www.millsandboon.co.uk

      For Steve & Carolyn Spencer

      Your dedication to the arts is such a blessing to our community. You’re smart, talented, generous people who’ve raised a wonderful family and are fun to hang out with. Carolyn, thanks for reading my books.

      And Steve, we’ll get you on a cover one day.

       Prologue

      Boone Harrison never tired of standing atop the rugged Missouri River bluffs and watching the wide, slate-gray water thundering past. The dense carpet of orange, red and gold deciduous trees and evergreens lining every hill that hadn’t been cleared for farming or cut out to put a road through blocked his view of the interstate and made him feel like he was the only soul around for miles.

      Even though he was partial to the sheriff’s badge he’d worn for almost fifteen years now, knew most of the folks in the tiny burg of Grangeport and on the farms and ranches in the surrounding county—and liked most of them—there was something peaceful, something that centered him, about getting away for a ride across his land on his buckskin quarter horse, Big Jim. Feeling Jim’s warmth and strength beneath the saddle reminded Boone of where he came from. Smack-dab in the middle of the Missouri Ozarks, his family’s home might not be used as a working cattle ranch anymore, but he rented out enough parcels of grazing land to a friend to keep it well maintained and looking like the thriving operation his father and grandfather before him had run.

      Pulling his gaze from the early morning fog off the river some fifty yards below his feet, Boone nudged his heels into Jim’s sides and cantered up over the rise toward the gravel road leading back to the house. A small herd of Herefords scattered as he approached the gate, and for a few mutinous seconds he considered chasing after them the way he had when his parents had been running the place. Give him fifteen minutes—twenty, tops—and he’d have them rounded up and on their way to the next pasture.

      But they weren’t his cattle. That wasn’t his job. Boone was forty-five years old. His folks and his grandparents were gone now, and his brothers and sister had moved on. Buried in the county cemetery, married and raising kids in town, gone to the big city to make a career or simply thumbing their noses at ranch life. Boone might be the only one still living on the land where they’d all been raised, but he had other responsibilities now.

      Leaving the cattle to settle back down to their sleepy breakfasts, he reined in Jim. “Ho, boy.”

      The big buckskin snorted clouds of steam in the chilly autumn air as Boone leaned over the saddle horn to unhook the gate. With the skilled precision of the ten years they’d been taking this morning ride together, Jim walked through the gate. Boone refastened it and, with nothing more than a touch on the reins, Jim trotted up to the road.

      Boone had already noticed the tire tracks in the dusty gravel before he topped the next rise.

      Company wasn’t part of the morning routine.

      Instantly on guard without making a fuss about it, Boone checked the gun on his belt, then pulled back the front of his jacket to reveal the badge on his tan uniform shirt. He adjusted his Stetson low over his forehead and rode the horse in to see who’d come out to the house so early in the day.

      He recognized the green departmental SUV parked behind his black farm truck and knew the news wasn’t good. Occasionally over the years, an inmate had escaped from the prison on the opposite side of the river, and his team had been put on alert. More often there was an accident on one of the highways that crisscrossed through town. Sometimes there was a drunk or a domestic disturbance, but his men could handle calls like that without his guidance.

      This was something different. Flint Larson, the young man in the tan shirt and brown uniform slacks that matched Boone’s own, stopped his pacing and came to face him at the edge of the porch.

      Boone reined in Big Jim, and stayed in the saddle to look Flint in the eye. “What is it?” he asked, skipping any greeting.

      They weren’t so backward that cell phones and land-lines didn’t work out here. A visit to the house meant something personal. The pale cast beneath the deputy’s tanned skin confirmed it.

      “It’s Janie.” Boone’s sister, the youngest of the Harrison clan. A failed engagement to the blond man standing on his porch, and the desire for something more than small-town living, had taken her two and a half hours away to Kansas City more than a year ago. “She’s dead.” Flint’s voice broke with emotion before he steeled his jaw and continued. “The office just got the call from KCPD.”

      Boone crushed his fist around the saddle horn, feeling Flint’s words like a kick in the gut. Janie? Hell. She wasn’t even thirty years old yet. She was loud and funny. She had an artist’s eye and the ability to put her four older brothers in their place. He needed to call those brothers. As the oldest, they’d expect him to take charge of making arrangements. Who were her friends in the city he’d need to contact? What the hell had happened to her, anyway? Driving too fast? An illness she hadn’t shared?

      He squeezed his eyes shut as the questions gave way to images of growing up in the house and town flashed through his mind. A lone daughter, spoiled by her parents and big brothers, overprotected, well loved. She could be just as rowdy as the rest of them, yet turn on the ladylike charm whenever …

      The images froze and he snapped his eyes back open. Hold on. “The police?”

      “Yes, sir.” Flint shifted on his feet. He had to be feeling the shock and loss, too. “That’s not the worst of it.”

      What could be worse than