Tara Quinn - Nothing Sacred

Martha sank to the floor, clutching the phone. “What?”

“An idea or two that I’m fairly certain warrant a follow-up.”

Martha held the phone tighter. “You’ve talked them over with the sheriff?”

“No, I haven’t.” She noticed the pastor’s hesitation. “That’s the thing,” he continued, sounding almost unsure of himself—which wasn’t something she’d ever noticed in him before. “These suspicions. I’d rather not tell Greg about them.”

“Okay.”

“And I hope you’ll agree not to mention this conversation to anyone yet.”

Right now she’d agree to just about anything to get some answers. To catch the bastard who’d hurt her daughter. “I’ll agree on one condition—that you let me help.”

“I can’t do that.”

She stared at the floor. “Why not?”

“I…”

A preacher with secrets. At the moment she didn’t care. “That’s my deal, Pastor,” she said with finality.

Dear Reader,

We’re back in Shelter Valley. It’s so great to return to the town and the people I’ve grown to love. And it’s even better to have you here with us.

If this is your first time in Shelter Valley, welcome! You’re going to feel right at home.

Finally we get to walk hand in hand with Martha Moore. So many of you have written to say how much you care about her and that you’d like to spend more time with her. I, too, needed to hear what she’s got to say. I hope you’ll agree that it was worth the wait.

And we meet David Marks, a man with a mission and a past, with strong teachings and dark secrets. And I think you’ll find he’s a man you want to know.

What happens in Shelter Valley this time shocked even me. It’s not the story I originally set out to tell. I’m asking with all sincerity that, even if you’re as shocked as I was, you won’t give up on this story. I might take you places that make you uncomfortable, but I promise to bring you back, satisfied and with a sense of happiness.

Preliminary reviews of Nothing Sacred have been very positive. I’m eager to hear what you think. You can reach me by mail at P.O. Box 15065, Scottsdale, AZ 86226 or by e-mail at ttquinn@tarataylorquinn.com. And I hope you’ll visit my Web site—www.tarataylorquinn.com.

Wishing you perfect moments…

Tara Taylor Quinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To the “cool girls.”

(Mary Strand, Lynn Kerstan, Carol Prescott and Pat Potter)

Your friendship and support helped more than you know…

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

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

“LOVE IS A REMARKABLE thing….” The man’s voice droned on and Martha Moore pulled out her notepad and pen.

Eggs.

Milk.

Cereal—for Tim.

Granola—for her and the girls.

Lunch meat.

Chips. Tim had finished up the last of them the night before while watching reruns of Upstairs, Downstairs on Masterpiece Theater.

It was a show she and his father had watched when it originally aired. They’d had sex for the first time after a particularly moving episode.

Damn Todd Moore.

“When you’re loving others, you don’t have to worry about what anyone else is thinking or doing.”

Glancing up from her list, Martha almost snorted at the new preacher.

“Because what you give will be reflected back.”

Yeah, right. Get a life. She gazed skyward—past the good-looking man standing to the left of the pulpit—rather than in front of it like his predecessor. No flashing lights or threatening noises came from above at her lack of reverence.

Just checking.

“What are you doing?” Shelley, her sixteen-year-old daughter, whispered irritably. Shelley had recently developed an attitude that Martha found challenging, to put it mildly. “Someone might see you.”

Biting back the words she wanted to say, reminding her daughter with a look that she was a fully grown adult with the right to stare up at the ceiling if she wanted to, Martha returned to her list.

Bread. She always forgot the bread. Probably because ever since her psychology-professor husband had left her for a twenty-something-year-old student she’d been a bit obsessive about her forty-one-year-old thighs.

“When you look at everything and everyone in your life through eyes of love rather than fear, you disassociate yourself from the possibility of pain, and live, instead, with the constant assurance of peace.”

Bottled water. Martha glanced again. Was this guy for real? Walking around up there in slacks and a dress shirt with a tie that was probably real Italian silk and had more colors than the checkered and striped dinnerware she’d drooled over in the Crate and Barrel catalogue that had come earlier in the week. There’d never been a preacher in Shelter Valley Community Church, or in the other churches in town, who didn’t wear the long flowing robe and sash associated with the calling, and who didn’t hide behind a pulpit when he preached.

Constant peace? Who was he kidding? Constant aches and pains, more like it.

But then, from what she’d heard, the man was thirty-eight years old and had never been married. He had no family. What did he know about loving?

Hamburger.

Dryer sheets.

Boneless chicken breasts.

Toilet paper.

“The soft kind,” Tim leaned over to whisper. He was on her other side, next to his oldest sister, Ellen. Rebecca, Martha’s fifteen-year-old daughter, was on the other side of Shelley.

“Pay attention!”

With exaggerated force, Martha pointed to the preacher. After all, her kids were the only reason she was even there.

Once, shortly after Todd had left and before she’d landed her job as production assistant at Montford University’s television station, she’d let tight finances convince her to buy bargain toilet paper. That had been the first time her son had expressed the anger that had been building since his father’s defection.

“You aren’t paying attention,” Tim whispered, more loudly than Martha would have liked. Raising this boy was certainly different from raising the three girls who’d come before him.

“She doesn’t have to, stupid, she’s the boss.” Shelley leaned across Martha to hiss at her brother. Much to Martha’s distress, Shelley’s youngest sibling was most often the target of the girl’s disdain.

“Nuh-uh,” Tim said in a low voice. “God is.”

With a roll of her eyes, accompanied by a dramatic flounce for all the congregation to see, Shelley settled back against the pew.

Martha looked straight ahead, pretending that all was well in Mooreville. And saw that the members of the entire congregation weren’t the only witnesses to their little interchange.

David Cole Marks, the new preacher at Shelter Valley Community Church, had seen the whole thing.

She held his gaze until she realized she was behaving as belligerently as Shelley in one of her more “charming” moments. Then Martha returned her attention to the paper in her lap.

Or attempted to.

The preacher’s eyes seemed to bore into her mind, interrupting her ability to focus on the list in front of her. There’d been nothing disciplinary in those eyes, nothing condescending. No rebuke.