The Price of Valor

by Susan May Warren

  Praise for The Heart of a Hero

  “Susan May Warren whips up a maelstrom of action that slams Jake and Aria together and keeps the pages turning. Twists, turns, and constant danger keep you wondering whether this superb cast of characters can ride out the storm.”

  James R. Hannibal, multi–award-winning author of Chasing the White Lion

  Praise for The Way of the Brave

  “The Way of the Brave grabbed me at the first chapter and never let go. Susan May Warren is a master storyteller, creating strong, confident, and compassionate characters. This book is no different. The healing of Jenny and Orion as they brave the elements of Denali is a perfect mirror of our journey in Christ. Daily we must go ‘the way of the brave.’”

  Rachel Hauck, New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding Dress and The Memory House

  “Warren lays the foundation of a promising faith-influenced series with this exciting outing.”

  Publishers Weekly

  “The first in Warren’s Global Search and Rescue series combines high-adrenaline thrills and a sweet romance. Perfect for fans of Dee Henderson and Irene Hannon.”

  Booklist

  Praise for the Montana Rescue Series

  “Pitting characters against nature—and themselves—in a rugged mountain setting, Susan May Warren pulls readers in on page one and never lets go.”

  Irene Hannon, bestselling author and three-time RITA Award winner

  “Warren’s stalwart characters and engaging story lines make her Montana Rescue series a must-read.”

  Booklist

  “Troubled Waters is a story that will not be easy to forget and one that you will read again.”

  Fresh Fiction

  “Everything about this story sparkles: snappy dialogue, high-flying action, and mountain scenery that beckons the reader to take up snowboarding.”

  Publishers Weekly

  Books by Susan May Warren

  MONTANA RESCUE

  Wild Montana Skies

  Rescue Me

  A Matter of Trust

  Troubled Waters

  Storm Front

  Wait for Me

  GLOBAL SEARCH AND RESCUE

  The Way of the Brave

  The Heart of a Hero

  The Price of Valor

  © 2020 by Susan May Warren

  Published by Revell

  a division of Baker Publishing Group

  PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

  www.revellbooks.com

  Ebook edition created 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  ISBN 978-1-4934-2662-1

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Contents

  Cover

  Endorsements

  Books by Susan May Warren

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Back Ads

  Back Cover

  CHAPTER ONE

  AS LONG AS HAMILTON JONES had breath in his body, nothing, not even tooth decay, would hurt his little girl.

  “Seriously, Ham? It’s cotton candy, not meth. Let the poor girl taste a cloud of pure sugar.” Jenny Calhoun looked at him with one eyebrow raised, amusement in her expression.

  He couldn’t look at Aggie staring up at him with those pretty blue ten-year-old eyes. “Please, Daddy?”

  Shoot. Agatha Jones had employed the lethal Daddy kryptonite, a name she’d been using with devastating regularity for the past month.

  Ham dug into his pocket for a couple George Washingtons.

  Aggie jumped up and down, clapping, her blonde braids whipping around her head. She’d lost a tooth just last week—one of her primary molars—and it had completely freaked him out.

  He’d googled it, taken her to a dentist, and discovered that apparently kids lost teeth until they were twelve. So maybe getting a little sugar decay wasn’t the end of the world, but . . .

  “Just this once,” he said as he slapped the dollars into her hand. She grinned, a gap in her gums, and took off for the cotton candy stand.

  Next to him, Orion laughed. “Ham. You’ve said that five times today.”

  He glanced at his teammate, and especially at the oversized stuffed moose Ry carried under his arm. Ham had won it for Aggie at a sharpshooting booth. Ham would be carrying it, but he already carried the dolphin he scored for her at the balloon-dart booth.

  So he turned into a pansy when his amazing, beautiful little girl smiled. But sheesh, he’d only recently discovered that he was a father. He had ten years to make up for.

  The night was cool, the crispness of early autumn spicing the air. Overhead, stars fell across the horizon, but the bright lights of the county fair and carnival blurred them out. Ham and Aggie had spent the day watching piglets, petting lambs, climbing on pretty green tractors, eating mini donuts—another of his fatherly fails—listening to country music, and figuring their way through a hay maze.

  All that remained was the midway.

  No. As in all caps. N.O.

  The last thing he wanted was his daughter losing her gray matter on one of those spinny rides gone wild. He’d heard horror stories of seat belts failing and kids launching from the twirling cups of poorly maintained traveling carnival rides.

  Besides, he’d made promises to . . .

  Nope. Not thinking about her. Except, shoot. Signe was always with him, there, in the back of his head, haunting him. “Don’t try to find me.” Her last words to him, right after she’d left Aggie in his care.

  Right. Ham had been struggling with his response for three months now. He didn’t do “sit around and wait” easily. Not when someone he loved needed him.

  Except, maybe Signe didn’t need him. Had never, really, needed him.

  Yeah, he’d been all kinds of foolish when he married a woman who so easily walked away from him.

  “I want to go on the Ferris wheel,” Jenny said as she looped her arm through Orion’s. She wore her blonde hair pulled back into a long braid, a jean shirt, and a pair of leggings. Orion found her hand and braided his fingers through hers. He barely limped anymore from his recent knee surgery, and just last week, he’d started instructing a new ice-climbing class at Ham’s GoSports Minnetonka location. He wore a T-shirt and a pair of cargo pants, his Alaskan blood always hot down here in the Lower 48.

  Ham followed Orion’s glance at the Ferris wheel. The ride had romance written all over it, lights glittering against the Minnesota night sky.

  Ham knew that on this weekend’s agenda, this little getaway to Jenny’s former foster family’s winery in midwestern Minnesota, was Orion’s hope of proposing.

  “Hand me the moose,” Ham said, and Orion grinned at him.

  Ham stood there, one animal under each arm as Orion and Jenny left to get on the ride. It looked safe enough—each seat formed to look like a balloon with
a basket and an arched roof.

  “You must be a sharpshooter to nab such big prizes.” A man stood nearby, looking up at the Ferris wheel, then at Ham. Dark complexion, dark hair. He had a hint of an accent. His face was reddened with a fresh scar on one side, as if he’d been in a terrible accident.

  “Naw. Lucky shots,” Ham said.

  The man looked back at the Ferris wheel and waved. A number of children in the array of baskets waved back, so he couldn’t be sure which kids were his, but the man turned to him. “We’ll do anything for our kids, won’t we?” Then he walked away. Yes, actually, he would.

  “Daddy, do you want some?”

  He looked down and found Aggie looking up at him, grinning, holding out a fluffy piece of blue cotton candy.

  For a second, he was back in time, Signe grinning at him as they sat on a picnic table near the blue waters of the community pool, her blonde hair a mess, her face grimy as she held out a melting ice-cream cone. “Want some?”

  He drew in a breath.

  Aggie’s eyes widened. “Daddy?”

  He wasn’t sure if he saw fear or just confusion in her pretty blue eyes, but whatever it was, it snapped him back to now, and he crouched before her. “Yeah, I’d love some, honey.” He opened his mouth.

  She smiled and fed him the cottony sugar.

  Oh my. He hadn’t had cotton candy since . . . well, maybe that was another memory he should tuck away. It seemed that every good childhood memory contained a shadow of Signe.

  He really didn’t know how he’d survive knowing she was out there . . .

  “Don’t try to find me.”

  Right.

  “Ooh, look. Orion and Jenny are on the big Ferris wheel!” Aggie’s gaze had turned past him. He noticed that she wore ketchup from today’s hot dog on her teal Frozen-themed sweatshirt. And a hint of chocolate ice cream on her sleeve.

  Apparently Orion was right, he had problems saying no. But how was he supposed to deny anything to this pint-size version of the woman he’d never stopped loving?

  “I wanna ride!” Aggie grabbed his hand and pulled him with her. Ham nearly fell, still crouched, but managed to scramble up and pull her back.

  “No, Aggie. We’re not riding—”

  “Please?”

  From high above, Jenny was calling to them, waving. Aggie waved back wildly. “Please, Daddy? I’ve never been on one.”

  Really? He knew so little about her past ten years. Aggie had shown up three months ago on a seashore in southern Sicily after the yacht she’d been a passenger on, with her mother, had exploded in the Mediterranean. The US Air Force base took her in after she identified herself as an American . . . and former SEAL Hamilton Jones as her father.

  He’d gotten on a plane, not sure what to believe. After all, he’d watched Signe die ten plus years ago in Chechnya, during an op-gone-wrong.

  “I don’t think so, pumpkin.”

  “Please?” Her cheeks were stained blue. He pulled out a napkin from his pocket and tried to wipe her face. She jerked away.

  Yes, sometimes he’d really like to know what happened to his child over the past ten years to put that hue of fear into her eyes.

  Except, just thinking about it gnawed a hole through him. Maybe he didn’t want to know the details.

  He handed her the napkin and she wiped her face.

  Around them, the midway was a cacophony of screams and laughter, music and the smells of fried cheese curds and hot dogs. People milled everywhere, crowds ever moving through the narrow thoroughfares. The perfect place for someone to sneak out and grab her when he wasn’t looking. Only a couple months ago, that very thing had happened at the Mall of America. Someone from Signe’s past.

  A Russian.

  Probably in league with the man who had held her hostage for ten years—Chechen warlord Pavel Tsarnaev. That much Ham had gotten out of Aggie.

  Yes, better that he didn’t know the details of Aggie’s past, or he might never sleep again.

  Might, in fact, completely ignore Signe’s request and find her anyway.

  Because deep in his gut, he knew she was in trouble.

  Needed him.

  The Ferris wheel was slowing to let people out, and Aggie ran over to Jenny as she got off.

  Ham followed. Raised an eyebrow to Orion.

  Orion shook his head.

  Yes, well, pulling your heart from your chest and offering it to a woman with a proposal just might be the most terrifying act a man did. He well remembered when he proposed to Signe.

  He’d meant forever.

  Apparently, she thought their marriage should just last the weekend.

  No, that wasn’t fair. He shook the thought away as Aggie ran back to him. “Jenny said it was amazing. You can see for miles.”

  Ham gave Jenny a look. She shrugged. “It is. You can.”

  “Please, please? I won’t ask for another thing tonight, I promise.”

  Oh kiddo. “Honey, it’s not . . .”

  “Go with her, Ham. I’ll hold the zoo.” Orion stepped up to him and reached out for the stuffed prizes.

  “Yay!” Aggie said and shot up the ramp.

  “What—wait!” He dumped the animals in Orion’s arms, about to follow, when his phone buzzed in his back pocket.

  He pulled it out.

  Seriously?

  “Aggie! Wait for me—hello?” Maybe he shouldn’t be quite so abrupt when he answered the call of a US senator and presidential candidate.

  “Are you okay, Ham?” Former SEAL Isaac White’s low, calm voice came through the line.

  “Yes, sir,” Ham said, frowning at his daughter as she gestured to him to join her. He shook his head. Mouthed a very clear Wait for me.

  Then he turned away to keep her from distracting him and put his other hand to his ear. “Just at a fair with my daughter.”

  “I hope this isn’t a bad time, but I need to talk to you.”

  “Absolutely. What can I do for you?” White had ferried his team back from Alaska after a near-bombing three months ago, and besides that, he and Ham went way back to when they served together on Team Three.

  “Can you come to DC? I need a favor, but . . . well, I need to talk to you face-to-face.”

  “This about our mutual friend the Prince? And the rumors that the CIA NOC list is—”

  “There’s a fundraising event Tuesday night for the Red Cross. Maybe you and your team would like to join us?”

  Ham could hear the unspoken plan—White was suggesting a cover story for Ham’s trip.

  Which meant their meeting was something he didn’t want the media, or maybe even Ham’s people, knowing about.

  “I can make that happen,” he said, watching a mom and dad pick up their young son and swing him between them. The kid laughed, kicking his legs.

  “So, I’ll put you down for how many tickets? Eight?”

  “Seven.” Orion, Jenny, Jake, Aria, North, and he’d ask Scarlett, his newest addition, to join them.

  “Perfect. Thanks, Ham. Text me when you get in.”

  “Aggie!” Jenny’s shout behind him made him turn.

  Everything inside him went cold. She’d gotten on the ride without him.

  But that wasn’t the worst.

  His brave, headstrong, curious daughter—and she got those genes directly from her mother—had boarded one of the rusty, ancient balloon chairs and risen to the apex of the Ferris wheel. But, as the ride came down the back side, the basket had swung and somehow latched on to the basket next to hers.

  As the ride moved toward the far side, her basket had begun to tip.

  If it kept going, it would invert, dumping her right out.

  “Stop the ride!” He took off up the ramp toward the operator who was frantically trying to slow it down without jerking it to a violent stop. Ham pushed him away and slammed his thumb into the emergency stop.

  The entire ride shuddered, screeching and groaning as it halted.

  Screaming. Not just the spectators
, but Aggie, high above, maybe fifty feet, clinging to the basket.

  It had inverted to nearly a forty-five-degree angle, and she clung to the bars, her legs dangling over the edge.

  Ham’s heart stopped, a rock right in the middle of his chest.

  “Help! Help me, Daddy!”

  She might not have said it, but Ham heard it, deep in his bones.

  “Hold on, Aggie!”

  While every shred of common sense told him to wait for the emergency help, the father inside him wasn’t listening.

  It wasn’t a difficult climb. Up the center spokes to where they connected at the center, maybe six feet apart. Then a climb up each one until he came to Aggie’s.

  “Hang on!”

  Except she was kicking, screaming, and using up all her energy. “Calm down! I’m on my way!”

  “I’m falling!”

  “No you’re not! You’re going to hold on until I get there. Hold on!”

  He hit his hands and knees, scrambling along the edge to her balloon. But the way the carriage had stuck, the back of the basket blocked his entrance.

  “I’m almost there, honey.” He swung down, dangling as he started to work his way the last few feet.

  The Ferris wheel began to move.

  “Stop the ride!” Maybe the emergency stop had malfunctioned on this decrepit ride.

  “Hold on, Aggie!” The basket inverted and now Aggie, too, dangled from just her grip on the pole.

  “I can’t!”

  He reached for her, missed. Her fingers began to loosen.

  Nope. Not on his watch. He’d made promises to Signe. To himself.

  To God, long ago, when he said, “I do.”

  He swung and wrapped his legs around her body. “Grab onto my waist!”

  She looked at him, wild-eyed, then lunged for him.

  “Lock your arms around me,” he said. Sweat slicked his hands. He just had to work them back to the jutting arm—

  The ride stopped, a violent jerk that nearly dislodged Ham’s grip.

  Aggie slid down to his hips, then his thighs. He clamped them tight. “Aggie, hold on to me!”

  She looked up at him, tears staining her face. “I can’t!”

  “You can and you will,” he said, finding a voice that he’d used for years commanding his SEAL teams. “You are my daughter, and I know you can do this.”