Praise for Hannah Alexander’s Novels

“The plot is interesting and the resolution filled with action.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Fair Warning

“Reminiscent of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, this intelligent mystery will keep readers engrossed.”

—library journal on Last Resort

“Alexander’s latest installment in the Hideaway series is filled with action, intrigue and fascinating medical situations.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Last Resort

“Filled with intrigue, mystery and well-rounded characters, you won’t want to leave Hideaway. Hannah Alexander knows suspense! This page-turner will keep you up at night unable to put it down.”

—Kristin Billerbeck, bestselling author of Cool, Calm & Adjusted on Last Resort

“Hannah Alexander’s unique ability to combine suspense with romance and faith will have you searching for this author’s entire backlist. Grab these titles while you can and visit this wonderful town called Hideaway—you’ll never want to leave! Each book is top-notch suspense, with just a touch of romance. Last Resort is a must-buy…guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat until you turn the final page!”

—Romance Reviews Today on Last Resort

“Alexander’s skill at meshing spiritual truths with fascinating suspense is captivating. Well-drawn characters help the two separate plots move rapidly toward an exciting conclusion.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Safe Haven

“Hannah Alexander is one of the few authors who has the unique ability to bring tears to your eyes and God’s touch to your heart. Safe Haven is suspense, romance and first-rate entertainment all bound into one neat book.”

—Romance Reviews Today on Safe Haven

“Genuine humor…an interesting cast of characters…a few surprises.”

—Publishers Weekly on Hideaway

“Hideaway is gripping and romantic. It may also have crossover appeal to fans of medical suspense and of such authors as Tess Gerritsen.”

—Library Journal on Hideaway

Grave Risk

A Hideaway Novel

Hannah Alexander

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Lorene Cook for her constant support in every way. She keeps us going when life seems to shoot us in every direction at once.

Thanks to Vera Overall for loving and encouraging her son to persevere.

Thanks to Joan Marlow Golan, our champion, and to her excellent staff, who keep us informed, keep us straight and keep us headed in the right direction.

Thanks to our Branson brainstormers, Barbara, Brenda, Lori, Deborah, Sharon, Judy, Marty, Stephanie, Carol, Cyndy, Jill, Sandy and Jeanie, and to our support staff, Lorene and Luvena.

Contents

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

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Epilogue

Discussion Questions

Chapter One

Fingers marched across Jill Cooper’s cheekbones like the legs of a stalking tarantula. She stiffened, eyes shut tight.

She wanted to retreat from the intrusion or jump up from this table and escape. What horrors lay behind the other doors? What had she allowed herself to be talked into? Moral support was one thing, but this—

“Too rough?”

Jill opened her eyes and looked into the upside-down face of twenty-two-year-old Sheena Marshall. “No.”

Sheena had an uncommonly bright, perky grin that matched her bright, perky voice. All the employees of this spa seemed to be infected with terminal optimism, except for Sheena’s mother, Mary Marshall, who had always been on the opposite end of that spectrum, even when Jill had graduated from high school with her twenty-seven years ago.

Today, Mary’s daughter was actually perkier than usual.

“It’s fine.” Jill wanted to ask when the sheets had last been washed on this massage table, but the question could eventually reach the ears of the owner of this establishment.

Jill was here to provide the owner—her baby sister—moral support for this venture, not to irritate her. Noelle Trask ran a tight ship, and these sheets would be pristine. She would not take kindly to having her employees verbally abused, or even questioned by a client with a few…interesting…hang-ups. Especially if that client just happened to be her bossy older sister.

Who would have thought Noelle, the wild child of Hideaway High, would have matured so well?

In fact, Noelle would be a mother before long.

That meant Jill would be an aunt. She felt her tension ease as she smiled at the thought. Aunt Jill. What a wonderful—

A sharp jab on her chin startled her. “Ouch!”

“It’s okay. Just relax,” Sheena said. “You have a few blemishes here. We can take care of that right—”

“I didn’t come here to have my pimples treated.” Noelle had warned Jill that the young masseuse tended to try to fix anything that wasn’t just right. The young woman obviously had delusions of grandeur and saw herself becoming the makeover queen. Jill refused to be her first experiment.

“I just want a nice, painless massage,” Jill said. Actually, she hadn’t even wanted that.

“Jill Cooper,” came a firm, commanding voice from another cubicle in the large, cedar-lined spa, “you agreed to do this. So do it.”

“I agreed to a massage, not to have my face poked and prodded like a—”

“Settle down and let the girl do her job.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jill replied, then muttered under her breath, “Noelle needs to get these walls soundproofed.”

“What’s that?” Edith Potts called again.

“Nothing. Sorry. I’ll be good. I’m having a simply magnificent time.” Could Edith hear the sarcasm?

“That’s my girl.”

Nope. Edith had never understood the subtleties of irony. The lady simply said what she thought.

Sheena returned to her massaging, distracted from her makeover project. “Will wonders never cease. Edith Potts must be the only person in town you can’t boss around.”

Jill scowled up at her, and Sheena smiled back, wagging her blond eyebrows, which had been plucked to the point that she looked permanently surprised.

The twit was right, of course. Jill would do anything for Edith. Eighty-three-year-old Edith Potts, retired principal of Hideaway High, could claim friendship with the majority of Hideaway’s residents as well as a few of the flocks of tourists who escaped to this tiny lakeside village every year.

To Jill, her elderly friend epitomized courage. Since Jill often felt as if she, herself, epitomized the exact opposite, she had always been drawn to Edith’s independent, nurturing spirit. It was Edith who had found a school nurse position for Jill here in Hideaway when tragedy necessitated that Jill would have to return home and stay nearby for the family business.

Once again closing her eyes, Jill tried to give herself over to the relaxation Sheena had promised. “This honey and almond cream smells heavenly.”

“It’s our most popular. We mix it here ourselves.”

“I’d like a jar of that, if it’s for sale.” Still, if she came away with scars on her face from an over-eager masseuse, Jill would hold Edith and Noelle personally responsible.

In spite of her intentions to remain vigilant, her muscles seemed to liquefy of their own volition. She could feel her body merging with the soft sheets on the massage table until she wasn’t sure where the padding ended and her flesh began. Moreover, she didn’t care.

Jill seldom relaxed. She had been accused of being one of the most uptight, untouchable single women in Hideaway and the surrounding area. Most of the townsfolk made such comments out of her earshot—or so they thought—but Edith never hesitated to speak her mind, and neither did Noelle.

As Jill thought about it, she had recently found herself blessed—if that could be the term for it—by associates at work who never minced words with her.

They understood the term for her condition. Thanks to recent popular television shows, who didn’t know what the letters OCD stood for? Yet they wouldn’t let her get away with the typical behavior of someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Blessed…yes. That was it. She was truly blessed by people who loved her in spite—

“Your brows could use a good plucking.” Sheena’s soft voice interrupted Jill’s reverie.

“What?” Jill opened her eyes to see the young woman hovering over her, wielding a pair of tweezers far too close. Now what tortures was she expected to endure for the sake of moral support?

“I want to shape your eyebrows. I can take ten years off your face with a few good jerks.”

Jill’s loose muscles suddenly tightened again. “Look, Sheena Marshall,” she said, keeping her voice low in deference to Edith, “I didn’t come here to be plucked or jerked or tweezed, I just came for a simple massage with this green stuff you smeared all over my face. Are you finished?”

“Not yet. There are just so many things you need to have done. With your great bone structure—”

“Shouldn’t someone be tending to Edith?”

“She knows how to relax, unlike you.”

“Where’d your mother go? I’d be perfectly willing to let her finish this massage so you can see to Edith.” At least Mary would complete the job without trying to do a total makeover in the process.

“She was only scheduled to work this morning,” Sheena said, “and she wasn’t too happy about having to do that.”

Sheena’s mom, Mary Marshall, had reluctantly agreed to come to work at the spa on an as-needed basis until Noelle could determine for sure how many full-time staff members she would require.

Not only was Mary an accomplished massage therapist who had worked for years in surrounding resorts, she was also a cosmetologist, with a good head for business.

Sheena still lived at home, at the age of twenty-two, and seemed content to stay in Hideaway the rest of her life, living with her parents and working here at the spa. Jill felt for the girl, since she, too, had stayed home out of necessity for several years after graduating from high school.

Sheena needed to get out of this place for a while and learn a little more about the world. Mary and Jed were keeping too tight a leash on her.

Jill shifted on the massage table. “I think I heard Noelle come back from her errands a few minutes ago—can’t she see to Edith while you’re finishing here? I hate to think of Edith waiting over there all by herself.”

“I’ll be…fine,” Edith called to her.

With a frown, Jill glanced at Sheena. Edith sounded less peaceful and relaxed than she had moments ago.

“We won’t be much longer,” Sheena assured Jill. “Noelle warned me not to take too long the first time.”

First time? Like this was going to happen again? What did Noelle need with moral support, anyway? Though the business was new, it was doing well.

Was that laughter she heard in the next room?

Jill gave a sigh, forcing herself to relax again. Edith had a sense of humor that had brought healing light to some of the darkest moments in Jill’s life. Let her laugh.

Yet even as Jill listened to that laughter, it didn’t sound quite right….

Sheena’s movements slowed, as if she, too, noticed a change.

That wasn’t laughter. “Edith, you okay in there?” Jill asked. It sounded as if Edith was coughing.

For several long seconds there was no answer, then came a muffled thump.

Jill lunged up from the massage bed and scrambled out, stumbling against the tray table beside her. Bottles and jars crashed to the wooden floor. She swept past Sheena and raced into the hallway, then into the next cubicle, her loose gown billowing around her.

She thrust the door open to find Edith lying on the floor, gnarled hands grasping her throat, eyes bulging with terror. Her face was still half covered with the mask of herbs, and her white hair tufted over the mask in sticky strands. The half of her face that was bare was nearly purple.

“Call for help!” Jill dropped to her knees beside her friend and wiped the green mask of goo from her face with a towel. “Edith, it’s okay. We’re going to take care of you.”

The lady’s fear-stricken gaze caught and held Jill’s, begging for help. Her mouth worked silently.

“Who do I call?” Sheena cried.

“Get Noelle,” Jill said, grasping Edith’s hand. “I think she came back in. If not, call her on her cell. The clinic’s closed today.” In a more populated place, they would call 911. Here in Hideaway, that wasn’t a good option.

As Sheena rushed from the room, Edith’s grasp tightened in Jill’s. “S…c-cool,” she rasped.

“You’re cool? I’ll get a blanket for—”

The hand tightened further. “N-no.” She closed her eyes, and her grip weakened.

“No. Edith! Stay with me. Help is on the way.”

Those eyes opened again. “S…cool…” Her voice barely reached Jill, and her mouth worked as if with great effort. “Re…cords…jet…”

“Edith, just hold on. We’ll take good care of you.”

Edith shook her head, obviously agitated. “Jet…bomber.”

Jet bomber? “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Just hold on and concentrate—”

Edith’s hand relaxed from Jill’s grip. Her eyes closed. She stopped breathing.

“No. Edith! Don’t give up now. Edith!”

Chapter Two

Dr. Rex Fairfield seldom felt ill at ease with colleagues, whether they were strangers, friends or even antagonists. He felt perfectly comfortable presiding over large meetings, which was good, considering the requirements of his present career choice.

Today was different, however, as he sat in the tastefully decorated conference room of the Hideaway Clinic, deep in conversation with two other doctors.

His tension didn’t stem from the suspicious glint in Dr. Karah Lee Fletcher’s gaze or from the quiet expectancy in Dr. Cheyenne Gideon’s dark eyes.

“If we can bring the clinic up to code in, say, three weeks, the timing would be perfect for an announcement at Hideaway’s September festival,” he said. “You’ve already done a lot more than I’d have expected.”

“So why all the secrecy?” Dr. Fletcher asked him.

He frowned at her. “Secrecy?”

The statuesque redhead, second in command of this clinic, leaned forward, spreading her hands. “Yeah, the secrecy. The whole town supports what we’re doing here. They want the clinic to become a hospital. The community’s growing, we need these improvements. There’s no reason to keep it a secret.”

“Maybe not everyone wants it,” corrected Dr. Gideon, the clinic director, “but the detractors are few in number, and they aren’t adamant, they just want to have something to complain about.”

“I didn’t ask for complete secrecy,” Rex told them, “I only asked for discretion.”

“You asked us to keep your name out of our discussions with everyone, including our own staff,” Dr. Fletcher reminded him.

He nodded. Aha. That was the reason for the small flicker of wariness he had detected in the demeanor of this tall woman with the commanding presence. “Please understand I’m not calling your staff’s integrity into question, but there is one particular person with whom I’ve had…um…previous experience.” He hesitated, unwilling to share all to these virtual strangers. This was intensely personal.

“I assure you, Rex, that you can trust all of our staff members,” the director said. “I have found them to have the utmost integrity.”

“I wouldn’t dream of calling any of your staff’s integrity into question, Dr. Gideon.”

The dark-haired, dark-eyed woman rolled her eyes. “Please, I asked you to call me Cheyenne. We keep everything very casual around here.” The woman reached up and tucked a strand of her short, shaggy black hair behind her ear. She did, indeed, appear to have some Native American blood in her lineage.

“I’m sorry—Cheyenne.”

“And I’m Karah Lee,” insisted the tall redhead. “Now, are you going to tell us why all the mystery?”

Rex had become acquainted with Cheyenne, the clinic’s founder and director, and he felt confident in the abilities and good conscience of both the clinic’s doctors. But he had never been inclined to share personal confessions with those he did not know extremely well. In fact, he had learned that even with those he thought he knew well, he must be cautious. His faith in his own judgment wasn’t what it used to be. Perhaps that was a good thing, perhaps not.

“May I ask who it is you’re concerned about?” The expression in Cheyenne’s dark brown eyes was direct.

He hesitated, feeling foolish. His request had been impulsive, which was uncharacteristic of him. He wasn’t sure how he was going to get out of this situation without looking unprofessional, even silly, to these two serious, obviously dedicated physicians. Karah Lee Fletcher’s frown deepened.

He cleared his throat. “I simply wished to speak with this particular person in private before any—”

There was a clatter beyond the closed conference room door. Someone had come running into the waiting room of the clinic.

“Hello? Is anyone here?” came an urgent, feminine voice—a voice familiar to Rex, even after all these years, and even with the sharp edge of urgency that carried it down the hallway.

Cheyenne frowned at Karah Lee, who rose quickly, opened the door and stuck her head out into the hallway. “Noelle? What are you doing here? It’s Saturday.”

“Oh, thank goodness! I didn’t expect anyone to be here, or I’d have called. Jill and Sheena are doing CPR on Edith Potts at the spa. Not sure what happened. I came to get—”

“She’s unresponsive?” Cheyenne shoved away from the table and came out of her chair, yanking the door open wide.

Through the doorway, Rex caught sight of a beautiful woman with thick brown hair and small, exquisitely feminine features. She would be in her midthirties now. The only thing that marred her beauty were those blue eyes filled with dark concern. She was very obviously pregnant. Jill’s younger sister.

“She stopped breathing,” Noelle said. “Jill is—”

“Karah Lee,” Cheyenne said over her shoulder, “grab the crash cart. Make sure there’s a cric kit on it. We may have to do a cricothyroidotomy.”

“There is a cric kit,” Noelle said. “I checked it myself yesterday.”

“Let’s get it to the spa,” Cheyenne said. Without a backward glance, both doctors followed Noelle from the clinic, pushing a fully loaded crash cart in front of them.

Rex rushed out behind them. It had been three years since his last official stint in an emergency department, but he would be there if he was needed.

And besides, he, too, needed to know what was wrong with dear old Edith Potts.

In frustration and despair, Jill forced her own breath into Edith’s lungs through the protective pocket mask Noelle kept in each massage room, while the young massage therapist pumped rhythmically on Edith’s chest. The soothing background music was a stark contrast to the sound of hard breathing. This spacious room suddenly felt far too confining.

Sheena’s face was red from exertion and anxiety. Though she obviously knew the procedure, it was just as obvious she had never handled an emergency like this before.

“She isn’t responding, Jill. It isn’t working!” The young woman’s blond hair had darkened around her neck with perspiration. “What are we going to do?”

“Stop a second.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m not tired, I’m just—”

“Stop, Sheena! I need to check her.”

The masseuse withdrew her trembling hands from their locked position over Edith’s chest.

Jill knelt close to Edith’s mouth and listened for air movement. None. She pressed her fingers against the carotid artery and checked for a pulse. Nothing. Lord, please don’t take Edith!

“Come and do rescue breathing, and I’ll take over the chest compressions,” she told Sheena.

“No, I can do the compressions. I’m not tired.”

“I’m not asking, I’m telling you, trade places with me.”

“Where’s Noelle with that kit? Shouldn’t she—”

“Just do it!” Jill shouted.

The sound of multiple footsteps reached them from the marble-tiled front entryway.

“Noelle?” Jill called to them. “Is that you? Did you get the intubation—”

Cheyenne burst into the room with a crash cart, followed by Noelle and Karah Lee and a bearded man she didn’t recognize—

For a millisecond, Jill glanced at him again. Not a stranger. She knew that face, in spite of the short, salt-and-pepper beard she’d never seen before, and the cropped dark hair, receding hairline and slight creases of maturity around the calm, gray eyes….

Jill knew that man. Very, very well. Or she had known him once.

But there was no time to react, no time to think. “Chey, she’s gone unresponsive—”

“We’ve got it.” Cheyenne ripped the intubation kit open and started giving orders.

Jill gave a quiet sigh as she scrambled out of the way of the doctors and waited for her first orders. If anyone could bring Edith back, these people could do it.

Rex endured the expected sense of déjà vu, unable, for a few seconds, to drag his gaze from Jill Cooper’s face, which was, at this moment, smeared with some kind of green stuff. Several strands of her hair, dark and thick as he remembered it, had fallen from the confines of a floral turban, grazing the tops of her shoulders. Her body was wrapped in a matching green-and-lavender floral gown.

After a very brief double take at the sight of him, she returned her attention to the still figure of her beloved mentor lying on the floor.

He set to work moving a lounger and a magazine rack out of the way to give the rescue team freedom of movement as they worked.

He remembered Edith Potts, even after all this time, and as he worked he said a silent prayer for her. It had been Edith to whom Jill turned for wisdom and for motherly love.

It had been the strong, wise Edith on whom Jill had depended for advice when her younger sister skipped school or decided not to return home after an evening of partying.

The older woman had also been the one to prepare special meals for Rex when he visited Hideaway on those rare weekends of freedom from the hospital. When there wasn’t room at the bed and breakfast, he had stayed at her house. That was before she and Bertie Meyer purchased the bed and breakfast.

“Get a rhythm,” Cheyenne barked, crouching at Edith’s head.

Karah Lee grabbed the paddles from the cart and placed them on Edith’s chest. “Stop CPR.” She then looked at the monitor. “I’ve got it. Is there a pulse?”

“None,” Cheyenne said, also looking at the monitor while feeling for a pulse in the neck. “It’s PEA. Not shock-able.”

Rex slumped. Pulseless electrical activity. Bad news.

“Continue CPR,” Cheyenne said. “I’m going to set up for intubation. Noelle, bag her while I get ready.”

The doctor worked with quick efficiency. Karah Lee stopped compressions long enough for Cheyenne to insert the breathing tube. Simultaneously, Jill established an IV in the patient’s arm, and drew blood, following normal code protocol. The breathing tube was in place in little over half a minute.

Cheyenne had been an ER doc in Columbia, Missouri, and she had obviously not gotten rusty on her skills. Rex couldn’t help being impressed by this precise teamwork.

Cheyenne secured the tube and allowed Noelle to resume bagging. “Breath sounds?”

Karah Lee pressed her stethoscope over the belly first, then moved the bell to the chest. “Good. The tube is in place.”

“Resume compressions. Sheena, I need you to call an airlift for us.”

Sheena looked up at her. “Who do I call? What do I say?”

“I’ll give you the number. Get a pad and pen and write it down.”

The young woman scrambled toward the doorway.

Cheyenne’s voice was calm but firm as she shot orders to the others. Rex took over the job of recording the proceedings on a sheet of notebook paper he found on a table.

He knew he should be observing this scene with professional detachment in order to best evaluate the staff’s strengths and weaknesses. They would need that evaluation later as they applied for hospital designation.

He couldn’t detach. He felt the desperation in this room, could hear it in the quickened breathing of each person. He wanted to reassure Jill that everything would be okay, but she might not welcome any kind of comment from him right now. Every moment they worked over Edith with no response, he was more convinced that she was gone for good. Though he knew Jill was a woman of faith, a word from him would be an intrusion. Lord, please help us. Guide our hands, give us wisdom.

Why had he asked Cheyenne to keep his identity a secret from the staff? He had seldom been more sorry about a decision. His intention had been to reconnect with Jill personally before they met in a cold, professional environment. He wanted to reassure her he wasn’t still the ogre she’d once thought he was.

If they lost Edith, it would break her heart. She didn’t need any additional stress on top of that.

Chapter Three

Fawn Morrison sat behind the counter in the lobby of the Lakeside Bed and Breakfast, entering numbers from a ledger sheet onto the computer program Blaze Farmer had set up. She loved this part of the job. It was mindless yet engaging enough to keep her from worrying about her plans for the upcoming wedding, her adjustments to college, her preparations for the pig races at the festival.

She was racing her very own pig this year. Why had she agreed to do that, with everything else going on? She was practically the sole planner for Karah Lee’s wedding, and she wasn’t getting a whole lot of help from Karah Lee.

Fawn loved her foster mother, but the woman had no fashion sense, no concept of the amount of time it would take to complete their plans. Furthermore, those plans kept changing.

The front door squeaked open and the old-fashioned bell rang above it. She glanced over her shoulder to see a tall man with broad shoulders and thick, gray-streaked auburn hair step into the lobby. He looked awkward, nervous.

He wasn’t bad-looking, for someone in his forties, at least. Bertie or Edith might threaten to stick him out in the garden to scare away the crows because he was a little on the skinny side. He had a turkey wattle beneath his chin and dark circles under his eyes.

Okay, so he wasn’t that good-looking. He just looked like maybe he had been, once upon a time.

“Be there in a minute,” Bertie called from the dining room at the far side of the lobby.

Fawn started to get up to help the man.

“Why, Bertie Meyer,” the man drawled, his voice deep as the growl of a big dog, “you’re just the person I was hoping to run into. What a welcome sight you are.”

Fawn sat back down.

Eighty-something-year-old Bertie stopped midstride in the broad entryway between the dining room and the lobby. She held an empty waffle plate, and her white apron was stained with strawberry syrup and bacon grease. Her white hair tufted down over her forehead, and her eyes looked like those of a cat caught in headlights.

“Austin?” Bertie’s voice suddenly sounded her age, which didn’t happen often.

“I bet you thought I was gone for good, huh?”

Bertie set her waffle plate on a nearby table and entered the lobby, absently wiping her hands on her apron. “I heard you and your mom had moved to California.”

Fawn frowned. Austin. Where had she heard that name before?

“Mom’s living with Aunt Esther down in Eureka Springs now,” the man said. “I went to California for a few weeks to visit my cousin, but the traffic’s a mess out there. A fella can’t even make a trip to the grocery store without risking his life.”

“Seems to me a real estate agent could make some good money in LA,” Bertie said.

There was a short pause. “Money doesn’t mean as much as I used to think it did.”

Fawn realized she was partially shielded by the greenery that Edith loved to keep on the counter. And she realized she was indulging in one of her worst habits—eavesdropping.

Her best friend Blaze and her foster mother Karah Lee had nagged her so much about it that she’d almost broken the habit. Until now. Right now she couldn’t leave without drawing attention to herself.

Bertie’s passion for hospitality drew more customers here than to any hotel or lodge in a twenty-five-mile radius, but the tone of her voice did not sound welcoming. It sounded wary.

The man walked across the lobby to her. “I’m not here to cause trouble for anyone, Bertie.” His voice softened until Fawn could barely hear what he was saying.

Austin…wasn’t his last name Barlow? Was he the guy who used to be mayor of Hideaway?

“I didn’t think you were,” Bertie said. “I’m just curious, is all.”

“Got a cottage I could rent for a couple of weeks?”

Fawn nearly snorted out loud. This place had been booked solid since early April.

She listened to the murmur of quiet voices for a moment, too low for her to hear and yet just loud enough to frustrate her when she heard a word or two now and then.

Ashamed, but unable to stop herself, Fawn finally scooted her chair back so she could hear a little better.

“Have you heard from Ramsay lately?” Bertie asked.

“Just yesterday. You might not believe this, but he’s living at a boys’ ranch up in northern Missouri. How’s that for payback after all the griping I did about Dane Gideon’s ranch for so many years?”

There was a long silence. Fawn peeked over the counter and saw Bertie’s expression. Fawn knew that look. Bertie had such a tender heart.

Ramsay. Fawn remembered Blaze telling her about him. They’d been friends, or so Blaze had thought. Then it turned out Ramsay was vandalizing the town and allowing his father—Austin—to place the blame on Blaze. Finally Ramsay had flipped out completely and tried to kill Cheyenne because she had done something that made his father mad.

And what was the kid doing at a boys’ ranch? Shouldn’t he be in a place that took psych cases?

“Bertie, I came to apologize,” Austin said in a rush, as if he couldn’t be sure he’d have the nerve to get all the words out. “I thought I’d start with you. I know I have a lot to answer for, and it’s time. Way past time.”

Fawn couldn’t make out Bertie’s response, but she knew that Austin Barlow was forgiven.

Rex Fairfield shoved the heels of his hands against the yielding flesh of Edith Potts’s chest, taking his turn at the grueling task of CPR. He felt the sweat of desperation on his own forehead and heard the despair in Cheyenne’s voice as she continued to call orders to them.

“Where’s that airlift?” Jill asked. “It should be here by now. It’s been—”

“Too long,” Cheyenne said, her voice brittle from the force of tight control. Grief drew lines of tension around her mouth and eyes.

It had been twenty minutes. Rex knew this would be a tough one for all of them. He also knew they had done more than was normal for a code such as this.

“Sheena,” Cheyenne said, “go ahead and—” She frowned, and Rex glanced at Sheena Marshall crouched in the far corner of the room, arms wrapped tightly around herself, eyes glassy as she stared at the floor in front of her.

“Noelle,” Cheyenne said, “call the airlift and cancel—”

“No!” Jill’s usually mellow voice broke, ragged with pain. “Please, Chey, just a little longer.”

Rex continued to pump rhythmically.

“It’s been taken out of our hands.” Cheyenne spoke with tender sadness.

Jill shook her head, short jerks of denial as she reached once more for the crash cart. “Atropine is next, isn’t it?”

“We’ve already maxed out the Atropine.” Karah Lee placed a hand on Jill’s shoulder and squeezed, her voice husky with sorrow.

“There’s some left, though. Can’t we just try one more—”

“Honey, it’s time,” Karah Lee said.

“Epi again, then.” Jill’s movements had taken on the frantic tightness of extreme anxiety. “One more dose, Chey. Please, just one…”

“Jill.” Cheyenne caught Jill by the hands. “She’s gone. We knew it was a reach when we saw the rhythm in the first place. We’ve carried this much longer than was warranted already.” She nodded to Karah Lee, who had taken over the recording from Rex. “Time of death, 2:30 p.m., September third.”

“Oh, Edith, no!” Jill’s cry filled the room.

Chapter Four

Fawn watched Bertie return to her work in the dining room, and then saw Austin Barlow’s broad shoulders slump as he reached for the handle of the front door. She suddenly felt sorry for him, though she couldn’t understand why.

The guy was a bigot. He’d accused Blaze of vandalism simply because Blaze was black in a cream white town. The former mayor had complained constantly about Dane Gideon and the boys’ ranch, and according to Blaze, he had even tried to cause trouble for Bertie Meyer.

Bertie didn’t hold grudges, and she’d been kind to Austin after the initial awkwardness. Still, she couldn’t pull a room for rent out of thin air. There was nothing to be had in town.

Fawn remembered a few more things Blaze had said about Austin Barlow. He was a real estate agent, and one time he’d rescued a starving horse from a pasture he had listed, then had taken the animal to Cheyenne’s farm, since he lived in town. When Cheyenne had hired Blaze to take care of the horse, Austin had been angry. The moron had actually expected to use the starving horse as an excuse to see Cheyenne more often.

Had to give the guy credit for originality, but it was still stupid. He must not know much about women.

“I hear you used to be the mayor.” The words slid from Fawn’s mouth before she realized she was going to say anything at all.

Austin turned and glanced around the room, and she could tell he hadn’t even known she was there. That ficus tree made a good eavesdropping blind.

She stood up.

He blinked, the heavy expression in his eyes suddenly lifting. “That’s right.”

“Sorry about your son.”

He nodded. “Thank you. So am I.”

“If you’re looking to stay a couple of weeks, Grace Brennan might sublet her apartment to you. She’s on tour this month.”

He stepped across the hardwood floor to the counter and leaned against it, obviously to get a better look at the instigator of this conversation.

“Grace Brennan’s on the road?” he asked.

“That’s right. She’s got a song that’s a crossover hit, and she and Michael Gold are getting married.”

Austin whistled softly. “When’s the wedding?”

“During the festival on the twenty-fifth of this month. Karah Lee Fletcher’s getting married to Taylor Jackson, too.”

Austin winked at her, his eyes suddenly teasing. “How about you? When do you get married?”

Fawn scowled. Now he was flirting, not taking her seriously. “I just turned eighteen. Why would I be getting married so young?”

He shrugged. “I don’t remember seeing you in Hideaway two years ago.”

She decided not to tell him where she was and what she was doing two years ago. She wanted to ask why his own life had gone down the tubes so quickly. But Karah Lee and Blaze were always reminding her that those kinds of questions weren’t polite.

“I came here one step ahead of some goon who wanted to kill me,” she said. “Karah Lee decided to keep me.”

Austin Barlow’s expression didn’t change, which intrigued Fawn. Usually, that announcement led the listener to ask for the whole story.

Fawn decided the winking and teasing were a cover. Austin had other things on his mind. “Why did you come back to Hideaway?” she asked.

“You should know why. You’re the one who’s been eavesdropping.”

“So you want to make amends? For your son’s actions? It’s not like you’re the guilty one.”

Austin scowled.

“Sorry,” Fawn said. “I guess a good father will always feel responsible for whatever his kid does.”

The scowl faded as he studied her more closely.

“Guess I wouldn’t know about that,” she muttered softly.

Austin’s eyes narrowed at her words, then he shook his head. “Guess I wouldn’t, either. But maybe it’s time to make up for a lot of things,” he said, almost as if to himself.

“Are you moving back to Hideaway?” she asked. Blaze wouldn’t be thrilled about that. Dane Gideon wouldn’t be happy, either, though he was too much of a gentleman ever to say anything.

Austin glanced around the lobby, appraising. “I’m not sure where I’ll be moving yet. I need to talk to Cheyenne Allison, Dane Gideon, make a few—”

“That’s Cheyenne Gideon.”

The guy blinked, as if startled. “Of course. I knew that.”

“I heard you had a thing for her,” Fawn said.

He gave a disapproving frown. “For a newcomer, you sure know a lot about me.”

“While you’re making apologies, are you going to apologize to Blaze Farmer?”

He leveled a long, steady look at her. “Have you suddenly decided to become my conscience?”

“I thought you said you’d come here to make amends. Seems to me you need to be making amends to Blaze for quite a few things.”

Austin continued to study her thoughtfully. “Yes, it would seem that way, wouldn’t it?”

His focused attention made her nervous.

Jill sat wiping the massage cream from her face with the turban that had been wrapped around her head. She couldn’t stop staring at Edith’s still form, listening to the soft echo of sobs coming from another room.

Sheena had run out when Cheyenne made the pronouncement, and Noelle had gone to comfort her and cancel clients for the remainder of the day. Apparently Sheena had loved Edith, too.

A quick glance told Jill that Rex Fairfield was still here. She returned her attention to Edith as Karah Lee pulled a sheet over that death mask.

Jill winced. She couldn’t do this. She needed to run away screaming, needed to shake her fist at God and ask what He thought He was doing. She needed to rail at Cheyenne for giving up so easily. These weren’t just impulses, they were compulsions that she had to control.

The real Jill Cooper was a rational human being, a responsible RN, an adult.

Oh, the awful terror that had been in Edith’s eyes…the horrible knowledge of something—but what? What had she been trying to say? Hallucinating, no doubt, but why?

“Jill?” A deep masculine voice broke into her thoughts.

With a start, she looked up, then looked away quickly, refusing to meet Rex’s gaze. Not now. It was just too much. She didn’t want to deal with this—couldn’t deal with it. All she wanted to do was fall to her knees at Edith’s side and weep against her shoulder as she had done so often as a young teenager.

“I’m so sorry,” Rex said. The gentle sympathy in his low baritone voice reawakened memories she couldn’t bear right now.

She nodded. What was this man doing here? What kind of crazy, tilted nightmare was this?

“The timing is awful,” Rex continued. “I would never have done this to you—”

“You haven’t done a thing to me, Rex.” She forced herself, then, to meet his gaze. “I don’t know what you’re doing in Hideaway, but I doubt either of us is hung up on something that happened twenty-two years ago.”

“Some things were left in limbo then,” he said. “We parted without enough explanations, which was unfortunate. I take the blame. Eventually, we’ll need to clear the air. I owe you an—”

“I have other things to do right now, Rex.” Without waiting for a reply, she brushed past him and knelt to help Cheyenne pick up debris.

“I need to go tell Bertie,” Cheyenne said.

“No.” Jill couldn’t allow anyone else to do that. “That should be my job. I’ll need to contact Edith’s family. She has a niece who lives in Springfield, and others—”

“You need some time to recover.” Cheyenne squeezed cellophane wrappers into a tight ball with more force than normal. “Bertie’s—”

“Please, Chey. I need to do this.” Jill touched Cheyenne’s shoulder, then noticed what she should have seen earlier—the silent tears coursing down her director’s face.

“How about you?” Jill asked. “Are you okay?”

Cheyenne nodded.

Jill realized this must be bringing back horrible memories for her. When Cheyenne was an ER doc in Columbia, her younger sister had been brought in via ambulance after an automobile accident. Cheyenne couldn’t resuscitate her, and in the end she’d had to call her own baby sister’s death.

Jill couldn’t imagine how she would have felt had that happened to her with Noelle.

“I’ll go with her, Cheyenne,” Noelle said from the open doorway.

Jill continued to feel Rex’s attention on her, and she finally looked up at him. What she saw in his expression soothed her jumbled emotions.

“I can do this,” Jill repeated, striding from the room. She continued out the front door of the spa, wishing she never had to return to this place.

When would it all end? How many deaths would this tiny village have to endure?

She was halfway across the street when she heard footsteps behind her.

“You don’t need to keep vigil over me,” she said. “I’m fine.”

“I loved her, too, you know,” came a gentle female voice.

Jill softened. Noelle. At this moment she could barely focus on placing one foot in front of the other, but out of habit, she forced herself to gather her strength for her sister.

Noelle rested a hand on Jill’s arm, her touch tentative, as if she half expected it to be shaken off.

Lord, wake me up! This can’t be happening again, Jill prayed.

“Edith was always there for us,” Noelle said as they stepped onto the grass across the street from the town square. “Especially for you.”

Jill nodded. In spite of the oppressive heat, it seemed as if a thick fog had covered the sun. She glanced up to find not a cloud in the blue sky. The sun shone brightly. It just didn’t seem to be reaching her.

“She was my best friend,” Jill said at last.

“I know.”

Edith had taken the place of their mother when she was killed. Edith had played the role of the strong parent when the girls’ father had withdrawn into a world of grief and buried himself in work.

“I went to her for guidance when I couldn’t control you,” Jill continued.

“I’m sorry I made it so hard for you,” Noelle said.

“I’m not saying it was your fault, I’m just saying Edith was my strength.”

“I was old enough to know better.”

“You were acting out because you were frightened. You needed your mother, and I wasn’t her. You needed a father, and he wasn’t able to cope.”

“Stop making excuses for me. Besides, we’re talking about you for once.”

Jill’s steps slowed as she stared out across the surface of Table Rock Lake. As much as she wanted to reassure Noelle that she would be fine, Jill knew Noelle wouldn’t believe her. And it might be a lie. In times of extreme stress, like now, an OCD crisis was always a possibility.

Her steps slowed further as they drew near the bed and breakfast that Edith Potts and Bertie Meyer had purchased and turned into a profitable business. “Oh, Noelle, what’s Bertie going to do now? She still hasn’t recovered from Red’s death. Now Edith.”

Her sister’s trembling hand grasped hers. That tremor reminded Jill that Noelle, too, had just witnessed another horrible death. It brought back their past with such clarity—and they hadn’t had time to recover from all the darkness.

Edith had been a constant in their lives for so many years.

“It isn’t your fault,” Noelle said quietly. “You can’t take responsibility for this.” She paused, then, still more quietly, added, “Especially not for this.”

“That isn’t what I’m doing, I’m just—” Jill frowned, then stopped and looked at her sister, studying the beautiful lines of Noelle’s face. Especially not for this. “What do you mean?”

Noelle didn’t meet her gaze, and Jill felt a tingling of alertness.

Since childhood, Noelle had been gifted with a special intuition that had frightened Jill. Now that they understood it better and realized that this intuition was pure and of God, a simple spiritual gift, it didn’t frighten her as badly as it once had. Still, Jill had learned to take it seriously when Noelle experienced this special knowledge. It wasn’t a conjuring. Noelle would never have sought this gift for herself, and she continued to avoid addressing it whenever possible. For her to make that remark now meant something, Jill knew.

“Are you telling me there could be something else going on—”

“Do you have any idea what Rex Fairfield is doing here?” Noelle asked abruptly.

“I don’t want to talk about him right now. We need to—”

“I can’t go there yet.” Noelle tugged her hand away, and Jill realized she had been holding on too tightly—something she had often done to Noelle. “I’m the reason you broke up with him, aren’t I?” Noelle asked.

“What makes you think I’m the one who broke it off?”

“Whoever did it, I’m the reason,” Noelle said. “I overheard the two of you fighting because you insisted on coming home every weekend. And I know you did that because I kept getting into trouble. If not for me, maybe—”

“I thought you said it wasn’t about you this time,” Jill snapped. “The reason Rex and I didn’t get married is because it wasn’t meant to be, so stop wallowing in guilt.”

“I’m not,” Noelle snapped back. “I’m just telling it like it is.”

Jill stopped and turned to Noelle then, softening her voice. “Honey, if not for you, I might have no sanity left. Because I knew I had to be responsible for you, I was willing to seek help for my compulsions.”

Noelle held her gaze for a moment, then nodded. Something cleared in her expression. She looked down at her hands. “Thanks. Glad I could be of service.”

Jill relaxed slightly at the gentle teasing. “Now, are you going to tell me what you know about Edith’s death?”

“Not yet. I’m sorry, but you understand how it is. I just believe all is not as it seems. We need to be watchful.”

Jill didn’t press for more, badly as she wanted to. What was not as it seemed? And who could be hiding something?

Chapter Five

Rex designated a biohazard receptacle and a sharps container as he collected used needles and tubing from the massage-room floor around Edith’s still body. He had to make do with what he had here at the spa and would place all the items in a proper receptacle later when they returned to the clinic.

The rest of the makeshift code team had dispersed to other rooms in the spa to make arrangements for Edith’s funeral. The place was quiet, filled with the aura of shock and grief with which he had become familiar as an internist.

The feeling of loss after a code wasn’t something he missed about his former life. He did miss other things, however. He’d loved the interaction with patients and their families and the chance to have a meaningful impact on a patient’s quality of life. Internal medicine had given him opportunities for that. Still, if he had it to do over again—which he might, someday—he would have gone into family practice.

A general practice didn’t pay nearly as well as internal medicine. With the diminishing returns from health insurance, the number of uninsured patients and the high cost of professional liability insurance, many of his colleagues complained that they would soon have to pay their patients for the privilege of treating them.

Cheyenne Gideon and Karah Lee Fletcher didn’t seem to have that attitude, however.

When everything was collected from the floor, Rex sank onto the stool beside Edith’s body. She looked almost alive. If he didn’t know better, he would expect to see her chest rising and falling. There was something about her…“I’m sorry I didn’t get to talk to you again,” he murmured softly. “Go with God.”

Footsteps echoed from the hallway, and Cheyenne stepped through the open threshold, mascara smudged around her dark eyes.

“Rex, I’m sorry you were dragged into this, but thank you so much for your willingness to help.” There was a catch in her voice.

“Thank you for including me. It’s been a while since I last did a code.”

“Someone from the funeral home will be here soon.” She reached for an empty syringe and placed it in the receptacle. “You don’t have to wait.”

“I’d like to, if you don’t mind.”

With a nod, she sank into a chair, her dark eyes shimmering with more tears.

“You must have cared a great deal about her,” he said.

“Everyone did. Jill and Edith were especially close, and I hate to think what she’ll be going through in the next few days.”

“She’ll blame herself,” Rex said.

Cheyenne nodded, her eyes narrowing fractionally as she gazed at him. “Yes.” There was a hesitation in the word. It wasn’t quite a question, but he could almost hear her thoughts. Then her gaze returned to Edith.

“When I was practicing medicine,” he said, “I made it a habit to ensure that the deceased patient was never left alone before being collected by the hearse or taken to the hospital morgue.” It hadn’t always been possible, of course, but he’d tried.

She nodded. “You were in internal medicine? I guess that means you did intubations.”

“Quite a few.”

“When I was a med student, I heard horror stories about ER docs and internists who left their intubated patients alone after a failed code in a room, where the tube was moved by a careless staff member.”

“Which set the doctor up for a malpractice lawsuit when he couldn’t prove he had the tube in correctly,” Rex said. “I heard the same stories.”

“You didn’t do this intubation.” Cheyenne gestured to Edith. “Obviously, you’re not staying to protect your liability.”

He shook his head. “Somehow, it just doesn’t seem right to leave her lying here alone on the cold, hard floor. It’s always been a hang-up of mine.”

“A tender heart? I bet you got teased about that in med school.”

“Not so much in med school as when I was a resident.” He hadn’t minded the teasing. His little eccentricity had actually been the first thing that had drawn Jill to him. It had taken weeks to realize why she’d been so understanding about his quirks—because she had some pretty interesting quirks of her own.

Karah Lee joined them in the room and sank onto the recliner. “Sheena’s not handling this well.”

“Is she going to be okay?” Rex asked.

Karah Lee nodded. “She’s on the telephone with her mother now. You know Jill’s got to be in agony. I’m just glad Noelle went with her.”

“I need to talk to Bertie, myself,” Cheyenne said.

“You’ll get your chance,” Karah Lee said. “And don’t worry, Bertie can handle this. She’s a trouper.”

“Blaze and I were the ones who found her husband dead,” Cheyenne said. “Red was the sweetest old man, deaf as a flowerpot, as Bertie liked to say. After his death, Edith was always there for Bertie, even willing to risk her savings to go into business with her at the bed and breakfast.”

“She was a wise and kind lady,” Rex said.

Karah Lee’s eyes narrowed. “You knew her?”

He looked down and studied the elderly, waxen face. There seemed to be just a hint of pink still in her cheeks. If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought she was wearing makeup, but anything on her skin would have been removed with all that green stuff.

“You did know Edith?” Cheyenne asked.

“I met her years ago. I take it this was not completely unexpected? Heart failure?”

Cheyenne hesitated, watching him with those dark eyes, obviously trying to decipher the implication of his having known Edith. “She’s been struggling with chronic heart failure for the past year.”

“Was she taking her medication faithfully?”

“Yes, and I thought we were keeping a close eye on her numbers, so this was a shock.”

“You can’t place the human body on a schedule,” he said. “When the heart gives out, it gives out. You know that.”

“Yes, but when we’re especially close to the patient, we do tend to take on more responsibility for the outcome,” Cheyenne said.

“You’ve been in Hideaway before?” Karah Lee asked Rex.

He resisted a smile at the redhead’s evident curiosity. “Yes, and I actually stayed at Edith’s house a few times. Edith was one of the most hospitable people I’ve ever known. She not only fed me and gave me a place to sleep when I visited, but she invited me to return, even after…” He caught himself and fell silent.

Karah Lee and Cheyenne waited.

“You might as well tell us,” Karah Lee said. “We’ll drag it out of you one way or another. What’s up between you and Jill?”

He had hoped to speak with Jill before sharing this information with anyone else. Especially considering the cool reception he had received from her this afternoon, he didn’t want her to feel as if he had betrayed her confidence.

However, he had never sworn to remain silent about their past together. She had done nothing to be ashamed of, though he had been ashamed of his words to her in the hospital cafeteria that one heartbreaking afternoon.

“Don’t even try to tell us you and Jill didn’t have something going on,” Karah Lee said. “I saw her reaction when she realized who you were.”

“We met over twenty years ago, when I was doing rotations in Springfield,” he said, still reluctant to explain. “Jill was doing her clinicals at St. John’s.”

When he was silent for a moment, Cheyenne prompted, “And?”

He was far too conscious of Edith’s still form. “Perhaps it isn’t totally respectful to be talking about this—”

“Spill it, Rex,” Karah Lee said. “Edith would totally approve.”

He glanced at the outspoken young doctor and grimaced. “Jill and I were once engaged to be married.”

Jill stood as if rooted into the grass at the side of the road. The heat of late summer blasted her face, and yet she felt cold. The graceful lines of her sister’s face blurred before her.

“Are you okay?” Noelle asked.

Jill blinked to clear her vision, feeling moisture in her lashes. “Your tone implied Edith might have died from something other than heart failure.”

“Yes, but—”

“Something other than natural causes.”

Noelle gave a quiet sigh, then nodded almost imperceptibly.

“But we were right there in the next room. She was fine.”

“I know.”

“And then I thought I heard her laughing. It probably wasn’t laughter, but…but she might have been clearing something from her throat, and then—”

“Jill, I can’t tell you any more than that right now, because I simply don’t know.”

“So if it wasn’t natural causes, then that means someone or something else caused her death.” Suddenly self-doubt attacked Jill. “Could I have made a mistake? Could I have been wrong when I thought she’d stopped breathing, and when I initiated CPR I actually caused her heart to—”

“Stop that.” Noelle seldom raised her voice at Jill, but the sudden intensity of those two words halted the painfully familiar sense of panic.

“Remember I told you that especially this time you aren’t to blame?”

“Then someone else is?” Jill asked.

“I’m not saying that, either. Don’t put words in my mouth. I just think there’s something else wrong here.” Noelle hesitated, her expression clouding. Jill wasn’t the only one in this family who had an overwhelming amount of self-doubt. “But with Edith’s heart, we knew it was probably just a matter of time.”

Jill felt another twist in her gut, in spite of Noelle’s reassurance. “I might have done something wrong.”

“No. You did everything right.”

“How can you know that for sure? You weren’t there the whole time.”

“Stop second-guessing yourself. You’re the best—”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have started CPR.” Jill paced across the grass a couple of yards. “Maybe her heart was fine before I—”

“Jill!” This time Noelle did raise her voice, and she grabbed Jill by the arm. “Stop doubting yourself. That’s the OCD talking.”

“What if this time it isn’t the OCD?”

“Even that statement suggests that it is. You know better.”

“I’m handling everything appropriately.”

“No you aren’t! You don’t need to be going to Bertie in the state you’re in right now. You’ll upset her in your condition, and you’ll feel awful about it later.”

Jill looked across the street toward the general store. “What about Cecil? He’s going to be heartbroken. He and Edith have been such good friends for so many years. Someone needs to tell—”

“Cheyenne will call her husband. Dane can talk to Cecil.” Jill knew better than to try to stop the wild ideas that bounced around inside her head like poisoned arrows that confused and clouded her mind. I’ve killed my friend…. I’ve made some kind of mistake that I can’t remember…. I’m a worthless nurse…. I destroy everything I touch….

“You could be wrong this time, Noelle,” she murmured. The weight of responsibility, already heavy enough to crush her, increased yet again. “There’s something you aren’t telling me. I can see it in your eyes.”

Noelle released her then. “Have you stopped taking your medication?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“That is the subject!”

When they were younger—when Jill, barely past childhood herself, felt the responsibility for Noelle’s welfare resting solely on her own small shoulders—she had been much worse. Caught up in the conviction that something was horribly wrong at their home in Cedar Hollow, she had feared for Noelle’s life if other members of their family discovered Noelle’s gift, and had slapped her to keep her quiet about it.

Something had been wrong then. How could Jill be sure something wasn’t wrong now as well? She and Noelle were far too familiar with the specter of murder.

“Have you stopped taking your medication again?” Noelle repeated.

“I’m taking it, just not as much. I’m titrating down.”

“Why?”

“I don’t need as much. I can get a handle on this thing without chemicals flowing through my body all the time. You know how much I hate that stuff.”

“But you hate the OCD more,” Noelle said. “Look what it’s doing to you right now, and this is a horrible time to reduce the meds. You need to increase the dosage, not cut back on it.”

Voices reached them from the bed and breakfast, and Jill glanced in that direction, barely a block away, to see another familiar figure stepping out onto the broad front porch.

“Noelle?”

“What?”

“Please tell me I’m not hallucinating.”

Noelle followed her line of vision, then caught her breath in a tiny gasp. “Depends on what you think you see,” she said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “If you think that’s Attila the Hun, you’re hallucinating. It’s just a distant descendant of his. He was in the spa earlier this morning.”

“What was Austin Barlow doing in your spa?”

“Paying a friendly visit.” The sarcasm didn’t abate. Noelle had never liked Austin.

“We need to suggest an autopsy for Edith,” Jill said, softly, so her voice wouldn’t carry to Austin.

“For what? You think anyone’s going to listen to us?”

“We can try.”

“As you said, Cheyenne is sure it was an MI that killed Edith,” Noelle said. “Myocardial infarction. Nobody’s going to listen to my hunch. Remember, Cheyenne’s the doctor. I’m not. So that’s exactly what they’ll call it—just a hunch.”

“They’ll listen to you before they’d listen to me,” Jill said. “Remember, I’ve been a little jumpy since last year. I’ve called the sheriff a couple of times about noises around the house.”

“Well, I’m the one who admitted to breaking and entering last year,” Noelle said.

Jill shook her head. “You were tracking a killer. The sheriff knows that.”

Noelle nudged Jill. Austin was glancing toward them.

“I’ll talk to the sheriff myself,” Jill said. “I’m telling you one thing now, though, sis. I’m going to run lab tests on that blood I drew from Edith.”

Noelle nodded. “That’s something we can take care of as soon as we’ve spoken with Bertie.”

Chapter Six

The massage room became so silent Rex could hear the quavering voice of the traumatized masseuse out in the lobby, apparently still talking to her mother on the telephone. Cheyenne and Karah Lee stared at him, waiting.

He didn’t want to say anything else.

“Jill never mentioned being engaged,” Cheyenne said.

“One doesn’t always like to talk about a broken relationship,” he said.

“I don’t know why not,” Karah Lee said. “We talk about everything else around here, especially among the office staff. Who broke it?”

Cheyenne cleared her throat. “Uh, careful. We could be invading private turf.”

Rex raised his eyebrows at them. You think?

Karah Lee spread her hands. “If we’re going to be working together for the next few weeks, we’d better make sure we’ll all get along.”

“There will be no trouble between Jill and me,” Rex assured them. How could he have forgotten that special character that had always been such a vital part of Hideaway—the…inquisitiveness?

“It sure didn’t look that way to me a while ago,” Karah Lee said. “Jill wouldn’t even talk to you.”

“She was upset about Edith. Both of us know how to behave in a professional manner.”

“Does this mean you’re not going to tell us what happened to your engagement?” Karah Lee asked, patently disappointed.

He glanced at Cheyenne to see if she would use her authority to curb this vein of inquisitiveness. But she appeared just as curious as Karah Lee.

Obviously, they had been well nourished in the soil of small-town know-thy-neighbor’s-business. “We parted under less than ideal circumstances,” he said.

Karah Lee leaned forward, as if settling in for a story.

Fawn followed Austin onto the porch, still intrigued by this man and his so-called mission. “So, did you suddenly get religion or something?”

He gave her another irritably amused glance over his broad-but-bony left shoulder. “How did you guess?”

She frowned at him. She couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic. “Well, I mean, I guess I don’t know much, but I’ve never heard of someone going out of his way to return to his hometown and start making apologies to everybody.”

“A fella does if he’s smart. Especially if he wants to stay awhile.”

“So you are moving back here?” As she asked the question, she caught sight of Jill Cooper and Noelle Trask standing at the edge of the greenway that bordered the municipal boat dock. They were staring in this direction.

Fawn glanced at Austin, and found him staring back at the sisters.

“Uh-oh,” she said softly. “It must be time for another apology.”

He ignored her and stepped toward the two women.

Rex decided to give his colleagues what they wanted. In fact, if he knew for sure he could trust them, he might even be willing to enlist their assistance in paving the way for a better relationship with Jill—at least a working relationship—but that was taking it too far.

“We discovered quickly that we worked well together,” he said. “Jill wanted to be an intensive-care nurse. When we did shifts together, she seemed to read my mind.”

“She does that with me,” Cheyenne said. “She seems able to tune in to what I’m doing.”

Rex shrugged. “And all this time I was under the impression there was this special bond between the two of us.”

“So you got engaged?” Karah Lee asked, obviously impatient with the slow pace of the narrative.

“We were friends first. We enjoyed each other’s company, often shared a meal together in the cafeteria when our shifts coincided. We found many things in common, and the relationship grew.”

“That’s the way it works best,” Cheyenne said.

“Then we got engaged.”

“And then what?” Karah Lee asked.

“Life intruded. I discovered I wasn’t as patient with her as I had been when we were just friends.” He had become jealous and selfish, something that continued to shame him. “Jill was forced into the role of surrogate mother at far too young an age, and she had trouble balancing her time between me and her little sister.” And he’d been no help at all. Why had he been such a pig?

“No doubt about it,” Karah Lee said, “Noelle was a handful growing up. She still gets reminded of that.”

“I wasn’t mature enough to handle it amid the rigors of internship and early residency. I said some things to Jill that didn’t go over well. The engagement ended six months after it began.”

“Ouch!” Karah Lee exclaimed.

The front door opened, and Cheyenne rose. “That’s probably the hearse for Edith.”

Jill watched Austin walk down the path to the circle drive in front of the bed and breakfast. He paused beside a silver Jeep Grand Cherokee as if he might get in and drive away. But, of course, she wouldn’t be so lucky. Not today. She half expected to look up into the sky and see it splitting apart and Jesus calling His own home to be with Him. And she, of course, would be left behind.

That wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen, of course. She’d walked the aisle years ago, given her heart to Jesus. But the way her life had worked out—and especially the way it seemed to be working today—she could probably expect to discover a glitch in that plan, as well.

Yes, she knew better, but OCD could make a person doubt her salvation as much as it made her doubt everything else in her life.

Austin came toward her, his cowboy boots crunching loudly on the gravel.

“You know,” Noelle said softly, “we could just leave right now. You don’t need this. Nobody needs this. Let’s just turn around and walk away, give him time to leave.”

“Austin’s harmless, Noelle.” Jill stepped toward him. She was no longer attracted to the man, of course. A lifetime had passed since they went together in high school. Apparently God had decided to try her in a test in which her whole past was coming back to haunt her in one day. She might as well deal with it.

“I don’t get it,” Noelle said, falling, obviously unwilling, into step beside her. “You blew off Rex Fairfield back at the spa, so why are you going out of your way to greet Austin Barlow?”

“Because I’m not a little kid. I’m ashamed of my behavior with Rex, and I’ll have to apologize as soon as I see him again.” If she saw him. “I was preoccupied with Edith. Do you have any clue why Rex and Austin would both show up in this town on this day when I’m already losing my mind?”

Noelle looked at her. “None. But I do know there is some kind of reason for it.”

“Yeah, right, God has a plan.”

“He always does. You just have to wait and see it from hindsight.”

“I don’t like to wait for hindsight.” She’d lived in this town for a lot of years, as had Austin. When he was mayor, she was school nurse. After Austin’s wife died, when Ramsay was a child, there had even been talk about a resurrection of that long-ago romance between Austin and Jill.

It hadn’t worked out.

In fact, the way she’d heard it through the Hideaway grapevine, Austin had developed a schoolboy crush on Cheyenne when she came to town. He apparently hadn’t taken it well when Dane Gideon made the more lasting impression on her. That change in circumstances had nearly cost Cheyenne her life when Austin’s son decided to act on his father’s displeasure.

High-school memories seemed so much more innocent than adult ones. So much more distant, they paled in comparison to the tragedies of more recent years—though there had been tragedies even in high school.

She recalled the tragedy that had been the catalyst that ended her relationship with Austin. Another classmate, Chet Palmer, had died, and some fingers had been pointed toward Austin and his buddies.

Now, she held her hands out to Austin as graciously as Edith would have done had she encountered him on the street.

“Why, Austin Barlow, what are you doing back in town? Everything okay with Ramsay?”

The gratified relief that etched his expression made her feel sorry for him.

“Hello, Jill.” His hands grasped hers with a warmth she hadn’t expected. “Ramsay is still in rehabilitation. How are you doing?”

She hesitated, staring up at him quizzically. How much did he know? How much could he know? News about the discovery of the murder of her father and grandparents eleven years ago had made the rounds last autumn and winter. He could have heard of them from just about anyone who was still speaking to him.

Amazingly, she found strength in the touch of his hands and the concern in his voice. He sounded sincere.

She wondered again about the odds of two former boyfriends converging on Hideaway the same day Edith died.

Astronomical. Ridiculous. Was it possible she had made a break with reality?

No. She had a neurosis, not a psychosis. She needed to trust Noelle’s faith that God was in control of this situation.

She mentally shook herself and gazed up into Austin’s eyes. Familiarity and comfort seemed to lie beneath the surface of that questing gaze. How she needed comfort right now.

“We’ve just had a horrible shock, Austin,” she said, surprised at herself for speaking about it. “Edith Potts just died. Noelle and I are on our way to tell Bertie.”

Her shock seemed to transfer to him. His hands tightened on hers. His eyes widened. “What happened?”

“Cheyenne thinks it was her heart,” she said, gently disengaging from his grip. Cheyenne was seldom wrong. But this time…

He released her immediately. “Cheyenne?”

She heard the sudden, lingering interest in that one spoken name. So, the rumors were true. Poor Austin must have fallen hard. “She tried everything to bring Edith back. Nothing worked.” Jill knew it was the truth. She felt badly about her behavior at the spa. “You knew she was the director of the clinic, didn’t you?”

“I’ve heard a few things, but I haven’t kept up with everyone now that Mom is no longer in town. Is Cheyenne sure about the cause of death?”

“I don’t know at this point.”

“So she will investigate further to make sure?”

Jill hesitated and frowned at him. “Austin, is there some reason you feel it should be—”

“No, of course not. I’m sorry.” He placed a hand on her shoulder. “I know you were good friends with Edith. Will you be okay?”

She nodded, thanked him, turned toward the bed and breakfast with Noelle at her side.

Amazing that she was able to behave so rationally—and politely—when her brain struggled to contain all the thoughts that tumbled through it—telling her she had killed Edith.

Noelle had been right, this was the wrong time to try to cut the meds. I’ll start back on the full dosage tonight.

She and Noelle found Bertie in the dining room, scrambling to keep the buffet table filled with enough black walnut waffles to satisfy the Saturday-afternoon brunch crowd.

One glance, however, brought Bertie to her side, dish towel in hand.

“Jill Cooper, you look like you could use a good, filling meal. Was that massage at the spa too much for you?” She gestured for Jill to follow her into the dining room.

“I…um…Bertie.” She froze. She couldn’t do this.

Bertie, diminutive, white-haired, already looked too fragile. She had suffered so many losses in her life. Her only child had died young, decades ago. Her husband, Red, had died two years ago. And now this? Her business partner and best friend?

“Uh-oh,” Bertie said. “I can tell by that look on your face you saw our visitor. Wasn’t Austin your old high-school sweetheart?”

“Yes, Bertie, he was, but—” She looked at Noelle.

With a nod, Noelle gently took Bertie by the arm and led her out of the dining room. “We need to tell you something.”

“Well, for goodness’ sake, what is it?” She looked at Jill, and her warm, friendly eyes darkened with distress. “Jill, didn’t you and Edith go to the spa this…oh, no. Did that ticker of hers pitch a fit again? I keep tellin’ her to remember her medicine, but half the time she goes off without it. Someday it’s gonna—”

“Bertie,” Jill said, “this time she didn’t make it.”

There was a startled pause as the words registered, then the news pressed Bertie’s slender shoulders down with their weight.

“I’m sorry,” Jill said, once again feeling the loss like a knife in her heart. “I’m so sorry.”

Chapter Seven

Hours before the funeral service at the Methodist church on Wednesday morning, Jill stepped tentatively through the front door of Noelle’s Naturals and Spa.

When Jill was a horseback-riding youth, she’d been taught early to get back on the horse quickly after being tossed so she wouldn’t develop an unnatural fear of horses. The concept had worked then. Would it work for her in this situation?

Of course, she’d never been a fan of spas, whereas she had always loved horses, dirty and dangerous as they could be. They still weren’t as dangerous as humans.

As a nurse, she was in close contact with people every day, but she was the one giving the care. She was in control. In a spa, she felt vulnerable. The memory of Edith’s death continued to weigh heavily on her.

Soothing music emanated from hidden speakers, and an abundance of plants thrived in this roomy waiting room.

Imitating what Dane Gideon had done with his general store years earlier, Noelle had purchased two empty store buildings with a shared wall within the town square complex. She had knocked out a portion of the connecting wall and combined the space so she could easily oversee the natural herb and food shop while managing the spa. She had also dipped deeply into savings to develop a Web site and an all-out marketing campaign that reached the entire southwest area of Missouri.

“Hi, Jill. Back for another massage?”

Jill turned to find Sheena Marshall stepping out of one of the massage rooms. Her blond hair was tied back, and her pretty blue eyes had circles beneath them. She looked as if she had lost weight since Saturday. Gone was that characteristic perky smile.

“Not today, thanks.”

“Didn’t think so.” Sheena went into Noelle’s office and sat at her desk. She pulled open the top drawer and took out a pad of sticky note paper.

“Are you with a client right now?” Jill asked.

“Nope. It’s been slow, so I’m making a supply list.” She closed the drawer and stood up. “I guess no one wants to come to a place where a nice old lady died. Like maybe she was contagious or something.” Sheena shook her head sadly. “You know how superstitious people can be.”

Jill nodded as she glanced toward the broad entryway to the herb and food shop. “I’m sure it’ll pick back up. It’s just a time of mourning.”

“You’re looking for your sister, I guess.” Sheena stepped back out into the hallway with a pen and the notepad.

Actually, Noelle wasn’t who Jill was looking for. They’d had another long talk last night.

“She’s gone to Springfield to pick up some supplies,” Sheena explained. “Nathan decided to go with her. Those two are so sweet to each other, Mom says sometimes she just wants to gag.” Sheena smiled, and it was a sad smile. Ordinarily, she was the giggling type, but since Edith’s death, the young woman had lost her usual effervescence.

Jill hesitated, feeling intrusive. “Since you mentioned the day Edith died, do you remember much about that morning?”

Sheena blinked at her, then glanced again toward the connecting entryway between the spa and the shop, as if concerned someone might overhear them. “Sure I do. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. I’m sorry I was such a brainless idiot that day.”

“You were understandably upset. It was a horrible thing for you to see.”

“It’s just that…well…Miss Edith was always so good to everyone. And I know everyone has their time to die, but I didn’t think her time would be on my watch, you know?” She gave a shudder for emphasis. “I don’t like death.”

“Nobody does.”

“I know. I guess death has to come, and it’s best if it comes for someone who’s lived a good, long life and is ready, you know? But still, I hate that it had to be like that.”

“Did the shop get a lot of visitors that morning?” Jill asked. “I mean, not clients, but drop-in visitors.”

Sheena’s gaze sharpened then. “Why? Are you checking something out?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure what I’m doing, unless it’s just a search for closure. You know how much I cared about Edith.”

Sheena nodded sympathetically.

“She was the one who convinced me to have a massage in the first place,” Jill said. “She was already in a robe Saturday afternoon when I got here. Do you know how long she’d been here when I arrived?”

Sheena’s eyes narrowed in concentration. “Couldn’t have been more than ten minutes, but I might be wrong. You know how these old folks who know everybody can talk for hours about nothing in particular.”

“Who else do you remember being here that day?”

“You’d probably get a better answer from Noelle. She was the one who opened up that morning.”

“She was on the computer in her office most of the time, working on August month-end things. She didn’t see many people.”

“Well, then Mom would have seen them, I guess. She’d left just a little before you got here.”

“Austin Barlow was here, I understand,” Jill said.

“Sure, you know how he always liked to check out the new businesses in town. He thought it was his civic duty to do that when he was mayor.”

“Did he have anything to say? Do you remember if he spoke with Edith?”

“I didn’t hear if he said anything to her. Remember when he got into an argument with her during that church business meeting, then somebody up and killed her cat? Some said Austin might’ve done it, but now we know it wasn’t him, don’t we?”

Jill shook her head. Austin’s son had killed Edith’s cat. What agonies Austin must have gone through when all of this painful information about Ramsay was revealed at last. “Did anyone else drop by that day?”

“Well, Dad came by to pick up Mom. They were going to a show in Branson that afternoon.” Sheena lowered her voice. “Before they left, Junior Short came by to talk to Dad.”

Junior Short. Another bad memory—possibly another connection? Austin had been buddies with Junior Short and Sheena’s father, Jed, when they were in high school. Edith had been the high-school principal at the time.

A vague unease stirred in Jill’s mind, but she dismissed it. Those three had been deeply involved in a high-school scandal, but that was far in the past. “Your dad and Junior are still friends after all these years?”

Sheena’s face scrunched up in a good imitation of her mother’s look of distaste. “I guess. I see them drinking coffee together sometimes at the bakery. He never comes around the house because Mom can’t stand the man.”

Jill nodded. Junior could be obnoxious. It was a trait he’d carried with him into adulthood and passed on to the next generation—a tendency to pick fights easily, and just generally irritate everyone around him. Possibly Jed felt sorry for him. Junior didn’t have many friends.

“I don’t suppose Cecil Martin came by for any reason?” Jill asked. “I thought I saw him walking from the direction of the spa when I passed him on the sidewalk on my way here that day.”

“Now that you mention it, he probably did come by to see Miss Edith.” Sheena grinned. “You know, I think those two might have been sweet on each other.”

“Sheena,” came a warning call from one of the doors near the end of the short hallway of massage rooms. Mary Marshall, Sheena’s mother, stepped into the hallway, wiping her hands with a paper towel. “Don’t start any rumors.”

“They’d been spending a lot of time together lately, Mom.”

“They were friends.” Mary strolled down the hallway and tossed her towels into the trash can beside the reception desk. Her gray-blond hair was pulled back in a tight knot, as if to draw taut the wrinkles that now marked her once-pretty face. Her makeup made her look washed-out, and her clothes did nothing to enhance barely existent curves on her slim frame.

Jill decided that if Sheena wanted to do a makeover, she could begin with her own flesh and blood.

Mary nodded at Jill; no smile of welcome touched her face.

Jill knew better than to take it personally. When Mary was in a mood, no one was spared her sharp words or brooding silences.

“Why do young people always have to make up some silly storybook romance for everything?” Mary complained to her daughter. “Like such a thing even exists.”

Jill studied Mary’s drawn expression in silence. Sheena’s mother was talking like a bitter old woman, not the wife of a man who seemed to still love her, and with whom she had a beautiful grown daughter.

Do I sound like that sometimes? Will I be a bitter old woman someday? Though Jill hadn’t been blessed with a long-lasting relationship, she did enjoy seeing evidence of love in the eyes of others. Cheyenne and Dane, for example. Or Karah Lee and Taylor. Noelle and Nathan.

“Like you always say,” Sheena murmured, “friendship is the best foundation for a marriage.”

“Can’t a man and a woman just be good friends without everyone in town making a big thing out of it?” Mary grumbled.

Jill found herself wondering the same thing. In spite of herself, a thought of Rex intruded. Jill and Rex had become friends soon after they started working together. The romance had developed some time afterward, hadn’t it? Or had she actually felt an attraction to him immediately?

Man, oh, man, how wonderfully the romance had developed. She dismissed a memory of his kisses with some difficulty. The worst part of their broken engagement wasn’t only the failed romance. Could be the very worst part was losing someone who had become one of her best friends. Maybe even the best of her friends. She’d certainly felt as if she had become the most important person in his life.

“So what’s with the twenty questions to Sheena?” Mary asked Jill. “We all know what happened to Edith. I saw her here late Saturday morning, and she was happy and chattering a blue streak to Noelle. If you’re trying to say someone upset her enough to cause her to have that heart attack—”

“I’m not,” Jill said.

“Then why are you grilling Sheena?”

“Mom, it’s okay. She’s not—”

“The only other person I remember coming in that morning besides clients was Fawn Morrison,” Mary said. “No one caused any problems. Don’t go stirring things up or pointing fingers where they shouldn’t be pointed.”

Jill pressed her tongue to her teeth for a few seconds to keep from snapping back. “I’m not pointing fingers. Fawn was here?”

“She came to talk to me,” Sheena said. “She and I hang out sometimes. You know, when you’re single in a town like this, you won’t find a lot of single girlfriends your age. All my high-school friends moved on.”

“At least you have the good sense to stay where you belong,” Mary said.

Sheena grimaced. “Fawn’s smart for a kid, and I’m trying to talk her into going to cosmetology school like I did. Then she can learn massage while she works as a hair stylist. She’s already really good at it.”

“So unless you think Fawn might have had something to do with Edith’s heart attack,” Mary said with emphasis, “you’re probably wasting your time here. I know you loved Edith. We all did. But the only closure you’re going to find is at the funeral this afternoon, just like the rest of us.”

“Has your husband said anything about why Austin Barlow’s back in town?” Jill asked Mary.

The woman frowned. “Not a word. I put an end to their good-old-boy carousing years ago, Jill. They don’t come around the house, and Jed knows how I feel about them. He wouldn’t tell me if he did know.” She gave a quiet sigh, glancing at her daughter.

With that glance, Jill was touched by the wealth of tenderness she saw pass between mother and daughter.

Disappointed, she thanked Sheena and Mary and left the spa. If Mary did know something, she wouldn’t give it away.

Jill thought about the visitors who had been at the spa the day of Edith’s death.

What was it Edith had said? S…cool. And something about a jet bomber—what on earth could she have been talking about?

By that time, of course, considering the difficulty Edith was having, she might simply have been hallucinating due to lack of oxygen in the brain.

However, she did mention records. And possibly instead of saying cool, she might have been talking about school. Interestingly enough, almost all the visitors Sheena had mentioned were somehow connected to school, and had known Edith there. Maybe that was why she’d mentioned school to begin with. Could be she was simply reminiscing.

She might have seen Austin and Junior, and the sight of them had brought back memories. Just as the sight of Rex and Austin on Saturday had brought back memories for Jill.

She hadn’t expected to search out Edith’s nemesis in one little interview, but she’d hoped to find some kind of evidence that pointed to what had really happened to Edith the day she died.

So far, no such evidence. Would Austin, Jed or Junior be more forthcoming? Or would she just make herself look like more of a fool if she approached them with questions?

The lab tests she’d had run on Edith’s blood had turned up nothing. Grilling Sheena had turned up nothing. And yet, Jill knew she couldn’t just leave things as they were. Her instincts—and Noelle’s—compelled her to keep searching for an answer.

Chapter Eight

After Edith’s funeral on Wednesday, Fawn Morrison practically ran from the cemetery, desperate to escape the heavy shadow of grieving that seemed to loom over the whole town. This past year, sharing a cottage on Lakeside Bed and Breakfast property with Karah Lee, she’d come to love both Edith and Bertie as if they were her own grandmothers.

She missed Edith already. She knew Bertie did, too. And yet, wasn’t Bertie the one who always reminded everybody that it did no good to linger on the sad memories?

Fawn had a plan forming in her mind by the time she reached the boat dock. It was crazy, she knew. But still she couldn’t stop thinking….

“Hijacking my boat?” came Blaze Farmer’s familiar voice from behind her.

She had one foot in the canoe and one on the dock in what Bertie would call an unladylike pose, considering the dress she wore. If she lost her grip on the post, she would tip the canoe and hit the water.

“I wouldn’t say hijacking, exactly. I figured you’d show up sooner or later, and I needed to talk to you.”

She settled carefully into the front and glanced up at Blaze. He, too, was dressed for the funeral, and he really cleaned up good—a term Bertie liked to use. He wore a gray suit that set off his black skin and those pretty, dark eyes…which looked as if he’d been crying.

She gestured to the other seat. “Come on. Let’s get out of here for a while. I’ll even let you steer.”

He glanced back toward the town square, then to the church where they had just said goodbye to Edith’s body for the last time. “I’ve got things to do at the ranch.”

“You’ve always got things to do.” She picked up a paddle. “Just a few minutes, okay? Come on, Blaze. You never get a break, and we both need one. I promise not to keep you long. I need somebody to talk to, and I don’t want to bug Karah Lee right now. She’s freaking about all this.”

“You think I ain’t?”

“Watch your language. Nobody’s going to believe you’ve got the top scores in your class if you talk like that.”

He sank to the narrow seat of the canoe and unwrapped the rope from the post on the dock.

Fawn knew everyone dealt with grief a different way. She stuffed everything deep down, as if she could hide it from herself for good if she could ignore it long enough. Blaze was one of those people who immersed themselves in the moment and got it all out of their systems.

But then, Blaze had grown up with a dad who loved him. His mom had her own problems and hadn’t ever been there for Blaze, but he and his dad had had a good relationship when his dad was alive. His dad had tried hard to be both father and mother to his only child.

Fawn had never experienced that. Instead, she’d had a father who’d run out on the family, a mother who’d married a lecher—Bertie’s word for him—then blamed her own daughter for being raped. Stuffing emotions away was the only way to survive where Fawn came from. She’d stuffed a lot since Great-Grandma June had died.

Fawn paddled slowly as Blaze guided them across the lake toward the far shore. There, five newly built houses with Victorian gingerbread trim nestled into the side of the cliff, surrounded by gold, bronze and yellow mums and hundred-year-old oaks and cedars. Blaze, Fawn knew, loved to paddle past those houses and dream about having a house like that himself, someday.

In Fawn’s opinion, Blaze deserved a mansion five times larger than any of those houses.

“Did you see Austin Barlow at the funeral?” she asked.

Blaze stopped paddling. “You know him?”

“I met him Saturday. He came into the bed and breakfast to apologize to Bertie just before Jill and Noelle came with the news about Edith.”

“You talked to him?”

“He was looking for a place to stay for a couple of weeks. He said he came to apologize to Bertie for things he did. I asked him if he was going to apologize to you.”

She could tell by the sudden, alarming shift in the canoe that Blaze had leaned forward, and she wished she’d been facing him in the boat so she could see his expression.

“You didn’t.”

“Sure I did.” She placed her paddle across the sides of the canoe and carefully raised a leg to turn around, glad her skirt was full. “He treated you like trash—you told me so yourself. And all the time his own son was doing the things he blamed you for.”

“I figure he’s paying enough already, having his only kid locked away. If you aren’t careful, you’re going to dump us both in the lake.”

“Ramsay’s not locked away. He’s in a boys’ ranch up in northern Missouri.” She swung the other leg around and managed to do it gracefully enough that Blaze’s eyes didn’t pop out of his head, and she didn’t plunge them both into the water.

Blaze frowned at her, his thick black eyebrows nearly meeting in the middle over dark eyes. “You eavesdropping again?”

“Not completely. I talked to Austin Barlow myself.” She picked up her paddle.

“Not completely?”

“I was stuck, Blaze. He started talking to Bertie before he knew I was behind the counter, and when he started telling her all the juicy stuff, I couldn’t bring myself to—”

“Yeah, I know. You eavesdropped. That’s not—”

“Anyway,” she said with a hard glare at him, “he said he came back to town to make up for some of the things he did and said when he was here.”

“Could be he’s had a change of heart in the past couple of years. It happens, you know. People change.” There was a catch in his voice as he stared back across the lake toward the bed and breakfast.

Fawn knew he was still grieving over Edith. He’d be this way for days, maybe even weeks. He was just like this when Pearl Cooper was killed in that sawmill accident last year, and he hadn’t even known her well.

Aside from that flaw, though, she didn’t know a better man. At eighteen years of age—a few months older than she—Blaze wasn’t a kid anymore; he was as mature as most adults she knew.

He kept so busy, she didn’t know how he even found time to breathe. She was busy, too, but as Bertie would say, a body had to take some time to just sit every once in a while, or what was the use of living?

“Maybe he’s come back here to live,” Blaze said. “He owns a house in town, and he’s been renting it out. Maybe he’s decided to pick up where he left off before the mess with Ramsay.”

“But why come back here?” Fawn asked. “Everybody knows about Ramsay here. Why not go where no one knows his past?”

Blaze shrugged. “It’s home. Austin was born and raised here. Maybe he’s just decided to come back home.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“It’s not for me to say what he does.”

“I didn’t ask you to say, I asked how you felt.”

He picked up his paddle and started to steer the canoe again. “Stop ‘shrinking’ and stick to wedding plans, or Karah Lee’s going to send you back where you came from.”

“Where are you taking us?” she asked.

“I’ve got chores at the ranch. I’m taking you back to the dock.”

She sighed and stuck her paddle in the water again. “I can help with chores.”

“You told Bertie you’d help feed the family. Don’t let her down.”

“I know I told her that, but all the ladies from the church are coming over. There won’t be room for me.”

“She’ll want you there,” Blaze said. “She’s hurtin’ enough right now.”

Fawn sighed. Good old Blaze, always thinking of his own responsibilities…and hers. “Okay, fine. Dump me at the dock.” She gave him a dark stare. “I guess when you’re a man in demand, you don’t have a lot of time to spend with old friends.”

He chuckled. “You don’t, either. You’re as bad as I am, what with the wedding to plan, and you’ll probably be needed more at the bed and breakfast now that Edith’s not there to help Bertie. And you know, you do still have school work to keep up with.”

“And after the wedding, I might be looking for a new place to stay.”

“Why would that be?”

“No newlywed couple wants to start their married life with a teenaged kid in the house.”

“That what you needed to talk about?”

“Part of it.” She just wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about anything more right now. Blaze was in too much of a rush.

His movements slowed. “You really worried about what’s going to happen to you after the wedding?”

“I guess so.”

“Well, don’t. You know Karah Lee and Taylor better than that. They’re good folks. They’re not going to dump you out in the cold.”

She gave a one-shoulder shrug. She’d been dumped out in the cold before.

“Karah Lee’s nothing like your mother,” Blaze said, reading her mind. “And Taylor’d be mortified if he knew you were comparing him to your wicked stepfather.”

“Eeww.”

“Sorry. You just don’t have anything to worry about. I thought you and Karah Lee were both all set to move into that house Taylor bought up on the hill near Jill’s place.”

She paddled in silence as they drew near to the dock once more. “Yeah, well, I’ve been doing some thinking, too, and I just don’t think it’ll work. I may have other options, though.”

“What other options?” He maneuvered the canoe against the dock and reached out to steady her.

She took his hand and climbed out, managing to retain some dignity as she did so. “I’m still thinking on it. Better get to your chores.”

Chapter Nine

Rex stood at the edge of the cemetery as the crowd slowly dispersed. Funerals had high attendance here in the rural areas, and folks lingered after the interment, as if their lingering might set the memories of their loved one more completely in their hearts.

There was going to be a special evening meal back at the bed and breakfast, hosted by the women from Edith’s church. Half the town would probably be there, maybe more. Last night, during the visitation at the funeral home, the line of people paying their respects had filled the building and spilled out onto the front lawn.

It had been a beautiful testament to the love this town held for the former high-school principal.

Now, watching the crowd mingle in conversation groups among the tombstones, Rex saw one lone figure separate from the rest. Jill.

During the funeral, she had remained detached from Edith’s family, sitting with her sister and brother-in-law, Noelle and Nathan Trask. Edith’s extended family had filled the front half of the small church, and other mourners had overflowed the little sanctuary.

Surprising himself, Rex strolled toward that lonely looking figure in the dark gray dress. Her brown hair had been pulled back into a knot at the nape of her neck, though some strands had refused to behave and fell in tendrils to her shoulders. Her eyes, devoid of makeup, were red-rimmed, her nose pinched.

He hadn’t seen her since the afternoon of Edith’s death; the tragedy had thrown the clinic—indeed, the whole town—into turmoil, and Jill wasn’t working at the clinic this week.

As he studied that grieving face, he remembered how beautiful Jill had always been to him. She had a mouth that was slightly wide for a classic beauty, but could spill into a smile that could dazzle the sun. Her blue eyes, often sober and serious, could suddenly soften with warmth.

She had walked to within ten feet of him before she looked up and saw him. He could see the conflict in her expression. She was too close to turn away and avoid him without being obvious about it, but she just as clearly didn’t want to talk to him right now. He could tell her emotions were too close to the surface.

“Jill,” he said quietly, “I’m not going to bite, and I don’t want to make things difficult for you.”

Her eyes darted up in a quick glance at him, then away again. “I’m just embarrassed, is all. I was rude to you the other day, and I apologize.”

“You’ve done nothing wrong, and I wasn’t offended. It was a horrible time for you.”

“Thank you, but I’m still sorry. You must have thought I was still upset with you after all this time, which would be childish.”

“Edith’s death struck you a nasty blow. It was a blow for everyone, but I know how much she meant to you.”

Another glance shot his way, this time a little longer. She was feeling awkward, he could tell.

“Did Cheyenne tell you why I came to Hideaway?” he asked.

She nodded, glancing back toward the crowd around the grave. “After I jumped her about it. Karah Lee said you didn’t want me to know you were here until you had a chance to talk to me.”

“That’s right.”

“Well? I didn’t get a call from you, and you didn’t come to my house.”

“I’d intended to speak with you over the weekend.”

She spread her hands. “Well, now you’ve spoken to me. I don’t see why you’re trying to make such a big deal out of it. We had a broken engagement half a lifetime ago. We’re adults. We can behave like it, right?”

“I never completely forgave myself for my behavior at that time. I was a jerk.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, so we were both jerks back then. Now can we get to work on the hospital designations and stop rehashing ancient history?”

He felt the sting of her words. He felt foolish again. “An excellent idea.”

She stepped past him toward the far edge of the cemetery.

He caught up and fell into step beside her. “I hear you never got married.”

She frowned. “And I hear you got a divorce. We’re still rehashing, here.”

Obviously, she wasn’t quite as ill at ease around him as he’d imagined her to be. “I don’t recall relaying the information to anyone here about my divorce.”

“Since when do you have to tell anyone? We have a deputy in town who makes it his business to check people out online. Tom’s never mastered the skill of keeping a secret. I guess that’s why you decided to come to Hideaway?”

He blinked at her, not quite sure what she meant. Jill had apparently retained that special ability to throw a conversation off center with a simple statement or question. “Excuse me?”

“You know, Hideaway? As in, people come here to hide away, either from past tragedy or from danger.”

“Aren’t you being a little melodramatic?”

She slanted a glance at him. “You were the one making a big production out of coming here, and you’re calling me melodramatic?”

“You’re absolutely right.” He would lose this argument if he continued it. “So this place really is a hideaway. I never knew that before. Tell me about it.”

She watched him for a moment, as if trying to determine if he was patronizing her, then she relented. “For instance, Cheyenne came here initially because of the tragedy of pronouncing her sister dead after an automobile accident. Karah Lee came here to escape her father’s political manipulation—he was a state senator before his murder this spring. Willow Traynor—who will someday become Mrs. Graham Vaughn, even though she doesn’t seem to realize it yet—came to escape a killer who stalked her from Kansas City. You don’t know them yet, but you’ll probably meet them.”

“What about you?” he asked.

“This is my hometown.”

“Last I heard, you were living and working in Springfield.”

Her steps slowed as they drew near the city square—a cluster of old brick buildings that faced outward to an encircling street. He had always thought this was one of the most beautiful little towns in Missouri.

That could be a simple reflection of the beauty of Table Rock Lake, which surrounded Hideaway peninsula, on which the town had been built. Or it could be that he’d always felt this way because of the company he’d kept.

Far too long ago, he’d forgotten how to appreciate true beauty. He glanced at Jill. Inner beauty.

“That was a long time ago,” Jill said. “I was needed here at home.”

“Noelle needed you?”

Jill shook her head. “The sawmill needed me.”

“The sawmill? But you have scads of extended family members to run that.”

“Had. Past tense. My father, grandparents and others ran it until…” She swallowed and glanced back toward the cemetery briefly. “There was a horrible…incident in which my father and grandparents were crushed to death by a load of logs eleven years ago.”

He felt a chill at her words. He could see how the memory affected her even after all these years. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Why would you? It isn’t as if we kept up with each other’s lives. Anyway, my cousin and I had to take over.”

“So once again you gave up your own dream in deference to your family?”

She glanced up at him. “You make it sound as if that’s a bad thing.”

“Giving up your dream for someone else’s?”

“I was needed. Having loved ones who need you isn’t such a bad thing. Besides, I got a job here in town as the school nurse.”

“And how about Noelle? Did she ever have to give up her dreams and career and join the family business?”

He heard the censure in his own voice a fraction of a second before annoyance registered in Jill’s expression.

Suddenly, this was not boding well for a comfortable reunion. Maybe they did need to rehash ancient history. Or maybe that history wasn’t so ancient.

Jill felt the prickle of antagonism make a flying leap up her scalp. “You already apologized for being a jerk, Rex. Why do I get the feeling you didn’t really mean it?”

“Sorry. I didn’t realize I was going to say that.”

“You didn’t realize it? My little sister lost her mom before she was old enough to understand the meaning of death.”

“You lost your mother, too.”

“I was eight years older than Noelle. She got stuck with me—a bully of an older sister and a very poor substitute for a set of parents—because, in truth, our father pretty much abandoned us emotionally from that point on.”

“You never told me that.”

“I was ashamed to admit it even to myself at the time.”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

“No, you shouldn’t have, but you did.” She paused beneath a willow tree, arms crossed. “I’ve got a good rant going and I want to finish it for once. I realize you always resented Noelle because her need for love interfered in our relationship—”

“You’re right, and I was very wrong—”

“But in truth, for her sake, I should never have gone away.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t agree with that. You’re saying you should never have become a nurse?”

Jill hesitated. “I left home too soon. She wasn’t ready to be abandoned by the person she needed the most. I could have put nursing school on hold for a couple of more years.”

“And yet, you’d already put your life on hold for three years after graduating from high school, watching all your friends go away to college.”

“I went to college.” She could hear the defensiveness in her own voice.

“You drove to School of the Ozarks at Point Lookout for classes, then back home at night to be with Noelle.”

“I got the preliminaries out of the way.” He was still itching for a fight, was he? She could give him one. Strangely, though, she didn’t really want one. Not with him. “Not everyone has to leave home as soon as they graduate high school.”

“You’re trying to tell me you were the only person who could take care of Noelle? At that time you did have extended family.”

Jill wasn’t prepared to explain to him about the concern she’d had for Noelle’s safety at that time in their lives. Would Noelle still even be alive if I hadn’t been so obsessed for her welfare? That was a time when my OCD came in handy, hard as it’s always been.

“You made that sacrifice because of your unique ability to love,” Rex said, as if he’d read something of her thoughts in her expression—much as he used to do. “Few people I know have that ability.”

The sudden gentleness in his tone undercut her momentum. She paused and looked at him, and felt an unwanted pang of regret.

What if they hadn’t broken the engagement?

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