Army Ranger Redemption

A war hero fights for what he lost long ago

The Timberline Trio was the cold case everyone in town was doomed to remember. Scarlett Easton may have just been a child then, but the fear it spread throughout the reservation haunts her to this day. Jim Kennedy ran off to war to escape this place, and has now returned to fight his own battle on the home front. And when that puts Scarlett in danger, both their loyalties will be tested. Finding themselves on opposite sides of a town that’s never recovered from the kidnappings decades ago, Jim and Scarlett discover that not only are their pasts forever tied together, but so are their futures...

The scream chilled his blood. It was the sound of a terrified woman—Scarlett.

Why had she stopped following him? Why had he let her?

“Scarlett?” He reversed course, staggering and tripping through the underbrush, cursing his bum leg. Cursing the men who’d caused it.

She screamed again, just as loudly but with a little less edge. His flashlight flickered on the path ahead of him as he charged back the way they’d come.

He plowed through the tree branches back onto the trail, which allowed him to move faster. “Scarlett?”

“I’m here, Jim.”

His light picked her out, crumpled on the ground at his feet, and he jerked to a halt. He grabbed onto a tree branch to stop himself from falling on top of her.

“What happened?”

She pointed into the underbrush beside her. “Call 911.”

Army Ranger Redemption

Carol Ericson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CAROL ERICSON is a bestselling, award-winning author of more than forty books. She has an eerie fascination for true-crime stories, a love of film noir and a weakness for reality TV, all of which fuel her imagination to create her own tales of murder, mayhem and mystery. To find out more about Carol and her current projects, please visit her website at www.carolericson.com, “where romance flirts with danger.”

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CAST OF CHARACTERS

Scarlett Easton—A local artist and native Quileute, she’s a shaman in her tribe, but even these powers can’t help her when she discovers a dead body on her property and a damaged army vet who has secrets to spare.

Jim Kennedy—An army ranger vet who has returned home to Timberline to deal with all the ghosts in his past, but that past collides with his future when he meets a beautiful artist who has her own ghosts to face.

Dax Kennedy—Jim’s brother is an ex-con and a former member of the Lords of Chaos, a motorcycle gang that ruled the drug trade on the Washington Peninsula. Has he returned to Timberline to help his brother or drag him back into a life of crime?

Rusty Kelly—His death on Scarlett’s property is the first sign that Timberline has not shrugged off its past association with drug trafficking.

Chewy Teller—A member of the Lords of Chaos, he returns to Timberline to take care of some old business.

Danny Easton—Scarlett’s black-sheep uncle was in trouble with the law before; has he changed his ways or is he back to wreak more havoc?

Rocky Whitecotton—Expelled from the Quileute reservation for his criminal activity, his presence still casts a dark shadow over the residents of Timberline.

Evelyn Foster—Scarlett’s grandmother may know more than she’ll admit about the kidnappings from the past.

The Timberline Trio—Kayla Rush, Stevie Carson and Heather Brice were snatched from Timberline twenty-five years ago. The truth of their disappearance will rock Timberline.

For the water polo moms

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Dread thumped against Scarlett’s temples as she stepped out onto the porch of her cabin. Clouds rolled across the waxing crescent moon, teasing her as light and shadow played across the trees crowding up to her front door. Holding her breath, she hunched forward and squinted into the darkness until her eyes and muscles ached.

Since she couldn’t see a thing beyond the tree line, she tilted her head and listened to the sounds of the forest—a rustle of dried leaves, the snap of a twig, the soft coo of a nighthawk.

Had her mind been playing tricks on her when, from inside the cabin, she’d heard the strangled cry? It could’ve been a wounded animal who’d moved on in his pain and suffering.

She hadn’t been back in Washington one week from her art show in New York and already she was on edge. She no longer had to fear Jordan Young, the man who’d been harassing her. That FBI agent, Duke Harper, had shot him dead to protect Beth St. Regis.

The Timberline Sheriff’s Department had done a clean sweep of her property to make sure Young or his cohort hadn’t planted any more traps. She had no reason to be afraid in her own cabin, on her own land. But she was.

Even before she’d heard what sounded like a muffled scream tonight, she’d been uneasy since her return to Timberline. She couldn’t put her finger on the reason for the feeling, and had dismissed it as leftover angst from going into a dream state to help Beth sort out her own visions. Any time Scarlett used the extrasensory powers she’d inherited from her Quileute granny, it left her jumpy.

Cupping a hand around her mouth, she called out, “Hello? Anyone there?”

Not that she expected an answer, but it beat cowering on her porch. Only the wind responded as it whistled through the branches of the trees.

She huffed out a breath and backed up to her front door. She turned and glanced over her shoulder before stepping across the threshold and slamming the door behind her. The top dead bolt stuck as she tried to click it into place. After four tries, she gave up.

The dead bolt had been Granny’s idea, but Scarlett hadn’t used it in years. Now that she needed that extra layer of protection, the darned thing had rusted or jammed or whatever. She’d have to replace it.

She twitched the curtain back into place and returned to her chair in front of the fireplace, where a crackling blaze welcomed her. Five minutes later, with a book open in her lap and her legs curled beneath her, a loud knock on the front door disturbed the peace and set her heart racing again.

This time she went to the front door with a poker clutched in one hand and her cell phone in the other, even though she couldn’t get cell reception out here. She jumped as a louder knock resounded through the room. Another thing this door was missing was a peephole. Why hadn’t she gotten a peephole installed along with the dead bolt?

She shoved aside the curtain at the window next to the door and peered onto the porch. The light spilling onto the deck illuminated a large man. She swallowed and backed up, but the movement must’ve caught his eye and he pivoted toward the window.

“Are you okay in there?”

Sweeping aside the curtain, her cell phone prominently displayed, she asked, “Who are you? What do you want?”

“I’m Jim Kennedy. I have a place—” he waved behind him “—up the road. I heard a noise and came out to investigate. Was it you?”

Her muscles coiled. He sounded sincere, but it could all be a ploy to lure her outside and... “Jim Kennedy?”

“Yeah, my folks had this place before...before. The Butlers used to live here. Y-you’re not Gracie Butler, are you?”

Kennedy. She knew the name. She’d known the man, or at least the boy—a rough boy, a solitary boy. “The Butlers sold out and moved to Idaho, where Gracie and her husband settled.”

“So you’re a local?”

They couldn’t stand there yelling through the door all night. As she yanked it open, she had the fleeting thought that she’d known Wyatt Carson, too, and he’d turned out to be a psychopath.

The man before her stepped back, his eyes widening as if surprised she’d opened the door. Her gaze raked over his six-foot-something frame. He’d have nothing to fear from wandering around the forest at night.

“I’m Scarlett Easton.” She thrust out her hand. “I grew up on the rez, but went to Timberline High. You were in my geometry class.”

He blinked and heat rushed to her cheeks. Why in the world had she brought that up? She only remembered because she used to copy off his paper sometimes—not because she’d been intrigued by the loner who had a shock of black hair always falling in his eyes and rode a motorcycle.

She cleared her throat. “Mr. Stivers? Sophomore year?”

“Scarlett, yeah. You used to copy my answers all the time.”

Her lips twisted into a smile. “Once in a while. Do you want to come in? I heard a noise, too. A scream, or...something.”

“Sure.”

She widened the door and stepped to the side as he limped over the threshold. She averted her gaze. The limp was new unless he’d just injured himself.

“Did you see anything out there?” The wind gusted as she shut the door, snatching it from her hand and slamming it.

Jim took a turn around the room with his halting gait, running his fingers along a table carved from a log, brushing his knuckles across a hand-painted pillow and studying the watercolor landscapes on the wall. “It’s like a museum in here.”

“Some of the pieces are for sale if you’re interested.”

Snapping his fingers, he said, “You were into all those art classes at school. You got suspended for painting a Native American mural on the wall outside the gym.”

“Some of my best work.”

He leaned forward to study a small painting of a storm-swept Washington coast. “Did you go outside right after you heard the noise?”

“I didn’t say I went outside.” She swallowed and took a step back to the door, curling her fingers around the knob.

“I heard a door slam.” He straightened up and shoved his hands in the pockets of his black jeans. “I figured it had to be the door to this cabin since there aren’t many others around here, are there?”

“N-no.” Did he have to remind her about the isolation of their cabins? And how had he heard her door from a mile away? Since she’d bought this place, the Kennedy cabin had stood empty, but she knew it was a good distance away. She ran her tongue along her lower lip. “Let me get this straight. You heard a scream from inside your cabin, went outside to investigate and then heard my front door slam?”

“No.” He moved in front of the fireplace, and a log rolled off the grate, causing a shower of sparks. “Do you have a poker?”

She reached behind her for the weapon she’d brought to the door for protection and grabbed it. If Jim Kennedy tried anything funny, she had no problem using the business end of this poker on him.

What was the business end of a poker?

He narrowed his dark eyes and they glittered behind half-mast lids. “I was already outside taking a walk when I heard the noise. I took off in the general direction of it, didn’t hear anything else until the sound of a door shutting. I knew the Butler cabin was out this way, so I came over to investigate.”

Rolling her shoulders, she strode forward with the poker in front of her and handed it to him—point first.

He took it around the middle and then prodded the log back into place, where it lit up in a quick blaze. “So, did you go outside after you heard the scream or just open your front door?”

“I stepped outside, but I didn’t hear anything else, either. I’m thinking it might’ve been a wounded animal, and either it died or took off.”

“Maybe. It sounded—” he shrugged “—familiar.”

She thought he was going to say human, because that’s what it sounded like to her.

“It gave me the chills.” She held her hands out to the warmth of the fire, and the flickering flames caught the light from the many rings she wore on her fingers, creating a light show on the wall.

“I’ll let you get back to your book.” He tipped his chin at the book she’d left open on the recliner. “When I saw the lights on, I just wanted to make sure you were okay in here.”

“Thanks.” She led him to the front door and opened it wide for him to pass through. As he crossed the threshold, she inhaled his woodsy, masculine scent. On impulse, she touched his arm.

“Where’ve you been all these years, Jim Kennedy?”

He turned, brushing a lock of black hair from his face, and for the first time she noticed a scar across his forehead.

“Here and there.”

She stood at the door watching him as he walked down the two steps with his halting gait. Just as she was about to close the door, a howl rose from the forest, causing a ripple of fear to skim across her flesh.

“It sounds closer here.” Jim took off with surprising speed, and Scarlett followed him.

“Wait for me.” She grabbed on to his leather jacket, stumbling against his broad back.

“Hey, who’s out here?” Jim crashed through the branches of the trees as he illuminated the ground in front of him with a flashlight he’d pulled from his pocket.

He’d obviously come prepared, and then she saw the gun in his other hand. Prepared for what? She released her hold on him, and he continued forward, thrashing his way through the foliage, off the designated trail.

She staggered backward, twisting her fingers in front of her. What was Jim really doing out here and why did he have a gun? She knew hunting weapons, and that gun wasn’t intended for use against some hapless deer.

As Jim called out again, she found her footing on the cleared path. She should make her way to the cabin and lock herself inside. This time she wouldn’t open the door for anyone—former high school classmate or not. Jim Kennedy could take his sexy self back to here and there.

Tapping the light for her cell phone, she pivoted on the toes of her sneakers and took a step forward.

Then a hand grabbed her ankle.

Chapter Two

The scream chilled his blood. It was the sound of a terrified woman—Scarlett.

Why had she stopped following him? Why had he let her?

“Scarlett?” He reversed course, staggering and tripping through the underbrush, cursing his bum leg. Cursing the men who’d caused it.

She screamed again, just as loudly but with a little less edge. His flashlight flickered on the path ahead of him as he charged back the way they’d come.

He plowed through the tree branches back onto the trail, which allowed him to move faster. “Scarlett?”

“I’m here, Jim.”

His light picked her out, crumpled on the ground at his feet, and he jerked to a halt. He grabbed on to a tree branch to stop himself from falling on top of her.

“What happened?”

She pointed into the underbrush beside her. “There. It’s a man. H-he’s injured or...”

Jim crouched beside her and aimed his flashlight at the bushes, where it illuminated an outstretched arm, hand fisted into the dirt.

He pushed aside the foliage that covered the man and reached out with two fingers to feel the pulse at his throat.

“He’s dead. How did you even see him there without a light?”

She gasped, covering her mouth. “He grabbed my ankle. Are you sure he’s dead?”

“What?” He scooped aside more of the underbrush and flattened his palm against the man’s chest. Blood seeped through his shirt, moistening Jim’s hand with its stickiness. He bent forward, putting his ear close to the man’s nose and mouth.

“Call 911.”

“I can’t get reception out here. I’ll have to at least walk down the access road to the front.”

He gestured to the man’s body. “He’s dead. He’s not going anywhere. I’ll come with you.”

“What happened to him?” She clambered to her knees, and he held out the hand that didn’t have blood on it.

“He has a chest wound. I can’t tell what did it, but he lost a lot of blood. I’m surprised he had the strength to reach out and grab you, or even the wherewithal to realize anyone was passing.”

She grabbed his hand, and he pulled her up beside him, where he could smell her musky-sweet scent.

“He must’ve been the one moaning out here. Maybe he lost consciousness and then came to when we passed him. He reached out to me as a last-ditch effort.” She bent her leg at the knee and rubbed her ankle.

“Let’s go.” He tugged on her hand to get her away from the dead guy in the bushes. “From the looks of the blood pumping out of his chest, he was fast on his way out and wouldn’t have survived even if we had discovered him when he was moaning.”

As they burst onto the access road, he aimed his light at the ground and hurried across the gravel and dirt, practically dragging Scarlett behind him as she kept trying her phone.

He didn’t want to run into whatever...or whoever that man had encountered.

When they reached Scarlett’s mailbox on the road, she nudged his arm. “Got it.”

“Let me report it.” He took the phone from her and spoke to the emergency operator, giving her what he could. When he finished the call, he dropped the phone back into Scarlett’s palm.

She asked, “Did you see his face? Do you know him?”

“I didn’t get a good look at his face, but I doubt I know him. It’s been a while since I’ve been back to Timberline.” He held out his hand in front of him and lit it up with the beam from his flashlight. “I got his blood on my hand, though.”

“Ugh. Do you want me to get a towel while we wait for the cops? I have paper towels in my car.”

“I’ll leave it until the sheriff’s department can have a look at it.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “What happened back there? Why’d you stop following me?”

“I—” Her eyes darted to his pocket where he’d stashed his weapon. “I didn’t want to go any deeper in the forest.”

Especially in the company of a man with a gun—a man she’d just met even though they’d been high school classmates years ago. Smart girl.

“And then the guy just grabbed your ankle? Hard?”

“Not that hard but enough to surprise me and trip me up.”

“When did you realize he was hurt?”

“I kicked out when I fell, to loosen his hold. I’d already had my cell phone out for the light. When I was on the ground, the little beam of light illuminated his hand, and I could see that it was limp. His arm wasn’t moving, but I screamed again just in case.”

“I heard you, loud and clear—both times. You didn’t see his face?”

“I wanted to run the hell out of there, but I couldn’t move. My muscles froze. I certainly didn’t want to look at him. Did you see his face?”

“Nope.” He shook his head. “Maybe you know him. Maybe he was a friend on his way to visit you.”

“Me?” Her dark brows shot up. “I don’t think so. The only people who come out here to visit me are my cousins, Jason and Annie. And that wasn’t Jason’s hand.”

“We’ll find out who he is soon enough.” He held up one finger. “Sirens.”

The revolving lights on top of the emergency vehicles cast an eerie glow in the misty air as they flew down the small road to Scarlett’s cabin.

Jim waved the flashlight in the air to flag them down.

The vehicles—one ambulance, one fire truck and a squad car—squealed to a stop in front of Scarlett’s mailbox.

Jogging next to the squad car, Jim knocked on the passenger window, and the deputy buzzed it down. “You can go up the access road. The body’s in the woods, just off the trail.”

The deputy gestured out his window for the ambulance to make the turn onto the access road, and then he followed it.

Jim and Scarlett caught up just as the officer was getting out of his cruiser. “What’s going on, Scarlett? More shots fired out here? More bear traps?”

Jim shifted his gaze to Scarlett’s face. She hadn’t told him about any shots being fired out here or any bear traps. That’s all he needed for his other leg—a bear trap.

“Cody, you remember Jim Kennedy, don’t you?” She swept her arm in his direction.

With his left hand, Jim shook Cody Unger’s hand. Must be Deputy Cody Unger now. He’d been the high school quarterback and an all-around good guy. Jim hadn’t known him well—different circles.

“Kennedy.” Unger nodded. “Did you find him?”

“Scarlett did.” Jim held up his right palm. “But I checked him out. He has a wound to the chest and lost a lot of blood. This way.”

As Jim led the way with his flashlight, Scarlett asked Unger, “Where’s Sheriff Musgrove?”

“I called him. He’s not feeling well, told me to handle it.”

Jim stopped and pointed to the arm flung out on the trail. “That’s him. The rest of his body is beneath those bushes. I don’t know how he got there, but both Scarlett and I heard a scream or a cry earlier. Must’ve been him.”

“I have a couple of other deputies en route. They can canvass this area.” Unger squatted down next to the body and pushed the bushes away from it while shining his flashlight on the man’s face. “Doesn’t look familiar. Let’s get out of the way and let the EMTs do their thing.”

The EMTs squeezed past them as Jim and Scarlett followed Unger back to the access road.

“Do you mind if we talk inside your cabin, Scarlett?”

“I was hoping you’d ask.” She sniffled. “It’s cold out here.”

They ran into the other two deputies in front of Scarlett’s cabin and Unger instructed them to look for evidence in the area and to check for the man’s ID.

Once inside the cabin, Unger pulled a kit out of the black bag slung across his body. “I’m going to scrape some of that blood from your hand and get it on a slide. Then you can wash it off.”

Jim held out his hand, palm up, and Unger ran a stick over his skin to collect a sampling of the blood. He transferred it to a slide, sealed another slide on top of the first one and dropped it into a plastic bag. “You can clean up now. Thanks for preserving the evidence.”

Scarlett tapped his arm. “Bathroom’s the first door on your right.”

The art gallery spilled over to the bathroom with a border of flowers and cupids painted on the wallpaper and a mirror that looked fit for a wood sprite, with carved leaves and flowers curling around its edges.