Sweet Dreams Boxed Set

by Brenda Novak

  A man was slumped in a plastic Adirondack chair next to a pile of cordwood and a splitter.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them,” Luke said. “My name’s Luke Jackson. I’m a Texas Ranger. What’s going on here?”

  The man winced, his shaking hands out in front of him. “Glad you’re here.” He cleared his throat, moaning. “Mind if I stand up?”

  “Just keep your hands where I can see them.”

  “Right. Got it.”

  He stood, unsteady on his feet. He had about three days’ growth of dark beard and wore a black baseball cap, a canvas jacket, jeans and sneakers.

  The man Maggie had spotted yesterday.

  Luke patted him down, and then stood back. Ellen noted he hadn’t yet holstered his weapon.

  “What’s your name, sir?” Luke asked the man.

  “Fred—Fred Jones. I own this place. I plan to build a new cabin. Probably tear this one down.” He seemed to struggle to stand straight. “I’m hurt.”

  “What happened?”

  “Sucker punched in the gut. I came here to cut wood I didn’t have time to get to in the fall. I saw a squatter had taken over the place. Son of a bitch jumped me, hit me and took off.”

  “Which direction?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see. I didn’t do anything to provoke him, I swear. Once I realized someone was here, I figured I’d call the police. There’s not much cell coverage here.”

  “When did you get here?” Luke asked.

  “About thirty minutes ago.”

  “Where’s your vehicle?”

  “I parked up on the main road and walked in. You see what this road’s like.”

  “Let’s go out front,” Luke said. “We can wait together for the local police. You can tell your story to them.”

  The man nodded. “Happy to.”

  “Where do you live, Mr. Jones?”

  “Saratoga.”

  “It’s a long way from Texas,” Ellen said, speaking for the first time.

  He leveled his gaze on her. “Yes, ma’am, it is.”

  “Ma’am. I like that. You don’t hear that up here as much as you do at home. I lived in Boston for a time with my grandmother. I think I heard her called ma’am twice.”

  “Is that right? I guess I was raised different.”

  She felt blood rush to her face. It was anger, she knew. Dead-on certainty. “I guess you’re not from here, are you, Hugh Parker?”

  He gave her a blank look. “Who?”

  “Enough,” Luke said. “If Ellen says you’re Hugh Parker, you’re Hugh Parker. Let’s go.”

  Luke had obviously reached the same conclusion.

  “I’m calling my attorney.” Parker’s voice turned whiny. “I don’t trust you two. You’re in cahoots with the man who attacked me, aren’t you? How do I know you’re a real Texas Ranger?”

  Luke shook his head. “You’re not calling anyone right now. You can call after the locals get here.”

  “He’s stalling,” Ellen said. “He wants to keep us here. Why?”

  Parker charged for the woodpile. Luke got him on the ground, twisted his arm behind him and looked at Ellen. “Run. Take cover in the woods. Now.”

  “Not without you.”

  “Right behind you, babe.”

  He grabbed Parker, got him to his feet. “Move or die here. Your choice.”

  They reached the woods and took cover in the dense spruce trees just as the shack exploded.

  Hugh Parker’s personal IED.

  Luke kept Parker in his control. “Were you going to rig Maggie’s cabin?”

  “I have better plans for her.” He grinned at Ellen, spittle on the corners of his mouth. “You won’t be able to live with yourself after I’ve finished with her.”

  “He’s trying to plant thoughts in your head, Ellen,” Luke said. “Don’t let him.”

  She nodded but kept her gaze fixed on Hugh Parker. “Did you think that woodpile was going to protect you?” She laughed, shaking her head. “Dumb, Parker. Real dumb.”

  Chapter 9

  Maggie knew something was up when her flight landed and both Sam Temple and her father met her at her gate. They were strong, handsome men, both wearing suits and white cowboy hats, clearly on duty. “Ellen’s with Luke,” she said, breathless. “Nothing’s happened, has it?”

  “They’re okay,” Sam said. “Hugh Parker is in custody in New York.”

  “He tried to kill them?”

  Her father nodded, grim. “He put together a homemade bomb in a shack he took over.”

  “It wasn’t his first plan, wasn’t it?” Maggie asked. “He was going to hurt me as a way to hurt Ellen. Then kill her. Am I right?”

  “It’s all that Jane Austen you read,” Sam said, but his humor seemed forced. “You have good insight into different kinds of people.”

  Her father slipped an arm over her shoulders. “We figured out Parker flew from Albany to Austin then back up to Albany right before you did.”

  “He’s going to spend a long time in the frozen north,” Sam said. “He’s the man you saw at the lake yesterday. He did a few things to disguise himself. You were right to run.”

  Her father nodded. “As I’ve been saying since you were a tot, always trust your instincts. We’ll go back to the Adirondacks one day. You, Ellen, Brent, your mother and me. We’ll rent a cabin on a lake and go swimming and kayaking and enjoy ourselves. It’s a beautiful area.”

  “I’d like that,” Maggie said. “But you’ll probably want to invite Luke, too.”

  Sam grimaced. “Luke. Right.”

  Her father was expressionless.

  Maggie laughed. “It’s good to be home.”

  She returned to her studio apartment on the third floor of a house owned by professor friends. She had her books and papers, her posters of movies of Jane Austen novels, her collection of Texas Ranger memorabilia. It was okay she wasn't in law enforcement. She was who she was. She felt free of her own restrictions on herself. She wasn’t a coward. Her parents had taught her to trust her instincts and get away from danger—and that was what she’d done.

  She got a text from a friend who’d heard she was back from New York. She and a few other friends were getting together that evening. Did Maggie want to join them?

  She did. Most definitely.

  ***

  “Maggie’s home safe and sound,” Ellen said, roasting in front of a roaring fire Luke had built in the fireplace at Maggie’s cabin. The temperature had dropped with the waning day but not that much. Either that, or Hugh Parker trying to blow them up was still affecting her. She decided to stay focused on Maggie. “She’s spending the evening with friends and then joining Mom, Dad and Brent and Uncle Sam and Aunt Kara and their two little ones for a picnic tomorrow.”

  “You’re quite a family,” Luke said, no sign he was hot.

  “Do we intimidate you?”

  “A senior Texas Ranger, a money whiz, twin sisters and a bright little brother. You Galways are a great family, but I’m not intimidated. No, ma’am.” He stood in front of her. “You’re asking the wrong question.”

  “What question should I be asking?”

  He took her hands and pulled her to her feet. “Let’s go outside. I got the fire too hot.”

  “So you do feel the heat.”

  He winked. “I do.”

  They went outside and walked down to the dock. The sun was sinking behind the hills in the west. Luke tossed a stone into the water and watched the ripples for a moment.

  “All right,” Ellen said. “What’s the right question to ask you?”

  He continued staring at the water. “Ask me if I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” he said, finally turning to her. “Ask me if I love you with all my heart.”

  “Luke…” She couldn’t say anything else, her throat was so tight.

  “You don’t have to ask,” he said. “You know why? Because you already know the answer. You know I want to spend the rest of my life
with you. You know I love you with all my heart.” He touched two fingers to her chest. “You know it here, in your own heart.”

  “You’re a romantic, Luke Jackson.”

  He smiled. “Worthy of a Regency hero.”

  “Those thighs of yours would never fit in those slim Regency trousers.”

  He eased his arms around her. “Seeing how we were nearly blown up by a crazed would-be killer, we won’t be on a flight back to Texas tonight. It’s nice here. Peaceful.”

  “I can’t smell the smoke from the IED here, can you?”

  “Not at all. The state police would like us to stick around for another day if we can. I like the idea of a couple of days here on our own. I talked to the owners. They’re cool with it.”

  “It sounds perfect.” Ellen took in his blue eyes, his strong jaw. “You haven’t asked me if I love you with all my heart and want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  “Do I have to ask?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “No. You know the answer.”

  “I’ve been meaning to get to this for the past week. I haven’t because your mind has been elsewhere—on your sister, and rightly so. I’ve loved you since you cursed at me when you found out the good-looking guy who’d just bought you a margarita was another Texas Ranger.” He tightened his hold on her. “Ellen Galway, will you marry me?”

  She felt tears hot in her eyes. “Yes—yes, Luke Jackson, I will marry you.”

  “Good, because when your father and uncle find out we’re spending the weekend here, they aren’t going to believe we’re staying in separate bedrooms.” He kissed her softly, slipping a simple diamond ring on her finger. “I love you, Ellen.”

  “We’re forever, Luke. I knew it from the start but didn’t trust my own instincts. I tried to make a run for it. Ah, Luke. I love you so much.”

  He kissed her again. “Shall we try out those kayaks and see if we can come across a loon?”

  She smiled. “One with feathers.”

  Fifteen minutes later, they were paddling side by side in the clear water of the Adirondack lake. The sunset glowed orange, striking Ellen’s diamond. She laughed, dipping her paddle into water and splashing Luke in his kayak. “You came up here with the ring.”

  He grinned. “Just figured that out?”

  “You were testing me.”

  “Gauging the situation, like a good prosecutor would.”

  “You knew I’d say yes before you asked me to marry you. You’re not a prosecutor.”

  They paddled back to shore, jumping out their kayaks. Luke swept her into his arms and carried her to the cabin. She sank her head against his chest. She had no thoughts of the past, only of her future with this man she loved, starting with the next few hours.

  About Carla Neggers

  Carla Neggers is the New York Times bestselling author of more than 60 novels, including her popular Sharpe & Donovan and Swift River Valley series. While “Secret Hideaway” stands on its own, this short novella is the long-awaited sequel to The Cabin, Jack and Susanna Galway’s story, and Stonebrook Cottage, Sam Temple and Kara Galway’s story.

  A frequent traveler, especially to Ireland, Carla and her husband divide their time between Boston and their home on a hilltop in Vermont, where she is at work on her next novel.

  For more information, and to sign up for Carla’s newsletter, please visit her at www.CarlaNeggers.com. You can also find her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/carlaneggers and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/carlaneggers.

  ENJOY A SNEEK PEEK AT KEEPER’S REACH, THE EXCITING NEW NOVEL IN THE SHARPE & DONOVAN SERIES FROM NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR CARLA NEGGERS

  When she reached her tiny apartment, Emma Sharpe heaped her coat, hat and gloves on a chair and kicked off her boots. She sat on her couch in the living room and dialed up Oliver York on her laptop on her coffee table.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said.

  Oliver peered at her from across the Atlantic. A thick, dark blond curl flopped onto his forehead as he leaned closer to his screen. “What happened to your hair, Emma?”

  “Hat head.” She had no intention of telling him about trying on wedding dresses.

  “It’s cold in Boston?”

  “Yes. Where are you?”

  “My London flat.”

  It was a room she didn’t recognize from her one visit last November to his sprawling Mayfair apartment overlooking St. James’s Park. Colin and Yank had accompanied her. Oliver had met them in the library, where his parents had been murdered almost thirty years ago. Now he sat in a tall-backed red-leather chair in front of a draped window and a painting of porpoises in Ardmore Bay on the south Irish coast. Emma knew the painting, an early work by well-known Irish artist Aoife O’Byrne.

  “A video chat is more intimate than a phone call, at least. How are you, Emma? It is all right if I call you Emma, isn’t it? It’s more informal than Special Agent Sharpe, but this is an official chat, I assume?”

  “I’m an FBI agent. You’re a thief. Yes, it’s an official chat. But Emma is fine.”

  He pointed at her. “You’re testier than when I saw you here in November.”

  That was when she had figured out that Oliver Fairbairn, a tweedy British mythologist caught in the middle of a murder investigation in Boston, was also Oliver York, a cheeky, wealthy British aristocrat with a tragic past. That Oliver Fairbairn and Oliver York were one and the same wasn’t widely known. He preferred to keep the two identities separate, and Emma had no reason to announce it to the world. In fact, the opposite.

  “Tell me about this FBI agent you believe is following you.”

  He gave an audible sigh. “Testy. Definitely testy.”

  She tried to resist a smile.

  “I have reliable radar for FBI agents, and it went off like crazy when I spotted this man. He was in the park outside my apartment. I had just returned from an art gallery. I wouldn’t be surprised if he followed me.”

  “Was this today?”

  “Around noon, yes.”

  “Is the gallery the one holding the show for Aoife O’Byrne?”

  “Mmm.”

  The Irish O’Byrne family was one of Oliver’s victims—his first, ten years ago. He had made off with two Jack Butler Yeats landscape paintings of western Ireland, a fifteenth-century silver wall cross depicting Saint Declan and an unsigned landscape of a local scene, probably by a young Aoife O’Byrne herself. Her Yeats phase, Oliver called it. The porpoises had come after that, as well as a few crosses of her own, but she was known now for her moody seascapes.

  At least Oliver had bought the porpoise painting instead of stealing it.

  “What’s the name of this agent you ran into in the park?” Emma asked.

  Oliver looked surprised. “I only saw him. I didn’t speak with him.”

  “How do you know he’s an FBI agent if you didn’t speak with him?”

  “The suit. The look. He’s one of yours. I’ve no doubt.”

  “Did you take his picture?”

  He sniffed. “Of course not. I’m a mild-mannered mythologist, not Scotland Yard or MI6. This man is tall, lean, medium coloring, perhaps early forties—but that describes a lot of your colleagues, doesn’t it? Not you, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  Oliver sat back, amusement lighting up his face. He was good-looking and surprisingly affable for a man so solitary, so haunted by his past. “I’m many things, Emma, but paranoid isn’t one of them. I’m convinced this man is one of yours. Consider yourself alerted.”

  “Fair enough. Anything else?”

  “I’ve sent you a package. Martin has, actually.”

  On her November trip to London, Emma had also met Martin Hambly, Oliver’s longtime personal assistant. It was unclear to her whether Martin was aware of his boss’s alter ego as an art thief. “What’s in the package, Oliver?”

  “A present for you. A surprise. You’ll love it. I packed it myself when I was at the farm over the weekend. I returned to
London on Monday. Then today…” He grimaced. “Today, I saw the FBI outside my apartment.”

  “Where did you send the package?”

  “I addressed it to you at Father Bracken’s rectory in Rock Point. I thought that would be simpler, but, as luck would have it, our Irish priest friend is here in London.”

  Emma frowned at that bit of news. “I thought he was in Ireland visiting his family.”

  “He joined his brother on a business trip on behalf of Bracken Distillers. I ran into Finian at the gallery. He, Declan and I are all about to have a drink together. Declan has to return to Ireland tomorrow, but I plan to invite Father Bracken to the family farm in the Cotswolds.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that, Oliver.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re a thief and Father Bracken is a friend of mine.”

  Dead Man Running

  by Theresa Ragan

  Chapter One

  San Quentin State Prison

  Jason Caldwell sat across from his defense lawyer, Mike Gabaldon, in a twelve by fourteen square foot room. There were no windows, and the table was bolted to the floor in case his temper got the best of him. Metal cuffs circled his wrists and a heavy chain weighed them down almost to the floor, where two more metal cuffs trapped his ankles.

  He’d already been locked up for three years. Most prisoners stayed clear of him once they heard about the hack job he’d done on his business partner. It also helped that he lifted weights for a few hours every day.

  The truth was…he was innocent. But of course no one believed him, since someone out there in the real world had a done one heck of a job framing him.

  “How are you holding up, kid?”

  Kid? He’d just spent his thirtieth birthday in a cold cell. “I’m fine,” he lied. “Listen, Mike, be straight with me and tell me what’s going on. What’s next? You’re still working on getting me out on appeal like you said, right?”

  His lawyer shook his head, slowly, with about as much regret as if he’d just been told his neighbor’s dog had been run over by a car. “I’ve done everything I could to get the conviction overturned,” he said glumly. “Felony appeals in California are limited to legal issues. The only question the Court of Appeal asks is ‘did the case proceed in accordance with the law?’” Mike paused for effect, just as he had done throughout Jason’s trial.