Linda Evans Shepherd - The Potluck Club Troubles Brewing

the Potluck Club

Troubles Brewing

the Potluck Club

Troubles Brewing

A NOVEL

Linda Evans Shepherd

and Eva Marie Everson

2006 by Linda Evans Shepherd and Eva Marie Everson

Published by Fleming H. Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.revellbooks.com

Printed in the United States of America

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Shepherd, Linda E., 1957

Troubles brewing : a novel / Linda Evans Shepherd and Eva Marie Everson.

p. cm.(The Potluck Club)

ISBN 10: 0-8007-3065-8 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-8007-3065-9 (pbk.)

1. WomenSocieties and clubsFiction. 2. Female friendshipFiction.

3. Prayer groupsFiction. 4. Women cooksFiction. 5. ColoradoFiction.

6. CookeryFiction. I. Everson, Eva Marie. II. Title.

PS3619.H456T76 2006

813 .6dc22 2006002690

To the women in my life who have formed a prayer circle around me. (You know who you are.) I could not have survived this year without you.

Eva Marie Everson

To my dear friends Sharon Williams, a caregiver; Pam Hyink, a therapist; and Betty Murch, a teacher. You three women are Gods earth angels who have blessed and enriched not only my life, but the life of my beautiful, disabled daughter, Laura. Thank you for all youve done to teach her to be, to love, and to live a joyful life. You were the ones who first believed in Laura when no one else could. Thank you for sharing your lives with one of Gods little ones who can never say thank-you. This is my way of saying it for her.

Also, a special thank-you to the many who have cared and ministered to my precious child. I cant name you all here, but know that I love and cherish you too.

Linda Evans Shepherd

Fiction also by Linda Evans Shepherd and Eva Marie Everson
The Potluck Club

Fiction by Eva Marie Everson
Shadow of Dreams
Summon the Shadows

Shadows of Light

Fiction by Linda Evans Shepherd
Ryans Trials
Karas Quest

Tangled Heart

Contents

Clay Whitefield burrowed under the musky blankets, eking out an attempt at a few minutes more sleep before heaving himself out of bed. The weight from the quilt his grandmother had handmade upon his arrival into the world lay over him like the history of her people, the Cheyenne. But his grandmother and her people were the last thing on his mind.

Outside the window of his second-story flat, the town of Summit View, Colorado, was coming to life. With or without him. His boss, the editor and publisher of the Gold Rush News , was most likely sitting at his desk by now, wondering what time Clay would amble in. Shifts were changing at the hospital and down at the sheriff s department. Children were preparing for school. Sally Madison, owner of Higher Grounds Caf, had already unlocked the doors to her establishment. Larry, her cook, had slapped a heap of lard onto the flat grill, readying it for the morning specials. One of Sallys girls had started the coffee. The very thought of it brewing interrupted Clays dreams, and his nose twitched.

He opened one eye. Across the room on a scarred table, his gerbils, Woodward and Bernstein, lay wrapped around each other as though they were one. Nearby, his laptop sat at attention, the screen saver banner sliding across its face, teasing him.

CLAY WHITEFIELD, it said. ace reporter.

Hed worked last night until the early hours of the morning; thus his attempt at sleeping in. The big story of his career had kept him up, driving him toward a completion he feared would never come. This storythis single storyhad tickled his imagination when he was a child, encouraged him to do well when hed gone off to the University of Northern Colorado to study journalism, and had propelled him back to his hometown upon graduation.

It was the story of a group of women who called themselves the Potluck Club. But it was more than their monthly gatherings that kept his fingers to the keyboard and his pen and notebook in an everready position. It was their past secrets and current escapades.

It was, most particularly, their youngest member.

Because Clay Whitefield believed, with everything his journalistic heart had in it, that Donna Vesey was carrying the deepest secret of them all.

It was a bad night to be driving in the mountains. I pulled into one of my favorite retreats, a quiet wooded area, to wait out the storm. I took a sip of my hot coffee and watched the wipers slap at the rain that had altered my view of once stick-straight pines into twisting shadows. As if to add to my concern, the voice of dispatch crackled out of my radio. Unit three, we have a report of a vehicle in trouble at mile marker eight on River Canyon Road.

Roger that. Unit three en route.

I hit my siren and raced my white Bronco down the canyon as the dark sky exploded in brilliant flashes and the rock walls throbbed in time to the rotating lights.

At mile marker eight, my headlights illuminated a frantic man who darted from behind his parked jeep, waving his arms. I reached for my radio to call dispatch. Unit three arrived at destination.

Roger. Be advised the National Weather Service has just issued a flash flood warning.

Roger. I powered down my window as rain pelted my face. What seems to be the trouble? I asked the drenched man who appeared to be in his midforties. He shivered before me in his T-shirt and jeans, his only defense against the storms chill.

He leaned down, his eyes wide. Hurry! You may be able to save her.

Who?

The lady in the car that slid into the river.

He pointed, and I turned my attention to the raging mountain river only a few yards from the road. Normally the river would be nothing more than the peaceful gurgle of melted snow, but tonight it roared as if demons coursed down its winding path. I blinked as I observed the glowing taillights of a sedan just beneath the rivers surface.

My heart sunk as I surmised what must have happened. Canyon River Road was awash in a thick cushion of water. When the driver had tried to negotiate the curve, her car had hydroplaned off the road and into the river.

I picked up the radio. Dispatch, car with occupant submerged at Canyon River Road, mile marker eight. Additional rescue units requested.

I hung up the radio, reached for a length of rope I kept beneath my seat, and stepped into the downpour. A flooded canyon road was not a good place to be without backup.

The man followed me to the rivers edge.

Did you see anyone besides the woman in the car? I asked.

The mans Rockies baseball cap shielded his eyes from the deluge that rolled off his gray brim. His voice rose to compete with the angry river. Only the driver.

I looked back at the river. The current was already tugging the submerged car farther downstream.

At this point, I knew an attempt to rescue the occupant would result in certain death, either from drowning or from prolonged exposure to the ice-cold water. Even if I stood taller than five-foot-two, and even if I weighed two hundred pounds with rippling muscles as did some of my male counterparts, that current would knock me off my feet and carry any recoverable parts to a closed pine box to be displayed down at the local funeral home.