Jake!
He grabbed Mariah, hauling her to her feet. Wrapping one arm around her waist, he set out for the relative safety of the woods, not looking back.
Shed been shot. The pain was like nothing Mariah had ever felt.
I have to stop, she moaned as Jake bent to gather her up to her feet again.
We cant stop long, he warned.
Letting her go, Jake crossed to the nearest of the trees and tested the connection between the stump and the trunk. The connective wood didnt seem to budge despite the violent shake he gave it.
Its like a lean-to, he said.
She shook her head, not following.
I guess you were never a Girl Scout. His eyes narrowed, and she could tell he was wondering how much else about her past he didnt know.
Hitched and Hunted
Paula Graves
www.millsandboon.co.uk
MILLS & BOON
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alabama native Paula Graves wrote her first book, a mystery starring herself and her neighborhood friends, at the age of six. A voracious reader, Paula loves books that pair tantalizing mystery with compelling romance. When shes not reading or writing, she works as a creative director for a Birmingham advertising agency and spends time with her family and friends. She is a member of Southern Magic Romance Writers, Heart of Dixie Romance Writers and Romance Writers of America.
Paula invites readers to visit her website, www.paulagraves.com.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Mariah Cooper When the aftermath of a tornado brings Mariah face-to-face with a nightmare from her past, all the secrets shes been keeping from her husband come to light in the worst possible wayat the end of a gun barrel.
Jake Cooper He learns about his wifes lies while handcuffed inside a killers van. Can he put aside his anger and distrust long enough to save himself and Mariah from a dangerous man seeking vengeance?
Victor Logan He made Mariah Cooper the woman she is, and she repaid him with betrayal, testifying against him after he killed her lover. Now shes back, with a new husband and new identity, and Victor finally has the chance for payback.
Karl The mystery man may be Victors ally at first glance, but his clear antagonism toward his partner in crime makes him a wild card who could put everyones life in danger.
Gabe Cooper Jakes twin brother begins to worry when his brother doesnt arrive home. Will he figure out whats going on in time to come to the rescue?
J. D. Cooper A widower still mourning his murdered wife twelve years after her death, he has a stake in what happens to his missing brother that he doesnt even know about.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue
Chapter One
Mariah Cooper had imagined her death a thousand times in the past four years, but never had she thought shed be crouched in a motel room bathtub when it finally happened.
Its going to be okay. Jakes calm voice barely rose above the wind gusts rattling the windows and howling around the corner eaves just outside the motel room. Across the tub, he locked his hands with hers, his blue eyes meeting hers with steady assurance. Just another tornado warning, right?
Mariah nodded. Having spent her whole life in tornado-prone areas, shed responded to hundreds of tornado siren warnings with actions drummed into her head over the yearsgo to the basement or an interior room, put as many walls between you and the exterior as possible, get beneath something sturdy if possible. Right now, they were on the bottom floor of the two-story motel, and the bathroom was the only place in the room that didnt have an exterior window. The tub had a long steel handle set into the wall to hold on to if things got hairy.
But she couldnt remember ever hearing the wind howl so loudly or feeling the walls shake with each gust.
Its close, she said, pressure rising in her ears.
Jakes gaze held hers. It may not even touch down.
On the counter across from the tub, a battery-powered radio kept up a steady stream of chatter from a local station carrying wall-to-wall weather coverage from a television station out of Meridian, Mississippi. The meteorologist was warning people in the Buckley area to get to their places of safety immediately.
I love you. The warmth of Jakes voice wrapped around Mariahs shivering body. She held his gaze, her heart sinking under the weight of the truth. Jake didnt really love her. He couldnt. He didnt know who she really was.
A crackling boom shook the motel room. The lights surged, then died, plunging the bathroom into utter blackness. Mariah gasped, her fingers tightening over his.
A transformer blew. Thats all. Jake shifted, turning her until she was cradled between his knees, her back against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, his breath hot against her neck. Just a few more minutes and itll be over.
The roar of the wind rose. Cracks and thuds filled Mariahs ears, frighteningly close. Though she closed her eyes against the darkness, as if she could shut it out somehow, the blackness pursued her relentlessly, carried on a sea of destruction encroaching from somewhere outside.
She repeated Jakes promise in her head. A few more minutes and itll be over. Itll be over. Itll be over.
Then, suddenly, it was. The roar of wind fell quickly before dying away altogether, replaced by a steady drumbeat of rain against the windows. Jake began to stir, but Mariah clutched his arms, holding him in place behind her in the tub. They sat quietly, listening to the radio. Only when the weatherman started talking about storm damage reports trickling in from Buckley did Mariah finally move.
We should see if the truck and boat made it, she murmured, struggling to compose herself.
Jake muttered a soft oath. Didnt think about the boat.
The power was still out, so Mariah had to feel her way out of the tub and into the main part of the motel room. Shed spotted candles and matches in the drawer of the bureau when she was putting away their clothes a couple of days earlier, so she made her way there and opened the drawer, groping inside until she felt the smooth, cool wax of a candle beneath her fingers. A little more searching garnered the small box of matches as well. She struck a match and touched the tip to the candles wick. The candle sizzled to life, casting a warm, flickering glow across the motel room.
Mariah turned and found her husband gazing at her, his expression tense but confident.
Told you wed make it through. He brushed her arm with his fingertips as he passed her on the way to the front window. He moved the curtain aside and peered out through the rain-mottled windows. His back stiffening, he spoke in a raspy voice. Good news is the truck and boat are still there. But the shopping strip next door is gone.
Her knees buckling, Mariah stumbled to the end of the bed and sat heavily, her heart pounding wildly. There had been fifteen stores in that strip center. Theyd shopped at the drugstore there just that morning. And now it was gone?
Shed known it was a bad idea to come back to Buckley.
THE BAD WEATHER THE night before had bypassed Victor Logan for the most part. A few trees had fallen in the woods surrounding his house, a shanty of a place that was the most he could afford to rent with the little bit of money hed had left after his legal fees. But hed seen nothing but a little wind and rain where he lived, despite the tornado siren. And as his old box set television couldnt pick up any channels since the conversion to digital, he hadnt watched the morning news before gassing up his van and driving to town to look for work.
So it was with some surprise that he saw the utter devastation wrought across the small town of Buckley, Mississippi, in the early hours of the morning. Houses with roofs damaged or missing completely. Vehicles upside down, including an eighteen-wheeler wrapped around the concrete piling of an overpass, the trailer split in two, spilling its payload of fresh strawberries onto the roadway. Birds swarmed like winged piranhas, pecking bits of flesh from the berries until the roadside bled red with their juices.
Bodies of farm animals dotted the highway into Buckley, buzzards circling overhead. As he neared town, traffic slowed to a grind due to a roadblock on the highway ahead. The cops must be screening people to be sure they had legitimate business in the storm zone, he realized with a grimace.
He didnt want to talk to the cops, so he turned off as soon as he could, parking in front of a small diner. Hed eaten there a few times. Good food, low prices, and the staff mostly left you alone. Inside, he sat at the counter and ordered the breakfast specialeggs, sausage and a gravy biscuit.
Nearby, a half dozen fellow customers huddled around the diners small television, murmuring in low tones of horror and concern. Victor could see part of the television screen between their bodies, enough that he got a good look at the devastation in downtown Buckley and on the south side, where the road toward Flint Creek Reservoir had taken a hard hit, wiping out a shopping strip center and several dozen residences.
Victor watched for a moment, his only emotion curiosity. The destruction might open up the job market for him. He was a good mechanic. He could also do construction work if necessary. He just needed someone to look past the black marks on his record. He was starting to get anxioushed never been a thief, and he didnt want to become one now just to keep his head above water. Theft was Marisols crime, not his.
Treacherous bitch.
As he started to look away from the television screen, a face in the crowd behind the male reporter caught his eye. Dropping his fork, he walked closer to the television screen, edging another man out of the way to get a better look.
Marisol. As if his thoughts had conjured her up.
Four years later, shed changed little, her hair still long and coal black, her eyes so light they looked like pools of silver against the dusky olive of her skin. She gazed straight into the camera, as if looking right at him, and his heart beat a thunderous cadence in his ears.
Her eyes widened and she looked away quickly, as if shed seen him watching her through the television screen, and turned to speak to a tall, dark-haired man standing beside her. He put his arm around her shoulder and they walked out of the frame.
Victor stared at the screen, barely breathing. He forced himself to listen to the reporters drivel. The talking head was near a residential subdivision the tornado had nearly wiped out. The people behind the guy were volunteers for the rescue and recovery efforts. More volunteers were needed.
Victor returned to the counter and wolfed down his breakfast. He was on the road within a few minutes.
He bypassed the main highway into Buckley, taking side roads that snaked through the forest and farmlands hemming in the town on all sides. A policeman flagged him down as he entered the affected area.
Victor willed himself to remain calm. Hed done his time. Hed gotten out on good behavior. Seeing his parole officer weekly, as required, and still looking for a job. Plus, he had skills the rescuers could use, didnt he?
He said as much to the policeman who rapped on the drivers side window of his van to ask what business he had in the area.
The cop eyed him a moment before giving a nod. He told him where to park the van and where to find the fire department officer who was coordinating volunteers.
Victor parked where directed and walked to the staging area, a pavilion tent set up in the middle of the road near the tornado strike zone. Inside, volunteers were taking names and handing out bottles of water to those whod come to support the first responders.
Hers was the first face he saw.
Victors heart jumped. Marisol was only a few feet away, bending to open another crate of water bottles. She pulled several bottles from the package and set them on a collapsible card table set up in the middle of the staging tent.
She was as beautiful as ever, though time had blessed her, at twenty-five, with a more womanly shape and a leaner, more mature face than shed possessed at twenty-one. Her dark hair was twisted into a careless braid down her back, humidity giving it a hint of curl in the tendrils around her face. She smiled as she handed a volunteer a bottle, and Victor saw shed fixed the upper left bicuspid shed broken as a child.
The man hed seen her with on TV was nowhere around.
Victor slipped from the tent, not yet ready to be seen. He needed to know why she was here. Was she still living in the Buckley area? Surely not. Hed looked for her in vain as soon as he got out of jail.
Who was the man shed been with, whod put his arm around her and led her away from the reporter? Her new lover?
Victor wasnt jealoushed never consider sullying himself with her. Shed been an intellectual passion, not an object of sexual desire.
But he hadnt plucked her out of filth to watch her whore her way around Mississippi, either. He hadnt schooled her in the classics, filled her formerly dull mind with the precisions of science and the exquisite mysteries of mathematics to watch her throw her knowledge away on frivolous, romantic dreams of marriage and maternity.