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'Til Death (A Rebel Ridge Novel, 3) - Softcover

Buch 3 von 3: Rebel Ridge

Sala, Sharon

 
9780778314271: 'Til Death (A Rebel Ridge Novel, 3)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0778314278 ISBN 13: 9780778314271
Verlag: MIRA, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

He left in handcuffs. Now it's time to set himself free.

Nearly twenty years after he was wrongly convicted of setting the fire that killed his father, Lincoln Fox returns to Rebel Ridge, Kentucky. There, deep in the Appalachians, the truth of that terrible night lies buried—and he's sworn to uncover it.

His plans take an unexpected turn when, in the midst of a blizzard, he rescues Meg Walker from her wrecked car. Suddenly Linc discovers another reason to clear his name. Meg, his high school sweetheart, had always believed in his innocence, and if he wants a future with her, he has to show the world proof that she was right.

As the community chooses sides, those who once let a teenage boy take the fall for their crime are forced to raise the stakes. They kidnap Meg, leaving her to the mercy of the mountain. And a second rescue may be more than even Linc can manage….

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sharon Sala is a member of RWA and OKRWA with 115 books in Young Adult, Western, Fiction, Women's Fiction, and non-fiction. RITA finalist 8 times, won Janet Dailey Award,  Career Achievement winner from RT Magazine 5 times, Winner of the National Reader's Choice Award 5 times, winner of the Colorado Romance Writer's Award 5 times, Heart of Excellence award, Booksellers Best Award. Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award. Centennial Award for 100th published novel.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Rebel Ridge, Kentucky
October

The sweet, soulful voice of a blues singer spilled out into the room from Meg Lewis's radio, sharing a message of unrequited love as old as time.

I can't make you love me?.

Meg looked up from the fabric she'd been cutting and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror on the other side of the table. Just for a moment she saw herself as a stranger might: tall, mid-thirties with dark hair below her shoulders and a heart-shaped face with eyes as green as new grass.

She frowned and then returned to the cutting table.

The last thing on her mind was finding love. Her high school sweetheart had gone to prison for killing his dad, and when she took a chance on love again and married at nineteen, within two years her husband had killed a man over drugs and gone to prison for life. She wound up divorced at twenty-one and shamed in the eyes of the residents of Rebel Ridge by association alone.

Her saving grace had been a family who didn't believe in quitting. Her grandfather Walker, who was in his last days in a nursing home, gave her his house. Having a place to call her own and a family that always had her back saved her. They were fiercely protective of each other, and she was grateful every day for her brothers: Ryal, a master carpenter, James, who farmed and was the mail carrier on Rebel Ridge, and Quinn, an army vet and a Back Country Ranger in the Daniel Boone National Forest.

The only real skill she had was sewing, which was what she turned to in the dark days after her divorce. She went back to quilting during that self-imposed exile because it was a solitary task, and when she had finished the first quilt, in a way, she'd finished grieving for her failed marriage, as well.

Her father died a short while afterward, and her mother, Dolly, gave up their family home to Ryal, the oldest son, and moved in with Meg. They were together for the next fourteen-plus years, until just over a year ago, when Dolly remarried and moved out to her new husband's home. For the first time in her life, Meg Lewis was finally living alone.

These days the sad song's message had no place in Meg's world. She didn't have an unrequited love and wasn't looking for a new one, although there were times when the loneliness of living alone got to her. The song ended just as a gust of wind popped the screens on the outside of the house.

Though the window shades were down and the curtains drawn, she quickly glanced toward the window. For her own peace of mind, she had to make sure there was no one outside. She laid down the scissors and, without turning on more lights, went into a darker part of the house to look out, remembering the odd things that had been happening around the place.

The first time she'd noticed something was wrong was when she went to feed the chickens and the feed bucket was not in the shed where she'd left it. At first she'd blamed herself for being absentminded, but when she finally found it sitting outside near the water faucet, she was shocked. Because of the small pinholes in the bottom, she never carried water in that bucket.

The next incident happened days later, just before dawn, when she was awakened by thumping and banging outside her window. When she got up and looked out, she saw her milk cow grazing in the yard. She grabbed her bathrobe and a flashlight, slipped on a pair of tennis shoes and headed outside, muttering beneath her breath.

The cow looked up, recognized Meg's voice and then took another bite of the sweet green grass underneath the old tire swing.

"Daisy! Get!" Meg shouted.

The cow lowed softly before ceding to Meg's insistence and headed back toward the barnyard at a jog with Meg right behind her, yelling and waving the flashlight to get her through the gate.

The unsettling part for Meg was discovering the loop of rope used to fasten the gate had not broken as she'd assumed. The moment she saw the clean-cut ends, she remembered the bucket that had gone missing. She stared in disbelief, then, in sudden panic, swung her flashlight into the darkness, but she neither saw nor heard anything unusual.

Her hands were shaking as she pulled the belt from her bathrobe and used it to tie the gate shut, then hurried back toward the house. Once inside, she grabbed her daddy's rifle and a handful of shells and headed back out to the porch. She loaded the gun, then sat watch in the porch swing until the sun came up, wishing old Blue were still alive and lying at her feet.

Once she could see, she got dressed, made herself some breakfast, then went outside, still carrying the rifle, and began looking for tracks.

She found them coming out of the woods behind the barn and then going back the same way. From the size of the shoe print, it was hard to decide whether it was a teenager or a small man. She wanted to believe it was some stupid kid thinking how funny it would be to bug her since she now lived alone.

The problem was that there weren't any teenagers within five miles of her place, which shot a big hole in that theory. She didn't know of a one who would willingly trek through five miles of forest in the dark just to play a trick. Drive, yes. Walk, no.

Later, as she was doing the morning chores outside, she kept trying to decide what to do. Once she told her family, her brothers would raise hell until this was solved. She hated to disturb their lives over something that most likely didn't amount to anything, but, at the same time, she didn't like feeling uneasy in her own home. By the time she took the fresh milk into the house to strain up, she'd calmed down and convinced herself it was nothing to bother anyone about.

Still, when dark came she put the loaded rifle near the headboard of her bed, just in case. The next four nights came and went without incident, and she convinced herself that whatever had been going on was over.

Now she wasn't so sure. She hated that just the noise of the wind had rattled her sense of security. She looked out through all the windows but saw nothing that seemed to warrant concern.

The yard was as dark as the night sky. No moon. No stars. Just an occasional flash of distant lightning?a promise of the storm to come. She paused to watch as a possum waddled up the steps and onto the porch, sniffing around the pots of plants and then checking beneath the porch swing before waddling back down the steps.

She smiled. The swing was her favorite site for a retreat from work, the place where she often drank her iced tea and ate a snack, which was usually a couple of her homemade cookies. The possum was obviously looking for cookie crumbs. After a final sweep of the yard, she felt confident that all was well and went back to the sewing room with an easier feeling, anxious to finish what she'd started before going to bed.

A few days ago she'd been digging through some old quilt patterns and found one called Storm at Sea that had belonged to her granny Foster. She'd never seen that pattern made into a quilt and was anxious to see what the top would look like once it was pieced together.

The fabrics she had chosen were washable cottons?a plain, bright white, two different shades of solid blues and three different shades of blue prints to give the wavelike imagery needed for the design. The feel of fabric in her hands was, for her, the equivalent of running her fingers through jewels.

She picked up a length of fabric with tiny navy blue flowers on a pale blue background and unfolded it, sliding it onto her cutting table, smoothing it out, folding it just so, methodically laying on the pieces of pattern.

Over the years her fascination with color and texture had garnered her a reputation as a craftswoman of some note, and now her name among quilters was synonymous with quality. But it had...

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Verlag
MIRA
Erscheinungsdatum
2013
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0778314278
ISBN 13 
9780778314271
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
384
Kontakt zum Hersteller
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