Excerpt of Once Burned by Susan Vaughan

Lani Cameron parked her car in the Birch Brook Farm driveway. She put the house and attached small barn behind her and crossed the pasture. As she'd done twice a day since her arrival a week ago, she stopped at the splintered frame of the burned–out horse barn's doorway.

She turned her face to the late–afternoon June sun, absorbing brightness before lowering her gaze to the blackened remains. Not much left after twelve Maine winters. She bent to pick up a scrap of pine board. Her fingers clenched around the charred wood.

The remembered smell of creosote turned her stomach. If she closed her eyes she could feel the searing heat. Hear the roar. But she couldn't see more, couldn't see Gail's body, limp on the floor, couldn't— She dropped the wood as if it scorched her hand.

The sun shining through the structure's skeleton cast eerie shadows over the witch grass and daisies. Cow vetch twined its way up one of the posts. Green life amid the ashes—a mockery.

She needed to sell the farm, but without that phone call from Nora she might not have had the courage to return to Dragon Harbor to do it herself. When school had ended the second week of the month, she finished her students' final reports and booked it out of Concord. She prayed braving the scene of the fire would end her nightmares and help her remember, but the dreams were haunting her nightly, becoming more vivid. More real. The murderous fire monster, bigger and more frightening, woke her up in a cold sweat. She rubbed her arms in the sudden chill of memory.

Dammit, she would put up with a lack of sleep if her efforts led to answers.

She strode toward the farmhouse, seeking comfort in its white clapboards, peaked roof, and front door painted shut because everyone used the side–porch entrance to the kitchen. Repairs had to be done before the real estate agent would list the property.

As she reached the pasture's edge, a blue Jeep SUV pulled into the driveway and parked behind her car. A tall man in jeans and a faded University of Maine T–shirt emerged.

She held up a hand to shade her eyes from the sun and watched as he ambled toward her. Light–brown hair and strong boned features with bold planes and angles made her pulse flutter. He stopped a few feet from her and raised his gaze.

Her heart drummed, slamming against her ribs. Jake Wescott. The same blue eyes, but older, wiser, sadder. She'd expected to see her twin's old boyfriend, planned on it, but not yet. She'd wanted this first meeting on her own terms. Never mind. She would deal.

"What are you doing here?"

"I was just—" His mouth dropped open and he took a step back as if a horse had kicked him in the gut. "Gail." Shaking his head, he blew out a breath. "Lani, is that you?"

Her throat closed. How long had it been since someone mistook her for her twin? A cruel joke, except he wasn't joking.

The best defense is a good offense. She cocked a hip and flapped a hand at the scar on the left side of her face. "Who else would it be, Jake? Mrs. Frankenstein? And I repeat, what are you doing here?"

Tension crackled in the air between them. Her heart pounded like a kettledrum.

His face was a blank mask. Time had changed him. He was taller and broader shouldered. Lines etched into his cheeks added more than the three years he had on her. No familiar crooked grin, the one that used to melt every girl in Dragon Harbor. Including her. Although she'd kept it to herself. Back then he'd been open—funny and kind. But that wasn't the Jake here today. She didn't know this Jake with the unreadable, hard eyes.

"I'm living on my boat in the harbor while I take care of some family business. Fixing up Gram's house to sell it, for one."

Not what she meant but she'd get to that. "Nora told me you've been here since March. That you're in the FBI."

"Not FBI, ATF. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. I'm on leave. You mind me looking around in the horse barn, what's left of it?"

"No problem. Knock yourself out."