Built Of Secrets: Small Town Heroes Romance, #1

By Jemi Fraser

She's got a secret…

Okay, she's got several…

But only one could get her killed.

 

Humiliated after being duped by her ex, Tansy chooses flight over fight. An inherited fishing lodge she can pull off the grid while working on her tech is the perfect hideout.

 

Burned-out FBI agent, Sam is worried about his best friend's little sister. After a devastating case, he heads to Vermont to check on her. And if he happens to get her to fall in love with him? Even better.

 

When the ex refuses to stay in the past, Sam knows he'll do anything to keep her safe.

 

*** Built From Secrets is the 1st book in the Small Town Heroes Romance series. Each book can be read as a standalone. The book contains some strong language and sexy times. Enjoy the read!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jemi Fraser
• Release date: May 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781990092077

Jemi Fraser

Jemi Fraser writes romantic suspense filled with hope, heart, and humour. Her stories combine her love of mystery with the satisfaction of a Happy Ever After. Love is always worth the risk. Jemi also writes about the way dementia has impacted her family. Love and humour go a long way to help everyone cope with the disease. When she was four, Jemi threw an epic temper tantrum because she wanted her very own library card. It worked and Jemi’s been a bookworm ever since. Before turning her hand to writing, Jemi spent a few decades teaching students to love each other, words and math. Yes, math! Armed with a mug of tea and freshly-baked cookies, Jemi is living out her own HEA in beautiful Northern Ontario.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Friend Zone

Tansy Cheveyo adjusted another code and then executed the program.

Koko, her newest TeenySaur, moved to join his teammates. Named after her grandfather, this dinosaur would be the initiator of the group.

Whatever action he performed would trigger the responses of the four other robotic dinosaurs.

This time, when Koko picked up the first block, the rest followed his lead. Smiling, Tansy watched them build the castle without a hitch.

The castle had been the most difficult for the group. Raising and lowering the drawbridge had been a challenge, but they were now doing it smoothly.

To ensure fixing the castle code hadn’t messed up anything of the other modes, Tansy ran through them one by one. Pyramid. Space shuttle. Tractor. Suspension bridge.

All with different difficulty levels for the kids who wanted to learn to program. And who liked to play.

She wanted these TeenySaurs to work for various ages. For the younger kids, they could simply execute the program and watch the dinosaurs build.

Options for older kids would include blanks in the programming they would have to work out in order for the TeenySaurs to complete the task. She wanted the mistakes in coding to trigger silly blooper-reel actions.

Koko would fall on his spine ridges and wiggle his feet in the air. Others would dance or spin in circles.

For the kids who wanted the biggest challenge, she would include bits of code for the trickiest parts, but they would have to figure out the rest.

When she’d run through all the programs without a problem, she placed the TeenySaurs back on their chargers and made sure the hookup to the solar panels hadn’t been disconnected.

For a brief moment, she considered working on the knitting TeenySaurs, but her brain wasn’t up to fixing that disaster at the moment.

Tansy stood from the floor and stretched. The sun peeking through the cabin’s window surprised her. Was it morning already?

Her stomach growled, confirming that she’d been working all night. Time to find some food.

Tansy shut down the computer and looked for her phone. Had she brought it? A search of the one-room cabin didn’t turn up the phone, so she put everything back in place and locked up.

A couple of inches of snow greeted her. Snow in the middle of March. Vermont was almost another planet away from Sacramento.

She schooled the automatic scowl off of her face as she started stretching. Sacramento had been an amazing place to live. She still loved so many of the people there. Her brother and foster family were the best people she knew.

But her ex had turned out to be an asshole of quantum proportions and she’d needed a complete break.

Coming to the property Koko had left to her and Joe when he’d died over a year before had been a good decision.

Growing up, Tansy and Joe had spent several winters with their LaChance cousins over in Bloo Moose, Vermont, so snow hadn’t been new for her.

But living in it alone for three months had been a whole different experience. Mostly an excellent one.

Tansy finished her warm up and started jogging back toward the main lodge. There weren’t any paths in the woods, and she wanted to keep it that way. Not only did she not want to disrupt the natural flora or fauna, her brother and foster brothers had drilled safety into her head from an early age.

The fact that they’d all become FBI agents still made her smile. All of them were natural protectors. Like her, they wanted to make the world a better place, but they’d chosen very different paths from hers.

Never be predictable was one of their mantras.

It was only a mile and a half in direct distance between the lodge and the cabin she’d chosen for her projects, but her runs ranged from a couple of miles to five or six. Depending on how much steam she needed to run off.

Today would be a short one.

Midnight Lake was the center of Koko’s property and all of her runs gave her at least glimpses of it. It soothed her every single time.

The lake had been the draw for some enterprising souls over a hundred years ago. They’d built a home that had been expanded over time into a fly-in fishing lodge.

Then that had been abandoned decades ago. As far as she could tell, the latest upgrades had been adding bathrooms to all the bedrooms back in the seventies.

Today, she was going to finish installing the solar panels on the roof and take the lodge completely off grid. Then she could hook up appliances and cook with something other than the pellet stove.

Her cooking skills would never be legendary, but she hadn’t starved and her bread was now almost consistently edible. Her stomach grumbled again and Tansy picked up the pace.

Bursting into the cleared area around the lodge always made her happy. Seeing it covered in the light layer of snow made it look like a fairy tale. Lots of windows, huge deck facing the lake.

It already felt like home, even if the three-story building was too big for one person.

In the old kitchen, Tansy grabbed a tomato from her hydroponic garden and sliced some of the bread. She added some cheese she’d picked up at the last market in the nearby town of Phail.

She couldn’t believe no one in that family line had ever changed their surname or the name of the town. At the very least, they could have added back the original Mac in front of it. Family feud or no family feud, no one deserved to be named Phail their entire life.

And she’d always thought having to spell out Cheveyo to people was a pain.

Tansy decided to eat on her favorite dock. The bright sunshine and scent of spring budding through the snow was an impossible combination to resist.

She headed to the end of the longest dock. Once upon a time it had been where float planes had docked, bringing in fishermen for a weekend away.

The wood was rotting or completely missing in places, but Tansy knew the safe pattern for walking to the end. Once there, she cleared a space with her feet and then sat down to enjoy her sandwich.

Blue and grey jays called out in the woods. She’d spotted a robin the other day and more birds were returning from their migrations. Spring would be in full bloom soon.

Tansy spun on her butt to study the lodge. What plans would she implement during the spring and summer?

Her friend Aisling would be up in a couple of months. She was finishing restoring an old Victorian house down in North Carolina.

Aisling had blocked off months for the restoration of the lodge. And maybe even the ancient sawmill that sat on the southern edge of the property near the road.

Tansy knew the sawmill had been part of the lure for Aisling. She not only loved restoring old buildings, but she built furniture from reclaimed wood.

It didn’t appear any of the owners of the lodge or sawmill over the years had thrown out a single thing. Every space was packed with barrels and crates and boxes. The mill had stacks of lumber and furniture as well.

As a huge fan of reusing rather than starting from scratch, Tansy approved of the amount of stuff filling the buildings on the property. She’d even built a stable scaffolding from things she’d found in the basement and garage.

A yawn caught her off guard, and Tansy stood to stretch. She wasn’t going to waste time sleeping when the solar panels were waiting to be installed.

Knowing she’d need her brain and body to be centered if she was working on the roof, Tansy started moving through her Tai Chi routines.

The dock was roomy and stable enough for those, but she wouldn’t do any of her other martial arts training out here.

As she settled into the routine, her thoughts drifted to Sam, as they always did.

Sam had arrived at the Rivera’s foster home a few days before Joe and Tansy.

A quiet boy with steady eyes that shielded his thoughts, he’d taught her to use Tai Chi to help her cope with the overwhelming emotions following her parents’ deaths.

The Tai Chi lessons had expanded to other martial arts over the years.

Everything about the lessons had helped Tansy. The focus on form and control, the routine and the flow. The empowerment and strength made her feel as if she wasn’t going to crack open and melt away.

But mostly, she’d enjoyed the time with Sam. Her crush had grown over time instead of diminishing.

He’d been a boy who’d looked to protect those smaller or weaker than himself.

It was no surprise he was a top agent for the FBI, working to search for missing and kidnapped kids. One of the most difficult jobs Tansy could imagine.

Letting her thoughts settle with the routine, Tansy wondered how he was coping with whatever case he was involved with. She’d been too involved with recovering from Pond Scum’s betrayals.

Now, she was stronger, in no small part to the lessons she’d learned from Sam so long ago.

From years of practice, Tansy knew how to shield her own feelings and desires from the world. But she was alone and there was no need to shield anything.

So she’d dream of Sam, and then she’d install her panels. Then she’d take a nap.

Sam Young was lost.

Not physically, although he’d never been in this part of the country before, but he was lost.

Nightmares had plagued him for weeks. Heart-breaking, soul-crushing, debilitating nightmares. All centered on a twenty-three-month-old girl who would never have a second birthday.

Because Sam hadn’t been fast enough. Smart enough. Good enough.

Hayley Armstrong.

The name and face would haunt him forever.

The GPS chimed into his thoughts, telling him to get into the right lane for the turn. Not long now.

Winter hadn’t given up in Vermont. Snow hung on in the fields, although the layers were thin.

It wouldn’t be long before spring did its thing, but for now, the budless trees with their barren branches made him feel right at home.

At least the trees knew they’d bloom again.

Sam wasn’t so sure about himself.

Which was why he was here. Searching out the person who’d always grounded him.

The relentlessly optimistic and curious creature who’d plopped into his life when he was sixteen and she was twelve.

A bundle of endless energy wrapped up in soft-brown skin and a cautious smile that could light up the darkest corners when it hit full wattage.

Sam hadn’t been in the Rivera home for long when Tansy and her brother Joe had arrived.

They’d been a motley crew. The Riveras were of Mexican heritage, Tansy and Joe a combination of Hopi and Ojibwe. And Sam’s own mix of who knew what.

Joe and Nico Rivera had been best friends when the Cheveyo parents had been killed by a strung-out driver with bad brakes.

The kids had moved in with the Riveras, despite the family’s previous policy of only taking in boys.

Tansy had intrigued Sam from the start. She’d been younger than the boys and quiet as a book. Smart as one, too, if the book happened to be an encyclopedia.

Even in the depths of the grief that had been visible in her eyes, she’d been a force. Searching for answers. Searching to make things better.

For everyone.

Sam’s previous foster home had fallen apart when the couple found out they were pregnant with their own child. They’d had no use for the substitutes then.

Sam hadn’t expected the Rivera home to be any different from the ones he’d lived in most of his life. Born to an addict hadn’t made for many positive childhood memories, but he’d never been abused. Hadn’t been through some of the horrors of the other kids who ghosted through the system. His father had been an asshole, but he’d left early.

Sam’s lasting memory was of him calling his son a waste of skin as he slammed the door on the way out.

On the second night after the Cheveyo pair had shown up, Sam had been sitting in the backyard, staring at the stars. The night sky had always soothed him and he’d been trying to figure out how to not screw up this home so he could stay with these people.

Tansy hadn’t seen him when she’d walked out with a briefcase.

At twelve.

The memory still made him smile.

She’d sat on the patio stones and pulled out all kinds of mechanical things.

For the next two hours, he’d watched her build a robot that looked like a dinosaur. The dinosaur danced and moved. The movements had been a bit jerky, but it had been fascinating.

Tansy had sighed. Her whisper had barely reached him, but it had burned into his soul. I’ll fix it Mom, I’ll make it work. I promise.

Then, she’d systematically taken it apart, packed the pieces back into the briefcase and gone inside.

Over the next few months, he waited in the yard and watched her work to perfect that dinosaur. And the next and the next. They all moved in unique ways, ways he didn’t understand.

Once she had a few working, she had them collaborate to do tasks. Pick things off the ground. Sweep. Fold towels.

Things aimed to make life easier for others.

Now, she was a scientist with multiple patents in her name. Including the ones for the solar-powered TeenySaur toy line she’d created at sixteen. Based on the robots he’d watched her build.

While so many other toys focused on battles and destruction, the TeenySaurs worked cooperatively to build and create.

By the time Tansy had been ready to sell her idea, Sam had been at college, setting his eyes on the FBI.

Lee Rivera, Nico’s mom and a lawyer, had helped Tansy with the process. More than a decade later, Tansy had royalties coming in and a healthy bank account thanks to her first patent.

The GPS signaled again, and Sam took the next exit.

Joe’s instructions had shown two ways into the property. One through a nearby town and one through the back roads.

Sam chose the latter. The fewer people he needed to encounter, the better.

A few minutes later, the GPS pinged, but he didn’t need it to know he’d arrived.

An old wooden fence ran the length of the property for a mile or so before he arrived at a driveway, locked off with a gate.

Joe had made a copy of the key and sent it to him, hoping Sam would check on Tansy. She’d been here for a couple of months, mostly alone.

Tansy was always one for retreating from the world rather than fighting. She didn’t like conflict and her introverted nature meant she didn’t need to be surrounded by friends.

Sam locked the gate behind him and drove along the dirt road through the treed area.

A huge barn stood back from the road. A faded and drooping sign read Phail Sawmill. Some joker had painted over the Ph with an F. Fail Sawmill.

There were five other smaller outbuildings on this part of the property, but Sam didn’t find Tansy’s car until he drove behind the barn.

Hidden from the road. Not inviting questions or visitors. Smart girl.

The electric charging station shouldn’t have surprised him, but among the dilapidated buildings, it did. And made him smile. It had probably been the first thing she’d added. Her car’s charger had a timer attached to the station. Sam plugged his car into the second station and decided he’d need a timer as well. No sense in wasting the electricity once the charge was complete.

Knowing she would have heard him approach if she’d been in this area, Sam locked up his car, shouldered his duffle and headed off on the trail Joe had described.

The old fishing lodge was about two miles in. At least the weather wasn’t bad. No howling wind or blowing snow. Plenty of sunshine melting what was left on the ground.

Being pre-warned, he wore his hiking boots.

By the time he broke through the trees to see the lodge, Sam was wishing he’d remembered his water bottle. Even in March, a hike like this was enough to bring on the sweat. He’d shed his outer jacket and looped it through the duffle.

How was Tansy getting her supplies and food to the lodge area? Knowing her, she had a plan.

The lodge itself was bigger than Sam expected. Three stories tall and wide. Had to hold at least a dozen bedrooms on those upper floors.

A large garage on one side, a shed on the other and a cabin half-hidden in the trees off to the right.

The roof of the lodge was covered in solar panels. So was the garage.

Sam stopped and turned in a circle. How had they been delivered? Was there another road in that Joe hadn’t told him about?

It wouldn’t surprise him if his buddy had pulled one over on him just to make him hike the distance.

But there weren’t vehicle tracks on the ground. A closer look showed that wasn’t quite true. It looked like Tansy had brought a bike with her with those fat tires people used in winter.

Shaking his head as he wondered about the practicalities of living on what used to be a fly-in lake, Sam walked around the lodge and found the lake in front of him.

Midnight Lake.

Gorgeous. It extended for at least a quarter mile in both directions and the shoreline zigged and zagged, making for a pretty sight. It would be incredible in the fall when the leaves blazed out their glory.

A few docks stretched out from the shore, and that’s when he spotted Tansy. Or who had to be Tansy.

At the far end of the longest dock, a small body was curled up on the wood, facing away from the lodge.

Sam tossed his duffle onto the stairs leading to the front deck of the lodge and called out. Tansy?

No answer.

Was she hurt?

Sam jogged toward the dock. Tansy. Louder this time.

The dock swayed slightly when he thumped onto it, but Sam ignored it and called again. Louder.

The woman moved and jerked up to a sitting position.

He was about to call out again when she jumped to her feet and faced him.

Sam grinned and didn’t bother slowing down. Why would someone make a dock this long anyway?

Wait, Sam. No.

As her words registered, he heard the splintering of wood. He slowed his forward motion, but