âHey! Hey, whatâs going on? Whyâs she running?â
Gordon Johnsonâs question was one Tristan Sinclair could have answered easilyâthe woman was running because sheâd walked into a cabin sheâd thought was empty and into a man she didnât know. She was terrified and trying to escape.
He could have answered, but he didnât.
If Johnson realized the woman wasnât with Tristan, that she hadnât been invited to their little party, sheâd die and the mission would end.
He raced after the woman and yanked her to a stop, praying she wouldnât start screaming. Johnson had a reputation for acting first and thinking later. One bullet, thatâs all it would take to spill innocent life out onto the rain-soaked earth. Tristan could prevent that from happening if the woman played along.
If she played along.
has always loved making up stories. As a child, she daydreamed elaborate tales in which she was the heroineâgutsy, strong and invincible. Though she soon grew out of her superhero fantasies, her love for storytelling never diminished. She knew early that she wanted to write inspirational fiction, and began writing her first novel when she was a teenager. Still, it wasnât until her third son was born that she truly began pursuing her dream of being published. Three years later she sold her first book. Now a busy mother of four, Shirlee is a homeschool mom by day and an inspirational author by night. She and her husband and children live in Maryland and share their house with a dog and a guinea pig. You can visit her Web site at www.shirleemccoy.com, or write her at P.O. Box 592, Gambrills, MD 21054.
First-aid kit?
Check.
Water? Protein bars? Check. Check.
Chocolate? More chocolate? Tissues? Triple check.
Not that Martha Gabler was going to need the tissues. She wasnât. She was over her crying jag and done feeling sorry for herself. It was time to move on, to embrace singleness with the same joyful excitement with which sheâd embraced being a part of a couple.
The fact that in one year and three months sheâd hit the magical age that separated young-enough-to-hope from too-old-to-keep-looking didnât matter at all. So what if women in Lakeview, Virginia, married young? So what if reaching thirty without heading down the aisle was tantamount to walking around town wearing a placard that read Past My Prime?
Did Martha care?
Yes!
She sighed, zipping her backpack and shoving a baseball cap over her unruly curls. Sheâd come to the mountains to put the past behind her. She didnât plan to spend time dwelling on things that couldnât be changed.
Like her newly single status.
Outside Marthaâs Jeep, the day was as gray and gloomy as her mood, the deep oranges and brilliant reds of the fall foliage muted in the dreary morning light. Maybe visiting her fatherâs hunting cabin could wait another week, another month. Another year.
No. It couldnât.
She hadnât been to the cabin since she started dating Brian two years ago. Now that he was out of her life, it was time to enjoy the things sheâd loved before Brian had pulled her into his high-society world. Time to start fresh, to look with excitement at the new horizons stretching out before her.
Martha snorted and shoved open the Jeep door, stepping out into cool mountain air. Gravel crunched beneath her feet as she hoisted her pack onto her back and turned to survey her surroundings. The old gravel road sheâd parked on dead-ended a hundred yards up. Beyond that, a dirt path wound its way up into the mountains. A steep and difficult climb led to the cabin, but Martha didnât mind. Some good hard labor would get her mind off Brian-the-jerk.
She started to close the Jeep door and jumped as her cell phone rang.
Dad.
For a split second she considered ignoring the call, but the thought of seventy-year-old Jesse Gabler hiking up to the cabin was enough to convince her otherwise.
She pressed the phone to her ear, hoping her voice wouldnât give away her emotions. More than anything else, she hated to worry her father, and if he thought she was upset, worried was exactly what heâd be. âIâm fine, Dad.â
âWho said thatâs why I was calling?â Gravelly and gruff, his voice reminded her of all the triumphs and losses theyâd faced together since her mother walked out when Martha was five.