Tara Quinn - My Sister, Myself

“She’s—” Tory was having trouble breathing.

Taking the younger woman’s trembling hands, Phyllis led her to the couch. She responded to Tory’s desperation, and her own emotions began to shut down, preparing her for the bad news she sensed was coming.

“Bruce…” Tory tried again.

“He found you,” Phyllis said, trying to keep her panic at bay. “He’s got Christine.” Tory’s ex-husband was the reason Christine had accepted the job in Shelter Valley—to get Tory as far away from the man as she could.

Tory shook her head. “He…killed…her…” The last word trailed off into a tormented whisper. “He caught up with us on the New Mexico border.”

“What happened?” Phyllis gasped.

“When Christine wouldn’t pull over, Bruce started bumping the side of the car, trying to force us to stop.” Head down, she played with her fingers. “I don’t remember much else. When I came to in the hospital, they told me there’d been a one-car accident—that we’d lost control and driven over a cliff—and that my s-s-sister was dead.”

“I’m so sorry…”

Dear Reader,

Welcome back to Shelter Valley! Or, if you’re visiting for the first time, all of us who’ve been here before wish you a warm Shelter Valley welcome. You’ll find that just about everything here is warm—the welcome, the people, the weather…

On this particular visit to Shelter Valley, you’re going to meet Tory Evans. She’s only twenty-six but circumstances, experience and a sharp intelligence make her more aware of some things than she’d like to be. You’ll get to know Tory from the very beginning of this story—but only you and one other person in Shelter Valley know that she’s Tory Evans; everyone else believes she’s her older sister, Christine. Tory is lonely, but because she can’t tell anyone who she really is, making friends is almost impossible. That’s where you come in. I hope you’ll be moved by Tory and that she’ll find a friend in you—an advocate—to see her through the battle for her freedom.

I think we all fight Tory’s battle in one guise or another. Sometimes we’re faced with a wrong that seems right—a decision that looks right but which, on further reflection, we recognize is wrong. And we’re all forced, at some time or other, to confront who we really are, the people life and circumstances have made us—and the possibilities of who we might become…. And ironically, the part that often takes the most courage is being able to see the value that already exists within ourselves.

Luckily, Tory is making her search in Shelter Valley, where life’s most fundamental truths still form the basis of people’s decisions and relationships. In that sense, my home is a mini-Shelter Valley and I find, along with Tory, that knowing what’s important, keeping the heart at the heart of the matter, can and does lead to happiness.

So, welcome to Shelter Valley. Travel the road to happiness!

Tara Taylor Quinn

P.S. I love to hear from readers. You can reach me at: P.O. Box 15065, Scottsdale, AZ 85267-5065 or check out my website at http://members.home.net/ttquinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Patty

I pray that you will never run out of answers—or the willingness to share them with me.

Thank you for opening up my world, and filling my heart.

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

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

SHE WAS ALMOST there.

Shelter Valley, once a two-day drive away, was now just two miles ahead. How had more than thirty hours passed without her being aware? What had she driven by along the way?

Was she going to take the exit? Or wasn’t she?

How could she possibly make a decision when she wasn’t ready?

If Christine didn’t show up to take this job, she’d lose it.

Another green sign whizzed by the passenger window of Tory’s new Ford Mustang. Shelter Valley, 1 mile.

Christine. Tears flowed from Tory’s eyes, as they’d been doing for most of the trip, trailing almost unnoticed down her face. Christine. So beautiful. So worthy.

What do I do? How do I go on without you?

And then, to herself, How do I not?

Tory’s life had been spared. That made no sense to her. Justice had not been served.

“What do you want me to do?” she cried to an absent Christine when the silence in the car grew too overwhelming. “Bruce thinks he killed me, not you.” Pulling over to the shoulder of the road, Tory barely got her car into park before the sobs broke loose.

Her beloved older sister had only been dead a week.

Tory was all alone. Completely and totally alone for the first time in her godawful life. And she’d thought, after spending two years fleeing a maniacal ex-husband, that it couldn’t get any worse.

Her tearstained face turned toward the sky, she tried, through blurry eyes, to find some guidance from above. Was Christine up there in all that blueness somewhere? Watching over her, guiding her?

There were no answers from up there. But straight ahead was another green sign with fluorescent white lighting. Shelter Valley, this exit.

Twenty-six-year-old Tory Evans had been searching for shelter her entire life. But she’d never found it. Was this time going to be any different?

As long as Bruce thought her dead, she’d be safe from him.

Coming from old New England money, he had widespread influence. His tentacles were everywhere. They’d infiltrated every city, every small town, every hut she’d ever inhabited while trying to evade him. Bruce Taylor had never been denied. His mother, having found him perfect in every way, had refused to allow any kind of discipline in his life—still refused to see that her grown son was less than exemplary, making excuses for him at every infraction. And his father, a shipping magnate, had assuaged the guilt of his neglect with everything money could buy. He’d even bought off someone in the legal system the one time Tory had gone to the law for help regarding Bruce’s physical abuse. Somehow the tables had been turned on her, the innuendoes so twisted that Tory had known, even before she’d faced the judge, that she was going to lose.

She would never have gotten her divorce if she’d gone about it the normal way—filing, having him served. In her desperation, she’d come up with a pretty clever plan: coaxing Bruce to accompany her on a Tiajuana get-away and then, in the middle of his three-day drunk, taking him to the local courthouse for a quickie divorce. He’d demanded the divorce be nullified. She wouldn’t agree to it, but he still hadn’t accepted her no.

At thirty, Bruce didn’t know the meaning of the word no. He took what he wanted, accepted it as his due. And he wanted Tory. Was obsessed with keeping possession of his ex-wife. The only way to be safe from him was to be dead. To stay dead. And to let Christine live.

It was never going to work.

BEN SANDERS approached the Shelter Valley exit with trepidation. Maybe he shouldn’t have come. There were other places to get a good education. Other places to start over. What if the town was nothing more than a few old buildings, some houses and a street or two? What if it wasn’t home?

He’d heard about Shelter Valley his whole life, heard it described as a town where people cared, where they looked out for one another. A place where family mattered. He hoped it was true.