Protective Instincts

by Shirlee McCoy

  STALKED!

  After losing her family, and then nearly her life when she was held hostage in Africa, grieving widow Raina Lowery only wants to put the past behind her. Instead, she’s finding her son’s toys in the woods and dodging a gunman’s bullets. Raina is trapped in a real-life nightmare—until Jackson Miller reappears. Months ago, saving Raina was Jackson’s job as a member of HEART, a private rescue team. But now it’s personal. The hardened protector wants to give Raina—and himself—a second chance at love. But first he has to save her…again.

  Mission: Rescue—No job is too dangerous for these fearless heroes

  Her heart jumped as she met Jackson Miller’s eyes.

  Even in the midst of her terror, half-frozen and desperate, she recognized him. She’d dreamed about him dozens of times.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “You’re looking a little pale.”

  “I’m fine.” She met his eyes, her pulse jumping again. He was as handsome as she’d remembered. “But you...” She touched a bruise that was forming on his cheekbone.

  “Must have happened when I jumped out of the way of the Jeep that was trying to run me down.” He watched her steadily as he spoke. “You know anyone with a blue Jeep?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure, because someone was in the woods with you.”

  Fear clogged her throat. She’d been trying to convince herself that she’d imagined the man and his whispered threat. That everything that had happened since she’d woken to a child’s cries had been part of some bizarre dream.

  It wasn’t, though. It was real. And someone wanted to hurt her.

  Books by Shirlee McCoy

  Love Inspired Suspense

  Die Before Nightfall

  Even in the Darkness

  When Silence Falls

  Little Girl Lost

  Valley of Shadows

  Stranger in the Shadows

  Missing Persons

  Lakeview Protector

  *The Guardian’s Mission

  *The Protector’s Promise

  Cold Case Murder

  *The Defender’s Duty

  †Running for Cover

  Deadly Vows

  †Running Scared

  †Running Blind

  Out of Time

  †Lone Defender

  †Private Eye Protector

  The Lawman’s Legacy

  †Undercover Bodyguard

  †Navy SEAL Rescuer

  Tracking Justice

  †Fugitive

  †Defender for Hire

  Texas K-9 Unit Christmas

  “Holiday Hero”

  Safe by the Marshal’s Side

  **Protective Instincts

  Love Inspired Single Title

  Still Waters

  *The Sinclair Brothers

  †Heroes for Hire

  **Mission: Rescue

  SHIRLEE McCOY

  has always loved making up stories. As a child, she daydreamed elaborate tales in which she was the heroine—gutsy, strong and invincible. Though she soon grew out of her superhero fantasies, her love for storytelling never diminished. She knew early that she wanted to write inspirational fiction, and she began writing her first novel when she was a teenager. Still, it wasn’t until her third son was born that she truly began pursuing her dream of being published. Three years later, she sold her first book. Now a busy mother of five, Shirlee is a homeschooling mom by day and an inspirational author by night. She and her husband and children live in the Pacific Northwest and share their house with a dog, two cats and a bird. You can visit her website, www.shirleemccoy.com, or email her at shirlee@shirleemccoy.com.

  PROTECTIVE INSTINCTS

  Shirlee McCoy

  For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

  —Jeremiah 29:11

  To Glenda Winters, because she knows how to hold on and how to let go. Blessings to you, my friend. And prayers that God will give you comfort and courage and peace.

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  DEAR READER

  QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

  EXCERPT

  PROLOGUE

  Sudan

  Six months ago

  Dying felt like summer heat and dusty earth. It sounded like flies and buzzards, humming and flapping in Raina Lowery’s ears as she lay on the hot, hard ground of the African savanna.

  Please, God, just let it end soon. The prayer flitted through her mind. There and gone so quickly she couldn’t quite grab hold of it.

  Close by, someone groaned, the sound drifting on waves of scorching heat. Twenty days traveling rugged terrain with little water, five days lying in cages in the blazing sun. They’d all die soon. Some of them already had.

  Of the ten-member missionary team, seven had survived the initial attack against the small village where they’d been staying. Only five of the remaining had completed the forced journey to the rebel encampment.

  Raina didn’t know how many more had died since they’d arrived. If any of them lived, it would be a miracle, and she’d given up believing in those years ago.

  A fraud trying to live a faith that she’d professed when she was a child; that’s what she’d felt like when she’d agreed to travel with the medical mission. She’d die a fraud, because she hadn’t found what she’d been looking for when she’d left Pine Bluff, Washington, and flown to Africa.

  Dear God, please...

  Something rustled beside her, and she opened her eyes, squinting against the late-afternoon sun. A gun strapped to his shoulder, his eyes hollow and old, a boy soldier peered through the cage bars. Young. Six or seven. A year or two younger than Joseph would have been. His close-cropped hair was coated with dirt, his cheeks covered with grime. He wore a baggy shirt and faded red shorts. His feet were bare.

  Raina thought that he’d spit on her the way others had, but he pulled an old water bottle from beneath his baggy black T-shirt and slid it through the bars.

  “Drink,” he whispered, his English thick and heavily accented.

  She wanted to thank him, but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, and she couldn’t get the words out. She lifted the murky water and drank greedily, gulping it down so quickly she almost choked.

  She passed the bottle back through the bars, desperate for more. But the boy shoved it back under his shirt and ran off.

  Alone again, she curled into a fetal position, the hot earth burning her cheek, the water roiling in her stomach. The buzzards flapped their wings, the droning sounds of the flies growing so loud they were almost deafening.

  The air hung still and heavy, the heat so thick she could taste it on the back of her tongue, feel it in the sluggish
pulse of her blood. It dragged at her, pulling her down into a darkness she wasn’t sure she’d ever escape.

  Someone shouted and gunfire blasted through the encampment, the explosive power of machine-gun rounds vibrating through the hard ground. Raina pushed to her knees, couldn’t make it to her feet. Fire blazed from the roof of one of the rebel’s huts, the shimmering heat dancing against the afternoon sky. A black helicopter hovered above, blowing the smoke and flames into a frenzy of motion. Men ran toward the tall savanna grasses, weapons slapping against narrow backs, boots thudding on drought-dry earth.

  A small figure darted through the chaos, running straight toward Raina’s prison. Black T-shirt and old red shorts, skinny legs pumping hard. No gun this time. Just wild fear in his ancient eyes.

  He crouched near the cage door, his hand shaking as he shoved a key into the padlock.

  “You have to run and hide!” Raina tried to shout, but her voice caught in her parched throat, and all that came out was a croak.

  The door swung open, and the boy held out his hand. “You are free.”

  Their gazes locked, and she reached for him, her fingers brushing the warm, dry tips of his.

  Another explosion, and his eyes went wide as he fell into the cage.

  “No!” Raina rasped, not caring about the open door that he’d fallen through, the war raging behind him. A rebel soldier lay a dozen yards away, blood pooling beneath him, the gun he’d used to bring down the boy lying near his outstretched hand. All Raina cared about was the boy. She touched his neck, felt his thready rapid pulse.

  Her training kicked in then. All the years of being an emergency room nurse drove her to action. Blood spurted from the boy’s leg. The injury to his thigh was so severe, she didn’t think the limb could be saved. She ripped off a piece of her shirt, tied it around the top of his leg to cut off blood flow. It was that or watch him die.

  He couldn’t have weighed more than fifty pounds, but Raina struggled to lift him and stagger out of the cage. Dizzy, disoriented, she aimed for the tall grass, stumbling past the rebel’s body. Heat blazed from the raging fire and the endless sun. Her arms and legs trembled, but she couldn’t stop, couldn’t put the boy down.

  Please, God...

  Please...

  Her legs gave out, and she tumbled backward, her arms still wrapped around the boy. He groaned, his dark eyes staring into hers, blank but still lit with life and hope.

  Please.

  “It’s okay. You’re safe now. We’re going to get you home,” a man said, crouching beside her, his tan pants and long-sleeved shirt crisp and clean, his accent the deep drawl of a true Southerner. Deep blue eyes and an unyielding face. Hard edges and sharp angles and a scar that split one dark eyebrow.

  Who are you? she thought, the words trapped in her head, unable to escape the fiery heat in her throat, the dryness of her mouth.

  “Let’s get out of here.” He tried to pull her from the boy, but she tightened her grip.

  “No.”

  “We can’t bring him with us. There’s no room on the chopper.” His voice was as gentle as sunrise, and Raina wanted to close her eyes, release her grip, let herself fall into the care he seemed to be offering.

  She couldn’t leave the boy, though.

  Wouldn’t.

  “Take him, then.” She thrust the boy into his arms, her muscles trembling, blackness edging at the corner of her mind. Maybe this was where she was meant to die. Maybe four years of searching for the faith she’d lost had led her straight into God’s arms.

  She swayed, so ready to give in that her knees buckled.

  “Don’t give up now,” he growled, his free arm snaking around her waist. He pulled her upright, and she had no choice but to run beside him. It was that or drag all three of them down.

  “Jackson! Hurry it up. We’ve got heat coming in from the west.” A woman raced toward them, her blond hair pulled into a ponytail, a gun strapped to her chest. She wore the same uniform as the man. A blue heart was stitched on one shoulder.

  “Everyone is accounted for?”

  “If this is Raina, then yes.” The woman offered Raina a kind smile that didn’t quite fit the hard angles and edges of her face. Her gaze dropped to the boy, and she frowned. “We can’t take him. You know that, right?”

  “Rules are meant to be broken, Stella. Isn’t that your philosophy of life?”

  “True.” She took the boy from his arms. “Let’s get out of here.”

  She ran toward a waiting helicopter, dust and debris swirling, her blond ponytail flying. Raina wanted to run, too, but she couldn’t feel her feet, her legs, her body. Didn’t know if she was standing or lying down. Hazy sky and yellow sun and midnight-blue eyes. The endless flap of buzzard wings.

  “You’re going to be okay, Raina,” someone whispered as she slid into darkness.

  ONE

  Help me, Mommy. Please! Help me!

  The cries drifted into Raina’s consciousness, weaving their way through vivid dreams: Africa. A young boy who wasn’t Joseph, but who could have been. Hot sun. Desperate thirst. Fear.

  And that cry!

  Help me, Mommy! Please! Help me!

  She jerked awake, her heart thundering so loudly, she thought she was still hearing the cries.

  She was still hearing the cries.

  Wasn’t she?

  She scrambled out of bed, the sheets and blanket dropping onto the floor, her flannel pajamas tangled around her waist and legs. Wind rattled the windows, the darkness beyond the single-pane glass complete. She cocked her head to the side, heard the house creaking, ice pattering on the roof. Other than that, there was nothing. Her hand shook as she brushed bangs from her forehead and tried to take a few deep breaths. Tried, but her lungs wouldn’t fill.

  “Calm down!” she muttered. “It was just a dream, and you’re still waking up from it.”

  It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had the dream many times in the six months since she’d returned from the mission trip, and it wasn’t as if she hadn’t learned how to deal with it.

  She paced to the window then back to the bed, inhaling, exhaling, forcing herself to relax.

  She’d spent the past thirty hours wondering how the young boy who’d given her a drink of water and unlocked her cage was faring. Was it any wonder that she’d had such a vivid nightmare? After fighting red tape and bureaucracy, petitioning, begging, pleading and pulling every string she could think of, Raina had finally managed to get him to the United States on a medical visa. He’d stepped onto U.S. soil the previous morning. The flight from L.A. to Atlanta had gone off without a hitch, but the flight from Atlanta to D.C. had been canceled.

  Good thing Raina had hired an escort to bring Samuel to the United States. One she trusted implicitly. Stella Silverstone worked for HEART, the hostage rescue team that had risked everything to save her and the rest of the mission team. Stella had been brusque and to the point when she’d called to tell Raina about the delay. They were stuck in Atlanta, their flight canceled because of the storms. Samuel was fine. Stella would call again when they got a flight out.

  That had been more than twelve hours ago.

  Raina hadn’t heard a word since. She was worried about Samuel. His leg had been amputated above the knee, and he’d suffered reoccurring infections in the stump. He’d been hospitalized for a few weeks before his trip to the United States, and the doctors hadn’t been hopeful for his recovery. No wonder Raina was having nightmares.

  “But now you’re awake, so do something productive instead of standing around panicking.” Her words echoed in the room she’d once shared with Matt. Like everything else since the accident that had taken her husband and son, the room seemed to be nothing more than a shadow of its former self. Wedding pictures hung crooked on the wall. Family photos lined the dresser,
their frames covered with dust. The pretty yellow bedspread that had been a wedding gift was faded to a muted ivory.

  Destiny had tried to get her to redecorate, but Raina hadn’t seen the point, so she’d ignored her best friend’s suggestions. Now that Matt was gone, the room was just a place to sleep. Half the time, she lay on the couch, watching TV until she finally drifted off.

  Matt wasn’t around to gently shake her shoulder and laugh while she grumbled about not wanting to get up. He wasn’t there to usher her into their room and nuzzle her neck while she pulled down the covers.

  It had been years, and she should be used to that, but she wasn’t.

  She left the room that suddenly seemed too full of memories, and walked down the short hall into the great room. That had been Matt’s name for it. It was really nothing more than an oversize living room that had been created when the former owner had combined a formal living and dining area. Matt had lots of big ideas, lots of beautiful ways of looking at the ordinary. She missed his optimistic perspective, but she’d been trying to move on, to create something for herself that didn’t include all the dreams that had died when Matt and Joseph had been taken away from her.

  She pulled back the curtains and stared out into the tiny front yard. The property butted up against a dirt road that dead-ended a half mile to the west. A century ago, the area had been dotted with farms and orchards, the nearby town of Middletown, Maryland, a bustling community of businessmen and farmers. The Great Depression had hit it hard, but it had rebounded in the 1980s when yuppies willing to take on a long commute had moved there from the Baltimore and Washington suburbs. Farther west, though, where farms had once been the livelihood of the town, abandoned properties and fallow acreage had proven a deterrent to the area’s revitalization. Matt had seen it as a blessing, but that was the way he’d always been. Focused on the positive. Willing to work hard to make dreams a reality. He’d seen the old farmhouse and twenty acres of overgrown orchards as an answer to prayer.

  Raina had gone along for the ride. Just as she always had, because she’d loved Matt, and she’d wanted what he’d wanted. Now, of course, she was stuck on twenty acres in the middle of nowhere. No close neighbors to visit on the weekends or children playing basketball or hockey on the street. Just Larry, and he stuck close to his house and his property.