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Published in the United States of America by

Soul Mate Publishing

P.O. Box 24

Macedon, New York, 14502

ISBN: 978-1-61935-
830-0

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To my sister, Lesley,

the bravest woman I have the honor of knowing.

You’ve been a true inspiration in my life.

I love you.

Chapter 1

“I can’t believe you’re making me do this,” Cameron Warshaw muttered and pushed a hand through his dark hair.

“Sure you can,” Krista chuckled.

Cameron shot her a glare. She knew the disdain etched on his face was only for show. Cam could be a tough boss, but the damned man lived to tease her when he knew he’d get away with it.

She put her feet up on the magazine-strewn coffee table and grinned at him, spinning her old Boston Red Sox ball cap on her finger. Behind Cameron, past the pane of glass that separated her part-time office from the rest of the newsroom, everyone moved in organized chaos, like well-oiled machines. She turned her attention back to Cameron, who eyed her with a grim scowl and furrowed brows, giving his best impression of stern and unmoved.

“Give up on the Scrooge act, Cam. I’ve known you long enough not to buy it. This is a good cause and only a temporary partnership if you’re really not into it.”

Cameron shook his head, but his mock sneer softened into a smile. “Scrooge my ass, Krista.” He picked the eight-by-ten photo of Burgess Mill off her desk.

Krista studied him cautiously. He’d said yes. Despite the fact they were friends, he always kept his focus on the bottom line. He wouldn’t be the owner of one of the biggest newspapers in the country at the age of forty-five if he didn’t put profit and business before sentimental emotions. Yet she could always count on him to help out a good cause.

“Once everything is in place and the center is open I’ll be able to handle the rent,” Krista continued, as if he needed further convincing. “It’s the renovations I need help with.”

“Why don’t we buy it outright? Going through a landlord for every little approval is a pain in the ass.”

“They won’t sell. I know these people. The mill has been in the family for over a hundred years and they like it that way.”

“Then find someplace else.” Cam tossed the picture back on the desk, not giving it another look. He fixed his attention on her with narrowing eyes. They were sharp, the humor in them dissipating into seriousness, the businessman rising to the surface for sure.

She pursed her lips tightly and leaned forward. “Nope. Has to be there. Personal reasons. You understand that, right?”

Cameron continued his careful examination, then nodded. “Yeah, I understand,” he said simply. “I have a feeling you’re in for a tough road.”

She shrugged. So what part of her life, from the time she’d been eighteen, hadn’t been a tough road?

“Well, I’ll get on the phone and tie up the loose ends. When are you going back?”

Back to Quail Ridge. Her whole body tensed at the thought. She’d avoided the place for fifteen years. Even when her mother died five months ago, she hadn’t returned for the funeral. Her sister, Emily, didn’t understand. Cameron did. And Krista knew her mother had understood too.

Not returning probably made her more of a villain in the eyes of those in Quail Ridge who remembered the car accident. She’d have to take that chance and hope most people either knew the truth, or forgave her years ago.

“I’ll be heading out at the beginning of the week. Have to fend off Emily about the house first. You’re a god, Cam. I mean it,” she said lightly and put the hat on her head so the bill rode slightly higher than her eyes.

“Yeah, don’t I know it. Fortunately Gretchen knows it too.” He winked.

Krista rolled her eyes. Most ex-girlfriends would feel some jealousy, but Krista knew she really didn’t qualify as an “ex” anything. She and Cameron had shared more of a momentary lapse in sanity that put to rest the questions of whether they were better friends than lovers. Gretchen was more his type—glamorous, vivacious, a real golden beauty, the kind of woman who bred jealousy in other women.

Not for Krista. Of all the things she needed or wanted in life, a romantic entanglement ranked pretty low on the list. Her job kept her on the move too much. Maintaining a relationship was hard enough without the added hassle of dealing with a job that put her into dangerous situations. No, women like Gretchen and Emily, and everyone else could keep romance.

“You’ll definitely stay at your mom’s place?”

Krista shrugged again. “Well, it’s half mine now. Might as well. Emily and I plan to sell it, but I think I can put her off for a couple months. It’s quiet and out of the way. Gus and I will be content there.”

“And you’ll be overseeing the renovations at the mill?”

“Yup. But I’d like to get settled in the house before I show up at the mill.”

Cameron studied her for a long moment. “What are they going to say when they see you?”

Krista sat up and rested her arms on her knees. Ignoring Cameron’s office-wide ‘no smoking’ rule, she reached for the crumpled pack of cigarettes on the table, pulled one out and lit it. She smoked only when her nerves threatened to disintegrate. And that only seemed to happen when she thought about Quail Ridge and the past.

“Well, I’m sure I’ll be spat on,” she joked. “I’ll have to stay away from dark alleys and hire a food taster. Hell, I don’t know, Cam. I’m sure it’s going to be tough. If it doesn’t work out after I get things set up, I’ll hightail it out of there and hire someone to run the place. I won’t let anyone chase me out until I get the youth center up and running.” Krista drew in a long drag from the cigarette, feeling its effects on her nerves. She examined the smoke as it rose languidly from the tip.

Cameron picked up the other notes and sketches Krista had given to him. He’d already approved of her idea, so she wasn’t worried that he’d rescind, but his opinion meant a lot to her.

“What about the rest of the world? It’s going to miss your talent.”

Krista glanced at the photos on the white walls, her career as a photojournalist laid out there.
My defining moments
. She thought of the places and faces she’d come across along the way; their hardships and horrors. Going home shouldn’t be as hard as what she’d confronted in the past ten years or so, when life and limb were on the line on a daily basis.

Her hometown, at the moment, was the most frightening place on earth.

“The world can do without one more camera for a while. Besides, I’m not giving up the thrill completely. Think of this as a break.”

Truth be told, she’d tired of chasing the story, the latest tragedy, the latest in human agony. Tired of watching it all unfold from a place where she couldn’t do much to help. Now she wanted to make a difference. The youth center would be a start. And opening it in Quail Ridge, where so many had been hurt by that night long ago, would at least be a starting place to heal those wounds.
If the others let them be healed.

“We’ll get all the legal mumbo jumbo wrapped up and make sure the owners are okay with the renovations we need to make. If they’re not, well . . . I’m sure we won’t have to worry about that, now will we?”

Krista inhaled the last of the cigarette, her nerves soothed for the moment, either from the dose of nicotine, or the knowledge that Cameron would make sure everything went smoothly in dealing with Ed and Matt Burgess. She crunched the butt out in the pewter ashtray and sent him a wink and a grin. “I never worry when you’re at the helm.”

Cameron waved the compliment away. “So, you go. Start your packing or whatever you need to do and Gretchen and I will see you tonight for dinner. You bringing a date?”

“Yeah, right. Can bring Gus?”

“No, Gretchen’s mutt wouldn’t approve.”

Krista chuckled. Gretchen would deck him if she knew he’d referred to her highbred Maltese as a ‘mutt.’ Gus was a mutt. The best mutt in the world.

“No date. As usual. You know how I deal with relationships. The fewer I have, the better off I am.” Though the smile on her face lacked humor, she didn’t regret her single status one bit.

Standing, Krista stretched, grabbed her beat up canvas backpack and started for the door. She stopped before she opened it, and turned back to her boss and best friend. He studied her papers, gnawing on the end of a pen, like he usually did when deep in concentration.

“Thanks, Cam. I really mean it.” She didn’t say anything more. Tender scenes weren’t her thing. Cam knew that. He always understood.

When she arrived at her apartment building, Gus waited at the door. His big tan and black body blocked her way into the little foyer. He welcomed her home with all the love his canine heart could muster, his front paws doing his own personal happy dance.

He was a big guy, part German Shepherd and part whatever, with chocolate brown eyes that gazed at her with love and devotion, and lop ears that perked whenever she spoke to him. His scars had healed, both inside and out. She wished her own could’ve gone away as quickly.

Krista hung her bag on the hook by the door and sank to her knees, taking the dog’s head between her hands.

“Hey, dude, you miss me?”

Gus managed to lick her nose.

“Yuck.” Krista laughed and let go of him so she could wipe her nose. “You ready to get out of here? Just think, bud, in a while you won’t have to be cooped up in this tiny apartment.” She reached for the red leash that hung on another hook. Gus started to dance again.

He’d love it in New Hampshire for sure. He was much too big to be an apartment dog anyway. She’d had to bribe her landlord to have him in the studio apartment, but his good behavior won the hearts of her neighbors, who were suckers for hard luck cases. And Gus was as hard luck as they came.

While Krista covered the destruction of a hurricane on the Gulf coast she found Gus, starving and abandoned. Worse, he’d been tied up for so long his collar had cut into his neck and the flesh had begun to grow around it. She couldn’t ignore the dog’s agony and bleak future, and for the first time in her career as a photojournalist, she’d stepped in to do something about it. She rescued the dog and had him sent to Washington D.C. for treatment of his wounds and malnutrition, and gave him a loving home; a new name. He’d looked like a Gus.

“Well, at least I’ll have one friend in New Hampshire,” she told the dog as he led her down the hall to the stairs. Gus hated the elevator.

Gus continued to pull when they reached the sidewalk. Krista ignored his lack of manners and training and laughed, jogging along behind him. This had to be her favorite time of the day. She basked in the simple joy of making another creature sublimely happy with something as basic as fresh air and a stretch of the legs.

Why couldn’t humans be so easily pleased?

Krista cut their walk short and settled for a quick trip around the little park at the end of the street. It took a strong arm to get him headed back to the apartment.

Emily would be calling at five-thirty on the dot. She’d want to touch base about their mother’s house. Her sister had been on her back about every detail since their mother got sick. She liked things neat and tidy and wrapped up in the smallest amount of time humanly possible. Everything by the book. Krista had thrown the rule book out years ago.

When Krista didn’t attend their mother’s funeral, the shit hit the fan in an extremely messy way. Emily was just one more person who resented her and blamed her for some sort of misery. It didn’t matter to Emily that Krista and her mother had already discussed and settled Krista’s reluctance to go back to Quail Ridge.

“You do what you need to do, darling,” Dolores Faye had told Krista.

Krista had gone to Manchester, New Hampshire, to the hospital where her mother had spent her last days. They’d held hands and Krista had fought back the tears.

“If you don’t come to the funeral, I’ll know why and I know that wherever you are I’ll be in your heart. You not being there will never change how we feel about each other.” Her mother’s words had been gentle, as they always were for Krista.

“Put the past behind you, sweetheart. You can’t keep holding on to it. Give yourself the happiness you deserve. Forgive yourself.” Her mother’s voice may have been weak, but her words gave Krista strength.

Emily hadn’t felt the same way about Krista staying away from the funeral. Emily hadn’t gone through the hell Krista had in Quail Ridge either. She’d never understood.

“I’m going to be walking through fire, my friend,” she muttered to Gus. What made her think she was ready to go back now when she hadn’t been after her mother passed?

It didn’t help that Emily wanted the house sold as soon as possible. Krista would’ve agreed, but she needed a place to stay, at least for a while. And maybe being in the old house would be a salve against everything she was about to face.

The house would be more of a home than the sparsely furnished apartment she lived in now. This place reflected her life until this moment. Simple, efficient.

Empty.

Not for the first time in the past fifteen years, Krista missed the home she’d grown up in. If things had been different, if she’d never gone to pick up Jay and Ricky from the party they’d been at, she could’ve gone home anytime she’d wanted. She could’ve been there for holidays and other special occasions.

If she hadn’t been in the car that night . . .

She pressed her hand against her belly. Once upon a time she’d had new life growing there. She and Jay would’ve been parents, if it hadn’t been for that nightmare moment. The memory used to make her shudder, but now the loss was only a dull ache she could forget about most of the time.

No, she wouldn’t think about it. There was absolutely no way to turn back time and do it all again, to make different decisions or attempt to curb the anger she’d felt that night.

This was her life now, in this spare studio with her adoring furry companion and a job that she had always thought fulfilled her.

Until her mother passed away.

Now it was time to heal the wounds inside.

Not to make things right, exactly. Ricky might have convinced most people she’d been at fault that night, and she had no doubt that she played a big role in the accident, maybe the biggest, but she owed it to Liz and Jay’s memory to try to find forgiveness in the others she’d hurt.

“So, it’s a done deal?” Ed Burgess popped open a can of soda he’d retrieved from Matt’s fridge and brought it to his lips.

Matt nodded as he tossed his keys into the slate blue pottery bowl on the table by the door. “They start renovations on Monday.”

BOOK: Where One Road Leads

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