Darlene Gardner - That Runaway Summer

“I want to be more than your friend,”

Dan said.

“But we agreed—”

“I didn’t agree to anything,” he interrupted. His gaze still held hers. “My feelings haven’t changed. I want to see where our attraction leads us.”

Denying she was attracted to him would be fruitless. Even if she hadn’t already admitted as much, he might be able to tell that little goose bumps had popped up on her skin where he’d touched her.

“We’ve already been over this,” she said, “and I’m not staying in Indigo Springs.”

Dear Reader,

Almost everyone is familiar with the fable about the boy who cried wolf. In That Runaway Summer, Jill Jacobi’s ten-year-old brother is a variation of that boy. Except when he comes to Jill with a fantastic tale others have discounted, she believes him. She even goes on the run to protect him.

Jill and her brother wind up in Indigo Springs, which may well be the end of the road for them. I know it is for me. That Runaway Summer is the final installment in my five-book series set in the scenic Pocono Mountain town that isn’t nearly as tranquil as it looks. Then again, if it were, visiting there wouldn’t be quite as interesting!

Until next time,

Darlene Gardner

P.S. Visit me on the Web at www.darlenegardner.com.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

While working as a newspaper sportswriter, Darlene Gardner realized she’d rather make up quotes than rely on an athlete to say something interesting. So she quit her job and concentrated on a fiction career that landed her at Harlequin/Silhouette Books, where she wrote for the Temptation, Duets and Intimate Moments lines before finding a home at Superromance. Please visit Darlene on the Web at www.darlenegardner.com.

To my parents Mary and Charles, because their love story has lasted through more than fifty years of marriage.

PROLOGUE

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

EPILOGUE

“HE’S HIRED a private investigator to track you down.” Her mother’s voice was breaking up, not entirely due to the scratchy reception.

A shuddering sound reverberated, so raucous it seemed to shake the cramped living room in the furnished apartment Jill Jacobi had rented six weeks ago. Her eyes flew to the door as if her pursuer would burst through any second.

But it was the air conditioner sputtering and rattling before finally blasting her face with semicool air.

“Did you hear me?” Her mother’s familiar Southern drawl came over the phone, the connection clearer now. “He said if you called me I should tell you it’s only a matter of time before his private investigator finds you.”

Jill’s knuckles showed white on the prepaid cell phone. She loosened her grip and reminded herself she could find a kernel of good in even the worst news.

He hadn’t called in the cops.

“Don’t worry, Mama,” she said, her tone deliberately light. She parted the pretty yellow-and-white-gingham curtains she’d hung to brighten up the room and studied the Columbia, South Carolina, street below. A few cars passed by, but the businesses were closed and the sidewalks empty. No one was watching the apartment building. “A private eye can’t find me.”

“How do you know that, darlin’?” Her mother sounded worried, the way she had every time Jill checked in. Then again, her mother had been anxious about something or other since her divorce from Jill’s father. That had been a full two decades ago when Jill was eight. “Private eyes are like bird dogs. You don’t know the first thing about throwing one off a scent.”

Jill was more savvy than she’d been in the last town, when she’d taken into her confidence the friendly young mother who lived next door. She’d barely escaped Savannah in time after discovering her so-called friend had tried to exchange her whereabouts for reward money.

“I know a little something about covering my tracks, Mama,” Jill said. “I withdrew all the money from my bank account, I don’t list my address anywhere and I don’t use credit. I’m even using money orders for my car payments.”

Who was she trying to reassure? Jill wondered. Her mother or herself?

“I hate that you’re living this way,” her mother said. “You were so happy in Atlanta. You were going to buy into that bike shop and you had all those nice friends.”

“I can make friends wherever I go.” Jill refused to dwell on her lost business opportunity. “I can be happy anywhere.”

She wished that were true of her mother, a nurse who had long operated under the hope that the next hospital job or the next condo or the next man held the key to her happiness.

“How can you be content when you’re always looking over your shoulder? That’s no way to live.”

“It’s the way it has to be.”

“No!” Her mother was probably shaking her head, the curly dark hair that was so like Jill’s rustling from side to side. “No, it isn’t. You can go on back to Atlanta and get your life together.”

“You know I can’t do that,” Jill said quietly.

“Why not?” her mother demanded. “He’s not a bad man.”

Her mother had a point, but that didn’t change the situation. “You know why. We’ve been over it a dozen times.”

“And for the life of me I still don’t understand why you’re so sure this is the only way.”

“Because it is the only way.” Jill cut her off before her mother launched into what had become a familiar refrain. “Thanks for telling me about the private eye.”

Silence.

“I’ll be in touch when I can.” Jill couldn’t promise anything more specific than that. “Bye, Mama. I love you.”

She rang off before her mother could say anything else, then sat down on the thin mattress of the sofa bed to assess her situation.

Even with her new ironclad policy of trusting no one, she could have unwittingly left a trail.

She hadn’t seen a way around using her own Social Security number. When she’d filled out the employment papers for her waitress job, it had been with the assumption that no one but the cops could get access to her records.

Had that been naive? Private eyes on TV were always calling in favors with their law enforcement contacts. Did it work that way in real life, too?

Her eyelids finally grew heavy and she clicked off the living-room lamp with the sunflower shade she’d picked out herself. She usually had no trouble falling asleep, but tonight she felt the mattress coils poking at her ribs. Her eyes popped open at every noise.

She must have finally slept, because the weak light of dawn filtering through the shades woke her. Her mind felt clear, the indecision that had plagued her the night before gone. She didn’t linger in the sofa bed, for she had much to do.

When she was almost ready, she opened the creaky door to the second room in the apartment and approached the sleeping form in the bed. Very gently she shook the thin shoulder not covered by the white sheet.

The soft, regular breathing sounds of sleep stopped, replaced by a drowsy sigh. A head covered by floppy brown hair turned, and huge, dark, confused eyes set in a too-lean face fastened on hers. A tide of love swept over her, nearly causing her to take a step backward.