On the beach, the couple exchanged rings. Wind caught the bride’s veil, the white cloud streaming out behind her, making her look more ethereal than an angel. Her groom held her hand, the smile on his face inspiring an empty ache in Curt’s chest.
It had been years since he’d held a woman’s soft hand. Years since he’d felt the kind of joy that produced that kind of idiotic grin. He wasn’t interested in women. Not even when he’d first been paroled. What was the point? None of them were Melanie. And any other woman just made the ache inside him burrow in deeper.
He turned away from his sisters, the bride with her groom, the other twin clutching hands with a man obviously crazy for her, too. He’d never know them. He could only watch them from afar. Just as he watched Melanie in the mornings when she walked from the parking ramp to her office building.
Watch and remember all he’d thrown away.
Some people said violence ran in the blood. That it was passed through genes from one generation to the next. Maybe that was true. He wasn’t smart enough to know. His sisters hadn’t inherited it. Maybe it was only passed on from father to son. And if that was the case, the violence in his family would have to come to an end with him.
The son of Ed Dryden.
About the Author
ANN VOSS PETERSON is the author of over thirty novels and has millions of books in print all over the globe. Winner of the prestigious Daphne du Maurier Award and a Rita finalist, Ann is known for her adrenaline-fueled thrillers and romantic suspense novels, including the Codename: Chandler spy thrillers she writes with J.A. Konrath and her own thriller series featuring small town Wisconsin police chief Val Ryker.
A creative writing major in college, Ann worked all manner of jobs after graduation, ranging from grooming show horses to washing windows, and now she draws on her wide variety of life experiences to fill her fictional worlds with compelling energy and undeniable emotion.
She lives near Madison, Wisconsin with her family and their border collie.
Visit Ann at www.AnnVossPeterson.com, and check out the behind-the-scenes research that goes into her books.
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Copyright Notice
Frantic
Portions of this novel were previously published under the title Evidence of Marriage.
Copyright © 2006, 2020 by Ann Voss Peterson
Cover and art copyright © 2016 by Carl Graves
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.
February, 2020