Back Roads - Softcover

Crandall, Susan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0446612251 ISBN 13: 9780446612258

Publisher: Forever, 2003

Synopsis

Sheriff Leigh Mitchell is approaching 30 and needs a change. When sexy Will Scott, a man full of secrets, waltzes into town, he sweeps Leigh off her feet, but is soon suspected of a terrible crime, which puts Leigh's newfound independence to the test. Original.

About this title

About the Author:

Susan's novels have garnered numerous awards. She is a three-time RITA award finalist and winner. She lives in her native Indiana hometown with her husband and a menagerie of critters. Visit her on the Web: www.susancrandall.net.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

If you stand in one place long enough, your shadow will move on without you. As the sun and moon arc overhead, the dark silhouette of your body slips silently across the ground, anchored only by the souls of your feet. Leigh Mitchell had seen herself thus, standing stock still on the courthouse square of the southern Indiana town where she'd been born, as her shadow and her life, slid slowly and unremarkably by.

She'd been county sheriff for two years, elected against all odds, she felt, because of her brothers' lifelong popularity in their community. Not that she wasn't qualified; she was. But there was a certain pecking order in law enforcement. She'd bucked the system and won. Still, the tedium of drunken teenagers, games of mailbox baseball, speed traps, and old man Grissom's constant calls about UFOs hovering over his corn field were wearing unbearibly thin.

Her thirtieth birthday had settled on the horizon, hunched like a stone gargoyle, dismally staring her in the face. In everything around her, she saw the quiet accusation: you are wasting time. A sense of near panic took root in her belly as the blossoms of spring gave way to the rustling green leaves of summer. By the Fourth of July, the fruit of that seed sent tendrils of dread squeezing her windpipe.

Her restlessness occasionally threatened to take over her good sense entirely. But it was nearly autumn before she gave in to it, driven by the certainty that if her life didn't change, she'd end up as withered and dusty as the parched ground under her feet.

Still, had she known the crosswinds from that malcontented summer were going to blow in the fall from hell, she'd have gladly remained dull and dusty.

The diesel could enveloped Will as the truck driver pulled away from the intersection. He stood on the side of a dark two lane highway with all of his earthly possessions crammed into a road-worn backpack, deciding which direction to take. Heart warred with head, his good sense telling him not to venture down this road. It had been paved with good times on his previous visit, why take the chance on ruining it? But he'd been pulled across the miles by the innocent and secure memories engraved during the one carefree summer of his youth. How he longed for the simple comfort of familiar surroundings, of childhood dreams yet to be born, and to be, even for the briefest time, away from the ugliness that stained his adult world.

The shroud of exhaust cleared, and there before him was the sign: GLENS CROSSING 4 MI. Will looked at the red taillights of the truck receding into the night, then in the direction of town.

He'd just walk a little closer, camp nearby, then decide in the morning. Tonight, painful thoughts of his current situation made it far too easy to crawl back into the past. The darkness had a way of distorting both past and present, making them more hideous and more marvelous than they actually were. In the light, he could see things more clearly -- the horror of the last months less pronounced, the delights of the one wonderful summer less remarkable.

He walked a good part of the way toward the town. His aching feet told him he'd covered over two miles, when it caught his eye. There, across the wide open expanse of a bean field, rose the lighted spokes of a Ferris wheel. A harvest moon, so large and low in the sky it appeared to be painted on the black of night, sat on the horizon, seemingly side by side with the carnival ride. A filmy haze sent three gray fingers across the enormous golden disk. One of those fingers was crooked and beckoning.

Well, hell. A sign? The hairs on the back of his neck prickled and rose as the skin at the base of his skull tightened. Had he been thirty minutes later, that moon would have been up in the sky where it belonged, away from the thin clouds, the inviting golden light brightened to a cold blue-white.

Instead of being calmed by the thought of divine intervention, he sighed heavily with the weight of too many miles, too many memories. He closed his eyes briefly and told himself, once again, to wait.

Tomorrow. A word which had for the past four months become his mantra.

He glanced around, looking for a good place to bed down for the night, and heard the steady thrum of a sub-whoofer pounding ever nearer. A long minute passed before he saw the headlights of the car.

It sped past him, the reverberation from the speakers battering him in the chest. He watched it pass, wondering how the hearing of the car's occupant could ever recover. Immediately, the brake lights brightened and the car slowed. The driver slammed the car into reverse before the tires stopped rolling forward, adding a squeal to the bass and the smell of burnt rubber to the air.

The car stopped in front of him, nearly rolling over his toes. The tinted window came down and a girl in her late teens leaned across the passenger seat. For a moment his heart skipped a beat. If he didn't know she was dead, he'd have sworn he was looking at his sister, Jenny -- same shoulder-length brown hair, same tilt to the green eyes.

Then the girl smiled and the eerie similarity disappeared, the smile too wide, the lips too full.

"Need a ride?"

He started to tell her no when she added, "I'm just going to the carnival, but I can give you a lift that far."

The carnival. The Ferris wheel. Well, damn, he didn't have to be hit over the head to get the picture. He was destined to walk the streets of Glens Crossing once again.

About this edition

• Publisher: Forever
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0446612251
• ISBN 13: 9780446612258
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416