Boneyard Ridge
Authors: Paula Graves
Completing his latest assignment could impact investigator Hunter Bragg’s future. But only if he can keep Susannah Marsh alive.
All Hunter Bragg wanted in Purgatory, Tennessee, was a little peace of mind. A private investigator plagued by his own guilt, he never imagined his next job would resurrect old demons. Targeted by an anarchistic militia group, events planner Susannah Marsh is his next mission: keep her close…keep her alive. But Susannah has a secret. A secret that will reveal the true motive of her potential assailants. For Hunter, being Susannah’s protector soon becomes more than just a job. And in order to succeed, there can be no half measures. With undeniable attraction simmering between them, he’s determined not to let the promise of a better future fall into the hands of ruthless predators.
He wanted to argue with her, the urge to spill the whole ugly tale so powerful it felt like poison in his gut.
His leg was bad. It couldn’t do the same things he’d once asked of it. But he was stronger now than he had been in the middle of that burning hell.
He’d never known that level of utter helplessness before in his life. He prayed to God he’d never know it again.
He willed Susannah to step back from him, to take away her soft warmth, her sweet scent, her gentle, disarming gaze.
Of course, being Susannah, she stepped closer, her hands lifting to his cheeks, ensnaring him. “I have no idea what to say to you,” she said, her voice a whisper. “I don’t know what you need.”
You,
he thought with growing dismay.
I just need you.
BONEYARD RIDGE
Paula Graves
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alabama native Paula Graves wrote her first book, a mystery starring herself and her neighborhood friends, at the age of six. A voracious reader, Paula loves books that pair tantalizing mystery with compelling romance. When she’s not reading or writing, she works as a creative director for a Birmingham advertising agency and spends time with her family and friends. She is a member of Southern Magic Romance Writers, Heart of Dixie Romance Writers and Romance Writers of America. Paula invites readers to visit her website,
www.paulagraves.com
.
Books by Paula Graves
HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE
926—FORBIDDEN TERRITORY
998—FORBIDDEN TEMPTATION
1046—FORBIDDEN TOUCH
1088—COWBOY ALIBI
1183—CASE FILE: CANYON CREEK, WYOMING*
1189—CHICKASAW COUNTY CAPTIVE*
1224—ONE TOUGH MARINE*
1230—BACHELOR SHERIFF*
1272—HITCHED AND HUNTED§
1278—THE MAN FROM GOSSAMER RIDGE§
1285—COOPER VENGEANCE§
1305—MAJOR NANNY
1337—SECRET IDENTITY¤
1342—SECRET HIDEOUT¤
1348—SECRET AGENDA¤
1366—SECRET ASSIGNMENT¤
1372—SECRET KEEPER¤
1378—SECRET INTENTIONS¤
1428—MURDER IN THE SMOKIES††
1432—THE SMOKY MOUNTAIN MIST††
1438—SMOKY RIDGE CURSE††
1473—BLOOD ON COPPERHEAD TRAIL††
1479—THE SECRET OF CHEROKEE COVE††
1486—THE LEGEND OF SMUGGLER’S CAVE††
1517—DEAD MAN’S CURVE^
1522—CRYBABY FALLS^
1529—BONEYARD RIDGE^
*Cooper Justice
§Cooper Justice: Cold Case Investigation
¤Cooper Security
††Bitterwood P.D.
^The Gates
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Hunter Bragg—
The former Army Sergeant may not be in the service anymore, but he still has a life-or-death mission: go undercover to stop a domestic terror group from killing an innocent woman who could interfere with their deadly plot.
Susannah Marsh—
The pretty, polished event planner stands in the way of a plan to target a law enforcement conference, and her only chance of surviving is a scruffy hotel maintenance man who is anything but what he seems. But can she trust anyone, especially since she’s hiding deadly secrets of her own?
Billy Dawson—
The current head of the Blue Ridge Infantry has deadly plans for the upcoming law enforcement conference.
Marcus Lemonde—
Susannah’s right-hand man has to take over her job when she’s forced to run for her life. Will he be next on the target list?
Asa Bradbury—
The head of a brutal mountain crime family is out for revenge, and he’s finally got a lead on his brother’s killer.
Alexander Quinn—
The former CIA agent has put a lot of faith in Hunter Bragg to handle the dangerous undercover assignment. But does he have another agenda where Hunter is concerned?
For all the wounded warriors who put their lives and their bodies on the line every day to make the world a safer place. God bless you, and thank you for all you do.
Contents
Prologue
Smoky Joe’s Saloon had never pretended to be anything more than a hillbilly honky-tonk, a hole in the wall on Old Purgatory Road that served cold beer, peanuts roasted in the shell and a prodigious selection of Merle Haggard hits on the ancient jukebox in the corner.
At the moment, “The Fightin’ Side of Me” blasted through the jukebox’s tinny speakers, an apt sound track for the bar brawl brewing around the pool table in the corner.
Two men circled the table like a pair of wary Pit Bulls, eyes locked in silent combat. The older of the two was also the drunker, a heavyset man with bloodshot eyes and a misshapen nose, mottled by red spider veins. He seemed to be the aggressor, from Alexander Quinn’s vantage point at a table in the corner of the small bar, but the younger, leaner man had shown no signs of trying to de-escalate the tension.
On the contrary, an almost frantic light gleamed in his green eyes, a feral hunger for conflict that Quinn had noticed the first time he’d ever laid eyes on the man.
His name was Hunter Bragg, and he’d finally found the trouble he’d been looking for all night.
“Come on, Toby, you know he’s going to beat the hell out of you the second you take a swing. Then I’m going to have to call the police and you’ve already got a couple of D and Ds on your record this year, don’t you?” The reasonable question, uttered in a tone that wavered somewhere between sympathy and annoyance, came from the bartender, a burly man in his early sixties with shoulder-length salt-and-pepper hair and a gray-streaked beard. He was dressed like most of the patrons, in jeans and a camouflage jacket over a T-shirt that had been through the wash a few times, dulling its original navy color to a smoky slate blue.
He was the “Joe” of Smoky Joe’s Saloon, Joe Breslin, an Army vet who’d opened the bar with his savings after deciding not to re-up decades earlier when the trouble in Panama was starting to heat up. He’d packed on a few pounds and lost a few steps since his military days, but Quinn had seen him in action a few nights earlier when another loudmouthed drunk had taken the angry young man’s bait and lived to regret it.
“He’s askin’ for an ass-kickin’, Joe!” the man named Toby complained, shooting a baleful look at Hunter Bragg. “I don’t care if he
is
a damn war hero.”
“I’m no hero,” Bragg growled, the feral grin never faltering.
“Bragg, I don’t want to kick you out of my bar, I really don’t,” Joe said. “But if you don’t shut your damn trap and stop picking fights, I’m gonna. You think your sister needs any more trouble?”
Bragg’s gaze snapped toward the bartender at the mention of his sister. “Shut up.”
Breslin held up his hands. “Just sayin’. She’s already got enough on her plate, don’t she?”
“Shut up!” Bragg howled, the sound of a wounded animal. Chill bumps scattered down Alexander Quinn’s spine and, on instinct, his hand went to the pistol hidden under his jacket.
Toby took a couple of staggering steps backward until he bumped into the wall, dislodging some darts from the board that hung near the pool table. “You’re crazy, man.”
Bragg’s head snapped back toward Toby, barely leashed violence throbbing in his tight muscles. Quinn wasn’t sure if the man had come to the bar armed or not; Joe Breslin wasn’t the sort of proprietor who made people check their weapons at the door. And so far, Bragg had never used anything but his fists in a fight.
But things could turn disastrous in a heartbeat, Quinn knew. He’d seen it happen too many times.
He crossed the room with quiet speed, inserting himself into the arena of conflict. As he’d hoped, his mere presence put a big dent in the tension, as both men turned their wary gazes toward him.
“Gentlemen,” he said with a polite nod. “Are you still using this table?”
Toby stared at him as if he were crazy, but Bragg’s eyes narrowed, his head tilting a notch to one side.
“I know you,” he said.
Quinn nodded. “We’ve met.”
“In Afghanistan?”
Quinn shook his head. “At Landstuhl.”
Bragg’s face blanched visibly at the mention of the military hospital in Germany where combat-injured American troops were treated until they were stable enough to return to the States for further treatment.
Bragg had spent over a week there after an improvised explosive device, or IED, had obliterated his troop transport vehicle, killing everyone else in the Humvee and leaving Bragg with a mangled leg and a head injury. Surgeons had saved the leg, though when Quinn had seen the man in the hospital in Germany, there had been some question as to whether he’d have much use of the limb again.
Now, it seemed, it was the head injury that should have caused the doctors more concern. Bragg’s limp was barely noticeable these days. But he was no longer the good-natured practical joker his fellow soldiers had nicknamed the Tennessee Tornado.
“You brass?” Bragg asked warily.
“Civilian,” Quinn answered.
The green eyes narrowed further, little more than slits in his stormy face. “Spook?”
Quinn just smiled.
Bragg’s eyebrows rose slightly, opening his eyes enough that Quinn could read the sudden recognition in the younger man’s gaze. “You’re the guy who runs that new PI joint over in Purgatory.”
Quinn removed his hand from his jacket pocket, producing a simple, cream-colored business card. “The Gates,” he said, holding out the card.