He wanted to remember every bit of this moment. The smoky brown color of her eyes. The quirky smile. The curl of her blond hair and how soft and gentle it felt against his skin. He traced the contour of her lips with his finger and then his hands settled against the curve of her hips.
She reached up and raked her fingers through his hair. “Now...we’re even.” Her voice was faint and breathless.
Eli clasped her face in his hands. He couldn’t mess this moment up like he did the last time. He searched her eyes for any hint that she didn’t want this, but all he saw was sweet permission.
His lips found hers and they melted together in perfect oneness. His hands fell from her face and reached around her, pulling her tight against him. She was the one thing he’d been missing. The one thing he would never give up again.
Easing her back, he cupped the back of her neck and laid gentle kisses on her healed scars.
“Julia Galloway, I’m in love with you. Please, don’t ever forget that.”
EPILOGUE
Eighteen months later
Julia loved Christmas and it was a perfect day. Colorado had been gifted with a light blanket of freshly fallen crystals to put everyone in a peaceful, wintery mood. Poinsettias full of red blooms were in nearly every crevice, and the soft light of candles completed the ambience. The scent of hot apple cider filled her home.
Julia twirled her wedding ring, wanting to imprint this moment in her mind.
Her old home was now their new home.
Even though tragedy once made her flee from what she and her parents had worked so hard to perfect, it seemed natural for her and Eli to start their lives together in this place. To replace loss with new life. To live where he’d saved her. Where she’d triumphed over death.
Eli turned the television off. “Mark Heller’s finally a free man.”
The wheels of justice weren’t known to move swiftly, but they did turn. Eli had worked tirelessly to help Heller’s appeal and get him released from jail by leading a new investigation in conjunction with Aurora police to prove Ben was the Hangman. Ryder surprised everyone by pleading guilty and was currently serving jail time. Harper and Miles moved out of the area.
Julia’s grandfather clapped his hands. “That’s quite a gift that God gave him.”
“It’s quite a gift that God gave me,” Eli said. He still found it hard to forgive himself for Heller’s captivity and he’d continue to do what he could to make sure Heller got back on his feet.
“Is it time for presents?” Julia asked.
Her grandfather raised his empty coffee mug. “Not before I get some more of your wonderful cinnamon apple cider.”
“You’re not stowing jugs of this away in your room, are you?” Julia asked.
He placed a hand to his chest. “Why would I do that?”
Eli amazed her. He’d insisted on her grandfather living with them. The house had plenty of room and Eli seemed determined to nurture the family closeness he’d never known.
“Because I found a jug up there just last night,” Eli said.
“You were nosing around my room?” her papa asked, laughing.
“I might have been snooping for presents,” Eli confessed. “I can’t help it. It’s in my genes to find lost things.”
“So it is.” Julia smiled. “But you missed this.” She pulled a present from under the tree.
“What is it?” Eli asked as she handed it to him.
“Just a little something from your wife.”
“Julia...” He held her gaze, the love in his eyes bringing happy tears to hers.
Then Eli set the gift box down and settled his hands gently on her belly, blooming with his child. “This,” he whispered, “is the only gift I needed.”
Julia laid her hands over Eli’s, and their baby girl moved as if responding to their embrace. Her husband was right—there wasn’t a greater gift. Or a more beautiful promise of a new beginning.
Thank You, Lord. These things I will never forget.
* * * * *
If you enjoyed FRACTURED MEMORY, look for
FORGOTTEN MEMORIES by Laura Scott and
SUDDEN RECALL by Lisa Phillips
from Love Inspired Suspense.
Keep reading for an excerpt from HONOR AND DEFEND by Lynette Eason
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Dear Reader,
Imagine being home early in the morning and having a law enforcement officer knock on your door and tell you someone wanted to kill you and you needed to leave your home immediately for your own safety. Imagine the upheaval. The uncertainty. The amount of trust you’d have to put in a person you didn’t even know.
My novels are inspired from snippets of real life events. This opening scenario may sound familiar to you as this is exactly what happened to one particular woman. When I saw her story, I knew I had to write a novel with a beginning like that. What I needed was a more twisted and intriguing story line with a dash of medical mystery—my own suspenseful recipe.
I became part of the Love Inspired family via the Blurb to Book contest that Love Inspired sponsored in 2014. To see the fingerprints of how God led me to participate in this contest still amazes me. It was a leap of faith for me. Writing a novel with a strong romance thread was outside my comfort zone as my previous novels were more straight thrillers. I think those feelings I had about the contest came through in how Julia Galloway has to do many of these same things as she and Eli Cayne hunt to find who is trying to kill her. Julia has to trust a process she’s unfamiliar with. She has to lean on God in moments of uncertainty.
Knowing that the contest deadlines were pretty tight, I definitely had to write a character I knew pretty well. Julia’s nursing career basically mimics my own. I did start in adult nursing and lasted about three years before I decided that pediatric nursing was truly where my heart was. Also, my novels usually have some sort of medical twist, and I’ll be interested to hear from Love Inspired readers what they think of my debut novel with this line.
I’ve been welcomed so warmly into the Love Inspired family by the editorial staff and my fellow authors, and I’m very excited to get to know readers, as well. Please email me with your thoughts on Fractured Memory at [email protected], or write to me at Jordyn Redwood, PO Box 1142, Parker, CO 80134.
Many blessings,
Jordyn
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Honor and Defend
by Lynette Eason
ONE
K-9 police officer Ellen Foxcroft shot a sideways glance at the man who drove in silent concentration. Just ten minutes ago, they’d picked up three puppies from Sophie Williams. Not only was Sophie a trainer for the Canyon County K-9 Training Center, she also worked with the Prison Pups program. A program Lee Earnshaw, the man behind the wheel, was intimately familiar with, since he’d been part of it up until two weeks ago when he’d been released from prison. Framed. Set up by a dirty cop, he’d lost two years of his life. He’d developed a new hardness and more lines around his eyes than when she’d last seen him.
Two of the dogs they’d just picked up from the prison program were ready to start training to be assistance animals for Ellen’s clients—adults and children with disabilities. In addition to being a K-9 officer with the Desert Valley Police Department, she also ran the Desert Valley Canine Assistance program she’d started a few weeks before Lee was released. Already she and her four employees were making a difference in the lives of the people in their community, training the dogs to be service animals for the disabled.
Thanks to Sophie’s generosity, Ellen hoped to have the two older puppies ready for the summer camp she planned to offer next month. The younger puppy needed more work—a job Lee would take on as soon as they got back to the facility. “You’re awfully deep in thought,” she said. “Are you all right?”
Lee blinked and sighed. “I’m fine. I just wish we had some better leads on who might have killed Veronica.” Veronica Earnshaw, Lee’s sister, had been murdered a little over three months ago. Her killer still walked the streets, and Ellen could tell Lee’s frustration level was about to boil over.
“I know. We’re working on it, Lee—we really are.”
He scowled at her, then turned his attention back to the road. “That’s what everyone says, I wish I could see evidence of that.”
Ellen grimaced. She wished she could, too, frankly. “An investigation like this takes time. It’s unfortunate, but it just does. At least you’re out of prison now, and that happened as a result of this investigation. Look at the positive side.”
His lips quirked. “You would look at it that way.” The puppies in the travel carriers in the back barked and yipped. “I appreciate your giving me this chance to work with you and the pups. Not everyone believes I’m innocent, in spite of the press conference and Ken Bucks’s arrest.”
“You’re welcome.”
Former Desert Valley sheriff’s deputy, Ken Bucks had been arrested and, in order to secure a deal and a lighter sentence for himself, had confessed to framing Lee and sending him to prison two years ago for a robbery he didn’t commit. “I just really want to put it all behind me.”
“I’m sure you do.” Probably easier said than done. This was Lee’s second day on the job. Two days ago, after much self-examination and encouragement from Sophie, she’d approached Lee about working for her, and he’d been reluctant. With their history, she couldn’t say she blamed him. They’d dated in high school. Until she’d allowed her mother to chase him away. Her jaw tightened. She didn’t want to go there.
Instead, she remembered the flare of attraction she’d felt just from being in his presence again. Just from talking to him and looking into his eyes. Eyes she’d never been able to forget.
Eyes that looked years older and much harder than she remembered. But she’d shoved aside her attraction—and her pride. After some fancy talking, he’d agreed to give working with her a trial run. She figured his love of animals and training had convinced him. She didn’t care what it was, she was just glad he’d conceded. He’d started yesterday with a tour of Ellen’s assistance facility, which connected to the Canyon County K-9 Training Center. “You know, I was thrilled when Veronica said she was fine with me leasing the unused portion of the K-9 training center.”
“Veronica never was one to turn down money.”
“Well, whatever her reasons, I’m just glad she let me.”
Coming from a wealthy background, Ellen knew people looked at her differently, had various expectations of her, some good, some bad, most wrong. But at least she’d done something good with some of that wealth.
She’d started the program with money from her trust fund. And then listened when Sophie Williams insisted that Lee Earnshaw would be the perfect person to hire to help train the dogs.
Today she could see his eagerness to get started working with the new animals. “Sophie said when it came to working with the dogs at the Prison Pups program, you were the best she’d ever seen. She called you a dog whisperer.” After Veronica had been killed, Sophie had taken over the program that trained dogs and rookie K-9 officers. She often used inmates at the prison to help with the training of the puppies until they were old enough for the center. Lee had been one of those inmates.
He gave a low laugh then frowned. “A dog whisperer?” He shrugged. “You know me. I’ve worked with animals all my life. I like them and they like me. The Prison Pups program was the only thing that kept me sane these past two years.”
“I know. And I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. I am, too, but it is what it is. I’m trying to move on.”
“You’re not bitter?”
He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “I’m bitter. I just fight it on a daily basis, hoping I’ll eventually win the battle.”
“You will,” she said. “Whatever happened to your plans to become a vet?”
He sighed and shrugged. “Life happened.”
“But you graduated from college.”
“Yes, with a degree in biology. I even started on graduate school, then everything kind of went south with Dad and I had to help him pay bills. Breeding and training dogs was the way to do that.”
“Do you have plans to finish school?”
“Yes. One day. Ken Bucks kind of messed that up pretty good. And then Veronica was murdered...”
Ellen heard the unspoken end of the sentence—and her killer is still out there.
She couldn’t help studying his features. Brown hair with a brand-new cut, brown eyes that at times looked hard and cold but were always alive and warm when he worked with the animals His strong jaw held a five-o’clock shadow. She used to kiss that jaw on a regular basis. She cleared her throat and tried to shake her memories, but they just wouldn’t leave her alone. Memories of being his girlfriend, the vicious conflict with her mother. And then Lee had walked away from it all.
Now she was back in town and he was out of prison and she was working in Desert Valley. For the time being. Thanks to her mother’s stipulation that she and the other rookies had to stay in Desert Valley until Veronica’s murder was solved or she would withdraw the funding she’d given the department. Funding the department couldn’t afford to lose. Ellen planned to have a few words about that with her mother when she woke from the coma she’d been in for the past three months. Someone had broken in to her home and attacked her, almost killing her. “I can understand your frustrations, Lee. I feel the same way about my mother’s attacker.” Ellen desperately wanted to find out who did it.
“I know, it’s just—”
The back windshield shattered and Ellen gave a low scream of surprise. Lee jerked the wheel to the right. “Get down!” Outside sounds rushed through the missing window. Someone was shooting at them!
Ellen ignored his order and turned in her seat to look out the back. “He’s coming up on your five o’clock. Coming in for another shot.” It was the perfect place for an ambush. On a back road that didn’t see much traffic just outside a small town.
Ellen’s tension mounted and she was extremely glad she’d left Carly, her golden retriever K-9 partner, at the training center for this trip. It was supposed
to take no more than two hours all in. An hour to the prison and an hour back. And while Lee had been as tense as she’d ever seen him at returning to the prison, he hadn’t said a word. She released her weapon from its holster and gripped it in her right hand, readying herself for the next attack.
Four months, she thought.
Less than four months ago, she’d finished the twelve-week training session at the Canyon County K-9 Training Center. The state of Arizona had started the program years ago and found it quite successful. They trained new police academy recruits to be K-9 officers. She was a newbie, a rookie officer with the Desert Valley Police Department.
And now she might have to shoot someone.
The thought wanted to paralyze her, but her training kicked in and she knew she could do what she had to in order to protect herself and Lee.
The car roared up beside them and she got a brief glance at the driver and the gun he had pointed at her. Lee stomped the brakes, throwing her against the seat belt. She jerked forward then back, her head slamming into the headrest, her hand against the door. She lost her grip on the weapon and it clattered to the floor. The next shot took off the passenger-side mirror of the truck. Another hit a tire. Lee fought with the wheel and the truck listed to the side, but that didn’t stop him.
He spun the wheel to the right and they roared onto a side road. The other vehicle swept past. Lee hit the brakes again and backed up, the truck lurching, the rim of the flattened tire grinding. But he managed to complete his three-point turn so that the front of his truck now faced the road. She watched the disappearing taillights of the other car.
As soon as Lee put the truck in Park, Ellen rolled out of the passenger door, grabbed her weapon from the floor and aimed in the direction the other car had gone. “Lee, are you okay? Come out the passenger door.”
“I’m fine.” He landed on the ground beside her, kneeling behind the protection of the open door. He radiated tension. “I’m going to check on the dogs.”
Fractured Memory Page 20