Jill Elizabeth - Frame-Up

CAN SHE TRUST A MYSTERY MAN?

Stranded in a blinding snowstorm, Laurel Adams must pin her hope of survival on a handsome stranger. The single mother and her teen daughter take refuge in his remote Rocky Mountain cabin. But Laurel’s anything but safe when she discovers a dead body in her trunk…and becomes the prime suspect in a murder investigation. Her rescuer, millionaire David Greene, knows what it’s like to be accused. Three years ago he was arrested for a crime he didn’t commit—an unsolved case that still haunts him. With the clock ticking, can they stop a cold-blooded killer with deadly ties to them both?

I can’t lose her.…

David gunned the engine, trailing Laurel’s car.

When he drew up behind her, her brake lights winked at him in a pair of short bursts. A deliberate move. She wasn’t trying to lose him. She needed help.

Redness edged David’s vision. If he got to this guy before the cops— No, he couldn’t let fury cloud his mind. He clamped down on his emotions.

Laurel turned into a mall entrance and he signaled to follow, but another vehicle surged in front of him. Just that fast, he lost her.

Eternal seconds later, as he drove around to the other side of the lot, his heart leaped. There was her car, the driver’s door wide-open.

David slammed on the brakes and ran to her car. Empty!

He stared wildly around, but saw nothing. His shoulders slumped. When she needed him the most, he’d failed the woman who meant more to him than his next heartbeat.

Why did he realize how precious she was now—when he might never get the chance to tell her?

JILL ELIZABETH NELSON

writes what she likes to read—faith-based tales of adventure seasoned with romance. By day she operates as housing manager for a seniors’ apartment complex. By night she turns into a wild and crazy writer who can hardly wait to jot down all the exciting things her characters are telling her, so she can share them with her readers. More about Jill and her books can be found at www.jillelizabethnelson.com. She and her husband live in rural Minnesota, surrounded by the woods and prairie and their four grown children, who have settled nearby.

Frame-Up

Jill Elizabeth Nelson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

—Proverbs 31:30

To all who have passed through the fire of testing and chosen the high road with God, who makes them over in His image; to all the single parents committed to raising their children right in a “gone wrong” world.

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

DEAR READER

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

EXCERPT

ONE

“Mo-o-om! Look out for the ditch!”

Caroline’s squeal rippled like a minor earthquake down Laurel Adams’s spine. Her death grip on the steering wheel shot pain up her forearms as she hauled the car away from the telltale crunch of gravel beneath the tires.

She squinted into the smothering blanket of white. Faint streaks of yellow winked on her left-hand side. Yes, she was again in her driving lane.

A long breath eased from her throat as she let up another notch on the accelerator. They were crawling along at barely thirty-five miles per hour. She navigated more by feel than by sight. At least it was daytime—the middle of the afternoon, actually, though only her watch gave much assurance that the sun was overhead somewhere.

None of the news services had predicted this pre-Thanksgiving storm in the Rocky Mountains that had swooped out of nowhere and swallowed them in its howling maw. If she’d had any warning, she would have cancelled her speaking engagement at YMCA of the Rockies, stayed snug in Denver and dealt with her daughter’s attitude in the comfort of their own home.

“Can’t we turn around and go back?” Caroline’s mocha-brown gaze pleaded with her mother.

“I’m sorry, sweetie.” Laurel shook her head. “We must be getting close to Estes Park. It’s safer to try to get that far and take shelter than to head home and hope we drive out of the storm.”

Caroline scowled and let out a loud sniff. The girl had made no secret that she didn’t want to come along on her mom’s speaking engagement to the “praying and graying set.” She’d begged to stay with their next door neighbor Janice, Laurel’s best friend, like she often did when her mother traveled. Laurel hadn’t consented this time, for her daughter’s own good—or so she’d thought. In twenty-twenty hindsight, Caroline physically safe with Janice trumped Laurel’s intention to use this trip as an opportunity for a heart-to-heart.

She spared a glance toward the teenager’s sullen profile. Caroline was blooming into a pretty young woman, but at the moment she was more the pouty child. The girl’s dark expression drew lines across her high forehead beneath a sleek cap of honey-blond hair and pinched a slender, straight nose into a sharp beak.

Laurel swallowed a sigh. The onset of hormonal ping-pong, normal for a girl newly thirteen years of age, couldn’t be entirely to blame for the souring of her daughter’s formerly sunny disposition. The downhill spiral had begun a few months ago, about the time Caroline’s best friend moved away.

“I know you miss Emily,” Laurel said, “but that doesn’t mean you can let your schoolwork suffer. That D in biology has to improve after Thanksgiving vacation.”

Caroline groaned.

“Oh, come on, sweetheart. Buck up! You’re not alone in the world, you know. You have a solid support system. We can get you a tutor, if you need one, or a study group. In fact, something like that might be a chance for you to get out of your shell and make new friends.”

“Is that what your psychologist mind is telling you? That I’ve suddenly developed abandonment issues?” Caroline’s gaze narrowed. “If I didn’t freak out when my dad left us when I was three and never looked back, why would I lose it because Emily moved to Tulsa? I talk to her on the phone and online nearly every day.”

Laurel fixed her attention straight ahead, words churning for release behind her lips. What could she say that would pop the cork on whatever festered inside her daughter’s heart? In her speaker persona, Laurel was touted as the voice of calm wisdom to beleaguered single parents everywhere, but right now she didn’t have a clue how to deal with her own daughter.

Caroline threw her arms around herself. “Just for the record, Ms. Eldon is a head case. If you want to shrink someone, pick on her.”

“Your biology teacher? Is she hard to talk to when you need help in class? I met her at parent-teacher conferences. She seemed cool and aloof, but very knowledgeable.”

“Just your type, then.” Caroline waved a dismissive hand. “I’m sure you two hit it off.”

If her daughter had spewed curses at her, the pain would have been more bearable. Is that how Caroline saw her mother? Detached? Distant? Laurel worked hard at being reasonable...approachable, especially with her daughter.