Military Heroes Bundle: A Soldier's Homecoming / A Soldier's Redemption / Danger in the Desert / Strangers When We Meet / Grayson's Surrender / Taking Cover

“Me, too.” Sophie beamed.

Connie straightened, taking her daughter’s hand. “I want you to meet a friend of mine. He’s going to be staying with us for a little while. Ethan, this is my daughter, Sophie. Sophie, this is Mr. Ethan.”

Sophie looked up, then up farther, her eyes widening. “You’re an Indian!” she blurted.

For an instant Connie wished she could stuff cotton in Sophie’s mouth.

But Ethan only smiled and squatted, the soccer ball still under his arm. “I am,” he said. “You’ve seen Indians before, right?”

“Yeah.” Sophie grinned. “I think they’re cool. I wish I was Pocohantas.”

“Like in the movie?”

“Yeah. She’s beautiful.”

“Not as beautiful as you.”

Sophie’s brow creased. “Why not?”

“Cuz she’s not seven years old, plus she’s only a cartoon.”

Sophie giggled. “I know that. What’s the ball for?”

“I thought we could kick it around a little at the park.”

“Cool.” Sophie tugged her mother’s hand. “Let’s go.”

With Sophie skipping and holding her hand, Connie started walking toward the park. Ethan was on her other side.

Part of her felt relieved that Sophie didn’t seem afraid, but another part worried about Sophie’s ready acceptance of Ethan. Of course, she’d introduced him to Sophie herself, but still...

“Maybe,” she said quietly as Sophie sang cheerfully about the wheels on the bus as they passed the long line of waiting vehicles, “a little shyness would do her some good.”

“Naw,” said Ethan, just as quietly. “I didn’t mind what she said, and you don’t want to change her because of this thing.”

“No.” She looked at him. “That really worries me. That this could change her.”

“Then don’t let it.”

“Easier said than done, I fear.”

Sophie waved to friends, skipping along tirelessly, eager to get to the park. Connie kept scanning for anything the least bit suspicious but saw nothing. Everyone who was there should have been there. Nobody lurked or seemed out of place.

And the farther they got from the school, the thinner the crowds became, until they were nearly by themselves.

“Where’s Jody?” Connie asked Sophie. “I didn’t see her. I thought the two of you were stuck together like bubblegum.”

Sophie giggled again and downshifted from skip to walk. “She didn’t come to school today. I think maybe she was sick.”

Connie’s heart slammed. “I’ll call and check on her.” What if something had happened to Jody? But then she reminded herself that Jody’s mother had been the first to learn of what had happened, apart from the police. So maybe she had just kept Jody at home today.

“I got a surprise for you,” she told Sophie.

“Yeah? What?”

“A cell phone.”

“Oh, boy!” Sophie let out a shriek of delight. “I get my own cell phone!”

“I got one for me, too, so when we get home, we’ll figure out how to work them, and then I’m going to give you some rules.”

Sophie’s face scrunched up. “Everything has rules.”

“Everything,” Connie agreed.

Sophie peered around at Ethan. “Do you have rules, too?”

“Lots of them,” he said. “More than you do, I bet.”

“How come?”

“Because I was a soldier.”

“Oh.”

“Lots of rules for soldiers.”

Sophie shook her head. “Not as many as my mom makes.”

Ethan laughed. “We’ll see about that.”

They reached the park without seeing anything unusual, which contradictorily both eased Connie’s mind and heightened her fear. No threat right now, but what if the threat was merely hiding and waiting?

She shook her head, trying to clear it of such thoughts. No good to think that way. Utterly useless worrying.

No one else was at the park. Not a single swing moved. Connie would have expected to see at least a few children, preschoolers out with their mothers, if nothing else. Cold winters made spring days welcome and cherished, but apparently everyone had hunkered down.

Ethan chose an open patch of ground between the swings and the baseball diamond, and set the ball down. “We’re just going to practice kicking it around, okay? Because there’s no one else here yet to play with.”

Sophie nodded and dropped her backpack on the ground. “Everyone’s scared because of that man yesterday.”

“Are you scared?”

“A little. But I’m not alone.”

“Right.” Ethan smiled. “Have you ever kicked a soccer ball before?”

“Once in gym class. I wasn’t very good.”

“Then we’ll work on making you the best kicker in your class.”

Sophie nodded. “Yeah. The best.”

“That’s what we’ll shoot for.”

Connie stepped back, giving them room and pretending to absently look around, although there was nothing absentminded in her surveillance of the area.

She listened while Ethan showed Sophie how to kick with the side of her foot, not her toe. Pretty soon she got the hang of it and was kicking the ball where she wanted it to go. Both Connie and Ethan applauded her efforts.

A few minutes later, Sophie and Ethan were kicking the ball back and forth, even running with it a bit, every move accompanied by Sophie’s cries of delight.

Connie would have bet Ethan hadn’t a thought to spare for anything except the little game he and Sophie were playing. But then, in one dreadful moment, she learned otherwise.

“Let’s go,” Ethan said. His tone was level. Connie’s gaze snapped to his face. He was looking at something behind her. Instinctively she whirled around, but she saw nothing.

“I don’t wanna go,” Sophie argued. “This is fun.”

“We’ll play more later,” Ethan said. “Connie, take Sophie home. She needs a drink of water.”

“But—”

Connie took her daughter’s hand. “Let’s go, sweetie.” She hoped her voice didn’t betray the sudden terror and tension she was feeling. “We’ve got cell phones to learn how to use, remember?”

Apparently that didn’t seem important, because Sophie continued to pout as she left with her mother.

Ethan dashed away, soccer ball abandoned on the field.

Chapter 7

Connie paced, trying to ease the tension in every muscle of her body. Julia kept telling her daughter to calm down and have some coffee, but Connie hardly heard her. All she could think of was the way Ethan had looked—and the way he had suddenly run off.

He’d seen something. Someone had been watching them, she was sure of it. For the hundredth time, she went upstairs and checked on Sophie, who was already in command of her cell phone and calling friends on it.

“Jody’s mom didn’t have the car today,” she told Connie on one of her trips through the house.

“I know. I called.”

“Okay.”

“How’d you figure out how to use the phone so fast?”

Sophie rolled her eyes. “It’s easy, Mom.”

“I guess you’ll have to show me.”

“Sure.”

“Later.”

“Okay.” Sophie went back to her giggling conversation with Jody. At least Connie presumed it was Jody.

Connie walked around the house yet again, looking out all the windows, then went back downstairs, checking the perimeter from inside.

“You’re going to drive me crazy, girl,” Julia said. “Sit.”

This time Connie obeyed, even though her entire body felt electrified with the urge to move.

“You don’t know that he saw a threat,” Julia reminded her. “Remember, he doesn’t know folks around here. He could be mistaken.”

“Yeah. Of course.”

Julia pushed a cup of coffee over to her. “Now listen to me, Connie. You’ll be of no earthly use to anyone if you wear yourself out over nothing. Which is exactly what you’re doing.”

Connie snapped. “Don’t you get it, Mom? Some stranger knows Sophie’s name.”

“I get it, all right. I also get that everyone in this county is on high alert right now, and if some stranger approaches any child, he’s apt to be shot before he’s questioned.”

It was true, Connie knew. Maybe not the shooting part, but nobody around here was going to turn a blind eye to anything now. Not anything.

“Your neighbors are watching out for Sophie. For all the kids,” Julia said. “You know that.”

Connie drew a deep breath and tried to release some of the tension. “You’re right,” she said.

“Of course I’m right. I’m always right.”

Connie managed a wan smile. “Very true.”

Julia patted her hand. “Just hang in there. If the guy isn’t gone, he’ll get caught. In the meantime, everything possible is being done.”

Also true.

But it still wasn’t enough.

Just then, just as Connie was struggling with a desire to crawl out of her own skin as she tried to sit calmly at the table, Ethan entered through the kitchen door.

“Wild-goose chase,” he said succinctly.

“What did you see?”

“I thought I saw someone lurking in the bushes. If he was there, I sure as hell couldn’t find any evidence of it. Sorry I scared you.”

“Sit down,” Julia said, “and have some coffee with us. Thank you for trying to protect Sophie.”

Thank you? Connie thought. Thank you for scaring me out of my wits, she wanted to scream. But she knew that wasn’t fair even as she thought it, so she bit the words back. Instead, she filled her mouth with bitter coffee.

“How’s Sophie?” Ethan asked. He poured his own coffee and joined them.

“Oh, Sophie,” Connie said, trying not to let the tension seep into her words. “She’s so excited about having a cell phone, I doubt she noticed anything.”

“Good.” He sat across from her, studying her from dark eyes that seemed to see through her. The feeling was discomfiting, and she wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. “At least there’s one person I didn’t scare.”

Connie bit her lip, guilt edging into anger’s place. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ve been worried to death.”

“Of course,” he answered. “You can yell at me if you want.”

His words acted like a pin, puncturing the last of her tension. A sigh escaped her as she rested her forehead on her hand. “You didn’t find anything at all?”

“No.”

The word hung on the air, bald and uncompromising, but its very brevity seemed to say something. Connie lifted her head. “There was someone there.”

His face took on that carved look again, as if it had turned to stone.

“What did you find?” she demanded.

“Nothing.” He shook his head. “I don’t usually hallucinate. My life depends on seeing what’s really there. I thought I saw something. I don’t like being wrong.”

That was a whole mouthful, Connie thought. A butterfly returned to her stomach.

Julia apparently missed the subtext, however, because she said kindly, “We all make mistakes, Ethan. God never made a perfect man or woman.”

“No,” he agreed. “Thank God.”

* * *

Later, much later after Julia and Sophie had gone to bed and to sleep, Connie found Ethan sitting up in the darkened living room. He hadn’t even spread out the blankets and sheets she’d given him earlier.

“Are you going to stay up all night?” she asked. “You need some sleep.”

“You’re one to talk.” He turned in the darkness, and she caught the glimmer of his eyes. In the faint misty light that came through the sheer curtains, he became a figure of myth, a tall man with long hair, lacking only a shield and a sword to complete the image. Deep down inside, sensations began to stir, sensations she had banished to hell years ago.

Instinctively, she pulled her robe tighter and held it closed over her breasts.

“I can sleep while Sophie’s in school tomorrow,” he said. Apparently he sensed the awkwardness in the silence, too.

“Coffee?” she asked. “I thought it was just going to be me, so I planned on making tea, but since you’re a night owl, too, we might as well make coffee.”

“That would be great.”

Much to her relief, he didn’t follow. She made the coffee in the dark, waiting patiently for it to perk, thinking it was high time she got a drip coffeemaker. In short, anything that didn’t involve thinking about Sophie and the threat.

Or the man in her living room.

Some kind of preternatural shiver passed through her, focusing her mind on how Ethan had looked standing in the dark. Some psychic part of her clamored that she had business with him, though she couldn’t imagine what.

Oh, hell, yes she could. It didn’t take that big a leap to realize he drew her in some elemental way. Worrying about Sophie had kept her from recognizing other feelings, but here in the dark, they surged to the surface.

She could have turned on the lights, but she didn’t. She didn’t want to rupture the spell. It provided a much needed distraction right now, this yearning and need. This aching hunger that had grown unseen until it sprang from the jungle of her subconscious.

He would be safe, she realized. He would go away and take all the complications with him.

At once shock filled her. She didn’t think that way. She had never thought that way.

The aroma of the coffee filled her nostrils, speaking of hot, delightful, yet bitter flavors. Turning, she switched off the flame beneath the burner and filled two mugs. Strong and black.

Ethan still stood in the living room, looking out through the sheers at the street. She went to stand beside him and passed him a mug when he glanced at her.

“Thanks,” he said.

She didn’t reply. The spell locked her voice in her throat. An aura surrounded him. Holding her mug in both hands, closing her eyes, she sensed an emanation of power, strength and something far greater. For a moment she knew with certainty that if she opened her eyes, she would see him surrounded by rainbows. Crazy.

He spoke, his voice like night, all black velvet. “My people,” he said slowly, “believe that everything is alive, even the rocks.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. My mother was Cheyenne. She taught me some of the old ways and had her brother give me some training in what I suppose could be called the occult.”

She faced him then, forgetting everything else. “Shamanic tradition?”

“Yes.”

“Wow.” She barely breathed the word.

“Of course, it didn’t fit with most of what I was learning elsewhere or with my friends, so I took it all with a large grain of salt.”

“But now?”

“But now...” He shook his head. “I’ve felt the rocks cry out in protest at the blood spilled on them. I have heard the thunder speak. The ways of my mother’s people are as valid as your ways.”

Connie nodded. He did have an aura, she thought. She couldn’t see it, but she sure as hell could feel it, humming around him.

Almost in answer to what he had just said, a crack of thunder rent the night.

Connie bit her lip, waiting. The air around them crackled.

“I’ll protect your daughter,” he said. “But know this.”

She waited, her heart freezing.

“The danger is still there. I sense it. And it’s closing in.”

She wanted to scream at him that he was just trying to scare her, but deep in her very soul his words resonated with truth.

“Are you psychic?” she asked finally.

“Not really. If I were, many of my friends would still be walking this earth. But I am a mystic. I will admit that.”

“And you sense things.”

He looked at her, his eyes glimmering. “I sense things.”

Turning, she put her coffee on an end table and wrapped her arms tightly around herself. “I can’t stand this.”

He astonished her, opening his arms and drawing her close, holding her snugly and comfortingly. Her head rested on his hard chest, and she could hear his heartbeat, a steady thud.

Tension, a tight spring inside her, began to loosen, as if his touch held soothing magic. His embrace seemed like a safe haven, an experience she had never known.

Then his fingers found their way into her hair, stroking and massaging gently.

He didn’t offer any false promises, merely the sense that she wouldn’t be alone. A ridiculous feeling, when the whole county shared her concern. But this felt closer and more intimate, more real.

They stood together for a long time, coffee forgotten, everything forgotten. Another crack of thunder, this one even louder, drove them apart.

Connie jumped back. Then, embarrassed, she reached for her coffee and retreated to an armchair. He, too, picked up his mug, then turned to face the window again, watching the flickers of lightning brighten the night.

Eventually she found her voice again. “What do you mean when you say you’ve heard the thunder speak?”

He turned slightly in her direction. “Just that. If you listen, it can speak to you. Not that I’m going to say it happens all the time. You’re a Christian, right?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever heard God’s voice in your heart?”

“A few times.”

“Well, it’s the same. Sometimes I hear the thunder in my heart. It speaks to me.”

“And the stones?”

“The stones are alive. Everything is alive, Connie. That’s where we make our biggest mistake, I think, believing that some things aren’t. Or maybe a better word would be aware. Everything is aware. That’s why my uncle taught me to give thanks for even the smallest things. Give thanks to the tree before you cut it, things like that.”

“I happen to think that’s a beautiful way of looking at the world.”

“It could be.”

He returned his attention to the street. Lightning flashed brightly again, followed by a boom of thunder. “Give thanks to the rain, to the food you eat. To the mountains that shelter you. It’s not exactly pantheistic, at least not the way my uncle taught me. But it does recognize the importance of everything in our world.”

Intuition made her say, “You haven’t thought about this for a long time, have you.”

Another flicker of lightning limned his figure against the curtains, and she saw echoes of ancient warriors in the afterimage.

“No, I haven’t. For years now, I haven’t really had time to think about that part of myself except in a general way. I’ve been too focused on external reality. On trying to survive and keep my fellows alive. Not much room for anything else.”

“I wouldn’t think so. But now you have time.”

“I do.” He bent, retrieving his mug and sipping. “You make great coffee.”

“Thanks.”

The voice of thunder spoke again, a deep rolling rumble. Yet no rain fell.

“What I saw earlier today...” He hesitated.

“Go on. At this point I would believe you if you told me that you saw a leprechaun all dressed in green.”

A chuckle escaped him, a sound not unlike the thunder. “No leprechauns. Something else.”

She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “Tell me.”

“What I saw wasn’t there. It wasn’t a man. But I didn’t hallucinate, either.”

“Meaning?”

“I didn’t see with the eyes in my head.”

Shock slammed her chest like a semi running out of control. She couldn’t breathe; no air remained in the room. Finally, sucking in something that posed as air, she managed to say, “I don’t understand. Why did you run after it if it wasn’t real?”

“It was real,” he said with certainty. “I hoped to learn more, but I failed. All I can tell you is that the threat has not gone.”

“He’s still here?”

“And looking for your daughter.”

* * *

That put paid to any possibility of sleep for Connie. She drained her coffee mug, then went to refill it. When she returned to the living room, Ethan was sitting on the couch, holding his own mug. He was turned to the side so he could continue to look out the front window.

Lightning flashed, thunder boomed hollowly, and the fury seemed to be trying creep indoors.

Connie spoke. “You can’t know that.”

“Perhaps not.”

He didn’t seem to mean it, and she didn’t believe him, anyway. She considered herself a practical, prosaic person, but she also knew that was a bit of self-delusion. She’d had premonitions in her life. She’d had moments of absolute knowing that couldn’t be explained any other way. Not many, but enough to give her respect for Ethan’s intuition.

“Sorry,” she said after a moment. Her hand shook so badly she put her coffee down. “I’m trying to find denial here.”

He nodded. “I can understand that. But even if you do manage it, you won’t stay in denial long. You’re not the type.”

“Maybe not anymore. I used to be pretty good at it.”

“During your marriage.”

“Yes.”

That time the lightning flash blinded her, washing out the room with its glare. Then a crack of thunder threatened to rend the world. A cry from upstairs brought Connie from her chair and toward the stairway as if springs had ejected her.

Even so, Ethan beat her to it. He reached the top of the stairs when she was still only two-thirds of the way up.

She heard the bedroom door open, saw the light spill on as he flipped the switch. A couple of seconds later she was looking into her daughter’s bedroom. Sophie, pale-faced, was sitting upright in bed. “I’m scared,” she said.

Connie moved toward her. “That was sure loud, honey,” she agreed. She sat on the edge of her daughter’s bed and pulled the girl into a hug. “It made me jump, too.”

“I wanna come downstairs.”

“Fair enough,” Connie agreed. “Hot milk?”

“Hot chocolate.”

“Hmmm.” Connie pretended to think about it, hoping Sophie couldn’t hear how hard her heart was hammering. “Well, okay...”

A wan smile formed on Sophie’s mouth, but her eyes remained pinched.

It was too much for her, Connie thought. First the attempted abduction, and now this storm. Straw, camel, back, she thought. “Okay, let’s go downstairs. Hot chocolate sounds wonderful.”

Another crack of thunder shook the house to its foundations. Sophie looked up, clearly trying to be brave. “This is a nasty storm.”

“It sure is. Bad, bad, bad storm,” Connie added, as if scolding the weather.

Sophie’s smile grew more natural. Connie helped her daughter into her slippers and robe, and took her hand so they could walk down to the kitchen together.

Only as they moved toward the door did she realize that Ethan had vanished.

Gone like a ghost.

* * *

In the kitchen, with the lights all on, Connie began to warm milk. The storm had reached a peak of rage, shooting bullets of rain at the windows. Every growl of thunder made the house tremble. Long before the milk began to simmer, Julia appeared in her wheelchair.

“Goodness!” she said. “Only the dead could sleep through this.”

“Maybe they’re not,” Connie remarked.

“Yeah,” Sophie said. “Maybe they’re sitting on their tombstones and wishing it would quiet down.”

Julia and Connie both laughed.

“Where’s Deputy Ethan?” Sophie asked.

“I don’t know,” Connie answered truthfully. “Mom, will you watch the milk while I get him?”

“As if you need to ask.”

Connie didn’t exactly want Ethan to join the family circle; he’d already breached too many of her defensive barriers, leaving her exposed. But if it made Sophie feel more secure...

He had returned to the living room, to his guardian position.

“Sophie wants you to join us,” she said.

“Not necessary,” he replied quietly.

“I didn’t say it was. You’ve been invited.”

She clearly saw him hesitate in the glare of another lightning flash from outside, but then he turned to follow her. “Thank you,” he said.

The kitchen, the heart of this family, which ordinarily welcomed her with warmth, felt odd tonight. Alien. And it wasn’t Ethan who made it feel that way. It was something about the storm, Connie thought. Something had leached away the comfort she usually found here.

As they drank, Sophie announced, “I don’t want to go to school tomorrow.”

Connie hesitated. Part of her wanted to wrap Sophie up and keep her right here beside her until the threat vanished, but another part of her of understood that would be a bad way to handle the situation. It would teach Sophie all the wrong lessons about dealing with fear.