Faithless: A Salvation Society Novel Read online

  Faithless

  Megan Green

  Contents

  Letter to the Reader

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  The Salvation Society

  Acknowledgments

  Books by Megan Green

  About the Author

  This book was inspired by the Salvation Series written by Corinne Michaels. It is an original work that is published through The Salvation Society.

  Copyright © 2020 by Megan Green

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Designer:

  Uplifting Designs

  Editor:

  Ellie McLove, My Brother’s Editor

  Proofreader:

  Julie Deaton

  Photographer:

  Lindee Robinson

  ISBN-13:

  Letter to the Reader

  Dear reader,

  When I first heard that Corinne Michaels was opening her Salvation Society up to other authors, I couldn’t click that submission link fast enough. There are several of these types of Worlds out there now, and while I’ve always loved the idea of them, I’ve never felt like my style really fit what they were looking for.

  Until now.

  Corinne’s stories never fail to run you through the full gamut of emotions, something I strive for in each of my novels. So when the opportunity to not only write in one of my all-time favorite series, but also to return to my roots of military romance, presented itself, I just couldn’t say no.

  I had an absolute blast writing Faithless. While I adore each and every one of the books in Corinne’s original series, I knew right away I wanted to revisit the characters of the Consolation Duet. Liam and Natalie have always held a special place in my heart, and I wanted to continue their legacy with the story of their son, Shane. He’s all grown up now, with a family of his own, but you’ll still see plenty of Liam and Natalie—and even a few appearances by Mark Dixon!

  I hope you enjoy reading Faithless as much as I enjoyed writing it. And I hope that when you’re done, you’ll feel as if I’ve done Corinne’s characters and world justice.

  Happy reading, and thank you for taking a chance on this story!

  Megan

  Chapter One

  Shane

  The sunflower clock ticks from the kitchen wall beside me, my heart beating in tune to its rhythm. The sound reverberates in the stillness, creating an almost deafening roar in my ears. With every passing second, more and more pressure bears down on my chest, and my fingers tremble as they tear at the label on my beer bottle.

  It’s ironic—that bright flower staring down at me from the center of the clock. It’s a symbol of happiness. Of sunshine and better days. Felicity always loved sunflowers. She said there was no way to have a frown on your face when in one’s cheery presence.

  If only she could see me now.

  “Say something, Aarabelle,” I finally bite out, unable to handle the weighted silence surrounding us for another moment.

  My sister’s eyes lift to mine, her throat bobbing as empathy shines behind her tears. “I… I had no idea, Shane. I thought you guys were happy.”

  Dropping my hold on the bottle, I lean forward and place my elbows on the kitchen table, dragging my hands through my hair. The tone in Aara’s voice is the last thing I want, the last thing I need to hear after the events of the past few days.

  I knew I shouldn’t have told her. I knew this was a mistake. I just… I needed someone to know the truth. Needed someone to understand the pain and contention that courses through my veins at every sorrowful look, every mention of her name.

  Blowing out a heavy sigh, I drop my gaze to the table, choosing to focus on the scattering of shredded paper from my beer rather than face Aara’s somber eyes.

  “I mean, I knew things had changed between us. Fuck, we’d been married for ten years. Of course they had. But I hadn’t realized we were at that point, you know? We might not have been madly in love anymore, but we were comfortable.”

  As soon as the words leave my mouth, I realize how fucked up they are. Who thinks it’s a good thing to describe their marriage as comfortable?

  The sound Aara makes in the back of her throat lets me know her thoughts mirror my own. Deciding to suck it up and face the music, I inhale deeply and lift my head to face my sister.

  “I’m so sorry, Shane,” she says, reaching across the table and placing her hand over mine, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I can’t imagine how that must’ve felt, finding out that the woman you’d loved for ten years had fallen for somebody else. And then for this to happen…” She trails off, not able to even give voice to the disaster that has become my life.

  See, fate decided it wasn’t enough for my wife to want to leave me. To sit me down and ask for a divorce. To tell me she’d met somebody else, somebody who made her happy and who loved her in a way she felt I never could.

  No, while I’d still been reeling from that devastating blow, God, the universe, destiny—whatever the fuck you wanted to call it—had decided to step in and throw an entirely different wrench in my life.

  Two days after Felicity had told me she wanted a divorce, I’d gotten a phone call. A phone call I never expected to receive.

  “Hello?” I answered hesitantly, not recognizing the number on my screen. I swore to God if this was another one of those damn scammers telling me the IRS was on the way to arrest me unless I gave them immediate access to my bank account and signed over my firstborn kid, I was going to lose it. I was not in the mood.

  “Yes, may I speak to Shane Dempsey, please?”

  The deep voice on the other end of the line was all business, an air of professionalism carrying through the phone, and I instantly knew I was dealing with an entirely different type of evil than an identity thief.

  Lawyer.

  My fingers tightened their grip, the metal edge of my phone digging into the flesh of my palm as anger coursed through me.

  She couldn’t even give me a damn chance to get my head around this before unleashing her hounds on me? I thought, knowing that whatever this was, it had to do with Felicity and the news she’d given me earlier that week.

  She’d spent the last two nights at her parents’ house, claiming she was giving me space to think about our conversation. But I knew better.

  She’d been with him.

  I wanted nothing more than to hang up the phone, to put an end to this conversation before it could even begin. Why couldn’t she just give me some time? There would be plenty of time for lawyers later.

  But I knew that as satisfying a
s it would be to cut this asshole off before he could start in on all the reasons my life quite literally blew, it wouldn’t accomplish a damn thing. He’d just keep calling until I finally gave in and listened.

  “This is Shane,” I clipped, hoping my tone conveyed my annoyance at his intrusion.

  “Mr. Dempsey. This is Dr. Finley. I’m the head of trauma over at Virginia General.”

  My entire body froze as his words registered, my heart picking up pace in my chest.

  Doctor.

  Trauma.

  Virginia General.

  “Sir?” I sputtered, the anger I’d been feeling only moments ago instantly replaced by fear. The pain I’d felt at my phone cutting into my hand was gone, replaced by panic coursing through my limbs, leaving a tingling sensation in its wake.

  My mind immediately went to my girls—Gracie and Ellie—their smiling faces flashing in my thoughts. Please, God. Don’t let it be my girls.

  “We had a woman come in this afternoon. Her license and registration identified her as Felicity Mitchell Dempsey.”

  My anxiety kicked up a notch. “Yes, that’s my wife.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to have to be making this call, Mr. Dempsey, but I’m afraid your wife was involved in a car accident earlier this afternoon.”

  My knees weakened, my hand darting out to grab onto the nearest available surface in order to steady myself. “Is… is she okay?”

  The split second of silence was the only answer I needed.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Dempsey,” the doctor said solemnly, confirming what I’d already deduced. “We did everything we could. But unfortunately, her injuries were just too great.”

  The air in the room vanished suddenly, my lungs burning as I desperately tried to draw in a breath.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  This. Couldn’t. Be. Happening.

  The doctor continued speaking, but I couldn’t make out a damn thing he said, the blood in my head rushing too loudly for me to hear anything else.

  Felicity was gone.

  The words sounded so foreign in my mind, they couldn’t possibly be real. There was no way. There was no way my wife could be dead.

  She was just at the house, picking up the girls to drop them at school on her way to work. Only hours before, I’d been in the same room with her, my head snapping to the side to avoid looking her straight in the eye. I hadn’t been able to face her. Hadn’t been able to let her see the pain she’d instilled with a few hurtful words.

  And now I never would.

  “My girls,” I croaked, interrupting whatever it was the doctor was now saying. It’d been hours since Felicity had picked them up. There was no way they could’ve still been in the car with her…

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Dempsey. What was that?”

  I coughed, clearing the sting of tears from my throat. “My daughters. Gracie and Ellie. Are they okay?”

  I heard the shuffle of papers as the doctor reviewed his notes. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, and I felt my legs give way beneath me. I came down hard on my knees as a pain unlike anything I’d ever felt before ripped through me.

  “I don’t see any mention of any children in the car,” he continued, and for a second his words didn’t register.

  “W-what?” I stammered, needing him to repeat them, just to make sure I’d heard him right.

  He paused briefly, as if scanning the report one more time. “I don’t have all the details. But no children were brought in with this accident. There was a man, from what I understand. But he was treated on scene and released. It was the driver’s side of the vehicle that was struck. Your wife took the brunt of the impact.”

  A strange sensation settled over me—utter relief that my girls were nowhere near that accident. That they weren’t harmed, that they didn’t have to be there to see their mother in pain as she clung to life. Sadness over the fact that the woman I’d spent the last decade of my life loving was gone, that I’d never see her face, hear her laugh, or feel her body against my own again sending an ache shooting deep within my heart.

  But mixed in with that relief and heartbreak was something darker. Something sinister.

  She’d been with her lover. I knew that without even having to read the report, without having to see the name of the person in the car—not that I would’ve recognized it anyway—that the man in the passenger seat of her car had been the same man she’d confessed her love for only a few nights ago.

  And as much as I hated it, as much as I didn’t want to even put words to the feeling that festered down deep inside of me, there was a small part of me that felt almost…

  Vindicated.

  If she hadn’t been with him. If she’d only gone to work like she was supposed to. If she hadn’t had an affair in the first place…

  Maybe she’d still be here.

  The feelings of that night haven’t gone away in the three days since Felicity’s death.

  Just this morning, as I’d been pulling a load of laundry from the dryer and had come across a pair of her favorite fuzzy socks, I’d been struck with a sense of heartache so deep it had taken my breath away. The basket of laundry in my arms had tumbled to the floor as I’d fallen back against the washing machine, clutching the socks to my chest as I struggled to catch my breath.

  But then only a few hours later, after her mother had called yet again to talk to me about the funeral arrangements, this time with the idea of having the girls sing a song about what a loving wife and mother she’d been, I’d wanted nothing more than to scream from the rooftops that she deserved every single bit of what she got. That she was about to abandon her family for another man, and that it was only karmic justice that her happiness had been taken from her just as swiftly as she’d taken ours.

  Now, sitting here in my kitchen, surrounded by all the things Felicity had selected over the years to decorate our home, my sister staring at me in shock as she realizes how thoroughly fucked up my life is, the only thing I feel is guilt.

  Felicity didn’t deserve this. Despite how she hurt me, she didn’t deserve to die. And she doesn’t deserve to have her reputation sullied when she’s not even here to tell her side of the story.

  But I was weak. I couldn’t stand the thought of one more person telling me how amazing she was. I needed somebody to know the truth. To know the inner battle I’m waging each and every single day.

  “You can’t tell a single soul about this, Aara,” I tell her, pinning my sister with an intense stare that I hope conveys the gravity of the situation. “Gracie and Ellie can’t know that things were anything less than perfect between Lissy and me.”

  Aara’s lips purse as she regards me. “You don’t think your friends and family deserve to know the truth?”

  I shake my head. “No, I don’t. Because it’s not their business. I told you because you’re my sister and my best friend. And because I was going crazy carrying the burden on my own. It wasn’t fair of me to lay it on you, but I can’t exactly take it back now.”

  Aara slides her chair across the linoleum, something that would’ve set Felicity on edge and had her in the room in less than two seconds to complain about scuff marks on her floor. And once again, I’m hit by the realization that she’s never coming back. I’ll never hear her voice as she tells me for the umpteenth time that we really need to pull up the old cheap linoleum and put down tile or laminate. Something to bring our house into the twenty-first century.

  I hear the words as if she’s right here in the room with me, and just like that, the tears start forming again. Aara’s arm circles my shoulders, pulling my body into hers, my face turning into her shoulder and dampening her shirt.

  “Fuck,” I say through my cries. “How can it hurt so much when I’m still so mad at her?”

  Aara’s hand rubs up and down my arm, her cheek pressing against the top of my head as she tries to soothe me. “It’s okay, Shane. This whole situation is so fucked up. You’re thir
ty-one years old. You have two beautiful daughters. This should be the happiest time of your life. You shouldn’t have to be worrying about things like funeral arrangements and burial plots. Add into that all the shit with the affair… honestly, I’m amazed you’re doing as well as you are. I’d probably have been committed by now.”

  I shift in my seat, straightening so that I’m no longer leaning against her, and wipe my face. “Believe me. Sometimes it seems like that would be easier. To just check out. Not deal with all this shit for even just a few hours. But then where would that leave—”

  “Gracie and Ellie,” she finishes for me. “You don’t have to tell me, Shane. I know there’s nothing more important to you now than those two little girls.”

  “They’re all I have left,” I say, knowing that if it weren’t for them, there’d be nothing tethering me here. Nothing to keep me grounded and focused on the next step.

  Aara gives me a light pinch on my forearm. “Well, not all you have left. You know I’m here for whatever you need. Mom and Athair, too.”

  I smile at her name for my father, the man who helped raised Aara after her own father had supposedly been killed in Afghanistan, only to turn up a year later alive and sort of well. Aara might only be my half-sister by blood, but I knew she loved my father just as much as she loved her own. We’d never felt like anything less than a complete family.