Secrets and Seduction: 5 Romance Novels Read online

  Want Great Savings on Crimson Romance?

  Visit Our New

  Crimson Romance Bookstore

  Enjoy special offers when you purchase any of our hundreds of great romances!

  Contents

  Hero Needed

  Touchpoint

  Counterpoint

  Secrets and Lies

  Blood Secrets

  Hero Needed

  Shay Lacy

  Avon, Massachusetts

  This edition published by

  Crimson Romance

  an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

  10151 Carver Road, Suite 200

  Blue Ash, Ohio 45242

  www.crimsonromance.com

  Copyright © 2012 by Shay Lacy

  ISBN 10: 1-4405-5691-1

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-5691-3

  eISBN 10: 1-4405-5692-X

  eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-5692-0

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art © 123rf.com

  To the ACC ladies who were my first supporters. You can read this one! To the wonderful members of MVRWA, a chapter that knows the true meaning of support. To Jill, who told me she was proud of me for trying through the dark time. To the Panera Prison inmates, who held me accountable. To Connie and Jenna, who held my hands and faced me toward my future. And to my husband, who showed me our country’s beauty and the grandeur of Watkins Glen through a camera lens, and who taught me a new form of composition. He said I should write because it makes me happy.

  Contents

  DEDICATION

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  EPILOGUE

  AFTERWORD

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My thanks to the Watkins Glen Chamber of Commerce for the brochures that kept the information fresh in my mind, www.watkinsglenchamber.com.

  CHAPTER 1

  “I can’t marry you.”

  Marisa Avalos felt tasered with stunned disbelief. She’d expected to finally set a date for the wedding and discuss details over lunch, not … this. She felt icy on the warm Indian summer day.

  Denial came next. The rumble of an approaching train beyond the restaurant must have garbled Kevin Johansson’s words. He looked the same as he had since high school — serious, chiseled face, short blonde hair, and intelligent brown eyes. He’d matured since then but he hadn’t changed so much that he’d end their three-year engagement.

  “Excuse me?” she choked out.

  He sighed. “Marisa, don’t make this any harder. I’m moving to California to join a friend’s veterinary practice. I know you won’t leave your mother, so I’m ending things between us.”

  Marisa’s eyes burned as she fought tears of hurt and betrayal. Eight years she’d waited for Kevin, through college and veterinary school. And not once in all that time had he mentioned wanting to move to California. By concentrating on the train engine as it rounded the corner into view, she tried to quiet her roiling mind enough to respond coherently. Less than seven feet away on the other side of the restaurant’s deck, the engine looked impossibly huge. The building shook, making the water glasses and silverware clink. The chaos of sound mimicked the chaos in her heart and mind.

  As the engine passed, she glanced in the opposite direction, anything not to look at Kevin for a few moments. A hundred yards away where the promenade led up from the docks a group of people waited on the other side of the tracks. Her friend Carolyn Wentworth saw her and waved.

  She nodded to her friend and focused on Kevin once more, sure now she could talk without crying. She had to speak loud over the noise. “But you’re taking over old Dr. Handler’s practice.”

  He shook his head and nearly yelled. “He likes working part-time. It could be another ten years until he completely retires and sells me the business. I want my own practice now. My friend from college offered me a partnership.”

  The shriek of metal on metal pierced the air from down the tracks, a sound that made Marisa’s back teeth ache. The horn blast from this close was nearly deafening. As the engineer applied the brakes, the cars thudding into one another threatened to shake the building to pieces. Marisa feared a derailment. As far as she knew, there had never been a train accident in Watkins Glen. How much damage could a train going thirty miles per hour do?

  Kevin must have shared her worries, for he grabbed her arm with bruising force and yanked her away from the edge. Other diners had the same idea, scurrying toward the side of the deck away from the train tracks. The wait staff hovered uncertainly, their eyes fixed on the train. Finally, the crashing and screeching ceased. The cars still swayed on the tracks. Customers murmured nervously. Diners from inside the restaurant spilled out onto the deck rushing for the rail. Marisa and Kevin pressed against the crowd trying to see.

  A woman closest to the end of the deck screamed and other women echoed it.

  One of the diners leaning far over the railing turned a white face to the rest. “It hit someone!”

  A man’s shout rose above the murmurs and gasps. “Call 911!”

  “Jesus,” a man swore.

  The woman beside Marisa turned her face into the chest of the man with her. His arm circled her and he drew her out of the way. Marisa and Kevin took their places at the rail. Worry for her friend Carolyn’s safety flitted through her mind but Marisa brushed it away. Caro was safe. A siren wailed from the direction of the fire station. Help would arrive soon. A second siren echoed from down the street at the sheriff’s office.

  The engine had stopped four cars away from them. The engineer knelt by the third car, where a white arm stuck out. When the man next to him rose, Marisa sucked in her breath in recognition. No! Her knees nearly buckled and she gripped the railing for support.

  “I couldn’t stop her. I didn’t know she was going to do it!” Scott Wentworth’s voice carried clearly. He wrung his hands in distress.

  “Caro,” Marisa moaned. No, it couldn’t be! But she had to know for sure. She grabbed Kevin’s arm. “That’s Carolyn’s husband. I need to get down there.”

  Kevin gripped her forearms and gently shook her. “Marisa, listen to me. If it’s Carolyn, you don’t want to see her.”

  “Yes, I do!”

  She ripped herself from his grasp. Spinning around, she darted across the deck with Kevin shouting after her. A man reached for her as she passed a table, but she dodged his arm. Pushing her way past a knot of servers, she ran through the restaurant and down the sidewalk to the promenade. The train blocked the usual sight of boats floating at their docks on Seneca Lake. The autumn sun failed to warm the cold dread inside her.

  Marisa paid little attention to the gawkers hanging over the deck rail as she darted down the lawn
that skirted the train tracks. Some curious tourists had moved close enough to see the body, but she ignored them.

  The gray-haired engineer turned at her approach and held up his hands to stop her. “You don’t want to see this, miss.”

  She cut her gaze to Scott Wentworth. “Is it Carolyn?” She wanted him to deny it.

  Scott looked pale under his tan. His immaculately cut brown hair was ruffled by a morning probably spent sailing on the lake. “I know she’s been depressed over the miscarriage.” His voice shook. “But I didn’t think she’d do anything like this.”

  Marisa hadn’t liked Scott, and she liked him even less for trashing Carolyn in public. If she killed herself … Marisa couldn’t finish the thought because she couldn’t believe Carolyn would ever do such a thing. It had been a horrible accident. It had to be.

  “I want to see her,” she told the engineer. He’d moved to block the body from view. “Carolyn was my best friend. We grew up together.”

  The engineer’s face softened in sympathy. “You don’t want to remember her like this.”

  “My fiancé … ” Or was that ex-fiancé? She plunged onward. “He’s a veterinarian. I’ve gone with him on house calls before.”

  He shook his head. “Nothing like this, miss.”

  The throb of the engine was a perfect counterpoint to the tension building inside her. Emotions welled up like an ocean breaker preparing to crash against the shore.

  “Please.”

  She sensed him relenting before he moved slightly to the left. Stepping forward, at first she couldn’t make sense of what she saw. The bloody, mangled mess couldn’t be Caro. Marisa focused on the face. It was the same lean, plain face Marisa had seen all her life. Carolyn had been a gawky stick as a girl. As a woman, she passed for fashionably thin. Blood soaked her short sable hair. Marisa quickly jerked her gaze away, but it caught on Carolyn’s right arm … or what was left of it.

  The scene in front of her blurred. Horror threatened to tear its way out of her throat in the form of screams that would never end. But grief trapped them inside, constricting her breath. She wanted to fall on the body and clasp it to her chest, wailing for what she’d lost. She wanted to shout denials until they became truth.

  She turned and stumbled away blind. Strong arms caught her.

  “Are you going to faint?” a deep voice rumbled.

  Words failed her, so she shook her head against a firm chest. Even the heat blasting from the still running locomotive couldn’t warm her. She clasped her arms around her shivering body.

  “Get a blanket,” the man shouted off to her left. Then he said, “Where’s the man who was with you?”

  Marisa couldn’t remember anything except the severed arm. There were people moving around her, people in uniforms, people with purpose. None of them seemed to be with her.

  Then someone threw a blanket around her shoulders. She gripped the edges together and looked up at her Good Samaritan. He was a stranger she’d seen somewhere before. He had short hair the color of dark chocolate, straight dark slashes for eyebrows, and eyes almost as dark brown as hers. He had a jaw like granite and his white T-shirt clung to the shoulders of a football player. He didn’t look like a tourist, but he wasn’t dressed like the rescue workers gathering around Carolyn.

  “She threw herself in front of the train. I couldn’t stop her,” Scott told sheriff’s deputy Brian Nash.

  Rage simmered just below the surface of Marisa’s skin, not quite warming her icy chill. Could Scott shout it any louder?

  “It was an accident,” she murmured.

  “Did you see it happen?” her rescuer asked.

  She looked up into his stern face. His expression was serious, his intent dark eyes probing. There was a deadness in them that made her wonder what horrors he’d witnessed and where.

  “No, I didn’t see it happen.” Part of her wished she had. She shivered again.

  “Then how do you know it was an accident?” His tone was flat, but his narrowed eyes expressed his doubts.

  “She waved to me just before it happened. Besides, Carolyn wouldn’t kill herself.”

  “How well did you know the deceased?”

  Deceased. Marisa shuddered. She’d never laugh with Caro again, never share secrets or dreams or hopes again. Never again would she experience the unquestioning acceptance she’d shared with her best friend. Her eyes filled but she tried not to cry. Her throat ached, and her chest felt tight.

  “I grew up with her.” Her voice sounded small and squeezed.

  “I meant how well did you know her recently?”

  Not as well as she’d wanted to. It was hard to spend time together when Caro lived in New York City. Long phone conversations just weren’t the same as sitting on the front porch of the huge white house where Caro’s family had lived.

  “We talked on the phone as often as we could. She never said anything about … ” she waved a hand toward the train “ … anything like this.”

  “People often keep their true feelings inside, especially if they’re dark feelings.” There was no softening in his unsmiling face.

  “Not Caro.” Despite the tendency for her lower lip to tremble, her statement was firm.

  “Nick,” the deputy addressed her dark rescuer, “would you help me question witnesses, find out who saw what?”

  “I’m not a cop, Brian.”

  “As a personal favor. I need all the help I can get.”

  Nick nodded, still unsmiling.

  Brian looked at Marisa then. He had short brown hair with the ends bleached blonde by the sun. His tan uniform was crisply pressed, despite the noon heat. The crinkles at the sides of his eyes showed he laughed often, unlike his friend. Dimples framed his wide mouth. Despite his serious occupation, he’d been smiling every time Marisa had seen him before, except for now.

  “Marisa Avalos, right?”

  Marisa nodded.

  “I know you were raised with Mrs. Wentworth. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Marisa gulped back a sob. “Thank you. Deputy Nash, she didn’t kill herself. She wouldn’t.”

  There was sympathy in Brian’s hazel eyes. “We like to think the best about the people we love.”

  Her hands clenched around the blanket edges. Why wouldn’t anybody believe her?

  “Ms. Avalos didn’t see what happened,” Nick told Brian. He frowned when he looked at Marisa.

  She waved back toward the restaurant. “I was at the Seneca Harbor Station having lunch. I saw Caro standing at the crossing before the train engine blocked my view. She looked fine. She was fine.”

  “Marisa.” Kevin caught up to her.

  Her first urge was to throw herself into his arms for comfort, but then she remembered what they’d discussed in the restaurant. Kevin was leaving her. Tears welled in her eyes once more and her bottom lip trembled.

  Kevin opened his arms and habit and a decade of friendship made her walk into them.

  “You shouldn’t have come down here.”

  “I had to see her.” She thought he would have understood that after all the years they’d known each other. But she was finding they didn’t know each other at all. She wondered whose fault that was.

  “C’mon. I’ll take you home.”

  She allowed Kevin to draw her away. The engine hissed, releasing steam at her retreating back. She didn’t know how she was going to make it through the rest of the day now that she’d lost her two best friends.

  • • •

  Nick Stark watched the athletic blonde man escort Marisa toward the parking lot. They made a striking couple, completely opposite in looks. Marisa looked Latina, with bronzed skin and hair the color and sheen of black satin sheets. With her wide, full lips he assumed she smiled often. At the moment, she looked as serious as the
blonde man at her side. Too bad she was taken. For a moment, when he’d held her feminine curves in his arms, he’d felt a stirring of interest he hadn’t expected to find in his temporary exile to Watkins Glen. But he was doomed to be disappointed yet again.

  “Nick?” Brian called.

  Nick shook off the spell Marisa Avalos had weaved around him and approached the scene where Brian knelt next to the victim. Nick steeled himself for the gore. As an EMT with the New York City Fire Department, he should be used to seeing horrors. But he wasn’t. Each scene represented someone’s pain and someone’s need for help. But this woman was beyond his aid. A familiar feeling of helplessness assaulted him. Here was one more senseless death to add to the dozens he’d seen in the past few months. What good was his medical training in a circumstance like this?

  The victim was mangled, the scene bloody. He’d seen something similar at a New York City subway suicide. Sharp steel wheels were vicious to skin and bone alike. This poor woman, if she’d really chosen to kill herself, had gone through a lot under the locomotive. Nick hoped she’d died instantly from the impact.

  “Yeah, Brian?” He and Nick had gone to college together in New York City and been close friends until Brian decided to give up big city crime and take a job with the sheriff’s department in the tiny town of Watkins Glen, New York.

  Brian signaled him lower and spoke so his voice didn’t carry farther than the two of them. “Mrs. Wentworth is the closest thing Watkins Glen has to a first family. Her parents, the Easterlings, died in a car accident last year. She owns the salt plant. Well, now her husband Scott does.” Brian’s hazel eyes were thoughtful.

  “Interesting. That’s motive enough for murder.”

  “This isn’t TV, Nick, it’s real life. Step lightly around Wentworth. That plant is the town’s main industry.”

  “What if he did it?”

  “What if he didn’t?”

  “Three deaths in a short period of time, and now he’s inherited everything. Seems mighty coincidental to me.”