Ellen’s throat constricted as soon as she finished speaking. Her pulse raced and she felt light-headed as they stood in silence. Was this where it all ended for them? Before their time together had even truly begun?
And then, unexpectedly, Leo’s eyes welled up with tears. He didn’t even try to stop them as they poured forth, and she let it happen—just as he’d allowed her the emotional release she’d needed when they’d sat in the little motel room on the highway.
When he finally caught his breath, he heaved a sigh laden with meaning. “Ellen, you’re right. About everything. I shouldn’t have let irrational fear cloud my judgment, and it was wrong of me to walk away. And then after I’d thought about it and realized what I’d done, I was sure you’d never forgive me. I racked my brain for weeks on how to make it up to you, and it took me far too long to realize what I should have done the moment I knew I was in the wrong. I should have immediately apologized and begged your forgiveness, and let you know that I do know who you are today isn’t who you were in the past.
“During our time together, you showed me what it means to be strong. You struggle with a serious mental health issue, and yet you still face obstacles head-on. You’re loyal to family and friends, and you’re clever and inventive in moments of crisis. Not having you around these past few weeks has been one of the hardest times of my life. It might sound unbelievable, but over the course of what we went through, you became my rock. My touchstone. I believe God brought us back together for a reason, to show me that I’d been too focused on myself and on pleasing others. I tried not to rock the boat. Well, my boat got rocked the moment you attacked me with that bottle of bleach, and I’d happily let it happen again if it meant we could take our past and our present and meld it into a beautiful future. But I know that might not be possible. And whatever you want, I’ll respect. I won’t try to decide for you ever again.”
A strange sensation welled up inside her chest. Is this...is this what joy feels like, God?
She hadn’t felt like this in a very, very long time. The sincerity in his voice and the love reflected in his expression were exactly what she had hoped for and what she hadn’t known she needed.
He loved her. She loved him. And it was as simple as that.
“What kind of a future, Leo?” She couldn’t help smiling, and she hoped he heard the teasing in her words.
But then he shrugged and winked. “Well, I know what I’d be in it for. And while some might say it’s too fast, I’d say to them that we’ve known each other for a very long time, and I’ve never wanted to spend my life with anyone as much as I want to spend it with you.” He lowered himself to one knee. “So, this is the future I want—one with you permanently in it. Ellen Biers, will you marry me?”
She gasped. “Leo...are you serious?”
He frowned. “That’s not exactly the answer a man hopes to hear when he’s down on one knee.”
He was serious. And why shouldn’t he be? They were perfect for each other, and she knew with every part of her heart that this was exactly the kind of future she wanted, too.
“Yes,” she said, laughing. “Yes, I will marry you. How’s that for an answer?”
“Well, I wasn’t going to make up your mind for you,” he said, standing. “And I know I said I’ll never do it again. But I kind of have a feeling that you want to kiss me now as much as I want to kiss you.”
“And this time,” she said, heart soaring with gratitude and love, “you’ve got it right.”
* * * * *
If you enjoyed this story, look for the
first book in the Mountie Brotherhood series,
Wilderness Pursuit.
Keep reading for an excerpt from Cold Case Cover-Up by Virginia Vaughan
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Dear Reader,
Thank you for spending your reading time with Leo and Ellen! I enjoyed writing the middle Thrace brother’s story, and I hope you enjoyed the cameo appearances of Sam and Kara from Wilderness Pursuit. That’s two brothers matched up and one to go!
While Ellen was able to begin to accept her struggle with PTSD in this story, the reality is that PTSD is a complex and serious issue that affects many individuals, for myriad reasons. It should only be diagnosed by a medical professional, so if you or someone you know is struggling, please seek professional assistance. You may also find comfort in organizations such as the National Center for PTSD (USA: www.ptsd.va.gov) or the PTSD Association of Canada (www.ptsdassociation.com).
Please remember that God loves you and wants the best for you—and so do I! We live in a broken world where terrible things happen, but He has given us free will to make our own choices, for better or worse, because He loves us so much. It can be hard to see the reason for these struggles, and they won’t always make sense in our time. Know that God is there with you, on the good days and the bad, and He will never, ever abandon His children.
I love hearing from readers. Connect with me at michellekarl.com or find me on Twitter @_michellekarl_. Thank you so much for reading Accidental Eyewitness!
Blessings,
Michelle
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Cold Case Cover-Up
by Virginia Vaughan
ONE
Someone was watching her.
The hairs on her neck prickled a warning. Dana Lang glanced around the coffee shop but saw no one looking her way or appearing fixated on her. Still, her instincts were never wrong. As a television investigative journalist, she was used to people recognizing her, but this felt different. This felt like daggers in her back.
She tried to shake off the feeling and tell herself she was being silly. No one in this sleepy little town of West Bend, Missouri, knew her. She glanced at the television mounted to the wall while she waited for her coffee to be ready. The news channels were still reporting about the embassy attack six weeks earlier and the heroic eight-man team of CIA-contracted security operatives who’d rescued eighteen Americans trapped inside. Five people had died in all, including two of the operatives involved in the rescue.
She accepted her drink as her own interview with one of the contractors replayed in her mind. She’d stumbled upon a gold mine when Michael “Rizzo” Ricardo had contacted her wanting to tell his story about the night of the attack and how the US government had ordered the operatives to stand down. They’d defied orders instead and become national heroes in the process. He’d felt betrayed by his government’s response to the attack and wanted to let the world know it. Until his interview, only the names of the two operatives who had died—Tommy Woods and Mike
Piven—had been released.
Dana ignored the reminder that she needed to be back in Chicago—or anywhere but West Bend—digging in to Rizzo’s life and trying to uncover the identities of his teammates to corroborate his story. So far, Rizzo was the only one to come forward to tell the tale of being abandoned by their country during the attack.
But she resisted the urge to pack up and leave. Every reporter in the nation was vying for that story, and while uncovering the names of the other operatives would be a monumental boost to her career, the case she was focusing on now would impact her life so much more. Five days ago, the night before her interview with Rizzo, she’d discovered a box in her late mother’s belongings that had shattered her world and sent her on this quest to West Bend to uncover the truth about her lineage.
The box she’d found had contained adoption papers. Dana had never even known she’d been adopted. But the surprises hadn’t ended there. She’d also discovered a newspaper article about the murders of Rene Renfield and her infant daughter, Alicia, along with a photograph that looked suspiciously like one of Dana’s own baby photos. There was also a letter from the preacher who’d arranged her adoption that explained to her parents how she’d been left at the church, which had been considered a safe haven, by someone he trusted who’d insisted the child was in danger and needed to be believed dead. And there was a short note from the person who’d abandoned her. She didn’t know if her parents had ever discovered anything solid in their questioning, if they’d taken the preacher’s word and decided not to rock the boat, or if her father’s death in a car wreck when Dana was eleven had ended their search for answers. Regardless, now that she knew, she was determined to finish their investigation and uncover the truth. Was she Alicia Renfield? And, if she was, who murdered her birth mother and left her for dead?
Dana exited the coffee shop and headed back to her hotel. As she walked, she noticed the stares and curious glances of the townspeople. She’d heard small towns were notorious for their gossip grapevines, but she’d only arrived yesterday. Did these people know she was here to investigate a thirty-year-old murder, or had they recognized her from her job as a TV cold case reporter on Newswatch? For all she knew, they could be staring because she was an unfamiliar face in a town where everybody knew everybody else.
But these stares didn’t feel sinister, not like the one she’d felt in the coffee shop. Her friends had tried to warn her that she wouldn’t be accepted into a small town as a stranger poking her nose into the town’s business, but it was her business, too. This terrible crime had left West Bend in a state of shock, but it may have also forever changed her path. She’d try to confirm her suspicions, and if they were true, find out who killed her mother and why.
As she walked, she checked off her itinerary in her head. She’d already been to the local library and made friends with Lila, the librarian, who’d told her all their newspaper archives from thirty years earlier were still on microfiche. Their digital records only went back twenty years. Tomorrow, she would make a day of checking out the old newspaper articles on the murder. This evening, she was heading to the sheriff’s office to have a closer look at the police files for the case. The records clerk, a lovely woman named Beverly Shorter, had been pleasant enough on the phone and offered to help her in any way possible, but when Dana had mentioned the Renfield murders, she’d insisted the records were not available for public access since it was still an open case. Dana was confident she could change Beverly’s mind. She’d built a successful career by breaking news stories and you didn’t do that by accepting no for an answer.
She stopped suddenly and turned, that prickling sensation rushing through her again. She glanced at the people on the street but saw nothing suspicious—no one was focusing excessively on her. But how would she even recognize something out of the ordinary here? She didn’t know these people. And who would have a reason to follow her?
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and checked the caller ID. It was her producer, Mason Sheffield. She sent the call to voice mail. She didn’t want to talk to him right now. He’d agreed to give her this time off even though he wanted her on the embassy-bombing story and following up on Rizzo’s colleagues. But as big as that story was, this one would impact her life forever. She’d interviewed countless families of victims of crime and listened to them talking about their loved ones and their longing to see justice done. She realized she wanted that, too. Besides, the Ricardo case was stalled until more members of the secret CIA security detail came forward or were outed as operatives. She knew there were other reporters following leads to their whereabouts, but she couldn’t think about that now. This case, proving her identity and finding out who murdered her birth mother and who left her abandoned and alone as an infant, was her main focus now. She’d been alone for too long. It was time to discover who she was once and for all.
She walked into the hotel and nodded at the desk clerk who’d checked her in the previous evening. He was a humorous man and had recognized her from her show. Had he tipped off everyone in town that she was staying at his hotel? Could that explain her eerie feeling of being followed?
She got into the elevator and willed it to close before anyone jumped in with her. No one did and she breathed a sigh of relief when the doors slid shut. She rode it to the third floor then got off. Her room was at the end of the hall, but she stopped after only a few steps. The hairs on her neck stood on end again as she saw the door to her room was open. The elevator closed behind her and dinged, startling her. She took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. She could call hotel security or the police, but how silly would she feel if it was only housekeeping refreshing the towels? No, she was allowing her imagination to run wild and that sense of being watched to control her. Still, as she moved down the hallway, bracing to confront whoever was there, she wished she had something to defend herself with. Her iced coffee wasn’t going to stop anyone. Why hadn’t she ordered it hot? She inched toward the open doorway and heard noise coming from inside.
Someone was definitely in her room!
She pushed open the door and spotted a figure clad in black digging through her suitcase.
“Who are you?” she called.
The intruder turned her way, his face covered by a mask. Before she could move, he ran toward her, shouldered past her and knocked her backward into the wall. She screamed as she fell, her coffee spraying into the air. She pulled herself up in time to see the intruder burst through the door to the stairwell, then he was gone.
She quickly crawled to her feet, scooped up her cell phone and dialed 911. When the operator came on asking for her emergency, Dana replied, “Someone broke into my hotel room.”
“What’s the address, ma’am?”
She walked into her room, ready to give the address of the hotel, when something else grabbed her attention. On the wall, she’d pinned up her notes about the case, the newspaper article she’d found in her mother’s belongings, the letter from the preacher and the note left with her when she was abandoned as a baby. Plastered on the wall beneath that in big, black, spray-painted letters were the words Go Home.
“Ma’am, are you still there? I need to know where you are.”
She rattled off the name of the hotel then, before hanging up, whispered, “Please hurry.”
* * *
I’m not ready for this.
Quinn Dawson parked his cruiser in front of the hotel and got out. He was tired, emotionally and physically. He’d often moonlighted as a reserve deputy for his father whenever he wasn’t on assignment overseas providing covert security for the CIA as part of the Security Operations Abroad, or SOA as they referred to the company, and his father thought doing so now would be good for him, but Quinn wasn’t so sure. He was still reeling from the attack on the embassy and the grief of losing his best friend in the fight that ensued. He wasn’t sure he was up for battling crime in his own hometown.
He entered the hotel lobby and was greeted by Milo Sherman, the night clerk, who handed him a room key and pointed to a woman sitting in a chair at one side of the small lobby. He sized her up as he headed her way. Even if she hadn’t been staying in the hotel, he’d have known she wasn’t a local because of the high-end heels she wore. And if he’d seen those long legs before, he would have remembered.
She sat with her head down and her long blond hair hanging over her face, but the sight of her when she glanced up at him nearly sent him falling backward and hightailing it out of the hotel. He checked that response and maintained his cool, recognizing her long thin face, soft brown eyes and the subtle curve of her lips.
Dana Lang.
He’d never met her before, but he knew her. She was the reporter who’d interviewed one of his teammates, Rizzo, and plastered his name and face all over the world. When a frenzied mob bent on destruction and murder had attacked an embassy compound in Libya six weeks ago, Quinn, Rizzo and the rest of their group had orchestrated a counterattack and rescued eighteen Americans. Unfortunately, five people had died in the incident, including two operatives, one of them Quinn’s best friend, Tommy Woods. The encounter itself had stirred up a storm of controversy, reignited by Rizzo Ricardo’s proclamation that he’d been there and participated in the rescue, and that his government had left them all to die. The press, led by Dana Lang, had jumped on his story and catapulted him to stardom in a matter of days. They’d also pressured him to name his other teammates. So far, Rizzo had held out, but Quinn suspected it was only a matter of time before his own name became associated with the incident as well. And being outed as a former Delta operator and current SOA member would not only put his life in danger, but could also end his career. Now, this reporter was here in his hometown. Had Rizzo given up his name already? He took in a sharp breath and braced himself for the barrage of questions he was certain was about to blast him.
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