On Shadow Beach - Softcover

Freethy, Barbara

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1476798400 ISBN 13: 9781476798400

Verlag: Gallery Books, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

The second book in a heart-tugging contemporary romance series from bestselling author Barbara Freethy, set in the California town of Angel’s Bay.

Lauren Jamison hasn’t been back to Angel’s Bay since she was a teenager—not since her sister Abby was murdered and Lauren’s boyfriend, Shane Murray, was accused of the crime. When Lauren reluctantly returns home to assist her ailing father, the old attraction again flares between Lauren and Shane. But the terrible days after Abby’s murder still stand between them, as well as the secrets Shane has yet to unveil. Finding the truth could bring closure—but at a cost. For there are people who don’t want old mysteries brought to light—people whose fear makes them very dangerous.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Barbara Freethy is the hugely successful author of many romances, a #1 New York Times bestseller, and a native Californian.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

ONE

Just like before, the front door was ajar, every light in the house was on, and a game show played on the television. Lauren Jamison put down her suitcase, feeling uneasy.

Thirteen years had passed since she’d been home, but the living room looked the same: the brown leather recliner by the fireplace where her dad read the paper every evening, the couch her sister, Abby, used to curl up on and write in her journal, the table by the window where her mother and little brother, David, played board games. The furniture remained, but all of the people were gone. All except one.

“Dad?” she called.

The answering silence tightened her nerves. She needed her father to appear, to remind her that this wasn’t like before. Because thirteen years ago she’d returned home late one night, an innocent seventeen-year-old, and found the front door open, lights blazing, and her mother sobbing hysterically. Nothing had been the same after that.

The whistle of a teakettle drew her toward the kitchen, but the room was empty. She turned off the stove and moved into the hall, checking each bedroom. Her father’s room was cluttered with clothes. Only the faded floral curtains betrayed her mother’s once important influence on the décor. David’s bedroom had been turned into an office that was covered in dust and papers. The room at the end of the hall had belonged to her and to Abby.

The door was closed, and Lauren’s steps slowed. Her father might have redone the room, boxed up Abby’s things and given them to charity—or the room might look exactly the same as it had the night Abby died. Her heart skipped a beat.

She tapped on the door. “Dad? Are you in there?”

When he didn’t reply, she opened the door, scanned the room quickly, and then pulled the door shut, her breath coming hard and fast. Abby’s side of the room was frozen in time, as if it were still waiting for her to return. Lauren let out a long, shaky breath, then turned away.

Where the hell was her father? She’d called him that morning and told him she was coming, and he’d seemed fine. But according to the neighbors, who had sent numerous letters to her mother over the past three months, her father’s Alzheimer’s was getting worse. It was time for someone in the family to come back and take care of him. Her mother had refused. She’d divorced Ned Jamison eleven years earlier, and she had no intention of reuniting with him now. David was back east at college. So Lauren had returned to Angel’s Bay to deal with a man who was little more than a stranger to her. But he was still her father, and she needed to find him—she just wasn’t sure where to look. She had only spent a half dozen weekends with her dad since she’d left home at seventeen, and all those visits had occurred in San Francisco. Where would he be on a Friday night? She didn’t know who his friends were anymore, what he did, where he went.

Or did she?

Her father had always been a creature of habit. During her childhood, he’d spent most of his time in three places: home, the bait and tackle shop he’d run until two years ago, and his fishing boat Leonora, named after his great-great-great-grandmother who’d been one of the founders of Angel’s Bay.

Lauren headed out the front door toward the marina, which was only a few blocks away. Buttoning up her sweater, she hurried down the street. It was seven o’clock and there was already a chill in the darkening September sky. Soon there’d be pumpkins and Halloween decorations on every porch, but for now the neighborhood was quiet.

While some of the homes had been remodeled, the streets were very familiar. She’d been born in Angel’s Bay, and this neighborhood was where she’d taken her first steps, learned to ride a bicycle, roller skated into the Johnsons’ rosebushes, gotten her first kiss in the moonlight, fallen in love . . . and fallen out of love.

She blinked away the sudden moisture in her eyes and picked up her pace. She had a great life in San Francisco now, an interesting job and good friends, and she had no regrets about leaving her hometown. She just wished that she hadn’t had to come back.

By the time she reached Ocean Avenue, she was breathless. She quickened her pace as she passed the Angel’s Heart Quilt Shop, where she and Abby and their mother had partaken in the town’s longstanding tradition of community quilting. Quilting was the way mothers and daughters, sisters and friends connected the past with the present. She’d once loved to quilt, but she hadn’t picked up a needle and thread since she’d left. She didn’t want those connections anymore. Nor did she particularly want to see anyone she knew now. She was hoping to make her visit short, with as little community contact as possible.

Crossing the street, she kept her head down as she passed Carl’s Crab Shack. The line was out to the sidewalk and the delicious smells of clam chowder and fish and chips made her stomach rumble. She’d done the four-hour drive from San Francisco without stopping for food but she couldn’t stop now.

As she reached the marina she saw a new sign on her father’s bait and tackle shop, now called Brady’s instead of Jamison’s. The store was closed. She moved down the ramp that led to the boat slips. Luckily the gate had been propped open by a slat of wood, so she didn’t need a key. Her father’s old trawler had been moored at the second to last slip in the third row since she was a little girl. She hoped it was still there.

The marina was quiet. Most of the action occurred in the early morning or late afternoon, when the sport and commercial fishermen were going out or coming back after a day of work or pleasure. Her pulse quickened as the lights on her father’s boat suddenly came on, followed by the sound of an engine. She could see his silhouette in the cabin. What on earth was he doing? He couldn’t go out to sea by himself.

“Dad!” she yelled, breaking into a run. She waved her arms as she screamed again, but either he couldn’t hear her or he was ignoring her. By the time she reached the slip, her father’s boat was chugging toward the middle of the bay. She had to stop him. She needed to call the Coast Guard or find someone to go after him. “Hello! Anyone here?” she called.

A man emerged from a nearby boat and Lauren hurried down the dock.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

The familiar voice stopped her dead in her tracks, and as he jumped onto the dock and into the light, her heart skipped a beat.

Shane. Shane Murray.

He moved toward her with the same purposeful, determined step she remembered. She wasn’t ready for this—ready for him.

She knew the split second that he recognized her. His step faltered, his shoulders stiffened, and his jaw set in a grim line. He didn’t say her name. He just stared at her, waiting. Shane had never been one for words, he’d always believed actions spoke louder than explanations. But sometimes the truth needed to be spoken—not just implied or assumed.

“Shane.” She wished her voice didn’t sound so husky, so filled with memories. She cleared her throat. “I—I need help. My father just took off in his boat. I don’t know if you know, but he has Alzheimer’s.” She waved her hand toward the Leonora, whose lights were fading in the distance. “I need to get him back. Will you help me? There doesn’t seem to be anyone else...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Gallery Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1476798400
• ISBN 13: 9781476798400
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 384
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV, GPSR Europäische Union; info@simonandschuster.nl; ; Herculesplein 96; Utrecht; 3584 AA; Niederlande