Paula Graves - The Legend of Smuggler's Cave

But could the man she’d married, the man she’d loved since she was fifteen years old, have gotten involved in the kind of violence and murder Wayne Cortland and his crew of drug dealers, gunrunners and anarchists had spread through the hills for the past couple of years?

The last few years of their marriage had left Briar with few illusions about her childhood sweetheart. He was a better liar than she’d ever credited him to be, and, sadly, she suspected Dalton was probably right about the affair. There’d been other infidelities, as well.

But crossing the line into extortion and murder? Could she really picture Johnny doing such a thing?

She didn’t want to believe it. But something had driven a couple of ruthless intruders to her home for two nights in a row.

“I don’t know,” she answered finally. “But I mean to find out.”

* * *

“SO, WHY ARE you here, anyway?”

Dalton turned his gaze from the head-to-head huddle between Briar Blackwood and Walker Nix, meeting Dana Massey’s wary gaze. He shrugged. “Just passing by.”

“Convenient timing,” she murmured.

“Do you have something you want to say to me? Spit it out.”

Dana’s lips pressed to a tight line. “I know you hate me right now.”

“Hate is far too loaded a word,” he said quietly. “I don’t hate you. I don’t know you well enough to feel anything that strong for you.”

“And you don’t want to.”

He shrugged. “Biology isn’t destiny.”

“Clearly.” She pinned him with a long, cool look and moved away.

With a sigh, Dalton looked back at the two cops locked in low conversation on the sofa. From what little he’d overheard of their discussion, Nix seemed to be asking Briar most of the same questions he’d asked Dalton. He hoped Briar was able to fill in more blanks for the detective than he had.

The noise of Briar’s Jeep passing close by had jarred him from a doze, but it had taken him several seconds more to drag himself to full consciousness. Several seconds more to see the hulking shadows slinking into the clearing from the woods nearby, and more seconds still to realize that he was watching an ambush unfold. He’d looked away for several seconds to retrieve the rifle and set himself up to fire a warning shot.

In truth, he’d seen little of what had gone on between Briar and her assailants. The one thing he remembered, the one element of the attack that had stuck in his head after the rest had faded into chaos, was how desperately she’d held on to her little boy when one of the attackers had tried to wrest him away.

Clearly, Logan meant everything to her.

The boy was asleep on the sofa beside Briar, curled up under a crocheted throw. Dana had offered to take him to his bed, but Briar hadn’t wanted to let him out of her sight. Dalton wondered how she would handle it the next evening when she had to leave him with someone so she could work her patrol shift.

He could solve that problem for her, he realized, the solution weaving itself into place in his sleep-deprived mind. Staying here at this cabin, in the middle of nowhere, only made her and her son more vulnerable to further attacks. Attempts, he corrected himself silently. Tonight hadn’t been an attack so much as an attempt to steal Logan away from her.

The question was, why?

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