Broken Bonds Read Free Page B

save yours. You got out on your own and—”
    “But I had you to give me courage and to hold on to.”
    To have and to hold from this day forward.
The words to the wedding vows danced through Char’s head, since she’d been helping her sister Kate memorize them for her December wedding.
    They both jolted when a black truck drove toward them just where the one-lane road became two near the foot of the mountain. It was fracking rig workers heading up, two in the cab and four in the truck bed. They tossed beer cans out into the bushes as they roared past. Some folks around here were afraid these people would hurt the natural environment, corrupt the rural way of life. But even before the fracking hit here, Char knew some locals resented the so-called rich folk who built luxury getaway homes or weekend places at Lake Azure. As the face man for that ritzy area, Matt Rowan could have a lot of enemies, and black pickup trucks were thick as thieves around here.
    “The guys in the back of that truck are wearing black stocking caps,” Matt said, craning around to look back at them. “I’m pretty sure my attacker wore a ski mask, but it could have been almost anyone who nearly sent me over the edge. And I’m going to find out who and why if it’s the last thing I do.”
    Char wished he hadn’t put it that way. Back on curves and hilly roads instead of hairpin turns on peaks, she drove them toward town.
    * * *
    “Again, I can’t thank you enough,” Matt told her as he got out of her truck and hurried around to open her door in the small parking lot next to the sheriff’s office on Main Street in Cold Creek.
    He was feeling worse—a sudden limp caused by a leg cramp, sore muscles all over, maybe from holding himself so tense as well as his leap for life. He was also mad as hell, but he was trying to control his fury around this woman, not take things out on her.
    He figured that Charlene Lockwood was probably midtwenties to his midthirties. She was so petite next to his six-foot height. Slender, almost delicate looking, and yet she seemed as sturdy as they come, despite hands gripping the steering wheel all the way down the mountain. She emanated determination, but seemed strangely vulnerable, which, as bad as he felt, hit him like a sledgehammer. She was a looker in a saucy way with her pert nose, blue eyes and full mouth framed by sun-streaked windblown brown hair. She had a heart-shaped face and, obviously, a big heart. And no ring on her left hand, though he had more important things to worry about right now.
    Sheriff McCabe came barreling out the front door of the police station as they started toward it. “Hey, Char,” he called. “Thought you were visiting mountain kids truant from school. Listen, Tess and I don’t want you to move out, really. Oh, Matt. Things okay out at Lake Azure? You look— Are you okay, Matt? Are you and Char here together?”
    “Gabe, someone shoved his truck off a cliff on Pinecrest Mountain where I was visiting a family. I found him just before it went over.”
    Matt looked at Char. He suddenly felt dizzy. Yeah, that had happened to him. He was not someone else watching it from afar. “I’d better sit down,” he said, taking Char’s arm because that seemed natural now. “Sheriff, maybe she can come in with me—to tell at least the part she saw. I like to think I would rescue a fair maiden in distress, but it was the other way around.”
    Matt realized he was staring only at Char, too long, too close. She stared back at him. The sheriff cleared his throat.
    “Let’s go inside. You just caught me in time, but what I had to do can wait. How about I talk to you first, Matt, and then interview Char for her perspective on all this after? Do you need a doctor?”
    “Not right now. I need answers.”
    “Let’s work on that,” the sheriff said as he put his hand on Matt’s shoulder and opened the door he’d just exited. “Are you claiming it wasn’t an accident, but intentional?