About This Book
Welcome to Havenwood Falls, a small town in the majestic mountains of Colorado. A town where legacies began centuries ago, bloodlines run deep, and dark secrets abound. A town where nobody is what you think, where truths pose as lies, and where myths blend with reality. A place where everyone has a story. This is only but one . . .
Betrayed by love, Sherry Grimes flees the city, seeking solace in an unfamiliar place that calls to her from deep in the mountains. But her search for comfort goes awry when she’s chased by a wolf through the forest, falls, and blacks out. She awakens in a strange room with a mysterious and forbidding—yet undeniably sexy—man by her side. So much for finding solitude. But despite the craziness that brings her to the small eccentric town, she discovers herself drawn into the magic that is Havenwood Falls.
Russell Higgins had long ago given up the idea of finding the one he could trust his secrets to—until he met Sherry. One look at the feisty woman with a broken heart has him defying his pack and rethinking his own ideas of his perfect mate. What he can’t deny is the wolf inside, claiming the human as his.
Bradley Monahan wants Sherry back, and he would do anything to make that happen. Even fight the mysteries of a town that doesn’t forgive transgressions.
While love may heal old wounds, it’s the fresh ones that Sherry must overcome to find her way back home. Wherever that may be.
Old Wounds
A Havenwood Falls Novella
Susan Burdorf
Contents
Other Havenwood Falls Books
Books by Susan Burdorf
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Other Havenwood Falls Books
Forget You Not by Kristie Cook
Fate, Love & Loyalty by E.J. Fechenda
Covetousness by Randi Cooley Wilson
More books releasing on a monthly basis
Also try the YA line, Havenwood Falls High, launching October 2017
Stay up to date at www.HavenwoodFalls.com
Books by Susan Burdorf
A Cygnet’s Tale
Breaking Fences
Copyright © 2017 Susan Burdorf, Ang’dora Productions, LLC
All rights reserved.
Published by
Ang’dora Productions, LLC
5621 Strand Blvd, Ste 210
Naples, FL 34110
Havenwood Falls and Ang’dora Productions and their associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Ang’dora Productions, LLC.
Cover design by Regina Wamba at MaeIDesign.com
Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the owner of this book.
Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters and events are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
I would like to dedicate this book to the readers who are about to discover the magic of Havenwood Falls.
Chapter 1
Sherry threw her Ford Focus into gear, wishing she was driving Brad’s Viper instead of her old clunker. She ignored the vehicle’s hesitation and the grinding sounds that came from underneath as she sped backwards out of the driveway without looking. Banging into the garbage can, she winced, knowing the heavy rubber container likely dented the side of the car, but not really caring.
She just needed to be gone, and to be gone as quickly as possible. As she spun the car to face the other end of the cul-de-sac, momentarily stopping to shift gears once more, Brad ran up and pounded on the window, startling her. He was bare-chested, his ripped muscles bulging with effort as he tried to force her to look at him. He wore a pair of gray sweatpants and little else. Normally the sight of his hard, athletic body would cause her to pause and stare at him with hunger, but today she only felt disgust and anger.
“Sherry, come on!” Brad’s muted plea came through the closed window. Her fiancé—correction, former fiancé—raced barefoot alongside the slowly moving vehicle as she attempted to leave. He had one hand on the locked door handle and the other on the window as he tried to keep her from moving forward.
Sherry’s heart beat out a rhythm that begged her to flatten him, but she waited for him to retreat back a step before she glared at him.
Rolling down the window, she said, “Get away from the car, or I’m gonna run over your toes.”
Brad wisely stepped farther back, hands raised in surrender. His face turneda bright shade of red. He tossed his black hair out of his eyes. Pointing a finger at her, he said, “Go ahead, run off like a baby. You never were a good lay. I don’t need you anyway.”
“You will when the rent comes due next week,” Sherry spat out before she sped off down the street. In the rearview mirror, which Sherry mentally kicked herself for looking into, she saw the blonde draped around him, rubbing his chest and consoling him in the only way a strumpet like her knew how to.
The girl was dressed in the silk robe Brad had given Sherry on her last birthday. Her favorite silk robe. The one Brad said brought out the blue in her eyes and the sexy in her toned and petite body. She was half-tempted to whip the car around and rip the silk off the woman’s slender, tanned form, but decided to forgo that pleasure in favor of getting the heck away from there. Flipping her dark hair over her shoulders, she forced herself to keep her eyes on the road.
A short while later, blinded by tears, she nearly sideswiped a delivery truck and city bus before her pounding heart calmed down and she could breathe normally again. After several hours, with the radio blasting rock music loud enough to melt her eardrums, Sherry pulled over to the side of the road into a small rest area. She had no idea where she was, or where she was going, but something had told her to keep driving, so she followedher gut instinct.
The brisk spring air, chilled with the promise of more winter this close to the mountains of Colorado, greeted her as she emerged from the car. Stepping into a slushy puddle, she groaned in frustration. These were her favorite black heels, their leather now ruined forever in the salty, half-melted snow that encased her foot up to the ankle.
Sherry grabbed her cape from the passenger side and wrapped the thin material around her cream-colored silk blouse. Neither article of clothing was any protection from the cold air that whipped around her. Her dark hair had fallen from the loose bun she’d put it in earlier while driving to keep it out of her eyes. She shivered.
The sound of laughter drew her eyes to a family walking toward the entrance to the building that housed the bathrooms and snack machines. The little girl held tightly to her father’s hand, while the boy—in his mother’s arms as he was just a toddler—hugged the woman tightly. Looking over her shoulder at her husband who walked slightly behind them, the woman smiled at something he’d said with a look of complete a
doration, which he returned with an easy smile of his own, and Sherry felt her throat tighten in jealousy.
Would she ever see anyone look at her like that?
She’d thought Brad would be that one, the one who would make her heart sing with passion that could last forever, but he obviously played their love song out of tune. What was so wrong with her that she couldn’t find anyone to love her for longer than it took to cash her paycheck?
She’d met Brad in church, for Christ’s sake. How could he have turned out to be such a snake? Was this bimbo the first, as he’d claimed while throwing on his pants to chase after her when she fled? Or was this one just the first he’d been caught with? If she hadn’t come home from work early today due to a gas leak near the therapy office at the middle school, she never would have known anything about what he was up to when she was gone each day. Who knows how long this had been going on without her knowledge? Brad certainly wasn’t going to tell her, and the bimbo was barely able to string a sentence together, so no help there.
Shivering in the cold, Sherry already regretted her hasty decision to run away. She should have made him, and the bimbo, of course, leave. She considered turning around and driving home, but the last thing she wanted to do was have another argument with him or, worse yet, admit she was wrong to leave so quickly. Even though she knew she wasn’t.
That love nest of his was her apartment, dammit. She should have made him leave. Her face darkened as she remembered the sounds that greeted her when she’d opened the door, sounds she was all too familiar with making herself after a few glasses of good wine and great jazz.
Pinching her lips, she closed her eyes, willing the tears not to fall.
“Lady?” said a small voice to her right. “Are you okay? Do you need a sucker?”
Slowly opening her eyes, Sherry said, “No, thank you.” Under her breath she muttered, “I am the sucker,” which came out louder than she intended.
Sherry looked down to see a tiny blonde girl holding up a bright red sucker, the kind the dentist used to give her back when she was young, if she was a good girl and didn’t squirm too much in the seat while they drilled her teeth. She’d always thought it ironic that a dentist would give sugar on a stick to a kid whose teeth he’d just worked on, but she hadn’t complained too loudly. And it had seemed to ease the pain, at least for a little while.
“Thank you,” Sherry said, reconsidering. She took the sucker the little girl offered and smiled, hoping her mouth made the appropriate shape and wouldn’t scare the child. Sherry wasn’t sure what to do next, as the girl didn’t seem to want to leave.
“I am so sorry. I hope Destiny wasn’t bothering you too much.” The little girl’s mother took her daughter by the hand and gently tugged her away.
Sherry smiled crookedly. “Destiny? Perfect name for the first person I speak to right after the disaster of my current life. Almost like a sign.”
A sign? Of course it was a sign. Sherry was a firm believer that if you stood still long enough, the universe would find a way to connect with you. Watching the tiny girl and her mother walk with hands clasped tightly, she wasn’t surprised when the girl turned, locked eyes with her, and gave Sherry a solemn wink before getting in the car with her family and driving off.
Sherry entered, then stood in the middle of the information building as she looked around. She was surrounded by maps marking the nearest hiking trails, along with brochures advertising tourist traps, which were neatly lined up on the wall in metal racks. The slick, curved, white walls and cheap marble flooring somehow both soothed and unsettled her. Sherry felt the walls closing in on her, although nothing was moving. She felt something happening—changing—inside her. She breathed deeply, eyes closed, and waited to see if the universe had another sign for her.
But nothing came. At least not right away.
No one said, “Go home, patch things up with your skanky boyfriend, and forget that he tends to like other women once in a while.” Conversely, nothing else said, “Forget that jerk, keep driving.”
Then she heard the soft swish-swish of leather-soled shoes on the floor.
“Can I help you, miss?” A kind dark-skinned man, with eyes like chips of coal in his lined and weathered face, looked at her in concern. “Are you lost?” He wore a dark green uniform with a slim silver badge that announced him as BRAD.
Sherry wanted to laugh out loud at the irony of meeting someone with her ex-boyfriend’s name, but swallowed back the mirthless sound instead. Sometimes the universe could be cruel. She shook her head, but her watery eyes gave away her true emotional state. The man patted her arm and then squeezed it as he led her over to where the brightly colored and labeled maps rested.
“Perhaps you’re looking for a nice place to visit?”
Sherry felt herself gently propelled closer toward the maps. She took the one he proffered to her, barely glancing at it. The second she touched it, she felt a tingle, gentle and insistent, travel up her arm. Nothing uncomfortable or painful—it was more like the pins-and-needles feeling when your arm fell asleep after resting your head on it for a while.
“This is a brochure for a lovely town not far from here called Havenwood Falls. A lot of folks find the town quite pleasant to visit, and I’m sure you will, too.”
Sherry raised an eyebrow as she looked at the one-page, double-sided flyer he’d handed to her. The old man stood in front of her, slightly stooped and expectant, as if her decision mattered a great deal to him.
Sherry’s eye was caught by the promise of a “cabin in paradise,” and she was sold before she even knew what else to say.
Chuckling as if he knew the answer before he asked, the old man said, “You have a plan now?”
“Why, yes,” Sherry said, answering his twinkling eyes with a shy smile of her own. “I think I do. These cabins sound wonderful. I see a number down here. I’m going to call and see if they have anything available.”
“Good idea. You’d better move on now. There’s a storm heading this way soon, and it wouldn’t do to get caught in it. Those late spring squalls can be quite temperamental in the mountains. Oh, and miss,” the old man said as she started to turn away, “the town is a bit difficult to find. You can take the shuttle outside, or if you prefer to drive your own vehicle, you are welcome to follow the bus for the best way to get there. I strongly urge you to do that. The shuttle bus will be leaving in about ten minutes, though, so you’d better hurry.”
Sherry looked where he pointed and saw a large bus idling in the section reserved for buses and trucks to park. She couldn’t see through the tinted windows, so wasn’t sure if it was full already or not. Since there was so little time to get on the bus if she wanted to take it, and since she was planning to rent a cabin and would need her car, she decided not to take the bus. But she would definitely follow it. She had a feeling the old man was not lying about it being a difficult town to find and wondered why. Mountain roads could be tricky sometimes, with quick turns and perhaps that was the reason why. Either way, she was getting excited at the thought of having a plan.
Sherry nodded. Chuckling once she walked outside, she grinned at the kindness of the old man. He’d been pushy, but pretty darn cute in spite of it. She liked him. Looking back through the glass doors, she was surprised not to see him standing in the doorway watching her. Instead, she could make out a tall, stocky woman behind the desk, shuffling papers and talking to an elderly couple who had just walked up.
After calling the number on the flyer, Sherry was relieved to find there was one cabin left. Because it was higher up on the mountain than she would have liked, she hesitated before committing to the idea of the cabin. I’m just planning to hike the area for a few days until things have a little time to cool off at home, she reasoned, justifying both the expense and the remoteness of the cabin.
“That will be three hundred dollars for the week,” the woman on the other end of the line said.
Sherry gasped in surprise. “Are you sure? That s
eems pretty cheap.”
“Oh yes, ma’am. Your cabin is very rustic, therefore a little cheaper,” the woman replied. Her voice sounded pleasant and certain, exactly the way a customer service person should sound.
Sherry gave the woman her card number and then, just as the woman hung up, thought of a question she needed to ask. When she tried to call back, the number was busy. Hanging up, Sherry decided to go back inside and thank the old man for his help and try the number later.
Moving inside, Sherry waited a minute until the woman behind the counter was free. Sheila’s name badge was slightly crooked and not as shiny, but still lettered the same. When Sheila looked up, Sherry smiled sweetly and said, “I wonder if you might give that sweet old guy, Brad, a message for me?”
“Brad?” Sheila’s expression was puzzled and annoyed, like she had plenty of better things to do than play secretary.
“Yes, the nice man who helped me a few minutes ago.”
“How did he help you?” the woman asked. Her expression had changed from annoyed to cautious, as if afraid of what Sherry might answer.
“Well, he gave me this flyer, the one about Havenwood Falls and renting a cabin. Let him know that’s what I’ve decided to do. And I owe it all to him. So please, tell him thank you.”
Sheila hesitated. Biting her lip, she folded her hands together on the desk and stared Sherry squarely in the face. “I’m not sure what game you are playing at here, young lady, but we have no one working here named Brad. And I have never heard of Havenwood Falls. What are you trying to pull?”
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