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

I have to talk to you. Urgent.

He should have told Laney. No secrets, they’d agreed. Nothing should cloud the absolute joy of their unlikely marriage, not the twelve-year age difference, not the infertility she could still not accept, not the hard work of running his family’s hotel in the middle of the most hostile environment in the world. Nothing could ever have separated them, short of murder. As the situation snowballed, the only way to save her from the hatred and stain of being married to the most reviled man in Furnace Falls was a divorce. His jailhouse beating courtesy of Kenny had only confirmed that. The divorce would give her a future and keep her safe. It was her one chance, and it nearly killed him to contact the lawyer.

Yet here he was, in the same disheveled clothes he’d been wearing when he’d been remanded to the county jail, jeans, a Furnace Falls Fire Department T-shirt and a pair of steel-toed boots, squinting at the entrance to the Hotsprings Hotel.

The squat wood-paneled front office faced a view of the mountains. The smell of slow-cooked brisket beckoned. Herm Devendorf would have started the big iron pot simmering that morning for the dinner service. His mouth watered.

The hotel had been his home away from home since he was eight years old and his mother passed of cancer, helping out his father, who’d later deeded him the place. His cousin Jude used to swim in the pool with him when they were kids. They’d roam the sun-soaked acres of salt flats and desert scrub and then plunge into the pool until hunger drove them out. How times changed. Now Jude was a cop who hadn’t offered a word of support when Beckett had been arrested. No surprise there. Jude’s animosity spanned into the past to that day when Beckett had blinded Dan, Jude’s best friend, in that wrestling ring.

“You can do this,” he told himself. Heart thumping, he forced his legs to carry him toward the front. The driveway led to the registration office. Nearby he saw the hotel shuttle parked in a discreet spot.

Then Laney walked out the front door, offering that bright smile that he dreamed about to a visitor on the porch. He forgot everything but the pain arcing straight to his core. Her long honey-colored hair was pulled into a high ponytail that cascaded down her shoulders over a loose-fitting T-shirt. Leggings hugged her trim calves.

Laney. His Laney. She appeared tired as she moved toward the hotel van. She’d always been petite and delicate, her wrists so small he’d marveled at how he could wrap his thumb and forefinger completely around. And the smallest feet, she could almost fit two of them into one of his big old clodhoppers.

As she opened the driver’s-side door, her scream cut the air and she stumbled back.

In spite of the searing heat, his body went cold. Had Kenny Sanderson already arrived to make good on his threats?

“Please, God,” he said, as he began to sprint. “Don’t let me be too late.”

* * *

Laney tumbled backward, shock still ripping through her. There in the front seat she could see the snake clearly, a buff-colored body with darker blotches and a wedge-shaped head. Its forked tongue sampled the air. The little rattles vibrated their warning.

If she hadn’t been paying attention, she might have sat right down on the venomous creature. She swallowed against a suddenly dry throat, frozen, staring into the gleaming eyes of the viper.

The rational side of her brain told her it was a Mojave Desert Sidewinder, and its bite, contrary to belief, was not fatal. Still, the fear seized control of her mind; she could not be bitten by this rattler, not now.

She told herself to freeze and slowly, ever so slowly, back away. It was too late. Should she try to reach out for the door or run? But the viper had a striking distance measuring a third of its body.

Those fangs…the fear…

The snake reared forward. Her scream was high and shrill as she braced for a bite. Instinct caused her to jerk up her hand to shield herself. Then, as if she were dreaming, Beckett was there. He dived into her field of vision and kicked the car door closed.

She sank to her knees, unable to still her trembling as she heard the sound of the fangs striking the inside of the van door. Her whole body shook. The snake was one thing; having Beckett show up was just as shocking.

Beckett knelt next to her and grasped her arm. “Did it bite you?”

“No. I’m fine. It just scared me, is all.” She pushed the words out.

His fingers rested on her wrist for a moment. “You’re shaking.”

She detached herself from his touch, unable to tear her gaze from him. “I’m okay.” It was a mantra she’d been repeating to herself since the day Pauline Sanderson’s body had been found on the property and all her dreams had dried up and blown away. No, not quite then. She’d still believed with all her heart that she and Beckett would be together forever, for better or worse, and she’d continued believing that right up until the divorce papers arrived. “I’m really okay,” she repeated, as if saying it aloud would make it somehow true. Shading her eyes, she stared. “What are you doing here?”

She’d heard he was being released, but she hadn’t thought he’d show up at the hotel. She got to her feet so quickly she swayed. Beckett steadied her, but she had to bend over until the dizziness subsided. Emotions rampaged through her from relief that he was free, disbelief that he’d chosen to return, but eclipsing all was the tearing sadness in her heart in the place where love used to be.

Beckett Duke, the man she thought would be her soul mate forever, was now just a stranger like all the rest of the people who paraded on and off