Inherited Threat

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Inherited Threat Page 14

by Jane M. Choate


  Sammy barked his joy at going out. He would never prance impatiently as did some dogs at the idea of a walk, but she felt his pleasure.

  Together, the three of them walked the property line. She was surprised at the extent of Mace’s property.

  “It’s beautiful here,” she said.

  “I like it. I needed a place like this, even if I can’t make it here as much as I’d like.”

  She felt much of the tension drain from her in this slice of beauty.

  A rabbit darted in front of them. Sammy gave no notice, too well-trained to give chase.

  Mace had shared an important part of his past with her. She wanted to reach out, to smooth her hands over his jaw, to wipe away the tension that held it with such rigid pain. Her gaze dropped to his hands and she noted again the deliberate, controlled action with which he used them. Not a wasted motion.

  A scar on his hand snagged her attention, a jagged line tracing from his knuckles to his wrist.

  “A glass bottle and I got up close and personal,” he said in answer to her unspoken question. “My unit and I were assigned to protect a school. We thought the threat was only from the outside, but one of the teachers was a plant by a terrorist group. When it became clear that we were going to beat back the insurgents, the teacher showed her true colors. She went after the girls, but I got in the way.”

  Of course he had. Mace would never allow an innocent to be hurt if he could stop it, even at a cost to himself.

  Educating girls was considered a sin among many Middle Eastern sects. It wasn’t unheard of for a zealot to embed herself into a school for the express purpose of destroying it. Laurel shook her head at the waste.

  “The girls...did they survive?”

  “We got them to a refugee camp that took them in. What those girls suffered—” he shook his head “—just to get a bit of education, made me want to knock some sense into kids here who don’t realize what they have.”

  The hands that had moved with such assurance now rubbed agitatedly together. As though aware of the telltale gesture, he slammed a fist into his palm and left it there.

  He looked vulnerable. How could that be? Strong. Determined. Courageous. Those were words she associated with Mace. But vulnerable? No. From the moment she and Mace had met, she’d admired his confidence, his boldness, his conviction. But beneath all that, there lay scars. Scars that ran deep.

  Once again, she experienced the urge to smooth her hand over his jaw. Once again, she resisted.

  “They got to you, didn’t they?” she asked. “Those girls. It was the same with me the first time I stepped inside a school outside of Jalal-Abad. All those eager young faces, so excited to learn, to find out what was beyond their village. I went back to our camp and found every book and magazine I could and delivered them.

  “I’ll never forget the look on the girls’ faces. It was like a thousand Christmases and birthdays rolled into one. Some of those girls had never seen a book outside the school, much less had one of their own. They touched the books with a kind of reverence I’d never seen before.”

  Her remembered joy in the moment died as other memories took its place.

  She’d witnessed firsthand the courage of the Afghani people who fought their enemies, even knowing they couldn’t win. Those same people had assisted American soldiers, risking and sometimes giving their own lives to put an end to the carnage taking place in their country.

  Her men had done their best to provide a speck of pleasure for the children, sharing little gifts from home, like candy and magazines. She had had nothing from home to share but had bought treats for children who had so very little. Few had shoes but never complained about hot, blistered feet or empty bellies.

  And then the explosion had happened, claiming her comrades’ lives as well as injuring her and Sammy.

  The grueling days and weeks of therapy that followed had tested her in ways she’d never thought to be tested. The pain had been excruciating, and at times she wasn’t certain she’d make it to the other end, but she hadn’t given up.

  She’d told herself it didn’t matter that she’d had no one to visit her, no one to cry with her, no one to encourage her as did the other patients. She’d told herself that it didn’t matter that she never received letters or care packages. She told herself she didn’t need anyone. She’d told herself lie after lie after lie. Until the lies didn’t make her feel any better, and she wanted to scream under the weight of them.

  Only then did she start to tell herself the truth and start to improve.

  It was over. Time to move on. And still the acuteness of her aloneness lingered. Sammy had kept her sane. Knowing that he depended on her had given her the incentive to keep going when she might otherwise have given up.

  “Why are you asking me all of this?” she asked.

  “Maybe for the same reason you asked about my past.”

  She cocked her head. “So what have you learned?”

  “That you don’t run from a problem or duck it. That you march straight through it until you come out the other end.”

  “You got all that from what I told you?”

  “I got all that from what you didn’t tell me.” His gaze met hers, a challenge. “What did you learn about me?”

  “You’re a straight shooter. You don’t waver. You do what you have to despite the cost to yourself.”

  “You’re way off the mark. You think I don’t sometimes want to chuck it all and take the easy way?”

  She couldn’t picture Mace ever taking the easy way with anything. He was steel through and through. Making Ranger took grit, guts and a whole lot of heart. She ought to know.

  “What about you? You ever want to take the easy way out?”

  “When Bernice died, I thought of not going to the service. I actually considered not attending my own mother’s funeral.” The memory lashed her soul with stinging stripes.

  She lifted her gaze. “When you’re looking for answers, the only way to look is up.”

  “You’re pretty amazing.”

  “I’m not amazing at all. But I keep trying. Each day I try to be better than I was the day before. That’s what the Lord asks of me, so that’s what I ask of myself.” The look she shot him was full of challenge. “What do you think the Lord asks of you?”

  The question startled him. “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe you should find out.”

  “Maybe I should.”

  FIFTEEN

  “What do you know about Winston’s wife?” Laurel asked over a breakfast of eggs, bacon and hash browns two mornings later. They’d spent the previous day chasing down leads that had gone nowhere. Discouragement had sat heavily on her shoulders at the wasted day.

  Nothing had been said about their conversation of two nights ago. Probably best that way. She didn’t need further complications in her life, and Mace Ransom was definitely a complication. A very handsome, very intriguing complication, but a complication all the same. It was best for him and for her to keep things on a professional level.

  “Not much. She stood by him during the trial, then disappeared from public life. Word is that she stayed at the same house, her family home. She refused to give interviews at the time of the trial. After Ronnie was sentenced, she continued to refuse. The press moved on to another story.”

  “Maybe we can learn something from her. Ronnie may have let something slip around her and likely doesn’t think she’s smart enough to do anything with it. Men like that always see women as inferior.”

  Mace nodded thoughtfully. “You ever think of going into profiling? You only just met him and you already know what makes him tick.”

  “I’ve known men like him all my life. Bernice...” She paused, swallowed. “Bernice attracted that kind of man. They’re bullies, the lot of them. They have to put others down, either physically or emotionall
y, to feel that they have any worth. Anyway, it might be helpful to pay Mrs. Winston a visit. And I’m not convinced she isn’t involved somehow.”

  Mace aimed a small salute in Laurel’s direction. “I like the way you think. I’ll get her address and then we can drop in on her.”

  “Unannounced?”

  “No sense in giving her time to prepare herself or notify Winston’s associates.”

  “I like the way you think.” A framed quote on a shelf snared her interest. “May I?” she asked, gesturing to it.

  At Mace’s nod, Laurel picked up the finely worked piece of calligraphy and read it to herself. The world breaks everyone; afterward many are strong at the broken places. She recognized the quote from Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.

  She thought of Mace and what he’d shared with her. His strength and honor would always define him, as would his courage and integrity. “It’s perfect.” Unspoken were the words You’re pretty perfect, too.

  So much for keeping her feelings on the professional level she’d touted to herself only moments ago.

  Mace came to stand next to her and, unexpectedly, skimmed his hand across her jaw. A shiver skittered down her spine, and she forgot her resolve of only minutes ago.

  Laurel turned and drew closer to him. At the same time, an arc of awareness sparked between them.

  She saw her surprise reflected in the dark irises of his eyes. Was he as taken aback as she at what had just happened? She hoped so. She didn’t want to be in this—whatever it was—by herself. So close were they that she could see the bristle of whiskers, hear the slow intake of his breath, feel the beat of his heart.

  This moment would forever be engraved on her mind, in her heart.

  She found his hand, and, with infinite slowness, brought it to her lips. His intake of breath and the faint trembling of his fingers were telling.

  “I have feelings for you, Laurel. You have to know that.”

  His words wended themselves around her heart.

  “I can’t promise anything,” he said, his voice low but nonetheless compelling for it. “Not as long as the Collective is active. Not as long as you’re a target. Keeping you safe has to be my priority.”

  She didn’t challenge him with the assertion that she could keep herself safe as she might once have. Where was he going with this? And did she want to go there with him?

  As much as she admired Mace, she didn’t know if she could accept his lack of belief. Her faith was integral to her sense of self. And then there was her promise to herself to never become involved with a soldier again.

  Two nights ago, she’d convinced herself that what she felt for him had been the result of the danger and intensity of the day’s events. She’d been exhausted, ready to drop in her tracks.

  This morning, she’d told herself that she didn’t need the complication of a relationship, especially a relationship with someone as appealing as Mace Ransom, in her life. Now she wasn’t so certain.

  Something had changed between them. Something important, so important that she couldn’t put a name to it even if she wanted to...and she wasn’t at all sure that she did.

  * * *

  The sun beat down on the asphalt road on the way to Jenni-Grace Winston’s home and blistered the sky with streaks of white.

  Mace shielded his eyes and squinted. He’d grown accustomed to the heat of Afghanistan, the dry, searing burn of it. Back in the States for a couple of years now, he was still struggling to adjust to the energy-sapping humidity of a Georgia summer.

  He glanced at Laurel, quiet and composed. They’d left Sammy at the cabin, much to the German shepherd’s displeasure. He considered himself Laurel’s protector, but a visit to the Winstons’ home with him in tow hadn’t seemed a good idea.

  Mace smiled, thinking of the big dog who was still serving his country, though in a different manner than that for which he’d been trained. Sammy was a true American hero, far more so than Mace would ever be.

  His thoughts turned to Laurel’s challenge to him, to discover what the Lord wanted of him. It humbled him in ways he could never have imagined. What could the Lord want of someone as flawed as him?

  The absolute certainty in her voice when she spoke of the Lord had both irritated and riveted him. He didn’t doubt that she believed every word she’d said, that God would forgive him of his sins and turn them into virtues. How could that be, he wondered, acutely aware of how deep those sins ran.

  There were times when he could almost bring himself to believe again. It was the sensation he experienced whenever he thought about Laurel. Which was most of the time.

  Her faith shone in everything she did, everything she said, everything she was. When he had kissed her outside the prison and again in the truck with the pigs, he’d felt as though a chink had broken through the wall of disbelief he had erected years ago, as if he could absorb her faith and goodness through the small contact.

  Somehow, Laurel and belief in the Lord had mixed together, until he couldn’t separate the two.

  He was moving too fast. Or, more precisely, his feelings for her were moving too fast. It had been the same with the teacher who’d turned out to be a CIA operative. She had betrayed him in the worst way possible and eroded his ability to trust.

  He knew that Laurel would never deceive him in that way, but his heart was still bruised by the battering it had taken.

  “What did your research tell you about the mysterious Mrs. Winston?” Mace asked in an attempt to take his thoughts off both Laurel and the Lord. Ever since their decision to call on Jenni-Grace Winston, Laurel had been reading up on the lady.

  “I’m trying to understand what kind of woman would marry a man like Ronnie Winston.”

  “Don’t keep me in suspense. Tell me.”

  Laurel grimaced. “I ended up with more questions than answers. She comes from money. Old money.”

  Mace understood the distinction. Old money was superior to new money. Though times were changing, many people clung to such outdated beliefs.

  “She was a debutante at eighteen, attended Ole Miss University and graduated with honors in business management.

  “Her father bred horses,” Laurel continued. “When he and her mother died in a boating accident when she was only twenty, they left her a tidy inheritance. Not a fortune, but enough that she could live comfortably—very comfortably—for the rest of her life. Until the trial, she’d been active in civic and social affairs and served on the boards of several charities. So why marry Winston?”

  “What did you come up with?”

  “That’s what we’re going to find out.”

  * * *

  Jenni-Grace Winston was beautifully dressed and groomed, as only a true Southern lady could be, in a silk sweater set paired with a couture-cut skirt, a single strand of pearls around her slender neck. With her genteel manners and in her designer clothes, she and Ronnie presented a study in contrasts.

  Content to watch the lady, Laurel let Mace make the introductions. She took in the surroundings, the marble foyer with its crystal chandelier and portraits of dour-faced ancestors, and the graciously appointed parlor, the hallmark of a Southern home. The faded pastel upholstery and hand-rubbed rosewood spoke of taste far more than could any coldly modern furnishings.

  To her mind, Shelley and Caleb’s cheerfully cluttered bungalow with flowers spilling from fat pots was far more appealing.

  Jenni-Grace was as far removed from Ronnie as a designer suit was from a Goodwill castoff. So why had she married a man so obviously beneath her on the social ladder?

  Love made people go against the grain at times, but this pairing verged on the ludicrous. Why, Laurel asked herself again. What had Jenni-Grace Winston seen in the crude and roughly spoken Ronnie?

  Money? Perhaps. Certainly, Winston had made a great deal of money from the Collective’s various enterpri
ses before he was sent to prison, but Jenni-Grace had her own fortune. The allure of a “bad boy”? Laurel suppressed a shudder as she recalled Winston’s vulgar words and manner. That couldn’t be enough.

  “Mrs. Winston,” Mace began, “we’re here to learn anything we can about how your husband is managing to run the Collective from prison.”

  Laurel approved of his straightforward manner. Though Jenni-Grace might love Ronnie, that didn’t mean she was blind to his doings. How could she be when his crimes had been plastered over the media for the months before and after his trial?

  Jenni-Grace fluttered manicured hands. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You had to be aware of the crimes your husband was convicted of,” Laurel said, speaking for the first time. “It makes sense you might know how he’s getting his orders out.”

  “I won’t sit here and have you say these awful things about my Ronnie.” Jenni-Grace’s voice quivered. Her hands moved to her pearls, and a tiny line of consternation formed a V between her perfectly groomed brows. “It wouldn’t be the first time that corrupt lawyers and judges have put an innocent man in prison. How dare you come here—without invitation, I might add—and insult my husband and me?”

  As she grew more agitated, she twisted the pearls back and forth, revealing a bit of green at the clasp, a figure of some sort.

  Laurel had the sensation that she’d seen the figure before and tried to determine when it was.

  As though aware of Laurel’s scrutiny, Jenni-Grace righted the strand of pearls. “My husband has done nothing wrong. I’m content to wait for Ronnie to be vindicated and released.”

  Pity bubbled up inside of Laurel at the wife’s blind faith and loyalty in a man who deserved neither.

  “Your loyalty is admirable, Mrs. Winston,” Mace said, “but surely you must see that it’s misplaced.” His lips had pulled tight, his easy expression vanished. Laurel shared the feeling. Mace was as frustrated as she was with Jenni-Grace and her blind devotion to a man who didn’t deserve it.

 

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