скачать книгу бесплатно
Deception
Elizabeth Goddard
TRAIL OF SECRETSJewel Caraway thought she’d left her mistakes in the past—but then her past arrives at her door. Though she’s thrilled to reunite with her estranged sister, something about her sister’s new husband makes Jewel uneasy. Does he know her secret? Is he the one behind the growing list of attacks against her? And if he is involved…does that mean her sister is, too? With nowhere else to turn, Jewel must rely on police chief Colin Winters—the first man to make the widow question her resolve to never love again. But will he stay by her side when her guarded secrets are revealed?MOUNTAIN COVE: In the Alaskan wilderness, love and danger collide.
TRAIL OF SECRETS
Jewel Caraway thought she’d left her mistakes in the past—but then her past arrives at her door. Though she’s thrilled to reunite with her estranged sister, something about her sister’s new husband makes Jewel uneasy. Does he know her secret? Is he the one behind the growing list of attacks against her? And if he is involved…does that mean her sister is, too? With nowhere else to turn, Jewel must rely on police chief Colin Winters—the first man to make the widow question her resolve to never love again. But will he stay by her side when her guarded secrets are revealed?
Mountain Cove: In the Alaskan wilderness, love and danger collide
Her attacker was back.
Panic sent her pulse racing. Flashlight in hand, she ran to the attic steps, taking the offensive. She wouldn’t be a victim again.
“Don’t move,” she shouted.
But it wasn’t her attacker coming up the steps. Chief Winters came toward her. She should take a step back but she couldn’t move. Something about him had her heart fluttering. He lifted her chin with his finger.
She wanted to tell him what a romantic cliché his action was, but then she’d be admitting her attraction. And she couldn’t admit that. She’d never risk her heart again. Even if she were willing, something stood between them.
“What are you doing up here again?” he asked her.
She couldn’t tell anyone what she’d done, especially not him. “Chief…”
“Jewel, don’t you think it’s about time you call me Colin?”
His voice was so gentle, she could almost forget he was here on official business. But that would be a mistake.
“Colin, I—”
But she never got a chance to speak. A scream tore through the attic.
ELIZABETH GODDARD is an award-winning author of more than twenty novels, including the romantic mystery The Camera Never Lies—winner of a prestigious Carol Award in 2011. After acquiring her computer science degree, she worked at a software firm before eventually retiring to raise her four children and become a professional writer. In addition to writing, she homeschools her children and serves with her husband in ministry.
Deception
Elizabeth Goddard
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
—Psalms 103:12
Dedicated to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ
who paid my ransom.
Acknowledgments (#ulink_c5e78cd2-d5f3-5e24-b919-7ef1806a2db6)
My heartfelt thanks and gratitude goes out to all those who support my writing endeavors. First I thank my family, of course—my husband and boys who put up with my frequent forays into other worlds without them. We’ve been eating a lot of pizza and fast food lately, I know, but hey, don’t you love it when Mom gets that book money? I also want to thank my dear writing buddies, you know who you are, and my new writing friends—I couldn’t do this without your encouragement and support. And as always, thanks to my amazing editor, Elizabeth Mazer, for her insights into making my manuscripts the best they can be. Last and never least, I appreciate the encouragement from my agent, Steve Laube. Signing me as a client (has it already been over five years?) was a huge validation to me as a writer. Thanks, Steve!
Contents
COVER (#u55688220-c9b4-5354-a96c-696b35f7cdf4)
BACK COVER TEXT (#uae22a9c9-8221-5795-b206-1985daf85939)
INTRODUCTION (#ucce1f881-ed82-5394-9487-42081d3e5a5d)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#u38a0ed56-f82f-595e-a0ce-bdc5f931cc77)
TITLE PAGE (#u32b854d5-7113-5351-b949-ccaeb64875f9)
BIBLE VERSE (#ua84acccd-1373-50fe-8609-c9d1199b180d)
DEDICATION (#u25b4bd67-7ecd-5d8c-b2e4-0a654fb15fe9)
Acknowledgements (#ulink_5903820d-314b-5176-b648-d87a02d6b7cc)
ONE (#ulink_3bebe0c4-aa31-5884-8b0a-ed9a47e9945f)
TWO (#ulink_df3d6745-441c-52f4-9f8f-8bcd4667631e)
THREE (#ulink_f09afd25-df80-51ff-9862-8bb0f281c5f6)
FOUR (#ulink_e963deda-e7ee-5aca-a16a-f7dcd0c2039a)
FIVE (#ulink_2c7149b9-629a-5163-b3d9-a5c7290e0670)
SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Dear Reader (#litres_trial_promo)
EXTRACT (#litres_trial_promo)
COPYRIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
ONE (#ulink_3396f026-8fca-58bf-9bdb-0cedc78273f9)
Dead Man Falls
Mountain Cove, Alaska
Edging closer to the precipice that overlooked the plunging waterfall, Jewel Caraway risked a glance down. Vertigo hit. Dizziness mingled with worry.
Meral and Buck should have beaten Jewel to the falls where they had planned to meet up.
“Meral!” she yelled.
The roar of the water that cascaded hundreds of feet below drowned out her calls, sucking them down with the rushing water. A foaming whirlpool twisted where the frothing, tumbling force pounded the pool at its base. Misty spray drifted up and enveloped Jewel in a sheen of moisture. The sound of her voice could never compete with the rumbling growl of the cataract.
She tugged out her cell phone before she remembered she would get no cell signal here. The only signal she ever had was in Mountain Cove proper. She put the cell away, her gaze drawn back to the waterfall.
Powerful and dangerous.
Beautiful and terrifying.
Dead Man Falls was a force to be reckoned with. That was if one were to take the plunge and get sucked into the swirling torrent at the base.
Kayakers had attempted to navigate the drop and failed.
Part of a rainbow, transparent and fading into the mist, caught her attention. Mesmerized, Jewel stood at the edge of the rocky, moss-covered ledge that was flanked by spruce and hemlock, firs and cedars in the lush, temperate rainforest. She watched the churning at the bottom of an endless vortex that would trap anyone or anything unfortunate enough to fall. She wondered what secrets it held in its depths—then flinched at the memory of how she had buried a secret of her own and never thought about it again. That was until Meral, the sister she hadn’t seen since Jewel had eloped twenty years ago, had arrived on her doorstep with her new husband.
And now they were both missing.
“Meral!” she called again. “Buck!”
Uncertainty roiled inside, tumultuous like the falls.
Those two had gotten lost somehow, which seemed impossible. They’d been hiking together when Jewel realized she’d forgotten her water and had needed to go back. They had gone on ahead of her on the well-defined trail, and the plan had been they would stop at the falls and wait until Jewel could catch up. Where could they have gone?
A twig snapped. Before she could turn, a blunt object smashed into her back. Pain erupted along with her scream as the force of the blow propelled her forward.
Airborne, Jewel plummeted through the clouds and mist, feeling as if her stomach had been left behind on the cliff’s edge.
Terror was catching up with her.
The spray of the waterfall engulfed her. At the last possible moment, she dragged in a breath and fell into the jaws of the beast she’d admired with a healthy fear only moments before. The wrath of the whirlpool plunged her deeper, twisting and tossing, bashing her against sunken boulders.
Dizziness and nausea held her captive within the vortex. The pounding water pushed her deeper, then turned her over again in the same way a crocodile rolled its meal to make it tender.
I’m not ready to die!
Lungs burning, Jewel shoved down the fear. The most important thing she’d learned from self-defense classes with local police chief Colin Winters was not to panic. The violent water was nothing more than an assailant bent on harming her. She could only escape by slipping out of its grip. On the fringe of consciousness, Jewel did a flutter kick, swimming with all her might, and forced her body down and deep below the backwash.
Then she felt it.
The smooth water.
She’d escaped!
Disoriented, unable to tell which way she should go, she allowed the current to sweep her downstream and away from the falls. Jewel opened her eyes and fought through her exhaustion to try to swim toward the surface.
I can do this.
But fear and doubt clawed at her, threatening to drag her down and keep her under. Her lungs burned and screamed as she fought her way to the surface. And in that moment, the instance before she breached, she saw rocks and trees blurred at the top of the ledge from which she’d fallen...along with a figure. A human figure.
She’d thought, she’d hoped, that a branch had fallen from a tree and somehow shoved her in the back, sending her over to plummet into the river.
The way the figure stood there, the wide, deliberate stance, she knew...she knew that he or she had pushed Jewel. Intentionally shoved her into Dead Man Falls to what should have been her death. And she hadn’t made it to safety yet. She could still die today in this river.
Why? Why had she been pushed?
The figure disappeared in the thick canopy even as the current dragged Jewel away.
Finally breaching the surface, she pulled in a breath and braced herself for a new battle to survive the river with its multiple tiered rapids and falls.
Jewel couldn’t be sure how long the river had taken her captive. How long she’d allowed herself to be carried away, floating on her back in order to save her energy for that moment, that one moment, when she might have a chance to escape. Except her reserves were almost depleted.
That moment hadn’t come.
How much longer could she keep her head above the rushing torrent?
Her limbs grew tired and numb, even with her effort to conserve energy. She searched the bank for calmer waters to swim toward. A branch to grab. Anything.
She needed out of the water before she hit the rapids and another set of falls.
God, help me!
Just ahead she spotted the trunk of a dead tree, branches sprawling and reaching. This was her chance and likely her last one before the rapids. Before she drowned.
Jewel reached, but the current, ripping and swirling as the rapids approached, twisted her away. She had no control over her own body. Her own life. She wouldn’t be able to grab the trunk.
Jewel was going to die. Despair engulfed her.
