Page 1 of Hunted in Hope Town

Chapter One

Jessica Smith did not know very many things. For example, she did not know where she’d gone to high school, if she’d ever broken any bones, where she had been born or any of the normal things a person should know about themselves.

But she did know that she really liked coffee. She knew how to decorate beautifully and creatively for holidays. And she really knew how to sell books.

She also knew, no matter how nice and unthreatening and totally cute he was, Ellis Sutton made her nervous.

It wasn’t necessarily a bad kind of nervous. Jessica couldn’t characterize it as unease. It was just like…when he was there, something in her world didn’t quite stabilize. Something felt…just out of reach.

And he was there a lot.

Like this morning, as she pushed into the Hope Town Bakery with snow swirling around her. It was early, but the bakery had great coffee so it was no surprise Ellis was sitting at one of the tables with a mug and a plate in front of him with a half-eaten cinnamon roll on it.

It was no surprise that he’d lift those hazel eyes to see who was coming in the door and then curve his mouth into a welcoming smile.

It was no surprise that his deep rumbling voice would say, “Morning, Jessica.” And definitely no surprise that he made the chair and table look tiny holding his very large and impressive frame.

But every single time—whether it was here, or at the bookstore, or just on the street—Jessica felt a strange kind of jolt of what she could only describe as surprise when he looked at her or said her name.

She couldn’t say she had gotten used to it, even these two years later, but she had come to expect her reaction to him.

Today though was more. Because something seemed to…flash inside of her. An odd, unsettling memory. No, not a memory. A dream. She must have had a bad dream last night, because she could see in her head so clearly Ellis Sutton with blood all but spurting from his shoulder, his white shirt stained with blood.

So much blood.

She shuddered right there in the entrance to the bakery, like the dream was a terrible memory, when of course it was just a disturbing figment of her imagination while asleep.

“Cold one,” Ellis offered.

Jessica nodded, feeling mute. The sudden memory of such an awful dream created physical reactions she didn’t care for.

Thankfully, the bakery owner, Lia Blair, stepped out to the counter. “Morning, Jessica,” she greeted cheerfully. “The usual?”

Jessica liked having a usual. When her entire past was a blank—no doubt traumatic and terrible, which, hey, maybe was why she was having weird, bloody nightmares—it was nice to have things in Hope Town that felt like roots.

Jessica stepped forward to the counter. “Yes, please,” she managed to say without sounding as strangled as she felt.

Lia began to make the coffee, and Jessica couldn’t seem to help herself. She glanced over her shoulder at Ellis.

He was facing the door, so she just saw the back of his head. He was reading a book—another normal thing. He was their most consistent customer at the bookstore. So much so that Faith, her boss and the manager of the bookstore, had started hiring Ellis to do little projects around the store. He was the only male member of the bookstore’s book club and often had interesting and insightful things to say about whatever book they read.

Jessica looked back at the cash register, where Lia was ringing her up. Jessica paid in cash, like she did every day, then she took her to-go cup with a “Thank you.” When she turned back around to brave the cold and walk down to the bookstore, she did not look at Ellis. She kept her gaze forward.

Some of the other women she was friends with here in Hope Town liked to tease her about Ellis, saying that he had a crush on her. She always just laughed it off. It wasn’t like he’d ever made a move on her.

But if he did, what would you say? Albennie had demanded at the last book club after Ellis had left and Albennie had stayed behind to help clean up. Albennie worked with Lia at the bakery, and Jessica always felt drawn to her because she was…direct. Jessica didn’t feel uncomfortable with Albennie because a person always knew where you stood with her.

Ellis Sutton… Jessica didn’t have a clue. Where she stood with him. What she might say if he asked her out. It all left her feeling so unsettled she just…pushed it out of her mind and didn’t deal with it.

She thought about that flash of an image of him bleeding.

A dream. Just a dream. She should push that away with all her mixed-up feelings.

But she couldn’t seem to.

ELLIS SUTTON WAS TIRED.

He supposed two years of pretending your amnesiac wife was just a nice woman at the local bookstore might do that to a guy. But he had been an FBI agent for years, one who’d done a lot of undercover work. He should be a little mentally tougher.