by Dana R. Lynn
Peace flowed into her. Leaving Ryan to talk with his father, Elise wandered off to see if she could help his mother in the kitchen. Penny and the other women welcomed her warmly. Soon she found herself slicing the freshly baked bread as she chatted with Ryan’s family. She’d just finished when a pair of strong arms slipped around her waist.
“Hey, Summer girl. Everything okay with you?”
Turning, Elise put her hands on Ryan’s shoulders, grinning at his pet name for her. He’d discovered that her middle name was Summer and decided it fit her.
“Okay, lovebirds. Not in the kitchen. Some people don’t want to lose their appetite.”
Ryan rolled his eyes at his brother, Chris, but took his arms from around her, only to grab her hand and pull her toward the table. “Fine, fine. Come on, Elise. It’s time to eat. You’re sitting by me.”
As they walked out to the picnic tables so overflowing with food that the floral tablecloths had disappeared, Elise raised her eyebrows at his sister Rhonda, nodding in her direction with a questioning tilt of her head. Rhonda was madly working with a very fancy camera. One that someone into professional photography would use.
“Oh, don’t mind her.” Ryan shrugged. “She’s obsessed with her camera. Always insists on taking a thousand pics at every gathering. Annoying, but what can you do?”
Rhonda stuck her tongue out at him, but didn’t stop.
Elise smiled and followed Ryan to the table.
“Aunt Lise! I’m hungry.” Mikey rushed at her. Ryan chuckled.
“Hey, buddy. Just in time for lunch. You can sit here, right next to your aunt.” There was a booster chair secured to the bench next to the spot Ryan indicated for her.
Odd. Her napkin was lying on her plate, instead of folded under the silverware like all the rest of them. The kids must have set the table. Amused, she shook her head and pulled off the napkin.
And sucked in her breath.
On her plate, someone had taped a paper heart. In the center were the words Marry me, please. Elise could feel all eyes zeroing in on her. Breathless, she turned. Ryan was kneeling on one knee behind her, a stunning solitaire diamond in his hand. Hands flying to her face, she could do nothing to stop the grin that she knew was plastered there. She was vaguely aware of Rhonda snapping pictures rapid-fire. Obviously, she’d been in on the plan.
“Elise, you and Mikey are everything to me. I love you and want to spend my life with you. I want to grow old with you, be a father to Mikey, and if God wills it, maybe adopt some brothers and sisters for him someday. Will you marry me?”
Overcome, she couldn’t answer at first. She nodded. Finally, she was able to get out a mangled reply. “Yes.”
Ryan rose and placed the ring on her trembling finger. Then he moved to embrace her. Mikey got in the way. “Auntie Lise, does this mean we’ll be part of Ryan’s family?”
Ryan answered. “It does. That okay with you, little man?”
Mikey pursed his lips for a moment while he considered the man in front of him. Elise started to get nervous. Mikey loved Ryan. She knew he did. She opened her lips, although she had no idea what she planned to say.
After what felt like a lifetime, Mikey grinned. “Awesome sauce.”
The watching crowd laughed. Ryan and Elise laughed, too. Ryan leaned forward and kissed his new fiancée.
It was awesome, indeed. She couldn’t wait for their life together to begin.
* * * * *
If you loved this book,
don’t miss the other heart-stopping
Amish adventures from Dana R. Lynn’s
Amish Country Justice series:
Plain Target
Plain Retribution
Amish Christmas Abduction
Find more great reads at www.millsandboon.com.au.
Keep reading for an excerpt from Protected Secrets by Heather Woodhaven
Dear Reader,
I had no idea when I wrote my first book how much I would grow to love LaMar Pond and the people who live there. Through the past few years, though, it has become so much more than a fictional town to me. I have enjoyed “visiting” the small Pennsylvania town and telling the stories of the characters as they find their happy-ever-afters. Amish Country Ambush was no different.
We first met Ryan Parker in Plain Retribution. He’s got a heart of gold and a bit of a chip on his shoulder. He doesn’t realize it, but he has so much to offer a woman. A woman like Elise St. Clair. Elise is not well-known in LaMar Pond. She has suffered so much in her life and struggles to realize that she is worthy to be loved. She also has a stubborn streak. These two were so much fun to write about as they grew closer and learned how to open up and let love in while racing against the clock. I hope you enjoyed their story.
Thank you for joining me for Ryan and Elise’s story. I love to hear from readers. You can email me at [email protected]. Or visit me online at www.danarlynn.com. I am also on Facebook and Twitter (@danarlynn).
Blessings,
Dana R. Lynn
Protected Secrets
by Heather Woodhaven
ONE
Bruce Walker recognized his assistant as the only other person in the parking lot. Her silver curls and thick glasses reflected the sun cresting over the tall trees in the distance. “I owe you big, Nancy.” He approached, holding two to-go cups. “I know Saturday mornings are precious.”
“Just missing my cartoons.” She paused. “You see, it used to be Saturday mornings when the cartoons—”
“I’m not that young, Nancy.”
She accepted the coffee with a wink. “Where’s your little darling? I thought you might bring her with you.”
Aside from Nancy King’s attention for detail and unmatched work ethic, she acted as an honorary grandmother to his two-year-old daughter. It was a much-needed connection that he appreciated as a single dad. “She’s at a friend’s house this morning, which is why I’m taking advantage of your time. I feel like we’re not quite ready for the big sales pitch Monday.”
Ever since Trevor, his stepbrother, quit the company six months ago, Bruce had yet to fill the gaping hole Trevor had left as his former partner. Nancy crossed the parking lot with him. He entered the code to momentarily disarm the security system and unlocked the door.
On weekends, there was usually only one security guard on duty. At that moment, Max rounded the corner, hair freshly buzzed in a military cut he’d likely been wearing for over forty years. Aside from his uniform of an ironed white shirt and navy pants, he wore a holster with a gun and Taser. It seemed like overkill to Bruce, but he relied on the expertise of the security firm to make those decisions. “How’s it going this morning, Max?”
“Before you came, it was quiet on all fronts, just how I like it.” Max whistled as he strode past them. For good measure, Max checked the locks on the door they’d entered before he rounded the next corner.
Bruce’s phone dinged with an alert: Network Down. He groaned. There was no explanation for that, but it didn’t necessarily mean the problem was on their end. “Slight change of plans, Nancy. I’m going to need to make a quick stop in the server room to make sure everything is okay.”
She matched his stride. “Can I do anything?”
“I’ll need to talk with someone in the IT department first. I think Doug is on call today. Could you text him? He should’ve received the same alert I did.” He shoved the stairwell door open since the elevator worked at a snail’s pace.
Nancy didn’t complain. He heard her steps behind him until he reached the basement level when her phone dinged. “Doug says it’s just come back online, but he doesn’t know why the blip occurred in the first place.”
So it could’ve been a connectivity glitch. “Tell him that since I’m here I’m going to take a look and call him back in a minute.” He stepped out into
the open area filled with cubicles. “Nancy, you can wait for me in my office if you want.”
In his peripheral vision, he caught sight of someone disappearing behind a cubicle wall. He froze for half a second, caught off guard. It was possible his eyes were playing tricks on him. Glad Nancy hadn’t left yet, he turned his head and said in low tones, “Send Max a text and tell him to make his rounds down here now.”
Her eyebrows rose, but she didn’t argue. Her thumbs flew over her phone’s keypad.
A blip of light flashed from the cubicle to his left. Bruce strained his neck and saw a computer monitor on with a script shooting lines of code out faster than he could read. So he wasn’t imagining things. Someone else was down here. “Hello?” he called out.
No one spoke, but his neck tingled. If someone had come in through the front doors, Max would’ve noticed. The man always double-checked doors were locked after someone entered, and the security key code would’ve alerted him to their presence. So who was here? How had they gotten in?
And what had they come here to do?
Bruce took a step toward the computer screen and tried to read the script.
“What’s going on?” Nancy stood to his right and looked down.
His stomach turned to lead. An unsanctioned update was uploading to all the bank systems that subscribed to their risk-analysis software. Bruce set down his coffee, leaned over and entered the administrator commands necessary to quit the process.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” A voice reverberated through the room.
Bruce straightened. Nancy’s face blanched and coffee ran down her wrist and dripped onto the blue carpet. A man—short in stature, wearing a black T-shirt and jeans—held a gun in his shaking hand.
Once Bruce managed to move his focus from the gun to the man’s face, he recognized Andy Williamson, one of his data analysts. Andy narrowed his eyes and steadied his aim on Bruce. “Move away from the computer.”
He did, using the opportunity to slide in front of Nancy. “Andy, what are you doing? Put the gun down.” Bruce put one hand behind him and gestured for Nancy to get down. Instead, he felt her shaking fingers grip the back of his shirt. She tugged him backward. No doubt she felt some maternal instinct toward him, but there was no time to argue about who should save whom.
“Don’t take another step,” Andy barked.
The tugging on the back of his shirt stopped. Bruce didn’t know Andy as well as he did some of the other employees, but he’d seemed friendly. Maybe there was some sort of stress in his life that had made him snap. If he was a reasonable man, there was hope he could be talked down. “Andy, I can help you. Just put—”
“You weren’t supposed to be here. If you’d just stayed away you never would’ve known.”
“Known what?” Bruce asked. “What are you trying to do?”
Andy raked his free hand down the side of his face but his weapon stayed trained on Bruce. “You need to turn around and walk away now. Don’t interfere and forget you ever saw a thing, for your own good. You don’t mess with the—”
The stairwell door at the opposite end of the floor opened. Max was coming. Bruce couldn’t let him walk into an ambush. “Gun!”
As Andy spun around, Bruce clutched Nancy’s wrist and pulled her downward into a crouch as he ran the two of them past the cubicles.
A trio of gunshots rang out.
He felt Nancy flinch at each ping of the bullets. Bruce looked over his shoulder just in time to see Max crumple to the ground.
“No!” A sob escaped Nancy’s lips.
Bruce pulled her around the corner to a darkened hallway. “Follow me.”
He ran to the nearest door and placed his hand on the biometric scanner. Two beeps sounded, followed by a click. He wrenched open the door as Andy rounded the hallway corner.
Bruce gave Nancy a gentle push so she’d step inside the server room first. Then he met Andy’s anguished but determined gaze as Andy raised the handgun. Bruce ducked behind the fireproof door and the bullets hit the steel in front of him. He pulled on the handle of the hydraulic door so it would close before Andy reached them. “Come on, come on, come on.” The lock clicked, but he had a hard time letting go of the handle.
“Won’t he be able to get in, too?”
“No.”
“But we’re trapped.” Nancy’s voice shook. She didn’t wait for him to answer and held the phone to her ear. “Gunman shooting at us.” She rattled the address to what had to be police dispatch and stepped into the small space between the servers and the wall before sinking down to the ground.
Bruce forced his fingers to relax and let go of the handle. He took one step back and watched the door. He stood inside the most secure room in the building, designed to withstand most hackers and thieves, but he didn’t remember “bulletproof” as being one of the selling points. The steel seemed to be holding up for now.
At least Andy, as an analyst, didn’t have credentials to enter the server room. Bruce pulled out a keyboard from one of the racks and typed in the commands to shut down the outgoing update in midstream. He then turned off the network completely so Andy couldn’t try again.
Their company provided risk-analysis software to 30 percent of the banks in the country. If Andy had been able to sneak malware in with an update, it was impossible to guess just how much damage he could’ve done both to the banks and to his company’s reputation.
Another gunshot sounded. Bruce recoiled, remembering Max’s crumpled body out there. He couldn’t afford to think about him right now because Andy wasn’t giving up. Unless Nancy had a gun in her purse, he had no options for weapons. The room only contained racks of servers. Nancy’s hand reached up in the air. “We need to pray,” she whispered.
He stared at her hand for a moment before realizing she was right. There was nothing else left for him to do. Bruce accepted her shaking fingers and sank to the floor. Nancy murmured pleas for protection and help so fast his brain couldn’t register everything she said. I agree, Lord. It was the only prayer he could manage. At a moment like this, all he could think about was his daughter. Would she lose the only parent who wanted her?
The police couldn’t come fast enough.
* * *
Delaney Patton had joined the US Marshals almost three years ago to run from her mistakes. She didn’t think she’d be sent right back to face the past.
The rental car idled while she stared at the nondescript blue house she’d once called home in Ames, Iowa. Later, it was the place where she’d gotten the news that her boyfriend, and fellow police officer, had died. The police chief had told her while she’d fought to keep a brave face. She hadn’t been strong enough. She’d broken down, and then her water had broken.
Most days, the memories didn’t feel real, more like recalling a bad dream. Early labor had followed the tragic news, and in her grief and despair, she’d decided to give the baby up for adoption. Her little girl deserved better than a single mom who couldn’t cope.
Delaney sucked in a sharp breath. Her appearance still looked relatively the same—long brunette hair always pulled back in a ponytail—but she was a different person now. If given the opportunity to do it all over again, she wouldn’t make the same choices. But life didn’t offer do-overs.
It did no good to wallow. The Marshals had transferred her back to the Southern District of Iowa because Delaney knew it like the back of her hand. And while the base of operations was located in Des Moines, it was possible she’d be sent to Ames occasionally.
Delaney shifted the car into Drive. She’d found out what she needed to know. She could handle being in Ames, even on this street, without breaking down. Now she just had to work up the courage to let her parents know she was back in the state.
Her phone rang. “US Marshals. Deputy Marshal Patton.”
“Welcome home!” The deep boisterou
s voice could only belong to her previous police chief, Stephen Bradford, now the newly appointed US marshal for the Southern District of Idaho.
“Thank you, sir.” She tried to sound enthusiastic, but it fell flat. It was hard to shake the feeling that her new boss knew too much about her. He had, after all, been the one to hold her as she’d cried all the way to the hospital.
“Listen, I know you just flew in last night. I wanted to give you the weekend to get settled but—”
“Urgent case?” Hope blossomed. Going after a fugitive case that would take her across the state sounded like the perfect transition to the district.
“It’s an expedited protection custody assignment. The Bureau pushed it through to the US Attorney’s Office this afternoon.”
Delaney felt her eyebrows rise. Normal procedure took at least ten business days to get witness protection from the Marshals. To have it scheduled within one day meant something big had happened. “Any details?”
“They’re coming to me piecemeal. Two witnesses stopped a hacker from planting a back door that would provide access to bank credentials. The hacker allegedly murdered the security guard and escaped before law enforcement arrived on the scene. Security cameras and access logs had been disabled. No murder weapon has been found.”
“The hacker?” Delaney tried to make sense of what she was hearing. The situation was certainly serious, but so far she didn’t see the reason for expedited protection.
“Arrested an hour ago. Feds think he’s the key to bringing down the CryptTakers.”
That particular criminal organization had been wreaking havoc across the country for the past three years. Last year, they’d taken insurance claims for ransom as well as hospital records. Unlike other “hacktivism” groups that insisted their cybercrimes were for good, the CryptTakers had suspected ties to terrorist groups.
“Preliminary background check shows your witness, a Bruce Walker, has no priors. Owner of the software company that provides banks with analysis software, divorced over a year ago, sole custody of his adopted daughter. No other family in town.”