The Man from Falcon Ridge Read online

  The wind hurled a branch across the window, the scraping sound reminding Hailey that she was alone.

  She combed the stairs, but found nothing. No sign of the ghost of the child she’d thought she’d seen. The noise must have been the wind blowing debris on the roof.

  Still shaken, she pushed back the heavy drape and stared into the darkness, searching for signs that someone was nearby. A light burned from the big stone house at the top of the hill.

  Rex Falcon.

  Her body grew hot just thinking about his dark eyes.

  He was big. Strong. A towering specimen of a man with a muscular body that emanated strength and power. The kind of man who could protect a woman.

  The kind who could hurt her with those big hands.

  She didn’t intend to get involved with him. Men were trouble.

  Especially one as dangerous looking as Rex Falcon.

  THE MAN FROM FALCON RIDGE

  RITA HERRON

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Award-winning author Rita Herron wrote her first book when she was twelve, but didn’t think real people grew up to be writers. Now she writes so she doesn’t have to get a real job. A former kindergarten teacher and workshop leader, she traded her storytelling for kids for romance, and writes romantic comedies and romantic suspense. She lives in Georgia with her own romance hero and three kids. She loves to hear from readers so please write her at P.O. Box 921225, Norcross, GA 30092-1225, or visit her Web site at www.ritaherron.com.

  Books by Rita Herron

  HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

  486—SEND ME A HERO

  523—HER EYEWITNESS

  556—FORGOTTEN LULLABY

  601—SAVING HIS SON

  660—SILENT SURRENDER†

  689—MEMORIES OF MEGAN†

  710—THE CRADLE MISSION†

  741—A WARRIOR’S MISSION

  755—UNDERCOVER AVENGER†

  790—MIDNIGHT DISCLOSURES†

  810—THE MAN FROM FALCON RIDGE†

  HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

  820—HIS-AND-HERS TWINS

  859—HAVE GOWN, NEED GROOM*

  872—HAVE BABY, NEED BEAU*

  883—HAVE HUSBAND, NEED HONEYMOON*

  944—THE RANCHER WORE SUITS††

  975—HAVE BOUQUET, NEED BOYFRIEND*

  979—HAVE COWBOY, NEED CUPID*

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Hailey Hitchcock—A woman running from a past she doesn’t remember into a future just as terrifying as the nightmares that plague her.

  Rex Falcon—A man determined to find the real killer behind the Hatchet Murders.

  Randolph Falcon—Rex’s father. He’s spent the past twenty years of his life in jail for killing the Lyle family—but is he really guilty?

  Deke and Brack Falcon—Rex’s brothers are determined to free their father from prison.

  Thad Jordan—A man obsessed with Hailey. Will he kill to keep her his?

  Lawrence Lyle—The man and his family were brutally murdered twenty years ago. Did he carry the secrets of his family’s murder to his grave?

  Sheriff Andy Cohen—He arrested Rex’s father for murder, but did he have ulterior motives?

  Bentley McDaver—The prosecutor put Rex’s father in jail for life. Did he have reason to rush the trial?

  Carl Pursley—Rex’s father’s defense attorney. Did he help frame him for the murder?

  Lindy Lou Lyle—She died in the Hatchet murders, but now her ghost is haunting Hailey.

  Ava Riderton—She was Lyle’s secretary. Does she know more than she’s telling?

  To Kim Nadelson:

  Thanks for all your enthusiasm and

  support with my first gothic!

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sien

  Chapter Seventeen

  Prologue

  Ten-year-old Rex Falcon stared in horror at the yellow crime-scene tape wrapped around the Lyle house. It was dark now, the night sounds adding to the eeriness. When he’d gotten here, he’d peeked inside the window and seen the gory murders. Then the sheriff and his deputies had pushed him and his brothers and mother into the yard with the other neighbors and refused to let them talk to Rex’s father.

  Just because his daddy had found the bodies, they were treating him as if he’d killed the people inside.

  His mother hugged the boys close to her. “You boys go on home. You shouldn’t be seeing all this.”

  “I’m not going anywhere till they let Daddy go,” Rex said, hands fisted.

  “Me neither,” his middle brother Deke said.

  His youngest brother Brack jutted up his chin, his eyes wide. “I’m staying, too.”

  An image of the dead people flashed into Rex’s head. There was so much blood. It looked like a river on the kitchen floor. The mother lay in it. The boy cuddled beside her. The father, too. It covered his hands and face, and his head….

  “Little girl’s dead, too,” a neighbor murmured behind him. “Found her blood near the river.”

  “Randolph Falcon.” Sheriff Cohen jerked Rex’s daddy to a standing position and handcuffed him. “You’re under arrest for the murders of the Lyle family.”

  “No!” His mother collapsed into a neighbor’s arms, sobbing.

  His father’s hawklike eyes pierced Rex as the sheriff yanked him down the steps toward his squad car. “Take care of your mama and brothers for me, son.”

  Rex shook his head in denial. His father’s words had sounded so odd, as if he wasn’t coming back. But they couldn’t take his father away and lock him up.

  He was innocent.

  “Daddy!” His brothers chased after the sheriff, and Rex ran after them.

  A bald eagle that had been perched on top of the porch swooped down and soared toward the car, its talons bared. Rex’s father nodded toward the bird. The animal knew what it was like to be caged. He was a bird of prey. He needed freedom.

  Just like the Falcon men.

  The blue light flicked on, the siren screeched and a cloud of dust rose behind the police car. Rex gathered his brothers and mother and walked them home, but it was dark inside and cold and so quiet the house echoed like a tomb. It was as if his father had just died.

  Fear and anger and sadness knotted Rex’s throat. He wanted to do something to get his daddy out of jail. He wanted to make his mother stop c. And his brothers…they were heartbroken.

  But he felt so helpless. He was only ten. A stupid ten-year-old boy. What could he do? He didn’t know anything about lawyers or courts or anything else.

  Tears pushed against his eyelids, but he blinked them back. Big boys didn’t cry.

  But he had to be alone and think, so he fled into the mountains, silently venting his pain in the midst of the snow-laden pines.

  Chapter One

  Twenty years later

  “You can never escape me, Hailey.”

  Hailey Hitchcock inhaled to stifle a cry as Thad Jordan’s hands tightened around her jaw. She desperately wanted to scream, but it was useless. No one would hear.

  An icy breeze swirled around her, sending her skirt flapping about her legs. Thad had been so angry with her on the way home from the Christmas dinner party that he’d pulled over on this deserted stretch of highway outside Denver, then half dra gged, half carried her down a path in the woods. “It’s freezing out here, Thad, please take me home.”

  “You’re bound to me forever,” he murmured.

  A shudder rippled through her. His voice was as brittle as the winter wind. Why hadn’t she seen through his charismatic act to the devil that lay beneath? How could she have been such a bad judge of character?

  Because he was an attorney. A well-respected, handsome man she’d thought she could trust. And he’d been so charming at first.

  Until she’d told him she didn’t want to see him anymore, that she’d quit her job, bought a house and was moving. Then he’d revealed his hidden side.

  He lowered his mouth to kiss her, the stench of bourbon on his breath. His other hand slid clumsily to her blouse, and he jerked a button loose.

  Cold air assaulted her breasts. Her stomach convulsed.

  “Please, Thad, stop. Go home. Sleep it off.”

  “No. Nobody humiliates Thad Jordan.” His eyes darkened with an evil flare she’d never seen before. He looked menacing. Brutal. As if he meant to punish.

  Then his fingers closed around the ruby necklace he’d given her, the cold stone dangling against her bare skin. “You accepted my gift, now accept that we’re together.”

  “You can have the necklace back,” Hailey said, wishing she’d never let him put it on her in the first place. But he had insisted.

  His fingers slid to her neck, and she swallowed, her heart racing. What was he going to do? Choke her? “Please, Thad,” Hailey whispered. “Take the necklace, then drive me home.”

  His jaw snapped tight, then he backed her up against the tree. “I’ll never let you leave me, Hailey. You’re mine forever.”

  Fear spiked her adrenaline, and she swung her knee into his groin. He released her with a bellow. “You’ll pay for that.”

  Panic surged through her. She ran, jumping over the rotting tree stumps and bramble. He yelled and ran after her. She clawed her way through the forest, her breathing erratic. Leaves crunched behind her. He was chasing her. Closing the distance.

  Briars stabbed her thighs, and she tripped over a tree stump. Her hands hit the dirt, and she struggled to regain her balance. Suddenly he was there. He latched on to her hair and jerked her so hard her neck nearly snapped. Dead brush and pine needles pricked her knees. She swept her hands blindly across the ground for a weapon. Just as he lowered his head, she clutched a branch, then jabbed it upward with all her might. He howled in pain, then fell backward cursing. Blood gushed from his cheek and eye.

  Shaking, she jumped up and ran through the forest opening. He screeched her name like a wild animal, once again on her trail. She spotted the car and dashed toward it.

  Thank God he’d left the keys inside.

  She flung herself into the driver’s side, hit the locks and turned the key. The ignition chugged, then died. He burst through the opening in a thunderous roar, one hand covering his bloody eye, the other fist flailing. “Stop it, Hailey. Come back here!”

  She cried out and patted the gas. The car had to start. She couldn’t be trapped here with that monster.

  He closed the distance, then banged on the door. “Open the door, Hailey. Dammit, open it!”

  His eyes wild with rage, he threw himself on the front window. The car rocked sideways.

  His bloody hand streaked the glass as she twisted the key again. She pressed the gas one more time. The car roared to life. Panting, she accelerated, and spun forward. The jolt sent him sailing into the air. She screamed, then steered the opposite way and sped off. She couldn’t look back now. And she couldn’t stop.

  If he caught her, he’d kill her…

  HIS FATHER WAS NOT A KILLER. He was innocent.

  On the long ride home from the Colorado state prison, Rex Falcon’s stomach churned with the certainty that his dad had spent the last twenty years in jail for a crime he hadn’t committed. Shame and sorrow mingled with anger. All his life, Rex had questioned his father’s innocence.

  And now with new criminology techniques and the airing of a recent show on The Innocents, more cold cases were being reopened and solved. With his father’s upcoming parole hearing and Rex and his brothers experience in their private investigative business, they’d reviewed the police reports and trial transcripts and found discrepancies that cast doubt on the original case.

  The Hatchet Murderer.

  The press had given his dad the name because of the vicious slayings of the Lyle family. That was the reason his mother had dragged him and his two brothers to Arizona to live. But now Rex had returned to their childhood home at Falcon Ridge to learn the truth.

  Rex shifted his SUV into Park beneath the towering pines next to his family’s stone manor, got out and went to the backyard, to the wildlife sanctuary for the hawks he and his brother rescued and trained for flight. A kestrel sat on its perch, its wings spread in an arc. Although it was dark, and snowflakes drifted down to pelt him in the face, Rex homed in on the animal’s watchful movements. He and his brothers had inherited an affinity for the creatures of the wild from their father. And just as the birds had special sensory skills to stalk and track their prey, so did Rex and Deke and Brack.

  At one time, Rex had wondered if his father had given in to that primitive need to prey on the weak and had killed the Lyles. Now he knew differently, and was ashamed he’d ever doubted him.

  He’d also wondered if he’d inherited that dangerous, uncontrollable side.

  He glanced down the hill at the house where their father had supposedly butchered the family. The Hatchet House had been closed up since the murder. The fading, chipped paint and latticework of the Victorian structure testified to its disrepair. The angles and attic window seemed macabre in the murky light. It was tucked on the side of a cliff, isolated but closer to the main road and town than Falcon Ridge, but the way it jutted out over the mountain made it look as if it might slide into the canyon any second. The location, coupled with its gruesome history and the fact that locals claimed it was haunted had kept buyers away. He’d already conducted a preliminary sweep of the downstairs. Tomorrow he’d search every inch of it and the grounds for evidence the police might have missed in their hasty, slipshod investigation.

  And he’d run off anyone who got in his way.

  HAILEY HAD BEEN DRIVING for hours, battling the snowstorm. Putting the miles between her and Thad. Between her and her past.

  A mountain road twisted to the side, and she veered onto it. Darkness bathed the graveled road, shadows from the trees flickering like fingers reaching for her, crystals of frozen ice pelting her windshield. For a brief second when she’d left Thad, she’d considered going to the police. But he had too many friends in the police department, too many important people to protect him. Just like her fifth foster father had. She’d traveled that rocky road before and managed to survive.

  Her foster mother hadn’t been so lucky.

  So, she’d left Thad’s car at his house, taken her own and left for good. Just to be on the safe side in case he’d followed, she’d traded her Civic for a VW. She’d also traded her golden hair for a brownish-red and had layered it into a shoulder-length bob.

  Thank goodness she’d already bought a place in the mountains, so she wasn’t running without a plan.

  The majestic view of aging trees, their boughs heavy with icicles, and wildlife roaming free stirred her awe. She’d always wanted to come to this area, had been saving for the right place for months. Here she’d find a sanctuary from the dark shadows that had dogged her all her life.

  Here, she would have a new beginning. A future.

  She made another turn, then spotted the house in her headlights. The Victorian mansion sat at the top of a cliff overlooking the densely populated woods beyond. She hit the brakes. The For Sale sign dangled precariousedge of the cliff as if it had been there a long time and had barely managed to withstand the last storm.

  Her gaze swung to the house. Just like in the pictures the real esta te agent had shown her, it was weathered-looking and had fallen into disrepair. Boards on the front porch needed replacing, the shutters were loose and the paint peeling. But the price was right, and fixing it up would be cathartic.

  Although it was slightly isolated, it was also near enough the supposedly haunted mining town of Tin City to entice visitors. She envisioned her Internet antiques business being housed on the bottom floor, her private quarters on the top. And if she researched the house’s history, the tale of its ghosts would draw customers to her showroom. She’d always been fascinated with history, especially local legends of small towns. Her fascination with storytelling coupled with her degree in history had been an asset when she’d worked at the auction house.

  Thad had thought her interests spooky, even boring. But somehow learning about others’ past seemed to help compensate for the fact that she’d forgotten so much of her own.

  The hair on the back of her neck prickled as she climbed from the car. Wind howled through the snow-tipped treetops, ruffling the bare branches. A whisper of danger coasted on its tail.

  She glanced back down the mountain road. Had Thad found her?

  No, she was safe.

  Her destiny awaited her. Her future. She felt it in her bones.

  Renewed determination filling her, she walked up to the front porch, ready to start over. Towering pines cast spiny shadows around the property like bony fingers hovering over the roof. Spiderwebs and dirt clung to the yellowed wood, and the dark window of the attic seemed sinister in the gray light. She could almost see the ghost of a child’s face peering out through the blackness, her cry of loneliness echoing through the eaves. The house had spoken to her.

  And she was unable to escape the lure of its call.

  SOMEONE WAS AT the Hatchet House.