Her Christmas Guardian

“Sorry, but this just isn’t your night.” The words whispered from behind her, the cold chill of them shooting up her spine.

And suddenly, she wasn’t alone with the man and his cigarette. Two dark shadows moved in, and she was fighting off hands that were trying to rip Lucy away from her.

She screamed as something slammed into her cheek. Heard Lucy’s desperate cries and the sirens endlessly blaring. Heard her own frantic breathing and hoarse shouts.

A car door slammed and someone called a warning. To her? To the men who were attacking her? The car seat was ripped from her arms and something smashed into her temple. Darkness edged in, sprinkled with a million glittering stars.

She fought it, fought the hands that were suddenly on her throat. Lucy! She tried to cry, but she had no air for the words, no air at all.

She twisted, kneeing her attacker in the thigh.

Something flashed in the air near her head.

A gun?

She had only a moment to realize it, and then the world exploded, all the stars fading until there was nothing but endless night and the sound of her daughter’s cries.

* * *

“Go after the car!” Boone shouted as he jumped from Jackson’s car. “I’ll check to see if there are any injuries.”

Too late.

Those were the words that were running through his head over and over again.

Too late. Just as he’d been the day he’d arrived home from Iraq, ready to confront Lana about her prescription-drug problem, willing to work on their marriage so that they could make a good life for their child.

Too late.

He heard Jackson’s tires screech, knew he’d taken off, following the car they’d seen speeding away. Dark-colored. A Honda, maybe. Jackson knew more about cars than he did, and he’d know the model and make.

Good information for the police, but none of it would matter if the woman and her daughter were hurt. Or worse.

He ran to the station wagon, ignoring the flames that were lapping out from beneath the hood. The back door was open, and he glanced in. No car seat. No child. No woman.

He checked the third-row bucket seat, then peered into the front. A purse lay on the passenger seat, and he snagged it, backing away from the burning vehicle. He doubted it would explode, but getting himself blown up wasn’t going to help the woman, her kid or him.

He broke every rule his boss, Chance Miller, had written in the fifty-page HEART team handbook and opened the purse, pulling out the ID and calling Jackson with information on the woman. Scout Cramer. Twenty-seven. Five foot two inches. One hundred pounds. Organ donor. Blond hair. Blue eyes.

Victim.

He hated that word.

In a perfect world, there would be no victims. No losses. No hurting people praying desperately that their loved ones would return home.

Too bad it wasn’t a perfect world.

He stepped away from the station wagon as a police cruiser pulled off the road. An officer ran to the back of the cruiser and dragged a fire extinguisher from the trunk.

Seconds later, the fire was out, the cold air filled with the harsh scent of chemicals and burning wires. Smoke and steam wafted from the hood of the car, but the night had gone quiet, the rustling leaves of nearby trees the only sound.

The officer approached, offering a hand and a quick nod. “Officer Jet Lamar. River Valley Police Department. Did you see what happened here?”

“I got here after the crash. I did see the woman and child who were in the car. They left the Walmart about fifteen minutes ago.” And he didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time discussing it. Scout and her daughter had disappeared. The more time that passed before they were found, the less likely it was that they ever would be.

Something else he had learned the hard way.

Every second counted when it came to tracking someone down.

“So, we’ve got two people missing?”

“Yes,” Boone ground out. “And if we don’t start looking, they may be missing for good.”

“Other cars are responding. We have patrol cars heading in from the east. I just need to confirm that we’re looking for a new-model Honda Accord. Dark blue.”

Jackson must have provided that information, and Boone wasn’t going to argue with it. He knew his friend well enough to know that he’d have to have been 100 percent sure before offering information. “That’s right. It was pulling away as my friend and I arrived.”

“I don’t suppose you want to explain what you and your friend were doing on this road?” Officer Lamar looked up from a notepad he was scribbling in. The guy looked to be a few years older than Boone. Maybe closing in on forty. Haggard face. Dark eyes. Obviously suspicious.

“I followed the woman from Walmart. She looked like she might be in trouble.”

“So, you just stepped in and ran to the rescue? Didn’t think about calling the police?”

“I didn’t want to call in the police over an assumption.”

“Assumptions are just as often on target as they are off it. Next time,” he said calmly, “call.”

Boone didn’t bother responding, just waited while Officer Lamar jotted a few notes, his gaze settling on the purse Boone still held.

“That belong to the victim?”

“Yes.” Boone handed it over, shifting impatiently. “They could be across state lines by now.”

“Not likely. We’re about a hundred miles from the Penn state border. I’m going to take a look around. How about you wait in the cruiser?”

It wasn’t a suggestion, but Boone didn’t take orders from anyone but his boss or the team leader. He followed Lamar to the still-smoking station wagon, paced around the vehicle while Lamar looked in the front seat, turned on a flashlight and searched the ground near the car.

He didn’t speak, but Boone could clearly see footprints in the moist earth near the car. Two sets. A woman’s sneaker and a man’s boot. “Looks like she survived the initial impact,” Lamar murmured. He called something in on his radio, but Boone was focused on the prints—the deep imprint of the man’s feet. The more shallow print of the woman’s. There had to be more, and he was anxious to find them. For evidence, and for certainty that Scout and her child really were in the car that had driven away.

If not, they were somewhere else.

Somewhere closer.

He scanned the edge of the copse of trees that butted against the road. If he’d been scared for his life, he’d have run there, looked for a place to hide.

Protocol dictated that Boone back off, let the local P.D. do their job. It was what Chance would want him to do. It was what Boone probably would have done if he’d witnessed only the accident or even the kidnapping.

But Boone had spoken to Scout Cramer. He’d seen the fear in her eyes. He’d looked into her daughter’s face and been reminded of what he’d lost. What he could only pray that he would one day get back.

He couldn’t back off. Not yet.

A sound drifted through the quiet night. Soft. Like the mew of a kitten. Boone cocked his head to the side.

“Did you hear that?” he asked Lamar.

He knew the officer had. He’d stopped talking and was staring into the woods. “Could have been an animal,” he said, but Boone doubted he believed it.

“Or a baby,” Boone replied, heading for the trees.

“You think it’s the missing child? How old did you say she was?”

“Two? Maybe three.” Cute as a button. That was what his mother would have said. Probably what his dad would have said. They loved kids. Would have loved to know their first granddaughter.

Boone would have loved to know his only child.

In God’s time...

He’d heard the words so many times, from so many well-meaning people, that he almost never talked about his marriage, about his daughter, about anything that had to do with his life before HEART.

“It’s possible she was thrown from the car. I didn’t see a car seat.”

“She was in one.”

Lamar raised a dark brow and scowled. “I’m not going to ask why you know so much about this lady and her child. You’re sure the kid was in the car seat?”

“Positive.”

“If the car seat was installed wrong, it still could have been thrown from the car. Wouldn’t have gone far, but a child that age could undo the harness and get out. She’s young to be out on a night like tonight, but I’d rather her be out in the woods than in a car with a monster.” Lamar sighed. “Wait here. I’ll go take a look around.”

Wasn’t going to happen.

Boone followed him into the thick copse of trees, his gaze on the beam of light that illuminated the leaf-strewn ground.

“Anyone out here?” Officer Lamar called.

No response. Just the quiet rustle of leaves and the muted sound of distant sirens.

“We should split up,” Boone suggested. “The more area we cover, the better.”

“I’ll call in our K-9 team. That will help. In the meantime, you need to go back to the car. There’s a ravine a couple of hundred feet from here. You fall into that and—”

“I’m a former army ranger, Officer Lamar. I think I can handle dark woods and a deep ravine.” He said it casually and walked away. They were wasting time arguing. Time he’d rather spend searching.

If the little girl had been thrown from the car on impact, the sooner they got her to the hospital, the better. But he didn’t think she’d been thrown. He’d seen Scout buckle her in. She’d been secure. Someone had taken her from the station wagon. That same person could have tossed her into the trees, thrown her down the embankment, disposed of her like so much trash.

He’d seen it before, in places where no child should ever be. He’d carried nearly dead little girls from hovels that had become their prisons.

Rage filled him, clawing at his gut and threatening to steal every bit of reason he had. He didn’t give in to it. He’d learned a lot from his father. Watching him deal with the foster kids his parents had taken in had taught Boone everything he needed to know about keeping cool, working with clear vision, not allowing his emotions to rule.

“Baby?!” he called, because he didn’t know the child’s name, and because a scared little girl might respond to a stranger’s voice.

Then again, she might not.

She might stay silent, waiting and hoping for her mother’s return.

Was that how it had been for Kendal? Had she been dropped off and left somewhere with strangers? Had she cried for her mother?

He shuddered.

That was another place he wouldn’t allow his mind to go. Ever.

“Hello?” he tried again, and this time he heard a faint response. Not a child’s cry. More like an adult’s groan.

He headed toward the sound, picking his way through narrow saplings and thick pine trees, the shadowy world swaying with the soft November wind.

He heard another groan. This one so close, he knew he could reach out and touch the injured person. He scanned the ground, saw what looked like a pile of cloth and leaves under a heavy-limbed oak and sprinted to it.

Scout lay on her stomach, pale braid dark with blood, her face pressed into leaves and dirt. For a moment, he thought she was dead, and his heart jerked with the thought and with the feeling that he was too late to make a difference. Again.

Then his training kicked in, and he knelt, brushing back the braid, feeling for a pulse. She shifted, moaning softly, jerking up as if she thought she could jump up and run.

“Don’t move,” he muttered, the amount of blood seeping into her hair, splattering the leaves, seeping into the earth alarming. He needed Stella. All her years of working as a navy nurse made her a crucial and important part of HEART. It wasn’t just that, though. She had a way of moving beyond emotion, filtering everything external and unnecessary and focusing on what needed to be done. He coveted that during their most difficult missions.

Scout either didn’t hear his demand or didn’t want to follow it. She twisted from his hand, the movement sluggish and slow, her face pale and streaked with so much blood, he thought they might lose her before an ambulance arrived.

He needed to find the source of the blood, but when he moved toward her, she jerked back, struggling to her knees and then her feet, swaying, her eyes wide and blank. “Lucy,” she said clearly, that one word, that name enunciated.

“Was she with you?” he asked, easing closer, afraid to move quickly and scare her again.

“She’s gone,” she whispered. “He took her.”

That was it. Just those words, and all the strength seemed to leave her body. She crumpled, and he just managed to catch her before she hit the ground.

Footsteps crashed behind him, sirens blaring loudly. An ambulance, but he was terrified that it was too late.

He ripped off his coat, pressed the sleeve to an oozing wound on her temple, the long furrowed gash so deep he could see bone. He knew a bullet wound when he saw one, knew exactly how close she’d come to dying.

His blood ran cold, every hair on the back of his neck standing on end. Someone had come very close to killing Scout, and that someone had Lucy.

“Is this the woman?” Officer Lamar panted up behind him, the beam of his flashlight splashing on leaves wet with blood.

He knelt beside Boone, touched Scout’s neck. “We need to get that ambulance in here. Now!” he shouted into his radio.

Voices carried on the night air, footsteps pounding on leaves and packed earth. Branches breaking, time ticking and a little girl was being carried farther and farther away from her mother, and if something didn’t change, a mother was being carried farther and farther away from her daughter.

He pressed harder, praying desperately that the flow of blood would be stanched before every bit of Scout’s life slipped away.

THREE

Lucy!

Scout tried to call for her daughter, but the words stuck in her throat, fell into the darkness that seemed to be consuming her. She tried to struggle up from it, to push away the heavy veil that blocked her vision, but her arms were lead weights, her body refusing to move.

She tried again, and nothing but a moan emerged.

“I think she’s waking up,” a woman said, the voice unfamiliar, but somehow comforting. She wasn’t alone in the darkness.

“I hope you’re right. Until she does, we’ve got nothing to go on,” a man responded, his soft drawl reminding her of something. Someone. She searched through the darkness, trying to find the memory, but there was nothing but the quiet beep of a machine and the soft rasp of cloth as someone moved close.

“Scout?” the man said.

Someone touched her cheek, and that one moment of contact was enough to pull her through the darkness. She opened her eyes, looked into a face she thought she knew. Dark red hair, blue eyes, hard jaw covered with fiery stubble.

“Who are you?” she asked, her voice thick, her throat hot.

Where am I?

Where is Lucy?

That last was the question she needed answered most. It was the only question that mattered.

She shoved aside blankets and sheets, tried to sit up.

“Not a good idea,” the woman said, moving in beside the man and frowning. She had paler red hair. Cropped short in a pixie cut.

“I need to find my daughter,” Scout managed to say, the words pounding through her head and echoing in her ears. Sharp pain shot through her temple, and she felt dizzy and sick, but she wouldn’t lie down until she knew where Lucy was.

“We’re looking for her,” the man said, his expression grim and hard, his eyes a deep dark blue that Scout knew she had seen before.

“I need to look for her,” she murmured, but her thoughts were scattering like dry leaves on a windy day, dancing along through the darkness that seemed to want to steal her away again.

“You’re not in any shape to look for anyone,” the woman said, dragging a chair across the floor and sitting. “We’re going to do this for you, and you’re going to have to trust that we can handle it.”

The words were probably meant to comfort her, but they only filled Scout with panic. Lucy was missing. That was the only clear thought she had. Everything else was a blur of feeling and pain, bits of memories and shadowy images that she couldn’t quite hold on to. A store. A man. Flames and smoke.

“I don’t know who you are,” she responded absently, her attention jumping from the woman to the man, then past them both. A hospital room with cream walls and an empty corkboard. A television mounted to a wall. A clock. In the background, Christmas music played, the carol as familiar as air.

“I’m Stella Silverstone. I work for HEART Incorporated.” The woman took a card from her pocket and set it on a table near the bed. “Among other things, we help find the missing.”

Missing. The word was like a dagger to the heart, and Scout had had enough. Enough listening. Enough talking. Enough sitting in a hospital room.

“I’m going to find my daughter.” She scrambled from the bed, dizzy, sick, blankets puddling near her feet. “She’s—”

“Been gone for three days,” Stella said, the blunt words like hammers to the heart. “Running out of the hospital in some mad dash to find her isn’t going to do any good.”

“Stella,” the man warned. “Let’s take things slow.”

“How slow do you want to take them, Boone? Because I’d say three days waiting to talk to the only witness is slow enough. I’m going to find Lamar. He’s hanging around here somewhere.”

She stalked from the room, closing the door firmly as she left. The sound reverberated through Scout’s head, sent stars dancing in front of her eyes.

“You need to lie down.” The man nudged her back to the bed, and she sat because she didn’t think her legs could hold her.

“What happened?” she murmured to herself and to him, because she couldn’t remember anything but those few images and the deep, deep fear for her daughter. It sat in her stomach, leaden and hard, the knot growing bigger with every passing moment.

“That’s what we’ve been trying to find out.” He sat in the chair his friend had abandoned, his elbows on his knees, his gaze direct.

“We’ve met before,” she offered, the words ringing oddly in her ears.

“You remember.” He smiled, but it didn’t soften his expression. “I’m Boone Anderson.”

The name was enough to bring a flood of memories—a trip to Walmart, Lucy in the cart. The man she’d been sure was following her. Boone handing her his business card.

And then...

What?

She pressed shaking fingers to her head, wanting to ease the deep throbbing pain. A thick bandage covered her temple, the edges folding as she ran her hand along them.

“Careful,” Boone said, pulling her hand away and holding it lightly in his. “You’re still stapled together.”

“Tell me what happened,” she responded, because she didn’t care about the staples, the head injury, the IV line attached to her arm. All she cared about was getting up and going, but she didn’t even know where to start, couldn’t remember anything past the moment Boone had handed her his card. “Tell me where my daughter is,” she added.

Please, God, let this be a nightmare. Please, let me wake up and see Lucy lying in her little toddler bed.

“We don’t know much, Scout,” he responded. “What we do know is that you were shopping. When you left the store, you were followed. The tire of your car was shot out, and you were in an accident.”

She didn’t care. Didn’t want to know about the car or the accident or being followed. She needed to know about Lucy. “Just tell me what happened to my daughter.”

“We don’t know. You were alone when we found you.”

“I need to go home.” She jumped up, the room spinning. The knot in her stomach growing until it was all she could feel. “Maybe she’s there.”

She knew it was unreasonable, knew it couldn’t be true, but she had to look, had to be sure.

“The police have already been to your house,” he said gently. “She’s not there.”

“She could be hiding. She doesn’t like strangers.” Her voice trembled. Her body trembled, every fear she’d ever had, every nightmare, suddenly real and happening and completely outside of her control.

“Scout.” He touched her shoulder, his fingers warm through thin cotton. She didn’t want warmth, though. She wanted her child.

“Please,” she begged. “I have to go home. I have to see for myself. I have to.”

He eyed her for a moment, silent. Solemn. Something in his eyes that looked like the grief she was feeling, the horror she was living.

Finally, he nodded. “Okay. I’ll take you.”

Just like that. Simple and easy as if the request didn’t go against logic. As if she weren’t hooked to an IV, shaking from fear and sorrow and pain.

He grabbed a blanket from the foot of the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders, then texted someone. She didn’t ask who—she was too busy trying to keep the darkness from taking her again. Too busy trying to remember the last moment she’d seen Lucy. Had she been scared? Crying?

Three days.

That was what Stella had said.

Three days that Lucy had been missing, and Scout had been lying in a hospital unaware. She closed her eyes, sick with the knowledge.

Please, God, let her be okay.

She was all Scout had. The only thing that really mattered to her. She had to be okay.

A tear slipped down her cheek. She didn’t have the energy to wipe it away. Didn’t have the strength to even open her eyes when Boone touched her cheek.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said quietly, and she wanted to believe him almost as much as she wanted to open her eyes and see her daughter.

“How can it be?”

“Because you ran into the right person the night your daughter was taken,” he responded, and he sounded so confident, so certain of the outcome, she looked into his face, his eyes. Saw those things she’d seen before, but something else, too—faith, passion, belief.

“Who are you?”

“I already told you—Boone Anderson. I work for HEART. A hostage-rescue team based in Washington, D.C.”

Someone knocked on the door, and Stella bustled in. Slim and athletic, she moved with a purposeful stride, her steps short and quick. “I’m not happy about this, Boone.”

“I didn’t think you would be,” he responded, stepping aside.

“She’s not ready to be released,” she continued as she pulled on gloves and lifted Scout’s arm. “You’re not ready,” she reiterated, looking straight into Scout’s eyes. “You have a hairline fracture to your skull, staples in your forehead and a couple more days of recovery in the hospital before you should be going anywhere.”

“I need to find—”

“Your daughter.” Stella cut her off. “Yeah. I know. And she needs her mother’s brain to be functioning well enough to help with our search.” She pulled the IV from Scout’s arm and pressed a cotton ball to the blood that bubbled up. “But I’m not going to waste time arguing with a parent’s love. I’ve seen men and women do some crazy things for their kids.”

She slapped a bandage over the cotton ball and straightened. “So, fine. We’ll head over to your place. You can look around to your heart’s content. Don’t expect me to scrape you up off the ground, though. You fall, and I’m—”

“Stella...” Boone cut into her diatribe. Scout looked as if she was about to collapse, her face so pale he wasn’t sure she’d make it into a wheelchair. “How about we just focus on the mission?”

“What mission?” she muttered. “This is pro bono, and I’m only helping because you saved my hide in Mexico City. If you remember correctly, I’m still supposed to be on medical leave.”

“For the little scratch you got on the last mission? I’d have been back to work the next day,” he scoffed, because he knew she wanted him to, knew that asking her if she was up to going back to work would only irritate her.