Inherited Threat

by Jane M. Choate

  “The doctor said we could spring you in another couple of days,” Shelley said. “I’m bringing you home with me. And I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

  “Okay.” The idea of spending time with Shelley’s beautiful family was too appealing to reject.

  “Caleb and I won’t take no for an answer. You deserve some pampering and spoiling, so don’t go arguing... What did you say?”

  “I said, ‘Okay.’” Laurel discovered she wanted to hang around in Atlanta, at least for a while. Whether or not she took the job at S&J was another matter. It was a dream job, except for Mace.

  And even if Mace wanted to be with her, she wasn’t sure she could picture a future for the two of them. She’d told herself that she’d never again become involved with a soldier after Jeffrey. He had been her first love, but his ego hadn’t been able to withstand the idea that she had made the Rangers and he hadn’t.

  And though Mace had left the Rangers, he was still a soldier at heart.

  He would always put his life on the line, with causes to champion, victims to help, justice to serve. It was who he was, and she wouldn’t change him for the world. She loved that about him. She also feared it. They had come close, too close, to losing their lives.

  In the next instant, she knew she was lying, if only to herself. She’d take Mace just as he was. And why was she even debating this with herself?

  Her elation over the news about the DNA tests took a backseat to the acceptance that she had no future with Mace. He’d made it clear with his absence that whatever they had shared was over.

  TWENTY

  After staying away from the hospital for a day and a half, Mace knew what he had to do. He didn’t know if Laurel would see him or give him his walking papers. Maybe she’d see him for a minute only to kick him out. He deserved that and more.

  She’d taken two bullets for him, even knowing that it would likely end any dream of continuing her career with the Rangers.

  Unbearable guilt had caused him to walk out of her room and out of her life, but he’d discovered something. He couldn’t stay away. If she told him she never wanted to see him again, that would be that.

  But he had to try.

  He urged Sammy, who had been staying with him the last twenty-four hours, into the truck and headed to the hospital. He’d need backup in facing Laurel. She might turn him away, but she’d never turn away Sammy.

  Using a dog as his wingman would be downright funny if it weren’t so cowardly. He thought of Laurel’s fearlessness and was shamed by his own lack of courage.

  After explaining to a hospital official that Sammy was a service dog—and, really, wasn’t that the truth?—Mace and Sammy took the elevator to the second floor.

  He hadn’t expected to run into Shelley and Jake as he walked down the corridor to Laurel’s room.

  “What’s got you looking like you’re trying to walk forward but your pants are on backward?” The words were delivered without a trace of humor as Jake blocked Mace’s way.

  Intent on his mission, Mace had no time for whatever bug was crawling up his friend’s butt. In addition, a crowded hospital hallway wasn’t the place to get into this. With Jake’s aggressive attitude, the two of them were more likely to be trading blows than words.

  He pushed his boss aside.

  Jake pushed back. “I told you not to hurt Laurel. You ignored me. Now I have to pound on you.” He made to raise his fist as though intending to follow through on it there in the middle of the hospital.

  Mace took a breath. Held it. When he slowly expelled it, he knew what he had to say. “I’m on my way to make it right. You can pound on me some other time, but I’ve got to see Laurel. You try to stop me and we’re going to have trouble.”

  Apparently sensing the tension, Sammy gave a sharp bark, as though to say “Play nice.”

  Shelley placed a hand on her brother’s arm. “I think he means it.” Though her tone was conciliatory, the look she aimed Mace’s way was anything but. “You fix what you did to Laurel, or you’ll answer to me.”

  Given his choice between taking on Jake or Shelley, he’d take Jake every time. A mama grizzly looked mild compared to Shelley when it came to protecting family. An ex-cop and former Secret Service agent, she’d bragged more than once that she could take down a man using only a pen.

  “Look, I know I messed up with Laurel. I stayed away because I thought she couldn’t forgive me for what happened.”

  “Did you shoot her?” Shelley asked in her practical, no-nonsense manner.

  Taken aback, Mace stuttered, “Of c-course not.”

  “Then why would she need to forgive you?”

  “Her shoulder...she’ll never be able to go back to the Rangers now.”

  “The Rangers are pretty great—no question there, but they’re not the only way Laurel can use her skills.” Shelley grinned. “It so happens that I know of a security/protection business that just offered her a job. She hasn’t said yes yet, probably because of a man whose brain is all wrapped up in some misplaced guilt.”

  “Laurel will be working for S&J?”

  “If she takes the job. As soon as she’s recovered enough, we hope she’ll be our newest operative.” Shelley bent to pet Sammy. “And Sammy, too, of course.”

  Mace wanted to whoop with joy until he remembered what had brought him to the hospital in the first place. He needed to make things right with Laurel. If he didn’t... He didn’t finish the thought. He couldn’t.

  “That’s great. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some begging to do.”

  None too gently, Jake clapped him on the back. “Groveling helps.”

  Mace knew that Jake had had to do some serious groveling to convince his wife, Dani, to marry him, and, for the first time in a couple of days, smiled and meant it. “So I hear.”

  * * *

  Laurel pushed a button that raised the bed setting a couple of notches and reached for the box of chocolates. After reading the legend, she chose a chocolate cream. With her first bite, she gave a moan of pleasure. Kale may be healthy, but chocolate beat it every time.

  The idea of working for S&J filled her with excitement as well as a new sense of purpose. She welcomed the challenge of helping people in trouble. And working alongside Shelley and Jake was just about perfect.

  The broken pieces of her life were falling into place. Broken pieces. Broken people. She thought of the calligraphy piece in Mace’s home. Yes, she was broken, but that didn’t mean she was beaten.

  With a determined swipe of her hand, she brushed away the tears that had been her constant companion since she’d learned that Mace had left. Though he had rejected her, she knew that the Lord would never turn His back on her. With Him on her side, she would find a way to go on.

  She would stand strong in broken places. She had made herself who she was, who the Lord wanted her to be. Nothing could take that away from her. Nothing would.

  With her faith to root her, she took a hard look at herself.

  There’d been a change in her over the last week, an acceptance of her past and of her future. She’d made peace with both, as well as with her feelings about Bernice, and had even discovered she could feel a measure of grace for the woman and for herself.

  If only Mace could find the same acceptance. He would have to come to that peace in his own way, in his own time. She prayed he’d find it.

  He deserved that, deserved to be happy. She’d have given anything if she could help him on that journey, but it wasn’t to be.

  A knock at the door had her looking up. And he was there. With Sammy. Bewilderment and pain swallowed her.

  Mace did something she never thought she’d see from him. He shuffled his feet. Actually shuffled them. Like a small boy who’d been caught in a misdeed and didn’t know how he was going to get out of it. “I brought Sammy. Thought you
might let me in if he was with me.”

  Hearing his name, Sammy trotted over and nudged her hand.

  Awkward with the IV drip attached to her arm, she patted Sammy’s head. What kind of foolishness was Mace talking about? “Why wouldn’t I let you in?”

  “Your shoulder.”

  “What does that have to do with it?” she asked, honestly bewildered.

  “You can’t return to the Rangers. You’ll have to resign.”

  So that was it. “And you think I blame you. You’re an idiot, Ransom. A total idiot.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “If you hadn’t taken those bullets...”

  “If I hadn’t taken the bullets, my shoulder would have still been injured. And my career with the Rangers would have still been over. I think I’ve known it all along. I just didn’t want to face it.”

  “All the therapy—”

  “Was to help me hold on to my dream for a while longer.” Laurel reached for his hand. “You helped me in ways I can never repay. But I’m good. And I’m ready to move on with my life.” She paused. “Shelley and Jake offered me a job with S&J. I’m tempted to say yes, but...”

  “But what?”

  “Us.” She refused to give in to the temptation to duck her head and instead met his gaze unflinchingly.

  “Us?”

  “You and me. We’d probably have to work together on occasion. Can you handle it?”

  “I can handle anything with you at my side.” He paused. “You and the Lord.”

  “I did hear you praying,” she said in wonder. “The first night I was here. I thought I’d imagined it, but it was real.”

  “It was real all right. So was the prayer I said when you were shot, begging the Lord to spare your life. I thought I’d have a hard time getting the words out. Turns out it wasn’t hard at all. I thought the Lord hadn’t heard me, but I was wrong.”

  He pressed his lips to hers. “Now I’m begging again. Begging you to forgive me. I don’t deserve that any more than I deserved the Lord’s forgiveness, but there it is.”

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about grace in the last twenty-four hours. God gives grace to everyone, even those who don’t deserve it. Especially to those who don’t deserve it, like myself. If He can do that for me, then I should be able to extend the same to you.”

  “You mean it?”

  “With all my heart.”

  “I love you, Laurel Landry. I think I’ve loved you from the day we met when I saw you take on a goon who outweighed you by a hundred or more pounds. I love you,” he said again. “I always will.”

  Unlike many moments of pure truth, this one was not fleeting. Feelings ebbed and flowed, until Laurel was so filled that she thought she might burst from the joy of it. Thank You, Lord.

  After kissing her again, Mace straightened. “You are my world. My heart and soul. Before you, I was floundering my way through life, trying to find a reason for my existence. I didn’t know which way I was going or even why I was going there. You gave that to me. That and so much more. Marry me and make a life with me.”

  Nothing could have been more right. A ball of emotion pushed up from her heart to settle in her throat.

  “Yes. I want a life with you,” she said. “A big, noisy life that makes sense of what we do.”

  Gently, he took her hand in his. She looked at their linked hands. Both were strong, capable hands, nicked and scarred by the work they’d chosen.

  She saw love and so much more in his eyes. She saw a future. One they could share. Tears, sweet and warm, came then.

  With exquisite gentleness, Mace reached out to thumb them away, then laid his lips upon hers. They, too, were sweet and warm.

  “I love you,” he said again. “In case you didn’t hear it the first time. I love you.”

  “It took you long enough,” she said, despite the huskiness of her voice which was thick with yet more tears.

  He grinned. “That’s my Laurel.”

  “And, by the way, I love you back.”

  He had shown her a side of herself she hadn’t known existed: a side that not only wanted but needed the love a man like him could bring to her world.

  “You are my world,” he said. “The sun, the moon, the stars. If I lost you, nothing else would matter.”

  Unspeakably touched, she pressed her palm against his cheek. “And you are mine.” The brush of his lips upon hers promised everything she’d ever wanted. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For making me the happiest woman in the world.”

  “Thank you for saving me.”

  One corner of her mouth quirked into a quick smile. “We saved each other. And the Lord saved both of us.”

  “We’ll make a life together. A good one. Children. Sammy. And love enough to last a lifetime.”

  “And eternity,” she added.

  “And eternity.” He took her hand and kissed the center of her palm. “I can’t promise that we’ll never have any problems, but I can promise to always be there to count the stars for you.”

  * * *

  If you enjoyed Inherited Threat, look for these other great books from author Jane M. Choate, available now:

  Keeping Watch

  The Littlest Witness

  Shattered Secrets

  High-Risk Investigation

  Find more great reads at www.LoveInspired.com

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Deep Undercover by Lenora Worth.

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  Dear Reader,

  I hope you enjoyed reading Laurel and Mace’s story. In many ways, this is also Sammy’s story. With his missing leg, Sammy, like others of us, does not measure up to the world’s standards of perfection.

  The world’s ideals of beauty and value, as evidenced by awards ceremonies, magazine covers and other superficial criteria, will never be the Lord’s. He asks that we give of ourselves—of our hearts, our minds and our spirits—to serve others, for when we serve others, we are serving Him. When we do this with compassion, faith and love, we find favor in His eyes.

  Missing legs or other physical imperfections matter not nearly so much as missing or unused hearts. I pray that we can each offer our hearts to the Lord, for He will turn our weaknesses to strengths, our flaws to honor, our sins to virtue.

  With gratitude for His love,

  Jane

  We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Love Inspired Suspense story.

  You enjoy a dash of danger. Love Inspired Suspense stories feature strong heroes and heroines whose faith is central in solving mysteries and saving lives.

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  Deep Undercover

  by Lenora Worth

  ONE

 
K-9 Officer Gavin Sutherland held tight to his partner Tommy’s leash and scanned the crowd, his mind on high alert, his whole body tense as he tried to protect the city he loved. People from all over the world stood shoulder to shoulder along the East River, waiting for the annual Fourth of July fireworks display. This New York tradition held a lot of challenges. He searched again in the park and along the riverfront on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

  The upbeat crowd grew more rowdy as the late afternoon sunshine began to slowly descend beyond the Manhattan skyscrapers to the west. Even with the patriotic excitement of the crowd, anything could go wrong. The setting sun hit asphalt and concrete with a laser-like heat while the merging of people seemed to crush in on all sides.

  The smell of someone’s perfume wafted up and out over the trees to mingle with the scents of cotton candy, street food and that other unique smell of sweaty humans having too much fun.

  His partner, a black-and-white springer spaniel, knew the drill. Tommy worked bomb detection. People were always surprised that a springer could be so focused and sharp. Tommy had been trained to find incendiary devices. Period. End of discussion. His quiet, steady work didn’t require barking or bringing attention to himself. He knew to sniff the air and the ground. Sniff, sit, repeat. Be rewarded. But Gavin didn’t have to get defensive about his partner. Tommy lived for bomb detection, play toys and rewards.

  Lately, Gavin had been the one who needed defending. He’d worked hard all of his life and done things by the book and yet a few choice words during a time of chaos and grief had put a target on his back. As a member of the NYC K-9 Command Unit, based in Queens, he took his job seriously and he’d like to keep it.

  Pushing aside the bitterness he’d tried to shed over the last few months, Gavin studied the immediate crowd. A woman with a curly-haired baby laughing at the man by her side. A kid in a Yankees baseball cap tossing a soccer ball in the air, his expression bored. A man wearing a plaid cap carrying a dark backpack. Two young girls in jeans and flag-embossed shirts shoving through the crowd to get the perfect selfie with the backdrop of the city.