the Lord loves them ever so much more than I ever could. What’s more, though we are subject to all manner of disasters here on Earth, He has prepared a place for us where troubles will pass away, a perfect world, a “peaceful home.” What a comfort, don’t you think?
Thank you for reading this third book in the Roughwater Ranch Cowboys series. I hope you will come along with me in book four, which will be youngest brother, Chad’s, story. If you’d like to contact me, you can send a message via my website at www.danamentink.com. There’s a physical address there also if you prefer.
Thank you, friends, and God bless!
Dana Mentink
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
—Romans 12:19
To all the single parents who are heroes to so many.
Contents
Note to Readers
Helen Pike awoke with a jolt, cold sweat dappling her brow. For a shuddering moment, she thought she was back in the tunnels, a naive teen, on that terrible night that would not leave her soul. Cold stone, silence and an endless dripping echoed from the past. She rubbed her temples to massage the memories away.
That was fifteen years ago. You were a kid in high school. Are you ever going to let go of that nightmare?
For some inexplicable reason, she’d recently begun to relive the tragic event in her dreams. Five high school friends, Helen, Fiona, Trish, Gavin and Justin, had gone into the abandoned tunnels not more than two miles from the cottage where she now sat, but only four made it out alive. Trish had been murdered, her life ended on the frigid rock floor, her killer never caught.
Helen propped herself up on the musty couch and brushed her hair out of her face. The cottage, nestled on Roughwater Ranch property, was weakened by age and weather. Her stand-in parents Gus and Ginny Knightly, the ranch
