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  TRUSTING HER HEART

  A PARADOX LAKE SWEET ROMANCE

  BOOK TWO

  JEAN C. GORDON

  UPSTATE NY ROMANCE

  CONTENTS

  Welcome to Paradox Lake

  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

  Chapter 19

  Trusting His Heart Excerpt

  About the Author

  Also by Jean C. Gordon

  TRUSTING HER HEART

  Copyright ©2021 by Jean Chelikowsky Gordon

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Characters, incidents, places, and dialog are drawn from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real, Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Trusting Her Heart is dedicated to everyone who has found that sometimes you can go home.

  And as always, much thanks to my critique group BFS (Chris, Colleen, and Thomasine) and my editor Jena O’Connor.

  WELCOME TO PARADOX LAKE

  Any fan of sweet romance will love the stories of small-town love in the Paradox Lake Sweet Romance series. Grab your tea or coffee, settle into your favorite chair, and be swept away into the cozy Adirondack town where complex characters navigate challenging situations as they find their way to love. Whether it’s love at first blush, old flames reuniting, or second chance romance, you’ll find pure reading enjoyment and satisfy your craving for sweet, wholesome romance.

  Part of an ongoing series full of familiar faces, each story will stand on its own. With novel and novella lengths available, there’s something for everyone. Paradox Lake is written by USA Today Bestselling sweet romance author, Jean C. Gordon, who’s penned stories for the No Brides Clubs Series, Indigo Bay Series, and Harlequin Love Inspired, as well as for multiple sweet romance collections.

  CHECK OUT THE SERIES

  CHAPTER 1

  The thrumming in her head started at the Essex County line and crescendoed into a pounding by the time she’d reached State Route 74. She wiped one hand, then the other on her jeans and gripped the steering wheel of her rented SUV. She was in control. She was Emily Hazard, assistant art director at an award-winning New York City advertising agency. Not Emily Hazard, the klutz-queen jinx-deluxe of Schroon Lake Central High School.

  She drove through Hazardtown, the four corners community in New York’s Adirondack Mountains that her ancestors had settled two centuries ago. Little remained to show the bustling logging town it had once been. A new name on the diner told her it had changed ownership again. The gas station convenience store proclaimed Souvenirs Here on a big red, white, and blue roadside sign. Kitty-corner, the Community Church sat as it had for the past one hundred and fifty years with its double entry doors that had originally separated the women parishioners from the men. As a teen, Emily had made a point of entering through the men’s door. The newish brick volunteer fire department building occupied the fourth corner. Ironically, the old clapboard hall had burned down when she was in college.

  Paradox Lake came into view on the left. A patch of blue nestled in the greens and browns of the hardwoods and mountains surrounding it. Her heart beat double time. As she came around the curve to Hazard Cove Road, a mama duck and her ducklings waddled onto the highway. She hit the brake pedal and sensed the pickup truck behind her before she heard the screech of its brakes. The truck touched the back bumper of the SUV and nudged her forward just short of the little family.

  She pulled over onto the shoulder of the road, closed her eyes and let her chin drop to her chest. Don’t let it be anyone I know. Please don’t let it be anyone I know, she pleaded. Raising her head, she glanced in the side view mirror. A tall, dark-haired man in a flannel shirt and jeans stepped out of the pickup and approached her, stopping to check the front of his truck and the back of the SUV. From the rearview mirror, Emily couldn’t see any real damage to the truck. She squinted at the mirror. Maybe a tiny dent in the bumper. Hopefully, the damage to the rental car was equally minor.

  She put the car in park and pressed the door-lock button. Five years of living in the city had taught her to be wary of strangers, even in little Paradox. Maybe more so in Paradox, where she still knew at least 95% of the population. And this wasn’t anyone she knew.

  She grabbed the car rental agreement from the glove compartment and rolled her window down a notch when the man reached the door. He looked pleasant enough. Faint laugh lines bracketed his mouth. But the set of his jaw and the wariness in his light blue eyes neutralized any overt friendliness his half smile might seem to offer. Her pulse raced. This wasn’t her fault. Hitting the ducks was not an option. She breathed deeply. At least she wasn’t obsessing about being in Paradox anymore.

  “Are you okay?” the man asked.

  “Yes, I’m fine. And you?” She took in the set of his broad shoulders. He looked fine. Better than fine. She tapped the steering wheel with her pointer finger.

  “I’m good.” He shrugged those shoulders. “It’s just a fender bender.”

  “Yeah. How much of my fender is bent? It’s a rental.”

  “Hop out and take a look.”

  She glanced back. Another man was getting out of the pickup. “Um, maybe we should just exchange insurance information and call the sheriff’s department for a report. I’ll need it for the rental company.” She cringed inside. Whatever officer came, chances were good that it would be someone she’d gone to school with. So much for her quietly slipping into town and keeping to herself.

  The second man approached the SUV, his face shaded by the shadows of the trees. Emily tensed, now wishing that someone she knew had rear-ended her.

  “Jinx!”

  Relief flooded her as she recognized her brother Neal. She’d even forgive him for using her hated nickname—this time.

  “I wasn’t expecting you for a couple of hours.”

  Emily rolled the window down all the way. “I got an early start and I was driving against the commuter traffic into the city, so I made good time.” She crooked her head toward the other man.

  “Oh, yeah. This is Drew Stacey, the guy who’s renting the campgrounds. We were dropping my truck off at the repair shop. My sister…”

  She glared at him a warning.

  “My sister Emily.”

  “Emily.” Drew nodded. “Do you want to check out the damage now?” The corner of his mouth quirked up.

  The guys moved away from the door so she could step out. Emily felt Drew’s eyes on her as she walked to the back of the SUV and resisted the urge to brush herself off. For all she knew, the wrapper of the granola bar she’d eaten on the trip up was stuck to her behind.

  “Oh, no,” she said when she saw the dent in the bumper. If it had been her own car, it would have been minor. With a rental car, it was definitely damage. She exhaled forcibly. “I’d better call the sheriff.”

  “No need,” Drew said from beside her.

  “Look at that dent.”

  He looked up over the car. She followed his gaze. A county sheriff’s cruiser was headed down the highway toward them.

  “Ken Norton makes his rounds about this time every day,” Neal explained.

  Of course he did. Deputy Norton always had. No reason for her to think anything might have changed here in Paradox. At least it wasn’t one of her former classmates ready to mock her propensity for disaster. The father of one of her classmates was one step removed.

  The cruiser passed them, made a U-turn and pulled ahead of the SUV. The deputy got out of the car, a broad smile creased his weathered face. “Jinx Hazard,” he boomed. “I heard you were back in town.”

  A male chuckle followed. Emily turned toward her brother and Drew. Both appeared innocently straight-faced.

  “I may have said something to somebody,” Neal admitted.

  Her stomach dropped.

  “What have we got here?” Deputy Norton flipped open a pad and pulled a pen from his shirt pocket.

  “I…” Emily and Drew both started at once.

  “You first.” Norton gestured to Emily. “License and registration.”

  Emily handed him the rental papers she had in her hand and dug her license out of her purse.

  Deputy Norton looked them over and handed them back. “What happened?”

  “I stopped to let a duck and her ducklings cross the road, and he rear-ended me.” She folded her arms.

  The deputy glanced over at the lake side of the road. The mama duck and her babies were long gone. He scribbled on his pad and pointed his pen at Drew when he’d finished. “I need to see your license and registration, too.”

  Drew pulled his wallet from his back pocket and handed over the documents.

  “New York City,” the deputy read out loud. “You up here on vacation?”

  Emily caught the note of outsider s
uspicion in Deputy Norton’s voice. Her spirits lifted. She did have the hometown advantage. Good for something.

  “No, sir,” Drew answered. “I work for the coalition of nonprofits that’s rented the Lakeside Campground for our summer program. I’m up here early to get the old lodge in shape for us to use.”

  “I heard Neal was having some renovations done. You’ve got your work cut out for you,” the deputy said. He turned to Neal. “When’s the last time the lodge was open?”

  “Fifteen, maybe 20 years ago. Dad said it didn’t pay to keep it open anymore with all the newer hotels around. People prefer their RVs or the house cabins.”

  “It was quite the place when we were kids. Your dad and my high school class had our senior prom there, you know.”

  The words “senior prom” made Emily cringe.

  “Are you all right?” Drew asked.

  “I’m fine,” she answered.

  “You went kind of white there for a minute like you were in pain. You’re sure you’re not hurt?”

  She relaxed. The concern in his eyes seemed genuine. “A little shaken up,” she said. But more from being back in Paradox than from the accident. “I really am all right. Thanks.”

  He favored her with a smile that released the rest of her pent-up tension.

  “Ahem.” Deputy Norton cleared his throat. “These look in order.” He handed Drew back his license and registration. “So, what happened here?”

  “I came around the curve. Didn’t see her until it was too late,” Drew said. “I couldn’t brake fast enough. You know, there’s usually no traffic this time of day.”

  The deputy checked out the front of the pickup and the back of the SUV and wrote some more. “How about you, Neal? What’s your take?”

  “What Drew said. We came around the curve. He wasn’t doing more than forty-five, fifty tops, and there she was.”

  “You weren’t with your sister. You didn’t see any ducks?” Deputy Norton asked.

  Emily’s temper flared. Did he think she was lying?

  “No, I didn’t,” Neal answered. “All I saw was the SUV in front of us.”

  “How about you?” the deputy asked Drew.

  “No, but I was kind of busy trying to stop the truck.”

  Deputy Norton jotted another note in his pad and flipped it shut. “Looks like a no-faulter to me.”

  “No one’s fault!” Emily uncrossed her arms and placed her hands on her hips. “There’s a Slow Curve sign before the curve and the road’s posted to watch for deer. People know you can’t careen down this road. What if it had been a deer instead of my car?” She felt Drew’s gaze on her and she couldn’t meet it for the remorse flooding through her. She’d repaid his concern for her by dumping all the fault on him. But she couldn’t have run the ducks down.

  “Then, we’d have a mess. Lynn will have the report typed up by tomorrow, if you want to bother with insurance claims.”

  Like she had a choice. “It’s a rental.”

  “I’ll make sure Lynn gets right on that report. You can pick it up at the station. And I’ll let Matthew know you’re in town.”

  His son, Matt. Great! The class president, football team quarterback who had invited her to the senior prom on a dare from a teammate. Unknown to her until they got there. She shuddered at the memory.

  “He and Becca just had a baby. My first grandson,” Deputy Norton said. “I know they’ll want to see you.”

  Becca Morgan. Former head cheerleader and debate team captain. She and Matt would want to see Emily about as much as Emily wanted to put her life in New York on hold to be here in Paradox. They should enjoy a laugh about her grand return.

  “Good seeing you, Jinx. Meeting you, Drew.” Deputy Norton tipped his hat and walked back to his cruiser.

  Neal’s and Drew’s goodbyes to the deputy faded into a brief hushed conversation. Neal approached her and draped his arm over her shoulder. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Drew thought you were acting funny. But I told him no, that’s just you.”

  Yeah, that’s me, funny-acting Jinx Hazard. “Thanks, bro.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. It was a long drive. I’m tired.”

  Neal opened the passenger door of her rented SUV. “Hop in. I’ll drive us to the house.”

  She opened her mouth to argue that she was perfectly capable of driving, then relented. Why not? It had been a long drive. “Sure.” She slipped into the passenger seat.

  He waved his intention to Drew and took over the driver’s seat. Drew pulled his truck out ahead of them and was around the next curve before Neal had even started the SUV.

  Emily clutched her purse. That’s why Drew had been so concerned about her. He knew he’d been going too fast. She rested her head on the back of the seat and closed her eyes to let go of her irritation with him. So much for the quiet, uneventful arrival she’d planned.

  Drew drove up a side road to Lakeside and stopped in front of a log home just inside the campground. He parked in front and climbed out, locking the door behind him, though it was probably unnecessary. But old habits die hard. As Drew often had since he’d arrived at Paradox Lake, he imagined what it would have been like to grow up here in the Adirondacks instead of in the cramped apartment in Brooklyn he and his brother had shared with their mom.

  Now he had a new element to add to that picture. Jinx Hazard. No, he’d better make that Emily Hazard. His survival instinct told him they’d get along a lot better if he didn’t call her Jinx. And a very interesting element it was. Tall and willowy thin, Emily was a study in contrasts with wide-set gray eyes that would have given her face an open, welcoming look if not for the shadows flickering there. Unlike most of the women he knew in New York, she hadn’t messed with the color of her honey-brown hair. And the haphazard way she’d pinned it up didn’t jibe with her perfectly fitting designer jeans and soft hoodie sweater. He didn’t miss that it was a sweater, not a sweatshirt.

  The mischievous part of him that his mother had worked so hard to control had wanted to pull the clip holding her hair and see how far it would tumble down her back. At least halfway was his guess. It wasn’t the echoes of his mother’s reprimands that stopped him. It was Emily’s attitude. The expression on her face when first her brother, then the sheriff deputy had called her Jinx told him that for her, growing up at Lakeside Campground might not have been the idyllic experience he pictured. One thing for certain, she did not share his enthusiasm for being here

  When Emily opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was Drew’s pickup parked in front of the house. Her heart flip-flopped. “He didn’t have to stop over,” she said as much to herself as to her brother. “I told him I was fine.”

  “Don’t you remember? I offered to let Drew stay at the house in the room over the garage until he has the apartment in the lodge in shape to move in there.”

  Emily did a quick mental review of the many phone conversations she and Neal had had over the past few weeks. He might have thrown a lot of things her way in his efforts to get her to agree to look after Autumn while he was on his tour of duty with his reserve unit. But that one she would have remembered.

  She shifted in the seat. “It’s not a good idea. You know the people here. They’ll talk.”

  “Come on. It’s not like it’ll be the two of you alone in the house.”

  Right! Her seventeen-year-old niece as chaperone.

  “You don’t even know him, Em. He’s a good guy. You’ll like him.”

  Whether she liked him or not didn’t matter. Or, maybe it did. She couldn’t deny the hint of attraction she’d felt when she’d thought he was concerned about her being hurt. But it would look better if she didn’t like him. “Neal, this is hard enough for me already. I’m not sure how I’m going to manage my job working from 250 miles away. I can’t handle the Paradox rumor mill as well.”