In Dark Waters Read Online Free PDF Page B

ignition and started the car. Silent, he drove down the gravel drive toward the main road. The wooded landscape skidded by in a blur of green. When gravel met pavement, Mitch paused, checked for traffic and then turned left onto the highway. Billboards and vegetable stands dotted the roadside before giving way to gas stations and then strip malls as they neared town.
    Grant's Forge was over one hundred and fifty years old. It had seen Civil War battles, the loss of the rail lines and in the 1970s, the flight of businesses to the outlying strip malls. By the early 1980s, the town's buildings were run-down and in danger of demolition. Then several prominent ladies in town took it upon themselves to revitalize the dying historic center. Timed with the Washington, D.C. real estate explosion, the crumbling buildings quickly found a second life as host to tony shops and restaurants that catered to the busy urbanites looking for weekend getaways. The town was described as "an idyllic spot, a gold mine of history and amusements reminiscent of days gone by" in
Traveler
magazine.
    To Kelsey, Grant's Forge conjured up memories she'd just as soon forget.
    The sun glinted off the face of Mitch's gold wristwatch, drawing her gaze to his long fingers wrapped tightly around the steering wheel. She remembered those hands on her body.
    Memories.
    There'd been a time when she'd shared so much with this man—her hopes, her dreams, her body—but now he was a stranger. And she'd never felt more alone and isolated.
    Kelsey caught herself. Quiet moments like these gave her time to brood and were always her undoing. She usually went out of her way to fill the silence, often working seven days a week, ten hours a day.
    "So how long have you been back in Grant's Forge?" she asked. A dumb question, but it was better than silence.
    Mitch glanced at her, surprised she'd spoken. He relaxed a fraction, as if he, too, wasn't comfortable with the quiet. "Three years."
    Her bracelets rattled as she brushed her hair off her face. "What brought you back?"
    His expression remained stoic. "Dad had a bad heart attack. It really shook us all up. I decided my days of traveling were over. It was time to come home."
    The Garretts had always been close. Many times, she'd envied them. The fact that Mitch was from a tight-knit family had been one of the things she'd once found attractive about him. "Stu said something in one of his letters about marriage." The idea that Mitch was married irritated.
    "Alexandra didn't go for the small-town life."
    Alexandra
. Sounded rich, expensive, spoiled—the exact opposite of her. Everything she had today she'd gotten by sweating and scraping. "She left?" Kelsey hated the hopefulness in her voice.
    "We divorced two years ago." Under his simply spoken words, she sensed tension and anger. His parents' marriage was rock-solid and his divorce likely hadn't sat well with him.
    "Sorry." She didn't feel all that
sorry
but didn't know what else to say.
    Mitch turned right onto Main Street and headed into the historic district. "It happens."
    He drove past all the fashionable row houses filled with high end stores and a trendy coffee house.
    "You can drop me at Yancey's Motel. I've got a room there." She'd not been able to bring herself to stay at her aunt's house. More bad memories.
    "Let's stop by the Third Street Diner and get a bite to eat first."
    Her stomach tightened at the thought of food. "Thanks, but I'll pass."
    Sunlight glinted off his sunglasses as he shot her a quick look. "You need to eat."
    He'd always been good at giving orders. "I'm a better judge of that than you."
    "Doubtful."
    "You're a pain in the ass, Garrett," Kelsey said. She folded her arms over her chest.
    A grin tugged the edge of his mouth. "Glad to see I haven't lost my touch."
    The Third Street Diner was at the edge of the historic district. A throwback to the 1950s, the diner hadn't been renovated like the other establishments. It stubbornly clung to the