On Deadly Ground. Lauren Nichols

       “I should get moving, too,” Jake said with some hesitance.

       “Will you be okay? Do you want to call someone to stay with you?”

      “I’ll be fine,” Rachel replied. “I’m a lot tougher than I look.”

      A faint smile tipped his lips. “So I’ve noticed. You paint, you plow snow, you run a successful business, and you even make a decent cup of coffee. I’m impressed.”

      “Don’t be,” she said, smiling. “It’s all smoke and mirrors.”

      “No, it isn’t,” he returned. “It’s all you.” Then out of the blue, the night seemed to shrink around them, his gaze softened when he looked at her. “You’re an extraordinary woman, Rachel.”

      The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; He rescues those who are crushed in spirit.

      —Psalms 34:18

      Dear Reader,

      Welcome back to Charity, Pennsylvania, where friendship, church and a strong sense of community keep the town a warm, interesting place in which to live—despite the recent capture of a serial killer and the skeleton that was just found on Rachel Patterson’s property.

      If you’ve read this book—or anything else I’ve written—you probably picked up on my love of small towns and woodsy settings. It’s where I live, where I met and married my soul mate and where we raised our family. It’s where “nature walks” along our country road with our grandkids offer up fascinating things like snails and salamanders in mud banks, and crayfish in the super-skinny creek nearby. It’s where we search the milkweeds for monarch butterfly caterpillars, and check out the neighbor’s shaggy Scotch Highland cattle. And—sometimes—it’s where I see and feel God’s presence even more acutely than I do in church.

      Wishing you Peace, Joy and Happy Reading,

       Lauren Nichols

      On Deadly Ground

      Lauren Nichols

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

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      For Good Friends Old and New.

      For the gang from Fisher’s Big Wheel,

       and for Allison, Louise and

       Ken “Tiki” Soeder. You guys make me smile.

      And always for Mike.

      Acknowledgments

      My thanks to Richard Peck,

      who taught me how to sabotage a bulldozer.

      No worries, my friend. I’ll leave yours alone!

      ONE

      Sighing, Rachel Patterson squinted at the clock on her nightstand, saw that it was only 2:00 a.m., then groaned, flipped over and burrowed groggily into her pillow again. Outside, the coyotes were up to their old tricks, howling and yipping at the moon, even though there was barely a moon to yip at. She flipped onto her back again and stared in frustration at the ceiling. Wondered if going totally decaf was the solution to her constantly interrupted sleep.

      She’d been a light sleeper since David died, and it had been two years now. Two years of listening to the wind in the trees and the coyotes on the hill. Two years of making dinner for one.

      Two years of running their campground business on her own.

      She felt the emptiness of missing him again. Losing him had been so terrible at first. If it hadn’t been for her faith in God and the comfort she found in prayer, she might have packed her bags and joined her family in Virginia. But the business had been David’s dream, and he’d awakened every morning, eager to embrace it again. She couldn’t walk away from something that had been so important to him.

      A strange, metallic sound broke her thoughts, and Rachel stilled. Cocked an ear … listened for a moment.

      There it was again.

      And again.

      Throwing back her floral comforter, she strode to the long window facing the strip of land she’d recently acquired. The skimpy moon and woods were swimming in fog making it difficult to see, but—

      A jolt of adrenaline hit her as Rachel spotted the moving beam of a flashlight in the misty darkness. Someone was out there! And so was the expensive ground-moving machinery the Decker brothers had parked there late yesterday afternoon.

      Grabbing her robe from the foot of the bed and pulling it over her dorm shirt, she hurried across the hardwood to the hall, then through the living room to her kitchen. The light below the over-the-range microwave shone dimly, but it was enough illumination to locate the heavy-duty flashlight under the sink. Snagging it, she unlocked the patio door to her elevated deck and strode, barefooted, to the redwood railing.

      The intruder’s light went out.

      Rachel shone her beam down through the darkness and fog—flicked it over tree limbs that were almost fully leafed—found the mist-shrouded bulldozer, rock crusher and dump truck fifty yards away.

      A new rush of adrenaline hit her when the beam revealed a hooded figure crouched near the dump truck. “Hey!” she shouted. “What are you doing out there?”

      The figure bolted—clicked his light back on and crashed down through the thick hemlocks and oaks toward the creek below. But not before Rachel caught another glimpse of him.

      Rushing inside, she flipped through the phone book, found the number for Charity, Pennsylvania’s tiny police force and punched it in. Chirpy night dispatcher and church organist, Emma Lucille Bridger, answered. Rachel and Emma Lu were kindred spirits of sorts. They were both avid readers and borderline insomniacs. Even though it was common knowledge that the sixty-seven-year-old dispatcher napped during her shift, no one on the force minded. Her only job was to answer the phone.

      “Emma Lu, it’s Rachel Patterson at the campground. I’m trying not to be an alarmist, but someone’s prowling around outside my house.”

      Emma Lucille’s sweet soprano rose, and her grandmotherly instincts kicked in. “Are you okay, Rachel?”

      “Yes, I’m fine. I’m just worried about—Emma Lu, Decker Construction parked some equipment here yesterday. I’m afraid it might have been vandalized.”

      Emma Lu spoke quickly. “Okay, honey, I’ll radio Fish and tell him to get down to your place right away. He’s on patrol, so it might take him a few minutes. You sit tight now. Don’t you go outside.”

      “I won’t,” Rachel agreed, meaning it. She’d already done that, and going outside to check on someone who obviously didn’t want to be seen wasn’t the smartest thing she’d ever done. “Thanks, Emma Lu.”

      “You’re welcome. Just