Free RedemptionRidge by Denise A. Agnew

Chapter One
    Redemption Ridge
    Northern Arizona
     
    Cecelia Finnegan knew she had few options left. Either she
found a way out of this car trunk or her ex-husband would kill her before
sundown.
    The road hummed beneath the old red sedan and dust choked
her throat. She took another deep breath and caught the scent of rain. She
gasped and coughed. The ropes around her wrists and ankles cut cruelly into her
flesh. When Peter had thrown her into the trunk she’d twisted her right ankle
and it throbbed like hell.
    Tears leaked down her cheeks as regret pierced her. She had
so little to show for her twenty-nine years of life. Despair threatened. She
could decide to give up when Peter opened that trunk. Or maybe he never
intended to open the trunk. Perhaps he’d park, leave the car, and she’d suffer
until she died alone in this metal box. Tremors coursed through her body, a
steady twitch that came from cold, shock and horrible fear. She wished with
everything inside her she’d left the mall by the front doors. She wished she’d
parked closer to lights, to people. Instead she’d avoided confrontation with
her cranky supervisor. She’d left through the back door of the Tastee Freez.
Big mistake.
    A good chunk of her life had been spent with raw emotions
and impulse as her companions. Nothing wrong with that except for where it got
you in the end. This way. Stuck in her stinkin’ ex-husband’s piece of shit car.
Sure she’d taken a better road lately, but it was too little too late. Finding
jobs at the Tastee Freez and the lingerie shop at the mall had given her barely
enough money to live in the dumpy apartment on the east side of town. She’d
taken to thinking more positively, knowing that if she allowed herself to go
down the wrong path again she’d end up dead. Well maybe she’d end up dead
anyway.
    God, what she wouldn’t do for another chance. Just one more
chance to prove she could pick her hide up off the floor and do right.
    Cecelia stewed in her misery at first, allowing pent-up
anger and regrets to lash through her like a thunderstorm. She sobbed until her
tears transformed from sadness into anger. A deep, regret-filled sigh left her
throat. She could give up. She’d seen junkies do it when she’d lived on the
streets for that one disaster-filled week long ago. They’d curl up in their
cardboard box on the street and check out because it was all too much. Too damn
freakin’ much. It would be easier to take that route.
    She would give anything to brave the lightning and rain
outside, to stand out in a field with her arms up, in danger of being lit up
like a Roman candle. Anything to be out of this trunk.
    You gotta fight.
    She heard her sponsor’s voice in her head as if Janey were
right there beside her. But she couldn’t be—Janey had died in a horrible car
accident a month ago. Grief tore at her. Another sob escaped Cecelia. She drew
in one breath and then another.
    If she didn’t get out of here she’d never have the chance to
kiss Jake McNamara, and that would be a damn shame.
    Jake. God, she wanted to see his face one more time too.
He’d visited Tastee Freez at least every other day for two weeks, and the women
Cecelia worked for explained he was a military man on leave. An officer and a
gentleman, from the way he was so polite even to the cranky supervisor. Cecelia
had wondered a hundred times where he’d come from, and none of the other women
knew any more of his story.
    Maybe it was a good thing she hadn’t approached him and he
hadn’t approached her. She didn’t trust her taste in men all that much anyway.
But God, just one taste of that masculine mouth, just one chance to discover
his kiss would have made her day. Her decade perhaps.
    You’re better than this. You’ve always been better than
this.
    Remembering Janey’s voice gave her hope. Renewal surged
inside her. She couldn’t give up and let a crap interval become a crappier end.
Janey would roll over in her grave if she could