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www.millsandboon.co.uk
Contents
Title Page
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
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Copyright
Chapter One
Sorrow could not find her in the forest.
In spite of the heavy weight permanently nestled in Valerie’s heart, she fancied the sun-dappled pines that bristled the mountain ridge somehow had the power to protect her, to wick away her grief with their delicate needles as she drove past. Temporarily, at least.
Spotting something at the side of the road, Valerie eased the truck along the dusty road past one more stretch of dense shrubbery and pulled to a stop, shading her eyes against the southern California sun. A red-haired man with pale eyes gave her a rueful smile. The tear in the knee of his khakis indicated he’d taken a fall. He wore an orange shirt, telling her he was part of the crew working on rebuilding park cabins that had been flooded in last winter’s deluge.
“Help you?” she asked. Though she was an arborist, not a park ranger, she’d lent a hand to many stranded hikers and workers during her tenure at Angel’s Loft National Park.
“Thanks,” he said, English accent strong, smile wide. “Went for a walk during our lunch break and took a bit of a tumble.”
He climbed in. No limp from the injury, she noticed. “First time working in the park?”
He nodded as she pulled the truck back onto the road.
She eyed the tear in his khakis, which looked neater than she’d first thought, more of a cut really. A second look convinced her he was in his thirties, older than she’d first imagined. Older than most of the guys on the work crews. “I’m Valerie.”
The pointy-toothed grin that split his face revealed something different than the friendly redheaded hiker she’d seen a moment before. Something malicious.
She swallowed. It was her imagination. Again. “Where can I drop you?”
The grin didn’t waver. “The cabin on Sharp’s Peak. You know it.”
There was only one cabin on Sharp’s Peak—hers. Terror rippled through her. “I won’t.”
“Sure you will,” he said.
The thought echoed crazily in her mind: Sorrow can’t find me in the forest… She kept repeating the mantra, even as he opened the pack on his lap and took out the pruning knife.
Her pruning knife.
The one she’d left on her kitchen table that morning.
Jackson would have enjoyed the ride to Sharp’s Peak a lot more in his 1958 Bel Air than the SUV he was driving, but the Bel Air’s pristine chassis wasn’t cut out for mountain roads. Picturing that car made his heart thump harder. Or was it the memory of Valerie sitting next to him in it, white-blond hair dancing on the breeze, that wondrous smile lighting her freckled face?
Let it go, Jackson. The day you got released from the hospital, she couldn’t run away fast enough.
The small box of her possessions on the seat next to him seemed a ridiculously pitiful representation of the months they had been together, months that apparently counted for nothing with Valerie.
He shifted, recalling how many times he’d cut things off with women in the past. Something about a firefighter’s uniform seemed to encourage female attention, but he’d never met a woman who impacted him like Valerie. She knew him inside and out, the real Jackson, and she’d loved him.
Or so he’d believed.
He pulled up her long drive, surprised to find her sitting in her truck, engine idling. Just get it over with.
Nerves taut as wire, he grabbed the box and marched resolutely to the open driver’s window.
Chapter Two
“Can I help you?” Valerie said.
His mouth fell open from the combined shock of Valerie’s indifferent tone and the fact that there was a guy in the passenger seat with his arm around her.
The man waved. “Hello, mate.”
Jackson felt his jaw tighten. This redheaded clown was his replacement?
He tried unsuccessfully to wipe the scowl from his face. In mute surprise, he handed her the box.
She didn’t look at the contents. “Thank you. I’ll tell my father his tools have arrived.”
Jackson took a step back, a cold sensation washing over him.
Valerie’s father was dead.
Long dead.
Jackson returned to his car, pretending to pat his pockets for keys as he watched them out of the corner of his eye. The man got out of the truck first, going around to open Valerie’s door for her. He kept his hand hidden at his side. Knife or gun, Jackson guessed. He hoped it was the former.
“Tell your dad I said hello,” Jackson called as he got in his SUV and turned on the engine.
Valerie was faced away from him now, and the guy had her around the waist. With gritted teeth, Jackson backed out a few yards before he shifted the car into Drive. Breathing a prayer that he would not wind up killing them all, he hit the gas. Hard.
The SUV lurched forward, wheels pinging gravel all over the road. He bore down on Valerie and her companion. Two heads snapped around to look at him. He could tell by Valerie’s face that she was terrified, but that she had been expecting some kind of action on his part. The red-haired guy’s eyes widened in surprise. For a terrifying moment, Jackson thought he would pull Valerie closer, but instead he stepped away, a knife in one hand, the other reaching for something under his shirt.
Jackson pressed the gas to the floor and the vehicle hurtled forward. He aimed right for the red-haired guy, who came up with a gun in his hand. Five feet, four, three—
The stranger suddenly peeled away and headed for the trees.
Jackson slammed the car to a halt and leaped out, running for Valerie.
Chapter Three
Valerie was on her feet. Jackson yanked her toward the cabin. They barreled inside and he shoved the bolt home, closing all the drapes while Valerie locked the back door. She was on her cell phone with the police by the time he finished.
“They’re on the way.” She clicked off and went to the birdcage where the little green parakeet he’d given her sat tranquilly on his perch. She murmured something soothing to the creature. Calming the bird? Or herself?
He stood on the braided rug in the perfectly ordered cabin, heart still pounding from the adrenaline. She was deadly pale, almost as pale as her white-blond hair. She looked at him, her blue eyes still filled with fear, stark azure against the pallor of her face. No eyes should be that blue, he’d thought many times. At first he’d even wondered if she achieved the tint with the contact lenses she wore, but he’d later discovered it was God given, that exquisite sea-washed gaze that regarded him now. “You should be more selective about your driving companions.”
She took a breath. “He was in the forest along Twisted Pines Road. I thought he was with the construction crew. He pretended to be hurt.”
“How did he convince you to bring him back here?”
She sank into the chair on legs that suddenly seemed to fail her. He instantly regretted his tone and moved closer.
She took another deep breath, trembling hands pressed on her knees. “He knew where I lived. The knife…” She swallowed. “It’s mine. He’s been in my house.”
“So if he intended—” he had to force the words out “—to rape or kill you, why not wait for you here? Why come and find you?”
She bit her lip. “I don’t know.”
Jackson’s eyes traveled around the cabin. Nothing disturbed, nothing stolen other than the knife. “Maybe he was looking for something.”
“What could I have that anyone would want?”
The irony wasn’t wasted on him. You were all I wanted, Valerie.
He looked at her and in that moment he was lost in the pain she had caused him, the confusion and the anger.
Then he heard the sound of heavy footsteps moving fast outside.
Chapter Four
Jackson peeked out the window and Valerie was relieved when he told her the footsteps they’d heard belonged to the police.
“Saw the guy but couldn’t catch him,” Sergeant Blair said as he took her statement while another officer checked for prints and thoroughly photographed her vehicle and the house. Valerie couldn’t wait for them to leave…though the person who was truly setting her already frayed nerves jangling was Jackson.
He was as strong and sure of himself as he’d ever been before his accident, his tall form putting him a good six inches above her five-five. His unruly hair was still cut short, but grown out enough to show its tendency to curl. Gray eyes, bold and confident. The perfect person to have in a crisis. But she did not want him here. Didn’t want him to remind her of what they’d had, or what she’d destroyed.
Yet she could not take her eyes off him.
When the police finally left, the quiet stretched between the two of them until she wanted to scream.
“Are you back on the line?” she finally blurted out. Last she knew he was on light duty, assigned to a desk in the fire station until he was cleared by the doctors and his physical therapist.
He turned sober eyes on her. “Not yet, but I will be soon.”
She nodded, recalling the days, weeks, he’d lain in a hospital bed, face twisted in pain. The feel of his fingers clasping hers, the prayers she’d whispered over and over until he’d turned the corner.
Her joy was still firmly twined with her agony. When she’d learned he would fully recover, she’d come to the decision that she would not, could not, be with him anymore. Not after what had happened to her father.
But even though she’d hurt him, he’d still saved her life. “Thank you,” she said, voice a little too loud in the tiny living room. “For what you did.”
He shrugged. “Who’s after you?”
“I don’t know.”
He pulled out his phone. “I’ll call my uncle Tuney. He’s a detective. Maybe he can help.”
He’d already become too involved. “I’ll handle it myself, Jackson.”
The muscles worked along his jaw. “A guy with a knife almost kills you and you think you can handle it yourself? I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise.”
She hated the bitterness in his tone, but it ignited a flicker of anger inside her.
I’ve been by myself since I was nine. I won’t depend on anyone, Jackson. Especially you.
“The police will help me.” She went to the cage and whispered softly to Kiwi. He fluffed his feathers and put his beak to the bars for a kiss.
“No slam on the cops, but this is a small town with only a few overworked officers.”
“I can handle it.”
“No way,” Jackson said, eyes blazing. “Why can’t you admit that you need me?”
She faced him, cheeks hot. “I’m not your responsibility, Jackson. I don’t belong to you.” The glimmer of grief in his eyes made her breath catch.
“I know,” he said, voice suddenly soft. “I learned that the hard way.”
Her cell rang again. She answered quickly, desperate to escape the emotion shimmering on Jackson’s face.
“He’s coming,” someone whispered into the phone.
She tensed and Jackson edged close as she pushed the button for speaker phone. “Who is this?”
“Tyrone.”
Valerie struggled to focus on the tortured voice of her only relative, Tyrone, her father’s cousin. Jackson’s muscled shoulder was pressed next to hers, his warmth causing her temperature to rise.
“Tyrone? Where are you?”
Tyrone had found her six months before, but it had taken him weeks of dogged determination to convince her to trust him enough to let him into her life. Somewhat into his fiftieth year, Tyrone was gruff and cynical, brilliant and, she suspected, lazy. But to a woman raised in the foster care system, Tyrone had the one quality she could not resist—he was the only relation she had in the whole world, the one person who could add to her sketchy memories of her father, a firefighter, who’d died in the line of duty when she was nine.
After Tyrone had broken her down, she’d come to enjoy spending time with him, and now they met every week to photograph birds, his favorite pastime. At least, they had…until he’d fallen off the radar two weeks ago.
“You have what he wants,” Tyrone whispered.
“What?”
There was a sharp intake of breath. “Can’t talk now. Lock yourself in. I’ll—”
“Tyrone?” Valerie cried into the phone.
There was no answer.
After a long pause, the phone disconnected.
Chapter Five
“He rents a house in Sherman,” Valerie said, as they drove down the mountain and toward the small town nestled on the outskirts of the national forest.
Jackson was still surprised she’d agreed to go with him instead of charging full speed ahead on her own. “We should call the police.”
“We will, as soon as I make sure he’s all right. Hurry, Jackson.”
She stared out the window, hands balled in her lap.
He let his thoughts churn wildly. The love and loyalty Tyrone inspired in her was inexplicable. He seemed to be ever in search of a free meal and a couch to nap on. Jackson had never trusted the guy and Valerie knew it. But Valerie excused all his foibles. Because he was family.
She didn’t speak of her three foster homes very often. He knew that her father, a San Francisco firefighter, had died in a flashover, leaving no close family to care for Valerie. Since the age of nine she’d been a ward of the state, her life overseen by social workers. There was no abuse, no neglect in any of the placements, but neither had there been a family where she felt she belonged. And she wanted that desperately. He’d never glimpsed that overwhelming vulnerability in the accomplished woman who could climb up a forty-foot pine and manage a crew of tree trimmers with ease. But it was there, hidden deep down like the precious heartwood of a tree.
Maybe someday the scars would seal over with enough healthy layers that she could look forward to a proper future. Something faintly like hope stirred inside him as he regarded the delicate lines of her profile.
The words she’d spoken at the hospital months before came back.
I don’t love you, Jackson.
He wished he could have said the same, but it would have been a lie then.
And now.
Chapter Six
They turned onto the quiet street where Tyrone’s rented house sat forlornly under a sprawling oak.
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