Harlequin Love Inspired Suspense March 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 by Dana Mentink (good fiction books to read .txt) 📕

small gun he’d bought her as an engagement gift. Her uncle—ex-uncle, she corrected herself again—owned the outdoor supply store and had instructed the manager to give Henry a deal on it. She wasn’t legally allowed to carry it on the river, though, so she hadn’t had it on her person since gun safety class. She’d never felt a need for it before now. She pulled the gun out, checked the safety and moved to peek outside her door.

No one was in the hallway—likely because Bobby had been right. The remaining employees had been poached. She fought against the way her body wanted to cave inward, ashamed at failing her aunt, and raised her head purposefully. She’d tried her best to save the rafting company. That was going to have to be good enough.

She ran out of the lodge and across the space to the back door of the office, looking over her shoulder as she went. Once inside the office, she breathed a sigh of relief. The cell phone was charged and ready. She set the gun down on the counter, within arm’s reach, and dialed the number she’d been dreading.

With each ring, she saw herself as a fifteen-year-old showing up at the doorstep of a woman who didn’t know the two children had existed. And after crying together, each with conflicted emotions, Linda had never threatened to send them into the social system. If Nora had been in her shoes, would she have done the same?

“Hello? Nora?” Her aunt’s voice was accompanied by soft music in the background.

She could feel the emotion building at the base of her throat, the temptation to tell her aunt that everything would be fine warring with what she should say. She just needed to spit it out. “I’m afraid the business is not going to make a profit this year.”

Once she began, Nora made sure she took the least amount of breaths possible. If Aunt Linda interrupted to ask questions, she might not get it all out. She started with Dexter’s murder, and the connection to Tommy’s murder, and ended with Maya’s confession.

“So, all that to say you need to stay put for now for your safety, Aunt Linda, but once the case is wrapped up, you need to come back. I will no longer be managing the Sauvage Run.” Nora blew out a breath.

The music in the background clicked off and her aunt exhaled. “Wow. Well, I guess first I need to know if you’ll no longer be manager because of the murd—”

“No. Dexter’s death was only the catalyst to make me realize I’ve been waiting around for something that won’t happen.”

“Are we talking about Henry or Maya?”

Maybe both, Nora realized with a jolt. “I’m going to teach,” she said, deftly sidestepping the question. “And, if the river ever gets safe enough to be open for visitors, offer my river guide services to the Bureau of Land Management during the summers.”

“That’s what you’ve always wanted to do, isn’t it? Bobby tried to tell me, but I thought, if it was true, you’d have told me by now. Maybe I didn’t want to see the truth because I had a lot to think over.” She sighed. “And this all started with Dexter? I’m a little surprised. By your description, he really doesn’t sound like the type of person we usually hire.”

Nora reared back. “You wanted me to hire him.”

“Me? No. I usually have Lizzie go through the applications first and give you her recommendations before interviewing.”

Nora opened the frustrating filing cabinet. “No. You specifically wrote a note on the application.” She flipped through the files trying to find the copy the police had made before taking the original. A file she’d never seen before flopped open, full of photographs. Nora hesitated, pulling one out. Her aunt and Frank, standing side by side, much in the same pose of Nora’s photo with Henry. Except, she didn’t see the same genuine happiness on their faces. Something else about the photograph bothered her, but she couldn’t pinpoint it…

She dropped the photograph back into the file and flipped forward. “It was on a paper application, which is unusual for us. I didn’t even know we had paper forms anymore.”

“Oh! That one.” Her aunt grew quiet for so long, Nora began to wonder if she’d lost the connection. “Well, I’m not proud of it,” Linda finally said, “but I asked you to hire him out of spite.”

“What?” Nora felt the twinge of a headache at the temples developing, perhaps due to her intense frowning.

“It was the last time I saw Frank, just after we’d signed divorce papers. He was trying to steal my employees again. We had words about it, but when I left, I took one of the applications on top of his pile when he wasn’t looking. I… I’m sorry, Nora. It was a vengeful impulse. If he was going to take our employees, I was going to get one of his. I really wasn’t thinking straight. It was actually the last straw for me. I knew I needed to get away. I couldn’t even look at Lizzie, either.”

“Lizzie? Why?”

“I…I didn’t have any proof and didn’t really trust my judgment at the time, but I suspected Lizzie of being one of the women Frank was having an affair with.”

Nora’s world spun on a dime and she couldn’t focus on the rest of what her aunt was saying. Frank had moved from being a ranch hand and handyman to starting his own rafting business just after Tommy died. Linda and Frank hadn’t started dating until a few years later, after Frank’s rafting company had been established.

Frank had wined and dined her aunt right up until they’d married. Everyone assumed his money had come from good investments into the town and the surrounding ranches. His was the type of rags-to-riches story everyone loved. He’d worked two jobs at minimum ever since high school, as he’d tell anyone who’d listen. His rafting company instantly did better than Linda’s, but