Thank you for joining me on Suspense Sisters today and during release week of BACKFIRE book 3 in Mountain Cove.
Here's an excerpt of the first chapter for your enjoyment.
Mountain Cove, Alaska
Tracy Murray knew she had little time. A storm
brewed in the distance.
But Solomon's urgent bark pulled her up the
rising trail, indicating that there was someone in danger.
She sucked more air into her lungs that were
already screaming from her workout.
Any other season on this trail—spring, winter,
fall—she'd have to be concerned about the avalanche danger. But not during the
summer, and because the season was so brief in Alaska, Tracy had every
intention of enjoying the outdoors. Out for a run with her search-and-rescue
golden retriever, summer abounded around her in the form of wildflowers and
sundry small wildlife scurrying in and out of the flora.
Tracy had been heading for Keller Falls, four
miles up the trail, until Solomon had taken off. She'd let him run free and
hoped to practice a few commands. Up until a moment ago he'd run beside Tracy,
surprisingly ignoring his natural instinct to chase forest animals, but then
he'd taken off. With his continued excited and urgent barks, she knew that he had
caught a human scent and was sending his vocal cue to alert Tracy that
something was wrong.
Dread replaced the serenity she'd found on the
trail.
Solomon was an air-scent search dog, wilderness
search-and-rescue certified, and Tracy was still training him for both cadaver
and avalanche certification. They'd already participated in several searches in
the region as part of the North Face Mountain Rescue team. But Tracy hadn't
taken her dog out looking for trouble today. No. She'd been looking for peace.
Instead her much-loved pet had likely found
something. Or rather, someone.
Avoiding the steep and hazardous drop on the
right side of the trail, Tracy kept running toward Solomon's sound-off. It
surprised Tracy how far Solomon had gone on his own in the wilderness, but he'd
obviously picked up a human scent that he intended to follow.
Though certified, Solomon was often eager to
conduct a search even when he wasn't tasked with one, which frequently ended in
false alarms—finding someone who wasn't lost. But if this was something more
this time, at least she wasn't alone if she needed to call for help. She wasn't
the only one who enjoyed an early morning run on this trail. Another runner had
taken off on the trail ahead of her, and she'd run into David Warren heading
the opposite direction on the trail, too.
He'd nodded and she'd nodded and they'd both
given each other wide berth. Kind of funny now that she considered it. Living
in Mountain Cove for two years, Tracy had worked with the firefighter on several
search-and-rescue missions, but he seemed aloof. A few years older than Tracy
in his late thirties, the man still attracted plenty of female attention with
his rugged appearance and strong, lean body. His smile was the kind that turned
heads and could make a woman weak in the knees.
Despite all that, he wasn't married, didn't have
a girlfriend, and Tracy knew why—he was too cold on the inside. Even if he
wasn't, she'd have kept her distance because of his profession. Tracy wanted to
avoid any reminders of the night that had changed her life forever. Any
reminders of what had sent her into hiding.
Make that who.
And that was one reason she'd chosen to live in
Mountain Cove. Surrounded by temperate rain forest in Southeast Alaska, the
chances of seeing a wildfire were next to zero.
She shook off the unwelcome thoughts and focused
in on Solomon's alerts. His barks came from the area to her right, which was
nothing but a steep ridge. Her heart sank. She'd purposefully avoided that
ledge. How had Solomon found his way down? Or had he fallen?
God, please, no.
"Solomon!" Tracy crept to the edge and
peered out over the rocky, jagged escarpment, part of the gorge that originated
at Keller Falls. Where was he?
The drop was steep, terraced with granite or
bedrock in places, and it was on one of those natural terraces that Solomon
stood barking. Fear gripped Tracy. How could she bring Solomon back up?
"Solomon! Come," she called.
The position of his ears and tail signaled that
he'd found someone who was injured or scared. Solomon peered up, his brown eyes
somber, and when he saw her, he lay on the small space—a signal to mark the
spot. But where was the injured person?
Then, just beyond a bush growing from the ridge,
she spotted a body. Tracy's pulse thundered in her ears. The breath rushed from
her—it was the man who'd run ahead of her. But Solomon hadn't signaled that he
was dead.
And then the man lifted a hand and called out to
her. He wasn't dead after all, but he'd taken a fall. How had he survived?
Tracy could barely hear his cry for help.
"I'm calling for assistance," she
yelled down to him. "Just hang in there!"
A chill slid down her spine. The sense that
someone watched crawled over her. Phone in hand, she called for help for the
fallen jogger while she scanned the woods behind and around her.
A man stepped out of nowhere and Tracy
gasped—then let out a sigh of relief when she saw it was David.
But the sense of unease didn't disappear.
And she still had a feeling she was being
watched.
Breathing hard, David bent over his thighs before
gasping out, "I heard the dog, wanted to see if there was a problem."
David wiped the sweat from his eyes, sucked in a few breaths to slow his
breathing after he'd sprinted up the trail then cut through the woods.
Phone to her ear, Tracy stared at him with those
big silvery-blue eyes of hers, the terror slowly fading away to shock and
concern. What was going on?
Scrunching her freckled nose, she glared at her
phone. "Lost the signal. Oh, I don't have time for this."
"What's wrong?"
A deep frown crossed her features as she shoved
the thick red hair from her face. "I'm so glad you're here. A runner fell.
He's down there." Urgency in her voice, Tracy paced as she pointed to the
steep, rocky drop. "He needs our help."
David peered over the edge and spotted
Solomon—how had the dog made it down there?—and just beyond he saw the hiker.
The man was still alive? Apprehension lodged in David's gut. How long had he
been there?
Pulling his own phone out, he looked for the
bars. "Got 'em. Use my phone to call for help. I'll climb down to
him." David was assistant chief of the Mountain Cove Fire Department and a
paramedic. He spent most of his time as a firefighter answering EMS calls
rather than fires, and he had too many SAR certifications to count. He was well
qualified—he just wished he was better inventoried. Out on his morning run, he
had no medical equipment or emergency supplies. All he could do was assess the
man's injuries and reassure him while they waited for help to arrive.
Reaching over, Tracy pressed her hand against his
arm, uncertainty in her eyes. "Be careful. You don't even have your
climbing gear."
He'd gone on enough free-soloing climbs—free
climbing with no ropes—to know this ridge wouldn't be a problem for him.
"Don't worry. When you reach someone, tell them we'll need a helicopter to
hoist this man out. That fall had to have severely banged him up." If he
wasn't mortally wounded.
David suspected the latter but wouldn't voice his
concerns because Tracy was already on edge. She'd seemed unusually distressed.
In their previous interactions, the experienced search-and-rescue volunteer was
always in control of her emotions. Was there more to this than she'd admitted?
Before he climbed down to the injured jogger, he
needed to know. "Did you see what happened?"
She shook her head. "Like you, I followed
Solomon's bark. He took off ahead of me."
David eyed the dangerous ledge, deciding on the
safest and quickest path to the man. He started down, with one last glance up
to Tracy, and noticed her looking behind her as though she expected someone to
jump out of the woods.
Gripping the rocks, he paused and called up.
"Tracy."
His short, snappy tone got her attention.
She peered down at him. "What?"
"Did you reach anyone?"
"I'm on hold."
"Figures. Are you going to be okay?" He
should be more concerned about the fallen runner, but he couldn't shake the
sense that something had scared Tracy. Or was he just being an idiot?
"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"
He shrugged and continued down.
Tracy had caught his attention the first time
he'd met her a couple of years ago. She'd just moved to Mountain Cove, she'd
explained after he'd run into her coming out of his brother Adam's bicycle
shop. Collided, more like, and he'd had to assist her off the ground—her and
the new bike she'd purchased. He should have offered to buy her coffee or
something. Any normal red-blooded male would have. With her thick, red mane and
deep, striking eyes, he hadn't stopped thinking about her for weeks after
running into her.
Maybe he was just lonely. Starved for female
companionship. But he didn't think that was it. There was just something about
Tracy. But getting involved wasn't for him anymore. Yeah, he saw how happy two
of his siblings—Heidi and Cade—were now that they had each finally gotten
married. Cade and his wife, Leah, had had their first child two months ago,
naming him after their late father, Scott Daniel Warren. And Heidi had married
Isaiah, a family friend, SAR volunteer and a coworker at the avalanche center
that their father had founded. David's siblings had done well for themselves.
He'd known that kind of happiness once. But he'd
lost it; let it slip through his fingers. He didn't deserve it again. His wife
had died in a fire when he, a decorated firefighting hero, had failed to save
her. How could he have let that happen?
He didn't deserve happiness. Not after that. And
after Tracy had snagged his thoughts with one run-in, he knew to keep his
distance from her on their search-and-rescue missions and training events. And
even when he saw her in town.
He reached Solomon and petted the dog, giving him
plenty of reassuring verbal rewards.
"I'm on my way down," he called to the
injured man.
"Hold on."
The trim man looked to be about average height,
healthy except for the way he lay twisted at an angle a few feet below the
narrow ledge where David and Solomon now stood. He likely had a few if not many
broken bones and possibly had internal injuries, as well. David was astounded
he had survived, and if the rescue helicopter didn't arrive soon, he might not
make it.
Carefully gripping the rocks, David inched his
way down.
Finally he reached the narrow terrace and looked
down into dark gray eyes filled with pain and fear. "My name's David. I'm
a firefighter and paramedic. Lie perfectly still. Help is on the way."
Kneeling beside him, David assessed the fallen
man's wounds the best he could, but with a possible spinal injury, David
avoided moving any part of his body. Blood oozed from a gash in the man's head,
coagulating in his light brown hair. David removed his own jacket and then his
T-shirt, using it to apply pressure to stanch the flow. He could do at least
that much. He cringed to think of what was going on inside the injured man's
body.
"It's pretty bad, isn't it?"
"You're going to make it."
God, let my words be true. Save this man, help
him. The man closed his eyes.
"What's your name?" David had to keep
him awake, keep him talking, if he could.
"Jay Woodall."
Maybe David couldn't offer much physical
assistance, but emotional and mental encouragement was just as important.
Clouds brewed in the distance, forecasted to
bring a torrent, and David could already smell the rain. Lightning flashed and
thunder rolled, warning of the storm's imminent approach and leaving David
unsettled. They didn't usually get thunderstorms. He sure hoped that helicopter
got here soon. He didn't want to see Jay suffer any more by getting soaked and
chilled on top of his injuries.
"Why?" Jay's croak resounded with the
shock of his trauma.
Recognizing the man's emotional distress over his
predicament, David frowned. Was he asking why God would allow him to fall?
David had enough of those questions himself. Questions he'd never resolved
since he'd lost Natalie. He feared it might take a lifetime to find the
answers, or worse, that he never would. He fought to keep from railing at God
on some days. But he shoved his inner turmoil aside to focus on the here and
now and the man who needed his help.
David might not be able to answer those kinds of
questions, but maybe he could help in other ways if he knew more. "Can you
tell me what happened?"
"Someone…pushed me over. Tried to kill
me."
The news stunned David. Did Jay know the person
who'd done this?
David glanced up the rock-faced cliff and spotted
Solomon watching. From here, David couldn't see Tracy. He wished Solomon would
find his way back up to her.
Was Jay's attacker still up there? If so, Tracy
was up there alone with a dangerous man—a man who'd attempted murder.
Copyright © 2015 by Harlequin
Enterprises Limited. Cover Art used by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises
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