Shattered Blue: A Romantic Thriller Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Acknowledgments

  From the Author

  SHATTERED BLUE

  A Romantic Thriller

  Jane Taylor Starwood

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to actual people, events, or organizations are included strictly to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are products of the author’s imagination.

  Copyright © 2013 by Jane Taylor Starwood

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, or electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the author constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the author through her website, RomancingTheThriller.com. Thank you for supporting authors’ rights.

  Cover designed by David R. Starwood.

  ***

  To all my encouragers, wherever you are.

  Thank you.

  I couldn’t have done it without you.

  ***

  ONE

  Early in the morning on the day her carefully built new life began to crack, Shane MacKinnon pulled cold New Mexico mountain air deep into her lungs and forced it out again, keeping rhythm with her stride. The last hill was coming up, the steepest. Her arms pumping hard, she picked up the pace, quads and glutes screaming as she pistoned up the hill on her toes, panting, sweat pouring into her eyes.

  This was where her body always wanted to quit, where she had to push herself nearly beyond endurance. No stopping now, no rest until she reached her goal, a horde of goblins chasing her, reaching out with bony arms and razor claws to take her down.

  One last lunge, one last lung-searing breath, and she reached her mailbox, clicked her stopwatch, slowed, stopped, bent double, gasping for air. Finally she stood up straight, grinning like a sweat-drenched maniac. Goblins gone.

  This long view down the valley—brown hills dotted with scrub juniper and stocky pine, purple peaks caught in the V of the hills, sky tinged pink and gold as the sun crept into the hollows—this was her reward. That and guzzling from the water bottle tucked into her mailbox.

  Shane alternated between gulping cold air and colder water until her lungs quit heaving and her leg muscles quit twitching, then she looked at her stopwatch and pumped a fist in the air. Yes! Her fastest time ever on the bruising course she’d set when she moved out here from Silver City. Surprised by a rare burst of contentment, she let out a long, blissful sigh.

  Below her, nestled among the hills, the house that had become her home made a confounding picture in the morning light. The main section, with a ground floor of adobe and a second story of wood, had been expanded by different owners until it looked like a wacky pop-up book: doors and windows in surprising places, chimneys sticking up helter-skelter, patios wherever a shady spot presented an opportunity, outbuildings scattered hither and yon. It was ungainly and odd, but it felt like home.

  When she moved in three years ago, her little compound stood alone in the landscape, with no other human habitation in sight. That splendid isolation was what sold her on the property. Now, coming smack up against the symbol of the end of her solitude put a crimp in her perfect morning. She glared at the next hilltop, where the bones of a new house thrust starkly into the sky, and scowled. If she’d had the money, she would have bought the hills for miles around. But she could barely afford her five acres, so that wasn’t an option.

  She knew she should be grateful it was only a single-family house, not a resort hotel and casino. The thought made her shudder and she distracted herself by starting her stretches, easing the kinks out of quads and hamstrings and calves, wincing when it hurt.

  When she was limber again, Shane drank the rest of her water and gave herself another moment to savor the beauty of the morning before starting down the steep, rocky access road. The road made a sharp left at the bottom of the hill, where a makeshift bridge of galvanized steel spanned a deep arroyo. It was dry now, but during the summer rains a flash flood could turn that harmless-looking ditch into an angry river, tumbling with uprooted trees and the skeletons of abandoned cars.

  There had been only one big flash flood since Shane moved in. It had taken out her bridge and cut her off from the world for nearly a week. The truth was, if she hadn’t run short of food, she wouldn’t have minded at all.

  She crossed the bridge and started walking up the rocky driveway, her head filled with the day’s plans.

  Shane was almost at the kitchen door when she heard a loud engine and turned just in time to see her new neighbor barreling down the hill in his big red pickup, shattering the quiet and filling the air with dust. Her jaw tightened and her fists bunched.

  Rude, that’s what he was. Rude and crude, and nothing could convince her otherwise.

  Moments before, Matthew Brennan caught Shane’s scowl as she stood by her mailbox, glaring up at his hill. He smiled and shook his head. Apparently his very attractive neighbor wasn’t inclined to be neighborly.

  Matt ducked into his tent, tossed the binoculars onto the cot, came out again and poured the last cup of lukewarm coffee from his stainless-steel thermos into the lid. He scanned the valley below, watching with pleasure as the sun chased away the shadows. It was chilly now, but before noon he’d be stripping off his flannel shirt and tying a bandanna around his head to keep the sweat from dripping into his eyes.

  The timber frame of his strawbale house cast a sharp-edged pattern across the hilltop. He drew a deep breath, reveling in the quiet and the clean air. No more L.A. smog, no more miles-long traffic jams, no more designing huge mansions for wealthy clients who gave lip service to preserving the environment but couldn’t care less when push came to shove.

  And no more reminders of his ex-wife—and soon-to-be ex-business partner—around every corner.

  Here, there was just a house going up. His house, built by his own hands.

  He thought again about Shane MacKinnon, his unneighborly neighbor who owned the small ranch tucked into the hollow below his hill. Those peacocks she kept scared the daylights out of him the first time they screeched him out of a sound sleep. She owned a couple of cats, too, and Lord only knew what else. And what was up with those crazy blue bottles everywhere? Stuck on tree branches and fences, hanging from eaves. Strange.

  But she was definitely attractive. A taut runner’s body, but not too thin,
with curves in all the right places. And she had guts, he’d give her that, the way she powered up that steep hill every morning like something was chasing her, punching the air like Rocky damn Balboa training for the bout of the century. The music played in his head: Da da DAH, da da DAAH.

  Matt ran a hand through his dark, thick, curly hair, rasped it across three-day’s growth of stubble along his jaw and shook his head. Enough of his unneighborly neighbor. He had a forty-five minute drive to Silver City ahead of him, straw bales to pick up, building supplies waiting at the lumber yard. And he needed to stop in at the gym for a shower and shave; he was starting to disgust himself.

  More than anything, though, he was hungering for a big plate of huevos rancheros New Mexico-style, slathered with green-chile sauce and served with a sweet, sly smile by a dark-eyed waitress he might enjoy getting to know.

  Yeah, what about that? It’d been quite a while. Maybe it was time to let go of the past, look to the future. Something to think about.

  He dashed cold coffee dregs on the ground, screwed the cap onto his thermos, tossed it onto the passenger seat and levered his six-foot-two frame into his new pickup.

  Matt gunned the powerful engine just to hear it growl, bumped down the hill and turned onto the dirt road that skirted Shane MacKinnon’s property. He swung past her jerry-built bridge and bottle-festooned gate and headed up the steep, tooth-jarring access road, a trail of red dust shimmering in his wake.

  When he caught a glimpse of Shane’s beat-up Ford Ranger parked outside her house, he grinned. Hey, babe, my truck’s bigger than your truck.

  The phone was ringing in the kitchen when Shane stepped out of the upstairs shower. She let it go to the answering machine. Nobody she knew would call her this early, and her number was unlisted. Probably a wrong number, or one of those annoying telemarketers.

  There was only the one phone, a landline, because Shane refused to succumb to the modern mania for instant communication. She hated the thought of never being out of reach, an insistent cellphone ringing in her truck, her purse, her pocket, demanding attention at any hour of the day or night. And those smartphones, keeping you tethered to email and the internet, even recording where you were on the planet? The worst idea she could imagine.

  Was she the last person on Earth who valued privacy and solitude? She didn’t own a computer, either, and she got along just fine, thank you very much. She could rant for hours on the subject, if only to herself.

  Shane finished towel-drying her shoulder-length, sandy-blonde hair and pulled it into a quick ponytail. She smoothed sunscreen over her face and neck, smiling at her reflection. It pleased her to look the way she felt: strong, healthy, reasonably content. She’d come a long way from where she’d been five years ago: a physical and emotional wreck, fleeing her former life, skating the thin edge of disaster.

  She pulled on a pair of worn jeans and layered a flannel shirt over a black T-shirt, laced up her old work boots, and headed down the stairs.

  The red light was blinking on the kitchen phone, but she put off dealing with it. Whatever the message was, it would probably put another kink in her morning.

  Outside the window, Fred strutted in the sunlight, spreading his glorious fan for Ethel, the dun-colored peahen, while she ignored him, scratching the ground for tasty bugs. Shane smiled and shook her head. Poor Fred. Like most gorgeous males, he was all show and no substance. She thought of something her mother used to say: Can’t get his gumption up.

  Unfortunately for Fred, the analogy with a certain part of the male anatomy seemed to apply. No baby peacocks running around here. Not that Shane wanted any. Those eerie, Wild Kingdom screeches could raise the dead and then scare them back to the grave.

  With a wicked smile, she wondered if her new neighbor had been within earshot of one of those bloodcurdling shrieks before he laid his money down for that hilltop. Maybe if she goosed Fred every morning before dawn— Nah. It would drive her nuts before it drove him out.

  And she was wasting time thinking about her unwelcome neighbor. She grabbed her barn coat from its hook behind the kitchen door, pulled on a cap and work gloves and went out the door into the chilly mountain air, dragging it deep into her lungs. She scooped peacock food into Fred and Ethel’s bowls, filled their water dishes, then headed around the house to let the cats out of the cage that protected them from hungry coyotes at night.

  “Hey, Furball. Hey, Fiona,” she crooned as they wound around her legs, rubbing and purring. “Breakfast time, girls.”

  Furball, a gray part-Persian, and Fiona, a sleek black streak like a miniature panther, followed Shane around the side of the house to the east patio. She took two cans of cat food from a cupboard on the wall, popped the lids and scraped the contents into their dishes.

  At the bottom of the hill, a skim of ice glinted on the water trough. Even though it was the first of June, at six-thousand feet it could still dip below freezing at night. Shane broke up the ice with a stick, then unhooked the wire that restrained the windmill blades and craned her neck to watch as they began to turn in a lazy circle, creaking and moaning. She loved that sound. It spoke to her of quiet days full of hard, honest work, self-sufficiency and respect for the life-giving Earth.

  Another wave of contentment washed over her. This was getting to be a habit. Shane smiled.

  The message light was still blinking its accusing red eye when Shane walked back into the kitchen. She peeled off her jacket, cap and gloves, kicked off her boots, and resigned herself to dealing with it. She pushed the button.

  Her own voice offered the usual invitation: “This is Shane MacKinnon. Leave your number and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.” Yeah, if I feel like it. Then, nothing. Just a long pause, with what sounded like faint breathing, before the dial tone kicked in. The jerk hadn’t even bothered to leave a message. She erased the non-message and put it out of her mind. It was her turn for breakfast, and the chilly air and long run had made her ravenous.

  Shane was whisking eggs for a big batch of French toast when the phone rang again. She looked at the readout: “Unknown Caller.” She waited through three more rings and her outgoing message, then froze as she listened to several seconds of faint breathing followed by a dial tone.

  After a moment of frowning at the offending phone, she picked up the receiver, pushed a speed dial button, and waited through the recorded message.

  “Beth, it’s Shane. Call me back when you get in. I think there might be something wrong with my phone.”

  She was washing the breakfast dishes when the phone rang again. The gallery number showed on the readout, so she picked it up.

  “Hey, Beth. Thanks for calling back right away.”

  “Anytime. What’s up?”

  “I’m not sure. I had a couple of weird non-messages this morning.”

  “Non-messages?”

  “Somebody listens to my outgoing message, then breathes quietly for a minute and hangs up.”

  “What’s caller ID say?”

  “ ‘Unknown Caller,’ what else?”

  “Hmmm. Well, your phone seems to be working fine. Telemarketer?”

  “That’s what I thought, but I wanted to make sure the phone wasn’t getting wonky.”

  “Yeah, because it’s the only phone you’ve got.”

  “Beth, don’t start.”

  “Shane, you’re way out there in the back of beyond. What if your only phone really does go wonky? What if you fall and break your leg on that death trap you call a road? What if you get trapped by another flash flood?”

  “The human race got along without cell phones for eons, so I think I can manage. Besides, you know there’s no reception at my place.”

  “You could get a satellite phone.”

  “Like I can afford that.”

  “You are one stubborn woman.”

  Shane laughed. “Just practical. And maybe a little stubborn.”

  “Well, I tried,” Beth said, laughing. “Anyway, I’m glad you called; I wa
s about to call you. Have you finished that big piece you were working on last time I was there?”

  “Not quite. It needs a few finishing touches.”

  “Can you get it to me by next week? I’ve got a customer who loves your work but wants something bigger.”

  “Just in time to keep the wolves from the door. I’ll finish it over the weekend and bring it in on Monday.”

  “And, oh, by the way, she’s willing to lend the piece back for your show.”

  “My what?”

  “Your show. I’m giving you a solo exhibit.”

  Shane felt her cheeks flush with pleasure. “You are? When?”

  “The last two weeks of June. Opening reception on the fifteenth.”

  “Okay, I’ll— Wait. That’s only two weeks away. How many pieces do you need?”

  “Fifteen or sixteen, depending on sizes. Can you do it? I’d planned to give you more notice, but another artist just cancelled on me. This is best slot I’ve got for the next six months, and you’d be doing me a big favor. I can borrow five or six pieces from local collectors, but naturally I’d like most of them to be for sale.”

  “Naturally. Let me think a minute.” She did a quick count in her head of the finished and nearly finished pieces in her studio, calculated roughly how long it would take her to complete them and weave a few more.

  “Yes,” she said finally. “It’ll be a push, but I can do it.”

  “Excellent. It’s going to be a wonderful show, Shane.”

  Shane heard a bell chime in the background. “There’s my first customer of the day, gotta go,” Beth said.

  “I’m coming in for supplies later,” Shane said. “Lunch?”

  “What time?”

  “About one.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Juanita’s?”

  “Olé!”

  “And Beth? Thanks.”

  “My pleasure, hon.”

  Shane hung up the phone, thinking about the busy two weeks ahead. Her stomach, which clearly had a mind of its own, growled in anticipation of the green-chile enchiladas at Juanita’s Café.