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THE WILD SIDE
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Secret Identity, Small Town Romance
Available 4.15.24


Excerpt of Down River by Karen Harper

Purchase


MIRA
February 2010
On Sale: January 26, 2010
Featuring: Mitch Braxton; Lisa Vaughn
400 pages
ISBN: 0778327477
EAN: 9780778327479
Mass Market Paperback
Add to Wish List

Romance Suspense

Also by Karen Harper:

Under the Alaskan Ice, January 2021
Mass Market Paperback / e-Book
The Queen's Secret, May 2020
Paperback / e-Book
Deep in the Alaskan Woods, May 2020
Paperback / e-Book
Dark Storm, June 2019
Mass Market Paperback / e-Book
American Duchess, March 2019
Paperback / e-Book
Silent Scream, December 2018
Mass Market Paperback / e-Book
Shallow Grave, March 2018
Mass Market Paperback / e-Book
The It Girls, November 2017
Paperback / e-Book
Falling Darkness, April 2017
Mass Market Paperback / e-Book
Drowning Tides, February 2017
Mass Market Paperback / e-Book
Chasing Shadows, December 2016
Paperback / e-Book
The Royal Nanny, July 2016
Trade Size / e-Book
Broken Bonds, January 2015
Paperback / e-Book
Forbidden Ground, November 2014
Paperback / e-Book
Shattered Secrets, September 2014
Paperback / e-Book
Upon a Winter's Night, November 2013
Paperback / e-Book
Finding Mercy, October 2013
Paperback
Finding Mercy, November 2012
Paperback / e-Book
Dark Crossings, July 2012
Paperback / e-Book
Mistress Of Mourning, July 2012
Paperback / e-Book
Return To Grace, March 2012
Paperback / e-Book
Fall From Pride, August 2011
Paperback
The Queen's Governess, August 2011
Paperback (reprint)
Dark Angel, May 2011
Paperback
The Irish Princess, February 2011
Trade Size / e-Book
Dark Harvest, January 2011
Paperback
Dark Road Home, September 2010
Trade Size
The Queen's Governess, February 2010
Hardcover
Down River, February 2010
Mass Market Paperback
Deep Down, June 2009
Mass Market Paperback
Mistress Shakespeare, February 2009
Hardcover
The Hiding Place, November 2008
Mass Market Paperback
Below The Surface, February 2008
Paperback
The Hooded Hawke, December 2007
Mass Market Paperback
Inferno, January 2007
Paperback
The First Princess of Wales, December 2006
Trade Size
The Fatal Fashione, December 2006
Mass Market Paperback / e-Book
More Than Words, October 2006
Trade Size
Hurricane, June 2006
Paperback
Empty Cradle, May 2006
Paperback (reprint)
Black Orchid, May 2006
Paperback (reprint)
The Falls, May 2006
Paperback (reprint)
The Stone Forest, May 2006
Paperback (reprint)
The Last Boleyn, March 2006
Trade Size
The Fyre Mirror, February 2006
Mass Market Paperback / e-Book
Dark Angel, June 2005
Paperback
Dark Harvest, June 2004
Paperback
Dark Road Home, May 2004
Paperback
The Thorne Maze, October 2003
Mass Market Paperback
The Queene's Cure, February 2003
Mass Market Paperback
The Twylight Tower, February 2002
Mass Market Paperback
The Tidal Poole, February 2001
Mass Market Paperback
The Poyson Garden, January 2000
Mass Market Paperback
A Country Christmas, November 1993
Paperback

Excerpt of Down River by Karen Harper

Duck Lake Lodge
Near Bear Bones, Alaska
August 20, 2008

Despite the calm beauty of Duck Lake ten feet below the pine-tree-lined path, Lisa Vaughn felt compelled to watch the Wild River on the other side of the low ridge where she stood. Because the summer sun had warmed the snow-tipped Talkeetna Mountains for hours, the snowmelt river roared. When the temperature dropped at night, despite the fact the skies barely darkened, the river rumbled like distant thunder. She was amazed by the reddish-colored salmon as they battled the fierce current on their long journey upriver to their breeding grounds. It almost looked as if the river was bleeding.

But mostly the river awed Lisa because, exactly twenty-six years ago, she'd seen her mother and baby sister drown in the turbulent, foaming wake of a cruise ship. Since then, roiling water mesmerized her. And she had never seen anything like the rapids of the Wild River.

She pulled her gaze away and hurried along the ridge toward the cutoff to the lake landing where she and Mitch had agreed to paddle a kayak to a picnic spot. "I know you've never been in a kayak," he'd said when he suggested it, "but we'll be fine as long as you match your strokes to mine, so we don't slam our paddles together."

Match your strokes to mine. His words echoed in her head. Was it just she who was still furious about the death of their passion? Although their romance and future together had ended when they'd slammed their different goals into each other, the man still got to her in a dangerous way. This trip had to be all business for her, all about getting a promotion, not rehashing the wreck of their relationship. She'd been dreading this whole slippery situation, but maybe talking it out could help her to finally write the obituary for what she'd thought was mutual love. She let out a breath, then inhaled deeply, not to savor the fresh, pine-scented air, but to calm herself.

Mitch Braxton seemed a different man from a year ago when they'd broken their engagement and he'd left her and Fort Lauderdale for the heart of Alaska. He'd broken her heart, but she'd been so angry with him that she'd quickly patched herself back together, at least on the surface. She'd gone on with a vengeance, not looking back until her boss set up this command performance at Mitch's lodge.

Lisa had worked hard to pretend to get over her resentment of his shattering her prettily planned-out life. She had expected to be a skilled attorney, a wife, a working mother to their future children. Though she knew better, sometimes she felt that, at age thirty-four, her marital and biological clocks were not only ticking but clanging. Just when she'd thought never to see Mitch again, Graham Bonner, the managing partner of Carlisle, Bonner & Associates, had been adamant that he had a unique plan for screening the three candidates for the next senior partner of the prestigious law firm.

Graham and his wife, Ellie, insisted they were taking the three junior partners to participate in the family/corporate bonding program Mitch offered at the lodge he'd inherited in Alaska. Since they'd only arrived yesterday, all they'd done so far was walk blindfolded through an obstacle course by following vocal directions—but so much more was in store. Scheduled during the week were ziplining and white-water rafting, all the while being observed by the Bonners to decide who would get the coveted senior partner position Mitch had abandoned.

Some of Lisa's friends had argued it was a crazy way to vet a lawyer, though it sounded like a great, free vacation. But Graham was clever and convincing. He'd learned the law-firm ropes from Ellie's father and her brother Merritt, who used to run the firm and had used it as a stepping stone to his fast-rising political career.

Come hell or high water, Lisa intended to be the new senior partner, but she knew her competitors Jonas and Vanessa were just as tenacious and ambitious. Maybe that was what the Bonners were judging them by anyway. She couldn't help but wonder if, as upset and betrayed as the Bonners had also felt by Mitch's defection, they hadn't still enlisted him to help them make the important decision. He'd always been the Bonners' golden boy. Once Lisa had even thought they were grooming him not only to take over the firm but to partner—in more ways than one—with their twenty-four-year-old only child, Claire, who was now in law school at Duke University, and would soon join the firm as its third-generation lawyer.

Stopping above another clearing where she could see the river, Lisa brushed several mosquitoes away, then put down the small plastic cooler she carried. The cooler had been beautifully packed, down to bright cloth napkins and a tablecloth by Mitch's lodge manager and chef, Christine. Like the lodge, Christine Tanaka seemed both down to earth, yet frontier elegant. Lisa had sensed something between Mitch and the striking, ebony-haired, high-cheek-boned woman, and was annoyed that it bothered her.

While Christine knew where they were going, Lisa hoped they wouldn't be missed by the others during this three-to-five afternoon break, when everyone had some private time before gathering for pre-dinner appetizers and wine.

She sprayed herself lightly with the bug repellent she'd brought along. Close to the lodge they fogged the area and the brisk breeze today kept most of the mosquitoes away. She was used to them, being from South Florida, but the Alaska version seemed especially voracious. At least, in his introduction to them yesterday, Mitch had mentioned the bug season was waning.

She forced her gaze away from the river rapids and stuffed the small spray can back in the top of her sock, then rolled her jeans back down. She wore her running shoes and a life preserver over a light jacket and T-shirt, but the day seemed warm—too warm, if she kept thinking about Mitch.

Turning back to the river, Lisa fastened the Velcro straps of her orange PFD jacket. Mitch had warned them, "No one, not even Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, if he shows up here, goes out on the lake or the river without a PFD!"

She and her colleagues had joked that an attorney, on the losing end of a lawsuit, must have named it a Personal Flotation Device, but then it wasn't a plain old life preserver. PFDs were made of sleek, contoured neoprene, a far cry from those old bulbous, canvas jackets the cruise ships had passengers wear during lifeboat drills. For all she knew, that drill had given her mother the idea to jump overboard.

If Lisa was getting in a kayak for the first time, she was going prepared. She could swim like a fish, but since her family tragedy—though she tried not to let people know—churning water not only horrified her but lured her.

She picked up the cooler and glanced back down the path toward the sprawling two-story log lodge with its four rustic cabins huddled nearby like chicks around a mother hen. No sign of Mitch yet; he was busy here, king of his realm. But then, he'd seemed to be master of his fate in Florida, too, before the dam broke and their mutual future was swept away.

She heaved a huge sigh, staring down into the river. Mitch said he'd bring the drinks, and she wondered if it would be wine. Last year, the night they had broken up, she'd snapped her wine goblet off at the stem when he'd told her he had to get out of the rat race and leave Fort Lauderdale. Her hand had bled from a puncture wound; she still bore the scar—that and too many others as she went on with her high-flying career. That terrible night, she had tossed her engagement ring at him, and would have thrown the gold bracelet with the flying seagulls he'd bought her as well, except the clasp had stuck.

But now, when she looked back on that night, she knew she'd done things to upset him, too. She recalled Mitch's explosion when she'd told him she had volunteered both of them to testify at a state senate committee hearing. They were both under pressure then, working day and night on a high-profile money-laundering case. They'd been harassed, even stalked by someone, until Graham had suddenly taken them off the case for their safety. She was trying to find another way to keep them in what she thought of as "the local lawyer limelight." They were having drinks on the patio of her condo with its view of a golf course she'd never played.

"No way!" he'd shouted, shocking her. "I just can't take time to testify at some senate hearing! Leave that political stuff to Ellie's beloved brother, who will probably be our next senator or even president, for all I know!"

"Listen, I realize it will take time from your other cases, but it's great PR, and your name carries clout now," she'd insisted.

"I may be successful, but I'm so stressed I'm getting distracted—careless—when people's futures are in my hands. I'm scared I'll not only ruin someone else's life, but my own. Carelessness can lead to self-destruction. Sometimes I don't give a damn about things I need to care for, to control. Half the time, all I've worked for seems pointless."

"Including a future with me? Our love, our plans, both professional and personal?" she'd demanded in her best litigator's voice. "Mitch, we can have everything together, including our careers, helping people, not wasting time on something pointless!"

That was when he'd dropped the bomb that he'd inherited his uncle's land and lodge and wanted to move to Alaska. He'd been meaning to find the right time to tell her. Would she change her plans to go with him?

Shocked and angry, she'd refused, accused him of being self-centered. But she saw now she had been, too. Why couldn't he understand that no urban career woman who loved luscious, lively Fort Lauderdale needed a dropout who preferred the lonely wilds of Alaska? No, she couldn't risk loving someone who suddenly claimed to be nearly suicidal, not after all she'd been through.

Now, lost in her regrets, trembling again at the memory, she frowned at the raging river. Then something happened...

Excerpt from Down River by Karen Harper
All rights reserved by publisher and author

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