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      The Chosen

      BEVERLY BARTON

       Copyright

      Published by AVON

      A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain as The Dying Game by HarperCollins 2008

      This eBook edition published 2018

      Copyright © Beverly Barton 2007

      Cover design © Diane Meacham Design 2018

      Cover photograph © Shutterstock

      Beverly Barton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9781847560209

      Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780007281855

      Version: 2018-06-04

       Dedication

      To Tyrone Power, Loretta Young, Sonja Henie, Richard Greene, John Payne, Maureen O’Hara, John Wayne, Errol Flynn, Olivia De Havilland, Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Anne Baxter, James Stewart, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Greer Garson, Clark Gable, James Cagney, and countless other movie stars who shined so brightly in black and white on the old silver screen and brightened my childhood, filled my with life with romance and magic, and ignited my innate creativity.

      Thank you, Daddy, for sharing your love of classic movies with me.

      Contents

       Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Prologue 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 Epilogue Acknowledgments Keep Reading … About the Author Also by Beverly Barton About the Publisher

       Prologue

      The intensely bright lights blinded her. She couldn’t see anything except the white illumination that obscured everything else in her line of vision. She wished he would turn off the car’s headlights.

      Judd didn’t like her to show houses to clients in the evenings. But her career as a Realtor was just getting off the ground and if she could sell this half-million dollar house to Mr. and Mrs. Farris, her percentage would be enough to furnish the nursery. Not that she was pregnant. Not yet. And not that her husband couldn’t well afford to furnish a nursery with the best of everything. It was just that Jennifer wanted the baby to be her gift to her wonderful husband and the nursery to be a gift from her to their child.

      Holding her hand up to shield her eyes from the headlights, she walked down the sidewalk to meet John and Katherine Farris, an up-and-coming entrepreneurial couple planning to start a new business in Chattanooga. She had spoken only to John Farris. From their telephone conversations, she had surmised that John, like her own husband, was the type who liked to think he wore the pants in the family. Odd how, considering the fact that she believed herself to be a thoroughly modern woman, Jennifer loved Judd’s old-fashioned sense of protectiveness.

      When John Farris parked his black Mercedes and opened the driver’s door, Jennifer met him, her hand outstretched in greeting. He accepted her hand immediately and smiled warmly.

      “Good evening, Mr. Farris.” Jennifer glanced around, searching for Mrs. Farris.

      “I’m sorry, something came up at the last minute