Suzanne Mcminn - A Hero's Redemption

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Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Epilogue

Haven, West Virginia

Lightning cracked, flaring into the dark vehicle, the heavy June night outside suddenly pressing down on the prison transport van, reaching inside, tightening the air. Still dressed in the suit he’d worn to the sentencing, Dane McGuire forgot that his wrists were bound by handcuffs linked to a metal restraining belt at his waist and tried to reach up, touch his face, feel the strange humming pressure filling his head.

In the matter of the State vs. Dane McGuire in the murder of Calla Jones, the jury finds the defendant, Dane McGuire, guilty.

The prison transport van took a sharp mountain turn in the night, bouncing Dane—the sole occupant in the back—against the side of the vehicle. The chain connecting the shackles at his ankles rattled in the dark of the rear holding cage.

Guilty, guilty, guilty.

If only he hadn’t gone to Calla Jones’s farm. If only he’d arrived a few hours earlier, or later, or—

Lightning shot down again, and the humming turned into a stinging in his skin, all over. The van jerked from side to side and he hit the hard wall of the vehicle as he was thrown, first to one side, then the other. For a split second, he thought he was okay, he was in one piece, maybe just a pothole, then the back end of the van came up, tossing him like a ball, and the vehicle plowed end over end. Time suspended in some awful slow motion, turning, just turning, his body flying out of the seat belt. The last thing he knew was impact and his head striking something hard.

He opened his eyes to darkness, blinking in agonized waves of nausea. Cold. He was so cold. Freezing cold. He battled to move by instinct, to lift himself up, every motion dazed, painful.

The mountain road stretched out before him, empty but for a shimmering wave of some thick vapor that disappeared before his eyes, rushing away in an eerie whoosh that left nothing but silence. Dane’s heartbeat filled the void, heavy, stumbling.

The van, the guards—

There was nothing but eerie stillness. Stillness and…something soft and frozen falling on his face. He looked down, confused, seeing the snowy ditch where he’d fallen, seeing the shackles on his wrists and ankles…gone.

He felt himself fall back, hit the ditch again, and he wondered if he was already dead.

She’d never touched a dead body before and she didn’t want to start now.

Chuck was practically beside himself, the yellow Lab dancing back and forth, barking madly. Do something, he was telling her. Look what I found for you. She jerked into action, half ran, half slid into the ditch, instinct overcoming shock. Ice blew sideways, stinging her cheeks.

She dropped to her knees where the stranger lay, still, utterly still. He wore dark slacks and a white button-down shirt and tie, no suit jacket or overcoat, ridiculous for this weather, and she forced herself to reach out, turn him over. Oh God. That was blood at the dark hairline of his temple. Frozen blood.

His lips were almost white in the scant light of the early storm-dark. The West Virginia mountains were in for the blizzard of all blizzards if forecasters were right, and she didn’t doubt it, not after the way temps had dropped sharply from noon on. She hoped she wouldn’t have to cancel the “choose-and-cut” for this weekend, the last for this year’s Haven Christmas Tree Farm season. She needed a good season, and the weather wasn’t helping. It hadn’t been a good year altogether, starting with an earthquake last spring that had damaged her house and barn, costing her some serious money in repairs. Now she’d lost both her employees in the peak of her season and if that wasn’t enough, her past was rearing its ugly head again. Now this.

A sick lump filled her throat. She tore off a glove, pushed back her hood, reached for the man’s neck to find an artery, laid her cheek over his face—was he breathing? She couldn’t feel a pulse, but her fingers were almost instantly numb. Wind blew. God, she couldn’t tell.

Chuck barked again, running circles around the man’s body. She lifted her head. Icy pellets pecked her face. No, that was snow now. And it was thickening quickly, a world of white suddenly spinning around her. She shivered even inside her thick parka, turning her gaze back to the man. There was ice on his lips, on his eyebrows, his hair. And that blood, frozen on his brow. What had happened to him? Had he fallen, or been attacked? And how the hell had he ended up here? It was miles down the mountain to town.

The man’s eyes opened and she screamed. Screamed and fell back, on her ass, hard. Chuck went nuts, barking and jumping.

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” She scrambled back to the man’s side. “You’re alive.” He was alive. Her heart slammed into her throat and it was all she could think for a full second, then—“Are you okay?” No, dammit, stupid question. He was so not okay, that was obvious. Who the hell was he and how had he gotten here were better questions, and suddenly she was scared of him. He was a stranger, a bloody stranger in a ditch on the side of the road in front of her property.

No. His mouth formed the word but he couldn’t get it out, or she couldn’t hear it over the hammering of her own pulse. No, he wasn’t okay, he was telling her, and God, he was gray, frozen. She couldn’t leave him here. She’d never turned her back on anything or anyone hurt, but—

“Can you get up? Can you walk?”

His eyes held her, glassy, bright in his ashen face. Blue, she thought, but she couldn’t be sure and the light was going fast. He just kept staring at her, and she couldn’t have looked away if she’d tried. He didn’t try to say anything else. He had to be hypothermic, and he was hurt—And there was no place to take him but the house, where she lived alone, except for Chuck. Alone, just how she liked it.

And now—She’d call for help. Maybe someone could still get up the mountain.

Maybe.

She was lying to herself. She’d be lucky if the phones even worked now, and she knew damn well the roads from Haven would be impassable at this point. In the rural mountains outside Haven, cell phone coverage was nonexistent.

“Come on,” she shouted, the wind whipping at her words. She wasn’t sure he could hear her, or understand her. She reached for his shoulders, pulling him to a sitting position. He felt heavy, muscular, but utterly helpless, and that should have made her feel better. He was weak—what could he do to her? Nothing. But his condition just scared her more.

He could still die.

She grabbed his arm now. “Help me, dammit!” she yelled at him. Something inside him seemed to snap to understanding. He made it to his feet then instantly buckled at the knees. If he lost consciousness again—She grabbed him around the waist, holding him up. “You’ve got to walk. Please! I can’t do this alone!”