Shattered Diamonds E-Book

Ann Omasta

• Herausgeber: More Happily Ever Afters
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

His wife has been missing for nearly a year…
…and the accusing looks tear him apart.

Can Alex rebuild his life?

Josie was the darling of Brunswick Bay Harbor. The locals rallied around her dreams of Olympic gold in swimming. It wasn’t to be and her life crashed down around her. 

Can she find meaning again?

Alex misses his wife. Heartbroken and barely hanging on, he must raise his daughter alone. Living each day as the prime suspect in the scandal of the century is more than he can bear. How could they believe it was him?

He needs help.

Josie needs a job, and the only one she's qualified for is being a nanny to Alex's adorable daughter, Hannah. Will working for the town's most notorious murder suspect bring Jo the purpose she craves, or will it prove to be a deadly mistake?

Can two lost souls save each other?

Start reading now.

Brunswick Bay Harbor Gems:
1) Shattered Diamonds
2) Shining Pearls
3) Shimmering Emeralds
4) Shadowed Rubies
5) Shocking Sapphires
6) Shaded Amethysts

Leseprobe

Shattered Diamonds

Brunswick Bay Harbor Gems

Ann Omasta

Contents

Free Novella!

1. Alex

2. Josie

3. Alex

4. Josie

5. Alex

6. Josie

7. Alex

8. Josie

9. Alex

10. Josie

11. Alex

12. Josie

13. Alex

14. Josie

15. Alex

16. Josie

17. Alex

18. Josie

19. Alex

20. Josie

21. Alex

22. Josie

23. Alex

24. Josie

25. Alex

26. Josie

27. Alex

28. Josie

29. Alex

30. Josie

31. Alex

32. Josie

33. Alex

34. Josie

35. Alex

36. Josie

37. Alex

38. Josie

39. Alex

40. Josie

41. Alex

Epilogue

Shining Pearls Sneak Peek

About the Author, Ann Omasta

Let’s stay in touch!

Acknowledgments

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1

Alex

Everyone in my beloved hometown thinks I killed my wife. I never imagined what a lonely place picturesque Brunswick Bay Harbor could be, until I became a social outcast.

I grew up in this quaint seaside town in Maine and never once felt the desire to move away. I have always known how lucky we were to live in such a naturally beautiful location. Even the extra-long winters have never bothered me because they toughened us and made us fully appreciate the rare warm, sunny days.

This lovely town is the perfect place to raise our sweet and sensitive daughter, Hannah. Well, it was, until Claire went missing. Now, the locale is tarnished beyond repair––just like my reputation.

The town’s people have known me my entire life. They watched me grow up. They cheered me on at wrestling matches when I went all the way to the semi-state finals. They watched while I fell madly in love with, and married, my high school sweetheart, Claire. And now they think it’s my fault she’s gone.

Clanging bells from the weather-beaten wooden boats rocking at their docks, along with the high-pitched shrieks of seagulls circling the morning’s lobster catch hoping for a handout, made the perfect background noise as I walked towards Mimi’s Diner––the only place left in town where I felt remotely welcome.

The plump, grandmotherly woman who ran the restaurant that boasted her name was a no-nonsense Down Easter. Mimi wasn’t afraid to shake her finger in your face, if she felt the need to teach you a lesson. She was also one of the only people in town, outside of my immediate family, who didn’t automatically assume that I killed Claire. Mimi gave me the benefit of the doubt, which was a lot more than I could say for most of the people I thought I knew.

The briny air assaulted my nostrils as I walked around the corner onto Blueberry Cove Street. The fresh scent of the sea breeze, mixed with decaying fish and pine trees created a unique odor that was distinct to Brunswick Bay Harbor. Some might turn up their noses at the seafood stench, but to me, it simply smelled like home.

The young couple that passed by on the sidewalk refused to make eye contact with me, but I noticed that the young man tightened his grasp on the young lady’s arm as they moved to the right and as far from me as possible, without actually stepping off the curb and walking in the street.

Their reaction was nothing unusual, but that didn’t keep it from hurting. It was almost as if they thought I was going to jump out at them with a weapon in the middle of town.

I wondered if local parents told their frightened children scary bedtime stories about the lonely author, who murdered his wife and hid her body. As cautious as everyone was around me, I feared it might not be too far-fetched to believe they warned their kids to stay far away from me.

The strange part is that I can’t bring myself to blame them. The spouse is always a prime suspect––sadly. Since Claire’s disappearance remains unsolved, I shouldn’t be surprised that everyone thinks I did it, or at least was involved. If it were someone else, I would probably wonder the same thing.

Understanding it doesn’t make it hurt any less, though. At a time when I’m grieving the disappearance of the one person who meant more than anything to me, hoping beyond hope that she’s somehow okay, and when I most need someone to lean on, the people of my town have turned their backs on me.

People who praised me and gave me high-fives as I strutted through town when I was a high school wrestling star now actively avoided me by dodging into shops or across the street when they saw me coming.

Just ahead of me on the sidewalk, I noticed a tiny leather shoe. A baby had obviously kicked it off. Smiling as I remembered those days with Hannah, I stooped to pick it up, so I could return it to the likely harried parents.

Spying a woman pushing a stroller up the steep hill a block ahead of where I was, I began jogging to catch up to her. When I got within hearing distance, I yelled out to her, “Ma’am? Excuse me, Ma’am?”

I made it almost all the way up to her before she turned back. Recognition immediately dawned in her eyes as they widened with surprise before she took an involuntary step back, trying to ease away from me, without being openly rude.

She looked vaguely familiar to me––as the faces of people who live in the same small town often do––but I couldn’t recall a time when we had directly interacted with each other. It was obvious by her frightened expression that she recognized me from the news, which wasn’t anything unusual. There wasn’t a person in mid-coastal Maine, or quite possibly in the entire state, who didn’t recognize me.

Although I hid my true identity behind a top-secret pen name for my writing, I had always assumed that any notoriety I received would be as an author––not as a potential killer.

The jog up the hill had my out-of-shape, butt-in-a-chair-all-day body panting, but I gave her my best non-predator smile. I held the shoe out towards her and said, “Here, I think your little one dropped this.”

She bugged her eyes out at me, frozen in place, and I began to wonder if she might refuse to take her child’s missing shoe from me. She must recognize it, but she seemed too frightened to even reach her hand out in my direction to accept it.

The thought entered my mind that I could slowly reach forward to place it on the stroller, but I feared coming any closer to her baby would make her mother’s instinct kick in. I wasn’t up for getting kicked in the nuts while trying to do a good deed, so I merely stood there, smiling like a dope, and holding the tiny shoe out towards her.

When the silence dragged on, I finally offered sadly, “I’ll set it down on the sidewalk and walk away, so you can feel safe enough to retrieve it.”

The young mother’s chin lifted stubbornly. Obviously making a decision to be polite, she held out her hand and said, “No, that won’t be necessary.”

She looked me directly in the eyes as she accepted the shoe from my hand. Her gaze was still wary, but steady when she said crisply, “Thank you, Mr. Biggs.”

“You’re welcome.” I turned quickly and headed back towards the diner, not wanting to make her regret her decision to be polite to me.

For me, it had been a great interaction. With a sad sigh, I realized it was one of the best conversations I’d had with anyone outside of Mimi or my family in months.

My isolated existence couldn’t continue forever, but I didn’t know what to do to fix it. Moving away would rip Hannah away from all of her family and friends at a time when she’s already dealing with her mother being missing.

Besides, I needed to believe that Claire was still alive and would someday find her way home. When she did, her daughter and I would be there, waiting for her with open arms.

2

Josie

I stared at the white plate topped by a grilled cheese with bacon sandwich and greasy French fries and tried to remember which table had ordered it. When I pulled the tickets from the pocket of my apron to see which table the food belonged to, I somehow managed to drop them all.

Aunt Mimi scooted past me, effortlessly holding two full drinks and several plates piled high with breakfast foods. “The grilled cheese is for table sixteen, Hon.”

“Thanks,” I told her as I stooped to pick up the mess of receipts. Shaking my head at my own ineptitude, I decided that I could mark ‘waitress’ off my list of potential long-term jobs. If Mimi hadn’t raised me as if I was her own child for the past few years, she probably would have already fired me.

Apparently, spending practically my entire life training in the water, made me good at gracefully slicing through the pool at a high rate of speed, but took away my ability to do ordinary things adeptly on land. I had never thought of myself as being particularly awkward or forgetful until I tried to take on this job that Aunt Mimi had offered me out of pity.

My years of training for the Olympics had been grueling and all-consuming. My shoulder injury had been swift and irreparable. In an instant, I went from trying to be the best women’s freestyle swimmer in the entire world, to struggling to get the right food to the right people in a hometown diner.

I didn’t have anything against being a waitress––other than the fact that I was terrible at it. It just wasn’t at all what I thought I would be doing at this juncture in my life.

In all honesty, I had thought I would soon be standing at the top of an Olympic podium, tipping my head down, and accepting a gold medal around my neck. It wasn’t just a random daydream or wishful thinking. I had worked my ass off with laser focus for the vast majority of my life. I envisioned it so hard I could feel the cold, heavy medal pressing against my chest. That goal had been the only thing that mattered, until it came crashing down around me.

The most devastating part of all of it was that I knew deep down in my heart that my parents must be looking down on me with disappointment. They had sacrificed so much in both money and time to secure me a fantastic swim coach and make sure I had access to the training pool and workout facility every day.

When a tragic car accident took their lives far too soon, I doubled-down and worked even harder to make my dreams of earning an Olympic gold medal come to fruition. Last time around, I had barely missed making the Olympic team. I had planned to use every moment of this four-year gap to shave down my time to make sure I made the U.S. team and brought home the gold. It was the only way that all of our sacrifices would have made any sense. Almost good enough was not even close to being acceptable. I needed to be the best.

Even Aunt Mimi had jumped on board with my Olympic dreams. I hadn’t wanted to leave my friends or move to the small, coastal town in Maine where she lived, but she had agreed to use the money from my parents’ life insurance policy to fund my continued training.

Watching as my short, silver-haired, plump aunt flitted around her restaurant, making each patron feel like a valued guest, I decided that this was just as much her domain as the pool had always been mine. There were probably a thousand things that needed to be done at the diner, but I was watching my aunt, lost in thoughts about what could have been.

I had wanted nothing more than to make my family and friends proud, so I had done my best to ignore the shoulder bursitis at first, thinking it was simply pain I needed to push through. When I finally went to the doctor, it was so bad that she recommended immediate surgery. The surgery was what the medical profession considered to be a success, but it stole away my chances of becoming an Olympic athlete.

The six weeks I spent with my arm in a sling immediately following my rotator cuff repair were the longest of my life. After years of spending every free moment in the pool, I felt at a complete loss for what to do with all of my extra time. I remember sitting at the edge of the pool, dipping my feet into the cool water, and sniffing the chlorinated air as I waited for my shoulder to heal.

It never crossed my mind that, even after it healed, it might not be what it once was. I pushed myself to the limit at physical therapy. That was my path back to the pool, and I didn’t intend to let anything get in my way. I kept a good attitude, and I did everything right. If the therapist asked me for twenty repetitions, I did thirty.

When I finally got back in the pool, it felt like coming home. I was ready to work back up to where I had been, and I wasn’t going to let anything stand in my way. After spending an entire year post-surgery giving it my all in the water, I finally had to admit that over ninety-eight percent range of motion was great for a typical patient, but it was not enough for an Olympian.

My trainer and I had said our tearful goodbyes last week, and now I was trying to figure out what to do next. When you base your entire life on one dream, it’s practically impossible to move on when that dream comes crashing down around you.

“Can you pick up table twenty, Jo-Jo?” Aunt Mimi rushed past, gracefully filling up patrons’ coffee mugs as she went.

I shook my head to clear those thoughts, forcing myself back to reality. “Sure thing,” I answered the no-nonsense woman.

Grabbing a pad of paper and a pencil, I turned to greet the table in question. A man with his back to the room was sitting alone at the booth. As I walked closer, I realized exactly who it was.

Steeling my nerves, I walked boldly to his table. I tried to smile at him, even though my mind was screaming that the washed-up, has-been, Olympic-hopeful swimmer was now waiting on the Brunswick Bay Harbor killer.

3

Alex

The pretty waitress’s step faltered as she approached my table. Recognition flickered in her eyes as she made a valiant effort to smile, but ended up merely grimacing in my direction.

I recognized her, too. I’d read a lengthy article about her in the Brunswick Bay Gazette. It had been a relief not to have my own face sprawled across the front page of the weekly paper again, but I felt bad for the aspiring athlete. She’d given it her all and had fallen short of her dreams.

Lifting my lips, but careful not to show my teeth, I gave the young woman what I hoped was a friendly, reassuring smile. She had been given a tough path where things that were completely out of her control had effectively ruined her life. I could certainly understand that.

“What can I get you to drink?” She asked, making an obvious effort to seem normal, despite the crack in her voice.

“Just tap water, with no ice, please.” I tried to keep my response casual, wanting nothing more than a polite, normal interaction, but I barely remembered what ‘normal’ felt like anymore.

As quickly as she appeared, the waitress whirled away to retrieve my drink. While she was gone, I pretended to peruse the menu, even though I already knew exactly what I was getting. Staring down at the plastic coated pages kept me from having to make eye contact with any of the gawkers. I knew from experience that the second I caught them looking, they would dart their eyes away.

The diner’s owner, Mimi, shuffled quickly past my table on her way to deliver plates piled high with fried, delicious food. “My sweet niece, Jo-Jo, will take good care of you, Alex.”

I gave the matronly woman a genuine smile over the fun nickname she used for her niece and nodded to acknowledge her kind promise. Mimi’s ability to give me the benefit of the doubt was the main reason I came here to eat almost every day. It was the only place where I wasn’t shunned.

Mimi was a no-nonsense lifetime Mainer, and she firmly believed in the tenant of ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ Right after Claire had gone missing, she shook her pointer finger at me and said, “I truly don’t think you had anything to do with this tragedy, but if I find out otherwise, I’ll never forgive you.”

I’d been so thankful for her terse faith in me, I almost broke down into sobs. The last thing that I had ever expected when dealing with the sudden disappearance of my wife was for the town’s people to immediately turn on me. Even the police, who were supposed to be focused on finding Claire, spent much of their time investigating me, convinced that I was the culprit.

Before long, my waitress, whose nametag read ‘Josie,’ returned with my water glass. I ordered the BLT with onion rings. She took too long to write down the simple order, but then she made eye contact with me, nodded, and politely said that it would be right out. It was a relief to see that the young woman was as open-minded and kind as her aunt.

Normally, Mimi waited on me herself because the other waitresses seemed fearful of approaching my table. They, like most of the other residents of this tiny town, had already accused me, tried me, and found me to be guilty in the unfair courts of their own minds.

I took out my cell phone to glance through emails while I waited for my food. It was a distraction that made me look busy, rather than shining a spotlight on how pathetic and alone I felt.

Several times in the past, I had brought my laptop with me to pull out and work on my current manuscript, but this was supposed to be my lunch break. I always walked here––no matter what the weather––to get some fresh air. It didn’t feel right to interrupt my break with work, so lately I had been refusing to even bring my computer, in order to eliminate the temptation to work.

Justifying the decision, I reminded myself that I occasionally needed mental breaks. My writing flowed much more easily after a real break than if I tried to power through. In fact, my daily word counts had almost doubled since I had adopted a system of sprinting for twenty-five uninterrupted minutes at a time, followed by a short break. That had been before Claire went missing, though. Now, the words refused to come at all.

Right after I tapped my phone’s notes application to remind myself to look into writing an article for my blog about my sprinting method for increasing productivity, Mimi plopped down on the bench directly across from me. I blinked in surprise a few times because I don’t remember ever before seeing the woman sit down. She was constantly working. I couldn’t help but grin as I wondered if she had somehow seen the note I’d been typing about taking short breaks throughout the day.

“I don’t know what you’re smiling about,” she said.

My chest immediately deflated. Was it possible that this open-minded woman had finally succumbed to the local pressures to believe the worst in me? If so, I would hate losing this as a safe place to get lunch. It was my daily interaction with humans outside my family. Even though most people didn’t speak, or even make eye contact with me, I still enjoyed the noises of clanging dishes and rumbling voices that this place provided.

Our house was far too quiet––especially when Hannah was at school. Sometimes, I feared the silence might strangle me.

Forcing myself back into the moment, I stared at Mimi, waiting with bated breath for the accusations to roll off her tongue.

Instead of that, Mimi’s vivid, wise blue eyes bored into me when she asked kindly, “What are you going to do next week when that sweet little girl of yours is out of school?”

“Oh,” I sat back against the red leather booth, surprised to find that someone actually cared about my childcare situation. “Well, I want to spend some extra time with her, just having fun and letting her be a kid. She’s had a really rough year.”

Mimi nodded. Her face had taken on a somber expression. “She sure has,” the woman agreed sadly, before adding, “And she is sure to love some extra one-on-one time with her daddy, but what are you going to do with her while you are working?”

It was a predicament I had given quite a bit of thought. Claire’s disappearance had happened right after the school year began, so Hannah had been in school every weekday since then. That gave me ample time to try to get some writing done during the day before she got home from school.

“I would love to be able to take the summer off to spend time with her, but I don’t think that would be a wise financial decision.” Our money situation was comfortable from my book sales, but it wasn’t like I made a steady salary. If the economy took a downturn, people’s disposable incomes would go down, and I could easily find myself making a fraction of what we’ve become accustomed to spending.

We had a decent amount of savings stored up, but Claire’s income from her management position at the local bank had given us a back up plan if my book sales suddenly plummeted. That high-profile job and Claire’s kindhearted, friendly demeanor had made her well known and well liked by nearly everyone in town. My solitary writing profession and natural introverted tendencies had led those same people to suspect and condemn me even more after their beloved Claire’s disappearance. What they didn’t seem to realize was that I missed her most of all.

Mimi was staring at me unflinchingly, so I added, “I don’t want to put Hannah in a daycare every day, so I thought she could relax and watch cartoons in the living room while I write in my study. If she needs anything, I’ll be right there to get it for her.”

It was obvious by the woman’s pursed face that she didn’t approve of my master plan for the school break. “So, you’re planning to plop that poor child in front of a television all summer?”

“No,” I shook my head, suddenly realizing how awful it sounded. “We’ll walk here together every day for lunch, and we’ll spend the evenings together.”

Mimi shook her head and rolled her eyes towards the ceiling as if I was the densest man she had ever met. “Either you’re not going to get any work done, or that child is going to be bored out of her mind,” she predicted.

Feeling exasperated by her firm disapproval of my plan, I lifted my palms and asked, “Well, do you have a better idea?”

Josie chose that moment to set down my plate. In the process, she managed to knock over my water glass, which sent water sliding across the table and dripping into my lap.

The frazzled waitress apologized profusely as I used a napkin to swipe at my pants, hoping it wouldn’t look like I had peed myself for my walk home. Mimi watched the entire exchange with a bemused expression before nodding proudly and saying, “Yes, I have a much better idea.”

4

Josie

I couldn’t believe I spilled an entire glass of water on a customer––this customer, of all people––right in front of my aunt. She had to be seriously regretting her decision to hire me.

When Aunt Mimi scooted over in the booth and patted the red pleather seat beside her, I tried not to let my apprehension outwardly show––even though I knew in my gut that she was going to fire me. What other choice did she have? I was utterly useless as a waitress, despite my best efforts to the contrary.

“Josephine,” Mimi started out, and I instantly knew this was going somewhere dark. She never used my full name––ever. “You know I love you as much as if you were my own daughter, right?”

“Of course,” I nodded, knowing there was bound to be a ‘but’ coming next.

“And you are as graceful as a mermaid in the water. I could watch you swim for hours on end.”

I gave her a sad smile, still waiting for that ‘but’ to come.