Cassie Miles - Mysterious Vows

To Rick, the love I will never regret

Jason Wakefield Walker the Third—Wounded in a fight for independence, he enters a world of espionage and marries a mail-order bride.

Maria Ramos Hernandez—On the run from enemies too numerous to count, she hides out as a mail-order bride.

Juana Sabatta—The author of Truth, a fiery denouncement of international politics.

Chip Harrington—Though he runs a small-town newspaper, his beat is worldwide.

Edward Elliot—A state senator from Maine who aspires to higher politics.

Wally Babcock—The small-town reverend makes connections all over the globe.

Carrie Kelly—When she translates the works of Juana Sabatta, she is drawn into a web of espionage.

Alice Walker—After she organizes her brother, she is ready to take on the world.

Harvey Epsom—The publisher who dares to insult the establishment.

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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

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Helpless. Unable to move. Her body felt limp. Arms and legs, heavy as sandbags. Her eyelids opened, barely a slit. Beneath her cheek she felt the smooth tile that lined the edge of the swimming pool.

The men were still here. Though she was unable to distinguish words or sentences, she heard their voices. Their harsh whispers echoed in the silent summer night.

The gaunt man stood over her. The pointed toe of his boot dug into her rib cage and pain radiated through her body in dull waves. She couldn’t escape from him...could not move.

He nudged her again with his toe. Stop it, she wanted to cry. Leave me alone! But her voice was paralyzed.

He shoved at her body. Did he still have the knife? Did his dirty fingers still hold the syringe?

His hands were on her shoulder. The stench of him disgusted her. He rolled her onto her back and her long black hair tangled across her face. She was on her back at the very edge of the pool. If he pushed her into the water, what could she do? She was too weak to swim. She struggled to move, to fight back, but her muscles would not respond. Helpless! Unable to speak, unable to move. Her vision blurred. She saw her own right hand, weighted by an unfamiliar gold ring, reaching toward safety, trying to grasp...

Then she was falling. Down through the cold, she plummeted. Dead weight. The water consumed her as she fell, soaked her Levi’s and her T-shirt. She lost all sense of direction. Which was up, which way was down? The pool was dark, so dark. And cold. Shock trembled through her.

Can’t breathe. Frantically she flung out with her arms. Had they even moved? My God, was she going to die? A scream boiled up in her throat. No! If she opened her mouth, the water would pour down her throat to her lungs. Suffocating.

The cold roused panic, and she kicked. Her toe scraped the concrete bottom of the pool. Push, dammit, push off.

Her legs curled beneath her, and she thrust with all her might. She ascended, but so slowly. Her lungs ached. Her heart pulsed arrhythmically.

In a gush of relief, she broke the surface. Blessed oxygen flowed into her mouth. A breath, she gasped just one breath, before she was again exhausted.

One breath would be enough. One breath at a time, she would survive.

The liquid cold splashed around her in weak ripples, freezing her arms and legs until she floated motionless in the gelid darkness. With great effort, she turned her head to the side and sucked down a mouthful of air. Then another. Each breath was a desperate struggle.

Though she fought the exhausting paralysis, the cold penetrated to the marrow of her bones. And she felt death approaching. Muerte. Death. Softly, gently, the angel of death glided toward her, dancing on the shimmering blue water, coming for her.

It would be easy to give up. To accept death.

No!

Her body felt heavy as stone, yet she did not sink to the bottom of the pool. Though weak, she was still breathing. It was not her time to die. There were important tasks. Clinging to that hope, she kicked and her legs responded. Her head jerked back, and she began a slow and clumsy dog paddle.

The night was utterly silent.

The men were gone.

In dim moonlight she saw the edge of the pool and the metal ladder, less than five feet away. Beyond that was the chain-link fence and the locked gate that the men had broken.

Only five feet to the ladder. She forced her arms and legs, weighted by clothing, to stroke through the thick, dark liquid. Farther than a marathon. Impossibly far...but her hand grasped the ladder. Her fingers were weak, unable to hold. If she sank again, she would never find the strength to hold on. A sob racked her body. She couldn’t give up. Not yet. She pulled herself up. Every muscle in her body strained.

Night air blasted her face. Shivering, she lurched toward safety, dragging her body halfway out of the pool. Her legs were leaden. She could not feel her feet. Fighting desperately, she clawed her way to safety. Her teeth chattered, and she tasted blood in her mouth.

But she’d made it. She was alive. Still breathing.

She looked back at the mirrored surface that should have been her tomb. And she saw...herself.

Her body was still in the water. She was floating facedown with her long black hair spread around her head like inky tentacles weighing her down.

How could that be? She looked down at her legs, encased in wet Levi’s. Her numb fingers plucked at her clammy T-shirt and twined in the red scarf that encircled her neck like seaweed.

Her hand rose in front of her eyes and she pointed toward the center of the swimming pool. She was there.

Was she dead?

Her mind went blank. Darkness overwhelmed her.

The June sunlight sparkled on the waters of the marina near Boothbay Harbor. The weather was idyllic, as temperate as it gets on the coast of Maine, and Jason Wakefield Walker turned his face upward to catch the warmth. The sun hovered directly overhead, above the masthead of his twenty-five-foot yacht, Elena. The masthead weather vane indicated a light wind from the north. It was noon. He had been waiting since seven o’clock this morning.

His source had left no communications since yesterday. Therefore he assumed there had been no change in plan. His assignment was to wait, however impatiently, for the arrival of Maria Ramos Hernandez.

He sat in the cockpit of the Elena and stretched his long legs in front of him. The sun’s heat penetrated his khaki slacks and eased the constant ache in his injured left leg. It felt good, but Jason was not yet ready to gracefully accept small pleasures. He’d lost too much. Silently he cursed the fate that had broken his body and reduced him to this position.

He was nothing more than a messenger boy. Waiting and sitting when there was so much more to be done.

“Jason!” His older sister, Alice, called to him as she marched surefooted along the marina walkway and stopped at the Elena ‘s slip. Hands on hips, she glared at him. “What are you doing? Just sitting here?”

“Thinking.”

“Wasting your time away,” she accused.