Free White Hot by Sandra Brown Page B

the worship service.”
    So she was a vocal soloist. That accounted for her lilting laugh.
    “Danny was reluctant to go. He said Huff—that’s usually what he called your father—scorned religion. But I told Danny I couldn’t continue seeing him if he couldn’t believe as I do. And I meant it.”
    She smiled shyly. “He cared enough to go with me that Sunday. After that first time, he realized that it was God’s love that had been missing from his life. He discovered it and became a new person.”
    On that point Huff, Chris, and Beck Merchant agreed with her, although they attributed Danny’s personality change to a lapse in reason rather than to a religion-based renewal. They saw it as a negative change, not a positive one.
    “I think you must have been very good for my brother, Jessica. I’m glad he knew you. I’m grateful to you for loving him.”
    “I can’t accept any gratitude for that.” Her voice cracked, and she held the tissue to her eyes as tears began to flow again. “I loved him with all my heart. How am I going to endure this?”
    As Jessica wept, Sayre hugged her against her shoulder. Tears filled her own eyes, but they were as much for Jessica as for Danny. Danny was beyond feeling, while this young woman’s heart was breaking and there would be no surcease except the passage of time.
    There were events in your life that you didn’t think you could survive…and weren’t sure you wanted to. Things happened that were so painful, you’d rather die of them than to go on living with the agony of surviving. Sayre knew what that was like. She remembered what it felt like to have a heartache so severe she wanted to die. Nothing short of death would relieve the pain. But the survival instinct is a miraculous thing. One’s heart goes on beating even after the will to live is lost. One takes another breath even when the desire to breathe has been crushed. One lives on.
    She didn’t blame Danny’s fiancée for her bitter grief. Nor did she try to console her with banalities. She merely held her and would have continued holding her all night if necessary, because when she’d gone through her personal hell, there had been no one to hold her.
    Eventually Jessica stopped crying. “Danny wouldn’t want me to do this.” She blotted her eyes and blew her nose. When she was more composed, she said, “I do not accept the coroner’s ruling.”
    “It may give you some comfort to know that you’re not alone. Hard questions are already being asked.” Sayre told her about the meeting with Sheriff Harper and Wayne Scott. She gave her as detailed an account as she could remember.
    When she was finished, Jessica mulled it over for several moments, then said, “This detective works for Red Harper?”
    “I know what you’re thinking. That Red Harper is on Huff’s payroll. Nevertheless, Deputy Scott seems determined to continue his investigation.”
    The young woman thoughtfully gnawed on her lower lip. “Danny had been troubled by something lately. Every time I asked him about it, he made a joke, said he was worried about how he was going to support me, or what if I got fat and sloppy after he married me, or if he lost all his hair would I still love him. That kind of thing. I’d begun to wonder if I was imagining it, but I don’t think so. I knew him so well.”
    “He never gave you a hint about what was troubling him?”
    “No, but something definitely was.”
    “Something weighty enough to cause him to take his own life?” Sayre asked gently.
    “He wouldn’t hurt me like that,” Jessica insisted. “He wouldn’t leave me with a lifetime of asking myself why he did it and what I could have done or said to prevent it. He wouldn’t burden me with that kind of self-doubt. No, Sayre. I’ll never believe he shot himself.”
    After a pause she said, “But I’ll admit that the alternative is just as unthinkable. Danny was so guileless. Even foundry workers who don’t think too kindly of the