The Smoky Mountain Mist by Paula Graves

Author:Paula Graves [Graves, Paula]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary, Romance, Contemporary Romance Romantic Suspense, ROMANCE - - SUSPENSE
ISBN: 037369699X
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2012-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

She’d seen death twice in her life. First at the age of fifteen, when her mother’s madness had led her to suicide. Some details were fuzzy in her memory but not all. Rachel still remembered the stark moment when she’d realized her mother had gone and wasn’t coming back.

More recently, she’d watched her father die, a peaceful drift from slumber to utter stillness, protected from the cruelties of his life’s end by the drugs his doctor had given him to make it easier to let go. They’d dulled his pain and given him a peace in death that his disease had denied him in life.

But until the moment the Sevier County morgue attendant pulled back the sheet on the battered body of Davis Rogers, she’d never seen death resulting from murder.

His face was battered almost beyond recognition, but the hourglass-shaped birthmark on his left biceps and the long white scar on his right knee filled in the blanks for her. It had been nearly seven years since she’d been in any kind of relationship with Davis, but he’d kept fit, the intervening years doing little to change the body she’d once known intimately.

Grief gouged a hole in her heart, and she turned away after nodding to the deputy sheriff who’d accompanied them into the morgue.

Seth stood just behind her, and it seemed as natural as breathing to walk into his arms when he reached out to her. He pulled her close for a moment before leading her out into the corridor, where the air seemed immediately lighter.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured against her hair.

She wanted to cry, felt it burning its way into her chest, but she let it rise no further. She wasn’t going to fall apart, especially not here in the midst of strangers like the deputy, who watched them both through narrowed eyes.

A few feet down the hallway, Antoine Parsons pushed away from the wall and crossed to where she, Seth and the deputy stood. “Is that the man you saw at Sequoyah House?” he asked Seth.

“Same clothes. Same condition.” Seth moved his hand comfortingly up and down Rachel’s back, but she felt tension gathering in him like a thunderstorm rising up a mountain. “I didn’t think he had much of a chance of making it without help.”

“We’re still working on cause of death.” The deputy, who’d introduced himself as John Mallory, seemed more interested in keeping his eye on Seth than meeting Antoine Parson’s gaze. Seth himself seemed acutely aware of the deputy’s scrutiny, though he tried not to show it.

He’d warned her, she thought. People looked at him differently because of who he was. What he’d been. And maybe if she’d never seen another side of him—the kind man, the brave protector—she’d be inclined to view him the same way.

She had viewed him with suspicion as recently as a few hours ago.

But that had been before he’d kissed her.

Was that all it took? Was that how easily she gave her trust?

She felt herself edging away from him, even as the thoughts roiled through her mind.

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