At Home in Stone Creek (Silhouette Special Edition) by Linda Lael Miller

Author:Linda Lael Miller [Miller, Linda Lael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Man-woman relationships, Bed and breakfast accommodations, Travel, Government investigators, Contemporary, General, Romance, Bed & Breakfast, Fiction, Love stories
ISBN: 9780373654871
Publisher: Silhouette
Published: 2009-11-01T08:22:09+00:00

Shade by shade, shadow by shadow, night finally came.

Ashley had called from Olivia’s place, as promised. They hadn’t exchanged more than a few words, and those had been stiff and stilted.

It was no great wonder to Jack that Ashley was projecting a chill: She’d been banished from her own house by a man who had no damn business being there at all.

He was getting antsy.

He’d heard nothing about Ardith and Rachel since his first terse conversation with Vince Griffin, right after the pickup. On the bright side, the toxin seemed to be in abeyance, though he still broke out in cold sweats at irregular intervals, and spates of weakness invariably followed in their wake.

To keep from going crazy, or maybe to make sure he did, Jack logged on to his father’s Web site again. Clicked to the Associates page.

There were his brothers, Dean and Jim. The last time Jack had seen them, they’d been in junior high, wannabe Romeos with braces and acne. Now, they looked like infomercial hosts.

He smiled.

A blurb at the bottom of the page showed a snapshot of Bryce, the youngest. In a wild break with McKenzie tradition, he was studying to be an optometrist.

There was no mention of Jack himself, of course. But his mother wasn’t on the site, either, and that bothered him.

His dad had always been a big believer in family values.

What a disappointment I must have been, Jack thought, frowning as he left the Web site and ran another search. There might be a recent picture of his mom on the library’s site. After all, she’d been the director when he’d left for military school.

The director’s face beamed from the main page, and it wasn’t his mother’s.

Frowning, Jack ran another search, using her name.

That was when he found the obituary, dated three years ago, a week after her fifty-third birthday.

The picture was old, a close-up taken on a long-ago family vacation.

The headshot showed her beaming smile, the bright eyes behind the lenses of her glasses. Jack’s own eyes burned so badly that he had to blink a few times before he could read beyond her name, Marlene Estes McKenzie.

She’d died at home, according to the writer of the obit, surrounded by family and friends. In lieu of flowers, her husband and sons requested that donations be made to a well-known foundation dedicated to fighting breast cancer.

Breast cancer.

Jack breathed deeply until his emotions were at least somewhat under control, then, against his better judgment, he reached for Ashley’s phone, dialed the familiar number.

“Dr. McKenzie’s residence,” a woman’s voice chimed.

Jack couldn’t speak for a moment.

“Hello?” the woman asked pleasantly. “Is anyone there? Hello?”

He finally found his voice. “My name is—Mark Ramsey. Is the doctor around?”

“I’m so sorry,” came the answer. “My husband is out of town at a convention, but either of his sons would be happy to see you if this is an emergency.”

“It isn’t,” Jack said. Then, with muttered thanks, he quietly hung up.

He got out of the chair, walked to the window, looked out at the street.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.