Leona Karr - Shadow Mountain

Nobody gave Wes Wainwright orders.

He’d grown up with the conviction that people should and would do his bidding.

Caroline held out the reins of the mare. “You ride and I’ll walk.” Her steady unwavering look said she wasn’t up for negotiation. Wes decided to let her think he was amiable to her dictates – for now.

Caroline led the way, walking beside Danny’s horse. Wes followed, riding close enough to handle the unexpected if Danny suddenly lost control of the animal.

The Rocky Mountains were a treacherous playground. Unexpected threats could send the most placid horse into a frenzy without warning.

Wes felt a swell of protectiveness and suddenly realised this woman and her son had engaged his emotions on a level that was both foolhardy and dangerous.

People he deeply cared about always seemed to end up dead.

To my husband, Michael, whose love and laughter inspire and enrich my life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A native of Colorado, Leona (Lee) Karr is the author of nearly forty books. Her favourite genres are romantic suspense and inspirational romance. Graduating from the University of Colorado with a BA and the University of Northern Colorado with an MA degree, she taught as a reading specialist until her first book was published in 1980. She has been on the bestseller list and nominated by Romantic Times BOOKreviews for Best Romantic Saga and Best Gothic Author. She has been honoured as a Rocky Mountain Fiction Writer of the Year, and received a Colorado Romance Writer of the Year award. Her books have been reprinted in more than a dozen foreign countries. She is a presenter at numerous writing conferences and has taught university courses in creative writing.

LEONA KARR

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

The clock in the hall had already struck midnight when Caroline Fairchild pushed back from her home computer. Muttering an unladylike expletive, she rubbed the tense muscles in her neck. The discouraging financial printout told her what she already knew. Her newly launched decorating business in Denver was in the red. If she didn’t get at least one lucrative contract this fall, she’d lose the investment of her late husband’s life insurance and probably the house, too.

It wasn’t just her future that was at stake. There was Danny, her six-year-old son. Growing up without his father was hard enough. She wanted him to have a full and happy life. Being a single parent presented more challenges than she had ever imagined.

Wearily, she turned out the lights on the lower floor and went upstairs to Danny’s bedroom.

“I’ll figure something out,” she whispered as she bent over the child’s bed and brushed back his light-brown hair from his forehead. He was a beautiful child and her heart swelled with the miracle that he was hers. Since she had no other family, she’d wanted to be a mother more than anything in the world. Now that she had lost her husband, having this darling little boy to raise made every day a special blessing.

Quietly, she crossed the hall to her bedroom and left the door open in case Danny called to her. Even though her husband, Thomas, had been dead two years, being alone at night was still the hardest part of being a widow. She’d given up wearing the sexy nightgowns and settled for old-fashioned flannel pajamas. Sometimes when she looked in the mirror, she wondered where her youth had gone. Even though she’d kept herself physically fit and her hair was still a rich dark brown and her blue eyes were 20/20, she thought she looked older than her thirty-two years.

She lay awake for a long time, her thoughts heavy with unanswered questions and decisions to be made. The tiny bedside clock had passed two o’clock before her tense body began to relax. She was finally on the edge of sleep when suddenly her nostrils quivered with the stench of burning wood. She sat up and clasped a hand over her nose and mouth.

Smoke!

She leaped from the bed and bounded into the hall. Clouds of black smoke rolled up the stairway. Somewhere on the floor below was a terrifying brightness and the sound of crackling flames.

“Danny!” Shouting, she ran into his room and grabbed him up from the bed. Half-asleep, he started to fight her. “No, honey no, the house is on fire! We have to get out.”

He was a load to carry as she fled back into the hall, holding him tightly against her chest. They had to get out of the house. Frightened, Danny began to cough and struggle in her arms.

The only exits from the house were on the ground floor. As she froze at the top of the stairs, she could see tongues of red flames already licking at the stairs and banister. In moments the entire staircase would be in flames. Black smoke swirled around them.

“I can’t see,” Danny wailed.

As she wavered at the top of the stairs, the heat rose up to meet her, instantly parching her mouth and throat with a burning dryness. Her eyes were watering and the biting smell of scorched wood and cloth seared her nostrils.

A dancing brightness at the bottom of the stairway warned her that the entire first floor might already be a flaming furnace. Danny was coughing and crying as she plunged down the stairs through the swirling, thick haze.

Panic drove her through an encroaching ribbon of fire spreading along the bottom step. She leaped over it, almost losing her balance as she fled down the smoke-filled hall.

Fiery flames were devouring the dining-room curtains and spreading along the carpet runner leading to the front room. Danny bolted out of her arms with the panicked strength of a terrified six-year-old. He disappeared in the direction of the front foyer just as a thunderous crash vibrated through the depths of the house.

“Danny!” she screeched with parched lips and a burning throat as she ran after him. He was already at the locked front door, pounding on it and whimpering when she reached him. Her eyes were watering so badly, she couldn’t see the dead bolt. As her hands played blindly on the door seeking it, her fingers touched a hinge. She was on the wrong side of the door!

Danny had his face buried against her nightgown when she finally found the lock. Frantically, she turned it with one hand and jerked open the door with the other.

They bounded outside.

Coughing and gasping, they stumbled across the porch and down the front steps. The sound of falling timbers and radiating heat from leaping flames followed them across the yard.

Grabbing Danny’s hand, she croaked, “Run.”

At two o’clock in the morning all was quiet in the modest neighborhood in North Denver. The street was empty of people and cars. Only a few porch lights were on as they bolted across the cul-de-sac to the house of Betty and Jim McClure, her closest neighbors and longtime friends.

They stumbled up the steps and Caroline’s frantic ringing of the doorbell and pounding brought Jim, disheveled and sleepy-eyed, to the door.

His eyes widened when he saw them. “Caroline! What on earth? What’s happened?”

“Call 9-1-1! Fire. My house!”

When Jim looked across the street and saw the flames leaping out of the windows and roof, he spun on his bare feet and ran for the phone.

“What is it?” Betty called from the top of the stairs and hurried down.

Caroline tried to answer but a spasm of coughing choked her words.

“Our house is on fire,” Danny whimpered.

ALL NIGHT crews from two fire trucks fought to control the flames. Caroline knew she never would forget the sound of the wailing sirens and the sight of firemen mobilizing to fight a dangerous enemy.

By sunup, their victory was small.

A stench of smoke, ashes and foul water floated through the whole neighborhood. The entire house had been gutted. The back was leveled. Most of the roof on the remainder had collapsed and water damage was everywhere.