Page 1 of Savage Heart

Twenty-Two Years Ago….

Erik tensed…listening. His long, lanky body was a bundle of nerves, aching muscles, throbbing bruises, and shallow breaths. The aching and throbbing were nothing new—he’d taken a pounding again the night before when his perpetually empty belly growled a little too loudly at the dinner table…it was the nerves that were getting to him.

Only a little longer….

He only had to wait a little longer before it was all over.

Before he and his ma could make a clean break. In just a few hours, he and his ma would be free. Him after sixteen years, and her after 20 years. Twenty years of the same treatment…his ma was due something good. Finally.

Only a little longer…. Just a few more minutes.

He glanced at the clock. The time. 9:40AM screamed in bright red digits.

That morning, just after sunup, his pa had stumbled into the house after another night out drinking with his buddies, the other men from the county who all spent more time pissingout their money than takin’ care of their livelihoods. It was a rare day when Erik and Selia Skaarsen knew a sober father or husband. It was even rarer for them to pass a day without the fear of pain…or starvation. How long had it been since he’d had a meal with some meat in it? Two months. It had been two months since he’d gotten desperate enough to take his father’s hunting rifle and head off into the woods surrounding the farm.

It had taken him long, exhausting hours in the nearly freezing winter temps, but he’d bagged two rabbits. Those rabbits wouldn’t last long, even between him and his ma. But they’d be fools to not share the meat with Karl.

When he’d come home that night and saw the roasted rabbit on the table, he hadn’t been as grateful for the meat as Erik and his ma had hoped. Rather than eat, and then get drunk as he usually did, that night he’d beaten Erik until his eyes swelled shut. His crime? He’d used his pa’s rifle—without permission. Karl hadn’t cared that the only reason Erik had needed the gun was because his own family was starving, and his own son had to hunt down the meal Karl had stuffed down his throat. A meal the son had barely gotten to enjoy before his pa had stolen the food from his plate.

The burning at the back of his eyes jerked Erik from that memory. He blinked, forbidding the tears from rising. Tears were a weakness. Men didn’t cry—and his ma needed him to be a man. He needed to step up, be strong—for them both. Because once they were free…he’d need to do whatever necessary to make sure his ma never knew fear or pain or hunger again.

It was his promise to her. To himself. Things would be different.

Yes, soon…it would be different. He would take his ma, and they would start a new life away from hunger and fear and poverty. He would become the man his pa wasn’t.

He had to.

Leaning over from where he was sitting on the very edge of his twin-sized bed, he looked out the second-story window toward where the barn used to be.

It burned down last month, taking their two horses in the fire.

A fire set by his pa when he’d fallen asleep with a cigar in his mouth while sleeping off the cheap whisky in the hay loft. The sheriff said it was a miracle the old bastard got out in time.

Erik believed it would have been a miracle if the asshole died—then he and his ma would finally be free without having to leave behind the home they’d built in Skimmer, Texas.

At sixteen, Erik wasn’t a man of the world—hell, he’d never left the county, so he had no idea what the hell any of anything meant, but he knew enough to want better. For himself…and his ma. He knew that farms the size of theirs should be capable of making an income big enough to keep him and his family fed…wearing clothes that fit…and with enough fuel to keep their farm equipment running. Erik couldn’t count the number of times his pa woke him from a night of exhausted sleep to kick his ass out the bed to run to the Richardson’s for a tank of fuel because his pa had spent the diesel money on rotgut. The Richardsons were good, God-fearin’ people, who were generous and didn’t judge that Erik wore pants too short and thermals too thin. However, just like every other generous family in Skimmer, they were getting mighty tired of giving handouts to the Skaarsens.

Skaarsen.

From what his pa had told him when he was knee high, Skaarsen was a strong name, a name of pride, passed down from generation to generation. An old Norwegian family name, one that instilled trust in those who heard it.

Not so much anymore.

Since his pa moved to the US from Undredal, Norway, then married his ma ten years later, the family name became ajoke. So much so that none of Erik’s father’s family even called them anymore. They brushed off the embarrassment of Karl Skaarsen and completely ignored that Karl had a family. A wife. A son. Effectively leaving Erik and his ma at Karl’s mercy, with nowhere to go, no family to turn to—since his ma’s family were all gone. She’d married Karl as the only daughter of the town preacher, who’d raised her since her mother’s passing. Selia Smith had been completely taken in by the once handsome and charming older man. Now, she knew better. And she wanted better for her son.

And he wanted better for her. They just needed to wait a little longer.

Glancing at the clock on his bedside table, he ignored the peeling duct tape that he’d put in place years ago to hold the three double A batteries inside, and glared at the red numbers.

10:13.

Erik stiffened, his body thrumming, almost like his pulse beat in time to the passing seconds.

Soon. Only a little longer….

Ma had said to wait until 10:30, then come out of his room, come down the stairs, and go wait in the truck.

She had to make sure Pa was knocked out cold from all the booze before they made their move.

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