Carla Neggers's Blog, page 25

DECLAN’S CROSS

August 2014

Sharpe & Donovan Novel

Harlequin MIRA

mass market paperback
(Hardcover published September 2013)

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An escape to an idyllic Irish seaside village is about to turn deadly.

For marine biologist Julianne Maroney, two weeks in tiny Declan’s Cross on the south Irish coast is a chance to heal her broken heart. She doesn’t expect to attract the attention of FBI agents Emma Sharpe and Colin Donovan, who are in Ireland for their own personal retreat.

Ten years ago, art was stolen from a mansion in Declan’s Cross, but it has never been recovered and the elusive thief never caught. Now, from the moment Julianne sets foot on Irish soil, everything goes wrong. The well-connected American diver who invited her to Ireland has disappeared. And now Emma and Colin are asking questions.

As a dark conspiracy unfolds amid the breathtaking scenery of Declan’s Cross, the race is on to stop a ruthless killer …and the stakes have never been more personal for Emma and Colin.

Includes a bonus story, ROCK POINT, a Sharpe & Donovan prequel novella!

Read Excerpt
Excerpt of Declan’s Cross by Carla Neggers

Emma Sharpe paused atop a craggy knoll and looked out at the ripples of barren hills, not a house, a road, a car or another person in sight. She didn’t know what had become of her hiking partner. Maybe he had stepped up to his midcalves in mud and muck, too, but she doubted it. It wasn’t that Colin Donovan wasn’t capable of taking a misstep. It was that she’d have heard him cursing if he had.

A fat, woolly sheep stared up at her from the boggy grass as if to say, “You might be an FBI agent back in Boston, but out here in the Irish hills, you’re just another hiker with wet feet.”

“This is true,” Emma said, setting her backpack on the expanse of rough gray rock. “However, I’m prepared. I have dry socks.”

She unzipped her pack and dug out a pair of fresh wool socks. The sheep bleated and meandered off, disappearing behind another knoll, one of a series on the windswept ridge on the Beara Peninsula, one of the fingers of land that jutted into the North Atlantic off the southwest coast of Ireland. It had been centuries since these hills were forested. She could see peeks of Kenmare Bay in the distance, its calm waters blue-gray in the midafternoon November light. Across the bay, shrouded in mist but still distinct, were the jagged ridges of the Macgil-licuddy Reeks.

Emma kicked off her shoes, sat on the bare rock ledge and pulled off her wet socks. She glanced down at the narrow valley directly below her, a small lake shimmering in the fading sunlight. She and Colin were five hours into their six-hour hike. With the short November days, they would get back to their car just before dark.

As she put on her dry socks, he came around the knoll where her sheep had disappeared. A light breeze caught the ends of his dark hair, and he had his backpack hooked on one arm as he jumped over the wet spot that had fooled her.

He climbed up onto her knoll and dropped his pack next to hers. “I like having you walk point,” he said with a grin.

“No fair. You saw my footprint in the mud.”

“I’ll never tell.”

Emma leaned back against her outstretched arms. She had on a wool hat, her fair hair knotted at the nape of her neck. She had pulled her gloves on and off over the course of the day. She didn’t know if Colin had even packed a hat and gloves. He was, she thought, the sexiest man she had ever met. Small scars on his right cheek and by his left eye from fights he said he had won. She had no doubt. He was strongly built, rugged and utterly relentless.

A good man to have on your side in a fight.

She was fit and lean and could handle herself in a fight, and although she wasn’t tiny, he could easily carry her up a flight of stairs. In fact, he had, more than once.

They had set out early. For the past two weeks, they had explored the southwest Irish coast on foot and by car, by mutual agreement avoiding talk of arms traffickers, thieves, poison, attempted murder and alligators. Colin would wink at her and say he especially didn’t want to talk about alligators, not that he had seen one on his narrow escape from killers in South Florida. Thinking about them had been enough.

By unspoken agreement, he and Emma also avoided talk of their futures with the FBI—or even each other. His months of intense undercover work, in an environment where everyone was a potential enemy, had taken a toll, and he needed this time to be in the present, to be himself.

Emma’s needs were simpler. She just wanted to be with him.

It was her life that was complicated.

She sat up straight, noticing that Colin’s boots and cargo pants were splattered with mud but not wet like hers. She grinned at him. “You do know I’ve spent more time hiking the Irish hills than you have, don’t you?”

“Beneath that placid exterior beats the heart of a competitive federal agent.” He made no move to sit next to her. “Your mishap gives me an excuse to run a hot bath for you when we get back to the cottage.”

“Life could be worse. You’re not bored, are you?”

“I can go more than two weeks without anyone trying to kill me.”

As he stood next to her on her boulder, his smile almost reached his stone-gray eyes. Almost.

He offered her a sip from his water bottle, but she shook her head. He took a long drink as he gazed out at the hills. Except for the occasional baa of the grazing, half-wild sheep, the silence was complete.

“What are you thinking about, Colin?”

“Guinness.”

“A cold pint and a warm pub. Sounds perfect.”

He leaned down and touched the curve of his hand to her cheek. “It’s been good being here with you.” He winked at her as he stood straight. “Mud and sheep dung and all.”

Emma sighed as she slipped back into her trail shoes and tied the laces. “No escaping sheep dung out here, is there? I wasn’t distracted when I stepped in the wet spot. I just misjudged. There’s a difference.” ”

But you do have a lot on your mind,” Colin said.

She always did. Their jobs with the FBI attested to their different natures. He was an undercover agent. She specialized in art crimes. She was analytical, methodical, detailoriented. He was direct, intuitive, quick and decisive—and independent to a fault. Six weeks ago, he had been assigned to her small team in Boston, if only because the senior agent in charge was determined to rein him in.

Good luck with that, Emma thought. She stood, lifted her backpack and slung it over her shoulders. “The rest of the way is all downhill.”

“Have you ever done this hike before?”

She shook her head. “First time.”

“It’s a good spot,” he said, tucking his water bottle in his pack. “I’m glad we did this before I go home.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

It was Monday. She had a flight back to Boston on Friday. She’d be at her desk a week from today. Colin had more time before he had to decide what was next for him. Not a lot more time, but he could stay in Ireland for a while longer, without her.

She angled a look at him. “Anything on your mind, Colin?”

“I had an email from Andy in my in-box this morning. He sent it last night. I didn’t read it until just now, while I ate an energy bar and admired the view. Reading email is against our hiking rules, I know.”

“A sign it’s time to get back to work, maybe.” Emma gave him a moment but he didn’t take the bait and respond, and she let it go. “How are things in Rock Point?”

“Andy says Julianne Maroney is leaving for Ireland tonight.”

“Tonight? Isn’t that sudden?”

“She’s just accepted a marine biology internship in Cork that starts in January. She decided to come for a couple weeks now and get herself sorted out. It’s sudden, but that’s Julianne.”

“So, she’s staying in Cork?”

“A village east of Cork. Declan’s Cross.”

Declan’s Cross.

Emma went still as a dozen images came at her at once. A pretty seaside Irish village of brightly colored shops and residences. A romantic mansion with sweeping views of cliffs and sea. Haunting Celtic crosses on a grassy hilltop.

A tight-lipped old Irish sheep farmer.

Her grandfather, Wendell Sharpe, a renowned art detective, pacing in his Dublin office as he admitted he and Sharpe Fine Art Recovery were after a thief they couldn’t catch.

A thief, Emma thought, who had first struck in tiny Declan’s Cross on a lonely, rainy, dark November night ten years ago.

She’d only become involved in the case four years ago, in the months between her life as Sister Brigid at the coastal Maine convent of the Sisters of the Joyful Heart and her life as a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She’d worked side by side with her grandfather in Dublin, learning everything he knew.

Not everything.

Wendell Sharpe never told anyone everything. She was aware of Colin’s eyes narrowed on her. He wouldn’t know about the thief. There was no reason for him to know. She pushed back her thoughts. “Why Declan’s Cross, Colin?”

“Emma…”

“Just tell me what you know. Please.”

“All right.” He was plainly suspicious now. “A woman who’s launching a marine science research facility in Declan’s Cross stopped in Rock Point last week. She and Julianne hit it off. Now Julianne’s meeting her there.”

“To help with this research facility?”

“Andy doesn’t have any details. He hasn’t talked to Julianne himself.

“Then who told him?”

“Her brother. Ryan. He’s in the Coast Guard, but he’s in Rock Point visiting for a few days. He found out from their grandmother. Julianne lives with her.”

Rock Point was a small, tight-knit southern Maine fishing village. Everyone knew everyone else’s business, but Julianne’s short-lived romance with Andy Donovan, third-born of the four Donovan brothers, apparently had come as a surprise, especially since she’d vowed never to get involved with a Donovan. Emma didn’t know either Andy or Julianne well. She’d only met Colin in September and was still figuring out who was who in his hometown.

“What’s this woman’s name?” she asked. “Do we know her?”

“Her name’s Lindsey Hargreaves. I don’t know her.”

Hargreaves. Emma searched her memory but shook her head. “I don’t, either. Did she come to Rock Point looking for Julianne?”

“I don’t have any details. I just know Julianne’s on her way to Ireland.”

“And you don’t like it.”

“Julianne’s as smart as they come, but she’s impulsive and she’s had a rough time lately. She’s never been that far from home. I doubt she’s been farther than Nova Scotia. Now all of a sudden she’s meeting some strange woman in a little Irish village.”

“Are you concerned she’s running away because of her breakup with Andy?”

“I know she is,” Colin said half under his breath. “This trip could be exactly what she needs, but I’d feel better if she wasn’t alone.”

“We could drive over to Declan’s Cross tomorrow,” Emma said.

He tilted his head back, eyed her again. “We could, but what’s going on? I noticed your look when I mentioned Declan’s Cross. Emma, is there a Sharpe connection to this village?”

She sighed. “We can talk on the hike back to the car.”

They didn’t talk on the hike back to their car or the drive back to their borrowed cottage in the Kerry hills across Kenmare Bay. Colin drove. He’d adjusted quickly to driving on the left, but the high, thick hedges and narrow roads—each with its own quirks—kept him on alert. He’d known he and Emma wouldn’t talk the moment he’d mentioned Declan’s Cross and she’d given him that tight look. He liked to joke that he could do deep-cover work because he himself wasn’t deep, but Emma was. She had layers of secrets. Sharpe secrets, Sister Brigid secrets, FBI secrets. Emma secrets. He didn’t have secrets. He just had stuff he couldn’t talk about. And he had his demons. He’d come to Ireland because of them. His months of undercover work had taken a toll not just on him but on his family and friends—and on Emma, even in the short time they’d known each other.

They’d met in September on his brief respite at home in Rock Point. Then he went away again, and when he came back, he’d brought some of his bad guys with him. The short version, he thought as he pulled into the gravel driveway of the little stone cottage he and Emma had shared for the past two weeks. He’d stayed here on his own for several days before she couldn’t stand it any longer—as she’d put it—and got on a plane in Boston, flew to Shannon, rented a car and found him. Colin hadn’t asked her to turn around and go back to Boston without him. Maybe he should have. It was dark now, the wind shifting, turning blustery.

He glanced at Emma, but she had already clicked off her seat belt and was slipping out of the car. Definitely preoccupied. He was in no rush. Let her take all the time she needed before she told him about the Sharpes and Declan’s Cross. Wendell Sharpe had lived and worked in Dublin for the past fifteen years. Whatever was on her mind likely involved him. Colin had drunk whiskey with old Wendell. Interesting fellow. Maybe not quite the analytical thinker his granddaughter was but definitely a man with secrets.

Colin got out of the car, not minding the spray of cold rain. He grabbed their packs from the back and headed up a pebbled path to the cottage. The front door was painted a glossy blue, a contrast to the gray stone exterior. Finian Bracken, the owner, an Irish priest serving a parish in Rock Point, had told Colin to stay as long as he wanted. They’d become friends over the past few months, maybe as much because of their differences as in spite of them. Fin couldn’t bring himself to stay in the cottage. It was a reminder of his life before the priesthood, when he’d been a successful businessman, a husband and a father. He and his wife had renovated the tiny ruin of a place, adding a bathroom, kitchen, skylights, richly colored fabrics. It had been their refuge, he’d told Colin, a favorite spot to spend time with their two daughters.

Never in Fin’s worst nightmares had he imagined he would lose all three of them. Sally, little Kathleen and Mary. They’d drowned seven years ago in a freak sailing accident. Fin had removed any personal mementoes, but Colin thought he could feel the presence of his friend’s lost wife and daughters and the happy times they’d had there. He set the packs on the tile floor and pulled the door shut behind him. He liked being here. He liked having Emma here. The rest would sort itself out. He watched her as she got on her knees and carefully, methodically, placed sods of turf in the stone fireplace. Colin liked the smell of burning peat, and a fire would warm up the single room and loft in minutes. She rolled back onto her heels and stared at the fire as it took hold. Then she glanced up at him, the flames reflecting in her green eyes.

“I hate to leave this place,” she said.

“Ah, yes.” He moved closer to her. “The cold, cruel world awaits.”

She stood, and he slipped an arm around her waist, kissed the top of her head. Even her hair smelled like mud, but he didn’t mind. She leaned into him. “I thought we’d have a few more nights together here. It’s the most romantic cottage ever, isn’t it? But we need to go to Declan’s Cross, Colin. At least I do.”

“There is a Sharpe connection to this village, then.”

She eased an arm around his middle, the lingering tentativeness of even two weeks ago gone now. “I’ve reserved a room at the O’Byrne House Hotel,” she said. “It’s on the water, right in the village of Declan’s Cross.”

“That was fast.”

“The joys of smartphones.” And she’d had her plan fixed in her mind when they’d arrived back from their hike.

“Have you ever been to Declan’s Cross?” he asked.

“Once, when I worked with my grandfather in Dublin. I was only there for the day. The O’Byrne House wasn’t a hotel then. It was a rambling, boarded-up private home. It opened as a hotel last fall. Apparently its spa is quite nice.”

“A spa,” Colin said, as if he were translating a foreign language. “I bet it offers a couple’s massage.”

“Dream on, Emma.”

She grinned. “I think you’d enjoy a hot stone massage.”

“I’d rather have you heat up my stones, Special Agent Sharpe.”

“You’re hopeless.” She tightened her hold on him, her grin gone now. “Massages are good for demon fighting.”

He wasn’t going to be distracted by talk of his demons. He drew her against him. “What’s good for extracting Sharpe secrets?”

“There are secrets and there are confidences, and there are things I just can’t tell you.” She broke away from him and grabbed a black-iron poker, stirred the fire. “I wish I had a fireplace in my apartment in Boston.”

“Emma.”

© Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

A slideshow of Carla’s photos of scenic Ireland:

Don’t Miss the rest of the Sharpe & Donovan Series!

eNovella prequel

Series Book #1

Series Book #2

Series Book #4

Neggers’ beautifully flowing and skillfully narrated novel is rich with dialogue that emphasizes the sights, sounds, culture and panoramic views of Ireland. Emma and Colin are as unforgettable as ever.”

—RT Book Reviews TOP PICK! for September for DECLAN’S CROSS.

Well-plotted, intriguing and set mostly in the lushly described Irish countryside, the novel is smart and satisfying, and the paths of three couples growing even more devoted to each other are deftly woven into the suspenseful storyline”

—Kirkus Reviews on DECLAN’S CROSS

[Neggers] forces her characters to confront issues of humanity, integrity and the multifaceted aspects of love.”

—Publishers Weekly

Heron’s Cove gives romantic suspense fans what they want…complex mystery with a bit of romance. Negger’s skillfully created a compelling puzzle, refusing to reveal all the pieces until the very end.

-Top Pick, RT Book Reviews

Carla Neggers has emerged as the queen of the romantic suspense novel…Heron’s Cove is a novel that is written with a gripping and suspenseful style that will surely have the most astute armchair sleuths and amateur detectives scratching their heads and guessing right up until the very end. Neggers does a first-rate job of creating scenes with images that are so vivid, one can almost breathe in the briny salt air along Maine’s craggy coast.

-Nashua Sunday Telegraph

With a great plot and excellent character development, Neggers’ thriller, the first in a new series, is a fast-paced, action-packed tale of romantic suspense that will appeal to fans of Lisa Jackson and Lisa Gardner.

-Library Journal on Saint’s Gate

Midsummer London Flowers

London Window Box

Last week, Joe and I spent a few days in London. We’d never been to London in July. It was as bustling as ever! We enjoyed the midsummer flowers in the “royal” parks and countless Mayfair window boxes. I snapped these shots on several of our walks.

I thought of Alexandra Rankin Hunt, the heroine of “Christmas at Carriage Hill,” my upcoming Swift River Valley e-novella. Alexandra, an British fashion designer, would appreciate a lovely window box, but she’s lately given up London for life in the bucolic Cotswolds. She’s designed the bride and bridesmaids’ dresses for the Christmas Eve wedding of Olivia Frost and Dylan McCaffrey (Alexandra’s newly discovered cousin) in little Knights Bridge, Massachusetts.

Of course, nothing goes quite as Alexandra planned when she heads to New England, especially when a certain RAF pilot gets himself invited to the wedding!

I hope you’re enjoying your summer, wherever you are.

Take care,

Carla

 

 

 

Springtime in the English Cotswolds

What a great day this was in mid-April when we visited Hidcote Gardens in the rolling hills of the English Cotswolds. How to inspire a writer!

A beautiful spring day in the English Cotswolds

 

 

 

 

 

THE CABIN

On Sale April 29, 2014

Mass Market Paperback Reissue

The Carriage House Series
Book Two

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Greed and vengeance disrupt the quiet stillness of the Adirondack mountains

Texas Ranger Jack Galway knows his wife Susanna loves him, so when their marriage hits a rough patch, he supports her decision to take their two teenaged daughters to Boston for a break. But when a few weeks turns into several months, Jack heads to Boston to get his family back.

Packing up the girls and her grandmother, Susanna heads to her cabin in the Adirondacks, trying to escape her fears, her secrets and even the man she loves. Little does she know she’s being followed, not just by her husband but by a murderer….

Ex-convict Alice Parker left a mess back in Texas, and she’ll never forgive Jack Galway for killing her dream of becoming a Texas Ranger herself. Obsessed with revenge, she’s got her sights set on Jack’s family.

Trapped in the mountains, Jack and Susanna must find strength in each other if they hope to keep their family together and escape the cabin alive.

Read Excerpt

Chapter One

Susanna Galway sipped her Margarita and watched the countdown to midnight on the television above the bar at Jim’s Place, the small, dark pub just down the street from where she lived with her grandmother and twin teenage daughters. It had been a fixture in the neighborhood for as long as Susanna could remember.

An hour to go. There’d be fireworks, a new year to celebrate. It was a clear, dark, very cold night in Boston, with temperatures barely in the teens, but thousands had still gone out to enjoy the many First Night festivities.

Jim Haviland, the pub’s owner, eyed Susanna with open suspicion. He made no secret that he thought she should have gone back to her husband in Texas months ago. And Susanna didn’t disagree. But, still, she hadn’t gone home.

Jim laid a sparkling white bar towel on one of his powerful shoulders. “You’re feeling sorry for yourself,” he told her.

She licked salt off her glass. It was warm in the bar, and she wished she hadn’t opted for cashmere. Silk would have been better. She’d been determined to feel a little bit elegant tonight. But Jim had already told her she looked like the Wicked Witch of the East coming in there in her black skirt, sweater and boots, with her long black hair — apparently only her very green eyes saved her. Her coat was black, too, but she’d hung it up and tucked her black leather gloves in her pocket before sliding onto her stool. She hadn’t bothered with a hat since the bar was only a few doors down from Gran’s house.

“I never feel sorry for myself,” she said. “I looked at all my choices for the evening and decided I’d like nothing better than to ring in the New Year with one of my father’s oldest friends.”

Jim snorted. “I know bullshit when I hear it.”

Susanna smiled at him, unrepentant. “You make a pretty good margarita for a Yankee.” She set her glass down. “Why don’t you make me another?”

“Okay, but two’s your limit. You’re not passing out in my bar. I’m not calling your Texas Ranger husband and telling him I let his wife fall off one of my bar stools and hit her head –”

“Such drama. I’m not getting myself drunk, and you’d call Gran, not Jack, because Gran’s just up the street, and Jack’s in San Antonio. And I know you’re not the least bit intimidated because he’s a Texas Ranger.”

Jim Haviland gave her a half smile. “Sixty-eight degrees in San Antonio.”

Susanna refused to let him get to her. He was the father of her best friend in Boston, her own father’s boyhood friend and a surrogate uncle to her these past fourteen months since she’d been on her own up north. He was opinionated, solid and predictable. “Are you going to make me that margarita?” she asked.

“You should be in Texas with your family.”

“I had Maggie and Ellen for Thanksgiving. Jack has them for Christmas and New Year’s.”

Jim scowled. “Sounds like you’re divvying up dibs on the neighborhood snowblower.”

“It doesn’t snow in San Antonio,” Susanna said with an easy smile. She’d put an imaginary, protective shield around her to get her through the night, and she was determined nothing would penetrate it — not guilt, not fear, not thoughts of the only man she’d ever loved. She and Jack had done the holidays together last year. That hadn’t worked out very well. Their emotions were still too raw, neither ready to talk. Not that her husband was ever ready to talk.

“You know,” Jim said, “If I were Jack –”

“If you were Jack, you’d be investigating serial killers instead of making me margaritas. What fun would that be?” She pushed her glass across the bar toward him. “Come on. A nice, fresh margarita. You can reuse my glass. Hold the salt this time if you want.”

“I’ll hold the liquor before I hold the salt, and I’m not reusing your glass. Health laws.”

“There are six other bars within walking distance,” Susanna said. “I have on my wool socks. I can find somebody to serve me another margarita.”

“They all use mixes.”

But Jim Haviland didn’t call her bluff. He snatched up her empty glass and set it on a tray, then grabbed a fresh glass. His bar was impeccably clean. He offered one nightly dinner special and kept an eye on his customers, running his bar in strict accordance with Massachusetts law. People didn’t come to Jim’s Place to get drunk — it was a true neighborhood pub, as old-fashioned as its owner. Susanna had always felt safe there, welcomed even when Jim was on her case and she wasn’t at her nicest herself.

“I shipped Iris and her pals up a gallon of chili,” he said. “How do you like that? Even your eighty-two-year-old grandmother’s having more fun on New Year’s than you are.”

“They’re playing mahjong until five minutes after midnight. Then they’re calling it quits and going to bed.”

Jim eyed her again, less critically. He was a big, powerfully built man in his early sixties who treated Susanna like an honorary niece, if a wayward one. “You went home last New Year’s,” he pointed out softly.

And she’d meant for her and Jack to settle whatever was going on between them, but the one time they were alone, on New Year’s Eve, they’d ended up in bed together. They hadn’t settled anything.

Exactly one year ago, she’d been making love to her husband.

Two margaritas weren’t going to do the trick. She could get herself rip-roaring drunk, but it wouldn’t stop her from thinking about where she’d been last year at this time and where she was now. Nothing had changed. Not one damn thing.

Fourteen months and counting, and she and Jack were still in limbo, a kind of marital paralysis that she knew couldn’t last. Maggie and Ellen were seniors in high school now, applying to colleges, almost grown up. They’d called a couple of hours ago, and Susanna had assured them she was ringing in the New Year in style. No mahjong with Gran and her pals. She didn’t want her daughters thinking she was pitiful.

She hadn’t talked to Jack.

“There’s nobody here, Jim,” she said. “Why don’t you close up the place? We can go up on the roof and catch the fireworks.”

He looked up from the margarita he was reluctantly fixing for her. His movements were careful, deliberate. And his blue eyes were serious. “Susanna, what’s wrong?”

“I bought a cabin in the Adirondacks,” she blurted. “But that’s good. It’s a great cabin. It’s in a gorgeous spot. Three bedrooms, stone fireplace, seven acres right on Blackwater Lake.”

“The Adirondacks are way, the hell up in New York.”

She nodded. “The largest wilderness area in the lower forty-eight states. Six million acres. Gran grew up on Blackwater Lake, you know. Her family used to own the local inn –”

“Susanna. For God’s sake.” Jim Haviland shook his head heavily, as if this new development — a cabin in the Adirondacks — was beyond his comprehension. “You should buy a place in Texas, not in the boonies of upstate New York. What were you thinking? Jesus, when did this happen?”

“Last week. I went up to Lake Placid for a few days on my own — I don’t know, it seemed like a positive thing to do. I needed to clear my head. I saw this cabin. It’s not all that far from my parents’ summer place on Lake Champlain. I couldn’t resist. I figured if not now, when?”

“You and clearing your head. I’ve been listening to that line for months. The only thing that’s going to clear your damn head is marching your ass back to Texas and sorting things out with your husband. Not buying cabins in the freaking woods.”

Susanna pretended not to hear him. “Gran’s practically a legend in the Adirondacks, did you know that? She was a guide in her teens and early twenties, before she and my dad moved to Boston. He was just a little tyke — I’m sure he doesn’t remember. Gran seemed a little shocked when I told her I’d bought a place right on Blackwater Lake.”

Jim shoved the fresh margarita in front of her, his jaw set hard. He didn’t say a word.

She picked up the heavy glass, picturing herself standing on the porch of the cabin, staring out at the ice and snow on the lakes and surrounding mountains. “Something happened to me when I was up there — I don’t know if I can explain it. It’s as if this cabin was just meant to be. As if I was supposed to buy it.”

“Moved by invisible forces?”

She ignored his sarcasm. “Yes.” She sipped her drink, which she noticed was not as strong as her first one. “My roots are there.”

“Roots, my ass. Iris and your dad haven’t lived in the Adirondacks in, what, sixty years?”

He shook his head, plainly mystified by this latest move of hers. He hadn’t liked it when she’d set up her office in Boston with Tess, his daughter who was a graphic artist, then stayed on her own after Tess had moved up to her nineteenth-century carriage house on the north shore with her new family. Office space implied a permanence Jim Haviland didn’t want Susanna to establish in Boston. He wanted her back with her husband. It was the way his world worked.

Hers, too, but life wasn’t always that simple.

Plus, she knew Jim liked Lieutenant Jack Galway, Texas Ranger. No surprise there. They were both men who saw most things in terms of black and white.

Jim wiped down the bar with his white towel, putting muscle into the effort, as if somehow it might relieve his frustrations with her and make him understand why she’d bought a cabin. “The Adirondacks are what, a five, six-hour drive?”

“About that.” Susanna drank more of her margarita. “I got my pilot’s license this fall, Jack doesn’t know. Maybe I’ll buy a plane. There’s a nice little airport in Lake Placid.”

Jim stared at her, assessing. “A cabin in the mountains, a plane, black cashmere — how much damn money do you have?”

Her stomach twisted into an instantaneous knot.

She had ten million as of the first of October. It was a milestone. People knew she was doing well, but few had any idea how well — not even her own husband. She just didn’t talk about it. She didn’t want money clouding anyone’s opinion of her. Of themselves. She didn’t want it to change her life, except maybe it already had. “I’ve made some lucky investments,” she told Jim.

“Ha. I’ll bet luck had nothing to do with it. You’re smart, Susanna Dunning Galway. You’re smart, and you’re tough, and –” He paused for air, which he sucked in, then heaved out in a despairing sigh. “Damn it, Susanna, you have no goddamn business buying a cabin in the Adirondacks. Jack doesn’t know?”

“You don’t give up, do you?”

“That means, no, Jack doesn’t know. What are you doing, trying to piss him off to the point he gives up on you — or comes up here to fetch you?”

“He’s not coming up here to fetch me.”

“Don’t count on it.”

A young couple wandered in and sat at one of the tables, hanging on to each other, not bothering with First Night festivities, Susanna thought, for very different reasons than hers. Jim greeted them warmly and went around the bar to take their order, but he stopped to glower back at her. “Did you tell Iris you were buying a place in her old stomping grounds, give her a chance to weigh in?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “No, you didn’t, because you’re bullheaded and do what you damn well want to do.”

“I’m not selfish –”

“I didn’t say you were selfish. You’re one of the kindest, most generous people I know. I said you’re bullheaded.”

Her head spun. Maybe she should have consulted Jack. His name wasn’t on the deed but they were still married. She planned to get around to telling him — it wasn’t like her cabin was a secret. Not really. When she was on Blackwater Lake, her husband and her marriage weren’t the issue. The cabin was about her, her life, her roots. She couldn’t explain. She’d almost felt as if she’d been destined to go up there, see the lake on her own, that somehow it would help her make sense of the past fourteen months.

Jim took the couple’s order and headed back behind the bar. Before she said another word, he dipped her up a bowl of steaming chili and set it in front of her. “You need something in your stomach.”

“I really want another Margarita,”

“Not a chance.”

“I live up the street.” She stared at the chili, spicy and hot on a very cold Boston night. But she wasn’t hungry. “If I pass out in a ditch, somebody will find me before I freeze to death.”

Jim refrained from answering. Davey Ahearn had come into the bar, easing onto his favorite stool just down from Susanna. Susanna could feel the cold still coming off him. He shook his head at her. “Pain in the ass you are, Suzie, I wouldn’t count on it. We all might leave you in the damn ditch, hope the cold’ll jump-start your brain and you’ll go back to Texas.”

“The cold weather doesn’t bother me.”

Of course, the cold wasn’t Davey’s point at all, and she knew it. He was a big man, a plumber with a huge handlebar mustache and at least two ex-wives. He was another of her father’s boyhood friends, godfather to Jim Haviland’s daughter, Tess, and a constant thorn in Susanna’s side. Tess said it was best not to encourage Davey Ahearn by trying to argue with him, but Susanna seldom could resist — and neither could Tess.

He ordered a beer and a bowl of chili with saltines, and Susanna made an exaggerated face. “Saltines and chili? That’s disgusting.”

“What’re you doing here, anyway?” Davey shivered, as if still shaking off the frigid temperatures. Boston had been in the grips of a bitter cold snap for days, and even the natives had had enough. “Go play mahjong with Iris and her pals. A million years old, and they know how to party.”

“You’re right,” Susanna said. “It’s not a good sign, me sitting in a Somerville bar drinking margaritas and eating chili with a cranky plumber.”

Davey grinned at her. “I eat chili with a fork.”

She bit back an unwilling laugh. “That’s really bad, Davey. I mean, really bad.”

“Made you smile.” His beer and nightly special arrived, and he unwrapped three packets of saltine crackers and crumbled them onto his chili, paying no attention to Susanna’s groan. “Jimmy, how long before we can stick a fork in this year?”

“Twenty-five minutes,” Jim said. “I thought you had a date.”

“I did. She got mad and went home.”

Although she wasn’t hungry, Susanna tried some of her chili. “Davey Ahearn annoying a woman? I can’t imagine.”

“Was that sarcasm, Mrs. Jack Galway?”

Jim intervened. “All right, you two. I’m opening a bottle of bubbly at midnight. It’s on the house. What do we have, a half-dozen people in here?”

He lined up the glasses on the bar. Susanna watched him work, the chili burning in her mouth, the two margaritas she’d consumed on an empty stomach making her a little woozy. “Do you think I had kids too young?” Susanna asked abruptly, without thinking. It had to be the margaritas. “I don’t. I think it was just what happened. I was twenty-two, and all of a sudden, I’m pregnant with twins.”

“I bet it wasn’t all of a sudden,” Davey said.

She pretended not to hear him. “And here I am with this man — this independent, hardheaded Texan who wants to be a Texas Ranger never mind that he went to Harvard. We met when he was a student –”

“We remember,” Jim said gently.

“They were cute babies, Maggie and Ellen. Adorable. They’re fraternal twins — they’re not identical.”

But Jim and Davey already knew that, too. Her chest hurt, and she fought a sudden urge to cry. What was wrong with her? Margaritas, New Year’s Eve, a cabin in the mountains. Not being with Jack.

Jim Haviland checked each champagne glass to make sure it was clean. “They were damn cute babies,” he concurred.

“That’s right, you’d see them when we were up visiting Gran. Her place was always my anchor as a kid — we moved around all the time. It’s no wonder I came here when push came to shove with Jack and me.”

She shut her eyes, willing herself to stop talking. When she opened them again, the room was spinning a little, and she cleared her throat. If she did pass out and hit her head, Jim Haviland and Davey Ahearn would seize the moment and call Jack. No question in her mind. Then Jack would tell them a concussion served her right.

Susanna’s heart raced. “This is only the second time Maggie and Ellen have flown alone.” She narrowed her eyes to help steady the room, imagining Jack there with one of his amused half smiles. She couldn’t remember when she’d had two margaritas in a row. He’d take credit. Say she was lonely. Missed him in bed. She gave herself a mental shake. “I was a nervous wreck the first time they flew alone.”

“Doesn’t look like you’re doing much better this time,” Davey said.

She had to admit that a third Margarita would put her over the edge. She was hanging by her fingernails as it was. That was why Jim Haviland had glowered and chatted with her and served her up the chili — not just to give her a hard time, but to keep her from freefalling.

“What if Maggie and Ellen end up going to college in Texas?” She gulped for air, looking over at Davey. “What if I stay up here? My God, I’ll never see them. And Jack –”

Davey drank some of his beer, wiping the foam off his mustache. “Are there colleges in Texas?”

His wisecrack cut through her crazy mood.

“That’s not funny. What if Texans came up here and made stupid assumptions about northerners?”

“What, like we’re all rude and talk too fast? Maggie and Ellen tell me that all the time. Some of us also eat saltines with our chili.” He winked at her, knowing he’d made his point. “And you’re a northerner, you know, Suzie-cue. I don’t care how many times you moved as a kid. Your dad grew up right here on this street. When Iris can’t keep up with her place anymore, he and your mom will move in with her. They’ll board up the gallery in Austin before you know it.”

“That’s the plan,” Susanna admitted.

“A plumber, a bartender and an artist.” Davey shook his head in amazement “Who’d have thought it? Although Kevin always was good with the graffiti.”

Susanna smiled. Both her parents were artists, her mother also an expert in antique quilts. They’d surprised everyone seven years ago when they opened a successful gallery in Austin, and started restoring a 1930s home, a project seemingly without end. But they still spent summers on The New York shore of Lake Champlain. When Susanna was growing up, they’d moved from place to place to teach, work, open and close galleries and otherwise indulge their wanderlust. They’d been a little shocked when Susanna had gone into financial planning and married a Texas Ranger, but she’d always gotten along well with her parents and had liked having them close by in Austin. They didn’t interfere with her relationship with Jack, but she knew Kevin and Eva Dunning didn’t understand why their daughter was living with Gran. Their response to both Susanna and Jack had been the same: they’d come to their senses soon enough.

Jim examined a frosty bottle of champagne and said idly, as if reading Susanna’s mind, “You’ve never explained what it was that made you come up here. Did you and Jack have a big fight, or did you just wake up one day and decide you needed to hear a Boston accent?”

“Maggie and Ellen had already planned to spend a semester up here –”

“Like it’s Paris or London,” Davey said. “Their semester abroad.”

“Their semester with Gran,” Susanna corrected.

“Yeah, now it’s a year,” Jim said, “and it doesn’t explain you.”

“There was a stalker.” The words were out before she could stop them. “I suppose technically he wasn’t a stalker — he turned up where I was a couple of times, but I can’t prove he followed me. I didn’t even know who he was until he showed up in my kitchen. He said things.”

Davey Ahearn swore under his breath. Jim stared at her, grim-faced, neither man kidding now. “What did you do?” Jim asked.

Susanna blinked rapidly. What was wrong with her? She’d never told anyone this. No one. Not a soul. This was a secret, she thought. “I tried not to provoke him. He wanted me to talk to Jack on his behalf. He said his piece and left.”

Jim looked tense. “Then what?”

“Then . . . nothing. I decided to come up here with Maggie and Ellen. Stay a few weeks.” She almost smiled. “Clear my head.”

Jim Haviland held his champagne bottle to one side and studied her closely while she ate more of her chili, barely tasting it now. Finally, he shook his head. “Jesus. You didn’t tell Jack about this bastard in your kitchen.”

“I know it sounds irrational.” She set her fork down and sniffled, picking up her Margarita glass, noticing the slight tremble in her hand. “I mean, Jack’s a Texas Ranger. You’d tell him if you had a stalker, right?”

“Goddamn right. It’s one thing not to tell Jack about buying a cabin in the mountains, but a stalker –”

“It seemed to make sense at the time.”

Jim inhaled sharply, then breathed out. “Tell him now. You can use the phone in back. Call him right now and tell him.”

“It’s too late. It wouldn’t make any difference.”

“This guy’s in jail?”

She shook her head.

Jim narrowed his gaze on her. “Dead?”

“No, he’s never been charged with anything. He’s a free man.”

“Because you never told anyone he was stalking you –”

“No, no one would be interested in my stalking story. He’d just explain it away. Coincidence, misunderstanding, desperation. The authorities would never touch it, now or then.” She sipped her margarita, the melting ice diluting the alcohol. “They wanted this guy for a much bigger crime than spooking me.”

This got Davey Ahearn’s attention. “Yeah? Like what? What else did he do? Kill his wife?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, Davey, that’s exactly what he did.” Susanna stared up at the television and watched the clock tick down to midnight. Four minutes to go. Three minutes and fifty-nine seconds. Happy New Year. “He killed his wife.”

 

© Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2001 Carla Neggers

Don’t Miss the rest of The Carriage House Series!

Click on covers for more details!

Series Book #1

Available Now!

Read More…

Series Book #3

Reissue Coming

November 2014

Series Book #4

Reissue coming

May 2015

A walk on the south Irish coast

We’re still deep in snow on our hilltop in Vermont. Waiting for March to turn into a lamb! Meanwhile here’s a photo I took last year on a sunny day on the south Irish coast, part of the “cliff walk” in Ardmore. So peaceful…sigh.

The beautiful cliff walk in Ardmore, Ireland

CIDER BROOK

On Sale January 28, 2014

Mass Market Paperback eBook | Audio

A Swift River Valley Novel

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N ew York Times bestselling author Carla Neggers’ books have been called “deliciously satisfying,” “magical” and “stunningly effective.” Now she returns to the lush Swift River Valley with the irresistible story of one woman’s quest for treasure and redemption.

Unlikely partners bound by circumstance…or by fate?

Being rescued by a good-looking, bad-boy firefighter isn’t how Samantha Bennett expected to start her stay in Knights Bridge, Massachusetts. Now she has everyone’s attention—especially that of Justin Sloan, her rescuer, who wants to know why she was camped out in an abandoned old New England cider mill.

Samantha is a treasure hunter who has returned to Knights Bridge to solve a 300-year-old mystery and salvage her good name. Justin remembers her well. He’s the one who alerted her late mentor to her iffy past and got her fired. But just because he doesn’t trust her doesn’t mean he can resist her. Samantha is daring, determined, seized by wanderlust—everything that strong, stoic Justin never knew he wanted. Until now….

Read Excerpt

Samantha Bennett slipped her grandfather’s antique silver flask into an outer pocket of her khaki safari jacket. He’d claimed the flask was from an old pirate chest, but she’d discovered in the three years since his death at ninety-six that not everything he’d told her had been factual. Harry Bennett had been a grand spinner of the strategic tall tale. He’d probably been drinking rum from the flask when he’d spun the pirate-chest story.

No rum for me, Samantha thought, glancing around her grandfather’s cluttered office on the second floor of the Bennett house in Boston’s Back Bay. She’d filled the flask with the smoky Scotch he had left in one of his crystal decanters. If she was going to hunt pi¬rate’s treasure, she figured she ought to have whis¬key with her. Although what could go wrong in little Knights Bridge, Massachusetts?

Her grandfather smiled at her from a framed black-and-white photograph hanging on the wood-paneled wall behind his massive oak desk. At the time of the photo he’d been forty-seven, roguishly handsome, wearing a jacket much like hers. He’d just arrived back in Boston after the Antarctic trip that had sealed his reputation as a world-class explorer and adventurer. It had almost killed him, too. Her couple of nights’ camp¬ing in an out-of-the-way New England town hardly compared to an expedition to Antarctica.

She buttoned the flap of her jacket pocket. There were endless pockets inside and out. She was al¬ready forgetting where she’d put things—her phone, compass, matches, map, the earth-tone lipstick she’d grabbed at the last second, in case she went out to dinner one night during her stay in Knights Bridge.

Out to dinner? Where, with whom—and why?

If nothing else, a few days away from her grandfather’s clutter would do her good. He had been born on a struggling New England farm and had died a wealthy man, if also a hopeless pack rat. Samantha hadn’t re¬alized just how much he’d collected in his long, active life until she’d been hired by his estate—meaning her father and her uncle—to go through his house and his London apartment. She swore she’d found gum wrap¬pers from 1952. The man had saved everything.

The morning sun streamed through translucent panels that hung over bowfront windows framed by heavy charcoal velvet drapes. Her grandmother, who had died twenty-five years ago, when Samantha was four, had decorated the entire house herself, decreeing that gray and white were the perfect colors for this room, for when her husband was there, being contemplative and studious—which wasn’t often, even in his later years. He’d spent little time in his office, mostly just long enough to stack up his latest finds.

Samantha appreciated the effect of the filtered sun¬light on the original oil painting that she’d unearthed from the office closet a few weeks ago. The painting was unsigned and clearly an amateur work, but it had captivated her from the moment she’d taken it out into the light. It depicted an idyllic red-painted New England cider mill, with apples in wooden crates, barrels of cider and a water wheel capturing the runoff from a small stone-and-earth dam on a woodland stream. She’d assumed it was untitled but two days ago had discovered neat, faded handwriting on the lower edge of the simple wood frame.

The Mill at Cider Brook.

Her surprise had been so complete that she’d dipped into the Scotch decanter.

She didn’t know if the mill depicted in the paint¬ing was real, but there was a Cider Brook in Knights Bridge, barely two hours west of Boston.

Of all places.

A quick internet search had produced a year-old notice that the town of Knights Bridge was selling an old cider mill in its possession. Had someone bought it? Was it still for sale?
Samantha had checked the closet for anything else her grandfather might have stuffed in there related to Cider Brook. Instead, she discovered a legal-size envelope containing about fifty yellowed, handwritten pages—the rough draft of a story called The Adventures of Captain Farraday and Lady Elizabeth.

She suspected but had no way to prove that the story was by the same hand as the painting, but it didn’t matter. It had sealed the deal, and now she had Harry Bennett’s antique silver flask tucked in her jacket and her plans made for her return to Knights Bridge—a town she had expected, and hoped, she would never have to visit again.

Plans more or less made, anyway. Samantha had no illusions about herself and knew she wasn’t much on detailed planning.

Her first visit to the little town had been two and a half years ago, on a snowy March day a few months after her grandfather’s death. She had expected to slip in and out of town without anyone’s knowledge, but it hadn’t worked out that way.

“A carpenter told me he saw a woman out here. You, Samantha?”

Yes. Her.

The carpenter had been her undoing. She didn’t know who he was, but it didn’t matter. She would be more careful on this trip, even if careful wasn’t a Bennett trait.

 

© Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Don’t Miss the rest of the Swift River Valley Series!

Read More . . .

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In SECRETS OF THE LOST SUMMER, the first book in CARLA NEGGERS’ contemporary Swift River Valley Series, the New York Times bestselling author takes readers home—to the New England Swift River Valley of her youth.

 

 

An engaging contemporary romance.”—Publishers Weekly

 

Neggers captures readers’ attention with her usual flair and brilliance and gives us a romance, a mystery and a lesson in history. She also presents breathtaking views of a real New England past and present, characters who stay with us long after we close the book and more than one romance. Her story will engage readers all the way through.”
—RT BOOK REVIEWS, Top Pick!

The importance (and fun) of creating a setting

Today is “pub day” for CIDER BROOK, and I’m guest-blogging on the Barnes & Noble NOOK blog on the beautiful setting for my Swift River Valley series and its fictional Knights Bridge.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook-bl...

Enjoy!

 

The Swift River Valley

I took these photos on an autumn walk in the Quabbin woods. Such a beautiful place! It’s not far from my family homestead and the setting of CIDER BROOK, which goes on sale a week from tomorrow! Knights Bridge is a fictional town located on the edge of this incredible reservoir, formed when four small towns were cleared out and dams built to hold back three branches of the Swift River and Beaver Brook. Millions of people have pure, clear drinking water thanks to Quabbin.

How could I resist a very contemporary story about a pirate who might have buried treasure here 300 years ago?

Enjoy!

 

A walk in the English countryside

Joe and I loved our first visit to the Cotswolds in September. What an incredible place to walk and walk and walk! And wander into charming tea shops. I don’t know which I like better, the warm scones or the clotted cream. It definitely helps to enjoy good, long walks after indulging in a Cotswolds afternoon tea.

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THE CARRIAGE HOUSE

November 2013

Mass Market Paperback
New Reissue Edition

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Fun and a little hard work. That’s all Tess Haviland had in mind when Ike Grantham paid her for her graphic design work with the run-down, 19th-century carriage house on Boston’s North Shore.

Then Ike disappears and Tess finds herself with much more than a simple weekend project to get her out of the city. It’s not just the rumors that the carriage house is haunted-it’s the neighbors: six-year-old Dolly Thorne, her reclusive babysitter, Harley Beckett…and especially Dolly’s father, Andrew Thorne, who has his own ideas about why Tess has turned up next door.

But when Tess discovers a human skeleton in her dirt cellar, she begins to ask questions about the history of the carriage house, the untimely death of Andrew’s wife…and Ike’s disappearance. Questions a desperate killer wants to silence before the truth reveals that someone got away with murder.

Author Note

Dear Readers,

I’m thrilled to have The Carriage House available again in print! It’s the first in a fun, loosely connected series of four books: The Carriage House, The Cabin, Stonebrook Cottage and The Harbor.

Tess and her old carriage house are near and dear to my heart. My six brothers and sisters and I grew up in an even older “carriage house” on the western edge of the Quabbin Reservoir in rural Massachusetts. Talk about a fixer-upper! What an adventurous childhood we had working on the house, climbing trees, exploring the woods and fields. As I write this note, I’m just back from a family gathering there. Tess’s trapdoor is much like one we had…but we never found any bodies in our dirt cellar!

I hope you enjoy The Carriage House. Note Tess’s friend Susanna Galway….because she brings the Texas Rangers to Boston in The Cabin when her husband Jack chases a killer right to her doorstep.

Thank you, and happy reading,

Carla

Brimming with Neggers’ (The Waterfall) usual flair for creating likeable, believable characters and her keen recognition of the obstacles that can muddle relationships, this suspenseful modern-day tale is delightfully populated with 19th-century ghosts…Neggers delivers a colorful, well-spun story that shines with sincere emotion… (Feb.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Publisher’s Weekly