Rocky Mountain Peril by Carol Ericson

Author:Carol Ericson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2021-06-14T15:27:12+00:00

Chapter 2

Anne leaned against the closed bedroom door, her ear pressed to the wood, listening. The silence in the house was so absolute she imagined she could hear Jake’s heart beating—though of course it was only the frantic pounding in her own chest. Footsteps crossed the room, moving away from her, the heavy, deliberate echo of each step moving through her like the aftershock of an earthquake. She bit her lip to keep from shouting at him not to leave. Of course she wanted him to leave. She didn’t want any part of the kind of danger he represented.

The front door closed with a solid click. She held her breath, and heard the muffled roar of a car engine coming to life. The sound faded and she was alone. She moved away from the door and sagged onto the bed, waiting for the tears that wouldn’t come. She’d cried them all out that night at the hotel, believing he was dead, knowing her life had ended.

Jake. One of the other agents at the Bureau had laughed when she’d called him that. “You mean Jacob? No one ever calls him Jake.”

No one but her. And everyone in her family. It was the way he’d first introduced himself to them. His name—but not his name. Like everything else about him, he’d built a lie around a kernel of truth. He wasn’t really a low-level official with the Port Authority, wanting to get in on the Giardino family business. He was an undercover operative for the FBI. Not even a real cop, but an accountant.

By the time she’d learned all this it had been too late. She had already been in love with him.

So what was he doing back in her life now? Hadn’t he done enough to ruin her? Before he came along she’d been happy. She’d had everything—looks, money, friends, family. She wasn’t an idiot—she’d known her father didn’t always operate on the right side of the law. He’d probably done some very bad things. But those things didn’t concern her. They didn’t touch the perfect life she’d built for herself.

Jake had made her take off the blinders and see the painful truth about who her father was.

About who she really was.

She pushed herself off the bed, pushing away the old fear and despair with the movement. Not letting herself stop to think, she dressed, grabbed her keys and headed out the door. She couldn’t sit in this house one more minute or she’d go crazy.

She drove back into town, to the little gym one block off Main. A few people looked up from the free weights and treadmills as she passed. She nodded in greeting but didn’t stop to talk. She changed into her workout gear, found her gloves and headed for the heavy bag and began throwing jabs and uppercuts, bouncing on her toes the way the gym’s owner, a former boxer named McGarrity, had shown her.

She’d taken up boxing when, shortly after her arrival in Rogers, she’d come to the gym for what was billed as a ladies’ self-defense class.

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