LITMIR.BIZ

      Leslie J. Wainger

      Executive Editor

      In the Arms of a Stranger

      Kristen Robinette

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      KRISTEN ROBINETTE

      could never decide what she wanted to be when she grew up. She wanted to be an archaeologist, a firefighter, a psychiatrist, an equestrian, an artist, a police officer…all at the same time. After deciding that her affliction was actually the urge to write about such things, she set out to become an author. Four romance novels and multiple fiction careers later, she couldn’t be happier! Kristen lives in Alabama with her husband and three daughters. When not at the keyboard, she can be found spending time with her family, pampering her horse (who believes he’s a dog), boating, reading and generally avoiding domestic chores.

      To Adrienne, who made us complete.

       And

       to my sister, Kathy,

       who always slowed down so that I could catch up,

       held my hand in front of the “big kids”

       and still comes out to play.

       Thank you.

      Contents

      Prologue

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Prologue

      Chief Luke Sutherlin sat his coffee mug on top of a battered file cabinet and watched chaos consume his police station.

      “Chief, another storm report is coming in.” Lieutenant Ben Allen hovered over the computer terminal as it began printing.

      Luke nodded, dreading the fact that he’d be trapped in the station today. Working closely with his officers wasn’t a favorite part of his job. His men accepted that a Sutherlin was, yet again, in charge. Respected his authority, maybe. But they didn’t like him. Not even on a good day.

      And today was definitely not a good day.

      He walked slowly to where Ben stood and scanned the information as it printed. When the terminal finally stilled, he ripped the paper away and read it in detail.

      “Looks like the storm will go north of Sweetwater, after all,” Lieutenant Allen offered in a too-cheerful voice.

      A winter storm had built west of the Mississippi River and was now burying North Alabama and Tennessee under a blanket of ice and snow. It was a freak storm, the television meteorologists explained with panicked expressions, something they’d never seen before, much less in early March. Authorities originally predicted it would sweep across the North Georgia Mountains with the same fury, but the storm had weakened and was headed north of them.

      Luke breathed a sigh of relief. They were accustomed to occasional snow flurries but were ill equipped to handle a storm of this magnitude. This was the South. He could count ten tornadoes for every true snowstorm he’d seen. He tossed the report on Ben’s desk.

      “What’s that?” He pointed to a crumpled slip of yellow paper with his name scrawled at the top.

      “Oh…” Ben smoothed the paper before offering it to him. “It’s a message, sir. I’m sorry. I took it late last night.”

      He pulled it from Ben’s hand. Shelly Henson. The name stopped him cold. His father’s mistress. Former mistress, he amended. He hadn’t seen or heard from Shelly in over a year. Why had she called the station?

      Ben had scribbled the message with a fat felt-tipped marker: “I’ll be returning what belongs to you.” Shelly had taken a couple of hundred dollars from his wallet a year ago, the night he’d taken her in. He winced at the memory.

      After having received a frantic call from the housekeeper, Luke had arrived at his father’s house to find Shelly lying on the polished marble floor, her face bruised and the smell of fear in the air. His stepmother had merely watched the distasteful scene play out with cool detachment. But then, Miss Camille, as she liked to be called despite her age and marital status, had never made any secret of his father’s affairs. On the contrary, she wore them like a badge of honor. Proof of what she was forced to endure.

      His father had made himself conveniently absent by then, leaving Luke to see to the nasty details.

      Luke had brought Shelly back to his place, then valiantly tried to wipe the scene out of his head with a bottle of booze. It hadn’t worked. Not that night or any night since.

      Why Shelly Henson would feel the need to make amends at all was beyond him. The theft was nothing compared to his own behavior that night. He rotated his stiff right shoulder. His shoulder had never failed to predict

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