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

She lifted her head, unaware that tears trembled on her lower lashes. “I’ve been so afraid I would lose her. I’ve never stopped being afraid of that.”

“I can tell.”

“I guess, until this past week, I never faced the fact that I’d never stopped being afraid of that. Of Leo.”

“Some ghosts just won’t go away.” He stopped kneading her shoulders and sat beside her, drawing her close, as if to protect her.

“I thought it had.” She dashed the tears away. “This is ridiculous. I can’t go on being a prisoner of fear. I’ve got to stand up to it.”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

“Not enough. Not nearly enough.” She clenched her hands, then released them. “I’ve got to find this guy. If it’s Leo, I’m going to teach him a lesson.”

“Be careful what kind.”

She looked at him angrily. “What do you mean?”

“Just be careful. There are lots of ways to teach a lesson, some not so good.”

“I’m not an idiot!”

“But you carry a gun. Just—” He broke off, then shrugged. “Sorry. You don’t need me telling you things you already know.”

A shudder ripped through her. “No, you’re right. I’m not sure I’m fully rational right now. It’s as if...as if a great big gaping wound has been torn open. I’m hurting so bad, and I’m so worried about Sophie. And you’re right, I’m armed. If someone threatened her...”

“If someone threatens her, that’s different. You know it. You’re a police officer. If you need to apply reasonable force, you can and you will.”

“But can I trust myself not to be unreasonable? Right now, I don’t know. Right now, I’m afraid I might not be able to.”

“Right now, you have time to think about what’s going on inside you. To deal with it. You’ll calm down.”

“Sure. Yeah.” She gave a bitter laugh. “I thought for years I was calm. Apparently I was hiding from myself, too.”

“You wouldn’t be the first person to do that.”

“Did you see how she looked when she walked out of here, Ethan? Did you see her eyes?”

“She’s tired,” he said soothingly. “She’s a little kid, and she’s been up all night. Sure, what you told her was probably difficult to swallow, and it’ll take time for her to wrap her mind around it, but most of what you saw was pure fatigue.”

“How can you know that? How can you possibly know that? What if she hates me now? I sent her father to jail!”

He shook his head and caught her chin in his hand, forcing her to look at him. “Listen, Connie. Please listen. She understood that he hurt you bad enough to put you in the hospital. You underestimate her love for you if you think she’s going to turn on you because Leo broke the law and went to jail.”

“What if she doesn’t see it that way?”

“With a mom who’s a cop, I’m pretty sure she understands that. Besides, she’s seven, not three. Bad people go to jail. She knows that.”

“Yeah. Yeah. But other bad people aren’t her dad.”

His expression grew gentle. “She doesn’t know the man, Connie. Her only emotional attachment to him is an attachment to an idea. He’s not real. He hasn’t been with her all these years. He hasn’t taken care of her. Give her a chance to think about it and absorb it. She’ll be okay.”

“You’re so sure.”

“I had less reason to understand, but I did.”

She couldn’t deny the truth of his words. Maybe she really wasn’t expecting too much of a seven-year-old. The questions had arisen, and needed to be answered. If Sophie was wondering, she deserved to know. Connie had always followed the rule that if the child asks, the child is ready to know at least something. She hadn’t dumped gory details on the girl, just a general outline.

“Maybe,” she said finally. “Maybe.”

“Trust your daughter’s love.”

Surprising what a tall order that suddenly seemed to her. Yet she knew that Ethan was right. She would just have to prepare herself for an emotional reaction from Sophie. Because there was bound to be one.

There was always a price, it seemed. Even for the truth.

Chapter 15

Julia arrived home just before noon. She took one look at Connie and demanded to know what was wrong.

“Sophie asked about her father.”

“Well, you knew that was coming.” Julia wheeled over to the stove and poured herself a cup of coffee. Ethan rose and started to leave the kitchen, but Julia waved him back. “Stay, Ethan,” she said. “You’re practically part of this family now, and I suppose you were here when Sophie asked.”

He nodded and resumed his chair. Julia’s knowing eyes moved between them, as if she sensed the change in their relationship. But she said nothing.

“So how did she take it?”

“I don’t know,” Connie answered frankly. “She seemed to accept what I said, but then she went straight upstairs to bed. She was up all night, but—”

“Shh,” Julia said, interrupting her. “Don’t make this bigger than it needs to be. The child was probably just exhausted.”

“I’m still worried,” Connie told her. “How can I not be worried? And another thing, I’m wondering why this came up now. She said it was because she and the other girls played games last night with Jody’s mom and dad, but that’s nothing new.”

Julia put her mug on the table and rearranged her chair so she was sitting comfortably facing them. “Maybe it has to do with this stranger.”

Connie, thinking of last night’s phone call, a call she didn’t want to mention to her mother, felt a sickening jolt. “What do you mean?”

“Maybe,” Julia said, “she’s feeling a need for protection.”

“She won’t get it from that quarter,” Connie said bitterly.

“She probably realizes that now,” Julia agreed. “Assuming you told her something about why you had to leave him.”

“I made it as sketchy as I could, but yes.”

“Poor thing.” Julia sighed. “For everything this mess has put us through this week, in her own way she’s been through just as much. Maybe we haven’t given enough thought to how scared she’s been. Oh, I know she’s acting as if it’s all okay, but maybe she’s trying to be strong for you, Connie. I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“Great.” Connie closed her eyes briefly. “Here I’ve been assuming that she was okay, that as long as we surrounded her with protection and she knew it was there, she’d feel safe. God, I feel like a dunce.”

“Well, she’s not exactly acting as if she’s scared of her own shadow. If she doesn’t want you to know, how are you supposed to?”

“Because I’m supposed to be her mother and read between the lines. She’s only seven.”

“And a lot of seven-year-olds would have put that stranger behind them by now. They don’t dwell on things unnecessarily, the way we adults do.”

“Usually.” Connie rose. “I’m going to look in on her.”

She climbed the stairs with leaden feet, full of old fears and now new ones. She had honestly believed that Sophie was getting back to normal after her scare. Apparently not.

Why else all the questions about her father?

She opened the door quietly and looked in. Sophie lay in a tangle of blankets, wrapped around her favorite stuffed dog. Maybe, when this was over, she should let her mother get Sophie that dog. On the other hand, dogs, as wonderful as they were, meant more bills, bills that might strain an already tight budget.

She started to back out, but stopped when she heard Sophie’s sleepy voice. “Mom?”

“Yes, honey?” At once she went to sit on the edge of Sophie’s bed and laid a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s going to be okay, right?”

“Of course it is. Are you still scared of that man?”

“Not really.” Sophie rolled onto her back and looked at her. “I heard Grandma come home.”

“Yes, she’s in the kitchen with Ethan, having coffee.”

“I like Ethan.”

“So do I.”

“I wish I had a dad like him, instead of the other kind.”

Connie didn’t need to ask what kind her daughter meant. “I’m sorry. I made a big mistake when I married your father.”

Sophie surprised her with an impish smile. “But if you didn’t marry him, you wouldn’t have me.”

Connie managed a little laugh. “I don’t know about that. I think God always meant for me to have you. The angels saved you specially.”

Sophie laughed. “I’m not that good.”

“Oh, yes, you are.”

Sophie’s smile faded. “The man’s still there.”

A fist punched Connie in the chest. “Have you seen him?”

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

“After school yesterday. That’s why I went a different way home.”

Connie didn’t know what to say. For several long seconds she hung in the balance between terror and anguish. Calm, when it came, had a price. But for Sophie’s sake, she had to remain calm. Finally she cleared her throat. “You would have been safer staying with your friends.”

Sophie shrugged. “I was safe. I’m here.”

Connie didn’t know how to argue with that. She didn’t want to scare the child more. Yet Sophie needed to be cautious. “Honey...”

“I know. Don’t trust strangers and stay with my friends.” Sophie rolled over on her side again and took her mother’s hand. “I’ll be okay, Mommy. Don’t worry.”

“Just stay close, honey. Just stay close.” Leaning over, Connie wrapped her daughter in a tight hug and felt those warm little arms wrap around her in return. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too, Mommy.”

“Now sleep a little longer. You were up all night, Enid said.”

Sophie smiled brilliantly. “It was fun.”

“I bet it was. Later we’ll play some games or something, okay? But get a little more sleep first.”

Sophie’s eyelids, still puffy with sleepiness, were already sagging to half-mast. “I really like Ethan,” she said again. Then she fell sound asleep.

Connie envied her daughter’s ability to drop off so quickly. These days, finding sleep herself could be a struggle. And after Sophie’s little bomb, she wondered if she would ever sleep again. As if in response to an emotional overload, a kind of numbness settled over her.

She sat with Sophie for a while longer, until the little girl’s breathing deepened; then, after dropping a kiss on her daughter’s forehead, Connie tiptoed from the room.

Downstairs, still wearing her numbness like a cloak, she found Julia and Ethan shuffling cards. “What’s going on?”

Julia grinned. “Ethan’s going to teach me how to play Texas hold ’em. Don’t we have chips somewhere?”

“Maybe. I seem to remember getting them for some project.”

“Well, go find them, girl,” Julia said. “This man wants a chance to clean me out.”

Ethan’s chuckle followed Connie as she went to look in the living-room credenza.

The box was still there, after all this time. She carried the chips back to the kitchen, but her mind wasn’t on poker. While Ethan started divvying up the plastic chips, she said, “Sophie saw him again.”

Ethan’s hands froze. Julia’s smile faded.

“After school yesterday. She said that’s why she took a different way home.”

Ethan swore softly.

Julia’s face sagged. “Why didn’t she tell us this yesterday?”

“I don’t know.” Connie, who had maintained a calm facade until this moment, couldn’t hold it together any longer. Her voice stretched thin, became thready, and the panic that had been clawing at her all week grabbed her fully in its jaws.

“He’s still here,” she repeated. “He’s still here, and Sophie saw him. How can we make her safe if he can get to her without our knowing it? How can we protect her?”

Her voice had grown shrill, and she bit back further words, knowing that she was only feeding her own panic and sense of helplessness.

But, dear God, how could she remain calm in the face of this? A stranger, maybe Leo, maybe not, was stalking her little girl. She pushed back from the table, ignoring it when the chair fell over. Like a terrified horse, she wanted to race from one end of her corral to the other and beat down the bars that held her in.

Before she could dash from the room, Ethan caught her. His strong arms surrounded her, restrained her, held her close. Surrounded her with security.

“Shh,” he whispered, and stroked her hair. “Shh. She’s safe upstairs right now. I swear to you, Connie, I’ll be right beside her every time she leaves this house. I’ll walk with her everywhere. I’ll watch her when she plays. Nobody’s going to hurt that child as long as I have breath in me.”

Connie wanted to believe him. She desperately needed to believe him.

“It’s gone past trying to keep a loose watch on her,” Ethan said. “With a second encounter, we have to tighten up. Sophie may not like it, but that’s the way it has to be until we catch this guy.”

Connie leaned back and looked up at him. “What if it isn’t Leo?” she whispered. Much as she feared Leo’s violence and that it might spill over onto Sophie, there were other things to be feared more. Like real strangers. Horrible, terrible sick men who would do the unthinkable.

Not even when she had faced an armed burglar had she felt this much gut-wrenching, sickening fear. Fear for Sophie. Fear of all the monsters that could walk into her innocent daughter’s life.

A shudder ripped through her, then another. Flying apart seemed like a valid option right now. Shattering into a million pieces.

But for these few moments, Ethan’s arms held her together. His strength seemed to infuse her with something she desperately needed. Little by little, her shudders eased, until finally she sagged against him. He continued to hold her, seeming to understand that the strength needed to return to her muscles.

Something else began to shift within her. All of a sudden she remembered the dreams she’d had before Leo, dreams of a man who would support her and protect her and care for her, not one who would use her. Abuse her.

All those dreams had died at the end of Leo’s fist, at the toe of his boot. Or so she had thought. Maybe they had only gone into hibernation.

Ethan had suddenly awakened them, but even as she realized that, she feared the cost of allowing them to reappear. Ethan wasn’t here for the long haul. He’d merely come to town to meet Micah, and once he’d established whatever kind of relationship he wanted there, he would move on. Besides, he had problems of his own, and she doubted she was the solution to any of them.

There was danger here, emotional danger, but she couldn’t bring herself to step away. Not yet. She needed these moments with near desperation.

Later, she thought. Later she could tear out the roots of what was trying to grow in her. Right now she needed any port in the storm. And she was sure he understood that.

When at last she regained her strength, she backed away. He let her go immediately, which she was sure was a message. No involvement, beyond protecting Sophie. Last night had been an aberration, a fulfillment of a need they both felt as solitary souls. But it had made no promises and offered no answers.

Their wounds couldn’t be so easily healed, she thought, as she returned to the table. They would always be there. Healing had to come from within, and it couldn’t happen if the scars kept reopening.

Julia was still sitting at the table, staring at the cards as if they could tell her the future, carefully not watching Connie and Ethan.

Then there was a knock on the side door. Connie jumped, turned and saw Micah through the glass panes. At once she leaped up to invite him in.

He was smiling, and he greeted her with a hug, Julia with a peck on the cheek and his son with a bear hug. “I thought I’d get a progress report,” he said. Connie got him a cup of coffee and waved him to a chair as she resumed her seat.

“Do you have ESP?” she asked.

His face darkened. For an instant, except for Ethan’s beard, father and son looked like clones of the same Cherokee ancestor.

“What happened?”

Ethan answered. “When Sophie wandered off yesterday after school? It was because she had seen the man again.”

“Well, hell. I guess we need to tighten the guard.”

“I’m going to be with her every minute she’s out of the house and not in school.”

Micah nodded. Then he looked at Connie. “How do you feel about that?”

“Better.” Because if it was Leo, she didn’t know how or even if she would be able to handle it.

Ethan must have noticed her glaring omission of the phone call in her recounting of events to her mother earlier, Connie thought, because he didn’t mention it to Micah.

“I can’t handle this,” Julia said. She couldn’t have been paler if every drop of blood had been sucked from her. “I’m going to my room. You’ll plan better without me here gnashing my teeth and second-guessing everything because I’m a scared old woman.”

Feeling a sharp pang, Connie started to rise. “Do you need help?”

“Just to get into my own bed? I think not.”

The three of them listened as Julia’s chair squeaked across the linoleum, then onto the wooden floor of the hall. A few moments later, her bedroom door closed.

“Okay,” Micah said, leaning forward to rest his arms on the table, “what did you leave out?”

Connie looked at Ethan, wondering if he had told Micah, or if Micah just had some kind of ESP. Shaman, she thought. They both were shaman, crazy idea or not. Then she realized she would have to tell this part herself, if for no other reason than that she had been the one who answered the phone.

“I got a call last night,” she said. “A man said, ‘You have a beautiful daughter, Connie,’ and then I hung up.”

“That must have freaked you out.”

“Pretty much.”

The two men’s faces had grown as dark and heavy as thunderclouds before a tornado.

“Your ex,” Micah said.

Ethan nodded. “That’s what we’re thinking.”

“But we can’t be sure,” Connie said.

“I agree it would help if we knew something certain,” Micah said slowly, “but we don’t. We should definitely be keeping an eye out for Leo. I’ll see about getting his picture out to the deputies. But at this point, I’m not sure it would be wise to put it out to the public.”

Ethan shook his head. “If it is Leo, we don’t want to push him too hard. If he flees, it won’t help us settle this matter. Besides, he’s already proved violent.”

“My thinking exactly.” Micah looked at Connie, silently requesting her input.

“I don’t think I’m a reliable judge of anything right now,” she answered. “This is way too close to home. Ethan can tell you, I’m barely holding it together.”

“Under the circumstances,” Ethan said, “you’re holding it together damn well. You won’t hear any criticism from me.”

“Me, neither,” Micah said.

Connie smiled wanly. “I think I’ll go lie down. You two can arrange everything with Gage. I’m worn out. In fact, I’m useless with worry.”

“Don’t stay up there if all you’re doing is worrying yourself sick,” Ethan said.

But that wasn’t it at all. She needed to check on Sophie. She needed to be closer to her daughter. She needed some space to find at least a piece of her center to rely on. The worst way to fail Sophie right now would be by falling apart even more than she already had.

Calm. She had to find calm. Real calm. The kind of calm that would allow her to think.

Before it was too late.

Chapter 16

After the call to Gage had been made, Ethan and Micah continued to sit at the table, father and son separated by years if no longer by distance. Yet Ethan felt a recognition somewhere deep inside him, as if part of him had always known Micah. Perhaps it was just that part of him was Micah.

“Are you willing to stay around?” Micah asked.

“Stay around?”

“Here. In this county. You have a permanent job if you want it. Gage said so. And I’d like the time with you. Right or wrong, we’ve both been cheated out of something.”

Ethan nodded slowly, turning inward, testing instincts and long-denied feelings. “I’d like the opportunity.”

“Good. When this mess with Sophie and Connie is taken care of, Faith wants you to come stay with us for a while. She wants to get to know you, too, and she wants you to know your sisters.”

Ethan nodded, feeling a small lightening in his heart. “I’d like that.”

“Good.” Micah drummed his fingers on the table for a moment. “I know where you’ve been, son. I spent twenty years doing what you did. So what happened? You’re on disability?”

“IED,” Ethan said succinctly. “I’ve got shrapnel lodged near my spine.”

“Well, hell.” Micah’s frown deepened. “I figured it had to be bad. They aren’t letting many out right now.”

“No.”

“So you’re in danger?”

“Could be. Mostly it’s just pain. But yeah, they’re worried a wrong move could paralyze me.”

“How are you handling that?”

Ethan shrugged. “I’m luckier than a lot of guys.”

“Yeah, I know that feeling, too. Problem comes in the dead of night, when you start to think some of them were luckier.”

A look of complete understanding passed between them.

“It gets better,” Micah said. “It does. I won’t say it ever completely goes away, but eventually you can look forward more than you look back.”

“I hope so. Sometimes I just wish the enemy still wore uniforms.”

Micah nodded. “I carry some of that with me, too.”

“I’m sure you do.”

Micah sighed and sipped his coffee. “I don’t regret serving my country. I hope you don’t.”

“No. Never.”

Micah nodded. “Good. You shouldn’t. Some of us have to.”

“I know. I’m proud that I went.”

Micah reached out and clasped his son’s forearm. “I’m proud of you. War creates atrocities by its very nature. But until we all learn to live in peace, some of us are going to bear that burden. I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, so I’ll just tell you, once again, what I’ve learned. It’s time to look to today. Today is the seed of tomorrow. And from what I can see, you’re planting some mighty good seeds right now.”

Ethan arched a brow.

Micah smiled faintly. “Sophie.”

“Oh.”

“And Connie. A man could do a lot worse than Connie.”

“I don’t think...”

“Not yet, maybe. But she’s a good woman, through and through. Almost as good as my Faith. You’ll see.” He drained his mug and rose to carry it to the sink. “I’m going to get to the office, make sure that picture of Leo gets out to the force. I think we got us a snake in the corn, son, and it ain’t no stranger.”

Ethan watched his father leave, feeling as if an important connection had just been made. His father was no longer a stranger. He was becoming a friend.

For the first time in a long time, he smiled just because he felt like it.

In the distance he heard a rumble of thunder. Rising, he went to the front of the house to look out and see the clouds. Billowing upward, limned in white so bright it seemed to shine, and black below. Another bad one. A big one, the kind that could build up over miles of open space.

He closed his eyes as thunder rumbled again, feeling it deep inside himself. Thunder spoke, and he listened.

He had been chosen. Somehow, in some way, he had been chosen. The shaman in him rose to accept the task, whatever it might be. As thunder rumbled again, speaking in a tongue only his heart could understand, he gave thanks for the rain, for the lightning, for their cleansing, nourishing powers.

And he gave thanks that he had been brought here at this moment in time, a moment when he was needed.

Because what good was any man if he didn’t serve a need?

* * *

Connie couldn’t sleep. Of course, she hadn’t expected to. She looked in on Sophie several times, then lay on her bed listening to the building storm. The storm, she thought, would drive Leo or whoever it was to ground. She could relax, at least for a little while.

But anxiety, her constant companion now, wouldn’t let go.

She heard Ethan’s footsteps on the stairs. He moved almost silently, as usual, but no matter how light his tread, he couldn’t avoid all the creaky steps, even though he missed most of them.