Therefore, there is now no condemnation

       for those who are in Christ Jesus.

      —Romans 8:1

      To my family and friends and church, who put up

       with my weird writing moments and risk getting put into a book. All of you are the greatest!

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      CHAPTER SIXTEEN

      CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

      CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

      CHAPTER NINETEEN

      CHAPTER TWENTY

      CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

      QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

      ONE

      Rae Benton could not believe who had just walked into the mortuary chapel. The man who’d killed her father had the gall to attend his victim’s funeral.

      With hands clenched as tightly as her jaw, she lifted her gaze from the inexpensive casket, up Hunter Gordon’s lean frame to meet his eyes. In the muted light, she couldn’t see the vivid blue, just the intensity that carried both empathy and wariness. She could buy the wariness; after all, he couldn’t expect to be welcomed here. But empathy? Hunter might not have pulled a trigger, but he was responsible for her father’s untimely death. He had no right to show any compassion.

      He came to stand near her. “I’m sorry, Rae.” His voice had deepened during his years in prison, yet she could barely hear it in the quiet chapel. His words were obviously meant for her alone. “I wish I could have been here sooner.”

      “Because you’ve just been released?” she muttered. “How did you get here so fast? Dorchester Penitentiary is a two-hour drive from here. They don’t release inmates at dawn.”

      “I hitched a ride with a guard coming off duty.”

      “Who told you Dad had died?”

      His compassionate expression faltered slightly, but his voice stayed calm. “We stopped for gas up the road. The clerk told me. I came straight here.”

      Edith Waterbrook owned the only gas station in the small New Brunswick village of Green Valley. Which meant if she’d recognized Hunter after ten years, everyone would soon know he’d been released. And had headed straight to the funeral.

      Rae found herself fighting back the conflicting urges to smack him, and to feel again the comforting embrace he’d given her that day a decade ago when her family’s shop had burned to the ground.

      Correction. The day Hunter had burned the workshop to the ground and destroyed Benton Woodworking, a livelihood the family had relied on for nearly a century. The day the police had arrested him for arson.

      She recalled the savage blaze, how she’d come home to find the family business overcome by heat so intense that all the firefighters could do was hose down her nearby home so it, too, wouldn’t catch fire.

      After all these years, the memory of those burning joists and beams still devastated her. A knot formed in her throat. Dad, why didn’t you have the strength to fight the cancer? I need you. I have no one now.

      A scene from three days ago flooded back. Rae hated the memory. Her dad, in the hospital, weakened and bone thin, had grabbed her hand with surprising strength and forced her to agree to the unthinkable. He’d asked her to forgive Hunter and let…

      Robert Benton had collapsed, unable to finish his sentence.

      To placate her father, she’d agreed. But forgive Hunter? Never.

      All she wanted was to be left alone to mourn her dad’s death, and to continue to build the business. And forget she ever knew Hunter Gordon.

      The organist started playing some soft, sad music. Rae felt the touch of the funeral director’s white-gloved hand and allowed him to direct her to her seat.

      Sitting, she watched Hunter scan the crowd, his suspicious eyes probing each face. When he reached hers, he swung around to find a chair as far away as possible.

      His presence, however, filled the chapel, overpowering the somber mood with an emotion Rae refused to analyze.

      “Who’s that?”

      Rae looked into her cousin’s red-rimmed eyes. Annie Dobson had spent the last three days crying. Rae appreciated the sentiment; after all, Dad had been Annie’s favorite uncle. But with her own emotions roiling like oil and water, Rae could barely answer.

      She finally forced the words through gritted teeth. “Hunter Gordon.”

      Annie’s jaw dropped. On her other side, her husband swore. With his thick, dark brows knitted together, Kirk tried to locate Hunter in the crowd.

      “Never mind him,” Rae stated quietly.

      “We can ask him to leave,” Annie suggested.

      “Or kick him out,” Kirk muttered.

      The ideas tempted her, but Rae shook her head. There had been no collective gasp of recognition, and she didn’t want to make a scene. “Let him be. I don’t care if he’s here or not.” Despite her words, she stole another glance around. Andy Morrison had just slipped in and was making his way