CHAPTER 1
APRIL 22, 2010
SAN ANTONIO ART CO-OP
SOUTHTOWN, SAN ANTONIO
The cloying stench of pot told the same old story.
With an irritated sigh Delaney Broward quickened her pace through the
warehouse-turned-art-co-op toward her brother’s studio at the far end
of the cavernous hall. On his best days Corey had little sense of time.
Add a joint to the mix and he lost his sense not only of time but of
responsibility. It also explained why he didn’t answer his phone. When
he got high and started painting, he wanted no interruptions. His
lime-green VW van was parked cattywampus across two spaces in the lot
that faced Alamo Street just south of downtown San Antonio. He might be
physically present, but his THC-soaked mind had escaped its cell.
Marijuana served as his muse and taskmaster. Or so he’d said.
The soles of her huarache sandals clacking on the concrete floor
sounded loud in Delaney’s ears. “Corey? Corey! You were supposed to pick
us up at Ellie’s. Come on, dude. She’s waiting.”
No answer.
At this rate Delaney would never get to Night in Old San Antonio,
affectionately known to most local folks as NIOSA. Everyone who was
anyone knew it was pronounced NI-O-SA, long I and long O,
the best party-slash-fundraiser during the mother of all parties where
her boyfriend would be waiting for her. “Hey, bro, I’m starving. Let’s
go.”
Delaney’s phone rang. She slowed and dug it from the pocket of her
stonewashed jeans. Speaking of Ellie. “I’m at the co-op now. He’s here.”
Share as little info as possible.
“He’s stoned again, isn’t he? I’m sick of this.” Ellie’s shrill voice rose even higher. “I swear if he stands me up again— ”
“Us. Stands us up.”
“Stood us up again. That will be it. I’m done. I’m done waiting
around for him. I’m done playing second fiddle to his self-destructive
habits. I’m done with his starving-artist, free-spirit, pothead schtick.
The man is a walking stereotype. I’m done with him, period.”
Delaney mouthed the words along with her friend. She knew the lyrics
of this lovesick song by heart. The childish rejoinder “It takes one to
know one” stuck in her throat. “We’ll be there in twenty. You can tell
him yourself.”
Ellie would and then Corey would kiss her until she took it all back. With a final huff Ellie hung up.
The door to his studio— the largest and with the best light because
the co-op was Corey’s dream child— stood open. “Seriously, Corey. Think
of someone besides yourself once in a while, please.” Delaney strode
through the door, ready to ream her brother up one side and down the
other. “You are so selfish.”
Delaney halted. At first blush it didn’t make sense. Twisted and
smashed canvases littered the floor. Along with paints, brushes, beer
bottles, and Thai food take-out cartons.
Wooden easels were broken like toothpicks and scattered on top of the
canvases. Someone had splattered red paint over another finished piece—
a woman eating a raspa in front of a vendor’s mobile cart, the Alamo in
the background.
Delaney’s hands went to her throat. The metallic scent of blood
mingled with the odor of human waste gagged her. A fiery shiver started
at her toes and raced like a lit fuse to her brain. Her mind took in
detail after detail. That way she didn’t have to face the bigger picture
staring her in the face. “Please, God, no.”
Even He couldn’t fix this.
She shot forward, stumbled, and fell to her knees. Her legs refused
to work. She crawled the remainder of the distance to Corey across a
floor marred by still-wet oil paint, beer, and other liquids she
couldn’t bear to identify.
He sat with his back against the wall. His long legs clad in
paint-splattered jeans sprawled in front of him. His feet were bare. His
hands with those thin, expressive fingers lay in his lap. Deep
lacerations scored his palms and fingers.
Her throat aching with the effort not to vomit, Delaney forced her
gaze to move upward. His T-shirt, once white, now shone scarlet with
blood. His blood. Rips in the shirt left his chest exposed, revealing
stab wounds— too many to count.
Delaney opened her mouth. Scream. Just scream. Let it out.
No sound emerged.
She crawled alongside her big brother until she could lean her shoulder and head against the wall. “Corey?” she whispered.
His green eyes, fringed by thick, dark lashes that were the envy of
every woman he’d ever dated, were open and startled. His skin, always
pale and ethereal, had a blue tinge to it.
Delaney drowned in a tsunami of nausea. “Come on, Corey, this isn’t funny. I need you.”
Her teeth chattered. Hands shaking, she touched his throat. His skin was cold. So cold.
Too late, too late, too late. The words screamed in her head. Stop it. Just stop it. “You can’t be dead. You’re not allowed to die.”
Mom and Dad had died in a car wreck a week past her eighth birthday.
Nana and Pops had taken their turns the year Delaney turned eighteen.
Everybody she cared about died.
Not Corey. Delaney punched in 9–1–1.
The operator’s assurance that help was on the way did nothing to
soothe Delaney. She sat cross-legged and dragged Corey’s shoulders and
head into her lap. She had to warm him up. “Tell them to hurry. Tell
them my brother needs help.”
“Yes, ma’am. They’re en route.”
“Tell them he’s all I’ve got.”
CHAPTER 2
TEN YEARS LATER
NASH RESIDENCE, SAN ANTONIO
Real men didn’t cry. Not even during a reunion with a beloved truck.
Swallowing hard, Hunter Nash wrapped his fingers around the keys,
concentrating on the feel of the metal pressing into his skin. He
cleared his throat. “Thanks, Mom. For keeping it all these years.”
His mom didn’t bother to try to hide her tears. She wiped her plump
cheeks on a faded dish towel, offered him a tremulous smile, and bustled
down the sidewalk that led from the house on San Antonio’s near west
side where Hunter had grown up to the detached two-car garage in the
back. It had housed his truck for the past eight years. Almost ten if he
counted the two years it took for his case to go to trial. He had no
place to go in those years when he’d allegedly been innocent until
proven guilty. His friends no longer friends and his job gone, he had no
need for transportation.
The door to the garage was padlocked. Mom handed him the key. “My
hands are shaking. You’d better do the honors.” She stepped back. “I
still can’t believe you’re here.”
“I did my time, Ma.” As a model prisoner he’d earned time off for
good behavior. It was easy for a guy to behave when he spent his days
and nights scared spitless.
“I know. All those nights I’ve lain in bed worrying about you in that
place, whether you were safe, if you were hurt, if you were sick.” Her
voice broke. “I can’t believe it’s over.”
“Me neither.”
It wasn’t over. In fact, it was just beginning, but she didn’t need
to know that. His determination to prove his innocence would only worry
her more. A divorced mother of four, she’d raised her kids on a
teacher’s salary and an occasional child support check from the
crud-for-brains ex-husband who showed up once every couple of years in
an attempt to make nice with his kids. She deserved a break.
The aging manual garage door squeaked and protested when Hunter
yanked on the handle. He needed to do some work around here, starting
with applying some WD-40. The smell of mold and old motor oil wafted
from the dark interior. Hunter slipped inside and waited for his eyes to
adjust. A layer of dust covered the 2002 midnight-blue Dodge RAM 1500,
but otherwise it remained in the pristine condition in which he’d left
it the night he said goodbye and promised he’d be back. “My baby.”
More tears trickling down her face, Mom chuckled softly. “After you
finish reintroducing yourself, come back inside. I’m making your
favorite chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes, gravy, pineapple
coleslaw, and creamed corn. Your brother and sisters are coming over
after work. Shawna’s bringing a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.
Melissa’s contribution is three kinds of ice cream, including rocky
road. She said it seemed appropriate. I hope you haven’t lost your sense
of humor. And you know Curtis. He’s all about the beer.”
The last thing Hunter wanted to do was celebrate with his sibs. Mel
and Shawna had visited faithfully at first, but less as the years rolled
by. Curtis never showed, even though Fabian Dominguez State Jail was
only a few miles down the road from San Antonio.
Nor did Hunter want to explain why he’d sworn off alcohol. The
conditions of his parole included monthly pee tests— no alcohol or
drugs, but that part of his life was over anyway. It had been easy to
comply in prison, obviously. Whether he could maintain his sobriety in
the beer drinking capital of the country remained to be seen. He’d do AA
if necessary. “Mom— ”
“No buts. They’re family. They love you. You need to live life, enjoy
life, make up for all you’ve missed. You haven’t even met most of your
nieces and nephews. Did you know Mel is expecting another baby in
August?”
“Yes, I— ”
“Today we celebrate your new job and your new life.”
His bachelor of fine arts with an emphasis in drawing and painting
from Southwest School of Art might once have allowed him to teach art in
one of the school districts, but not anymore.
It didn’t matter. The prison chaplain had hooked him up with Pastor
James. The preacher ran a faith-based community center that served
at-risk youth. He’d hired Hunter to teach art to those who’d already had
their first brush with the law. He figured Hunter could teach life
lessons at the same time he introduced them to art as a way to channel
their anger at the hand life had dealt them. Learning what happened when
a guy got off track would be the lesson.
Even though Hunter hadn’t gotten off the track. He’d been shoved off
it. By an eager-beaver, newbie detective; a
green-as-a-Granny-Smith-apple public defender; and an assembly-line
justice system.
He would get by in this world that had hung him out to dry. Especially knowing Mom had his back. She had that don’t-mess-with-me
teacher look in her burnt-amber eyes. Like her sixth graders, Hunter
knew better than to argue. It felt good to know she remained in his
corner. When everyone else had hit the ground, scattering in opposite
directions, she never budged in her belief that son number two could not
be a murderer. She’d brought him up better than that.
“You’re right. Give me a few minutes.”
She patted his chest and stretched on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on
his cheek. Her lips were chapped, and the wrinkles had deepened around
her mouth and eyes. Her long hair had gone pure white during his years
away. “Take your time, sweetheart.”
Hunter gritted his teeth. After years of looking over his shoulder,
bobbing and weaving around hard-core convicts who’d as soon shank a guy
in the shower as look at him, he didn’t know how to cope with nice. With
sweet. With love tempered with wisdom and a hard life.
“One day at a time.” That’s what the prison chaplain had told him. “Get through the next minute, the next hour, the next day.”
That’s how he did eight years at Dominguez. This couldn’t be any
harder. He opened the truck’s door and slid into the driver’s seat. The
faint odor of pine air freshener greeted him. And citrus.
More likely that was his imagination. Delaney’s perfume simply could not linger that long. Move on. She has.
She did. To her credit Delaney held on as long as she could— until the
guilty verdict. Then she was forced to move on. She couldn’t be blamed
for that.
Hunter picked up the sketch pad on the passenger seat. In those days
he kept one everywhere. Just in case. The first page. The second. The
third. All drawings of Delaney. Sweet Laney eating a slice of watermelon
at a Fourth of July celebration. Laney rocking Hunter’s newborn nephew
in a hickory rocker on the front porch. Laney in a bathing suit sitting
on the dock at Medina Lake. Laney with her soulful eyes, long
sandy-brown hair, and air of sad vulnerability worn like a pair of old
jeans that fit perfectly. That too-big nose, wide mouth, and pointed
chin. Corey might have been the angelic beauty— totally unfair— but
Delaney’s face had character. She had a face Hunter never ceased to want
to draw and paint.
And kiss.
He turned the pages slowly, allowing the memories to have their way
with him. Meeting at a party Corey had thrown when Delaney was a senior
in high school. Their first date, ribs and smoked chicken with
heart-stopping creamed corn, potato salad, coleslaw, and jalapeños at
Rudy’s Country Store and Bar-B-Q followed by dancing at Leon Springs
Dance Hall.
She had danced with the abandon of a small child. As if she didn’t
care who watched. Her face glowed with perspiration. Her green eyes
sparkled with happiness. His two left feet couldn’t keep up, but she
didn’t mind. She twirled her peasant skirt as she flew around him, her
hands in the air, her curves beckoning.
Hunter closed his eyes. Her softness enveloped him. Her sweetness surrounded him.
He needed to see her again. He needed to talk to her. Somehow he had
to prove to her that she was wrong about him. Whatever it took. He laid
the sketchbook aside. “Come on, dude, let’s take a ride.”
He stuck the key in the ignition and turned it.
Nothing. Not even a tick-tick-tick. He tried a second time. Nada. “I’m an idiot.” He patted the steering wheel. “Not your fault, man.”
The truck hadn’t been driven in years. The battery was dead. He might
be able to jump it, but more likely he’d need a new one. Batteries cost
money.
One thing at a time. He’d waited this long.
Hunter slid from the truck and eased the door closed. “I’ll be back when I get my act together.”
In the kitchen Hunter found his mom peeling potatoes. She pointed the
peeler at him. “You can’t imagine how good it feels to have you home.”
“You can’t imagine how good it feels to be here.” He landed a kiss on
her soft hair. She smelled of Pond’s cold cream. The same old
comforting scent. Life had changed but not her. “I’m gonna take a walk. I
need to blow the prison stink off.”
“Enjoy. They redid the walking trail at the lake and installed new
outdoor fitness equipment.” She waved the paring knife in the air. “But
don’t stay too long. You have company coming.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He pantomimed a mock salute and headed for the front door.
One thing at a time. One step at a time. That’s how he’d get his life back.
***
Excerpt from Trust Me by Kelly Irvin. Copyright 2022 by Kelly Irvin. Reproduced with permission from Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.
Bestseller Kelly Irvin is the author of thirty books and novellas, including romantic suspense and Amish romance novels.
, “a whirlwind romantic thriller,” and “an emotional rollercoaster.” The two-time ACFW Carol finalist worked as a newspaper reporter for six years writing stories on the Texas-Mexico border. Those experiences fuel her romantic suspense novels set in Texas. A retired public relations professional, Kelly now writes fiction full-time. She lives with her husband, photographer Tim Irvin, in San Antonio. They are the parents of two children, three grandchildren, and two ornery cats.
