Dangerous Secrets: Payback Mountain, #1

By Diane Benefiel

NO PLACE LIKE HOME

Eight years has been a long time to brew on the injustice done to Walker McGrath, but he needed space to get his head straight. To learn to breathe without the violence of his anger coloring his words and actions.

His return to Cider Mill Farm was bittersweet. He'd come back for vengeance, but one look at the woman he'd been forced to leave behind altered his trajectory for retribution.

Delaney Bryant wants nothing to do with the man who broke her heart then trampled it to dust. He left her once and she's not going to give him the chance to do it again. She's stronger than the young woman she'd once been. Strong enough to fight her powerful attraction to Walker.

It didn't take long after Walker's return for strange things to happen in their small town, and his fear for Laney's safety escalates along with her inescapable draw.

His need to protect her is as strong as his insistence he's home to stay.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Boroughs Publishing Group
• Release date: Jun 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9781957295114

Diane Benefiel

National Readers’ Choice Award winner for her novel, Solitary Man, Diane Benefiel has been an avid reader all her life. She enjoys a wide range of genres, from westerns to fantasy to mysteries, but romance has always been a favorite. She writes what she loves best to read – emotional, heart-gripping romantic suspense novels. She likes writing romantic suspense because she can put the hero and heroine in all sorts of predicaments that they have to work together to overcome. A native Southern Californian, Diane enjoys nothing better than summer. For a high school history teacher, summer means a break from teenagers, and summer allows her to spend her early mornings immersed in her current writing project. With both kids living out of the house, in addition to writing, she enjoys camping and gardening with her husband. Diane loves hearing from her readers. Website: dianebenefiel.com Facebook: facebook.com/DianeBenefielRomance Twitter: twitter.com/dianebenefiel Instagram: diane_benefiel Goodreads: goodreads.com/author/show/8075321.Diane_Benefiel BookBub: bookbub.com/authors/diane-benefiel Pinterest: diane_benefiel

Book preview

NO PLACE LIKE HOME

Eight years has been a long time to brew on the injustice done to Walker McGrath, but he needed space to get his head straight. To learn to breathe without the violence of his anger coloring his words and actions.

His return to Cider Mill Farm was bittersweet. He'd come back for vengeance, but one look at the woman he'd been forced to leave behind altered his trajectory for retribution.

Delaney Bryant wants nothing to do with the man who broke her heart then trampled it to dust. He left her once and she's not going to give him the chance to do it again. She's stronger than the young woman she'd once been. Strong enough to fight her powerful attraction to Walker.

It didn't take long after Walker's return for strange things to happen in their small town, and his fear for Laney's safety escalates along with her inescapable draw.

His need to protect her is as strong as his insistence he's home to stay.

PRAISE FOR USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR

DIANE BENEFIEL

Solitary Man

NATIONAL READERS’ CHOICE AWARD WINNING NOVEL

"I am in love with this story. I devoured this book and didn’t want it to end. The chemistry between the characters and the plot kept me wanting to read late into the night. This is my first read from Diane Benefiel but definitely not my last. I can’t wait to read more from this amazing author. Thank you Diane Benefiel for getting me hooked on your books!" ~ CJ’s Book Corner

"Ryder was exactly who Brenna needed in her life, and trust me when I say you will love him because yeah he really is that good of a guy. Solitary Man is my first book by this author and it will not be the last. I really think you all will enjoy this one as much as I did it is one I do recommend." ~ I’m A Sweet And Sassy Book Whore

"I really enjoyed this book and there were a few twists and turns that kept me completely involved in the story. This is the first time I have read this author and it definitely won’t be my last!" ~ Sassy Southern Book Blog

THE JAMESONS U.S. MARSHALS SERIES

Hidden Betrayal

"As someone who never pre-orders ANYTHING, I put my order in a WEEK before it came out. Know why? Because I just didn't want to wait! Not to give away any spoilers but this is my favorite book from this author yet, in no small part because Mikayla is my favorite type of heroine. Right from the get-go, she's absolutely determined to meet everything on her terms. I loved the dialogue between her and Linc--with her saying, I didn't stay back because *I* was handling it. Yes, he's a hottie with a protective streak, but she's certainly no little woman. It really WORKS. In the end, 10/10. Can't wait to pre-order the next one too!" ~Amelia

"An exciting, romantic read with a sexy hero and a determined heroine who is hell-bent on doing things her own way. The romance heats up as the plot thickens. Linc and Mikayla need to work together to survive, but along the way, the sparks start flying. You need to read this!" ~danube eichinger

Hidden Judgment

"Don’t buy this book if you want to get anything done!! I couldn’t put it down! I laughed, I cried, I felt all the emotions that a brilliantly written romance novel brings. I am anxiously awaiting the third novel in the series!" ~Sandy Morris

"I couldn't put this book down. I thoroughly enjoyed the story line and the characters. Diane Benefiel does a great job bringing her characters to life, and weaves a compelling story. Looking forward to the next installment of this series!" ~Becca E H

Hidden Loyalty

"5 EXPLOSIVE STARS!! This book was explosive and had me flipping pages. I love law enforcement and this one was perfect....Seth was hot and bossy, Bella kept him on his toes. This was my first book by this author and it will not be my last." ~Rhonda

"I really loved this book, and enjoyed reading the sparks fly out of control between these two characters who have both so clearly been suppressing their true feelings for one and other.

But beyond the romance Benefiel also addresses Bella’s troubled past and creates a strong but nuanced heroine. The connection between these protagonists is instantaneous and will have readers anxiously awaiting the steam between the two when they finally get together. Loved this book!" ~ Pri R

HIGH SIERRAS SERIES

Flash Point

"Diane Benefiel takes us on a story filled with mystery, suspense, and action as we try to solve what is going on in the small town of Hangman’s Loss. Flash Point is a story that will have you flipping the pages and wondering who is the behind the attacks against Hangman’s newest resident and why." ~ Sarah Reads

"Flash Point really surprised me. It’s not what I was expecting but I really enjoyed reading it. It’s a fun easy read that captured me from the start." ~ Coffee Chat

Dead Giveaway

"Diane has written yet another winner in her High Sierra series. Murder witness and 'person of interest' Gwen flees with her godson to Cameron's uncle Eli. Gwen and Eli have no use for one another but come together for Cameron's sake and to find the true murderer...and in the process find their way to one another. My evening with Gwen and Eli couldn't have been more delightful, and I look forward to the next installment of the High Sierras." ~seniorphotog

"I loved this second book in the High Sierras series. This is a story of two people who are attracted to each other, but reconnecting under the worst of circumstances. I discovered Ms. Benefiel’s books and have loved the careful way she draws you in to the story with characters that make you feel as if you are reading about friends. I am really looking forward to the next High Sierras book, Already Gone." ~paytonpuppy

Already Gone

"This series has only gotten better and better! Seriously, there’s something that really speaks to my heart about Maddy and Logan, and Hangman’s Loss FEELS like a small California town tucked away in the Sierras. They’re such a power couple! I read this book in just a couple of days--totally sucked me in. It’s that perfect blend of fun, sizzle, and suspense! I just want to live in Maddy’s life forever but since I can’t--I can’t wait for the next book!" ~Katharine Montgomery

"A wonderful story about second chances. The minute you start reading, you will be instantly hooked. The author weaves a tale of drama and romance that keeps you enthralled and turning the pages. Maddie is feisty and Logan is her brooding and over protective suffering hero. The sparks fly every time they see each other. Eventually they give in and realize that they are perfect for each other and have always been. This is a great story right up to the last word." ~Simatsu

Burnover in Rescued Anthology

"Sweet, Sexy stories featuring furbabies and helping to save lives, it’s a win win for all." ~Kara’s Books

"8 stories by 8 outstanding authors. In these stories, there is a tattoo artist, two firefighters, two sheriff deputies, a famous furniture maker, a veterinarian, and a country music singer, and I loved them all. Then add in that each story has a dog or puppy that is rescued, along with a story of love and romance, it is a winning combination." ~Susan D

Deadly Purpose

I loved everything about this book, and it made me want to check out the other books in the series! The immediate suspense drew me in, and the High Sierras setting was perfect, as was the mysterious stranger Meg finds in her cabin. This novel had a well-written, exciting, and descriptive narrative that kept me glued from start to finish. Without giving away spoilers, the author has crafted one exciting, romantic ride, full of twists and turns. I highly recommend this book and can’t wait to see what the author comes up with next. ~Sebastian Moran

This book took me by surprise. I didn't expect to get so caught up in this book that my whole day was spent captured in its pages. It has been a long time since I couldn't put a book down but Deadly Purpose did this to me. I loved every page. ~WildfireJane

Clear Intent

"I’d been waiting on this one awhile!! I truly loved the story! I laughed, cried and got so frustrated I couldn’t see straight! I’m now hoping there will be more from Hangman’s Loss, I don’t want to see this series end! Thank you for a very wonderful getaway!! I highly recommend this complete series!!!! Wow! Just Wow!!" ~Linda Helms

"I've looked forward to every book in this series and have enjoyed each one, loving the characters as it feels you walk with them through exciting, scary situations and sigh as relationships become beautiful. This was an exciting story with almost nonstop action and heart stopping dangers. All of my favorite people in Hangman's Loss are together to help Jack, Dory, Adrian and the town through crisis." ~JLocke

Break Away

"Oh man did I love this book. It was well written and has a great storyline. It’s emotional and has a nice amount of suspense. I really need to go back and read the first six books in the series. Now saying that, this book definitely reads as a standalone. I haven’t read the first six books, but I never felt lost or like I am missing anything with this story. You will obviously have some small spoilers since the books are all connected. ~CrazyBookLover

"Break Away is Diane Benefiel’s seventh book in the High Sierra series and is definitely a second chance at romance. Zoey had a high school crush on Levi, and when he returns home after many years, she realises her feelings have not diminished. I’m a sucker for the sexy, broody bad boy vibe, and Levi has it in spades! But the storyline also has emotion, danger and a powerful attraction that is not only undeniable, but totally unavoidable too. These characters have great chemistry and the romantic suspense plot is well written and a real page-turner." ~Arch_Angel

DANGEROUS SECRETS

Payback Mountain– Book One

Diane Benefiel

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www.BOROUGHSPUBLISHINGGROUP.com

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, business establishments or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. Boroughs Publishing Group does not have any control over and does not assume responsibility for author or third-party websites, blogs or critiques or their content.

DANGEROUS SECRETS

Copyright © 2022 Diane Benefiel

All rights reserved. Unless specifically noted, no part of this publication may be reproduced, scanned, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Boroughs Publishing Group. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or by any other means without the permission of Boroughs Publishing Group is illegal and punishable by law. Participation in the piracy of copyrighted materials violates the author’s rights.

ISBN 978-1-957295-11-4

DANGEROUS SECRETS

Contents

Copyright

Title

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

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

About the Author

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

Walker took the turn off the highway, passing the sign welcoming him to the town of Sisters, California. The irony wasn’t lost on him. There’d be no welcome mat laid out by the town leaders. In fact, if they’d known he was coming back, they’d’ve likely blocked the highway. But they didn’t so they hadn’t, and here he was ready to stir things up. He’d done his damnedest to stay away from the people who lived in this valley, but unfinished business and the need for home had drawn him back. Now they’d have to deal with him.

For the past six years he’d crisscrossed the country, checking in with his grandfather and brother every month or so, working one odd job after another, and never staying put more than seven or eight months before an itch had him moving on. Circumstances had changed and now he was done with all that. Coming home meant ripping the scabs off old wounds. Maybe it was what was needed for them to heal properly.

A whine came from the passenger seat. Without taking his eyes off the road, he reached out to pet the little dog buckled into his harness. You gotta pee, I know. Almost there. You’ll be out of the truck in ten minutes.

He hadn’t meant to keep the stray who’d shown up at his door two years ago, but he couldn’t let the scraggly mutt starve so he’d fed him. He’d been in Alberta then, and since it got miserably cold in the mountains, and the dog had looked so damned pathetic, he’d let him in at night. Then when it was time to move on, he could hardly leave the dog behind. So here he was, coming home with a not quite brown, not quite gray, bug-eyed, butt-ugly dog.

The town sign read Welcome to Sisters in loopy script. It stood next to a trio of tall pines and a house-size boulder that forced a curve in the road. Passing the familiar landmarks smoothed out some of the rough edges he’d been feeling.

He’d gotten used to living among strangers, never staying in any one place long enough to really connect. This town, in the shadow of Payback Mountain, held memories that meant something. He pressed his foot harder on the gas pedal, the sense of urgency that’d been dogging him for days suddenly sharper.

He’d left the lousy roadside motel south of Seattle at four that morning, sped through Oregon, and hit the California border around noon. Now at a little past sundown his eyes felt gritty, and a burning in his gut told him the burger he’d grabbed at a truck stop a few hours back had been a bad idea.

He’d been planning on returning home when he’d gotten the call from his brother that’d hit him like a sucker punch to the face. Their grandfather was dying. Walker had tied up loose ends as quickly as he could, stuffed the few things he cared about into his truck, figured out a dog restraint so if he crashed, Bud wouldn’t get pitched through the windscreen, and started driving.

He sighed heavily as he thought of his grandfather. The man had been a giant in his life. James McGrath had stepped in to raise Walker and Sawyer when their parents had been killed in a stupid freak accident. A tree had fallen during a heavy rainstorm, its trunk landing squarely across the front windshield, killing his parents but sparing the two boys in the back. It couldn’t’ve been easy taking on two half-grown, grief-stricken kids, but that’s what James had done.

Now the time Walker had missed with Pop was another weight to add to the load of guilt he carried.

Laney sure as hell wouldn’t be welcoming him back home. His mind pulled up the memory of her standing outside the prison gate when he’d finally walked out a free man. After being given the balance of his commissary account, and waiting through the excruciatingly slow process to be released, he’d walked out of prison with no plan except to get as far away as he could from the seven by ten cell he’d been caged in.

The prison van was supposed to take him and the other releasees to the Greyhound station, with a stop in a parking lot for those lucky enough to have people who cared enough to pick them up.

Then his name had been called. He’d told his brother and grandfather he didn’t want them to come. No one should be there for him, but he’d stepped out of the prison’s van and there she’d been. Delaney Bryant with her sky-blue eyes that’d always sucked him in. Seeing her had nearly brought him to his knees. And true to form, he’d done what worked when forced to deal with the shitload of emotions it seemed his fate to carry around. He pushed his feelings for her down and walled them off until they no longer threatened to destroy him.

She’d been standing next to Pop’s old pickup, her fingers fiddling with the keys, her blue eyes shifting from side to side. She’d worn white shorts and a flowered top. Her long arms and legs bared in the summer heat of the Central Valley. He’d thought she looked as fresh as a spring meadow and he’d been fucking furious.

Laney had no business being anywhere near that hellhole.

She’d put her nerves aside and had rushed to him, her smile wide and her eyes shining. She’d wrapped him in her arms, pulling him into a hug he’d felt down to his bones. He’d have to have been dead not to hold her close, to bury his face in her hair, to breathe in the essence that was her.

But he wore prison like a stain and if she was with him, that stain would spread to her. It didn’t matter that all charges against him had been dismissed and his record had been wiped clean. He hadn’t wanted her to see the prison, to be in any way associated with it.

Even doing something decent like picking him up would make people think differently about her. He’d forced himself to push her back, to set her away from him, and told himself she’d get over the hurt clouding those baby blues.

Anxious to get away before he ruined her, he’d turned around to find the van had already driven away, and once again, choice was taken from him. He’d let her drive him home to Sisters, not responding to her repeated attempts to draw him into conversation. He’d spent that night talking with his grandfather and brother, then, like an asshole, had left at first light without a word to her.

Pop had signed over the pink slip of his pickup, the same one Walker still drove, and he’d taken off to parts unknown.

He’d hit the highway and couldn’t put the miles behind him fast enough. In prison he’d been a caged animal. He’d never felt safe and had to watch his back every damn minute. When he’d walked out, all he’d been able to think was that he needed to be free, someplace with no walls and an endless sky where he could breathe.

He told himself that him being gone was better for Laney. Safer. He’d taken off, first south through the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico, then east over plains and mountains. He’d avoided the interstates, traveling the blue highways, the ones winding across the map pages through out-of-the-way towns and limitless back country.

Often as not he’d slept under the stars. It hadn’t been until he hit the Atlantic that he’d stopped. If he could have driven over the ocean, he’d have done that too.

Instead, he’d spent five months as a waterman on a crabbing skiff on the Chesapeake Bay. That had been the beginning of what, when he was being introspective, he termed his years of solitude.

In those years he’d found he liked the north best. He’d worked at an airport in Maine where he’d learned to fly small planes, at a logging camp in Oregon where he’d been taught to fell tall trees without killing himself, and eventually landed in Alaska operating a fishing boat in the gulf.

Wildness appealed to him. He figured if he hadn’t decided his wandering was over and gotten the call from Sawyer, he might’ve pulled up stakes again and ended up crossing the Bering Strait and the Russians would have picked him up.

But now he was back, and there was going to be a reckoning. Those responsible for his wrongful conviction would pay for their crimes.

Tall pines whizzed past in the purple twilight. He eased up a bit on the speed when he spotted a couple deer grazing on the side of the road. He also spotted the white SUV with El Dorado County Sheriff emblazoned on the side passing him going the other way. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel when the rearview mirror showed the SUV pulling a U-turn. Shit. It passed a slow-moving van and edged in behind Walker’s pickup. He let loose with a string of profanity. There was no surprise when a red light joined the headlights shining in his rearview mirror.

Blinker on, he pulled carefully to the side of the road, turned off the engine, cranked down the window, and then rested his hands on the steering wheel so they were clearly visible. No use getting himself shot dead before he even got to town. Cars sped by, stirring the cool air. He watched in the side mirror as the officer exited the patrol vehicle and approached, silhouetted against the cruiser’s headlights.

Walker narrowed his eyes.

License and registration, asshole.

Fuck you.

Wrong answer. Exit the vehicle slowly, keep your hands where I can see them.

The dog growled low in his throat.

Easy there, Bud.

Walker pushed open the door and stood in front of the officer, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. In the glow cast from the interior of his truck he saw a grin split the officer’s face. A moment later Walker was pulled into a tight embrace. He pulled his hands from his pockets to return it. When he was