Finding Forever (Smoky Mountain Lawmen Book 1) Read Free

couple
inches taller than her brother and built just as solidly. 
    Agent
Davidson returned her smile.  “Ma’am.  It’s nice to finally meet you.  Tristan
used to talk about you a lot when we were overseas.  And thank you for the
hospitality.  It’s nice not to have to try to find a hotel room in the area at
this hour.”
    Gemma
felt her face flame.  Good lord, the things the man had probably heard about
her !  She’d had a colorful childhood and adolescence.  The phrases
“accident prone” and “disaster magnet” came to mind.
    She
cleared her throat and forced her smile to stay in place.  “Yes, well, I’m
hoping everything he said about me was good, but I know my brother and I do
hope you won’t let his stories cloud your judgement of me.”
    Agent
Davidson laughed.  “It wasn’t all bad, I assure you.”
    “Good.” 
She motioned to the table.  “Won’t you please sit down?”  She gestured to her
brother.  “You too, Tris.”
    She
offered both men a beer, grabbed the basket of fresh biscuits off the counter
and sat down.  Gemma watched both men tuck into their meals.  They ate like it
was their first meal in days.  Within minutes both steaks were half gone, while
she’d only managed a few bites of her much smaller filet.  Once they had all
appeased their initial hunger, Gemma asked them about their case.
    “I
take it from the fact that the feds are involved this is more than a simple
case of a hiker wandering off the trail and falling prey to Mother Nature?” she
asked.
    “Yeah,”
Tristan answered.  She could tell from the way his face shut down that it had
been a grisly scene.
    “Do
you know what happened?”
    “We’re
still piecing it together,” Agent Davidson answered.  “We don’t even know who
she is yet.”
    Gemma
shook her head.  That was so sad.  No one deserved to die the way she suspected
that woman had.  Then to be unidentified and left to the elements—Gemma could
hardly fathom it. 
    “We’re
hopeful though, Sis.  She was found pretty quickly,” Tristan glanced at Agent
Davidson.  “Quicker than what we think the killer intended and that may help us
catch him.”
    Gemma
certainly hoped so.  The prospect of a killer roaming their quiet hills was
disconcerting.  She herself spent a lot of time both hiking and riding the
trails in the area.  She would be thinking twice now about going out unarmed
until the killer was caught.
               
    Ben
glanced up from the file he was perusing later that night as his hostess
shuffled into the kitchen clad in pink pajama pants and an oversize t-shirt
that hinted at the curves beneath.  She had removed her chestnut colored hair
from the ponytail it had been in earlier and it now spilled down over her
shoulders and back in silky waves.  Ben was disconcerted to find that he had
the urge to see if the tresses felt as soft as they looked.
    She
offered him a small smile and looked at him through slightly sleepy eyes. 
    “Did
I wake you?” he asked.
    “Yes. 
But don’t worry about it,” she hastened to reassure him.  “I’m not used to any
kind of noise in the middle of the night, so the slightest sound will wake me
up.  Tristan sleeps like the dead and it’s a rare occasion that he gets a call
out this late.”
    “Still,
I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to chase you from your bed.”  Ben groaned inwardly the
moment the words left his mouth.  Images of her in bed without the
oversize t-shirt flooded his brain.  He never would have guessed he’d have this
kind of reaction to Tristan’s little sister.  When Tristan had suggested Ben
stay with them Ben hadn’t thought anything of it.  Tristan’s stories had led
him to think of Gemma as a twiggy adolescent with braces and not a lot of
grace.  What had confronted him when he’d walked into the kitchen had been the
absolute opposite.  Whatever Gemma Mabley had been as a teenager, she had
outgrown it to become a stunningly gorgeous