Secret Haven Series

Available for $2.99! Scroll down to the bottom to read Chapter one.

An icy wreck. The warmth of wedlock. Will sparks fly as she sidesteps a killer.

Laura Adams can’t shake the horrendous image of her parents dying in the same car crash she barely survived. But her debilitating pain is no match for the terrifying realization that this so-called accident was really an assassination. And when her FBI agent brother fakes her death to protect her, she flees to a misty island in Puget Sound and assumes the alias of a gentle fisherman’s wife.

Haunted by the loss of his father, Nick Kasanovic spends his lonely days reeling in fish and dreaming of starting a family. When his FBI buddy needs help protecting his sister’s identity, Nick agrees to legally marry her to facilitate a lifesaving name-change. But when he realizes he’s married the girl of his dreams, he regrets making her brother a platonic promise.

Struggling with PTSD, Laura fears falling for her protector could send her over the edge. And after an attack occurs while he’s out of town, Nick is terrified the woman he loves will become a hitman’s catch of the day.

Will the unexpected couple fend off bloodthirsty killers and turn their fake marriage into something real?

Outrunning the Devil is the first book in the page-turning The Secret Haven romantic suspense series. If you like strong female protagonists, sinister conspiracies, and forbidden passions, then you’ll adore S K Brown’s edge-of-your-seat tale.

The Fisherman’s Wife

An island paradise. A long hoped for surprise. A fatal secret.

Laura’s idyllic life with Nick Kasanovic, the courageous, gentle fisherman, is a stark contrast to the nightmare just a few months earlier. Living in a lush, secret haven of anonymity on Fidalgo Island, Laura thrives. As far as everyone knows, the people who tried to kill her in Book I think she’s dead. She begins to heal and become strong, confident, and assertive. As a new member of Nick’s big warm family, she’s never been happier.

Nick’s business continues to flourish and the life he’d always dreamed of comes true in every way—until they get a surprise they both thought they wanted. 

Suddenly everything spirals out of control again. Additional challenges threaten to bring Laura to her breaking point despite her new inner strength. Just when she has a handle on her life again, a deadly secret comes to light. 

Her parents’ killer, Lyle Mooney, knows she’s alive and that she’s a witness. This time he catches her on her own when Nick goes out of town and she’ll have to save herself. She must resurrect old plans, using every meager resource available, and fight for her life to survive.

Nick’s raw courage is tested as he faces the unthinkable:  the break of his and Laura’s almost supernatural bond, losing everything he’s ever dreamed of. He and her brother, Shane, along with his team of FBI agents are in a race to find her and stop Mooney and his gang before time runs out.

Crazy twists and turns lead to an ending you won’t believe! If you love deep, tender love stories, page-turning suspense, heart-pounding action, and strong, principled protagonists, then this book is for you!

Book II of the Secret Haven Series will whet your appetite for the rest of the story. Buy The Fisherman’s Wife and The Secret Life of Ghosts today!

“The thrill ride continues with Laura and Nick Kasonovic as they fight for their lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. You’ll fall in love with this strong and resilient couple, and the place they live in, as they face down an insidious enemy.” —Kristen Johnston, author.

The Secret Life of Ghosts

Did Laura, Nick, and Shane survive? You won’t believe the answer to the cliff hanger in Book II, The Fisherman’s Wife.

Book III has even more twists and turns in a haunting, beautiful new setting. A surprising new romance develops between two unlikely members of the story’s cast. As the Adams and Kasanovic families band together to save Nick and Laura during her dangerous pregnancy, they’re betrayed by one of their own. 

The frustrating investigation into the hate group and the man responsible for the deaths of Shane and Laura’s parents continues. As the clock ticks down, the bodies pile up during the impossible search for Lyle Mooney, the cold-blooded killer. The horrifying mess comes to an ugly head in a bloody fight between good and evil.

Nick’s mother, Sarah, finds a secret connection between the two families in an unexpected source, healing the wounds of the present, and those of centuries past.

Book III is the nail-biting conclusion of the Secret Haven Series. If you love suspenseful family sagas, characters you hate to say goodbye to, and intense stories of true love, The Secret Life of Ghosts will leave you deeply satisfied. Buy it today for an exciting thrill ride!

“The Secret Life of Ghosts is full of suspense, adventure, and healing. The much anticipated investigation comes to a head in a very unexpected way. The character development continues to delight as we witness Nick, Laura, and Shane rally together to defeat the militia. This book is an incredibly satisfying close to the Secret Haven Series.” —Sydney Lee, contributor, Dividing Colors: War and Rights

Outrunning the Devil

Chapter one

When Laura Adams came to, she had the sense that she was drowning. She was face down in the wet snow, unable to breathe. Something in the back of her brain insisted that breathing was important though, so she turned her head to one side and attempted to cough out the contents of her nose and mouth. A sharp pain in her ribs cut through her body and that, along with a pounding in her head and the persistent sensation of suffocating, sped up her emerging consciousness.

She tried to think but the sludge in her brain made it difficult. After she cleared her airways enough to breathe, she realized that she must have been unconscious, but for how long, she had no idea.

It was dark. Big flakes of snow fell lightly over her body and on the surrounding earth. She tried to pull herself onto her elbows, but her left arm throbbed with pain. It must be broken, she thought. She managed to support herself on her right elbow as she tried to survey her surroundings. It proved difficult, especially with wet, muddy strings of her long hair plastered to her face. She brushed a few strands from her left eye; then felt something warm and slightly sticky running down the bridge of her nose.

She saw a big dark hulk of something farther down the hill from where she was facing and realized it was the car. The soft, yellow glimmer of a single headlight lit up her mind; it all came flooding back to her.

She remembered walking through the door of her parents’ house in Simsbury, Connecticut, lights in the windows glowing with warmth and welcoming. It had rained for the first half of the drive down from her apartment in Manchester, then the rain became big, soggy splats of snow on the windshield. By the time she drove into the driveway, they were huge, dry snowflakes, falling fast. The temperature dropped quickly outside, a contrast to the inside of her childhood home where it was warm and bright.  

Her father persuaded her to stay for the weekend, to ride out the big storm that was supposed to hit that night. It was predicted to shut down every town on the northern half of the eastern seaboard. It didn’t take much to convince her.

She felt tired and low after another week at her hopeless, heartbreaking job at the worst elementary school in East Hartford. A year and a half earlier, she was a bright-eyed girl right out of college: full of hope and wanting to make a difference.  

In college she was torn between studying art or preparing for a career as a humanitarian aid worker. Both paths worried her overprotective father. He skillfully manipulated her into studying education to become an elementary school teacher, convincing her she could put her artistic abilities to good use and make a difference by teaching at a school in impoverished East Hartford, a town not too far from their home in Simsbury. These arguments might have failed if not for the fact that Laura's mother had been battling breast cancer since her senior year of high school.  

In her junior year, Henry Adams discovered that his quiet, daydreamy little daughter was actually quite assertive and even had a bit of a temper. He tried to forbid her from going to school out west, as her older brother had, and the ensuing arguments were frequent and surprising.  

She was accepted to Stanford University. She wanted to go there more than anything. Henry had the means to send her and she was a good kid. She was the kind of daughter any father would dream of having. She was bright, kind, insightful, and infinitely talented. Her only flaws were a fragility of health, and she was too good for her own good. He worried a lot about people taking advantage of her because of her innocence and generosity.  

Laura had come as a wonderful surprise to him and his wife when they thought the opportunity to have more children was long gone. They tried for some time with no success and resigned themselves to the fact that their son, Shane, would be their only child. The moment she was first placed in his arms, he was in love. He felt in this miniature person, barely a few minutes old, a magical, feminine soul that seemed to fill up the room. She was born a few weeks premature, tiny and struggling to survive. It seemed to him that she had been struggling to survive ever since and he developed an unyielding drive to protect her.

She became his little companion and he was her biggest fan. This delicate little person was astonishingly bright and talented, and, though he saw this, he failed to recognize the latent fight within her. The resistance to his mandate to stay home to go to school at the University of Hartford was a shock, to say the least.  

He had no reasonable justification for it. He was wrong and he knew it, but he rationalized to himself that he was doing it out of love -- to protect her. It was a battle he couldn’t win, not only because of his inviable arguments, but because he was outnumbered. His wife sided with Laura and, in the end, he only won his losing battle because she tragically, though perhaps fortuitously, got cancer. He convinced Laura to stay home to go to college and help him care for her sick mother. His wife tried to protest, but her weak attempts were evidence against her. He felt a bit despicable about it but decided the ends justified the means since it was for Laura’s own good, fair or not.

Laura turned out to be a godsend during her mother’s illness. She tirelessly nursed her through years of treatment and, eventually, back to good health. The rift in the relationship between Laura and her father was mended by their joint efforts to save her mother.

After a long hard fight, Catherine Adams was finally cancer free, and just in time for Laura’s college graduation. Henry tried to convince Laura to continue living at home in Simsbury after she got her job teaching in East Hartford, arguing that she could more quickly save up for a house of her own. However, she had definitely had enough and his sordid bag of manipulations was empty.

He was surprised and proud of how well she seemed to be doing living on her own, but ever since Christmas he sensed that she had a depressing dissatisfaction with her life. His real intent in persuading her to come home for the weekend was to figure out the cause of it. He had a feeling that it was her job. He started to regret the way in which he had influenced her career path and he hated the thought that he might be the cause of her discontentment. Her happiness was too high a price to pay for his peace of mind. He wanted to repent of his sins and help her find something better.

As Laura lay there in the dark recalling the events of the night, she suddenly remembered her parents. She started scanning the dark ground for them and spotted two motionless bodies lying in the dim light of the headlight several yards from her head, but farther up on the steep hillside. She tried to call out to them but all that came out was a whisper of a cough that hurt her ribs.

They had been hit going around a sharp curve where the shoulder disappears into a long, steep embankment. The car rolled several times, tossing them out like rag-dolls into the snow. Her parents where ejected first, then Laura. She landed farther down the embankment closer to where the car stopped rolling.

She started to drag herself up the hill and over to them when, suddenly, she heard her father order her to lie still and pretend she was dead. Instinctively, she flattened herself on the hard, sodden ground, her head turned in their direction and relieved to have heard his voice.

Immediately after pressing herself to the ground, she saw a dark figure with a flashlight working his way carefully down the slippery hill. She couldn’t see his face, but was sure he must be there to help. She was about to raise up and call out when he did something that sickened her. 

He came to her father first, shining his flashlight over him, and said, “Well, you look good and dead to me. Let’s just make sure.” He then kicked him as hard as he could. Laura heard the thud of his boot on dead flesh. He landed a couple more kicks, his sinister laugh echoing in the darkness. He made his way over to her mother. He kicked her hard three times. “How does it feel to be dead you old bitch?”

She hoped that they were both just pretending to be dead, but from where she watched in the dark, it didn’t look like it. Laura winced with each kick and boiled with fury at the sight of her mother’s thin body, so full of softness and comfort, being callously desecrated. She heard the voice again, more firmly this time, reminding her to play dead no matter what. She wondered why the stranger didn’t hear it. Again she obeyed.

With the monster still turned toward her parents, she carefully rotated her head to the opposite side, facing down the hill so he couldn’t see her face when he approached her. She braced herself for the kicking.

He searched the ground with his flashlight until he found her farther down the hill closer to the wrecked car. He started to make his way down to her but misjudged the roughness and steepness of the terrain. He slipped on some loose gravel and lost his balance in the soggy earth. His butt met with a craggy little boulder half buried in the hillside. He yowled a stream of obscenities as he grabbed a nearby rock and hurled it down the hill in the direction of Laura’s head, but he had terrible aim in the dark. The rock missed her head, luckily, but lanced her back instead on its way down the hill to the car. A dull, metallic thud sounded in the darkness as it found the end of its journey in the wreckage. Laura managed to stay still when the rock hit her, even though the force of it made her wonder if it broke her back. She kept still, ignoring this new pain as she listened to his cursing in the cold, night air.  

She waited. She heard him climbing his way back up the steep, slippery ground, mumbling to himself all the way. It was pitch black where she landed, not too far from some trees and the single, shining headlight was pointing away from her toward the bodies of her parents. She knew she was in the shadows and wouldn’t be seen by him, especially since she was wearing a black wool coat.  

Laura had a unique ability that went unrecognized by her family. In crisis situations, when everyone else panicked or froze, her mind became clear and calm. She had the vision to see what needed to be done in an instant and went about doing it with serene courage.  

When she was sixteen, a sudden, heavy snowstorm hit during the early hours of school. The classroom she was in during the last hour of the day was housed in a fifty-year-old building with a flat roof. Over the course of the day, the snow had accumulated and had become too heavy for the old roof to support. It gave way over Laura’s class and buried most of the students in snow and debris.

She had been sitting in the back near the wall and had escaped the deadly pile. Her mind became calm and snapped into action. While the dazed teacher paced pointlessly at the front of the classroom, she took charge of the situation and got the unaffected students to help her dig out the buried ones. Some of the students were alive with various injuries. Some of the others were lying still and motionless. She and the other students helping her couldn’t tell if they were alive or dead. After just a few minutes of very efficient effort, the fire department and police arrived. Laura was shuffled off to the side while the adults took over the rescue.

She was later given an award at a school assembly for her quick thinking and bravery. Her father, however, was more angry than proud, not giving much heed to the students' accounts of her pivotal role in saving so many. He was inwardly furious that she would risk her fragile little life; a life that he had worked so hard to protect over the years.

Ever since the moment she first saw the figure creeping down the hill and heard the command to play dead, that strange switch in her brain was flipped. Calmness and clarity took over.

As she heard him climb back up the hill, she slowly turned over on her side, trying hard to ignore the pain, so that she could get a look at him. She was ready to fall back on her face immediately should he turn his flashlight on her. He turned around for one last look at her parents on his way back. The headlight illuminated his evil face and he had no clue Laura was staring from the pitch dark.

The fog lifted from her mind and she memorized his form and features during the moment he stood there, taking one last ugly look over the visible carnage. Her artist brain drew a picture of him in her mind as she went over every curve and angle of his face and body. She would draw the picture again later, on paper, then she’d give it to her brother: he'd know what to do with it.

That is, if she lived long enough to do it.  

The man reached the road and slid through the gaping hole in the twisted guardrail. The snow let up briefly as the full moon peeked through the shifting clouds. He turned around again, his beer belly protruding into the moonlight, despite the fact that the wool hunting jacket he wore was quite heavy.  

The night was still and quiet. No cars had driven by for quite a while. He wrestled a cell phone out of his uncooperative pants. She strained to listen and heard some of his words.

“Yep, you bet. It’s done, all three of ‘em. Yeah, there were three.”

She watched him disappear into the darkness as he turned and walked to the other side of the road. She heard a heavy car door open and slam shut — or maybe it was a truck. That’s right.  It was a truck! The sound of the door jarred her memory. Moments before the accident, she remembered glancing up the road toward the curve, worrying that her father was going a little too fast on the icy road. In her peripheral vision she had seen a big, black truck.  

It was a big pick-up truck with a gun rack in the back and some bars on the front. They were called kangaroo catchers or something, she tried to remember. The truck was parked on the left shoulder, perpendicular to the road facing the beginning of the curve. She looked down at her phone and -- something hit the car with such force that it immediately flew through the barrier and began rolling down the hill. She must have blacked out, though she wasn't sure when, but had probably only been unconscious for just a moment since she came to before the man climbed down the hill.

She heard the rhythmic growl of a Diesel engine and saw the bright shine of headlights over the gully as he turned his truck around and left. Once he was gone, she noticed how dark and silent the night was on that embankment. There was only the partial moonlight and one headlight -- which was now starting to go dim -- to give her light.  

She became aware that she was shaking uncontrollably, but not from the cold. She was in shock. Her focus changed from the dark specter who wanted her dead to the dire situation she was in. She was still laying injured in the dark, probably alone. She took mental stock of everything and tried to figure out what to do. She heard the sound of a passing car. She realized she needed to get to the road for help.  

She managed to drag herself on her belly towards her parents, her razor sharp focus cutting through the growing pain. After watching and listening to them being kicked by that beast, she was fairly certain they were dead. But she had without-a-doubt heard her father’s voice telling her what to do, so she had to make sure.

Every inch of ground she covered seemed to take all the strength and resolve she had. Logically, she knew she had to make it, but her body and emotions rebelled hard against her mind as she plowed through the pain.  Her inner strength won out as she fought for her survival.  

She reached her mother first. She lay on her belly with her face turned to the side towards Laura. Laura shifted enough to be out of the way of the dimming headlight which shone softly on her mother’s form. She seemed so small and fragile in the snow, with the great expanse of blackness all around her. Laura pulled herself close to her mother’s face and gently touched her cheek. It was cold and lifeless.  

This was the first time Laura had ever seen a dead body. She imagined it would be eerie, maybe terrifying, but to her surprise, it wasn’t. Just painfully sad. She checked for a pulse. There was none, just as she had feared.  

She made her way over to her father who was lying on his back, face up to the sky. She laid her head on his strong, solid chest to listen for a heartbeat and to rest a little before making her way up the hill. He was still as stone. She lingered there for a few minutes, crying softly, but she knew the longer she stayed there, the harder it would be to get up that hill. If she waited too long she might become still as stone herself. She looked back at them one last time as she dragged herself up the hill. Her father’s face looked fake in the pale white glow of the moon and snow. Like it was made of wax.  If only, she thought.

She barely made it to the top of the embankment and was fully crying out loud with pain and exhaustion by the time she did. It took too much energy to stifle any sounds, so she let it all out in the dark in whatever form it took. She got to the side of the road and rolled over on her side, unable to move another inch, nearly unconscious.

It was a very dark night, except for the moments when the clouds parted enough for the full moon to shine on the sparkling snow and the glassy wet road. During one of these brief, brighter moments Ruby Schoenfeld, age 69, came by. She was anxious to get home, but also anxious enough about the nasty roads that she drove under the speed limit. As she came around the curve she noticed what looked like a pile of clothes by the side of the road. She slowed down even more and, as she got almost right up to it, she saw a face. It was a person, probably a woman. Her clothes were covered with mud and blood and she didn’t look conscious.

“Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!” Ruby said over and over as she backed up a little and pulled her car over onto the shoulder. She got out and ran over to Laura. She fumbled nervously in her purse until she got a hold of her cell phone. She used it to shine a light on Laura and asked, “Are you alive? Are you okay?”

“I’m alive, but I’m hurt,” Laura answered weakly.  

Ruby dialed 911, and while she waited for an answer, asked: “How did you get hurt?”

“Car accident,” Laura whispered with great effort as she pointed to the embankment.

The 911 operator answered and Ruby told her where to send the ambulance. She bent over Laura and brushed the filthy, sopping wet hair out of her face. “What can I do to help you right now?”

“Can I use your phone? I need to call my brother."

“Of course. Tell me the number and I’ll dial it for you.”

Laura barely got the number out. She was fading every second. The phone started ringing and Ruby held it to Laura’s ear, but by the time Shane answered Laura couldn't speak. Her injuries overcame her and she passed out. Ruby put the phone up to her own ear.

“Hello! Hello! Who is this?” he asked impatiently.

“Hi, my name is Ruby Schoenfeld. Your sister was hurt in a car accident a few minutes ago. I was driving down the highway and saw her laying by the side of the road. She’s alive, but hurt pretty bad. She was conscious when I got to her. She asked me to call you, but she just passed out. I called an ambulance so hopefully they’ll be here any minute.”

“How bad is she hurt? Is anyone else with her?” Shane asked anxiously.

“I'm not sure how bad she’s hurt. It's really dark on this part of the road. I can see that she’s bleeding..." Ruby paused and softened her voice, “She seemed to be in a lot of pain. I don’t dare move her before the paramedics get here.”

“Good idea. She could have a spinal injury,” Shane concurred.

“I can’t see that anyone else is with her, but I haven’t had time to look around and like I said it’s really dark. She told me she was in a car accident and pointed to the steep embankment. I don’t know where her car is, but hold on. I’ll look around and see what I can see.”

She walked away from Laura to the broken guard rail, now torn to shreds. She stared down into the deep well of darkness leading to the trees below. The headlight had died and clouds covered the bright full moon temporarily. All she could see was the hulking shape of what might be a car and a couple of smaller, dark-colored things several feet away from it. Though they were contrasted against the white snow, she couldn’t be sure they were bodies.

“I can see the shape of something that might be a car and what looks like some kind of debris near it." She spoke hesitantly, "I can’t tell if any people are down there...”

“Okay, can you tell me where you are right now?” Shane asked.

“Barkhamstead," she answered. "We’re on East Hartland Road."

“Hmm, north of Gavitt Road?

“Well, yes, probably about 2 miles from Gavitt,” she guessed.

“That’s not good," Shane thought out-loud, "I have a feeling she was with our parents. My mother’s favorite restaurant is out that way and probably where they were headed. Black-eyed Susan’s. Do you know it?”

“Oh, yes. My best friend works there. It’s about 5 minutes away from here,” Ruby answered. “I’ll let the EMT’s know that you think they may have been in the accident too.”

“Thank you for stopping and helping my sister. You may have saved her life. Can you call me back in a while and let me know which hospital they take her to? I’m in West Virginia right now and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“You bet,” Ruby answered kindly, “what was your name?”

“Shane Adams.”

“Okay, Shane." She paused, the gravity of what he must be feeling right now sinking in. Her voice wavered, "I’ll call you the minute I know anything, dear. Promise. Talk to you later.”

After Ruby got off the phone with Shane, a car approached. It slowed to a stop and a man rolled down his window. “Hey, is everything okay here?"

“This girl has been in an accident. She’s hurt pretty bad,” Ruby replied, pointing at Laura. He pulled over to the side of the road and got out. He bent down to look at Laura. He started to roll her over to take a better look at her, but Ruby stopped him. “I don’t think you should do that. She might have a spinal injury. I called an ambulance and they should be here any second.”

“Good thinking,” he mumbled and moved into a different position, pretending to look at her from a different angle so he could see what was wrong with her, but his intention was to block Ruby’s view of what he was about to do. He felt for her pulse and found it. He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a large pocket knife without Ruby seeing it. He was just about to slide the blade into Laura’s throat where he felt the pulse of an artery when the sound of sirens perforated the night air. He shoved the knife back into his pocket just a second before the paramedics were pushing him aside.  

Ruby told them every detail of what had happened from the moment she spotted Laura on the side of the road. She told them about her conversation with Shane and asked which hospital they planned to take her to. In the commotion, the man slipped away in the darkness without anyone noticing.  

When he drove a short distance down the road he made a phone call. “Hey, Lyle, I’ve got bad news for you. One of them lived.”

“What are you talking about?” the man on the other end of the line asked.

“After I left, when you said you didn’t need me anymore, I drove to the store to get some beer and some cigs. On my way home, I drove past the spot where you hit those people. There was an older lady standing there next to a girl who was hurt pretty bad. She must’ve pulled over when she saw her. She said the girl was in an accident. She’d already called an ambulance by the time I got there. I was about to finish the job for you with my pocket knife when the ambulance pulled up.”

“So what’d you do?” Lyle asked.

“Well, I snuck away. I didn’t wanna stick around.”

Lyle spit. “You jackass! You should’ve stayed to figure out where they were taking her and who she was. Damn it!”

“Sorry, but I did overhear the lady telling the EMT’s that she was conscious when she first got there and that the girl asked her to call her brother. They asked for his name and number. I heard her say it was Shane Adams, I think. Maybe it was something else. I don’t know, I just wanted to get out of there. I didn’t hear anymore.”

“Okay," he sighed, "at least you got that. Check the nearby hospitals and see if you can figure out which one she’s at. I don’t know if she saw anything, but I’m sure as hell not going to wait to find out. I’ll be back to tie up this loose end as soon as I can.”

“Okay, I’ll let you know what I find out.”

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