One Diamond Shy

ONE DIAMOND SHY 

Raleigh Leary has issues: she knows herself a gamed fiancée, also a failed fine artist, also homeless heir to her late father's foreclosed cottage on five rainforest acres in the Pacific Northwest.

Incorrectly assuming she'll pick up her previous job after a decade of unpaid parental caregiving; a profitless art show booth; and being stranded by her old car wrong side of the mountain from her urban goal – Raleigh's frustration and grief fix on a final remedy to her watershed year. No great fortune does she think it then, when Gus Clast and his dogs fish her out of her plunge into the Marillius River. A former firefighter, he uses his first responder training to keep her from succumbing to the exposure of her mountain meltwater dip.

Working incognito washing dishes at a country roadhouse, Gus would rather keep the rescued newbie "waitress/quick-sketch artist" thinking he's the fool he pretends, than let on he's a career mineralogist who blew the whistle on a major mining conglomerate's lethal environmental practices. Playing both ends against the middle, he's also doing a bit of sly prospecting the locale in his spare time, seeking the "Lost Jenny," an obscure nineteenth-century gold mine.

His research suggests the scenic Marillius canyon holds an overlooked resource. Already it has offered up a couple of "pickers and carbon crystal cubes" to sampling. Trouble is, the corporation poised to exploit mineral rights on the strength of Gus's future report would buy those rights and bulldoze the land, destroying any hope of retrieving Raleigh's home to turn it into a forested park holding an artisan's village and academy.

To his delight, Gus's rescued victim turns out a resilient woodswoman, so she must know the mine's whereabouts. He's cautious, with an NDA contract ready that proposes a working partnership from which they'd both benefit. However her refusal to read or sign it forces him to reassess tactics. Soon he proposes marriage – but gets a bewildering surprise in another rejection. Raleigh has massive trust issues. She holds a secret of her own – having inherited a rare wine-red natural diamond crystal. If only she can find a mineralogist to test, validate it and not double-cross her, a sale of the rock to the right entity would fetch a mogul's mad money.

Raleigh's suspicions are soon confirmed when she discovers the murky pact Gus has with his former employer. Worse yet, she susses out his work alliance with her treacherous ex-romeo, Chase Chaffee, whose trickery had risked her mentally-fragile father's life. Even after being shown the door, Chase is persistently in-and-out of the picture, stalking the fraught pairing and their secrets.

Her struggle to rely on Gus is crucial: how might she trust her life, love and treasure to anybody so secretive? How often will she let him con her, and will Gus's unorthodox courtship methods support a happy outcome for her? One Diamond Shy by Marcie Murray mines the diatremes of one woman's heart for "gold in the box".