Table of Contents
Prologue
Foreword
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Free Download
Afterword
About the Author
Also by Jacquie Biggar
Preview Tempted by Mr. Wrong
Praise for Jacquie Biggar
The Guardian
Who wouldn't want to be swept off her feet by a movie star? And championed by a guardian angel? Sign me up! And like any great start to a series, the ending left me reaching for the next book. Highly recommended
Christine Hart
I was lucky to receive an advanced copy of The Guardian. A quick, easy read that I enjoyed!. A serious topic handled not only with touching moments but a few humorous moments also. Romance, suspense, family ties, friendship, angels that aren't sure about being angels, some sad moments, some nail biter moments, and a darling dog named Sugar Bear....what more could we want? I'm looking forward to the next book in this series.
Barbara Cassata
The Sheriff Meets His Match
Who could possibly be the perfect match for Sheriff Jack Garrett, the steadfast pillar of a small west coast town like Tidal Falls? Enter Laurel Thomas, a woman on the run from her past in Florida. As soon as she shows up in Tidal Falls, she turns Jack's meticulously organized world upside down with her disorganized ways, sexy looks and feisty humor. I'd been craving Jack's story every since I read about him in an earlier story in the Wounded Hearts series, and I wasn't disappointed! Ms Biggar's characters leap off the page and become family you'll be rooting for with all your heart.
Jacqui Nelson
I really enjoyed this romance. It has a heroine that's running around helping family, while working for the sheriff. She uses sticky notes to help keep everything straight, while the family tends to count on her to make everything right. This is full of humor and a little bit of serious in a small town type setting. I've given it a rating of 4.5*. It really made me laugh.
Nancy Luebke
Twilight’s Encore
What a captivating story. Twilight's Encore is the third book of Wounded Hearts series. This is Ty's and Katy's story, i have to say what a beautiful story!!!
Nicole- Reading Alley
This is a very heartwarming, suspenseful book that will have you cheering for the good guys. HIGHLY RECOMMEND and Can't wait for Book 4 in the Wounded Hearts series.
Barbara
Maggie’s Revenge
Wounded Hearts- Book 6
Jacquie Biggar
Copyright © 2017 by Jacquie Biggar
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
For my Family,
If not for your encouragement, I may never have strived to become a writer.
Now, I can’t imagine any occupation that could better allow me to live my dreams.
Love ya always and all ways,
Jacq
If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.
Haruki Murakami
Contents
Foreword
Introduction
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Free Download
Afterword
About the Author
Also by Jacquie Biggar
Preview Tempted by Mr. Wrong
Foreword
The dust and heat beat down on Maggie and the other women in the Humvee. She glanced back the way they’d come. Dangerous as it was, they needed to find a better used road in order to hide their tracks. The goat trail they were on would lead anyone chasing straight to them.
The sun directly overhead made it hard to know which way they traveled. Every bump and rut exacerbated the wound on her side until it felt as though she was getting jabbed by a red-hot poker. She hoped it wasn’t festering, but there wasn’t much she could do about it out here.
Olga glanced at her from the driver’s seat. “You should drive, you’d be much better than me. I don’t even have a license.”
That’s right, Olga was such a commanding presence, Maggie had forgotten she’d been a child prostitute before her capture by the traffickers.
“No, you’re doing fine. I need to keep watch.” She tapped the rifle, aware of her friend’s aversion to firearms.
“What’s going to happen to us?” a woman-child asked from the back. Two women huddled on the narrow seat, the body of the young girl who’d given her life for them wrapped in a blanket on the floor at their feet.
Maggie wished she had a positive reply. Truth was, unless they found help soon, they were in as much or more danger than before. This area was overrun with warring factions from two of the most powerful cartels in Mexico. If they were found, they would die.
She forced a smile for the girl. “We’re heading for the border and then we’re going home to our families and a nice hot bath. Okay?”
The girl looked out the front window at the undulating sea of sand and something heartbreakingly sad passed over her face.
“Sure,” she said.
Introduction
She wasn’t his responsibility. Frank barely knew DEA Agent Holt well enough to call her Maggie. But he wanted to, and that was a problem. Because his buddy, retired Navy SEAL and now her partner, Adam O’Connor, had the jones for her too. And if that wasn’t bad enough, she’d gone rogue, deep undercover, and gotten herself into a mess she might not survive. He was better off forgetting about ink black hair and cinnamon sugar eyes and concentrate on what needed done here. Because this ranch and all the people who worked on it were his responsibility. And because she scared him. Magdalena Holt had the power to rip his safe, secure world apart and Frank wasn't sure he could handle the fallout.
This is the long-awaited sequel to my popular W
ounded Hearts series. Many readers have asked about the missing DEA Agent, Maggie Holt, who was captured by sex traffickers.
This is her story:
Prologue
María couldn’t breathe. The heat was worse than the pitch black, and that was scary enough. She and the others were squeezed into the back of the semi-trailer like tuna packed into a can. At first, the anticipation of a new life in a new land had kept them buoyed up, laughing and talking with frenetic excitement. But all that ended with the slow passage of time and the growing horror as they realized the refrigeration unit was faulty. The temperature inside the van climbed as high as the Mexican sun she’d left behind.
Her family had used every bit of their careful savings to give María a chance to make something of herself, far away from the squalor she’d known in Mexico. She’d thought the worst part would be sneaking across the border with her father’s cousin and five others, then meeting at a safe house they called it, before continuing the journey north to San Antonio. It had taken days to trek through the desert to one of the unmarked tunnels that led into the United States. They’d forked over half their meagre funds to the Sinaloa cartel men guarding the entrance, and slipped through the dank passageway, expecting bullets to rip through their bodies at any moment.
Then came the race through the quiet streets of Laredo, their bare feet kicking up little plumes of dust. More of their precious dollars passed hands before they found themselves loaded into the back of this trailer like a herd of cattle being led to slaughter.
As María listened to the fretful cries of children and the weeping women, she grew more and more frightened. She was only sixteen, too young to leave the safety of her family. Too young to die.
But some would.
She could hear it in the gasping pants of the old woman beside her. The heat radiating from her skin told María the woman was nearing the end of her life. Fated to perish inside this giant moving coffin on wheels.
Others took turns standing at one of the two small holes they’d managed to find in the walls. They put their mouths to the opening and grabbed what oxygen they could before getting pushed aside so the next one could breathe.
Just breathe.
The stench was horrible; ninety sweating bodies, some with weak bladders, crammed into a space recently filled by chickens. Feathers and feces littered the floor, a deterrent to sitting for all save the weakest. The water they’d been promised had turned out to be little more than a small plastic bottle each, gone in the first hour of the trip. The babies were lucky, they had their mothers’ breasts to feed from and arms to hold them close against the fear.
María had no one. Her father’s cousin remained at the entrance to the tunnels, explaining he’d already been caught on U.S. soil two times before and extradited back to Mexico. The courts had warned him the next time it would mean jail, and they all knew Mexicans didn’t fare well in American prisons. She’d grown up on horror stories of the abuse suffered by her countrymen. But it still beat the lives they faced in Mexico. Most of her family had been commandeered by the cartel in one way or another, either as gunsmiths or drug-runners. Mules, they called them, forced to risk their lives transporting cocaine and heroin across the border for a pittance of what the drugs were worth. And if they were caught… the cartel meted out their own brand of justice.
Torture and death.
The old woman slumped, her frail body leaning against María’s legs. Heart in her throat, she placed two fingers over the dry lips and waited—no air moved. The woman had died.
María hadn’t even asked her name. How would the woman’s family know what happened? Would the government here allow the return to her home country for burial? Did anyone even care?
She swiped away the tears. Feeling sorry for herself would do no good. She was committed to this journey, and she refused to give up now.
She elbowed her way through the throng and took her place at the hole in the wall, breathing life and hope into her desperate body.
1
I’m so cold.
Maggie Holt tugged the moth-eaten army blanket close and fought to control the shivers rattling her teeth enough to make her jaw ache. She’d complain, but her captors took enjoyment from her misery—and she refused to give them that satisfaction.
The pit she and the others called home was nothing more than an old root cellar dug into the side of a hill. Dirt-packed walls seeped when it rained and stunk of mildew and rot. There were no windows and only one entrance; a heavy wooden door outfitted with brass hardware built to withstand a third world war.
She’d been there long enough that her clothes hung loose on her frame, and the cracked ribs she’d received in an earlier escape attempt had healed. The five women who shared this hell-hole with her looked no better. Cowed, frightened ghosts of their former selves. Most stared at the walls vacantly, thin arms wrapped around dirty bare legs hunched to protect their bodies.
Not that it did any good.
All this pain and it had achieved nothing. Chenglei’s business was flourishing.
Her vow to bring the mafia to its knees was laughable in retrospect. She’d tackled the mob like a one-woman wrecking ball. Small wonder she’d been caught. It was a miracle she was even still alive. And there were times she wished for death.
Even her staunchest supporter and partner, Adam, had warned her she was getting in too deep.
He hadn’t understood. He couldn’t.
She’d waited a lifetime for a chance to catch this son-of-a-bitch. It was a matter of necessity. Like breathing.
The panic attack came out of nowhere.
Maggie’s heart raced. Her blood careened around the vessels in her head until she thought it might explode. Her lungs pumped, fighting to draw a clean breath, though it felt like the roof had fallen on her chest. Sweat broke across her forehead and coated her eyelids, making it impossible to see. Black dots swam before her eyes. She knew she was hyperventilating, but was powerless to control it.
“Breathe. It’s okay, I’ve got you.” The voice was low and soothing, dragging her back from the brink of insanity. Then a bony arm wrapped Maggie in a cocoon of warmth and comfort.
Olga.
Hard to believe two women from very different backgrounds—a DEA agent and a prostitute—could forge an unbreakable friendship, but saving one another’s lives had created a bond born in the fires of Hell.
“Thanks,” she wheezed past the golf ball lodged in her throat. God, she hated these attacks. They were a sign of weakness. Something she’d vowed never to show again. Forcing her mind away from the past, Maggie lifted trembling fingers and massaged her brow. “I hate this place.”
Olga laughed, the sound rusty from disuse. “What, this palace? It’s air-conditioned, private, cozy, and the food is…” They grimaced at the half-eaten scraps of mash on tin plates by the door. “Okay, disgusting.”
Maggie’s stomach chose that moment to rumble in agreement. They smiled, but then the reality of their situation wiped away the humor.
“They won’t keep us here forever,” she said, despair rising up like a tidal wave.
Olga clasped her hand and shook it. “Stop. You are the strongest one here. If the others hear you, they’ll give up. They need you.” Rare tears sparkled in sky blue eyes. “We all need you.”
Maggie was ashamed. She’d been trained for circumstances like this. She should be better equipped to deal with the situation than anyone else. It’s just that… she was scared.
There, she admitted it.
This case had turned out to be so much more than she’d expected. It had tested her on every level. She’d never be the same. The things Chenglei and his cohorts had done to her—another violent shiver racked her frame—they’d damaged her far worse than anything her father could have done.
But she’d survived then.
And she would now.
Her back straightened. She gazed for a long moment at the women, children really, huddled along the walls as
though trying to disappear into the very soil. When she turned to Olga, it was with new resolve.
“We need a plan.”
Olga sat back, her head shaking and eyes dark with worry. “No. That’s a bad idea. Look how it worked for us last time. We’ll be killed.”
She had a point. They’d been beaten within an inch of their lives the last time they tried to escape. Maggie didn’t know what happened to the women they’d helped first before trying for their own getaway. Chenglei claimed he’d had them executed, but then he would say that. The bastard.
“I can’t do this anymore. The waiting. The not knowing what’s going to happen is driving me insane.”
Frustrated, she stood and paced to the door, willing the damn thing to be unlocked. It wasn’t. But something she remembered from a television show gave her an idea. Grateful her shirt had a few buttons left to hold it together, she hesitated, then undid the one between her breasts. A quick twist broke the threads. She held on tight, with the dim light from under the door she’d never find the dark orb if she were to drop it on the dirt floor.
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