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Forever.
Read on for a sneak peek of Sharon Sala’s next thrilling romance,LEFT BEHIND
Chapter 1
It was Linette Elgin’s day off, and being a nurse, days off rarely came two in a row. This morning she was hustling, getting ready to walk out the door, get all of her errands over with so she could clean her apartment and do laundry later.
The day was already hot, but it was June in Jubilee, Kentucky, which meant if you wanted to stay cool, you either looked for shade or went where there was air conditioning. She had dressed for the weather in old jeans and a light-weight gray T-shirt with the word NO printed in blood red ink as she headed for the elevator. When the doors finally opened, she found herself face-to-face with Cecily Michaels, one of the women who’d rudely interrupted her first date with Wiley Pope.
Cecily looked startled, and then frowned. “What are you doing here?”
“I live here,” Linette said, and then saw the shock spreading on Cecily’s face and grinned. “Welcome to the neighborhood.”
Cecily was horrified that she’d moved into the enemy’s camp, and still pissed that Wiley had blocked hercalls. So, being the utter bitch that she was, couldn’t keep her mouth shut.
“How’s Wiley?” she drawled.
Linette pivoted so fast Cecily flinched, and in the sweetest voice, put her in her place.
“Bless your heart, honey. You must be the most miserable little thing to have nothing better to do with your life than interfere in someone else’s, so because I am a really nice person, this is just a friendly little warning.” Then she leaned forward. “Don’t fuck with me.”
The elevator stopped. The door opened, and then she was gone.
Cecily was in shock and just a little bit cowed. Every woman in the south knewbless your heartwas code forkiss my ass, and Linette was taller and scarier up close. By the time she gathered herself and got to the parking lot, Linette Elgin was nowhere in sight, and that was just fine with her.
Linette had already forgotten the new neighbor, and was on her way to the bank. Traffic was already getting heavy, which was par for the course in a tourist town like Jubilee, and she was grateful to find a parking place. She was thinking about making meat loaf later when she entered the lobby, and what she needed to get at the supermarket. She had personal business to attend, and sat down in one of the chairs outside the vice president’s office to wait herturn. She was reaching for her phone when she heard a sudden commotion at the front entrance.
To her horror, three men came charging into the lobby, wearing surgical masks, waving guns, and shouting. A big heavyset man wearing gray coveralls and a Texas Rangers baseball cap issued the first order.
“Everybody down! Get down on the floor now!”
People started screaming and panicking, and one lady fainted where she stood.
Texas Ranger fired a shot into the ceiling. “Shut the hell up! Next one screams is dead! Belly down on the floor, and don’t look up!”
There was a collective gasp, the quick shuffling of feet as people dropped down onto the floor, and then silence.
Linette was horrified. Her phone was in her pocket, but she was belly down and couldn’t move. Mr. Trotter, the vice president she’d been waiting to see, wound up lying right beside her. She could hear the rapid, shallow gasps of his breathing, and knew he was as frightened as the rest of them.
Texas Ranger shouted at the two men with him. “Get the money!” Then pointed at the tellers who’d frozen in place behind the plexiglass windows. “All of you! Empty your tills into the bags and no funny business!”
The tellers began cramming the money from their drawers into the bags they’d been given as fast as they could.
One of the gunmen, a short, skinny dude, kept pulling up his pants and dancing from one foot to the other,then trading his gun from right hand to left hand, and back again.
Linette’s best guess was that he was high on something, which didn’t bode well for any of them.
“Hurry up, bitch!” Skinny Dancer shouted, and pounded his gun on the counter in front of the teller.
Texas Ranger shouted again. “Who’s in charge?”
“That would be me,” Randall Trotter said, and held up his hand.
“Then get the hell up and open the vault,” Texas Ranger ordered.
“Yes sir!” Randall said.
“Be careful,” Linette whispered, as they shared a brief look.
