Kellie VanHorn
For my family
Acknowledgments
My heartfelt gratitude goes to all who’ve helped make this book possible: my fantastic critique partner, Michelle Keener, for her thoughtful feedback; Kerry Johnson, for her critique of the beginning; Margie Reid, who shared her words of wisdom on an early version.
Thanks to my wonderful editor, Dina Davis, and the rest of the Love Inspired Suspense team for bringing this story to life.
To my parents, Gary and Denise Parker, and my brother Matt—thank you for letting me read during all those family dinners.
To my husband, Jason—thank you for your boundless encouragement. I couldn’t have done it without you. To our kids, Isaiah, Nate, Ella and Luke—thank you for enduring long typing sessions in which you had to get your own snacks.
Last of all, thanks to my Savior, who gifted me with the desire to share my faith through stories.
Contents
Note to Readers
Cold water roared through her clothes, swirling over her head and through her hair, dragging her back into consciousness. Instinctively she struggled for the surface and as soon as her head cleared the water, she coughed and gasped in a few precious breaths, wiping at her stinging eyes.
In the fading daylight the banks of the narrow river filled the horizon, impossibly high to her right but leveling out on the left. Sparse brush and skinny cottonwood trees lined the sandy river’s edge.
Not a soul in sight.
Something sharp—a submerged log, maybe—jammed into her ribs. She cried out in pain but was rewarded with a mouthful of dark river water. Coughing it out, she turned against the current and kicked for the bank.
She crawled out onto the sand, tiny rocks biting into her palms, and pushed through the reeds growing at the water’s edge. Collapsing onto a clear patch of ground, she struggled to catch her breath. What on earth had happened? Where was she?
The back of her head throbbed like she’d smashed it into a rock. Worse, though, was the way her brain felt like cotton fluff, disoriented and unfocused.
She squinted into the last fading rays of light, one cheek pressed down on the cool sand. As the initial blackness receded, her senses clicked slowly into place. The tall reeds stood like sentinels between her and the flat, glossy stretch of dark river water, barely visible in the dying sunlight. She shivered as a light breeze drifted over her drenched clothes.
Sitting up slowly, she pressed a hand to the throbbing place on the back of her head. When she pulled it away, a red, sticky film coated her fingers.
Her heart jumped in her chest. If only this horrible groggy feeling would go away, she could figure out where she was. What to do now.
Some distance to her right, the river disappeared into a deep canyon with jagged cliff walls rising on both sides. From the way the current ran, she must’ve fallen in back there, before the cliffs became impassably steep.
That