Night Mist

Night Mist
Helen R. Myers

Help…me.At the faint words, Dr. Rachel Gentry stopped on Black Water Creek Bridge, straining to see through the night's foggy mist.Then she spotted him–a pale, ghostly figure, his T-shirt soaked with blood, his intense dark blue eyes begging her not to be afraid.After issuing a desperate warning, "Don't go back there, don't meet…" he disappeared before her eyes into thin air….The warning echoing in her mind, Rachel returned to her boardinghouse, where she was startled in the hallway by her reclusive neighbor, Jay Barnes.There was something familiar about the mysterious, moody man, something Rachel couldn't put her finger on…until he switched on a light and she stared into his passionate, dark blue gaze….

“Don’t go.”

The stranger’s face screwed into a grimace with those words as once again pain wracked his body. “Meeting him will only put your life in danger. I’m not going to let that happen. I’m willing to lose it all, even the memories. I can’t die like this, with you looking at me as if I were a stranger, Rachel.”

He knew her name.

Though his pain had to be excruciating, he struggled to reach toward her. As soon as Rachel understood that he meant to touch her, she backed away, but it was too late.

She felt his touch, a ghostly caress of air against her cheek. Fleeting and eerily cold as it was, she felt a burning awareness.

Then he began to disappear.

Helen R. Myers, a collector of two- and four-legged strays, lives deep in the Piney Woods of East Texas. She cites cello music and bonsai gardening as favorite pastimes, and still edits in her sleep—an accident learned while writing her first book. A bestselling author of diverse themes and foci, she is a three-time RITA nominee, winning for Navarrone in 1993.

Night Mist

Helen R. Myers

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE (#u31780b93-6a37-51ec-bed5-56c3df389143)

CHAPTER TWO (#uff343a69-0d8f-53cf-aa37-3bbf6db41a6f)

CHAPTER THREE (#u77fb8848-72e2-5d5e-8426-6ff9935e8493)

CHAPTER FOUR (#u5e51ac47-8074-5e86-854c-df52543b88d5)

CHAPTER FIVE (#uec1715f3-ce88-59c0-9c9d-d9c80ccf782c)

CHAPTER SIX (#u267bf546-de17-52a7-ab11-04b9a31860cb)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE

Stepping out into the night, Rachel quickly turned her back on the darkness and slipped her key into the door’s mortise lock to secure Nooton’s Medical-Surgical Clinic for another day. For four hours and twenty-some-odd minutes, to be more accurate. Until Sammy arrived at six in the morning for his ten-hour shift.

A demanding schedule, she thought again. As demanding a schedule as any she’d been subjected to since earning the right to call herself Dr. Gentry. Not that she really minded. After all, it wasn’t as though she had someplace else to be. Usually. Tonight, however, was different. That’s why she’d been compelled to close early.

But as though to challenge her, the lock refused to budge. Disgruntled, Rachel set down her medical bag and used both hands and a few whispered expletives, determined to offset the effect the Louisiana humidity had on everything in this middle-of-nowhere town. There were, of course, more practical solutions. For instance, she could get the can of petroleum-based lubricant Sammy kept in the janitorial closet. But she’d already lost too much precious time arguing with Cleo and didn’t think she could afford to risk any more.

“Come on, you stubborn…”

Finally, reluctantly, something inside the cylinder yielded and the key slid all the way to the locked position with a rusty, grating sound that cut into the night’s melancholy drone of tree frogs and other, less identifiable nocturnal creatures. Beneath her doctor’s jacket her skin tingled the way it used to during those mystery and horror movies her college roommate had insisted on watching after their late-night study sessions.

More aware of her solitude than ever, she wondered again if maybe she’d been wrong not to confide in Cleo. Her senior night nurse hadn’t approved of closing early. What’s more, instead of explaining, Rachel had simply reassured her that, despite their other nurse being on vacation, there wasn’t anything happening tonight. No one would get into trouble for this, she’d added, and Cleo had seemed okay—until Rachel turned down the offer of a ride home.

“You plan to do what?” the nurse had snapped, her hands fisted on her size-eighteen hips. “A woman’s got no business walking around here at this hour, especially not somebody who don’t yet know who’s who and what’s what around here. Why, you got them oil trucks speeding back and forth from the rigs. You got folks coming out of the lounge hardly able to stand, let alone drive. And we ain’t gonna get into discussing the kind of trash that’s been known to jump off one of the freight trains rambling through town. Just what’re you up to, anyway?”

Rachel had assured her that she simply felt the need for some fresh air, which the walk would provide. Cleo hadn’t bought the story for a second.

“This is on account I couldn’t drive you on Monday and Tuesday, ain’t it? I knew it. You’ve been acting weird ever since. Trying to make me feel guilty.”