-year-old son’s painful cries from a belly ache, the last thing he wanted to deal with was a smart-assed mouth.

When the fast cherry-red sports car passed, he clocked it at sixty miles per hour in a forty-five speed zone. Putting the portable siren he kept in his Silverado on top of the cab, he pulled out of his driveway and followed. The vehicle in front of him slowed and pulled over as he gained on it.

As he reached in the glove box for his pad of tickets, he whistled between his teeth. A Maserati with a Tennessee plate. His computer was in his official Tahoe, which was parked at the station, but he could ticket the driver and enter the citation when he got to the office. Opening the door, he picked up his hat from the side seat and put it on his head as he slid out of the pickup. He caught the female driver watching him through her side mirror and got a glimpse of dark reddish hair and big-lensed sunglasses covering most of a slender face from her reflection.

She straightened in the leather seat and smiled as he stopped at the driver’s door, ducking down to look at her. Despite the sunglasses covering her green eyes, he knew her. The magazines and TV hadn’t done her justice. She was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. Her auburn hair was styled in a short pixie cut that seemed to make her look even more like a fairy than he’d thought of her when she was younger. A sudden flutter hit his gut and rattled his thoughts. What the hell was he nervous about? He’d met famous people before. Besides, he’d known this girl all of her life.

In spite of the reason he’d stopped her, he smiled. “Well, if it isn’t Emily Ritter. Haven’t seen you around here for years.”

Her smile fell the moment the name
Ritter
slipped out of his mouth. “I don’t go by that name any more and haven’t since I was fourteen.” She shot back as she glanced at his badge and the nametag above it on his uniform shirt. “Edward James Cowley.” The smile returned, but this time it held a hint of mischief. She must have remembered how much he hated his full name and used it to get back at him for his flub. “You’re the sheriff now? You get out of the Army?”

“I got out a little over two years ago, and yes, I’m the sheriff.” EJ pushed the brim of his hat over his forehead. God, he had to focus. “The reason I stopped you wasn’t to engage in small talk. You were speeding. I’ll need to see your driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance.”

“C’mon, since when does anyone care about speeding on this old stretch of cow path?” She removed her sunglasses to reveal eyes the color of spring grass. They’d always seemed to mesmerize him, even when she was a kid, and now wasn’t any different. “Hell, the only people out here are my family, the Ritters, your family, and the Campbells.”

Her voice broke the trance her beauty put him under. She definitely wasn’t the girl who’d followed him around when she’d come over to the Double K to visit John Kendall, never knowing the old rancher was her grandfather.

“Actually, I own the Campbells’ place. They sold the Arrowhead Ranch a year ago after Uncle Joe had a heart attack. He and Aunt Sally moved to Arizona to be closer to my mom and dad.” He had to remember this woman wasn’t the innocent little girl he’d teased any more. Or a stunning woman he’d like to get to know better. From what he’d heard on the radio and from the tabloid covers he’d read while standing in line at the grocery store, she’d turned into a drug addict and party hellion after marrying a British rock star. He didn’t even like her music anymore, and there was a time, he’d thought she had the voice of an angel. The thought of her throwing away her talent on booze and drugs sent a spear of anger through him. Someday she’d undoubtedly end up as dead as Raquel had.