Home to Whiskey Creek

Sometimes home is the refuge you need—and sometimes it isn’t

Adelaide Davies, who’s been living in Sacramento, returns to Whiskey Creek, the place she once called home. She’s there to take care of her aging grandmother and to help with Gran’s restaurant, Just Like Mom’s. But Adelaide isn’t happy to be back. There are too many people here she’d rather avoid, people who were involved in that terrible June night fifteen years ago.

Ever since the graduation party that changed her life, she’s wanted to go to the police and make sure the boys responsible—men now—are punished. But she can’t, not without revealing an even darker secret. So it’s better to pretend.…

Noah Rackham, popular, attractive, successful, is shocked when Adelaide won’t have anything to do with him. He has no idea that his very presence reminds her of something she’d rather forget. He only knows that he’s finally met a woman he could love.

Praise for the Whiskey Creek novels of

New York Times bestselling author Brenda Novak

“A hero in need of redemption, a heroine up to the challenge, and an idyllic California gold country setting brilliantly launch Novak’s foray into the thriving ‘small-town community’ market.”

—Library Journal on When Lightning Strikes

The characters’ “heartwarming romance develops slowly and sweetly. The sex is fantastic, but the best part is how Simon and Gail tease and laugh as they grow closer.”

—Publishers Weekly on When Lightning Strikes

“Novak delivers a lively, sparkling series debut…romantic gold by a superior novelist.”

—RT Book Reviews on When Lightning Strikes

“It’s steamy, it’s poignant, it’s perfectly paced—it’s When Lightning Strikes and you don’t want to miss it!”

—USA TODAY, Happily Ever After Blog

“In this sensitive, passionate and heartbreakingly poignant second installment of her Whiskey Creek series, Novak masterfully explores what happens when a woman whose entire life has been consumed by playing a variety of roles casts off her suffocating masks and, with the support of an unexpected lover, embraces who she was, is and can be.”

—RT Book Reviews on When Snow Falls (2012 Nominee for Book of the Year)

“When Summer Comes is a magical addition to the already heartwarming Whiskey Creek series.”

—Fresh Fiction

“When you add a woman hiding from the future and a man running from the past, what do you get? A romance that has you in tears one moment and smiling with joy the next. Brenda Novak took me back to Whiskey Creek with When Summer Comes and I enjoyed every minute of it.…This is one book not to be missed!”

—Joyfully Reviewed (recommended title)

Home to Whiskey Creek

Brenda Novak

www.mirabooks.co.uk

To Anna…

I really enjoy working with you.

Thank you for being so dependable, responsible

and supportive. You’ve helped make my annual

online auction for diabetes research a fabulous event.

I consider you a good friend and a great blessing.

Dear Reader,

The concept for this story has been percolating in the back of my mind for some time. I was interested in the heroine’s journey—how she might overcome the terrible incident she endured at a high-school graduation party—but I was just as interested in exploring how the boys who impacted her life might feel as adults. Where might they be? What might they be doing? And how would they cope with their past mistakes, especially if the past came boomeranging back? I strongly believe that there are very few people who are all good or all bad, and I think that can be said for the characters in this story, which is what made them so fascinating to work with.

This is the fourth book in the Whiskey Creek series (following When Lightning Strikes, When Snow Falls, which was nominated for the RT Book Reviews 2012 Book of the Year Award, and When Summer Comes). In addition to these full-length books, you might want to look for the prequel novella called When We Touch, where you will meet Brandon and Olivia (who also appear in this story). Next up, we have the fifth book, Take Me Home for Christmas, which will be available in November.

For more information on these books and my other novels, please visit brendanovak.com, where you can enter monthly drawings, order cookies from Just Like Mom’s, get autographed cover cards or drop me an email. I love hearing from my readers. I’d also like to invite you to get involved in my annual online auction for diabetes research (my youngest son has this disease, and so do million of others—someday I fear it will affect everyone in one way or another). The auction runs May 1–May 31 at my website, so please register right away at brendanovak.auctionanything.com so you’ll get the updates. So far we’ve raised nearly $2 million and hope to raise much more!

Here’s to making a difference!

Brenda Novak

Contents

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

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Epilogue

Excerpt

1

The past is never dead. It’s not even past.

—William Faulkner

No way would he be able to reach her, not with his bare hands. And Noah Rackham didn’t have anything else—just his mountain bike, which lay on its side a few feet away. In the pouch beneath the seat he kept a spare tube, the small plastic tool that made it easier to change a tire and some oil for his chain but no rope, no flashlight. He wouldn’t have packed that stuff even if he’d had room. For one, he’d come out for a quick, hit-it-hard ride before sunset and wasn’t planning to be gone longer than a couple of hours. For another, no one messed around with the old mine anymore. Not since his twin brother had been killed in a cave-in a decade and a half ago, just after high school graduation.

“Hello?” Kneeling at the mouth of the shaft where someone had torn away the boards intended to seal off this ancillary opening, he called into the void below.

His voice bounced back at him, and he could hear the steady drip of water, but that was all. Why wasn’t the woman responding? A few seconds earlier, she’d cried out for help. That was the reason he’d stopped and come to investigate.

“Hey, you still there? You with me?”

“Yes. I’m here!”

Thank God she’d answered. “Tell me your name.”

“It...it’s Adelaide. But my friends call me Addy. Why?”

“I want to know who I’m talking to. Can you tell me what happened?”

“Just get me out. Please! And hurry!”

“I will. Relax, okay, Addy? I’ll think of something.”

Cursing under his breath, he rocked back on his haunches. Ahead of him, the dirt road that temporarily converged with the single track he’d been riding disappeared around a sharp bend. To his left was the mountain, and to his right, the river, rushing a hundred feet below. He saw more of the same scenery behind him. Trees. Thick undergrowth, including an abundance of poison oak. Moist earth. Rocks. Fifty-year-old tailings from the mine. And the darkening sky. There were no other people, which wasn’t unusual. Plenty of bikers and hikers used this trail, but mostly in the warmer months, and certainly not after dusk. The Sierra Nevada foothills, and the gold rush–era town where he’d grown up, were often wet and chilly by mid-October.

Should he backtrack to the main entrance of the mine? Try to get in the way they used to?

He’d already passed that spot. Someone had fixed the rusty chain-link fence to keep kids from slipping through. Noah couldn’t get beyond it, not without wire cutters or at least the claw part of a hammer. That entrance and this shaft might not even connect. It was likely they didn’t, or whoever was stranded down there would’ve made her way over—provided she was capable of moving.

Scooping up his bike, he hopped on and went to check. Sure enough, the fence, with its danger keep out sign, was riveted to the rocky outcropping surrounding the entrance. He couldn’t get through; he didn’t have the proper tools, and there was nothing close by he could substitute. The only foreign object in the whole area was a bouquet of flowers that lay wilting in the mud. Noah guessed Shania Carpenter, Cody’s old girlfriend, had placed them there. She’d probably come up here to commemorate the anniversary of when she and Cody had started dating, or become an item, or first made love or...whatever. She’d married, divorced and had a kid, in that order, but she’d never gotten over Cody’s death.

Neither had Noah. It felt as if a part of him had died that night.

And now someone else’s life could end the same way.

Certain that this entrance wasn’t the answer to his problem, he returned to the shaft. He never would’ve noticed this other opening if not for that cry for help. The boards that’d been pried loose were so covered by moss they blended in with the rest of the scenery.

“I’m not going to be able to reach you,” he called down. “Is there some other way out? A tunnel that might not be sealed off?”

Considering what had happened to his brother, was it safe for her to move?

“No. I—I’ve tried everything!”

The hysteria in those words concerned him. “Okay. Listen, I know you’re...frightened, but try to stay calm. How badly are you hurt?”

“I’m not sure.” It sounded as though she couldn’t suck in enough air to speak normally, but he couldn’t tell if that came from fright, exhaustion or injury. “Help me, please.”

He wanted to help; he just didn’t know how. The shaft was too deep to reach her without rope. But if he hurried off to notify rescue personnel, he wasn’t sure she’d be alive when he got back. Trying to bring others would take too much time. There was no place for a helicopter to land. And it wouldn’t be easy to get an ambulance in here. A Jeep or truck could make it, but even that would be a challenge in the dark. Flooding several years ago had washed away parts of the old road.

But if he stayed, he’d soon lose all daylight and he had no flashlight. Even if he managed to get the woman out, how would he transport her in the pitch-black?

“Can you walk?” he called.

There was a slight delay. “How far?”

“I’m wondering if you’re mobile, so I can assess the situation.”

“I—I’m mobile.”

That made a difference. It meant she wasn’t so badly off that he couldn’t sit her on his bike and run alongside. If he could get to her.

He was pretty sure he had a flashlight and a length of rope in his truck. He might even have food or something else that would come in handy. A sweatshirt would keep her warm, at least. He could use it if she didn’t need it. It’d been a nice day, hence his lightweight bike shorts and T-shirt, but it was growing colder by the minute.

“Sit tight,” he called down. “I have to go to my truck but I’ll be back. I promise.”

“Don’t leave me!”

Panic fueled those words. “I’ll be back,” he repeated.

Tension tied his stomach into knots as he ignored her protests and clipped his feet into the pedals of his bike. The uneven ground and rocks and roots that offered the challenges he so enjoyed suddenly became unwelcome obstacles, jarring him despite the expensive shock absorbers on his bike. He was moving faster than ever before, especially through this stretch, where the riding was so technical, but he had no choice. If he didn’t...

He couldn’t even think about what might happen if he didn’t. He’d seen his brother’s crushed head. They’d made the decision as a family not to have an open casket.

Small pebbles scattered, churned up by his tires as he charged through patches of gravel. Hoping to shave off a few minutes, he climbed a steep embankment he typically tried only when he wanted maximum difficulty.

He made it up and over the ridge, and down the other side without mishap, but it felt as if it were taking forever to reach the highway.

By the time the trail leveled out, his lungs burned and his quads shook, but he knew that had more to do with fear than physical exertion. He owned Crank It Up, a bike shop in Whiskey Creek, and raced mountain bikes professionally. Thanks to endless hours of training, his body could handle twenty minutes of balls-to-the-wall riding. It was the memories of the day he’d learned his brother was dead and the frightened sound of Addy’s voice that made what he was doing so difficult.

In case her life depended on his performance, he forced himself to redline it, but daylight was waning much faster than he expected. What if he couldn’t see well enough to return? Considering how narrow the trail was in places, and the sharp dropoff on one side, his tire could hit a rock or a groove in the hard-packed dirt, causing him to veer off and plummet into the freezing-cold river—an accident he wasn’t likely to survive. The road, though wider, would take twice as long.

You won’t fall. He knew this trail far too well. This was where he felt closest to his brother—and not because Cody had died here. They’d started mountain biking when they were only thirteen, used to explore these mountains all the time. That was how they’d found the mine in the first place. It was Cody who’d turned it into a popular hangout during the final weeks of high school. Kids could bring booze or weed up there without being noticed or interrupted by the police, so a core group from the baseball team had thrown parties that had occasionally gotten out of hand. Toward the end, Noah had stopped going. He hadn’t liked watching his brother snort coke, didn’t appreciate the way Cody behaved when he was stoned. Noah had also been afraid Cody would get Shania pregnant before they had the chance to leave for college and he didn’t want to attend San Diego State without him. They’d done almost everything together since birth.

He’d mentioned the risks to Cody many times, but no amount of warning seemed to faze him. Although Shania hadn’t been at the party—her parents had whisked her away to Europe as soon as she had her diploma in hand—his brother had gone a little crazy that night with all the drinking and drugs, and he paid the ultimate price. From what Noah had heard, the party Cody had thrown graduation night had been as wild as they came.

Maybe if his brother had been thinking straight, he would’ve made it home safely, like everyone else....

After navigating a few final twists and turns, Noah spotted the gravel lot next to the two-lane highway where he’d parked, and raced down the straightaway.

Sweat rolled off him the second he stopped, despite the cold, but he barely noticed as he searched his truck. He found the towrope in his toolbox, a sweatshirt shoved under his seat not far from the flashlight and a stash of energy bars. He already carried all the water he had in a bladderlike contraption on his back. Unfortunately, he’d drunk most of it, but he found a first-aid kit in his jockey box, which was some consolation.

He had what he needed, but in case things didn’t go as smoothly as he hoped, he wanted to call for help so there’d be a rescue team waiting.

He’d put his cell phone under his floor mat to keep it out of sight. There’d been a rash of car burglaries several months ago, courtesy of a group of teenagers who smoked pot and hung out at the river all summer—“river rats” they were called.

He fished his phone out to check for service. Coverage was spotty in these mountains. But obtaining a signal didn’t turn out to be the problem. His battery was dead.

“Shit!” He wasn’t one of those people who kept his phone attached to his ear 24/7. It was more of an afterthought—obviously, since he didn’t carry a charger.

He gazed up and down the road, hoping a vehicle would come by, but after a few seconds, he realized he couldn’t keep standing there. He had to make a decision. Should he drive to Jackson, which was closer than Whiskey Creek, or go back for the woman as he’d originally intended?

Jackson would take too much time. He’d promised he wouldn’t be long and for some reason it was important to him to make good on that.

Draping the rope around his neck, he tied the sweatshirt to his waist and tossed out the extra tube and tire-changing equipment he had in his seat pack without even caring where it fell. He needed room to squeeze in the energy bars and the contents of the first-aid kit. Then he held the flashlight against the handlebars and took off.

He had to get back to the mine before full dark. Otherwise, he’d be forced to take the road or travel even more slowly on the trail, and he feared that whoever was stranded in the shaft couldn’t survive the delay.

2

Adelaide Davies stared at the hole above her, the only thing she could see in this dark space. Would the person who’d called to her really come back?

It didn’t look hopeful. She had no way of keeping track of the passing minutes, but it seemed as if an hour had gone by since he’d promised to help.

Maybe he was the same person who’d put her down here and he’d just returned to make sure she didn’t survive. Maybe he knew she was guilty of something even worse than what he’d done, and felt that this would be a fitting end....

No! No one knows the truth. Except me. She had to quell the fear charging through her, or she wouldn’t survive this emotionally, even if she survived it physically. It was fifteen years since she’d last been inside the mine, since she’d been anywhere close. As a matter of fact, she’d been here only once before—to attend a high school graduation party when she was a sophomore.

It’d all seemed so exciting, so hopeful when she was invited. But that party had changed her forever. Never again would she be the same shy but happy girl she’d been before. And, unlike so many other victims, she knew exactly who to blame. There’d been five of them, five of the most popular jocks, all upperclassmen.

The memories of that night made her sick. She would’ve gone to the police, would’ve seen to it that they were prosecuted as they deserved. But she couldn’t, for a lot of reasons.

It was getting too cold. She had to do something or she’d freeze to death in this damp, dark hole. After myriad attempts to climb or dig her way out, she could hardly move. Her wrists burned from the welts she’d caused by straining against the rope that had bound her hands. One whole side of her body was bruised from when she’d landed. But she had to scream, at the very least. She couldn’t let the discouragement, the heartbreak, the memories, win.

“Hello? Can someone help me? Please? I’m in the mine!”

There was no answer; calling out seemed futile. The guy who’d stopped before was gone.

Her throat too raw to continue, she got to her feet and made another attempt to climb. She had to save herself before it grew any darker. But she slipped and slid down on her aching bottom. Nothing worked. The walls were irregular and too steep, and the pile of broken and fallen beams, jutting out in all directions, gave her slivers when she tried to use it for support.

What now? she asked herself. The person who’d thrown her down here had only beaten her enough to get her to comply with his demands. He hadn’t raped her. But the moment she dropped her guard or became too distraught, the memories of what it’d been like that other time—the night of the party—washed over her, lapping higher and higher, like the incoming tide, until her mind was saturated with the past and she felt no different than the terrified girl she’d been at sixteen.

It was the smell, she decided. The smell conjured up that night as vividly as though she’d just lived it.

Sweet sixteen and never been kissed, one of them had breathed in her ear.

Hugging herself, she began to rock. She was shaking so hard she could hear her teeth chattering but couldn’t stop. Was she in shock?

Would she even think of shock if she were?

Either way, she had a black eye. There was little doubt about that. Her face throbbed where she’d been struck, full-on, by a man’s fist. She’d broken a couple of fingernails trying to fend him off. She could tell those fingers were bleeding. All the digging to create handholds or footholds or find crevices that might lead out hadn’t helped. She guessed the scratches on her arms and legs from the many tumbles she’d taken were bleeding, too, but she couldn’t see whether that was really the case. Not anymore. The light filtering through the opening was almost gone.

Would she have to spend another night in this place?

The prospect of that, of the cold and the rats and the fear of flooding, made her rock faster, back and forth, back and forth. It hurt to move, but she had to concentrate on something or she’d go crazy.

“You—you are powerful. You are...c-capable. You can overcome.” This kind of self-talk had fostered the determination that had carried her through the long hours so far, close to seventeen if her guess was accurate. It was at least 3:00 a.m. when she’d been dragged from her bed, wasn’t it?

She wasn’t sure exactly. She only knew that, after two and a half days of being “home” to take care of Gran, she’d been awakened by a man who whispered that he’d “stab the old lady” if she screamed or tried to escape; and that was all he had to say. She’d do anything to protect her grandmother Milly, even relive the nightmare of fifteen years ago. But he’d simply issued a terse warning telling her he’d kill her if she ever talked about that graduation party and then threw her down the mine shaft.

It was a miracle she hadn’t been more badly hurt. The demolition they’d done after Cody’s death had felled most of the support beams, sealing off some of the deeper crevices, or she might have fallen much farther.

“Hey, you still down there?”

Her heart lifted with hope. The man she’d heard before was back!

“I’m here!” she called. “C-can you help me? You have t-to help me. I don’t want to spend another night in here.”

“Another night? God, what happened to you?” he said, but she could tell he was busy and not waiting for an answer. He’d probably ask again once the pressure was off. For now, he seemed focused on the task at hand.

Closing her eyes, Adelaide tilted her head back and let the tears she’d refused to shed roll down her cheeks. She’d made it through another traumatic experience. The boys from Whiskey Creek hadn’t broken her yet. She’d survived. Again.

“I have a rope. Do you have the strength to hang on to it long enough for me to haul you up?”

If she tried, she’d fall. Not only was she battered and bruised, she’d had barely three hours of sleep before being abducted. Dressed in the shirt and panties she’d worn to bed, she was shivering violently. And she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in over a day.

She wanted to be brave, to say she could do whatever getting out required, but she felt as helpless as a baby. It’d taken everything she had just to stave off the panic and despair. Now that someone had arrived, now that she had support, the adrenaline that’d kept her going left her drained.