Shadow of Turning

Shadow of Turning
Valerie Hansen

The little town in the Ozarks had always been a safe haven for Chancy Boyd.But now a disturbing series of crimes was moving ever closer to her, threatening everything she held dear. And a man unlike any she'd ever known was unsettling her in other ways…. Now a deadly tornado–her worst nightmare, ever since a twister had killed her parents–was racing toward the town.With the help of storm chaser Nate Collins, she'd have to face her deepest fears, both the storm gathering outside, and the storm this man unleashed in her heart.

“You think someone was in here?”

“I think chances are very good that the shadow you saw in the store was human, not imaginary, and our arrival interrupted whoever was going through your stuff, Chancy.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know. I do think you should notify the sheriff, though.”

“And tell him what, Nate? He sounded pretty miffed when I told him we’d found the stolen van ourselves.”

“It’s his job to check out possible crimes. At least you can ask him to keep an eye on your store for you during the night.”

That suggestion made Chancy laugh nervously. “I don’t think that would help. Nobody is actually on duty from midnight to six in the morning.”

“I don’t believe this place. What about crime?”

“There isn’t any to speak of,” she answered.

“Wrong,” Nate said sternly. “Now there is.”

VALERIE HANSEN

was thirty when she awoke to the presence of the Lord in her life. In the years that followed her turn to Jesus she worked with young children, both in church and secular environments. She also raised a family of her own and played foster mother to a wide assortment of furred and feathered critters.

Married to her high school sweetheart since age seventeen, she now lives in an old farmhouse she and her husband renovated with their own hands. She loves to hike the wooded hills behind the house and reflect on the marvelous turn her life has taken. Not only is she privileged to reside among the loving, accepting folks in the breathtakingly beautiful Ozark mountains of Arkansas, she also gets to share her personal faith by telling the stories of her heart for Steeple Hill’s Love Inspired line.

Life doesn’t get much better than that!

Shadow of Turning

Valerie Hansen

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of Lights, with whom is no variableness or shadow of turning.

—James 1:17

I actually am a certified

“Severe Weather Storm Spotter”

thanks primarily to my husband’s urging

and equal participation in the class.

This book is dedicated to him.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

EPILOGUE

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

PROLOGUE

“You did what with them?”

The thin young woman gripping the telephone receiver cowered even though the man on the other end of the line was behind bars and miles away. “I didn’t know they were so important, Sam. They were just a bunch of old keys in a drawer. How was I supposed to know any of them mattered?”

“If they were mine, they mattered,” he shouted. “Get them back, all of them, you hear.”

“I’ll—I’ll try.”