Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Keeper of Secrets
    Keeper of Secrets
    Keeper of Secrets
    Ebook71 pages1 hour

    Keeper of Secrets

    By J.A. Clarke

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A shocking betrayal by the man she thought she loved is forcing Shawna Carlton to make some critical life choices. All she craves is peace and quiet this holiday season. The isolated cabin in the Mt. Hood National Forest seems perfect for reflection. But that’s before she discovers she has a woman-hating neighbor, and the old fishing cabin is home to more than just layers of dust.Dr. Gregory Harris has his own heart-rending reasons for seeking solitude during the holiday season. What he doesn’t need is a noisy, helpless, forest-challenged city girl moving in next door. Before he know it, he’s chopping her wood, building her fires and letting her use his modern plumbing.Fresh from the pain of lost love, can two people who sought solitude in the vastness of a forest, begin to heal together?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHistria Romance
    Release dateNov 18, 2011
    ISBN9781601741257
    Keeper of Secrets

    Read more from J.A. Clarke

    Related to Keeper of Secrets

    Related ebooks

    Contemporary Romance For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      Practicing

      Mar 15, 2018

      This would have been her favorite season in the Allegheny woods. The shadows of the trees were rickety, and the wind had sap in its scent. But last week, Ty had left; now one day decayed into the next. Their house was abandoned. Only their father, si

      18 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Witch Finders

      Jul 16, 2020

      Beth pulled her cloak tightly around her. It was the very last day of October and the air was damp and chill. Dead autumn leaves lay in deep piles in the woods and smoke curled into the night air from her cottage. Not far to go now. She bent her head

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Cast Out

      Jul 10, 2021

      Verity pushed back the quilts, rolled off her straw mattress onto the floor, felt for the poker, and stirred the ashes. The embers glowed. She wouldn’t have to go fire-borrowing again. Her chilled hands were clumsy. One glowing bit of wood rolled fro

      21 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Keys and TREES

      Mar 31, 2021

      Keys and TREES
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Penny

      Jul 2, 2020

      Penny
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Getting Up

      Oct 15, 2022

      Getting Up
      20 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Intarsia

      Feb 6, 2020

      Intarsia
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Excerpt

      Dec 12, 2019

      He was an angry man, and he was an ugly man, and he was tall, and he was pacing. Not much space for it in the new home, just a few rooms lined up in a row, underneath a series of slow-moving ceiling fans, an array of antique clocks ticking on one wal

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      AN EXCERPT FROM The First Line of Dante’s ‘Inferno’

      Dec 1, 2020

      Early forties, tall, self-possessed. Hiking in the woods in search of her missing sister. A young park ranger, late twenties. Pretty. Slim. Strong. The play is formatted like prose; however, it is intended for performance. If actors simply perform th

      15 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A Lost Prayer

      Feb 2, 2023

      A Lost Prayer
      10 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Education of Mrs. R.

      Sep 6, 2022

      An adolescent shriek woke her. Cockerels, she thought, cockerels, with a wry twist to the word. She lay in the dark listening. There was no use in covering her head; the screaming still came through. The soloist was suddenly submerged in the chorus.

      13 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Discarded Wraith Of Apartheid

      Apr 13, 2024

      It’s been years since I read a book that strained the Likability Principle as viscerally as Karen Jennings’ new book, Crooked Seeds. Her previous novel, An Island, was longlisted for the Booker Prize, but I fear the more I tell you about Crooked Seed

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Intelligent Creatures

      Jul 6, 2023

      Intelligent Creatures
      19 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Pulling Up Azaleas

      Jan 10, 2023

      Throughout their lives, women are showered with bouquets of roses on numerous splendid occasions. But men? They’re only given flowers at their funeral. It’s a harsh world for men, as our lives tend to go unappreciated until death. Such was the case a

      22 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Meet the Writer

      May 27, 2023

      Meet the Writer
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A WINTER weekend

      Jan 2, 2020

      A WINTER weekend
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Shula And The Sun

      Oct 13, 2017

      Shula And The Sun
      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Out Of This WORLD

      Apr 20, 2021

      Out Of This WORLD
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Summer Beach Reads

      Jan 10, 2021

      Summer Beach Reads
      7 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Foxes

      Jun 15, 2019

      What’s worth happening happens in deep woods. Or so my daughter tells me. Her plotlines: In the deep woods someone is chasing, someone else is getting hacked. Hatchets are lifted, brought downdowndown. Men stutter blood onto snow. A cast of animals—s

      17 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      O Fortuna, Velut Luna

      Sep 15, 2018

      What is Miss Treece’s trouble, according to a popular notion? The man A has failed to show up. Arousing herself at the restaurant, she fixes her lipstick when her solo supper concludes and takes herself down the stairs situated behind the bar. There,

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Memo To Self: Don't Tell Bernard Manning Gags

      Nov 15, 2023

      ‘Do you reckon,’ I enquired on a visit to my wife in bucolic Dorset, ‘that this is an early sign of frontal-lobe dementia?’ Rebecca, who underscored her high intelligence and flawless judgement by vacating the marital home 13 years ago, pondered this

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      That Little Light

      Nov 25, 2023

      That Little Light
      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Alice in the Delta & Other Poems

      Sep 1, 2024

      Now the muscle can uncoverthe shoulderthe field can come inthe bright green grass as an act of repairThe plaster so tiredso gladto stop holdingeverything upAfter years she scrapeda rectangle on one walldown to white by the lightsocket before she tore

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A winter WEEKEND

      Dec 22, 2020

      A winter WEEKEND
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Who’s In The Spare Room?

      Feb 20, 2020

      Who’s In The Spare Room?
      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A Temporary Arrangement

      Oct 2, 2023

      A Temporary Arrangement
      19 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Keeper of Secrets

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Keeper of Secrets - J.A. Clarke

      KEEPER OF SECRETS

      A Holiday Novel Byte

      By

      J.A. Clarke

      Uncial Press       Aloha, Oregon

      2011

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events described herein are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      ISBN 13: 978-1-60174-125-7

      ISBN 10: 1-60174-125-1

      Keeper of Secrets

      Copyright © 2011 by Joy Clarke

      Cover design

      Copyright © 2011 by Judith B. Glad

      Previously published by AweStruck eBooks, 2003; Fictionwise 2005

      All rights reserved. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the author or publisher.

      Published by Uncial Press,

      an imprint of GCT, Inc.

      Visit us at http://www.uncialpress.com

      To the cabin on Mt. Hood--the best getaway and dog vacation spot in the world.

      Chapter One

      This had been a lousy idea.

      Shawna Carlton scowled at the padlock clenched in her frozen hand. Rain lashed at her back. Her jeans were soaked through. Her jacket, too thin for winter-wear in the mountains, was no protection against the hard pellets of rain or the cold. A hot shower had never sounded so good.

      The flashlight's weak beam wavered as she focused it on the tiny numbers of the lock. She had tried the combination three times already. Either she had written the numbers down wrong, or Debra hadn't given her the right combination.

      Tears fueled by frustration, exhaustion and days of stress threatened to erupt and she sagged against the old wooden door. She couldn't handle the drive back into town. Not this late at night. Not as tired as she was. Not along that ghastly, dark-as-Hell, pothole-filled U.S. Forest Service road. Even if her car made it, she was in no shape for the one and a half hour drive back to Portland.

      She swiped her sleeve across her eyes, blew on her fingers and concentrated on the padlock again. The beam of the flashlight flickered, and flickered again just she rolled the last row of numbers. Nothing. In sheer frustration, she yanked up, then down on the lock and saw the bolt separate just as the weak light died.

      Hallelujah. Bolstered by her victory, she pulled the lock from the hasp, released the latch and pushed. The door swung open on a dark, musty cavity as frigid as a mausoleum, colder even than the external temperature. Her courage faltered.

      Old and rustic, but it does have electricity, Debra had assured her. Electricity meant there must be a light switch somewhere. She shook her flashlight. It cooperated with a pale circle of light for only a second. She gritted her teeth, stepped inside and ran her hand down the wall next to the door. The surface was rough, splintery. A clingy, sticky substance wrapped itself around her fingers.

      She snatched her hand away and wiped it on her jeans. No switch. She shifted to her right. This time she felt something cold and metal and, just below it, the familiar shape of a light switch. She flicked it. A single bare light bulb in the center of the room came on.

      Oh. My. God.

      Old and rustic for sure. Debra had not exaggerated about that. It was a grungy retreat only a man could love. And Debra, Shawna remembered now, had never set foot in her boyfriend's fishing get-away. A miniscule kitchen occupied one corner with a cooktop, a sink and a box refrigerator. A wooden bunk bed stood in the opposite corner. A sagging couch sporting huge, grimy blue cabbage roses was a candidate for the landfill, and a table and four mismatched chairs were pushed against an undraped window. A forest of cobwebs hung from the ceiling.

      Shawna shuddered, then shivered as a powerful chill gripped her body. She studied the room again. It held nothing that looked like a heat source, except for the fireplace several inches deep in ashes.

      Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, she muttered. She had no one to blame but herself. Debra had tried to talk her out of this, but she had convinced herself that peace and quiet and isolation were what she desperately needed. No matter what.

      Now she wasn't so sure about the no matter what part.

      She sucked in a deep breath, yanked the hood of her jacket over her head and trudged back out into the pouring rain to start unloading her car.

      Twenty minutes later, she stood in front of the fireplace again. There was a box of matches on the stone mantle above it, and three inadequate pieces of wood in the wood box. She'd never built a fire in her life, but she was sure three measly pieces wouldn't do it.

      The rain still fell in torrents. She wrapped her arms around herself and reluctantly turned toward the door. If the small shed beside which her car was parked didn't hold wood, she was in

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1