Heartless A Shieldmaiden's Voice: A Covenant Keeper Novel Read online

  STANDING IN THE boarding line for their flight out of the Cleveland airport, Carole felt the first stirrings of enthusiasm. The trip was almost over.

  Beside her Beth hoisted two travel bags over her thin shoulder, and grinned down at her mom. “This flight will be less than an hour long!”

  The gate attendant, a busty dark-skinned woman with powder blue eye shadow, issued a rote bored greeting while holding out her hand for their boarding passes.

  For several moments Beth fished inside her giant silver pocketbook. “Sorry, I thought I had them right on top.”

  “Uh-huh,” the woman replied rudely, eyeballing other first-class passengers lining up behind them.

  “That’s weird,” Beth said, pulling her bag open wider and frowning down into it. “I don’t have them.”

  “If you don’t have your boarding passes, you’re going to have to step aside.” The gate attendant tried to reach her outstretched hand towards a passenger behind Carole, but Carole wouldn’t move.

  Beth plopped her purse onto the tall counter and insisted, “I don’t have them, but we’re on this flight! Can’t we just get new ones?”

  The woman gave an exaggerated sigh. “There’s a fee to reprint. See the agent at the other end of the counter with your identification.” The woman scratched her beehive hairdo with an impossibly long manicured nail.

  Beth swirled one slim hand around her pocketbook again, then looked towards her mother. “The passports are gone too. Mom, I didn’t give everything to you did I?”

  “No, you put them in your purse at the Aberdeen airport. I saw you.”

  “That’s what I thought!”

  “Maybe they fell out during the flight,” Carole said.

  “Maybe,” Beth replied doubtfully, chewing her lip. After a moment she shook her head, her wide eyes confused as they met Carole’s. “They didn’t fall out, I know they didn’t.”

  “Ladies, you’re holding up the line.”

  Beth stepped around the counter to a more cooperative looking attendant, and told him about her missing boarding pass and passport while one hand continued to stir determinedly in her purse.

  “Your flight from Aberdeen is already airborne again, but I can have someone check for your missing passports when it reaches its destination,” the male attendant offered.

  “Do I have to wait here until then? I’m booked on this flight!”

  “Do you have any identification at all?”

  Pulling her wallet out of her purse, Beth flipped it open. Her brows tugged together and her mouth dropped open in disbelief. She displayed the open wallet to Carole. “Look at that, Mom! Everything is gone! My credit cards, even my old work badge!”

  “You’ve been pick-pocketed.”

  “No, I haven’t!” Beth insisted stubbornly. “I looked in my purse ten minutes ago. Everything was there!”

  Carole pressed her lips together to keep from arguing. Obviously Beth had been robbed. The young man behind the counter started asking her questions, punching keys on his computer. The only evidence Beth could produce was a handful of baggage claim tickets from her pocket. She dropped them on the countertop and glanced at Carole. “I don’t know what to think, but we’re going to be stuck here for a while. I can’t even rent us a car without any identification.”

  Carole said, “Well, we could always stay here.”

  Beth huffed, her breath making the wisps of hair that framed her pretty face fan out. The clear blue eyes darted around until they spotted a window and she scowled. “Where are we?”

  “Cleveland, Ohio.”

  “Mom, I wanted a small town, a pretty small town. Do you honestly think Dad is going to be happy giving up Greece for this?” She waved a disparaging hand towards the grey landscape outside the windows.

  “The Great Lakes are beautiful. Don’t judge an area based on one cloudy day.”

  Stubbornly Beth crossed her arms.

  Carole said. “When I was pregnant with you I got stranded here in a snowstorm.” She smiled at the memory. “I had the best apples here.”

  “But you didn’t stay did you?” Beth frowned at the window. “It looks like Mexico City without the sun.”

  “You loved Mexico.”

  The young man behind the counter glanced up at them. “I can get you your suitcases.”

  “At least we’ll have clothes,” Beth said. “Maybe we can find something to eat and call Dad. He could send our birth certificates.”

  “Excuse me, Miss White?” The gate attendant interrupted Beth. “You need to stay with your luggage. If you’d wait right here for a few minutes until I can get it off the plane, I’d appreciate it.”

  “I’ll find something to tide us over,” Carole reassured, “at least some juice. You get the bags.”

  “Juice would be great.” Beth leaned against the counter. “Do you have any money? Mine’s gone.”

  Carole patted a pocket of her pants and nodded.

  AT THE FAR end of the terminal Carole found a pretzel kiosk. An assortment of sugary yogurt, giant green bananas and unnaturally large oranges stood on display. Carole circled the cart, looking over the choices with mounting disappointment, spotting absolutely nothing the voices approved of.

  “I have some nice apples behind the counter,” the clerk offered, sliding several big green apples onto the counter. Carole grinned, fishing cash out of her pocket. Perfect!

  “Are there a lot of apple orchards around here?” she asked, glancing down into the little woman’s face. Carole froze.

  It was Sister Mary Josephine. The woman’s pale green eyes were fixed on the cash in Carole’s hand. “I guess I’m accepting pounds sterling today.” The nun spoke in a far more amiable voice than Carole had ever heard her use before. Stunned, Carole simply stared. The nun wasn’t dressed in her usual habit, just an ugly green dress, and her hair—the hair always hidden by her habit—was red and twisted into a tight bun. She shoved the half dozen apples to the edge of the counter and tried to nab a bill out of Carole’s fist, tugging a moment before prying it from her frozen grip.

  “Sister Mary Josephine?” Carole whispered.

  The woman frowned at her, jamming cat’s eye glasses onto her nose. “Sister? No. My name’s Abigail.”

  “Mom!” Beth shouted. Carole turned as her long-legged daughter raced gracefully towards her despite ridiculous heels on her boots. “Look!” Beth waved passports in one hand, and boarding passes in the other. “They were in the bottom of my bag! So was everything else!” She stopped in front of Carole, eyes wide. “I swear I looked, you saw me—but—it doesn’t do us any good. It’s too late. They shut the door on the aircraft, and they’re not going to let us board. So we’re stuck here until the next flight, which is tomorrow.” She glanced over Carole’s shoulder. “Oh! Those apples look great.”

  Carole turned. Six apples sat on the counter, but there was nobody in the kiosk. She scanned up and down the corridor, trying to locate the nun, but couldn’t. There’s no way—that couldn’t have been Sister Mary Josephine! Carole scooped the apples into her arms. “I guess we can at least get a car and a hotel for the night.”

  “The guy at the gate recommended a good restaurant. He said there’s a bunch of nice vegan places.” Beth nabbed an apple out of Carole’s arms and took a bite. “Oh my word, good!” she said over a mouthful, heading towards baggage claim.

  Carole looked over her shoulder, once more scanning the perimeter for Sister Mary Josephine.

  “What are you looking for?” Beth asked through another mouthful of apple.

  Carole shook her head, focusing her eyes forward. That’s impossible. It wasn’t her.

  “You know it was,” the voices whispered.

  No, not the voices—my heart.

  Without my stoic and long-suffering spouse, I doubt I could ever have finished this book. Thank you, Dear Hubby, for your patience and low expectations in the housework and meal departments. Thank you for enduring my all night writes, my off the wall research
quests, and my penchant for zoning in and out of conversations as my mind wandered to other worlds. I chose wisely.

  Thank you to my Beta readers—Bailey Catherine, Abi Victoria, Elle K. White, Lindsay Hodges, Kelsey Keating, LaDonna Cole, Katie J. Cross, Kimberly Robertson, and Frank Lattimore. Your feedback was invaluable. For the Musers, you are the wind beneath my wings, especially during all night writes! For my editor and the staff of G.E.C., you trimmed and polished this labor of love into my ideal. Thank you for your patience and expertise. You took the path less traveled, and that has made all the difference.

  Thank you, Melissa Lougher, for sharing some of your experiences about your time as a Marine in the 80s. Also a huge shout-out to Marines in the real world for all you do, Oorah! To the Warriors of Votadini, thank you for trusting me with your stories.

  And always and forever thanks to the Ragged Blue Monkeys. Every word that finds its way into print is thanks to the time I spent living on the ragged edge with you, my fellow blues.

  Thank you.

  S.R. Karfelt

  ALSO BY S.R. KARFELT

  THE COVENANT KEEPERS

  KAHTAR—WARRIOR OF THE AGES

  FOREVER—THE CONSTANTINE’S SECRET

  COMING 2015

  OTHER NOVELS

  TIME TRAVEL JEEP

  COMING 2015

  MULTI-AUTHOR COLLECTIONS

  IN CREEPS THE NIGHT

  THROUGH THE PORTAL

  CALL OF THE WARRIOR

  COMING 2015

  From entemology to teaching to business, S.R. has dabbled in many fields. Swallowed by the engineering world, she co-founded a high-tech company with her husband before returning to the other love of her life, writing.

  VISIT THE AUTHOR AT:

  www.TheGlitterGlobe.com

  www.SRKarfelt.com

  www.bhcauthors.com

  www.facebook.com/pages/S-R-Karfelt-Author/255103101179063

  www.twitter.com/SRKarfelt

  MEET THE DESIGN TEAM:

  Cover design, Interior book design,

  eBook design, and

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  www.blueharvestcreative.com

  Table of Contents

  About the Book

  Praise for HEARTLESS

  Title Page

  Copyright Information

  Dedication

  Heartless

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Also by S.R. Karfelt

  About the Author

  Visit the Author

  Meet the Designers