She was not going to die.

  The ropes had to come off.

  “If you wouldn’t mind putting the knife back in the bag, I’m going to board the raft and carry you off.” The man’s voice held enough command that Kacey did as he’d ordered.

  “I’m perfectly fine. I don’t need to be carried,” she said then, as, knife-free, she put both hands on the bottom of the grounded raft to steady herself as she got her feet firmly beneath her.

  And fell back to her butt.

  “Your circulation has likely been lessened in your lower extremities,” the voice said again. “I’m going to lift you and carry you to my truck.”

  She had to get out of there. He was the means. Kacey braced for the rough grab of criminal arms and was surprised to feel the gentle slide, in tandem, of an arm around her back and another under her knees, followed immediately by a fluid standing motion. As though she weighed nothing at all.

  A criminal with a conscience?

  Or—God, dare she hope—an actual Good Samaritan?

  She couldn’t let herself hope.

  Hope could get her killed.

  Dear Reader,

  I often wonder what I would do, if I would risk my life to speak up, if I knew something bad was going on. I think I’d do it. Hands down. But I’ve never been in that situation. Never had to figure out if other innocent lives could be hurt by my action. So, as usual, I put my questions to the characters who teach me, every day of my life, about life. About love.

  Meet elementary school teacher Kacey. She chooses to step forward with evidence.

  And meet Devon, aka Tommy, who, as an undercover cop, lives a lie to catch the bad people. Because, by the way, his father was maybe a crooked cop and he trusts no one.

  These two struggling people found their own strengths. They took me on a wild ride, made me laugh and cry, and made some very important things clear to me. I hope they do the same for you!

  TTQ

  DANGER ON THE RIVER

  Tara Taylor Quinn

  A USA TODAY bestselling author of over one hundred novels in twenty languages, Tara Taylor Quinn has sold more than seven million copies. Known for her intense emotional fiction, Ms. Quinn’s novels have received critical acclaim in the UK and most recently from Harvard. She is the recipient of the Readers’ Choice Award and has appeared often on local and national TV, including CBS Sunday Morning.

  For TTQ offers, news and contests, visit www.tarataylorquinn.com!

  Books by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  Sierra’s Web

  Tracking His Secret Child

  Cold Case Sheriff

  The Bounty Hunter’s Baby Search

  On the Run with His Bodyguard

  Not Without Her Child

  A Firefighter’s Hidden Truth

  Last Chance Investigation

  Danger on the River

  The Coltons of Colorado

  Colton Countdown

  The Coltons of New York

  Protecting Colton’s Baby

  Visit the Author Profile page at

  Harlequin.com for more titles.

  To my brother, Michael Scott, who always has been and always will be one of my limbs. I love you. And I love us.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from A Detective’s Deadly Secrets by Anna J. Stewart

  Chapter 1

  A woman’s scream pierced the air and then was gone. Midstream. As though it had been gobbled up by the rapids. Gaze instantly sharp on the bubbling white waves of water in front of his fifteen-passenger raft, Devon Miller, aka Tommy Grainger, was no longer a recreational boating tour guide testing the aftereffects of the recent rain. He was Detective Tommy Grainger, undercover cop, needing to find the source of that scream.

  Every sense fully tuned, he listened intently as he scanned back and forth, slowly, quickly, again and again, keeping the oversize raft afloat by himself with a big paddle and an even larger sense of determination.

  “Hel...”

  The sound came clearly enough that his gut tightened. Sending a clear message. A life depended on him getting the next few minutes right.

  With the water raging all around him, he squinted against the early morning sunlight reflecting off the river all around him. Saw nothing to direct his dive.

  Based on the force of the rapids, and the weak-sounding cry for help, he was only going to get one shot.

  Confident that his victim was in the eight-foot perimeter he had scoped out, he calculated water directional flows, turbulence. To give himself a chance of retrieving the vessel post rescue, he’d have to push the boat with his foot when he jumped, aiming the raft toward the one small pool of still water encased by a shoulder of mountain.

  “Come on,” he urged, aloud, but softly. “One more time...”

  Nothing.

  Still nothing.

  Another few seconds and he was just going to have to jump. One chance was better than none.

  Movement to the right caught his attention as he took a breath before pushing off. Switching course mid-dive, he shot the boat in the direction it had to go and arced his body with a sharp throw to the left, kicking and moving his arms as though swimming even before he hit the water. He couldn’t afford a trip down under and back up again.

  Not if he intended to save the woman losing her grip on the leftover storm debris about to give way.

  * * *

  She was not going to die.

  When Kacey had first seen the raft, she’d had a moment of weakness. With tears springing to her eyes, she’d called out.

  Rafters on the Colorado River usually meant leisure time, a vacation.

  No vacationer she’d ever seen manned a fifteen-passenger raft alone.

  She had a better chance of staying alive if she got on that boat. Her time was running out. Death wasn’t far behind.

  As soon as whoever had taken her knew she’d managed to escape, they’d be on her trail, and the only way she could have escaped was by water.

  Chances were good that the raft, showing up just as it had without passengers, meant the boater was one of the unknown parties who wanted her dead.

  She was tired, in pain, scared out of her wits, cold and desperate, but she could still do that math.

  He’d seen her.

  And the pile of storm debris she’d been riding for more than an hour was about to shoot her into the rapids.

  She had to make a quick decision.

  Certain death, tumbling rapidly over rocks and drowning.

  Probable death if whoever managed to kidnap her from outside the police station caught up to her.

  Or another chance at life by giving herself up to the lone kidnapper, with the hope that she’d get a second chance to escape and swim across the river with her feet still bound.

  She was not going to die.

  Which made choice number three the only viable option.

  * * *

  Devon was one strong stroke away when the debris broke loose. A flash of the woman’s terror-filled face filled his gaze as he kicked and pulled with all his might, grabbing at the water where her body should be and...connected.

  Hauling the weight in his hand upward, he felt a thrust from what he’d feared would be a supine body, flooded with relief and immediately got back to work. Narrowly avoiding the tumble into the shooting rapids, he kicked swiftly, nonstop with his feet, while he maneuvered her body around, secured a grip with his elbow under her chin and shot himself back toward the raft.

  The boat wasn’t lodged as he’d planned. Floating yards away, the big yellow raft bobbed in the slowly flowing current, but Devon reached it easily enough. Heaving the body in his care over the side, issuing a silent apology as he heard the indelicate thud as the likely injured woman landed, he rolled himself back inside right behind her, checked that her vitals were strong enough, and grabbed his stick.

  Immediate safety came first. He expertly manipulated the craft to the far-left bank of the river, away from the dangerously pulling current. While the ride was still bumpy and took some know-how, less than ten minutes after he’d secured the woman, he managed to push the raft up to the shore where he’d left his truck.

  Other than a brief glance to make sure she was still lying there, and not bleeding to death, he focused fully on getting them docked.

  Jumping out of the raft, grabbing the tow rope to wrap it around a stump he’d been using for months, he turned to find the woman with his safety kit on her lap, one hand re
aching inside.

  His first wave of reaction—relief that she was well enough to sit up and avail herself of the kit, was quickly replaced with pure police instinct when he saw the small knife she pulled out of his bag.

  The gun under the shirt at his waist might be wet, but it would still shoot. No way she was getting close to him with that knife to do him any damage, but the raft...

  The woman was bold. Blonde, he was pretty sure, though being so wet and dirty, it was hard for him to tell. Her odd choice of clothes—wide-bottomed yoga pants and a loose, long-sleeved yellow shirt that looked like pajamas—left him little doubt as to the pretty much perfect curves in the exact right places.

  Whether she knew he was watching or not—his presence didn’t seem to matter to her. The knife was open and aimed at the bottoms of the long, soaked, loose-fitting yoga pants.

  “Hey,” he called. She needn’t cut off her clothes. At least not yet. “Let me help...”

  Without even a hint of hesitation, her hand proceeded forward, dipping the blade beneath a heavy, dripping pant leg, snapping, and then repeating the process with the other.

  That’s when he saw the rope drop.

  And realized that his victim had been bound.

  Which potentially changed everything.

  Some cop he was.

  * * *

  Never let them see you sweat. A quote from the olden days of her youth, Kacey was sure. She had no idea why it was repeating in her brain, but it was all she had while she tried to appear confident and controlled. She hid her total anguish in the soaking wet bottom of what was likely a kidnapper’s boat, and calmly cut the ropes away from her bleeding skin.

  She was not going to die.

  The ropes had to come off.

  “If you wouldn’t mind putting the knife back in the bag, I’m going to board the raft and carry you off.” The man’s voice held enough command that Kacey did as he’d ordered. She put the knife back.

  She knew where it was if she needed it again.

  Or would find some other means of saving her life when it came time.

  “I’m perfectly fine. I don’t need to be carried,” she said then, as, knife-free, she put both hands on the bottom of the grounded raft to steady herself as she got her feet firmly beneath her.

  And fell back to her butt.

  “Your circulation has likely been lessened in your lower extremities,” came the voice again. “They’ll be rubbery for a bit. I mean you no harm, but we need to take stock of injuries. I’m going to lift you and carry you to my truck.”

  She had to get out of there. He was the means. Kacey braced for the rough grab of criminal arms, and was surprised to feel the gentle slide, in tandem, of an arm around her back and another under her knees, followed immediately with a fluid standing motion. As though she weighed nothing at all.

  And he had some decency in him. He’d mentioned injuries—because he knew she had sustained some? Or because he assumed, based on having had to haul her away from near death, that she’d be hurt? Either way, it was as though he was taking care not to hurt her worse.

  A criminal with a conscience?

  Or—God, dare she hope—an actual Good Samaritan?

  She couldn’t let herself hope.

  Hope could get her killed.

  He set her on the back seat of his truck, legs out in front of her, and pulled the buckle down to help her get strapped in, albeit crookedly.

  He wasn’t tying her up.

  The door shut. She braced for his weight inside the vehicle and an abrupt fast start as he sped off with her to more unfamiliar territory.

  Instead, he was walking away. Leaving her alone in his truck. Or whoever’s truck.

  Didn’t make sense to try and run when she couldn’t trust herself to stand. And if the man truly wasn’t connected to her captors, she was right where she had to be.

  Hidden away from them.

  How soon they’d know she’d managed to cut her hands free with the help of a rusty nail and hours of darkness, she had no idea. They’d left her tied up in the bottom of a rowboat bobbing in the rain a quarter of a mile from shore. Could have planned to leave her there until she died, and then cut the anchor and let her drift away to dust.

  More likely, they’d already discovered her gone. Had crews out looking.

  Whatever Kyle had gotten himself into...it didn’t end with him. A flash of the bloodied knife she’d left at police headquarters the day before brought another debilitating shudder. Disbelief. Panic. She could still see the scrollwork. The little chip in the handle.

  No. She had to focus forward, one step at a time.

  Watching as the tall, lean, clearly athletic man ran back for his raft, she tried to memorize everything she could about him. Six feet or so tall. Dark hair, long enough for a decent ponytail. Hadn’t shaved in long enough to be scraggly but not far enough back to have grown a beard. Blue eyes.

  Wait. She’d noticed his eye color?

  Maybe she should scratch that one.

  Shorts. Name brand, but not fashionably so. T-shirt.

  * * *

  She’d been watching the man get the raft to the back of his truck without any risk of puncture or damage. She was impressed with his ability and care for his equipment.

  She sat up, her glance moving back and forth between the man securing the raft quickly in the vehicle bed and the keyless ignition.

  The man had a gun. She’d felt the unmistakable metal butt against her hip as he’d carried her. If his key fob was also in his pocket, she could roll over the seat, see if his fob was close enough for the truck to start and drive off before he had a chance to stop her.

  If she could trust her foot to push the pedal to get the damn thing to go.

  And he didn’t shoot her first for attempting to steal his truck.

  The last thought kept her in her seat. For all she knew, her captors were minutes away from finding her. It wasn’t like she’d had a lot of escape options with the waters raging from the storm that had hit just before midnight. She could swim across the Colorado River from Arizona to Nevada, but the award she’d won for doing so didn’t take storm, debris, currents, bound feet, exhaustion, pain and darkness into consideration. She’d used every one of her faculties just to stay afloat.

  At the moment, she’d be relatively easy to trace. They just had to head downstream, watching shores. Particularly for any sign of human habitation.

  Like a rafter on his boat...

  Ducking lower in the seat, feigning sleep as her rescuer and current captor slid onto the seat in front of her and the truck roared to life, Kacey reminded herself she had one mandate.

  She was not going to die.

  Chapter 2

  He had a victim of some kind. She’d had a captor whom he could assume was looking for her. Devon had to make her—and all evidence of anyone having been in the area that morning—disappear.

  Until he had a chance to assess the situation, to know who he had, who she was running from. He’d done a quick check of her pupils, her pulse when he’d set her in the truck. She’d said she was fine.

  At his first glance at the sleeping woman in his back seat, Devon surged with compassion. The woman had grit. And height, but she was such a slight little thing. Small bones. Without enough meat on them.

  Because she was a drug mule?

  The thought brought him up short. It was time for him to think like the great detective he’d once been certain he’d be. No more time to waste in the skin of the “don’t really have a goal in life” boat tour guide he’d grown dangerously used to pretending he was.

  Almost a year undercover, and he still couldn’t prove that drugs were moving up into the States via the Colorado River.

  Even with another, assessing glance in his rearview mirror and thinking like a cop, he had very little. Aside from the odd clothes, the obvious feminine shape, the dirty lighter-than-brown hair and brown eyes, the tenaciousness it had to have taken for her to stay alive in that water—feet bound no less—he couldn’t get a feel for what he was dealing with.

  A true victim?