McCullen's Secret Son (The Heroes Of Horseshoe Creek Book 2) by Rita Herron Page B

then he married you.”
    “You dated Leo?” Willow asked.
    The woman pushed her face toward Willow. “What’s that supposed to mean? You don’t think he’d go out with a woman like me?”
    “It’s not that,” Willow said quickly. “It’s just that Leo never mentioned his prior relationships.”
    Doris chuckled. “Honey, there’s a lot of things Leo didn’t tell you.”
    Willow’s breath rasped out. “Like what?”
    Doris blew smoke into the air. “Why don’t you ask him?”
    Willow glanced at him and he gave a short shake of his head, silently willing her not to divulge that Leo was dead. Not yet.
    “When was the last time you saw him?” Brett asked.
    Doris shrugged. “About a month ago.”
    “You were seeing him while he was married to Willow?” Brett asked.
    Doris poked him in the chest. “Don’t judge me, Brett McCullen. Leo loved me.”
    “Then why did he marry me?” Willow asked.
    Doris laughed again. “Because you were respectable. And Leo needed a respectable wife so nobody in town would ask too many questions.”
    “Why didn’t he want them asking questions?” Brett asked.
    Doris tapped ashes on the porch floor at Willow’s feet. “Again—why don’t you ask him?”
    “Because I’m asking you,” Willow said, her voice stronger. “You obviously don’t like me and wanted Leo for yourself. So when I filed for divorce, did he come to you?”
    Doris’s eyes widened in shock. “You were divorcing Leo?”
    Brett scrutinized her body language. She sounded sincerely surprised. But if she’d discovered he and Willow weren’t together, and he still didn’t want her, she might have killed him out of anger.
    Although she didn’t appear to be the motherly type. So if she had killed Leo, why kidnap Sam?
    * * *
    S AM HUGGED THE RAGGEDY stuffed animal under his arm and rubbed his eyes. He wanted his mommy.
    But he remembered what had happened the night before and tears filled his eyes. Those bad men...two of them. One with the scarf over his mouth and the other with that black ski mask.
    All he could see was their eyes. Mean eyes.
    And the tattoo. Both of them had tattoos on their necks. One had a long rattlesnake that wound around his throat. The other had crossbones like he’d seen on some of the T-shirts at Halloween.
    Those crossbones meant poison or the devil or something else evil.
    Just like the bad men.
    Red flashed behind his eyes, and he heard the gunshots blasting like fireworks. He covered his ears to snuff them out just like he’d done at his house.
    But he’d peeked from the closet and seen his daddy and all that blood ran down his shirt. Then Daddy’s eyes had gone wide, like they did on TV when someone was dead.
    He didn’t much care if he was dead, and he felt real bad about that. Kids were supposed to love their fathers. But he couldn’t help it—his daddy had been mean to his mommy.
    He didn’t want to be dead, too, though.
    He sat up on the cot and pushed the curtain to the side and looked through the dirty window. A spider was crawling across the windowsill, and a tree branch was beating against the glass.
    He tried to see where he was, but all he saw was woods.
    Big trees stuck together, so close that he couldn’t see past them or even between them for a path.
    He pushed at the window to open it and climb out. He was scared of the woods and the dark, but he’d rather run in there than be stuck here with these bad men with the tattoos and guns.
    But the window wouldn’t move. He pushed and shoved. Then he saw nails. They were hammered in the edge to keep it closed.
    His chin quivered. They had locked him in here, and he was never going to get out.
    Footsteps pounded outside the door, and he dropped back onto the bed, rolled to his side, grabbed the blanket and pulled it over him, then pretended to be asleep.
    The door screeched open, then the snake-man’s voice said, “What are we gonna do with the kid?”
    “Dump him when we get what we want.”
    Sam