WHAT THE FIRE HID: A Christian Small-Town Romance with Suspense (Broken Ground)

The burn was supposed to make the water safe. The men who lit it knew better.Four days after tank cars left the rails above Kettle Fork, North Carolina, the smoke has cleared, the contractor has posted a notice, and every house in the hollow has been told the creek is fine.Laurel Greer knows better, and she cannot prove it. She is the only nurse practitioner in the valley, the one who trained away and came straight back because there was nobody else, and the charts going up on her wall have started to rhyme. Same fever. Same rash. Different houses, and one creek running past all their back doors. The only people allowed to test that water are the people who spilled it.Cort Dabney drives the disaster relief truck in, hauls what needs hauling, and plans to be gone before anybody learns his name. Nobody has ever kept him, and he quit waiting on it a long time ago. Then the church kitchen sets him a plate he did not ask for, a train-mad seven-year-old picks him out of a crowd, and Cort notices one thing at the derailment site that does not match the paperwork.Advent comes to the mountains. The one road out narrows to a single lane and closes at night. Up the gap a machine is idling, and the truth about the water has a deadline.Clean, closed door, and honest about the faith at its center: a slow-burn romance, an ordinary evil in a Sunday suit, and a Christmas Eve worth staying for.Book 4 in the Broken Ground Series. Each book can be read as a standalone