Mel Sterling - Latimer's Law

THE PROMISE OF A NEW FUTURE AWAITS ONE COUPLE IN MEL STERLING’S STUNNING DEBUT NOVEL

Stealing a pickup truck, newly widowed Abby McMurray hopes to escape her abusive brother-in-law. But the vehicle’s owner and his attack dog halt her plans. She knows she’s made a terrible mistake. Yet there’s something tender about the stranger that makes her feel safe.

K-9 deputy Cade Latimer senses Abby isn’t a criminal. And when he sees her bruises, he knows she’s running from someone. Physically and emotionally scarred from a botched investigation, Cade has his own demons. Yet he can’t resist protecting the gentle woman who’s capturing his heart. But little do they know, Abby’s brother-in-law will go to any lengths to track Abby down….

She was touching Cade because she wanted to.

The simple purity and comfort of a human connection, a touch that didn’t involve menace or pain.

Yes, it had to be that, she told herself.

The hand was warm as it cupped the flare of her hip bone. When the hand slid across her belly and curved to her waist where she lay on her side in the bed of the pickup, she didn’t resist an automatic movement to relax into the heat of his body, curled behind her.

In the humidity, it was only moments before she felt the hollow of her spine grow damp with perspiration, but still the heat was welcome. To be close to another body, without fear, without trembling…it was both all she had wished and more than she had dared to hope for in the past year.

His hand slid, as if in sleep, gently along her rib cage. Abby wondered if he could feel the sudden slamming acceleration of her heartbeat, or the manic trembling that was turning her insides to liquid.

Dear Reader,

The idea for this book seized me one afternoon as I exited a convenience store with my purchases. Outside the store was a car, door standing wide-open, keys in the ignition and the engine running. There wasn’t a person in sight, and as I stood there wondering where the car’s owner was, I realized that just about anyone could walk up, get in that car and drive away, never to be found again.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t know a woman over age twenty-five who hasn’t had at least one moment where she imagines walking away from absolutely everything and starting a brand-new life. Because I’m a storyteller, my brain began chasing that idea. What would drive a woman to steal a car and vanish? Could I justify such a desperate act?

I’m a romantic at heart, so the dark seed of the story—a woman fleeing domestic violence—began to grow into a love story right away. The hero turned up promptly, but it takes more than a good man to save a woman—it takes a strong woman, too, willing to participate in her own salvation.

I hope you’ll join me in a suspenseful ride with Abby and Cade and Mort, the K-9 dog. Let’s tell ourselves stronger stories, as women and as humans, and begin to make a difference.

Mel Sterling

Latimer’s Law

Mel Sterling

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MEL STERLING

started writing stories in elementary school and wrote her first full-length novel in a spiral-bound notebook at age twelve. Her favorite Christmas present was a typewriter and a ream of paper. After college, she found herself programming computers and writing technical documentation. A few years ago, she rediscovered romance writing during a prolonged period of insomnia and began to indulge her passion with a vengeance. She lives with her computer geek husband in a quiet happy house full of books, animals and ideas.

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For my husband, the best and most honorable man I know. Thank you for giving me the freedom to run.

Contents

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

Extract

Chapter 1

The last straw was a single, ridiculous button.

Abby shifted the paper grocery sack in her arms as she stepped out of the convenience store. The hard plastic cap of the orange juice nudged at just the wrong place, the curve under her biceps where the bruises had never quite faded in the past few months. No bruises where they couldn’t be covered. Long practice brought skill. She moved the sack again, and a button burst from her worn chambray shirt.

She followed the button’s freewheeling path across the concrete sidewalk until it plummeted off the curb. It bounced across the white stripe of a parking space and into the black shadow beneath a pickup truck. With a sigh, Abby went around the half-open driver’s door, looking apologetically into the cab. How to explain she needed the driver to move the truck so she could find a button? She couldn’t come home from the store with that particular button missing, right at the shadowed hollow between her breasts—well. It was unthinkable. Her mind raced ahead, picturing the scenario. She could drop the button on the floor when she put the sack on the kitchen counter, as if it had come loose at that very moment. The trick could work, but only if she had the button.

The pickup was empty.

Empty.

With the keys in the ignition, and the engine running.

The shimmering brilliance of an impossible, desperate solution forced all the air out of Abby’s lungs.

Escape.

Abby didn’t glance toward the store or look around for the truck’s driver. She dumped the grocery bag into the passenger seat and hoisted herself in behind the wheel, feeling the soreness in her arms and back. She yanked the door closed and settled into the seat.

Three pedals on the floor, gearshift in neutral on the column, parking brake set.

Her heart lurched. She couldn’t let herself think beyond the physical mechanics of making the truck go. She stretched her leg to stomp the clutch, studied the gearshift a moment and worked it into reverse. Maybe six years since she’d driven a manual transmission, and months since she’d driven at all. The bank repossessed the car when she couldn’t make the payments, but before that there’d been a series of repairs that consumed the meager savings she and her husband, Gary, had scraped together. What didn’t go into the adult day care business went to the mechanic.

Fate was kind. Abby managed not to stall as the truck groaned into reverse out of the parking space. She rode the crow-hopping lurches into first gear, pulling herself close to the steering wheel because the seat was too far back, but there was no time to adjust it. Something heavy fell over in the covered bed of the truck and Abby felt a gut-punch of guilt.

She was stealing a truck.

This wasn’t in the same league as keeping the change she found in the washing machine or behind sofa cushions, or filching a five from the grocery money when she thought Marsh wouldn’t notice. This was a felony. Grand theft, auto, her rap sheet would read.

Was she out of her mind?

How fast could she get out of sight? It wouldn’t be long before the truck’s owner called the police—minutes, maybe.

How bad could jail be, in comparison with her life?

Left turn from the parking lot. Left again at the four-way stop, hands jittering on the wheel, stomach churning. Then straight on to the interstate, heading north, grinding gears as her speed increased.