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Dahlia Craig would prefer to avoid her hometown of Kensington, and especially Cedar Creek, the popular hiker’s destination a mile or so from her hometown. However, thanks to her missing twin brother and the beautiful, enthralling Alec Sullivan, neither is possible. Drawn anew into the woods of her childhood, the site of a recent string of disappearances and glimpses of strange, giant creatures, Dahlia finds herself confronting old memories, new feelings, and the very real possibility that her brother may be gone forever...
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
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Shadows of Cedar Creek
Volume I
BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 MunichI.
It was easier than usual for Dahlia Craig to be in the same room as Alec Sullivan without her mind wandering to the night she’d spent in his extended stay hotel room.
Normally, it was near impossible to hear his voice and not think of how he had sounded whispering her name against her neck, see him smile and not think of how those quirked lips had tasted, look at him and not think of how his large hands had felt as they roamed her body, how his wavy black-walnut hair had felt knotted in her fingers, how his firm body had felt pressed gapless against hers.
Today, however, she was hardly aware that she was anywhere near him as her olive-colored eyes stared right past him, miles away—30 miles away at Cedar Creek, to be exact, a place equally taboo and all together more unpleasant.
For this reason, it took a moment for her realize that the sound she’d taken for a strangely repetitive humming was actually her name being called.
She looked up and was startled to see Alec looking expectantly at her from where he was kneeling next to a very pregnant Christina Henson.
“Sorry, what?” Dahlia asked.
Alec smiled indulgently at her, and she suddenly felt light-headed. “Willow Springs boots,” he said. “Women’s size 9. Black. Can you go get me a pair?” His tone suggested that he’d already requested this at least twice.
“Yeah, of course,” she said quickly, abandoning her post behind the check-out counter and hurrying into the back storeroom of Craig’s Sporting Goods. She tried to ignore the heat that had risen in her cheeks but had little success. Such was usually the case when it came to Alec.
The store’s new assistant manager had been a surprise. Kensington was a small town, and most of its inhabitants belonged to families that had lived there for half a dozen generations. Immigrants were far and few in between, so when she came home as she always did to work at the store for the summer, the last thing she’d expected was a newcomer, especially one as attractive as Alec.
She shook her head as if to shake away the thought as she scanned the shelves for the shoes. She had no desire to find Alec attractive, and it was hardly as though she didn’t have more important things to worry about.
That somber thought pushed Alec from her mind as it tried to float back to Cedar Creek. She sighed, grabbing the boots and leaving the storeroom.
“Here,” she said, handing the box to Alec. There must have been something of her anxiety in her voice because he studied her for a moment before taking the shoes.
“Thanks, Doll.” He had purposely mispronounced the first syllable of her name. She would not have tolerated it from anyone else, but from him, it was charming rather than cheesy.
And, she thought, if I couldn’t allow myself to be attracted to him, I could at least allow myself this.
She gave him a small smile before returning to her post behind the counter. A look at the clock told her it was just 2:30. That can’t be right, she thought in dismay. The clock doesn’t usually move so slowly, does it? She crossed her arms over her chest and rolled back and forth on the balls of her feet. At least it was less obvious than pacing.
She shifted her attention from the clock to Alec where he had helped remove Christina’s shoes and was replacing them with the boots. Dahlia wondered if she was planning on using them after she delivered or if she had some strange fantasy about giving birth in the Minnesota wilderness.
She doubted Alec had asked her. He was a polite young man who minded his own business, a novelty in such a small town. It went both ways, though. No one knew much about him, either.
When asked where he was from, his answer was always some variant of “Well, I’ve moved around a lot.” When asked why he came to Kensington, he replied with an equivalent of “I just needed a change of scenery.” When asked about his family, his only response was a vague “We don’t really see eye-to-eye.”
They were polite answers, political answers. They also revealed nothing.
Who was this tall, leanly muscled, golden-skinned man with his tiger iron eyes and his face framed by a halo of dark, messy waves. Why was this lovely specimen alone? Who was his family and how could they drive away something so beautiful? Where was he coming from? Where would he go next?
Dahlia shook herself, trying to abandon that line of thought. She wanted to find Alec interesting even less than she wanted to find him attractive. Either, she had decided after that fateful night, would spell nothing but trouble for her, a brand of trouble she was not prepared to deal with.
It was not that he seemed particularly dangerous. In fact, for someone who was literally tall, dark, and handsome, Alec was surprisingly innocuous, something that was usually a turn-off for a girl like Dahlia—a girl who delighted in dangerous men, in their volatile emotions, in their low, gravelly voices, in their high-risk pastimes and hard, fast sex. Alec was nothing like that.
And yet, something about him insisted that he was more dangerous than any of the tattooed bikers she’d dated in the past. The exact “something” eluded her, however.
She had never seen him angry, never heard his mellifluous voice rise above normal speaking volume, never seen an expression on his face that was anything beyond mild.
Mild.
That was the word for it. Despite being one of the hottest men she’d ever laid eyes on, he was as mild as summer on the Olympian peninsula, and Dahlia didn’t trust it. She had long discovered that there were no perfect men—they all had their dark sides, and the apparent absence of Alec’s unnerved her. She’d have felt better if he flew into rages at random. That, she had experience handling. Alec’s perpetual tranquility, on the other hand, was altogether foreign, and she found herself wondering exactly what type of beast he was hiding behind it.
She tried to tell herself she didn’t want to find out, that she preferred the devils she knew. Looking at him then, a pagan Sun God helping a pregnant woman try on hiking boots, she knew she didn’t believe that one bit.
She tore her eyes away from him and looked at the clock again. Is this thing moving backwards?!
“I’ll take these.”
Dahlia jumped as Christina Henson’s voice came from right in front of her. She was at the counter, the boots in hand.
“Sure,” Dahlia said as normally as she could, taking the box and scanning the barcode. “You planning on using these any time soon, Chris?”
“Maybe,” she said. “I was due last week, but little Nicky doesn’t seem to want to come out. My mother said a little hiking might loosen him up.”
Dahlia resisted the urge to roll her eyes. If 80 percent of Kensington’s population was to be believed, a little hiking could cure just about anything. “Maybe you should ask your doctor about that first,” she suggested, taking the bills Christina proffered and handing her the shoes.
“I will, but I needed a new pair anyway.”
“Well regardless, you be careful out there. You’ve heard about the bears, right?”
“Yeah, but you know how people exaggerate. Take care, Dahlia.”
“You too, Chris.”
She watched Christina leave and sighed, wishing she hadn’t brought up the bears. But who knew, maybe Chris was right.
