Shadw in Serenity; Valley of Dreams

Shadow in Serenity

By Terri Blackstock

(Zondervan)

Blackstock is a masterful writer; highly recommend this excellent title to fiction fans--Christian Retailing Magazine

Carny Sullivan knows a con artist when she sees one, and she's seen plenty, since she used to be one. But Logan Brisco is the smoothest fraud Serenity, Texas has ever seen. From his Italian shoes to his movie-star smile, he has them snowed. Carny's the only one in town who has his number, and if it's the last thing she ever does, she's going to expose him. But is she really a match for him?

Chapter 1

Logan Brisco had the people of Serenity, Texas, eating out of his hand, and that was just where he wanted them.

He worked hard to cultivate the smile of a traveling evangelist, the confidence of a busy capitalist, the secrecy of a government spy, and the charisma of a pied piper. No one in town knew where he'd come from or why he was there, and he wasn't talking. But he made sure they knew he was on a mission, and that it was something big.

From the moment he drove his Navigator in, wearing his thousand-dollar suit and Italian shoes, carrying a briefcase in one hand and a duffel bag in the other, tongues began wagging. The most prevalent rumor was that Logan Brisco was a movie producer scouting talent for his latest picture. But the weekly patrons of the Clippety Doo Dah Salon were sure he was a billionaire-in-hiding, looking for a wife. And the men at Slade Hampton's Barbershop buzzed about the money he was likely to invest in the community.

Two days after he arrived, the UPS man delivered two large boxes marked "Fragile" and addressed to "Brisco, c/o The Welcome Inn." One of the boxes had the return address of a prominent bank in Dallas. The other was marked Hollywood, California. The gossip grew more frenzied.

For two weeks, he talked to the people of the town, ate in its restaurants, shopped in its stores, bonded with its men, flirted with its women. As soon as speculation peaked, Logan would be ready to go in for the kill.

This one might be his biggest score yet.

The next step would be to hold one of his seminars, the kind where people came in with bundles of cash and left with empty pockets and heads full of dreams. That was what he was best at. Building dreams and taking money.

On his second Saturday in town—which consisted mostly of four streets of shops, offices, and restaurants—the sun shone brightly after a week of rain. It was the day Serenity's citizens filled the streets, catching up on errands and chores. Perfect.

His first stop that morning was at Peabody's Print Shop, where yesterday he had talked Julia Peabody into printing a thousand fliers for him on credit. "I'm not authorized to spend money on this project without the signatures of my major investors," he'd told her in a conspiratorial voice. "Can you just bill me at the Welcome Inn?"

Julia, the pretty daughter of the print shop owner, glanced over her shoulder to see if her father was near. "Well, we're not supposed to give credit, Mr. Brisco."

"Logan, please," he said, leaning on the counter.

"Logan," she said, blushing. "I mean … couldn't you just write a check or use a credit card and let your investors pay you back?"

"I'm in the process of opening a bank account here," he said with the hint of a grin sparkling in his eyes. "Thing is, I opened it yesterday, but they told me not to write any checks on it until my money is transferred from my Dallas bank. Now, if I were to write you a check and ask you to hold it, that would be exactly the same thing as your giving me credit, wouldn't it?"

"Well, yes, I guess it would," she said.

He smiled and paused for a moment, as though he'd lost his train of thought. "You know, they sure do grow the women pretty in Serenity."

Julia breathed a laugh and rolled her eyes.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Logan said. "I changed the subject, didn't I?"

"That's okay."

"So … would you prefer a postdated check or credit?" While she was thinking it over, he dropped the timbre of his voice and said, "By the way, are you planning to be at the bingo hall tomorrow night?"

"I think so."

"Good," he said. "I was hoping you would."

Flustered, she had taken his order. "All right, Logan, I'll give you credit. You don't look like the type who would make me sorry."

"Just look into these eyes, Julia. Tell me you don't see pure, grade-A honesty."

Today, when he went back in to pick up the fliers, he turned the charm up a notch. "Not only are you the prettiest girl in Serenity, but you're the most talented too. These are excellent fliers."

Julia giggled and touched her hair. "Uh, Logan … I meant to ask you … what project is it that you're working on? I looked all over it, but the flier didn't say."

He shot her a you-devil grin and brought his index finger to his lips. "I can't tell you before I tell the rest of the townsfolk, now can I? It wouldn't be fair to cut you in before anybody else has had a chance."

"Oh, I wouldn't tell anyone," she promised. "Discretion is my middle name. Secrets come through this shop all the time, and I never say a word. Politicians, clergymen, what-not. Everybody in town knows they can trust me."

Chuckling, he handed her back one of the fliers. "Come to the bingo hall early tonight, and you'll hear everything you want to know. Now don't forget to send me that bill."

With a wink he was out the door, leaving her staring after him with a wistful look.

Stepping out into the cool sunlight of the May day, he looked down at the box of fliers. It shouldn't be hard to pass all of them out by tonight. And having the seminar at the bingo hall in the town's community center was a stroke of genius. That place drew hundreds of people on Saturday nights, and tonight they would just come a couple of hours early to hear him. By tomorrow, he'd be riding high.

He would hit the hardware store next, since it seemed inordinately busy today. Easy marks there—he'd hook every one of them.

He stopped, waited for a car to pass, then started to dart across the street. The sound of a Harley hog stopped him. It growled its warning as it tore its way up the street, breaking the relative quiet that he had come to associate with the town. He stepped back when it passed, but as its wheel cut through a puddle, it splashed mud onto the shins of his pants.

"Hey!" he yelled. The driver apparently didn't hear. Logan stared after the bike, which carried a woman and a little boy. The petite biker's shoulder-length blonde hair stuck out from under her tangerine helmet, softening the impression created by the powerful bike. As she went up the street, people looked her way and waved, apparently pleased to see her rather than annoyed at the disruption.

Terri Blackstock's Web Site: http://www.terriblackstock.com

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* * *

Valley of Dreams

By Lauraine Snelling

In the first book of Lauraine's Wild West series, Cassie Lockwood is alone in this world, except for the performers of the Lockwood and Talbot Wild West Show. When the show goes bankrupt, she decides to look for the valley, her father always spoke about. But she has only one clue-three huge stones that resemble fingers on a giant hand. With Chief, a Sioux Indian, who's been with the show for twenty years and Micah, the head wrangler she sets out on a wild and daring adventure to find her father's Valley of Dreams.

Who am I, daughter of the wind,

The wind that brings rain,

The wind that brings life?

I am she who breathes deep of that wind,

Drinks until full of the rain,

Lives so that others

Yearn for the wind.

"Just get through today," Cassie told herself, as she did every October first.

As far as she could figure, hard work was the only antidote to the grief that threatened to paralyze her. So far, on this day that had started, as every day, before dawn, she had given her trick-riding pinto, Wind Dancer, a bath, brushed him dry, and made sure not one tangle remained in his black-and-white mane and tail. She had cleaned and polished his hooves and would have brushed his teeth, if that were possible.

Her tent on the grounds of the Lockwood and Talbot Wild West Show would meet military standards for order and cleanliness, the supplies in her trunk all folded or placed precisely. Her guns gleamed from polishing; no trace of gunpowder or dust would dare adhere to stocks or barrels. All were wrapped in cotton cloths and returned to their cases.

If George had allowed it, she would have scrubbed him too, but while the ancient buffalo bull enjoyed a good grooming, he didn't care for bathing. Even Cassie knew better than to push her friend too far. Her dog, Othello, on the other hand, had been scrubbed to the point of nearly losing his wiry hair—and his dignity. While he stayed near her in the corral, he kept his head turned the other way.

It was only three o'clock. If there had been a show today, she could have handled the memories better. Digging into the grooming bucket, she pulled out a carrot and fed it to George. The crunching brought Othello over to sit by the bucket, hinting that he'd like one too but was too miffed to ask.

Would the tears never cease? Such was the case every year, no matter how hard she fought to control her emotions. All the other performers had learned to leave her alone if they didn't want to lose their head.

Her mother and father had both died on October first, five years apart. For Cassie Lockwood, at age ten, losing her mother had taken the light from her world, but when she was fifteen and her father died, her life nearly went with him. Each of the five years since, she had struggled through this day of memory, praying for peace and comfort, feeling that God had left her right along with her parents.

George nudged her with his broad black nose, so she petted him some more too. Safe between her three animal friends, she wiped her eyes on her shirttail before tucking it back into the waistband of her britches. With her mother no longer around to force her into the niceties of womanhood, Cassie wore pants to work around the animals. As the star of the show with her trick riding and shooting, she pretty much did as she pleased, but when she entered the arena, she was all professional. Her mother and father, who headlined before her, had taught her well.

"Miss Cassie." Micah—he never had given a last name—waited patiently for her outside the corral.

"I'll be along soon."

"You are all right now?" While slow of speech and movement, Micah had a way with animals that bordered on legendary.

"Yes, thank you." Or at least I soon will be.

"The supper bell rang."

Really? I didn't even hear it. "Long ago?"

"Food will be gone soon. You hungry?"

Cassie thought a moment. Yes. That rumbling in her belly was most likely hunger now that the pain of grief had retired to await another vulnerable time. "I guess. You know what's for supper?"

"Smells like pork chops."

Othello whined, so Micah dropped a hand down to the dog's head. "I'll save you my bones. Don't worry."

October was usually the final month of the show season before they headed south to winter in warmer weather. When her father ran the show, they did enough gigs in the winter season to keep all of the cast and crew employed. Not so with Jason Talbot, her father's former partner and Uncle Jason to her, an honorary title for the family friend she'd known all her life. He'd promised both her and her father that he would see to Cassie's care as long as she needed him.

"Something strange going on." Micah held back the flap for her to enter the cook tent ahead of him.

"I know." But what? Cassie thought back as she returned greetings, making sure she smiled to let her friends know she was all right. When had she first sensed the feeling?

"John Henry is back."

"Good thing." Cassie grinned and headed for the serving line. John Henry had left the troupe to return home for a few days to bury his father. His second in command could make good soups, but the quality slipped on other entrees.

With their trays full, Cassie and her cohort made their way back to the table without incident, but several conversations had hushed as they passed. Folks always thought she belonged more on the management side, a slight cut above the performers. She might call him Uncle Jason, but the man had never shared business information with her, still thinking of her as that cute little pigtailed girl who used to sit on his knee. At least that was Cassie's take on things.

Halfway through her meal, weariness rolled over her like a huge wave, leaving her foundering in the backwash. She set the remainder of her plate on the ground for Othello, bid the others good-night, and headed for her tent. Tomorrow would be a show day, a better day for sure. So why was she so anxious?

To purchase this book visit www.LauraineSnelling.com, www.bethanyhouse.com, www.christianbook.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, www.amazon.com or your favorite bookstore. Do Not Reproduce without permission of Baker Publishing.

Vicious Cycle, Protecting her Own

VICIOUS CYCLE

by Terri Blackstock

Book 2 in the New York Times Best-Selling Intervention Series



When fifteen-year-old Lance Covington finds an abandoned baby in the backseat of a car, he knows she's the newborn daughter of a meth addict he's been trying to help. But when police arrest him for kidnapping, Lance is thrust into a criminal world of baby trafficking and drug abuse.



His mother, Barbara, looks for help from Kent Harlan—the man whom she secretly, reluctantly loves and who once helped rescue her daughter from a mess of her own. Kent flies to her aid and begins the impossible work of getting Lance out of trouble, protecting a baby who has no home, and finding help for a teenage mother hiding behind her lies.



Chapter One



I should have died.

Jordan lay on her bloody sheets, her newborn daughter in her arms, and longed for one more hit. She had never hated herself more. Her baby had come two weeks early—probably because of her drug use—and she hadn't been sober enough to get to the hospital. Giving birth at home had never been part of the plan, but there was no one in her house whose mind was clear enough to do the right thing.

What kind of mother traded prenatal vitamins for Crystal Meth? Her age was no excuse. At fifteen, Jordan knew better than to get high while she was pregnant. Now she had this beautiful little girl with big eyes and curly brown hair, innocence radiating like comfort from her warm skin. That innocence, so rare and short-lived in her family, made the birth all the more tragic to Jordan. Worse, the baby seemed weak and hadn't cried much, and sometimes her little body went stiff and trembled.

Was she dying? Had Jordan tied off the umbilical cord wrong? Her mother, who had once worked as a nurse's aid, had told her to use a shoe string. What if that was a mistake? What if she'd waited too long to cut the cord? It wasn't like she could trust her mother.

All Jordan's plans were ruined now. She had made up her mind to give the baby up for adoption, even though she'd felt so close to it in the last few weeks as it had kicked and squirmed inside her. While she was sober, she'd come to love the baby and dream of a future for it … one that bore no resemblance to her own. But once Jordan had gone back into the arms of her lover—that drug that gave her a stronger high than the love of a boy—the baby had stopped kicking. For the last week of her pregnancy Jordan had believed it was dead. So she'd smothered her fear, guilt, and grief in more drugs.

Then today her water broke, and cramps seized her. She had responded to her fear as she did every emotion—by getting high. By the time she'd felt the need to push, it was too late to get to the hospital, and there was no one who would drive her.

She craved another hit, but her mother and brother were out of Ice. They'd already burned through Zeke's casino win, so one of them would have to find a way to score. Maybe it was better if they didn't, though. Her baby needed her.

She wrapped the baby in a dirty towel, swaddling it like she'd seen on one of those baby shows. She hadn't expected to love it so fiercely. The baby had big eyes, much larger than the average baby, and now and then she would open them and look up at Jordan, as if to say, "So you're the one who's supposed to protect me?"

The door to her bedroom burst open, and her mother, eyes dancing with drug-induced wildness, swooped in with sheets in her hand. She must have been holding out on Jordan. She had a secret stash of dope somewhere that she didn't want to share.

"Up, up, up," she said with trembling energy. "Come on, girl, you've made a mess. Now let's clean it up."

Since when did her mother care about neatness when rotten dishes festered in every room, and garbage spilled over on the floors? "Mom, I have to get the baby to the hospital. She's not acting right, and I don't know about the cord."

Her mother leaned over the baby, stared down at her with hard, steel-gray eyes. "Looks fine to me. I've called the Nelsons. They'll be here soon. They're deliriously excited."

The Nelsons? No, this wasn't how it was supposed to go.

Her mother released the fitted sheet from the corners of one side of the mattress and pulled it up, clearly trying to roll them both out. Jordan tried to brace herself. "Stop! Mom, I can't."

"Get up," her mother said, clapping. "Come on. We've got to get the little thing cleaned up before it's mommy and daddy come. And if they come back here I don't want them to see these sheets."

"Mom—you don't get to pick her parents!" Jordan got up, clutching the baby. Blood rushed from her head, blotches blurring her vision. "I've worked it all out with the adoption agency. I'll call them and tell them—"

Her mother's face hardened even more, all her wrinkles from hard living starkly visible now. "It's a done deal, darlin'. Baby, we have to do this. It's great for our whole family! This is the whole reason we let you leave rehab early."

"It's not the reason you gave me, Mom. You said you missed me, that I needed my mama while I was pregnant. It was all a lie."

Her mother snapped the sheets. "Forty thousand dollars, baby. Do you know how much Ice that'll buy?"

"Just take her to the hospital to make sure she's all right. Then we can talk about who—"

"No!" her mother shrieked, and the baby jerked and started to cry.

Jordan pulled the baby's little head up to her shoulder and rubbed her back. She was so tiny, just a little ball. Her arms and legs thrashed, as if to say that someone had made a mistake, that she wasn't supposed to enter a world of chaos and madness.

"His new parents can take him to the hospital," her mother said.

"Not him—her!" How could her mother not know whether her grandchild was a girl or a boy? "And they're not her parents. I don't know them. I don't care about the money. They're not on the list the agency gave me."

Her mother flung the sheets into a corner. The blood had seeped through the sheets and now stained the mattress. "Look what you did, you piece of trash! Bleeding all over that mattress."

"If you'd taken me to the hospital—"

"To do what? Let them arrest you because you were high as a kite while you were giving birth to that kid? Let them arrest me? I'm on probation. You know they can't see me like this. And you're fifteen. They might have taken you away from me, put you into foster care, and then where would you be? Worse, they could take the baby away and put it into foster care. Then we got nothing to show for it. I ain't gonna let that happen."

Jordan squeezed her eyes shut. If she'd only stayed in rehab, under the protective wings of New Day.

She felt dizzy, weak, but as she held the baby, her mother threw the clean sheets at her. "Put these on that bed. But first get that stain out of the mattress."

"Mom … I need some things." She kept her voice low. "Something to dress her in. Some diapers. Bottles."

"You can nurse her until they take her. I'm not putting one penny into this. They're paying me!" She yanked the baby out of Jordan's arms. "I'll hold it while you change the bed."

Jordan hesitated, uneasy about the fragile baby in the hands of a wild woman who didn't know her own drug-induced strength.

"Do it!" her mother screamed.

Again, the baby let out a howl. Jordan took her back.

"I will, Mom," she said softly. "Just let me put the baby down."

Breathing hard, her mother watched as Jordan laid the baby on the floor. Then Jordan got a towel and blotted at the blood stain on the mattress, watching the baby from the corner of her eye.



Buy Vicious Cycle Now at http://www.terriblackstock.com/books/adult-fiction-books/the-intervention-series/



Buy Book 1, Intervention at http://www.terriblackstock.com/books/adult-fiction-books/the-intervention-series/



Watch Vicious Cycle Video Trailer at www.youtube.com/TerriBlackstock



Read more about her books at www.terriblackstock.com





Protecting Her Own

By Margaret Daley



Bodyguard Cara Madison must protect her own father when an assailant targets him. With the help of an ex-boyfriend, Connor Fitzgerald, she searches for a would-be killer while fighting her feelings toward Connor.



Blurb for Protecting Her Own, second book in Guardians, Inc. Series:



Nothing short of her dad's stroke could bring professional bodyguard Cara Madison back to Virginia. But her homecoming turns explosive with a pipe bomb package addressed to her father. Cara knows two things for sure. First, someone's after either her father or her…or both. And second, this job is too big to handle on her own. Unexpected help comes from Virginia state police detective Connor Fitzgerald. Years ago she'd walked away from him…and love. Now, despite their unresolved feelings, they must join forces—and settle their scarred differences.



Margaret Daley

Heartwarming to Heart Pounding

An Electrifying Read



Excerpt from Protecting Her Own by Margaret Daley, Love Inspired 2011:



"I thought that was taken care of." Cara Madison gripped her cell to her ear so tightly her hand ached as she hurried toward the foyer of her childhood home to answer the door. Exhaustion clung to her as though woven into every fiber of her being.



The bell chimed again.



"No, the State Department still has some questions," Kyra Morgan, her employer at Guardians, Inc., said.



"Hold it a sec. Someone's at the door."



She peered through the peephole, noting a deliveryman with a package and clipboard, dressed in a blue ball cap, blue shorts and white T-shirt. Probably another birthday present from one of Dad's friends. She thrust open the door and cradled the cell against her shoulder to keep it in place.



"So I have to make a trip into Washington, D.C., to see Mr. Richards at the State Department?" Cara asked her boss while she scribbled her name on the sheet of paper then took the box.



Stepping back into the house, Cara shut the door with a nudge of her hip and carried the package to the round table in the center of the dining room to put it with the multitude of others—all presents from people around the world whom her father knew.



"Cara, I'm sorry you need to go at this time. I know that last assignment was rough and now with bringing your dad home from the rehabilitation center, you don't need this complication. Mr. Richards assured me it's just a debriefing about the riots occurring in Nzadi."

She wished she could say that wasn't her fault, but what she did had set the protests off. Guilt swamped her. In protecting her client, a revered humanitarian in Nzadi was killed instead. "Don't worry. I'm tough. I'll survive. I'll call the man and set up an appointment after I get Dad home and settled."



For a few seconds she studied the plain brown box from Global Magazine with C. Madison on the label before peeling back the top flap on the carton. The sound of the tape ripping the cardboard reverberated in the stillness, exposing the top of a gift wrapped in black paper. Black? True, her father was turning sixty tomorrow, but wasn't black wrapping a little too macabre after he suffered a stroke eight weeks ago?



"I'm sure it's only a formality." Her boss's assurance drew Cara's thoughts away from the gift. "My impression from the State Department was you won't have to go back to answer any more questions from the Nzadi government."



The word Nzadi shivered down her length, leaving a track of chills even though it was summer. "I'll call you after I talk to Mr. Richards. Bye." Cara clicked off and stared down at the open box that nestled the new present, wrapped in black paper. Black like people wore to funerals. Black as the dress of the beloved lady who had been killed in the café. Cara shivered again. She wanted to forget Nzadi, but she didn't think she ever would.



The image of the beautiful woman, bleeding out on the floor of the café, nudged those last days in the African country to the foreground. She'd managed to push the trophy wife she was protecting out of the way of the assassin's bullet, only to have it lodge in the woman across from them. Again she heard the angry shouts from the crowd as she'd been driven to the Nzadian airport. The people's grief over the death of Obioma Dia had evolved into fury at Cara and the woman she'd been assigned to protect.



A shrill whistle pierced the air.



Shaking the image and the shouts from her mind, she glanced toward the kitchen. The water she was heating for her tea. The noise insisted on her immediate attention and grated her frazzled nerves. But the sound was a welcome reprieve from the thoughts never far away.

She quickly headed toward the kitchen and a soothing cup of tea along with a moment to rest and think about her father's situation—the reason she was in Clear Branch. She craved peace after the past couple of hectic days—after her last disastrous bodyguard assignment in a country that fell apart around her. Nzadi was still suffering the worst unrest in decades.

Just inside the kitchen she pocketed her phone, wishing she could silence it like she could the teakettle's racket. But her cell was her lifeline, especially when she was on a job. And now also because her dad's homecoming celebration was cancelled because of a reaction to a new medication that made the doctor decide at the last minute to keep him a few more days. She'd planned a small birthday party for tomorrow and would need to finish calling his friends to tell them she'd have to postpone the festivity.



As steam shot out of the spout on the white pot, she snatched it off the burner and set it on a cool spot on the stove. Finally the loud, annoying sound quieted. She turned toward the cabinet behind her to get a mug.



Blissful silence—no angry people in Nzadi yelling words that still curdled her blood, no rehabilitation center—



A boom rocked the foundation beneath her feet. She flew back and slammed against the edge of the counter so hard the air rushed from her lungs. Her momentum then spun her to the side, her hip clipping the corner. Her head swung back against the freezer handle then forward. Darkness swirled before her eyes as bits of wood and plaster rained down upon her, stinging her skin. Her ears rang, drowning out any sound except the thundering of her heartbeat vying for dominance.

Love Finds You in Homestead, Iowa; Predator

PREDATOR, by Terri Blackstock

The murder of Krista Carmichael's fourteen-year-old sister by an online predator has shaken her faith and made her question God's justice and protection. Desperate to find the killer, she creates an online persona to bait the predator. But when the stalker turns his sights on her, will Krista be able to control the outcome?

Ryan Adkins started the social network GrapeVyne in his college dorm and has grown it into a billion-dollar corporation. But he never expected it to become a stalking ground for online predators. One of them lives in his town and has killed two girls and attacked a third.

When Ryan meets Krista, the murders become more than a news story to him, and everything is on the line. Joining forces, he and Krista set out to stop the killer. But when hunters pursue a hunter, the tables can easily turn. Only God can protect them now.

Excerpt from Chapter 3, after the funeral for Krista's fourteen-year-old sister, who was found murdered.

The house filled up quickly with friends, relatives, and strangers, armed with casseroles and offering hugs and tears. At twenty-five, Krista had had little experience with funerals, except for her mother's. She supposed they'd done the same the day they'd buried her, when Krista was eleven, but she hadn't been expected to host them then. When she'd locked herself and the newborn Ella in her bedroom to insulate them from shattering condolences, no one had forced her to come out.

Today she felt an obligation to welcome people in and help them when they didn't know what to say. Their struggles to make sense of such a senseless death drained her, and she longed for them all to go home and leave her and her father to their grief. But relatives had traveled long distances and were determined to stay, and the teen girls from the Eagle's Wings ministry needed some reward for coming. Most of these teens were middle-school dropouts, their parents in prison or on the streets with needles in their arms. Those who were privileged to have at least one parent who loved and cared for them were alone most of the time, as their parents worked two and three jobs just to provide a moldy apartment for them to live in. Some were pregnant, some tattooed, some were on drugs themselves. They didn't fit in with Krista's relatives, but she was moved by the fact that they would come. That meant that all the seeds she and Carla had planted in their lives were beginning to flower. It moved her to tears that they would risk their own discomfort in order to comfort her.

She didn't want to break down in front of them. They needed to see her strong, courageous. They needed to see a peace that passed all understanding.

But inside, a silent rage boiled, threatening to ruin her ministry and her image. Worse yet, it threatened to ruin God's image.

When the girls finally left, she breathed relief, no longer feeling she had to be the mature, settled one. While her relatives talked quietly among themselves, she slipped into her bedroom and turned on her computer. As soon as it was fired up, she navigated to GrapeVyne, the online community that had occupied so much of her sister's time. Signing in with her sister's name and password, she brought up her page.

Friends had posted hundreds of notes to her dead sister, so many that they'd pushed Ella's final Thought Bubbles far down the page. Krista scrolled down and found her sister's last public thoughts.

Thinking about becoming a brunette.

Krista smiled. Ella was never satisfied with herself. A real blonde dyeing her hair brown? Her friends responded by telling her she was crazy.

The Thought Bubble before that made her smile fade. It was the statement that might have cost Ella her life.

Riding my bike to Sinbad's. Dying for a soda, and Dad won't keep them in the house.

Ella had never come home from Sinbad's. Her bike had been found overturned in the street near the convenience store, her cell phone and purse lying on the ground. Some of the contents of her purse had scattered out, and her hand mirror was shattered into dozens of pieces.

Any predator with a computer would have been tempted by that information. Why had Ella felt compelled to tell everyone where she was going and when?

She scrolled down as she'd done so many times since her sister's disappearance and saw Ella's habits and schedule posted in various Thought Bubbles throughout the day. She'd posted dozens of pictures of herself, some with her school jersey on. Some of her posts mentioned her school, her teachers, her after-school activities, her friends … She posted often during the day using her cell phone.

The killer had access to this information, and he was somewhere here, hidden among her GrapeVyne friends. She clicked on Ella's friends, and saw a list with pictures of over eleven hundred people. What had her sister been thinking, to post private thoughts to over a thousand strangers? Why hadn't Krista realized it and stopped her? She'd tried to give her sister her space, but she should have been spying on her, demanding to be added to her friends list so she could monitor what was going on.

She scrolled down through the faces, looking for someone who looked evil. Someone who could stalk and rape and murder, and bury a young girl in a shallow grave out in the woods.
The friends all looked benign and young, but it was subterfuge, she knew. He was there, somewhere. He was watching, enjoying the fallout. He may have even added his condolences to the others on her Vyne.

Then it hit her. She could talk to him. If she posted a note to him, he would read it.
An inner fire hit her face, burned her eyes, tightened her lips. Her heart kicked against her chest. She put the cursor in Ella's Thought Box, and typed:

You think you got away with this, but I'll find you. I'll hunt you down like the animal you are.
She hit send. There was a 140 character limit, but she had more to say. She waited for the box to empty and her note to flash up on the screen. Then she added:

You'll wish you'd never heard the name Ella Carmichael, and you'll suffer the way she suffered.
Then she signed it, Krista Carmichael. She hoped he was reading it already.

Buy Predator at your local bookstore, or order at:

http://www.terriblackstock.com/books/stand-alone-books/
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"Melanie Dobson weaves an extraordinary slice of history and a unique setting into a charming love story that will captivate your imagination and create a yearning for the simple life of the old Amanas."—Judith Miller, author of The Daughters of Amana series

Love Finds You in Homestead, Iowa

By Melanie Dobson

Times are hard in 1894. Desperate for work, former banker Jacob Hirsch rides the rails west from Chicago with his four-year-old daughter, Cassie. When a life-threatening illness strands the pair in Homestead, Iowa, the communal Amana villagers welcome the father and daughter into their peaceful society. Liesel, a young Amana woman, nurses Cassie back to health, but Jacob's growing interest in Liesel complicates his position in the Amanas. Will he fight to stay in the one place that finally feels like home, even if it means giving up the woman he loves? Or will Liesel leave her beloved community to face the outside world with Jacob and Cassie at her side?

Chapter 1

July 1894, Chicago The morning fog lingered in the alleyways and draped over the iron palings that fortified the row of saloons along Harrison Street. At the corner of Harrison and LaSalle, a gas lamp flickered in the mist, its yellow flame spreading light over the alley tents. Only a few more blocks until they were safe in the depot. In the distance, the station's clock tower glowed like a beacon, beckoning him to hurry, and Jacob Hirsch patted the back of his daughter, asleep on his shoulder, before checking his breast pocket. The two train tickets were tucked safely inside. Adjusting the strap on his satchel, he took a deep breath and hurried toward the train that would take him and his daughter far away from Chicago. Cassie squirmed against his chest and lifted her head. "My throat hurts, Papa.""I know, Pumpkin." She tried to smile. "I'm not a pumpkin." "You're my pumpkin," he replied softly. He put her down for a moment to shift his satchel to his other arm before he picked her up again. Laying her head back on his shoulder, her breathing deepened as she drifted back to sleep. Shivering in the morning air, he pushed himself to walk even faster to get her into the warm station. Almost a week ago Cassie had started complaining of a sore throat, and he felt useless to help her. His money was almost gone, and they were just two among thousands who had no place to sleep tonight. This city was the only place Cassie had ever known, but there was no future for them in Chicago. Tens of thousands were unemployed—strong men willing to work and educated men who could no longer provide for their families. These men walked the dirty streets during the day, searching for work, and a tent housed them and their families at night. A tramp lay sprawled across the sidewalk in front of Jacob, inches from the door of a saloon. He stepped over the man, but a familiar queasiness clenched his gut. So many people were struggling to survive while others tried to drown the country's economic depression by drinking themselves to death. He'd considered the latter himself, using the last of his money on liquor instead of train tickets, but the streets in Chicago were already crowded with children who'd lost both of their parents—he couldn't think about what would happen to Cassie if he weren't here to protect her from the scum who patrolled for orphans. Jacob's stomach rumbled, but he ignored it. Cassie was the one who needed to eat. Cassie and the other young victims of the financial tsunami that had hit the East Coast last summer and swept across the plains and mountains, devastating families and businesses and farms in its wake. Jacob checked his pocket again for the train tickets. They were still there. He'd pawned the last of their furniture along with Katharine's wedding ring to buy these tickets and garner two additional dollars to buy Cassie food during their journey west.

Three months had passed since he'd lost his job at the bank, and almost a year had passed since he'd lost… He shook his head, focusing on the depot's bright clock tower instead of drowning himself in the past, for Cassie's sake. They would take the early morning train to Minneapolis and then on to Washington State, where there were jobs waiting for men willing to work. He was more than willing. Someone tugged on his trousers, and he looked down to see a young girl not much older than Cassie's four years. Her hair was matted against her head, and tattered rags hung over her shoulders. "Can you spare a nickel?" she whispered. Behind the child was a row of tents in the alley. "Where are your parents?" Her scrawny finger pointed toward one of the tents. "Mama's in there." "You hungry?" She nodded, blinking back her tears. The New York Stock Exchange was eight hundred miles away, yet the impact from its crash trickled down to the least of these on the streets of Chicago. The pain wasn't in their wallets. It was in their bellies.He couldn't spare a nickel but— Cassie lifted her head in her sleep and snuggled into his other shoulder. What if it was his daughter begging for food? The girl stepped back, her head hung with resignation, and he couldn't help himself. Digging into his pocket, he pulled out one of his precious nickels and handed it her. "Buy some bread when the bakery opens." "Yes, sir," she replied, the strength returning to her voice as her fingers clenched the coin. "Thank you, sir."

During the colder nights, swarms of homeless slept in the hallways of city hall or in the basements of the saloons, and when those got overcrowded, the chief of police opened the doors to the station and crammed people young and old into cells alongside the criminals for the night.

A jail cell was no place for a child. He shifted the leather bag on his shoulder again and Cassie stirred, coughing against his suit jacket. He rested his hand on her back until she stopped coughing and then turned the corner toward the station and the passenger train that would take them west.

For most of his life, he'd respected the power of a dollar. Even more than providing for his family, it was his livelihood, and he thought he'd understood its worth. But he didn't truly understand it until most of the bank's reserves were washed away in the Panic of '93 along with his salary. Never before had he known what it was like to have the future obliterated, to have only two dollars to his name. Nor had he understood real desperation—the need for money because of the love for his daughter and the hunger in his own belly. And now here he was, on this chilly summer morning, afraid that thieves might steal a measly two dollars from him. And even more afraid that he might be tempted to steal like them if he didn't find work soon and provide for his daughter.

More information about Melanie Dobson's books and information about the Amana Colonies is

available at www.melaniedobson.com. Love Finds You in Homestead, Iowa can be purchased at bookstores, Wal-Mart, or online at http://www.amazon.com/Love-Finds-You-Homestead-Iowa/dp/1935416669 and http://www.christianbook.com/love-finds-you-in-homestead-iowa/melanie-dobson/9781935416661/pd/416660?item_code=WW&netp_id=648103&event=ESRCN&view=details.
Excerpted from Love Finds You in Homestead, Iowa by Melanie Dobson. Copyright 2010 by Melanie Dobson. All rights reserved.