Sandra Orchard - Perilous Waters

UNDER SUSPICION

For FBI agent Sam Steele, there’s no room for error or emotions on his latest undercover assignment. Getting close to gallery owner Jennifer Robbins while on an Alaskan cruise is the only way to catch her dealing stolen art. Out on the icy seas, Jen suddenly goes from suspect to victim when she’s targeted by a deadly enemy. And Sam’s mission goes from investigating an art crime to protecting the woman who’s begun to melt his heart. As danger looms closer, he’ll do anything to save her life—even if it costs him his own.

The mist rolling over the water obscured the view of land, kind of how Sam felt about this case.

And if he didn’t get his bearings soon, he might just run aground. The fact that almost getting killed hadn’t been enough to convince Jen to divulge her secrets made it look as though she was neck-deep in the art fraud.

On the other side of the balcony divider, he heard Jen cry out. He scaled the balcony rail, swung around the partition and hurried to her side as she wrestled a blanket in her lounge chair.

“Jen,” he whispered. “It’s just a dream. You’re okay. Wake up.”

Her eyes flew open. “Sam? What are you doing here?”

“You cried out. I thought you were in trouble.”

“I must’ve been dreaming. Every time I close my eyes I see his face, see him lunging toward me.” She shivered.

Against his better judgment, Sam folded her in his arms. He couldn’t help himself. She looked utterly stricken. He wanted to say It’s okay. You’re safe now. But he didn’t know that. In fact, he doubted it with every ounce of his being.

SANDRA ORCHARD

hails from the beautiful countryside of Niagara, Ontario, where inspiration abounds for her romantic-suspense novels—not that she runs into any bad guys, but because her imagination is free to run as wild as her Iditarod-wannabe husky. Sandra lives with her real-life hero husband, who happily provides both romantic and suspense inspiration, as long as it doesn’t involve poisons and his dinner. But her truest inspiration comes from the Lord, in the beauty of a sunrise over the field and the whisper of a breeze, in the antics of a killdeer determined to safeguard its nest and the faithfulness of the seasons. She enjoys writing stories that both keep the reader guessing and reveal God’s love and faithfulness through the lives of her characters.

Sandra loves to hear from readers and can be reached through her website, or at www.Facebook.com/SandraOrchardor c/o Love Inspired Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279.

Perilous Waters

Sandra Orchard

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.

—Isaiah 43:2

To my husband, my favorite person with whom to celebrate life’s special moments.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to my daughter Christine for patiently deciphering and typing my handwritten manuscript. Words flow much faster from a pen than a keyboard for me. Thank you to my faithful accountability partner and prayer warrior, Patti Jo Moore, for helping me through the rough spots. And thank you to my critiquers—Wenda Dottridge, Vicki McCollum, and Stacey Weeks—whose unique insights enriched the story in many ways.

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

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

EPILOGUE

DEAR READER

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

EXTRACT

ONE

“Please tell me those women aren’t why you’re really in town.”

Sam Steele shifted his gaze from the gorgeous heiresses dining in the corner of the dimly lit Seattle bistro and grinned at his brother. “They’re not why I’m in town.”

Jake’s eyes narrowed. “Right. Now tell me the truth.”

“What?” Sam brandished his most offended tone, hoping not to give away that Jake had nailed his mission. “Can’t I look at a pretty woman?” Pretty hardly did Jennifer Robbins justice. His fingers itched to tug her blond locks free of the tidy bun she’d tamed them into.

“Sure, but I thought you gave up women after that jezebel almost cost you your job.”

Sam gritted his teeth at the reminder of the woman he’d blithely dated for weeks until she’d manipulated him into being late for a rendezvous with a critical informant, who’d later turned up dead, and he’d had to prove he was merely a gullible idiot and not complicit in the plot.

Sam forced his shoulders to relax, sipped his water.

“Still a sore spot, I see.” Jake smirked. “Want me to ask the twins to join us?”

“You know them?” The question came out strangled. Investigating women his brother knew would not go over well with his family, or his boss.

“The heiresses to the Robbins Art Gallery?” Jake said in a do-I-look-like-I-was-born-yesterday tone. “Everyone in Seattle knows them.”

Sam leaned forward, holding his brother’s x-ray-vision gaze without so much as a flinch. “They’re not why I’m in town. I’m here to join our parents, you and my adorable nephew Tommy on an Alaskan cruise. Remember?”

Jake studied him a moment longer but thankfully didn’t question Sam’s sudden generosity in surprising them with the cruise tickets. He probably didn’t want to risk being asked to pitch in. Jake drew back his hands, palms out. “Okay, I believe you.”

No, he didn’t. Bringing Jake here tonight had been a mistake. He knew Sam specialized in the FBI’s art crime investigations, so he was bound to be more suspicious than ever when they “ran into” the women on the cruise next week.

Jake glanced over his shoulder again.

This time the twin sister, Cassandra, noticed and offered an inviting smile.

Terrific. Just what Sam didn’t want. Now she’d be suspicious of them on the cruise, too. Could anything else go wrong?

“Wipe that smirk off your face,” Sam ordered. “Mom would kill you if you brought home a girl like that.”

The corner of Jake’s mouth hitched higher. “So I guess that means you’d prefer the more conservative-looking one? Her name’s Jennifer, in case you’re interested.”

Yeah, but Sam didn’t let on that he already knew. He knew more about the pair than Jake could imagine. Like the fact that their parents died in a tragic car accident when the girls were seventeen. That their former guardian, longtime family friend and gallery curator, Reginald Michaels, was their estate trustee until their twenty-fifth birthdays. That, although identical twins, the two women couldn’t be more different.

Cassandra wore too much makeup, and flashy designer outfits that revealed more than they concealed. Meanwhile, Jennifer was as buttoned-up as they came in her navy suit and sensible shoes. She didn’t seem to favor the nightclub photo ops like her sister, either. In fact, in the few publicity shots Sam had managed to dig up of the reclusive twin, her gaze held a lost-soul quality that had tugged at something deep inside him.