Rock Point (Sharpe & Donovan) (5 page)

Author’s Note

I’ve heard from so many readers who are as captivated as I am by enigmatic Finian Bracken, and I loved having the opportunity to write this “prequel” about his departure from Ireland and his arrival in Rock Point, Maine.

Finian plays a role in the first three books in my Sharpe & Donovan series. In
Saint’s Gate
, he’s instrumental in Colin Donovan meeting FBI art crimes expert Emma Sharpe when a nun at a Maine convent—in fact, Emma’s former convent—is murdered. In
Heron’s Cove
, Finian keeps the whiskey flowing when Emma’s world as a Sharpe and Colin’s world as an undercover agent collide. In
Declan’s Cross
, we’re back in the tiny Irish village, where Finian’s friends Sean Murphy and Kitty O’Byrne Doyle are dealing with a missing American woman...and, of course, FBI agents Emma Sharpe & Colin Donovan.

Please join me on Facebook (
www.facebook.com/carlaneggers
) and visit my website (
www.carlaneggers.com
). We’ll have a lot of fun. I’ll be posting videos and photos of my latest trip to Ireland!

Thank you, and happy reading,

Carla

Chapter 1

Emma Sharpe paused atop a craggy knoll and looked out at the ripples of barren hills, not a house, a road, a car or another person in sight. She didn’t know what had become of her hiking partner. Maybe he had stepped up to his mid-calves in mud and muck, too, but she doubted it. It wasn’t that Colin Donovan wasn’t capable of taking a misstep. It was that she’d have heard him cursing if he had.

A fat, woolly sheep stared up at her from the boggy grass as if to say, “
You might be an FBI agent back in Boston
,
but out here in the Irish hills
,
you’re just another hiker with wet feet.
”

“This is true,” Emma said, setting her backpack on the expanse of rough gray rock. “However, I’m prepared. I have dry socks.”

She unzipped her pack and dug out a pair of fresh wool socks. The sheep bleated and meandered off, disappearing behind another knoll, one of a series on the windswept ridge on the Beara Peninsula, one of the fingers of land that jutted into the North Atlantic off the southwest coast of Ireland. It had been centuries since these hills were forested. She could see peeks of Kenmare Bay in the distance, its calm waters blue-gray in the mid-afternoon November light. Across the bay, shrouded in mist but still distinct, were the jagged ridges of the Macgillicuddy Reeks.

Emma kicked off her shoes, sat on the bare rock ledge and pulled off her wet socks. She glanced down at the narrow valley directly below her, a small lake shimmering in the fading sunlight. She and Colin were five hours into their six-hour hike. With the short November days, they would get back to their car just before dark.

As she put on her dry socks, he came around the knoll where her sheep had disappeared. A light breeze caught the ends of his dark hair, and he had his backpack hooked on one arm as he jumped over the wet spot that had fooled her.

He climbed up onto her knoll and dropped his pack next to hers. “I like having you walk point,” he said with a grin.

“No fair. You saw my footprint in the mud.”

“I’ll never tell.”

Emma leaned back against her outstretched arms. She had on a wool hat, her fair hair knotted at the nape of her neck. She had pulled her gloves on and off over the course of the day. She didn’t know if Colin had even packed a hat and gloves. He was, she thought, the sexiest man she had ever met. Small scars on his jaw and by his left eye from fights he said he had won. She had no doubt. He was strongly built, rugged and utterly relentless.

A good man to have on your side in a fight.

She was fit and lean and could handle herself in a fight, and although she wasn’t tiny, he could easily carry her up a flight of stairs. In fact, he had, more than once.

They had set out early. For the past two weeks, they had explored the southwest Irish coast on foot and by car, by mutual agreement avoiding talk of arms traffickers, thieves, poison, attempted murder and alligators. Colin would wink at her and say he especially didn’t want to talk about alligators, not that he had seen one on his narrow escape from killers in south Florida. Thinking about them had been enough.

By unspoken agreement, he and Emma also avoided talk of their futures with the FBI—or even each other. His months of intense undercover work, in an environment where everyone was a potential enemy, had taken a toll, and he in particular needed this time to be in the present, to be himself.

Emma’s needs were simpler. She just wanted to be with him.

It was her life that was complicated.

She sat up straight, noticing that Colin’s boots and cargo pants were splattered with mud but not wet like hers. She grinned at him. “You do know I’ve spent more time hiking the Irish hills than you have, don’t you?”

“Beneath that placid exterior beats the heart of a competitive federal agent.” He made no move to sit next to her. “Your mishap gives me an excuse to run a hot bath for you when we get back to the cottage.”

“Life could be worse. You’re not bored, are you?”

“I can go more than two weeks without anyone trying to kill me.”

As he sat next to her on her boulder, his smile almost reached his stone-gray eyes.

Almost.

He offered her a sip from his water bottle, but she shook her head. He took a long drink as he gazed out at the hills. Except for the occasional baa of the grazing, half-wild sheep, the silence was complete.

“What are you thinking about, Colin?”

“Guinness.”

“A cold pint and a warm pub. Sounds perfect.”

He leaned down and touched the curve of his hand to her cheek. “It’s been good being here with you.” He winked at her again as he stood straight. “Mud and sheep dung and all.”

Emma sighed as she slipped back into her trail shoes and tied the laces. “No escaping sheep dung out here, is there? I wasn’t distracted when I stepped in the wet spot. I just misjudged. There’s a difference.”

“But you do have a lot on your mind,” Colin said.

She always did. Their jobs with the FBI attested to their different natures. He was an undercover agent. She specialized in art crimes. She was the thinker. Analytical, methodical, detail-oriented. He was direct, intuitive, quick and decisive—and independent to a fault. Six weeks ago, he had been assigned to her small team in Boston, if only because the senior agent in charge was determined to rein him in.

Good luck with that
, Emma thought. She stood, lifted her backpack and slung it over her shoulders. “The rest of the way is all downhill.”

“Have you ever done this hike before?”

She shook her head. “First time.”

“It’s a good spot,” he said, tucking his water bottle in his pack.

“I’m glad we did this before I go home.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

It was Tuesday. She had a flight back to Boston on Friday. She’d be at her desk on Monday. Colin had more time before he had to decide what was next for him. Not a lot more time, but he could stay in Ireland for a while longer, without her.

She angled a look at him. “Anything on your mind, Colin?”

“I had an email from Andy in my in-box this morning. He sent it last night. I didn’t read it until just now, while I ate an energy bar and admired the view. Reading email is against our hiking rules, I know.”

“A sign it’s time to get back to work, maybe.” Emma gave him a moment but he didn’t take the bait and respond, and she let it go. “How are things in Rock Point?”

“Andy says Julianne Maroney is leaving for Ireland tonight.”

“Tonight? Isn’t that sudden? I thought I’d heard she was going in January.”

“She accepted a marine biology internship in Cork that starts in January. This is something different. She decided to come for a couple weeks now and get herself sorted out. It’s sudden, but that’s Julianne.”

“So, she’s staying in Cork?”

Colin shook his head. “A village east of Cork. Declan’s Cross.”

Declan’s Cross.

Emma went still as a dozen images came at her at once. A pretty seaside Irish village of brightly colored shops and residences. A romantic mansion with sweeping views of cliffs and sea. Haunting Celtic crosses on a grassy hilltop.

A tight-lipped old Irish sheep farmer.

Wendell Sharpe, her grandfather, a renowned art detective, pacing in his Dublin office as he admitted he and Sharpe Fine Art Recovery were after a thief they couldn’t catch.

A thief, Emma thought, who had first struck in tiny Declan’s Cross on a lonely, rainy, dark November night ten years ago.

She’d only become involved in the case four years ago, in the months between her life as Sister Brigid at the coastal Maine convent of the Sisters of the Joyful Heart and her life as a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. For a year, she’d worked side-by-side with her grandfather, learning everything he knew.

Not everything
.

Wendell Sharpe never told anyone everything.

She was aware of Colin’s eyes narrowed on her He wouldn’t know about the thief. There was no reason for him to know.

She pushed back her thoughts. “Why Declan’s Cross, Colin?”

“Emma...”

“Just tell me what you know. Please.”

“All right.” He was plainly suspicious now. “A woman who’s launching a marine science research facility in Declan’s Cross stopped in Rock Point last week. She and Julianne hit it off. Now Julianne’s meeting her there.”

“To help with this research facility?”

“Andy doesn’t have any details. He hasn’t talked to Julianne himself.”

“Then who told him?”

“Her brother. Ryan. He’s in the Coast Guard, but he’s in Rock Point for a couple of days. He found out from their grandmother. Julianne lives with her.”

Rock Point was a small, tight-knit southern Maine fishing village. Everyone knew everyone else’s business, but Julianne’s short-lived romance with Andy Donovan, third-born of the four Donovan brothers, apparently had come as a surprise, especially, since she’d vowed never to get involved with a Donovan. Emma didn’t know either Andy or Julianne well. She’d only met Colin in September and was still figuring out who was who in his hometown.

“What’s this woman’s name?” Emma asked. “Do we know her?”

“Her name’s Lindsey Hargreaves. I don’t know her.”

Hargreaves.
Emma searched her memory but shook her head. “I don’t, either. Did she come to Rock Point looking for Julianne?”

“I don’t know. I just know Julianne’s on her way to Ireland.”

“And you don’t like it.”

“Julianne’s as smart as they come, but she’s impulsive and she’s had a rough time lately. She’s never been that far from home. I doubt she’s been farther than Nova Scotia. Now all of a sudden she’s meeting some strange woman in some little Irish village.”

“Are you concerned she’s running away because of her breakup with Andy?”

“I know she is,” Colin said half under his breath. “This is her first trip overseas. It could be exactly what she needs, but I’d feel better if she wasn’t alone.”

“We could drive over to Declan’s Cross tomorrow,” Emma said.

He tilted his head back, eyed her again. “I didn’t like your look when I mentioned Declan’s Cross. Emma, is there a Sharpe connection to this village?”

She sighed. “We can talk on the hike back to the car.”

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FBI agents Emma Sharpe and Colin Donovan must
decide whether working alone or standing together is the way to outwit an enemy set to tear them apart.

Discover more gripping tales of romantic suspense
in the Sharpe & Donovan series from
New York Times
bestselling author Carla Neggers.

Declan’s Cross
(September 2013)

Heron’s Cove

Saint’s Gate

Be sure to catch all of Carla Neggers’s thrilling titles, available now in ebook format!

Connect with us for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers, free online reads and much more!

Subscribe to our newsletter:
Harlequin.com/newsletters

Visit
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We like you—why not like us on Facebook:
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks

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Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks

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