Rachel Lee - Protector of One

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Cover

Title Page Protector of One Rachel Lee www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author RACHEL LEE was hooked on writing by the age of twelve, and practiced her craft as she moved from place to place all over the United States. This New York Times bestselling author now resides in Florida and has the joy of writing full-time. Her bestselling CONARD COUNTY series has won the hearts of readers worldwide, and it’s no wonder, given her own approach to life and love. As she says, “Life is the biggest romantic adventure of all—and if you’re open and aware, the most marvelous things are just waiting to be discovered.”

Dedication For all my readers, each and every one, who help me keep Conard County alive. Hugs to you all!

Prologue Prologue It was a dark and stormy night. The most clichéd opening line in literature should have been the start of the story, Kerry Tomlinson would later think. As an English teacher she had used the line often to instruct. In reality, it was a bright and sunny autumn morning, redolent of coffee, sizzling bacon and the nutty aroma of grits and cheese. In the background, the radio played some lively but pleasant music. She sat at her table with the Conard County Courier open in front of her, waiting for the strip of bacon she intended to crumble into the steaming bowl of grits beside the stove. She heard the newsbreak start, the report of two bodies being found on the edge of the state forest in Conard County, two hikers… Then her world turned upside down.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelven

Chapter Thirteen

Copyright

RACHEL LEEwas hooked on writing by the age of twelve, and practiced her craft as she moved from place to place all over the United States. This New York Times bestselling author now resides in Florida and has the joy of writing full-time.

Her bestselling CONARD COUNTY series has won the hearts of readers worldwide, and it’s no wonder, given her own approach to life and love. As she says, “Life is the biggest romantic adventure of all—and if you’re open and aware, the most marvelous things are just waiting to be discovered.”

For all my readers, each and every one, who help me keep Conard County alive.

Hugs to you all!

It was a dark and stormy night. The most clichéd opening line in literature should have been the start of the story, Kerry Tomlinson would later think. As an English teacher she had used the line often to instruct.

In reality, it was a bright and sunny autumn morning, redolent of coffee, sizzling bacon and the nutty aroma of grits and cheese. In the background, the radio played some lively but pleasant music. She sat at her table with the Conard County Courier open in front of her, waiting for the strip of bacon she intended to crumble into the steaming bowl of grits beside the stove.

She heard the newsbreak start, the report of two bodies being found on the edge of the state forest in Conard County, two hikers…

Then her world turned upside down.

Adrian Goddard sat in Conard County Sheriff Gage Dalton’s Office, about as unhappy as a man could be short of death or major injury. He’d left law enforcement two years ago and he wasn’t happy to be dragged back in. But a double homicide had caused Gage to call on him, and his sense of duty wouldn’t let him refuse.

A lean, rangy man with a face marked by weather and strain, his gray eyes pierced whatever he looked at and nearly matched the early gray at his temples. He looked as if he might have been chiseled out of the granite of the Wyoming mountains. He had one of those faces that made guessing his age nearly impossible, yet few would have believed he was only thirty-five.

He’d spent the day at the crime scene, gathering the kind of information a photograph or a report might overlook: angles of attack, best vantage points, surrounding cover. The little and big things that could answer the question: why did this happen here and not elsewhere? Given the relative isolation of the wooded murder scene, that question had gained a lot of importance.