Brenda Novak Read online

  Sometimes home is the refuge you need—and sometimes it isn’t

  Adelaide Davies, who’s been living in Sacramento, returns to Whiskey Creek, the place she once called home. She’s there to take care of her aging grandmother and to help with Gran’s restaurant, Just Like Mom’s. But Adelaide isn’t happy to be back. There are too many people here she’d rather avoid, people who were involved in that terrible June night fifteen years ago.

  Ever since the graduation party that changed her life, she’s wanted to go to the police and make sure the boys responsible—men now—are punished. But she can’t, not without revealing an even darker secret. So it’s better to pretend.…

  Noah Rackham, popular, attractive, successful, is shocked when Adelaide won’t have anything to do with him. He has no idea that his very presence reminds her of something she’d rather forget. He only knows that he’s finally met a woman he could love.

  Praise for the Whiskey Creek novels of

  New York Times bestselling author Brenda Novak

  “A hero in need of redemption, a heroine up to the challenge, and an idyllic California gold country setting brilliantly launch Novak’s foray into the thriving ‘small-town community’ market.”

  —Library Journal on When Lightning Strikes

  The characters’ “heartwarming romance develops slowly and sweetly. The sex is fantastic, but the best part is how Simon and Gail tease and laugh as they grow closer.”

  —Publishers Weekly on When Lightning Strikes

  “Novak delivers a lively, sparkling series debut…romantic gold by a superior novelist.”

  —RT Book Reviews on When Lightning Strikes

  “It’s steamy, it’s poignant, it’s perfectly paced—it’s When Lightning Strikes and you don’t want to miss it!”

  —USA TODAY, Happily Ever After Blog

  “In this sensitive, passionate and heartbreakingly poignant second installment of her Whiskey Creek series, Novak masterfully explores what happens when a woman whose entire life has been consumed by playing a variety of roles casts off her suffocating masks and, with the support of an unexpected lover, embraces who she was, is and can be.”

  —RT Book Reviews on When Snow Falls (2012 Nominee for Book of the Year)

  “When Summer Comes is a magical addition to the already heartwarming Whiskey Creek series.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “When you add a woman hiding from the future and a man running from the past, what do you get? A romance that has you in tears one moment and smiling with joy the next. Brenda Novak took me back to Whiskey Creek with When Summer Comes and I enjoyed every minute of it.…This is one book not to be missed!”

  —Joyfully Reviewed (recommended title)

  Also by Brenda Novak

  WHEN SUMMER COMES

  WHEN SNOW FALLS

  WHEN LIGHTNING STRIKES

  IN CLOSE

  IN SECONDS

  INSIDE

  KILLER HEAT

  BODY HEAT

  WHITE HEAT

  THE PERFECT MURDER

  THE PERFECT LIAR

  THE PERFECT COUPLE

  WATCH ME

  STOP ME

  TRUST ME

  DEAD RIGHT

  DEAD GIVEAWAY

  DEAD SILENCE

  COLD FEET

  TAKING THE HEAT

  EVERY WAKING MOMENT

  Watch for the next Whiskey Creek novel,

  TAKE ME HOME FOR CHRISTMAS,

  coming soon.

  To Anna…

  I really enjoy working with you.

  Thank you for being so dependable, responsible

  and supportive. You’ve helped make my annual

  online auction for diabetes research a fabulous event.

  I consider you a good friend and a great blessing.

  Dear Reader,

  The concept for this story has been percolating in the back of my mind for some time. I was interested in the heroine’s journey—how she might overcome the terrible incident she endured at a high-school graduation party—but I was just as interested in exploring how the boys who impacted her life might feel as adults. Where might they be? What might they be doing? And how would they cope with their past mistakes, especially if the past came boomeranging back? I strongly believe that there are very few people who are all good or all bad, and I think that can be said for the characters in this story, which is what made them so fascinating to work with.

  This is the fourth book in the Whiskey Creek series (following When Lightning Strikes, When Snow Falls, which was nominated for the RT Book Reviews 2012 Book of the Year Award, and When Summer Comes). In addition to these full-length books, you might want to look for the prequel novella called When We Touch, where you will meet Brandon and Olivia (who also appear in this story). Next up, we have the fifth book, Take Me Home for Christmas, which will be available in November.

  For more information on these books and my other novels, please visit brendanovak.com, where you can enter monthly drawings, order cookies from Just Like Mom’s, get autographed cover cards or drop me an email. I love hearing from my readers. I’d also like to invite you to get involved in my annual online auction for diabetes research (my youngest son has this disease, and so do million of others—someday I fear it will affect everyone in one way or another). The auction runs May 1–May 31 at my website, so please register right away at brendanovak.auctionanything.com so you’ll get the updates. So far we’ve raised nearly $2 million and hope to raise much more!

  Here’s to making a difference!

  Brenda Novak

  Christmas is a time for remembering.

  But not all memories are pleasant. Everyone in Whiskey Creek remembers Sophia DeBussi as the town’s Mean Girl. Especially Ted Dixon, whose love she once scorned. Sophia married for money and status, but her millionaire husband is abusive and she stays with him only for her daughter. Then her husband dies—leaving her penniless.

  Sophia is reduced to looking for any kind of work she can find, answering an ad for a housekeeper placed by none other than Ted. He can’t bring himself to send her away, not at Christmas, but he refuses to get emotionally involved.

  Will the season of love and forgiveness help them both find what they’re missing?

  Find out in Brenda Novak’s magical Whiskey Creek novel Take Me Home for Christmas (November 2013).

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Excerpt

  1

  The past is never dead. It’s not even past.

  —William Faulkner

  No way would he be able to reach her, not with his bare hands. And Noah Rackham didn’t have anything else—just his mountain bike, which lay on its side a few feet away. In the pouch beneath the seat he kept a spare tube, the small plastic tool that made it easier to change a tire and some oil for his chain but no rope, no flashlight. He wouldn’t have packed that stuff even if he’d had room. For one, he’d come out for a quick, hit-it
-hard ride before sunset and wasn’t planning to be gone longer than a couple of hours. For another, no one messed around with the old mine anymore. Not since his twin brother had been killed in a cave-in a decade and a half ago, just after high school graduation.

  “Hello?” Kneeling at the mouth of the shaft where someone had torn away the boards intended to seal off this ancillary opening, he called into the void below.

  His voice bounced back at him, and he could hear the steady drip of water, but that was all. Why wasn’t the woman responding? A few seconds earlier, she’d cried out for help. That was the reason he’d stopped and come to investigate.

  “Hey, you still there? You with me?”

  “Yes. I’m here!”

  Thank God she’d answered. “Tell me your name.”

  “It...it’s Adelaide. But my friends call me Addy. Why?”

  “I want to know who I’m talking to. Can you tell me what happened?”

  “Just get me out. Please! And hurry!”

  “I will. Relax, okay, Addy? I’ll think of something.”

  Cursing under his breath, he rocked back on his haunches. Ahead of him, the dirt road that temporarily converged with the single track he’d been riding disappeared around a sharp bend. To his left was the mountain, and to his right, the river, rushing a hundred feet below. He saw more of the same scenery behind him. Trees. Thick undergrowth, including an abundance of poison oak. Moist earth. Rocks. Fifty-year-old tailings from the mine. And the darkening sky. There were no other people, which wasn’t unusual. Plenty of bikers and hikers used this trail, but mostly in the warmer months, and certainly not after dusk. The Sierra Nevada foothills, and the gold rush–era town where he’d grown up, were often wet and chilly by mid-October.

  Should he backtrack to the main entrance of the mine? Try to get in the way they used to?

  He’d already passed that spot. Someone had fixed the rusty chain-link fence to keep kids from slipping through. Noah couldn’t get beyond it, not without wire cutters or at least the claw part of a hammer. That entrance and this shaft might not even connect. It was likely they didn’t, or whoever was stranded down there would’ve made her way over—provided she was capable of moving.

  Scooping up his bike, he hopped on and went to check. Sure enough, the fence, with its danger keep out sign, was riveted to the rocky outcropping surrounding the entrance. He couldn’t get through; he didn’t have the proper tools, and there was nothing close by he could substitute. The only foreign object in the whole area was a bouquet of flowers that lay wilting in the mud. Noah guessed Shania Carpenter, Cody’s old girlfriend, had placed them there. She’d probably come up here to commemorate the anniversary of when she and Cody had started dating, or become an item, or first made love or...whatever. She’d married, divorced and had a kid, in that order, but she’d never gotten over Cody’s death.

  Neither had Noah. It felt as if a part of him had died that night.

  And now someone else’s life could end the same way.

  Certain that this entrance wasn’t the answer to his problem, he returned to the shaft. He never would’ve noticed this other opening if not for that cry for help. The boards that’d been pried loose were so covered by moss they blended in with the rest of the scenery.

  “I’m not going to be able to reach you,” he called down. “Is there some other way out? A tunnel that might not be sealed off?”

  Considering what had happened to his brother, was it safe for her to move?

  “No. I—I’ve tried everything!”

  The hysteria in those words concerned him. “Okay. Listen, I know you’re...frightened, but try to stay calm. How badly are you hurt?”

  “I’m not sure.” It sounded as though she couldn’t suck in enough air to speak normally, but he couldn’t tell if that came from fright, exhaustion or injury. “Help me, please.”

  He wanted to help; he just didn’t know how. The shaft was too deep to reach her without rope. But if he hurried off to notify rescue personnel, he wasn’t sure she’d be alive when he got back. Trying to bring others would take too much time. There was no place for a helicopter to land. And it wouldn’t be easy to get an ambulance in here. A Jeep or truck could make it, but even that would be a challenge in the dark. Flooding several years ago had washed away parts of the old road.

  But if he stayed, he’d soon lose all daylight and he had no flashlight. Even if he managed to get the woman out, how would he transport her in the pitch-black?

  “Can you walk?” he called.

  There was a slight delay. “How far?”

  “I’m wondering if you’re mobile, so I can assess the situation.”

  “I—I’m mobile.”

  That made a difference. It meant she wasn’t so badly off that he couldn’t sit her on his bike and run alongside. If he could get to her.

  He was pretty sure he had a flashlight and a length of rope in his truck. He might even have food or something else that would come in handy. A sweatshirt would keep her warm, at least. He could use it if she didn’t need it. It’d been a nice day, hence his lightweight bike shorts and T-shirt, but it was growing colder by the minute.

  “Sit tight,” he called down. “I have to go to my truck but I’ll be back. I promise.”

  “Don’t leave me!”

  Panic fueled those words. “I’ll be back,” he repeated.

  Tension tied his stomach into knots as he ignored her protests and clipped his feet into the pedals of his bike. The uneven ground and rocks and roots that offered the challenges he so enjoyed suddenly became unwelcome obstacles, jarring him despite the expensive shock absorbers on his bike. He was moving faster than ever before, especially through this stretch, where the riding was so technical, but he had no choice. If he didn’t...

  He couldn’t even think about what might happen if he didn’t. He’d seen his brother’s crushed head. They’d made the decision as a family not to have an open casket.

  Small pebbles scattered, churned up by his tires as he charged through patches of gravel. Hoping to shave off a few minutes, he climbed a steep embankment he typically tried only when he wanted maximum difficulty.

  He made it up and over the ridge, and down the other side without mishap, but it felt as if it were taking forever to reach the highway.

  By the time the trail leveled out, his lungs burned and his quads shook, but he knew that had more to do with fear than physical exertion. He owned Crank It Up, a bike shop in Whiskey Creek, and raced mountain bikes professionally. Thanks to endless hours of training, his body could handle twenty minutes of balls-to-the-wall riding. It was the memories of the day he’d learned his brother was dead and the frightened sound of Addy’s voice that made what he was doing so difficult.

  In case her life depended on his performance, he forced himself to redline it, but daylight was waning much faster than he expected. What if he couldn’t see well enough to return? Considering how narrow the trail was in places, and the sharp dropoff on one side, his tire could hit a rock or a groove in the hard-packed dirt, causing him to veer off and plummet into the freezing-cold river—an accident he wasn’t likely to survive. The road, though wider, would take twice as long.

  You won’t fall. He knew this trail far too well. This was where he felt closest to his brother—and not because Cody had died here. They’d started mountain biking when they were only thirteen, used to explore these mountains all the time. That was how they’d found the mine in the first place. It was Cody who’d turned it into a popular hangout during the final weeks of high school. Kids could bring booze or weed up there without being noticed or interrupted by the police, so a core group from the baseball team had thrown parties that had occasionally gotten out of hand. Toward the end, Noah had stopped going. He hadn’t liked watching his brother snort coke, didn’t appreciate the way Cody behaved when he was stoned. Noah had also been afraid Cody would get Shania pregnant before they had the chance to leave for college and he didn’t want to attend San Diego State
without him. They’d done almost everything together since birth.

  He’d mentioned the risks to Cody many times, but no amount of warning seemed to faze him. Although Shania hadn’t been at the party—her parents had whisked her away to Europe as soon as she had her diploma in hand—his brother had gone a little crazy that night with all the drinking and drugs, and he paid the ultimate price. From what Noah had heard, the party Cody had thrown graduation night had been as wild as they came.

  Maybe if his brother had been thinking straight, he would’ve made it home safely, like everyone else....

  After navigating a few final twists and turns, Noah spotted the gravel lot next to the two-lane highway where he’d parked, and raced down the straightaway.

  Sweat rolled off him the second he stopped, despite the cold, but he barely noticed as he searched his truck. He found the towrope in his toolbox, a sweatshirt shoved under his seat not far from the flashlight and a stash of energy bars. He already carried all the water he had in a bladderlike contraption on his back. Unfortunately, he’d drunk most of it, but he found a first-aid kit in his jockey box, which was some consolation.

  He had what he needed, but in case things didn’t go as smoothly as he hoped, he wanted to call for help so there’d be a rescue team waiting.

  He’d put his cell phone under his floor mat to keep it out of sight. There’d been a rash of car burglaries several months ago, courtesy of a group of teenagers who smoked pot and hung out at the river all summer—“river rats” they were called.

  He fished his phone out to check for service. Coverage was spotty in these mountains. But obtaining a signal didn’t turn out to be the problem. His battery was dead.

  “Shit!” He wasn’t one of those people who kept his phone attached to his ear 24/7. It was more of an afterthought—obviously, since he didn’t carry a charger.

  He gazed up and down the road, hoping a vehicle would come by, but after a few seconds, he realized he couldn’t keep standing there. He had to make a decision. Should he drive to Jackson, which was closer than Whiskey Creek, or go back for the woman as he’d originally intended?