The Smoky Mountain Mist. Paula Graves

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СКАЧАТЬ squealed but held, and the muscle car shuddered to a stop with inches to spare.

      “Son of a bitch!” he growled as he found his breath again. Who the hell had parked a car in the middle of the bridge without even turning on emergency signals?

      With a start, he recognized the vehicle, a silver Honda Accord. He’d seen Rachel Davenport drive that car in and out of the employee parking lot at Davenport Trucking every day for the past year.

      His chest tightening with alarm, he put on his own emergency flashers and got out of the car, approaching the Honda with caution.

      Out of the corner of his eye, he detected movement in the darkness. He whipped his gaze in that direction.

      She stood atop the narrow steel railing, her small hands curled in the decorative lacework of the old truss bridge. She swayed a little, like a tree limb buffeted by the light breeze blowing through the girders. The air ruffled her skirt and fluttered her long hair.

      “Ms. Davenport?” Seth’s heart squeezed as one of her feet slid along the thin metal support and she sagged toward the thirty-foot drop below.

      “Ms. Davenport is dead,” she said in a faint, mournful tone. “Killed herself, you know.”

      Seth edged toward her, careful not to move too quickly for fear of spooking her. “Rachel, that girder’s not real steady. Don’t you want to come down here to the nice, solid ground?”

      She laughed softly. “Solid. Solid.” She said the word with comical gusto. “‘She’s solid.’ What does that mean? It makes you sound stiff and heavy, doesn’t it? Solid.”

      Okay, not suicidal, he decided as he took a couple more steps toward her. Drunk?

      “Do you think I’m cursed?” There was none of her earlier amusement in that question.

      “I don’t think so, no.” He was almost close enough to touch her. But he had to be careful. If he grabbed at her and missed, she could go over the side in a heartbeat.

      “I think I am,” she said. Her voice had taken on a definite slurring cadence. But he decided she didn’t sound drunk so much as drugged. Had someone given her a sedative after the funeral? Maybe she’d had a bad reaction to it.

      “I don’t think you’re cursed,” Seth disagreed, easing his hand toward her in the dark. “I think you’re tired and sad. And, you know, that’s okay. It means you’re human.”

      Her eyes glittered in the reflected light of the Char-ger’s flashers. “I wish I were a bird,” she said plaintively. “Then I could fly away over the mountains and never have to land again.” She took a sudden turn outward, teetering atop the rail as if preparing to take flight. “She said I should fly.”

      Then, in heart-stopping slow motion, she began to fall forward, off the bridge.

      Chapter Two

      He wasn’t going to reach her in time.

      A nightmare played out in his head as he threw himself toward her. His hands clawing at the air where she’d been a split second earlier. His body slamming into the rail that stopped him just short of throwing himself after her over the side of the bridge. He could see her plummeting, her slender body dancing like a feather in the cold October breeze until it shattered on the rocks below.

      Then his fingers met flesh; his arms snaked around her hips, anchoring her to him. Though she was tall and thin, she was heavy enough to fill the next few seconds of Seth’s life with sheer terror as he struggled to keep her from tumbling into the gorge and taking him with her.

      He finally brought her down to the ground and crushed her close, his heart pounding a thunderous rhythm in his ears. She pressed closer to him, her nose nuzzling against the side of his neck.

      “This is nice,” she said, her fingers playing over the muscles of his chest. “You smell nice.”

      His body’s reaction was quick and fierce. He struggled to regain control, but she wasn’t helping him a bit. Her exploring hands slid downward to rest against his hips. His heart gave a jolt as her mouth brushed over the tendon at the side of his neck, the tip of her tongue flicking against the flesh.

      “Taste good, too.”

      He dragged her away, holding her at arm’s length in a gentle but firm grip. “I need to get you home.”

      She smiled at him, but he could see in the dim light that her eyes were glassy. Clearly she had no idea where she was or maybe even who she was. Whatever chemical had driven her up on the girder was still in control.

      “Rachel, do you have the key to your car?” He didn’t want to leave her car there to be a hazard to other drivers trying to cross the bridge.

      She shook her head drunkenly.

      Keeping a grip on one of her arms, he crossed and checked the vehicle. The key was in the ignition. At least she hadn’t locked the door, so he could move it off the bridge. But did he dare let Rachel go long enough to do so?

      “Rachel, let’s take a ride, okay?”

      “’Kay.” She got into the passenger seat willingly enough when he directed her there, and she was fumbling with the radio dials when he slid in behind the steering wheel. “Where’s the music?”

      “Just a minute, sugar.” He started the car. A second later, hard-edged bluegrass poured through the CD speak-ers—Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson. He had that album in his own car.

      She started singing along with no-holds gusto, her voice a raspy alto, and complained when he parked the car off the road and cut the engine.

      “Just a minute and we’ll make the music come back,” he promised, keeping an eye on the road. There had been no traffic so far, but his luck wouldn’t hold much longer. He needed to get her out of there before anyone else saw the condition she was in.

      He almost laughed at himself as he realized what he was thinking. He’d been a cover-up artist from way back, trying to hide the ugly face of his home life from the people around them. He’d gotten good at telling lies.

      Then he’d gotten good at running cons.

      Still, he thought it was smart to protect Rachel Dav-enport from prying eyes until she was in some sort of condition to defend herself. He didn’t know what had happened to her tonight, or how big a part she’d played in her own troubles, but he didn’t care. Everybody made mistakes, and she’d been under a hell of a lot more pressure than most folks these past few weeks.

      She could sort things out with her conscience when she was sober. He wasn’t going to add to her problems by parading her in front of other people.

      He buckled her safely into the passenger seat of the Charger and slid behind the wheel, pulling the bluegrass CD from a holder attached to his sun visor. He put the CD in the player and punched the skip button until the song she’d been singing earlier came on. She picked up the tune happily, and he let her serenade him while he thought through what to do next.

      Delivering her to her family was the most obvious answer, but Seth didn’t like that idea. Someone had gone to deadly lengths СКАЧАТЬ