Undercover Refuge. Melinda Di Lorenzo

when Alessandra had found this one, she’d felt no guilt at opening it. Not an ounce. She saw things like that as kismet. Meant to be. And really, she’d just been hoping to hear her dad’s voice in her head. Her mother had only been gone for two years, but he’d passed fifteen years earlier, and sometimes it was hard to remember him.

      As Alessandra had unsealed the envelope, she’d been excited. But a first glance had changed the excitement. She’d been unsettled. Then surprised. And finally, stunned beyond all reason.

      The paper was like a patchwork quilt. A hundred tiny pieces, torn up, then painstakingly taped together.

      For a minute, she’d just stared at it without reading it, wondering why it had been destroyed, then considering the amount of effort required to reassemble it. When at last she did read it, squinting through the Scotch tape at the faded ink to make out the words, her breath had stuck in her throat. The content was a shock.

       Dear Mary,

       I can’t imagine what my death did.

       I’d undo it if I could.

       Do you remember our honeymoon?

       I’ll live there. Always

       Love you forever,

       Randall

      As she recalled the words again, a renewed trickle of fear made Alessandra shiver, and anxiety sent her heart rate spiking.

      She questioned once more if the note held any underlying meaning. A secret message of some kind. It seemed like such an odd thing to write, then destroy. Had father done it himself because he never intended her mother to see the letter? Or had her mother been the one to do it? And if so...why?

      From the moment Alessandra read the letter, things had only gone downhill. There was a police report that resulted in a friend’s supposedly accidental death. Then a fire at the surf shop Alessandra called home. And finally, an unexpected invitation to meet with an old family friend. Jesse Garibaldi. Who’d informed her that he now called the small tourist town of Whispering Woods home. The very place her dad referred to in his letter. Where her parents had spent the weeks after their private ceremony, and where they’d joked that Alessandra had been conceived. What were that chances that it was a coincidence?

      She shivered yet again, a chill running through her in spite of the sun overhead.

      “Don’t think about any of that,” she ordered aloud to herself. “Focus on getting out of this moment, then think about the rest.”

      But it was a little hard to maintain a cheerful outlook with her car hanging half in a ditch. She couldn’t even tell herself that it was half out, and somehow put a good spin on it. Especially when she was unable to call for help. The first thing she’d done when she realized she was lost was to go for cell phone. But at the exact moment she pulled it from her purse, she’d hit a bump. The phone went flying. As she’d tried to grab it, she’d knocked over her coffee. And of course, the coffee spilled directly onto the phone. By the time Alessandra pulled off the road—which she should’ve done in the first place—the phone was nothing but a dismal black screen of death. And it still showed no sign of magically self-repairing.

       Okay. Deep breath. Then make a list. What are the positives?

      For a second, she couldn’t think of a single one.

      “Well,” she finally said. “I’m not dead. So there’s that.”

      But the thought was a little too dark to be truly humorous.

      Alessandra looked down at her car again. She vaguely recalled things about ropes and pulleys and levers from high school science. But she had a feeling that trying to hoist a car out of a ditch was slightly more complicated than moving a paper airplane with a drinking straw and elastic band. A bit of a different scale.

      “Okay, then,” she muttered. “I guess the only thing to do is to walk until I find some help.”

      Wincing at the generally sorry state of her car, she climbed back into the ditch and leaned through the driver’s side door to grab her oversize patchwork bag from the front seat. She eyed her suitcase in the back seat, but decided to leave it. There was no way of knowing exactly how long she’d have to walk, and she didn’t want to weigh herself down too badly.

      And besides that, she told herself, you’re going to be able to get help, and you’re going to get back here just fine. It’s not like a wild animal’s likely to come along and steal your clothes and toothbrush.

      Feeling slightly more positive, she made her way out of the ditch back to the dirt road. She lifted her hand to shield eyes, glanced in the general direction of the sun and tried to gauge the time. Noon, maybe? And she thought she could tell which way was west. With a determined spin, she took a few steps. Then stopped almost immediately as a growl filled the air. Her eyes widened. She swallowed nervously and started to turn back to her car, half expecting to see that a bear or a wolf had taken an interest in her belongings. But aside from her familiar car, the ditch was as empty as it had been a moment earlier.

      Then she clued in.

      She closed her eyes and listened. The growl became a rumble, which grew louder and closer. And more familiar.

      Slowly—not wanting to let herself give in to false hope—Alessandra opened her eyes and focused her attention toward the end of the road. Not really aware that she was doing it, she squeezed her fingers into fists and bounced a little on the balls of her feet.

       Please, please, let it be him.

      And suddenly, there he was. Or there his truck was, anyway. Barreling toward her at full, furious speed. Almost as if the fact that he was headed her way made the driver angry.

      For a second, Alessandra’s feet stayed rooted to the spot, puzzlement outweighing worry. Why would he come back if it was just going to make him mad? As the truck got closer, dirt flying up hard, Alessandra’s brain gave her a little tap, and she realized that if she didn’t move, there was a good chance she might be mowed down. But she no sooner started to jump out of the way than the blue truck came to a grinding halt, and the driver’s-side door came flying open with a force that matched the speed at which the vehicle had approached. Quick and fired up. It was enough to freeze her again. It was also enough to send a sharp zap of curiosity through her. And the curiosity only deepened as the driver jumped out.

      Alessandra watched as he planted his steel-toe boots firmly in the dirt and spread his dark-denim-clad legs hip distance apart, then just stood there, unmoving. She had the impression that he was assessing the situation. And maybe her, too. It was disconcerting, and an inexplicable sweat broke out on her upper lip. But she couldn’t seem to speak. So she just took advantage of the silent, still moment to look him over as thoroughly as he was looking over her.

      He was lean, but not skinny. In fact, he had corded muscles on the lower half of his inked arms—just visible because he had his long-sleeved charcoal-gray T-shirt pushed halfway to his elbows. As she stared at the bit of exposed ink, a prickling heat built just under the surface of Alessandra’s skin. For a moment, the warmth threw her off. But it didn’t take long to realize the source. She—or her body, anyway—found him attractive.

      She sucked in a breath, tried to calm her suddenly racing heart and forced her eyes to his face. He still wore the dark reflective glasses, and he had a ball cap emblazoned with a truck logo pulled down over his forehead. Even though his cheeks and chin were dusted with a salt-and-pepper beard, what she could see of his skin was smooth and at least as young as her own. The contrast, which created a slightly enigmatic look, did nothing to ease the quick thrum of her Alessandra’s pulse.

      But then she spotted something that flew straight at her like a bucket of icy water.

      One of the truck driver’s hands hung loosely at his thigh, fingers flexing. The other hand was poised over—but not quite touching—a