BRIDAL JEOPARDY (20 page)

“Never alone again,” she whispered as she snuggled against him, marveling at what she had found with this man. Now and for the rest of her life.

* *
* * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from THE SECRET OF CHEROKEE COVE by Paula Graves.

We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Intrigue story.

You crave excitement!
Harlequin Intrigue
stories deal in serious romantic suspense, keeping you on the edge of your seat as resourceful, true-to-life women and strong, fearless men fight for survival.

Enjoy six new stories from Harlequin Intrigue every month!

Connect with us on
Harlequin.com
for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers, free online reads and much more!

Other ways to keep in touch:

Harlequin.com/newsletters
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks
Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks
HarlequinBlog.com

Chapter One

She entered the Bitterwood Community Center banquet
hall with no fanfare, a tall, fit woman in her early thirties. Fanfare or not,
Walker Nix found his gaze drawn her way, taking in her appearance with the
practiced eye of an investigator. She had sleek auburn hair worn straight and
intelligent green eyes that scanned the room with a specific goal in mind,
narrowing as she failed to find her target.

I should paint her,
he thought. She
wasn’t pretty, exactly, but he found her striking features interesting.

Conversation died to nothing as most of the partygoers turned
to look at the newcomer. Laney Hanvey, standing near the front of the hall with
her mother and sister, crossed quickly to the woman, a smile on her face. She
passed Walker, leaving him with a whiff of her light jasmine scent, and extended
her hand to the taller woman. “Dana. You look just like your photo. It’s so nice
to finally meet you!”

Chief’s sister, Nix thought, his interest tempered by the
impracticality of lusting after a woman whose brother was his boss. Her
impending arrival had been the talk of the police station from the time the
chief had mentioned to one of the file clerks that she was coming. She’d be in
town only a few days, just long enough to get to know her brother’s fiancée and
catch up on their lives, before heading back to her job in Atlanta.

Still, his gaze lingered on Dana Massey’s face as she smiled at
Laney and took her hand with what appeared to be genuine pleasure. She really
would be a fascinating subject to paint.

“I’m so happy to finally meet you, Laney!” Dana maintained eye
contact as if oblivious to the interested stares of everyone else in the room.
Nix dragged his gaze away from the meeting of the future sisters-in-law and let
it skim across the other faces in the hall. To his surprise, he saw several
looks of shock and one or two expressions of near hostility.

Odd,
he thought. As far as he knew,
this was Dana Massey’s first visit to Bitterwood. And what little he’d heard
about her wouldn’t elicit hostility from anyone but the fugitives she chased in
her job as a deputy U.S. marshal.

“Doyle is late,” Laney was saying as she and Dana passed Nix’s
position near the doorway. “I tried calling his phone, but he’s not
answering.”

“He’s probably lost it somewhere,” Dana murmured in the tone of
a sister used to her younger brother’s foibles. “He loses a phone every year, I
swear.”

They passed out of earshot, and Nix made himself look at his
watch, not Dana Massey’s shapely backside. Almost eight. The party had
officially started at seven-thirty. And while Bitterwood chief of police Doyle
Massey had a reputation for being a bit more laid-back than his predecessor,
he’d never shown a tendency toward tardiness.

Nix bumped gazes with one of his fellow detectives, small,
dark-eyed Ivy Calhoun. She was newly married, tanned golden from her recent
honeymoon in the Bahamas and looking happier than he’d ever seen her. She
flashed a smile at him, and he wandered over to where she stood with her new
husband, Sutton Calhoun.

“Nix.” Sutton greeted him with a nod. They were both Bitterwood
natives, but Sutton was a few years younger than Nix. He was better acquainted
with Nix’s younger brother, Lavelle, which might explain the wariness in
Sutton’s gaze. Lavelle had never been anything but trouble.

“Calhoun,” Nix responded in kind, saving his smile for Sutton’s
bride. “Have you heard from the chief?”

Ivy shook her head. “Laney said he told her he had to pick up
something from the office before he came to the party. But that was nearly an
hour ago.”

It didn’t take an hour to get anywhere in Bitterwood. “Have you
tried calling the station to see if he showed up?”

Ivy cocked her head slightly to one side, her gaze narrowing.
“You think something’s wrong?”

“One of your hunches?” Sutton added, not without a hint of
sarcasm.

“No,” Nix lied, even though his hunch meter was going off like
a klaxon. “Just doesn’t seem much like the chief to keep his girl waiting.”

“Is that his sister?” Ivy nodded toward Dana Massey, who stood
at the front talking to Laney and her family.

“Yes,” Nix answered. “She didn’t seem worried about her
brother’s lateness.”

Sutton took a sip from the cup of red punch he held in his
right hand. With a grimace, he set the cup on a nearby table. “Maybe she knows
stuff about him we don’t.”

“Maybe,” Nix conceded.

“But you don’t think so,” Ivy prodded.

He gave her a warning look, but her eyebrows merely rose a
notch and her dark eyes flashed with amusement.

She thought it was all great fun, having a genuine Cherokee
soothsayer on the police force, and most of the time Nix didn’t try to squelch
her enjoyment. He wasn’t a soothsayer, of course—his hunches were usually based
on deduction, not intuition. And he was only part Cherokee. The rest was pure
Appalachian Scots-Irish, as his brother Lavelle’s headstrong ways would attest.
But playing the inscrutable Indian could have its advantages, especially during
interrogations.

“I’ll give the station a call, see what’s what.” He wandered
away and pulled out his cell phone to call the main switchboard.

The night shift dispatcher, Briar Blackwood, answered,
“Bitterwood P.D.”

“Hey, Briar, it’s Nix. Have you seen the chief?”

“He called about seven to say he was heading in to pick
something up from his office, but he didn’t show. I figured he might have been
running late and decided to come by after the party.”

Nix frowned. “Yeah, that’s probably it.”

“What’s wrong?” Briar asked.

“Probably nothing.”

“Nix—”

“Later, Briar.” He hung up before she could ask any more
questions he couldn’t answer and crossed back to where Ivy and Sutton stood,
talking to a tall redhead and an even taller man with dark hair and a rangy but
powerful build.

Ivy introduced the pair as Natalie and J. D. Cooper, friends of
the chief’s. “Natalie used to work with the chief down South,” Ivy added as Nix
shook hands.

Natalie smiled, but he saw concern hovering behind her green
eyes. “Ivy says Doyle’s late. Doyle’s never late. He may come across as an
overgrown frat boy sometimes, but he’s as dependable as they come.”

Her alarm exacerbated his own growing concern. Keeping his
voice low, he told them about his call to the station. “That was an hour
ago.”

Ivy looked from Natalie’s face back to Nix’s. “Should we go
look for him?”

“I’ll do it,” Nix volunteered. “You stay here and make sure
Laney doesn’t start worrying too much until we know what’s what.”

Unspoken between them was the fact that there might well be a
damned good reason to worry. Only three months earlier, Doyle Massey had crossed
swords with a man named Merritt Cortland, whose thirst for power had led him to
kill his father and several others in a deadly explosion. He’d tried to make the
chief another of his victims, but Massey had fought him off. After Cortland had
fallen down a steep incline, landing on the rocks below, he’d been thought dead,
but by the time paramedics arrived at the base of the bluff, his body was
gone.

Was Merritt Cortland still alive? It was a question that nobody
had been able to answer to anyone’s satisfaction. Nix figured it was possible
the man’s injuries weren’t fatal as the chief had assumed. It was equally
possible that one of Cortland’s ragtag cohort of meth cookers, anarchists and
radical militia soldiers had recovered the body and was keeping it on ice in
order to keep the legend alive.

Under Merritt Cortland’s father, Wayne, the criminal operation
had flourished, and even Cortland the younger had somehow managed to keep the
enterprise afloat, despite the disparate elements involved. But if Merritt
Cortland was dead, how long would the conspiracy thrive?

Outside the community center, night had fallen deep and blue.
After a mild day, the temperature had dropped into the forties, driving Nix
deeper into his leather jacket. As he started down the concrete steps to the
sidewalk, the door opened behind him and footsteps clicked across the hard
surface.

“Are you going to look for Doyle?”

The low female voice rippled along his nerves as if she’d run a
finger down his spine. He turned to find Dana Massey standing on the steps
behind him, her intelligent eyes full of stubborn intent.

Lying would do no good. She seemed like the kind of woman who
never asked a question if she didn’t already know the answer. “I thought I’d see
what’s keeping him.”

“How late is he?”

“Party started at seven-thirty, so—”

“When was the last time anyone heard from him?” She walked down
the steps until she stood level with Nix, her head only a couple of inches below
his own. She was as tall as her brother and had the same sort of dynamic
presence, though the chief’s aura of command was often tempered by his
good-natured humor.

There was no humor in Dana Massey’s green eyes at the
moment.

“He called the police station around seven and told the
dispatcher he was going to drop by the office before the party to pick up
something.”

“Pick up what?”

“Don’t know.”

Her lips flattened with annoyance, though her irritation didn’t
seem to be directed toward him. “Was he at home when he called?”

“Don’t know that, either,” he admitted. He should have asked
the question of Briar, though the chief might not have said where he was. “I’m
working on that assumption.”

To her credit, she didn’t make the usual joke about
assumptions. “He’s not answering his phone.”

“So I hear.”

She extended her hand suddenly, as if she’d just remembered
they hadn’t met. “Dana Massey. The chief’s sister.”

“Walker Nix. The chief’s detective.”

Her lips curved slightly at his dry rejoinder as she shook his
hand. She had a firm, dry grip, with long fingers that felt like warm velvet
against his own. “So I heard. Mind if I tag along?”

He could still feel the lingering sensation of her skin against
his when he dropped her hand. “Wouldn’t you rather stick around the party?”

She shook her head. “I’m here for my brother. Wherever he
is.”

He nodded toward the sidewalk. “Bundle up. My heater’s acting
up.”

* * *

D
ANA
EYED
THE
rusty-looking Ford
pickup truck parked a block down Main Street from the community center, then
shifted her gaze back to the tall, dark-eyed man who seemed to be watching her
for her reaction. She got the feeling this moment was some sort of test, but
damned if she knew what the right answer might be.

“Nice wheels,” she murmured.

The right corner of his mouth quirked upward. “Thanks.” He
opened the passenger door without producing a key.

Her high heels weren’t the most practical footwear for climbing
into an oversized truck, but she managed to haul herself into the cab without
making too much of a spectacle. Her wool slacks and cable-knit sweater had
seemed to be sufficient for the cool night, but the truck’s hard vinyl seat felt
like a block of ice under her backside. She stifled a shiver and held her breath
until she located the seat belt and reassured herself that it actually
worked.

Walker Nix slid behind the steering wheel and engaged his own
seat belt before turning to look at her. “Need a blanket?”

She bit back a shiver and shook her head no. “How far away is
Doyle’s house?”

“You’re not staying there?”

She shook her head again, hoping he didn’t ask any
uncomfortable questions. “I booked a room at a motel in a town north of here.
Quaint name—Purgatory.”

“That’s a bit of a drive.”

A bit of a drive? Purgatory was maybe ten minutes away by car.
A commute that short in Atlanta, where she lived and worked, was something to be
deeply coveted.

Thinking of the short drive from Purgatory reminded her that
her car was parked across the street. The Chevy featured soft seats and a
working heater. But before she could suggest they take her car, Nix had already
cranked the truck and swung it out of its parking place.

“You didn’t see anything on the drive here?” Nix asked her.

“No, but I was already in town by seven.” She’d waffled over
the gift she’d picked out for her brother and his new bride on the drive from
Atlanta and had decided to do some last-minute shopping in Bitterwood. But, of
course, most of the town’s quaint little shops had closed down at five. “Thought
I’d do some last-minute shopping, but nothing was open.”

“Everything closes at five around here.”

“Everything?”

“Well, there are some joints here and there where you can paint
the town red until you can’t see straight. But I don’t think they’re selling
what you were wanting to buy.”

Like most of the other people she’d met since arriving in town,
Walker Nix had a hard-edged mountain accent, though his was tempered a bit, as
if he’d spent some time away from the hills. He wasn’t handsome, exactly, but
she rather liked the flat planes and hard angles of his features. He had olive
skin and dark hair worn very short on the sides and only a little longer on top.
Military-style, she guessed. Probably had some armed-forces service in his
background—marine corps, or maybe army. Infantry, not rear echelon. The man had
jumped right to action at the first sign of trouble.

Once they left the small town center, artificial lighting
nearly disappeared, save for the occasional residences spaced every few hundred
yards along the winding two-lane road. So the sudden bright beams of light that
split the darkness around a blind curve caught them both by surprise. Nix hit
the brakes, the sudden deceleration slamming Dana hard against the restraint
belt crossing her chest. The brakes squealed, but the truck shimmied to a stop a
dozen yards short of the large black truck that lay on its side in the middle of
the road, its headlights slicing through the darkness.