Authors: Colleen Coble
Tags: #Fiction, #Christian, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Suspense, #ebook, #book
Lonestar Angel
LONESTAR ANGEL
ALSO BY COLLEEN COBLE
Smitten
The Under Texas Skies series
Blue Moon Promise
(Available February 2012)
The Lonestar Novels
Lonstar Sanctuary
Lonestar Secrets
Lonestar Homecoming
The Mercy Falls series
The Lightkeeper’s Daughter
The Lightkeeper’s Bride
The Lightkeeper’s Ball
The Rock Harbor series
Without a Trace
Beyond a Doubt
Into the Deep
Cry in the Night
The Aloha Reef series
Distant Echoes
Black Sands
Dangerous Depths
Alaska Twilight
Fire Dancer
Midnight Sea
Abomination
Anathema
LONESTAR ANGEL
COLLEEN
COBLE
© 2011 by Colleen Coble
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].
Scripture quotations are taken from THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION. © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Coble, Colleen.
Lonestar angel / Colleen Coble.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-59554-269-4 (soft cover : alk. paper)
1. Married people—Fiction. 2. Camp counselors—Fiction. 3. Missing children—Fiction. 4. Christian fiction. gsafd 5. Texas—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3553.O2285L63 2011
813’.54—dc22
2011030514
Printed in the United States of America
11 12 13 14 15 16 QG 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Alexa Coble
My perfect angel
CONTENTS
S
ILVERWARE TINKLED IN THE DIMLY LIT DINING ROOM OF
T
WENTY
,
AN UPSCALE RESTAURANT
located inside Charley Creek Inn, a classy boutique hotel. Eden Larson smiled over the top of her glass of water at Kent Huston. He was so intelligent and kind. His blue eyes were filled with intent tonight, and she had known what he had planned from the moment he suggested this place for dinner.
The piano player’s voice rose above the music as he sang “Waiting for a Girl Like You.” Kent had spoken that very phrase to her often in the year they’d been dating.
“Warm enough?” he asked.
“It’s a perfect night.”
“In every way,” he agreed. “I want to—”
“Kent.” She reached across the linen tablecloth and took his hand. “I need to tell you something.”
Before he asked her to marry him, he needed to know what baggage she carried. She’d intended to tell him before now—long before. But every time she tried, the pain closed her throat. She wasn’t ready to talk about it then, and maybe she wasn’t ready now, but he deserved to know.
Kent smiled. “Are you finally going to tell me what brought you to town? I don’t really care, Eden. I’m just thankful you’re here. I love you.”
She wetted her lips. It didn’t matter that he said he didn’t care. She owed it to him to tell him about her past and the demons that had driven her here to Wabash, Indiana. “Kent . . .” The sense of a presence behind her made her pause.
“Eden,” a man said.
Her heart seized in her chest. She’d recognize the deep timbre anywhere. It haunted her dreams and its accusing tones punctuated her nightmares. The deep vibrancy of that voice would impress any woman before she ever saw him.
She turned slowly in her upholstered chair and stared up at Clay Larson, who stood under the crystal chandelier that was the centerpiece of the intimate dining room. “Clay.”
How could he be here? He hadn’t changed a bit. His hair was still just as dark and curly. His dark blue eyes were just as arresting. And her pulse galloped the way it had the first time she’d set eyes on him.
“I need to talk to you,” he said, stepping toward her. “It’s important.”
Oh, she should have told Kent before now. This was the wrong way for him to discover her past. He was beginning to frown as he glanced from her to Clay, whose broad shoulders and vibrant presence loomed over their table. It was going to come out now. All of it. Her pretend life vanished into mist. What had made her think she could escape the past?
“Who are you?” Kent said. “And what right do you have to interrupt a private conversation?”
“The right of a husband,” Clay said, his gaze holding her.
“Ex-husband,” she managed to say past the tightness of her throat.
“No, Eden.
Husband
.” He held up a sheaf of papers in his right hand.
“What are those?”
“I never signed the divorce papers,” he said quietly, just to her. “You’re still married to me.”
She heard Kent gasp in the silence as the song in the background came to an end. “That’s impossible.” She stared at Clay, unable to take in what he’d said. “We were divorced over five years ago.”
“You sent the papers over five years ago,” he corrected. “I just never signed them.”
She stared at the blank signature line he showed her. Why had she never followed up? Because she’d been too busy running. “Why not?”
He shook his head. “I had my reasons. Right now, there’s something more important to discuss.”