Beverly Long - Hunted

When they reached the cabin, he stopped and turned. “Why don’t you stay here for a minute and let me take a look first. All kinds of things can happen in an unattended space.”

Yikes. She hadn’t considered that. Just her luck, a bear had taken up residence. “If you think it’s necessary,” she said.

He let out a loud sigh. “Mack would kick my butt if I did anything different.”

As she recalled, from all the wrestling matches that had occurred in their basement, Mack and Ethan had been very evenly matched. She reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out a small key ring with two keys. “It’s this one.”

“Shouldn’t take me more than thirty seconds,” he said.

“Okay. Be careful,” she added.

He walked away. “Don’t worry.”

Worrying was all she’d done since she’d realized what had happened and was still happening.

She hadn’t said goodbye to her stepmother, hadn’t been able to face the woman who sat behind the big desk in her five-hundred-dollar suits.

While she couldn’t be 100 percent sure, she was pretty confident the trail led right to that shiny desk with its silver pens placed just so.

If only Claudia Linder was just the CEO of Linder Automation. But six months ago, under a full moon, in the presence of twenty slightly drunk guests, Chandler and Mack being two of them, Claudia Linder had married Baker McCann, becoming Claudia Linder McCann, Chandler and Mack’s stepmother.

Her dad had been over the moon about finding a second love. He’d been alone since his wife had died more than twenty years earlier.

It would destroy him if what Chandler suspected was true.

But how many would pay if Chandler turned her back and said nothing?

It had been thirty seconds since Ethan had entered the cabin and he still hadn’t called for her. In fact, she couldn’t hear anything from inside. Her heart was pumping in her chest. She wished the dog had stayed with her.

Something was wrong.

Chapter Three Contents Cover Introduction “I could be wrong but I think your cabin just blew up.” Ethan ran his fingers through his short hair. This was all his fault. He’d known there were people who held grudges. He’d read the anonymous letters. Had one of them snapped? She still hadn’t said a word. He couldn’t blame her. If he was right, she’d just lost something that had been in her family for generations. She would hate him when she learned the truth. She slowly walked toward the door and looked past him. Smoke was continuing to billow up into the sky. Finally Chandler turned to him. Her eyes were dark with pain. “I think I’m in trouble, Ethan. Real trouble.” Title Page Hunted Beverly Long www.millsandboon.co.uk About the Author As a child, BEVERLY LONG used to take a flashlight to bed so that she could hide under the covers and read. Once a teenager, more often than not, the books she chose were romance novels. Now she gets to keep the light on as long as she wants, and there’s always a romance novel on her nightstand. With both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in business and more than twenty years of experience as a human resources director, she now enjoys the opportunity to write her own stories. She considers her books to be a great success if they compel the reader to stay up way past their bedtime. Beverly loves to hear from readers. Visit www.beverlylong.com , or like her at www.facebook.com/beverlylong.romance . Dedication For Beth and Wes Devenney, who loved the mountains and me. 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 Chapter Seventeen Extract Copyright

The front door of the cabin swung open. A light had been turned on. Ethan stood in the doorway, his arm raised, motioning her in. She ran toward him, not caring that it jarred her shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he said, stepping aside quickly.

She nodded and for the first time in many days, when she stepped over the threshold into the familiar space, thought that he might be right.

She took a deep breath and the sense of family filled her lungs. The main living area of the cabin was one big room, with a kitchen on one side and family room on the other. Off to the left, down a short hallway, were two small bedrooms and a bath. The floors were all narrow slats of pine, and the round-log walls were the best that Colorado had to offer.

It had been in her family for generations. She knew the Donovan cabin was the mirror image. Her great-grandfather had built them both in the 1930s. In the 1960s, Grandpa McCann had inherited the cabins and paid for electricity lines to be strung from the main highway and had dug a well. By the 1990s, they’d been passed down to her dad, who saw no need for two cabins. Baker McCann had sold one to his best friend, Brody Donovan’s dad.

And her family had kept the other one, spending summers here since she was a child. Both Baker and Mr. Donovan had worked from home. Baker as a computer analyst, Mr. Donovan as a novelist. That flexibility allowed them to come in June and stay until Labor Day. The McCanns had stayed home the summer Sally McCann had died. Baker had barely left the basement and had stopped tinkering with the old helicopter that he was rebuilding. He certainly wasn’t up to vacationing with his two children. Mack had been angry that they’d missed a summer in the mountains. Chandler had been too young to care as much. But by the next year, her dad had pulled himself together and things had gotten back to normal. Except the new normal had included Ethan Moore.

He and Mack had shared a bedroom, she’d had the other and her dad had slept on the pullout sofa. Every morning, the boys had met Brody Donovan at the end of the lane and they didn’t come home until dark. They’d fished, hiked and swam in the lake. And at night, when Mack and Ethan had returned to the cabin, they’d played cards. It was how she’d learned to play poker, first watching, then finally, when she got the hang of it, they’d let her sit in on a few games.

“How are you feeling?” Ethan asked, interrupting her memories.

Every muscle ached and the pain in her shoulder hadn’t gotten any better. “I’m okay,” she lied.

He reached toward her, his palm open, and with the pad of his thumb, gently brushed the bridge of her nose, then her cheeks. “You’ve got some marks here from the air bag,” he said. “Do they hurt?”

“Not really.” Her cheeks were too cold to feel much else.

“We should assess for other injuries,” Ethan said.

Speaking of assessing... Wow. Ethan had grown up and into his body. At twenty-two, he’d been tall and lanky. At thirty-eight, he was still lean but his frame was thicker with muscle. His hair was still buzzed short, military-style. His face had the same strong chin, high cheekbones and dark eyes.

He had a long, fresh scratch that started at his ear and ran down the side of his neck. She wondered if there were more scratches and cuts on his back from rescuing her from the tree. “I don’t think I’m the only one hurting,” she said.

He shook his head. “I’m fine. Nothing a little hydrogen peroxide and ibuprofen can’t handle. I’m going to walk over to the other cabin and get my truck. There’s an emergency room about forty miles away where we can get your shoulder looked at.”

She shook her head. “It will be fine,” she said. “I think I just sprained it. I don’t need a doctor.”

“Can I at least take a look at it? I don’t have any formal training but I’ve spent the past twenty years with medics attached to my unit. I’ve picked up a thing or two along the way.”

“Okay.”