Heart of Gold - By Tami Hoag Page 0,55
a life together there at Keepsake, a nice, quiet life. And a family. Tingles fizzed through her like champagne bubbles at the thought of carrying Shane’s baby, of holding it and nursing it at her breast while Shane looked on, proud and content.
Turning away from the ocean, she let her gaze wander over the lovely, rolling land that belonged to her, to the eccentric complex of houses that made up her inn. Due west of her, beyond her long driveway and to the other side of the road, the wild meadowland gave way abruptly to rugged hills beautifully cloaked in deep green forest that looked nearly black now in the fading light. And just a few yards to the north of where she stood sat the caretaker’s cottage—a small whitewashed stone building with a slate roof and a bright red door. It marked the northern border of her property with a distinctively Irish flare.
Yes, this would be a perfect place to raise a family. It would be a perfect place for Shane to settle and shed the shell he’d encased his tender feelings in to protect them from a world of grim reality. Faith closed her eyes and pictured the scenes clearly in her mind, praying with all her might that she wasn’t just wasting her time romanticizing, letting her heart chase rainbows.
She checked her watch and heaved a sigh. It was time to head back to the house. Banks wanted to go over the particulars of their plan once again. But as long as she was so close, she decided she would stop in to check on Agent Matthews first. The poor guy had scarcely been allowed to set foot out of the cottage because he was the expert when it came to the phone tap and that was where his equipment had been set up. She bit her lip and winced at the thought of having to share living space with the noisome, irascible Mr. Fitz. Del Matthews deserved some kind of commendation for sacrifice above and beyond the call of duty.
Bringing her fist up to knock at the door, Faith frowned when it moved inward on its hinges as she applied pressure. “Mr. Matthews?” she called as she stuck her head inside.
The place seemed dead quiet. The lights had not been turned on. Shadows swallowed up all the corners of the cluttered living room, giving the place an eerie cast. The furniture was old and worn. Books were jammed haphazardly into a built-in case in one wall. An angry-looking steelhead trout stared down at her from its mount above the cold stone fire place.
“Mr. Matthews?” Faith called again, inching her way inside. “Mr. Fitz?”
Silence was her answer. Gooseflesh rippled the skin on her arms, but she ignored it and continued on into the cottage.
She found Matthews in the small main-floor bedroom sitting with his back to the door, monitoring his machines, earphones clamped on his head. Faith breathed a sigh of relief, only briefly wondering why he hadn’t turned on a light.
“There you are,” she said, crossing the room. She stopped beside his chair, but the questions that had formed in her mind never made it any farther than her throat. She tapped Del Matthews on the shoulder, and his body suddenly slumped sideways and sprawled onto the floor at her feet.
Faith clamped a hand to her chest as if to keep her racing heart from leaping out. For just an instant she froze as her mind absorbed the visual information. Del Matthews was dead. Realizing that, she took two steps backward, ready to whirl and run. She had to get to Shane.
“How thoughtful of you to come down to the cottage, Faith,” a dark, silky voice murmured in her ear. “You’ve saved me a great deal of trouble.”
At the sound of that voice every muscle in her body tensed with a speed and intensity that was painful. She didn’t have to turn around to know it was the barrel of a gun she felt pressing into her spine. The metallic taste of fear washed through her mouth. The need to see her tormentor surged through her but was overridden by the feel of the pistol in her back. The sensation of a weight crushing her chest reminded her to start breathing again, though the tension in her muscles prevented much more than a shallow gasp.
“Who are you? Why are you doing this?” she asked, managing nothing more than a raw whisper.
“Why, I’m an old friend of