Justine Davis - Colton Destiny

“I thought of leaving, once.”

Emma gave him a startled look. “Leaving … Paradise Ridge? Or your faith?”

“Both.”

Caleb stopped, stunned that he had said it, that he had told this stranger, this woman, this English, what he had told no one else. Ever.

“I’ve found,” Emma said, “that it’s never a good or successful idea to run away from something.”

“What did you mean, when you said I didn’t have to worry?”

“I’ve turned up a couple of possible leads. They stopped an older man driving a van with a couple of young girls in it.”

Caleb drew back sharply. “Hannah?”

“No, sorry,” Emma said quickly. “Neither girl is a match to any of ours.”

Any of ours.

She’d said it as if she truly felt it. As if the missing girls were a part of her own community.

Lovely, empathetic and smart—she was all of that.

And to him, apparently, dangerous.

Dear Reader,

One of the most popular stories in fiction is the “fish out of water.” It’s basically a tale of someone cast into a world strange to them, where they don’t have the skills to survive, or don’t have the knowledge of the culture to keep from drawing unwanted and sometimes painful attention to themselves, a world where they quite simply Don’t Belong.

This would be me and, say, computer programming. Call me clueless, but I have no idea. I’m just glad others do. Some days I wonder what life would be like without technology, what it would be like to simply unplug.

The Amish have chosen to live that life free of those electronic ties. Their world is above all peaceful, and also separate, yet it seems inevitable that now and then our world will intrude into theirs. Such is the case in this story, where the clash of worlds is cold and harsh, yet out of the collision grows an unexpected connection between two people with the odds stacked against them. Can the “fish out of water” make the changes necessary to get to her happy ending?

I hope you enjoy it.

Justine Davis

Don’t miss the next three books in

THE COLTONS OF EDEN FALLS:

Colton’s Ranch Refuge by Beth Cornelison

Colton’s Deep Cover by Elle Kennedy

Colton Showdown by Marie Ferrarella

JUSTINE DAVISlives on Puget Sound in Washington State, watching big ships and the occasional submarine go by, and sharing the neighborhood with assorted wildlife, including a pair of bald eagles, deer, a bear or two and a tailless raccoon. In the few hours when she’s not planning, plotting or writing her next book, her favorite things are photography, knitting her way through a huge yarn stash and driving her restored 1967 Corvette roadster—top down, of course.

Connect with Justine at her website, justinedavis.com, at Twitter.com/Justine_D_Davis, or on Facebook at Facebook.com/JustineDareDavis.

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“Hey, tomato-head.”

For an instant Emma Colton thought she’d somehow slipped back in time, that she was back on the ranch being rudely awakened by her annoying brother Tate, who was three years older and had teased her incessantly about her rather bright red hair.

Clutching her phone, she blinked the sleep out of her eyes, the sight of the familiar bedroom of her Cleveland apartment orienting her back into the present. Still, as she shoved her tangled hair away from her face, she felt a tiny frisson of relief that it was still the darker, richer auburn of adulthood. That made her smile, until she realized what time it was.

She yawned. “You don’t even have the excuse of a different time zone, bro. This better be good.”

“I take back tomato-head. Sleepyhead fits better,” Tate Colton said.

“It’s five in the morning. I thought I was the workaholic in the family.”

“Please. It comes with the Colton name. You’re just worst than most. Except maybe Uncle Joe.”

She laughed, humor restored. The man they’d grown up calling Uncle Joe, although he was in fact their late father’s cousin, was indeed dedicated to his work. That hadn’t prevented him from standing in for their deceased parents on occasion. Like every Colton, he took family responsibilities very seriously.

Almost as seriously as he took his job as president of the United States.

“So what is it that has you waking me up at this hour?”

“I need your help, little sister.”

Something had changed in her brother’s deep voice. The teasing note had vanished, replaced by a grim seriousness. Instantly she responded, sitting up straight, shoving aside the warmth of the covers.

“What?”

“I’ve got three missing girls.”

As a Philadelphia police detective, Tate having a case of even three missing girls sadly wasn’t shocking. Nor would that alone necessitate this early-morning call to her; if he needed FBI help on a case, he had his own contacts. Not that the name Colton wasn’t enough to get him in about any door he wanted at the Hoover Building.

“Why me?” she asked. “Not that I don’t mind giving you wise advice, even though you never take it, but—”

“They’re Amish.”

Emma went very still. “Three?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Two weeks. The usual reluctance to involve outsiders.”

She knew it too well. “How old?”

“Sixteen to nineteen.”

“Rumspringa?” Emma asked. Growing up on the family ranch in Eden Falls, Pennsylvania, the Amish and their ways had always been part of the fabric of her life. Rum springa, that time when young people are allowed to explore the outside world, then make their own decision on whether to return to the religion and simple lifestyle of the Amish, had always fascinated her as a teenager. She simply couldn’t picture why anyone would voluntarily leave behind the world of convenience and technology for such … deprivation. Yet eighty percent of them did.

Now she wasn’t quite so arrogant about her assumptions. She’d seen enough in her years as an FBI agent to understand the appeal of pulling back from the hectic, crazy—and sometimes perverted—world of today.

She realized she was tracing the intricate pattern of the quilt on her bed. An exquisitely designed and handmade Amish quilt, a traditional diamond-on-point pattern in soothing blues, that she’d brought with her from home. Her mother had purchased it from one of their neighbors, had loved it and cared for it so well it seemed almost new. It had come to her as the eldest daughter, after that horrible, shocking day in September 2001, the day that had stolen the loving, generous couple who had taken them all in, adopted them and given them a life beyond anything they ever could have hoped for—

“Emma?”

She snapped out of her reverie. “Sorry. What?”