The Secrets of Her Past

An irresistible attraction!

Veterinarian Madison Monroe faces her days by ignoring her past. That’s impossible when her former brother-in-law Adam Drake appears. She’d love to refuse his demands for help—who needs his attitude? But she owes the family. So fine, she’ll work at their vet clinic, then walk away.

Easier said than done. Being with Adam shows the differences between the twin brothers. Intense and intriguing Adam makes her feel things she never felt before. Worse, Adam gets past her defenses, putting her carefully hidden secrets in jeopardy. And once the truth comes to light, everything will change!

Had Adam always been this handsome?

Of course he had. He looked just like Andrew, only with shorter hair, more muscles and a scowl that was somehow more attractive than his brother’s charming grins had been.

Why was he here?

“This way,” he said before Madison could ask, and jerked his chin toward the end of the building from which he’d come. He reached for her bag, and in her confusion over his appearance, she didn’t release it fast enough.

The heat of his hand covered hers on the handle and the contact zapped her. She snatched the tingling extremity away, and her pulse skittered out of control.

Static electricity. That’s all it is.

Who was she trying to fool? Warmth pooled low in her belly. She squashed that reaction.

His gaze snapped to hers, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.

She carefully blanked her expression until he pivoted and headed for a pair of glass doors on the opposite side of the building from where she’d parked. A slow breath leaked from her lungs. For pity’s sake. You’d think she’d never been touched by a man before. She hadn’t in a long time. Years, actually. But still, celibacy was no excuse for her neglected hormones to start tap-dancing now, and for Andrew’s brother no less.

Dear Reader,

There are those who say you only get one chance at true love, and if you choose unwisely romance is over for you forever.

I’m not one of those people.

I believe in second chances. I believe that growing older makes us wiser and teaches us what’s really important in life and in a partner. Sometimes we find the one we were meant to be with only after we’ve earned a few bumps and bruises on our heart. I finally found my soul mate, and in this story Madison finds hers, but to do so she must face her painful past, overcome her fears and risk her wounded heart to see past the superficial and into the heart of the man who was meant for her.

Come back to Quincey, North Carolina, with me. It’s a fictional town in the countryside through which I love to drive.

Happy reading!

Emilie Rose

The Secrets of Her Past

Emilie Rose

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bestselling Harlequin author and RITA® Award finalist Emilie Rose lives in her native North Carolina with her own romance book hero and two adopted mutts. Her four sons have flown the coop. Writing is her third (and hopefully her last) career. She’s managed a medical office and run a home day care, neither of which offers half as much satisfaction as plotting happy endings. Her hobbies include gardening, fishing and cooking (especially cheesecake). She’s a country music fan because she can find an entire book in almost any song. She is currently working her way through her own “bucket list.” Visit her website, www.emilierose.com, or email her at EmilieRoseC@aol.com. Letters can be mailed to P.O. Box 20145, Raleigh, NC 27619.

To my own romance book hero.

We have traveled some very bumpy roads to find exactly where we were meant to be—with each other.

Contents

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

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

“BRING MADISON HOME.”

Tension and loathing snatched a knot in Adam’s gut at the sound of his former sister-in-law’s name. He stared at his father across the motor home’s small galley table. “I know your diagnosis was a shock, but bringing her back into our lives would be a mistake.”

“I disagree. At times like this we need family support.”

“She’s not family, Dad. Not anymore. By her choice.”

“Madison wasn’t responsible for your brother’s death. The ice storm was.”

“Even if that was true—” and it wasn’t “—she betrayed you. After all you and Mom did for her, Madison took the life insurance money and disappeared immediately after Andrew’s funeral, and she hasn’t bothered to call and check on you since. Family wouldn’t do that.”

“Madison was grieving, too, son, in her own way. She lost her husband and her son that night.”

“A baby she didn’t want.” His father’s stubborn refusal to accept reality made Adam want to punch something.

“You can’t know that, son.”

“I know what Andrew told me. He said she resented the pregnancy.”

“You only heard one side of the story. The pregnancy might have been unplanned and the timing less than ideal, but Madison would have been a good momma once the little one arrived.”

“Damn it, Dad, her carelessness killed—” An abrupt slicing motion of his father’s hand made Adam bite back his words. Danny Drake had never been willing to hear anything negative against the woman he’d loved like a daughter.

Adam tried again—this time with cold, hard facts. “She was ticketed for ‘driving too fast for conditions.’ Your son and grandson died in that wreck, and she walked away with barely a scratch. How can you not hold her responsible?”

“Not all wounds are visible. She was injured enough to miscarry her baby. Placing blame doesn’t change what’s happened. Andrew is gone. Holding on to your anger won’t bring him back.

“You asked what you could do for me, Adam. I’m telling you. If I’m going to devote all my energy to beating this cancer, then I need to know my practice is in good hands. Madison is the only veterinarian I trust to do things my way while I’m out of commission.”

“But you know nothing about what she’s been doing since she left.”

“Wrong. I’ve been keeping tabs on our girl. Bring her home, son, or I’ll skip the surgery and take my chances with the chemotherapy radiation treatments. At least then I won’t have to miss as much work.”

“The odds of a nonsurgical approach—”

“I know the damned odds,” his father snapped, then took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Ripping my rib out to get to my lung is going to sideline me for months. I need backup. Reliable backup. This is my cancer. My fight. And I’ll do it my way. Bring. Madison. Home.”

His father snatched up his newspaper and stormed from the galley down the short hall and into the bedroom, his footsteps shaking the motor home in which Adam’s parents had been living since beginning the renovations on their house. The door slammed shut.

Frustrated by his father’s refusal to listen to reason, Adam balled his fists. What choice did he have except to comply if he wanted his father to take the most successful course of treatment?

Adam had to go after the one woman he never wanted to see again. If he succeeded, would he finally win his father’s approval?

* * *

A GHOST ROSE from the rocking chair on Madison’s front porch, freezing her fatigued muscles with icy horror and chilling the sweat on her skin.

No. Not a ghost—ghosts weren’t tall and tanned. They didn’t plant fists on lean hips and scowl with hatred-filled blue-green eyes and flattened lips.

The man on her front porch wasn’t her dead husband. It was his identical twin. Adam Drake. Adam so strongly resembled the man she’d once loved with every fiber of her being that looking at him made her chest ache.

Resignation settled over her like a smothering lead X-ray apron. She should’ve known her self-imposed exile couldn’t last. It had taken six years for the nightmare of her past to catch up with her. The Drakes had found her despite her changing names and relocating to another state.

Judging by his expression, Adam hadn’t forgotten or forgiven what she’d done. She couldn’t blame him. She couldn’t forget or forgive her actions that night, either. She pressed a hand over the empty ache in her stomach—a sensation that never seemed to abate.

With a face as rigid as a granite mountainside, Adam glared at her from the top step. She didn’t climb the treads to join him, and probably couldn’t have even if she’d ordered her gelatinous legs to move. Her run home in the sweltering heat had taken a lot out of her, but not nearly as much as this man’s presence. Her mouth was parched, her water bottle empty. She needed to rehydrate. But not so badly that she’d invite him inside her home.

“My father has lung cancer,” Adam stated without preliminaries—typical of him. Andrew had been the charming twin.

The bald statement punched the air from her. She struggled to wheeze enough breath to respond. “I’m sorry.”

“He wants you to run his practice while he undergoes treatment.”

No! Fear and guilt collided, sending razor-sharp fragments of pain slicing through her. She couldn’t let Danny Drake back into her life and her heart only to say goodbye to her father-in-law again. She’d already buried too many loved ones. Her parents. Her baby sister. Her husband. Her son.

She wanted to ask about Danny’s prognosis, but couldn’t handle knowing even that much. Distance, both emotional and geographical, was her ally. “I can’t.”

“You owe him.”

“I have a practice here, Adam. People depend on me.” Sweat snaked down her spine.

“In a backwater town this size you can’t possibly have enough business to operate five days a week.”

True. Quincey was a one-stoplight rural Southern township. But the slow pace gave her just enough time and money to work with her rescue animals. As if to reinforce that point, Bojangles’s nicker pulled her attention to the pasture beside the house.

The bay gelding shifted his hooves and pushed his broad chest against the board fence as if sensing her distress and wanting to come to her aid. She and the horse had a lot in common—they’d both been left behind by the people they loved. She’d taken enough psychology courses to know that saving the horse had been a substitute for saving the baby she couldn’t.

“I wish your father well, Adam. But I can’t help. Give Danny and Helen my best. Goodbye.”

He didn’t take the hint to vacate her porch. Fine. She’d go around back. She pivoted.

“You owe him, Madison.”

Her spine snapped straight under an icy deluge of guilt. Yes, she did owe the Drakes. They’d taken her in even before the tornado had killed her family. For years they’d been her surrogate parents, but then her mother-in-law had said things that still haunted Madison’s dreams. Neither Adam nor his father had witnessed Helen’s emotional explosion, but Madison had been shredded by the verbal shrapnel.

Reluctantly, Madison faced him again. Sweat-dampened hair clung to her forehead. She shoved it back with an unsteady hand. “Adam, you don’t want me there.”

“No. But I want my father alive. His wishes are the only reason I’m here.”

“What does Helen say about this?”

A nerve in his jaw twitched. “My mother will do whatever it takes to convince Dad to undergo the most promising treatment protocol. We both will.”

Hope that Madison hadn’t realized she’d been harboring leeched from her, leaving her drained, aching and empty. They didn’t want her back. She was a necessary evil, not a long-missed family member.

“I can’t, Adam.”

Disgust twisted his lips. “Andrew was right. You are a cold, selfish bitch.”

Cold, selfish bitch. The words sliced her like a new scalpel, reopening the gaping wound left by the hateful argument that night when she’d learned the man she’d loved had sabotaged her carefully made plans. Plans they had discussed. Plans they had agreed upon.

But she would never tell Adam or his parents about those final, horrible moments before the accident. Their memories of Andrew were all they had left and she didn’t want to spoil them.

Her nails bit into her palms. “Danny needs to find someone closer to Norcross. Quincey’s a seven-hour drive away.”

Adam descended the stairs and stopped a yard from her, bombarding her nerves in a dozen different ways. He looked so much like his brother—same dark hair, blue-green eyes, features and height. But he wasn’t the husband she’d loved, the one who’d betrayed her, the one she’d buried because she’d lost her temper and made a mistake that she couldn’t wash away no matter how many tears she cried or how many animals she saved.

Anger emanated from Adam. “You tell Dad to get someone else. I tried. He won’t listen to me.”

Although Adam’s voice was firm and authoritative, for the first time since she’d met him fifteen years ago she saw naked fear in his eyes. He was afraid of losing his father. She understood that fear all too well, since she’d already walked that lonely path. But she couldn’t allow herself to be vulnerable again. She might not make it out with her sanity intact this time.

She pushed away thoughts of the dark days after the wreck, of a cold, clammy hand and blood...so much blood.

“I’m sorry. I can’t,” she repeated and scrubbed her palm against her pants.

Tires crunched on the gravel driveway of her farm followed by the low rumble of a diesel engine pickup truck. Panic clawed up Madison’s spine. June, her friend and tenant, was home, and knowing the curious deputy, as soon as she parked her vehicle by the cottage she rented from Madison, she’d come over to investigate the strange car beneath the pecan tree.

She had to get rid of Adam before the tight-knit community of Quincey found out about the atrocity Madison had committed. No one here knew about her unforgivable sin—and she wanted to keep it that way. Otherwise the townsfolk might turn against her and cast her out of the sanctuary she’d created for herself.

Maybe all Danny needed was someone outside the family to make him see reason. She could afford to drive down to Georgia once. Then she’d come home and life would return to normal.

“I’ll come Saturday and talk to him.”

Adam’s gaze held her captive for several tense seconds, making her heart pound as she listened in dread for June’s approaching footsteps.

“You reverted to your maiden name,” Adam accused.

“Yes, I...” How could she explain that she’d wanted to erase everything about her marriage to his brother? She couldn’t. “Look, I can’t invite you in. I have plans this evening.”

A plan to clean cages, but that wasn’t how he interpreted it if the revulsion filling his eyes was any gauge. She didn’t enlighten him.

“Make sure you show up. Here’s the address and my number.” He pulled a business card from his pocket and wrote on the back, then thrust it at her. He strode to the sedan and drove away just as June rounded the house.

Madison sagged in relief, but the damage had been done. The scab had been ripped away. All she wanted to do was crawl into the farmhouse and tend her wound. She didn’t want to talk to anyone—not even a friend.

“Who’s the hunk in the rental car?” the blond deputy asked.

“Rental?” Madison dodged the question.

“Sticker on the back bumper. Rental company license plate frame. Good-looking guy—where’d you find him? Not in Quincey, that’s for sure.”

Should she claim he was someone who’d gotten lost and was asking for directions? No. She never lied to her friends. She just hadn’t always shared the whole truth. But how much should she tell June? Only the basics—

“He’s my ex-brother-in-law.”

June’s eyebrows lifted. “I didn’t know you were divorced.”

Again Madison hesitated, but she trusted June as much as she trusted anyone. “Widowed. A long time ago.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Madison. I didn’t know. I haven’t seen him around before.”

“We haven’t kept in touch.”

Questions filled June’s eyes, and Madison scrambled to keep her from asking them. “Are you going to help me feed up tonight?”

“Not a chance. I’m grabbing a quick shower, then heading over to babysit for Piper. What’d he want anyway?”

So much for a distraction. “A favor. I have to go out of town Saturday. Can you watch the menagerie?”

“Happy to. Not much else to do.” June scanned the empty driveway. “Is your truck in the shop again?”

“Yes.”

“You should’ve called me. I would’ve given you a ride home.”

“I needed the exercise. It’s only a couple miles.”

“You ran in this scorching heat?” Madison nodded and June’s gaze sharpened. “You should be flushed and sweaty, but you’re pale. Sure you’re okay?”

Not even close to okay. “I’ll be fine. It’s been a long day. Mondays usually are.”

And it was about to become an even longer week, knowing that at the end of it she would have to face the nightmare of her past.

* * *

SATURDAY MORNING MADISON steered her truck into the driveway of the unfamiliar address Adam had given her.

She parked and her doubts surrounded her like a pack of snarling wild dogs, paralyzing her. The cedar siding and river rock home was set on a heavily wooded lot that sloped gently down to a pond. The neighbors’ houses were barely visible through the towering, dense pines, but the peaceful setting did nothing to soothe her jagged nerves.

Had Danny and Helen moved from the place where they’d raised their boys? Had the memories been too much to bear? While Madison could understand the need for a fresh start, the possibility they’d sold the home where the boys’ growth had been marked on a door frame and by the trees they’d planted in the yard swamped her with a sense of loss that made leaving the truck very difficult.

She’d spent nearly every holiday, school break and weekend in the Drakes’ sprawling ranch house from shortly after she’d met Andrew until her vet school graduation. But that fairy tale had been an illusion.

How could she have been so completely blinded by love that she hadn’t seen Andrew’s narcissistic streak until the final months of their marriage? She’d attributed the change in his personality to the stress of her accidentally becoming pregnant, and she’d blamed herself for messing up her birth control and their five-year plan. But thanks to the alcohol he’d consumed at her graduation celebration, she’d discovered how wrong she’d been.

How could she ever again trust her judgment when it came to men?

She couldn’t. And because of that she’d vowed to remain single and limit herself to living with a menagerie of rejected pets. She wouldn’t let anyone get too close again, and not even the two women she considered her best friends knew the whole sordid story. She couldn’t risk them turning on her like the Drakes had.

Nervousness dampened her palms and quickened her pulse. She forced her fingers to release the steering wheel, then flexed them in an attempt to ease the stiffness.

The sooner you say your piece, the sooner you can go home.

Bracing herself, she climbed from the cab and pointed her feet toward the front door. Emotions warred within her, adhering her feet to the concrete.

Then she remembered she hadn’t locked her truck. In Quincey no one locked their doors, but Norcross was a suburb of Atlanta. Unlocked doors, even in a neighborhood as nice as this one appeared to be, were an invitation. And she had a lot of valuable vet equipment in her truck that she couldn’t risk losing. She pushed the pad on her key fob, and once that task was done she had no more excuses for stalling. But she still couldn’t make herself move.

She inhaled so deeply she thought her lungs might explode, then slowly released the pent-up breath. She licked her dry lips, then she checked the buttons on her shirt and smoothed her hair. The strands clung to her damp palms.

Stop procrastinating, Madison.

The door opened and Danny Drake stepped out onto the long, covered porch stretching between the front gables. He descended the stairs and came toward her. Save a few more gray hairs, he’d barely changed. He was still tall and lean like Andrew, and his eyes, the same bluish-green as his sons’, crinkled in a smile as he silently lifted his open arms. “Madison, it’s so good to see you.”

Confused by the familiar welcome when she’d expected hostility, Madison stumbled awkwardly into his embrace. He enfolded her, bringing the memories rushing back. She hadn’t expected this and hadn’t realized how much she’d missed Danny’s bear hugs. Tears stung her eyes and a sob rose in her throat. She gulped down her response and hugged him back.

“Oooph.” He bowed his back, a grimace of pain pleating his face.

“I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”

“Long and boring story.” Holding her at arm’s length and assessing her, he shook his head. “You’re skin and bones, Maddie.”

“I finally took up distance running.”

“Good way to clear the head, but hell on the knees. I had to give it up a couple years back. I’m riding a bike now instead. Guess we won’t be running any races together the way Andrew had wanted.”

A needle of pain slipped under her skin. “I guess not.”

During school Madison had been too busy with her studies to accompany Andrew and Danny on their cross-country runs. She’d promised to join them after she graduated. Yet another plan that hadn’t come to fruition.

Danny searched her face. “It’s good to have you home. I’ve tried to be patient and let you grieve at your own pace. I knew you’d come back when you were ready, but I can’t wait any longer. I need you now, Maddie.” His voice cracked.

Her brain snagged on Danny’s words. He knew she’d come back? He meant come back to visit, right?

Danny’s gaze shifted past her shoulder and his eyes widened, then filled with approval. “You’re still driving Andrew’s truck?”

“Yes.” The pickup was her albatross, a reminder of what she’d had and lost. It was also paid for. Her car had been totaled in the wreck and she hadn’t wanted the burden of car payments. “It’s reliable.”

Well, most of the time, thanks to Quincey’s genius mechanic and his love for his pack of hunting dogs.

“Come inside.” He led her toward the house.

“This is a beautiful place.”

“Isn’t it? Helen has coffee ready. She suspected you’d be an early bird.”

At the mention of her mother-in-law, Madison’s stomach resumed churning. Was it a good sign that Helen remembered Madison’s habits? Whenever Madison and Andrew had visited from university, Madison had risen early and driven in the predawn hours while Andrew slept in the passenger seat. They’d always arrived in time for breakfast to allow for a full day with his family, and Helen had never failed to greet them with an elaborate spread.

After Andrew had finished vet school, moved back to Norcross and joined his father’s practice, Madison had remained near campus and continued the predawn drives, meeting Andrew at the Drakes’ home to begin their weekends together. Funny how it wasn’t until the blinders had been ripped away that she recalled the number of times Andrew had said she could give up the drives anytime she wanted if she moved home with him. But that would have meant quitting school. At the time she’d thought he was teasing, but in actuality, she’d been the living definition of blind and stupid. She quashed the memory.