Under Suspicion, With Child. Elle James
She was afraid of the growing feelings she had for Andrei. Did he feel it too?
“Feel what?”
Her face heated, and she clamped a hand over her mouth. Obviously she’d spoken her fears aloud.
She let down her hand and said, “This thing between us.”
“Yes, I feel it.” The low rumble of his voice warmed the cool night air, filling the space between them with promise.
The baby kicked, inserting the silent reminder why Jocelyne couldn’t have a relationship with any man. “Don’t, Andrei.”
Her voice came out as the barest of whispers she hoped he wouldn’t hear. “Don’t fall in love with me.”
“I can’t promise you that.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
2004 Golden Heart Winner for Best Paranormal Romance, Elle James started writing when her sister issued the Y2K challenge to write a romance novel. She managed a full-time job, raised three wonderful children and she and her husband even tried their hands at ranching exotic birds (ostriches, emus and rheas) in the Texas hill country. Ask her and she’ll tell you what it’s like to go toe-to-toe with an angry three hundred and fifty pound bird! After leaving her successful career in Information Technology Management, Elle is now pursuing her writing full-time. She loves building exciting stories about heroes, heroines, romance and passion. Elle loves to hear from fans. You can contact her at ellejames@earthlink. net or visit her website at www.ellejames.com.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Andrei Lagios – Police officer on the Raven’s Cliff force whose younger sister was a victim of the Seaside Strangler.
Jocelyne Baker – Holistic healer and pregnant daughter of the town kook, enlisted as a cover story by Raven’s Cliff police officer Lagios to assist in the search for the Seaside Strangler.
Hazel Baker – Warm-hearted, peace-loving town kook and owner of the Cliffside Inn, working through her Wicca beliefs to create a cure for the curse plaguing Raven’s Cliff.
Mayor Perry Wells – Corrupt mayor of Raven’s Cliff and a regular at the Cliffside Inn, suspected of taking kickbacks from an illegal source, also a bereaved father whose daughter disappeared on the day of her wedding.
Grant Bridges – Resident of the Cliffside Inn whose fiancée, the mayor’s daughter, disappeared on the day of their wedding.
Rick Simpson – Mayor Wells’s assistant and a regular at the Cliffside Inn, he’s also a man with a hidden agenda.
Alex Gibson – Mild-mannered fisherman and resident of the Cliffside Inn who believes in Hazel Baker’s search for the cure to the curse of Raven’s Cliff.
Ingram Jackson – Solitary, wealthy recluse with severe burn scars who keeps to himself but frequents the Cliffside Inn for Hazel Baker’s remedies.
Under Suspicion, With Child
ELLE JAMES
This book is dedicated to Intrigue editors
Allison Lyons and Sean Mackiewicz, whose
vivid imaginations created the idea of
Raven’s Cliff, the curse and the intrigue.
And thanks to the wonderful authors who
worked together to make this continuity
come to life.
Chapter One
The cool ocean breeze of summer feathered through the loose tendrils of Jocelyne Baker’s hair, caressing her skin and body, soothing the tension away. Sitting with her legs crossed on the mat, her hands flat on the ground beside her, eyes closed, she inhaled, and let it out slowly.
All the tension of being cooped up for the past two rainy days in the inn with her mother melted away.
Maybe coming home hadn’t been such a good idea. She could have made it work had she stayed in New Jersey. Somehow.
The flutter of tiny feet in her belly reminded her why she’d returned. Pregnant and alone, she’d needed a better place than the city to raise her child, even if it meant going home.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Nothing had changed. The town was as it had been when she’d left. Her mother was still considered the town kook and everyone stared at her, waiting for her to be just as flaky. Like mother, like daughter.
The only difference was that this time she was more mature, more confident in her own place in life. She refused to let whispering gossips hurt her or her child. Her muscles clenched in her neck and shoulders.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Moving back to Raven’s Cliff wasn’t a mistake. She repeated this mantra with each breath in and each one out.
Despite the cleansing breeze, other thoughts edged into her meditation. What of the Seaside Strangler? The man hadn’t been caught. Would they catch him before Jocelyne brought her child into this world?
Unable to establish the inner peace she so intensely needed, Jocelyne pushed to her feet and stood straight, staring over the edge of the cliff out to the churning sea. Then she squatted, lowering her buttocks while her hands reached toward the sky, and closed together as if in prayer. Her hamstrings and the muscles in her back stretched, the tops of her thighs tingling with the effort to maintain the pose and tap in on the elusive inner peace she desperately sought.
HIS FEET POUNDING AGAINST the gravel, Andrei Lagios shut out everything but his breathing and the burning sensation in his muscles as he pushed himself harder and faster. He wanted the pain, even welcomed it. Pain reminded him he was alive. Unfortunately, so was the fiend who’d killed his beautiful little sister.
Despite the cool temperatures and the bite of the wind off the ocean, sweat leaked from every pore. Still he ran on, his lungs near bursting, but his attempts to turn off his memories failed. His thoughts mirrored the frothy, wind-tossed seas and the skies laden with heavy storm clouds.
He’d chosen the path along the cliff because no one would bother him here, and he felt closer to Sofia, who’d washed ashore near here two months ago. Her pale, bloated face and the seashell necklace around her throat still churned in Andrei’s mind. He’d been the one on duty when the report came across the radio that the two girls who’d been missing since the night of their high-school prom had been found, washed against the rocky shoreline.
He’d been the one to break it to his parents that their only little girl, his younger sister, had died at the hands of the Seaside Strangler. The bitter truth burned in his chest that he had done nothing to stop the killer or keep him from doing it again.
Andrei couldn’t run hard or fast enough to escape his failure. Someone in this small community had committed the crime and he hadn’t found him yet.
In the distance, he spotted movement near the edge of the cliff overlooking the area where a tourist had discovered the girls’ bodies.
Squinting against the wind, he tried to make out what it was. Then it moved again, rising from the ground, straightening. A woman wearing a white flowing skirt sat cross-legged, lifting her face to the sky. The wind whipped bright red strands of hair in Medusa-like fashion around her head.
His heart skipped several beats before shooting the blood through his body too