Sapphire Ice: Book 1 in the Jewel Series Read online



  TITLE

  Part 1 of the Jewel Trilogy

  a Novel by

  Hallee Bridgeman

  by Olivia Kimbrell Press

  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  Sapphire Ice, Part 1 of the Jewel Trilogy

  Third edition. Copyright © 2012 by Hallee Bridgeman. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without express written permission of the author. Your support and respect for the property of this author is appreciated.

  Some scripture quotations courtesy of the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

  Some scripture quotations courtesy of the New King James Version of the Holy Bible, Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas- Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Words and lyrics from the hymn, SOFTLY AND TENDERLY JESUS IS CALLING, in the public domain. Words & Music by Will L. Thompson, originally published in Sparkling Gems, Nos. 1 and 2, by J. Calvin Bushey (Chicago, Illinois: Will L. Thompson & Company, 1880)

  Cover Art by Debi Warford (www.debiwarford.com)

  Boston skyline photo by Nicole Kotschate (username mcfly1980 licensed under agreement by SXC.hu)

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Olivia Kimbrell Press

  ISBN-13: 978-0615622095

  ISBN-10: 0615622097

  EBook ISBN: 9781452416526

  Special ISBN: 9781476142005

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TITLE

  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  THE JEWEL TRILOGY

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  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

  TRANSLATION KEY

  EXCERPT: GREATER THAN RUBIES

  EXCERPT: EMERALD FIRE

  EXCERPT: TOPAZ HEAT

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PERSONAL NOTE

  HALLEE ONLINE

  HALLEE’S NEWSLETTER

  THE JEWEL TRILOGY

  he Jewel Trilogy

  by Hallee Bridgeman

  Book 1: Sapphire Ice, a novel

  Greater Than Rubies, a novella inspired by the Jewel Trilogy

  Book 2: Emerald Fire, a novel

  Book 3: Topaz Heat, a novel

  Available in eBook or paperback.

  DEDICATION

  For My Darling Gregg…

  HERE aren’t words to adequately express my love and appreciation for you. I am so happy God brought us together, and I look forward to forever and ever.

  PROLOGUE

  HERE were three of them. Sisters. Half sisters, technically, born to the same mother but different fathers. They lived in bad circumstances, the kind of childhood existence that makes for melodramatic and heart-wrenching movie of the week scripts. There were nights when it was bad, and then there were those nights when it was really bad. The really bad nights they all had to hide.

  Tonight was one of those really bad nights.

  Robin hadn’t gotten out of the way fast enough. Maxine and Sarah had been able to hear her screaming from their closet hiding place, but to go out there, to face him wouldn’t have helped Robin. It would have just given him two more targets, or possibly hostages. Eventually, Robin crawled in with them, shaking with fear and rage, not even knowing which was the strongest emotion from one tremor to the next. She’d managed to fight him off this time. He was probably still trying to get his breath back. But Robin needed her strength for the next day … and the next … and the one after that.

  Robin was fifteen, blonde, blue eyed, and already beautiful. She was the oldest of the three, the protector of the other two. She had no memory of her father but knew he was doing seven to twenty-one for trafficking cocaine.

  Green eyed Maxine was twelve, olive-skinned, with straight, dark hair that testified to the proof of her father’s American Indian blood. He had been a warm bed on a drunken night, and only Maxine’s features gave evidence of which of her mother’s many one night stands had fathered her. She had never learned his name. Neither had her mother.

  Little Sarah was nine. She was thin – too thin – pale, and small enough to pass for six. Her brown, curly hair had red streaks that came out in the summer. She needed glasses, but he had already broken them twice, so she gave up on them. When Sarah was two, her father had played lollipop with a loaded revolver and lost.

  Robin wrapped her sisters in her arms as they heard the front door open, heard their mother’s raucous laughter and a man’s answering voice. Then HE started yelling and the sound of breaking glass made each girl flinch.

  Their mother’s shrill shrieks added to the cacophony, and the new man’s voice joined in. The three girls inched farther back into the closet as the fight intensified. Shouting escalated. Words began to become clearer. Robin tried to cover her sisters’ ears to block out the quarrel. The adults screamed at each other about a deal gone bad, about drugs, about money. There had been many fights like this in the past, and the three sisters prayed that he would leave this time.

  Sarah screamed at the sound of the gunshot. Robin grabbed her and covered her mouth with her hand. Greasy fear churned through her gut at the sound of another shot. And another. And another. Four shots in all, then a deafening, roaring silence that screamed in their small ears.

  In the silence, Maxine shifted, but Robin gripped her arm tight enough to bruise, her dirty nails digging into her sister’s brown skin. Heavy boots moved through the apartment, entered their room, started toward the closet. They each drew in a breath and held it, surprised their teeth didn’t rattle and give them away. Then the screech of sirens penetrated the thin walls and they heard the heavy boots run, heard the door slam.

  They didn’t move. They waited through the silence, through the banging on the door, through the dozens of footsteps that entered the apartment. They heard the shouts and the buzzing and chirping of hand held radios. They heard the metallic clicks of hammers falling back onto unfired chambers and eager, stiff muzzles sliding forcefully back into worn leather sheaths. They heard muttered curses about wasted lives or scumbags slaying scumbags. The light in their room flicked on and, after a moment, a voice called, “Hey, Sarge, there’s toys in here. Little girl toys. Dolls and stuff.”

  They sat there in the dark, quivering with their backs to the wall, their arms wrapped around each other, and shivered together, terrified of what waited for them outside the closet.

  CHAPTER 1

  HE wait for a table at Hank’s Place spilled out beyond the patio and into the parking lot. Parents stood in cliquish groups, tightly gripping little trophies, pagers for tables, and various beverages from the bar. Throngs of little leaguers dashed around chasing each other, exactly as loud and somewhat rowdy little boys ought to do. They wore white jerseys with yellow sleeves, each bearing the Hank’s Place logo, which accounted for the presence of such a large crowd on the last night of the season.

  Robin Bartlett balanced her tray over her head and stood on her tiptoes to keep from losing her balance as a pack of nine-year-olds shoved by her. A yellow cap landed at her feet an
d, with dexterity, she slipped her toe under it and kicked up, catching it in mid air as she continued forward with the drinks. She arrived at her target group of parents and delivered two diet colas, an iced tea, and a water with lemon without dislodging a single drop.

  “Do you know how much longer we’ll be?” A perfectly groomed and well-bejeweled mother asked, irritation heavy in her tone.

  Robin smiled, feeling the headache she’d fought all evening start spearing the back of her right eyebrow. “We’re setting up for you in the outside bar area,” she answered. Number seventeen bumped into her, knocking her sideways. Seeing a head bare of a cap, she placed the cap in her hand atop the tawny head and gave the bill a quick tug. “Shouldn’t be more than five or ten minutes.”

  The customer pursed her lips but didn’t say anything. Robin stepped slightly to the left and addressed the next group clustered around the large potted fern. “Would you like something from the bar while you’re waiting?”

  One of the women in the group answered. As she shoved the designer sunglasses on top of her head, the diamond tennis bracelet on her tanned wrist caught the light of the setting sun. “We’re a church group.”

  Robin bit her tongue before she blurted out exactly what she thought of “church groups” and instead smiled a bright, saccharine smile. “I can get you water or cola from the bar as well.”

  The woman actually looked Robin up and down, from the toes of her worn out black sneakers to the top of her tightly bound blonde hair. Once she had concluded her inspection, she turned her back as she spoke, as if dismissing Robin. “No, thank you,” she said.

  Robin shrugged it off. She met a dozen like her a day. She worked her way through the crowd, taking drink orders and reassuring parents that the wait wouldn’t be much longer. Some were rude, some polite. Robin guessed the polite ones had once waited tables. It didn’t matter either way to Robin. Robin’s boss paid her simply to fill drink orders, not make lifelong friends.

  After making her way back into the restaurant and behind the bar to pour wine and beer, she paused for just a moment to roll her head on her neck, trying to relieve some of the tension. She caught her reflection in the mirror behind the bar. She wore her blonde hair wrapped into a tight bun at the base of her neck. Instead of detracting from her beauty, it accented her high cheekbones and long neck and helped the casual observer focus on her deep blue eyes and long lashes. She wore makeup only to hide the shadows under her eyes and the cheeks pale from fatigue, but the light dusting of lipstick simply made her full lips all the more appealing. She wore the standard bartender uniform of Hank’s Place, with her starched white shirt and black slacks, which helped to exhibit her thin waist and long legs.

  She’d worked in the bar for eight years. Hank had given her the job at eighteen, and from the first day she’d had to fight off the men who made passes on an almost nightly basis. The regulars eventually learned that a date could not be had, and also attained an education on just how badly fingers could ache for days as the consequence of a casual touch. A few times she’d been tempted to take one of them up on the offer for a date, but the truth of the matter was that she didn’t have time. She didn’t have the time for a date, and she certainly didn’t have the time for a man in her life.

  Robin simply worked. She slept, ate, and worked. She methodically made drinks and served customers. She was the head bartender now, and while she could have done without the added responsibility, the extra pay helped. The little bonuses Hank slipped into her paycheck from time to time let her know that he appreciated her and the regular crowd who managed to find their way in only on the nights she worked.

  Two hours later, her hands burning from the bleach water used to wash the glasses and her feet feeling like they might just fall off, the restaurant reached its peak dinner time. People at the entrance were told that the wait would be at least an hour if not more and the customers, to Robin’s continuing surprise, accepted that. Happy hour came to an end and the rush of double orders ended, so Robin just concentrated on keeping the waiting customers happy and keeping the eating customers served. That worked for her because her headache beat against her skull in a thundering rhythm that she kept expecting nearby people to overhear.

  Regardless, her smile looked fresh to the new customers who had sidled up to whatever free spot there remained along the bar, and she fixed their drinks with the same efficiency as she had two hours earlier. She took money, pocketed tips, and offered an audible, “thank you,” as a mother carted out a toddler who had been screaming for the last forty-five minutes. She turned toward the cash register and barreled into the solid chest of Hank Lamore. Even though she stood nearly six feet tall herself, she barely reached his shoulder, and had to crane her neck to give him a grin.

  Hank ran his place as tightly as he’d run his ship when he’d been a Captain in the Navy. He was edging toward sixty now, but discipline over his body and the daily workout regime he put himself through kept him looking early forties. Robin loved him like the father she’d never had, and owed him almost everything.

  “Break, Robin,” he stated flatly in his gravelly voice.

  She snorted and skirted around him, not even bothering to respond.

  He turned and snatched the bills out of her hand and stepped between her and the cash register. “I said break. And I mean a full half hour. Not the measly five minutes you try to get away with.”

  If she sat down for a full half hour, Robin knew she’d fall asleep. Still, it was best not to argue with the boss. She’d get off her feet for a few minutes, drink a cup of coffee, maybe take an aspirin, and then get back to work. Hank might growl at her then, but he wouldn’t try to force the issue.

  With cup in hand and a be-right-back wave to her regulars, she went through the double doors off to the side of the bar into the kitchen. Casey stood at his place behind the huge stainless steel table, inspecting plates and passing or failing them with his very high standards of sensory appeal. Those approved went onto the warmer shelf in front of him where the wait staff lingered, waiting to pick up their orders. Those rejected were sent back to the minions behind him who then scurried to make repairs and please the legend. Chef Casey stood very short and very thin, thin enough that it always surprised Robin that he could even lift the larger pots off the stove.

  He gifted Robin with the grimace that passed for his smile, making his uneven teeth flash startling white against his ebony face. “Hiya.”

  Robin smiled back, “Hiya yourself.” Then she headed to the corner of the big room toward a large table that sat ready and waiting for the staff to sit and relax on their breaks.

  “Alright, then.”

  The greeting was a ritual, and hadn’t changed over the past eight years. With a sigh, Robin leaned back in the chair and propped her feet in the one across from her. “How’s the world treating you, Casey?”

  “Well, now, here and there, mostly.” A plate with a ten-ounce steak, mushroom risotto, and some fresh vegetables artfully displayed on the side made it to the finish line. Once Casey topped it with herbed butter, a waiter immediately snatched it up and put it on his tray. “You’ll be wanting some of my pie to go with that coffee.”

  “I would, yes.” She’d offer to get it, but she knew not to enter the stainless steel kingdom. The regular staff – regular meaning anyone not trained in the art and craft of preparing fine cuisine – was relegated to the large oak table in the corner. It was the same table Casey used for mise en place back when Hank’s was nothing more than a glorified one-room burger joint.

  She watched him dice some green herbs with such speed and precision that it made Robin’s aching head spin. He sprinkled them into a large stainless steel pot and tasted his sauce before he fixed her a slice of pie. Without asking her, he went into the large freezer and returned with two generous scoops of vanilla ice cream to the top, then served it to her with exaggerated movements. “Not quite the fancy feast you used to getting at that Benedicts.”

  S
ighing around her spoon at the explosion of taste of perfectly seasoned apples, Robin could only shake her head. When her tongue finally quit enjoying long enough that she could use it to form words, she chuckled. “They’ve got nothing on you, Casey. Not a darned thing.”

  His cackle followed him back to the stove. “Not a darn thing,” he laughed while he glanced through a tray of raw aged steaks awaiting his approval before they could have the honor of searing to juicy perfection on the grill.

  Neither spoke again. Casey concentrated on perfection while Robin concentrated on quickly devouring as much of the pie as she could. Waitresses and waiters came and went, bringing empty plates to exchange for full ones, too busy to have a conversation during the circle. It didn’t bother Robin, though. She enjoyed the quiet, broken only by the opening and closing of the swinging doors.

  One of the bartenders, Marissa was her name, pushed open the door and stuck her head through, scanned the kitchen, then looked back behind her. “She’s in here.”

  Robin was just pushing her plate away and was contemplating getting back to work when she looked up and watched her sister Maxine stalk through the doors into the kitchen. “What are you doing here?”

  Maxine laughed and glided to the table. She wore some green little sparkly sheath looking thing and shoes with such heels that Robin wondered how she stood without toppling over. Robin had heard people refer to her sister as beautiful all her life, but as adolescence gave way to adulthood, she thought that the word stunning might better apply. Her jet black hair fell thick and straight to her hips. She stood tall and thin with a delicate figure Robin would have gladly traded for her more generous curves. Her most striking feature was her eyes. They were green, nearly emerald, slightly slanted in the corners with lashes so long and full they required no helping enhancements by way of mascara.