Passion to Protect

by Colleen Thompson

  She loved him once—can he be trusted now?

  Hotshot wilderness firefighter Jake Whitaker had been lucky to escape a massive blaze with his life. Now, with a body as scarred as his heart, the last thing he needs—much less wants—is to see his first love walk back into his life.

  With her abusive marriage behind her, Liane Mason brought her children home to Wolf River Lodge in a search for peace…a peace she can maintain only by keeping a cool distance from Jake. But when her children become hostages in a murderous plan, Jake is the only one she can turn to. And while love may never die, a passionate hatred can kill. In a battle of love versus vengeance, which side will win?

  God forgive him, but he ached to kiss her, to shed his own grief and distract her from hers.

  With his conscience shouting that it was wrong, that it would be unforgivable to take advantage, he drowned out his body’s protests.

  But before he could step back, she arched her neck to look up into his eyes and ran her fingers along the light stubble on his jaw. “Jake,” she whispered.

  His name was all it took for him to dip his mouth to hers, to taste the lips he’d dreamed of night after lonely night. And in that instant he felt whole again, an unscarred young man with the world and all its possibilities laid out before him like a feast.

  Dear Reader,

  Is there any instinct more powerful than a mother’s drive to keep her children safe, or a man’s need to protect his family—even if it’s only the family of his heart?

  As a mother, I am all too able to imagine myself going to extremes, just as single mom Liane Mason is forced to do when her children and her aging father go missing in the Yosemite-area wilderness one stormy summer night. And as the wife of a firefighter, I’m all too well acquainted with the dangers lightning can touch off under those conditions.

  Still emotionally fragile from the violent abuse that drove her back to her hometown, Liane has forgotten how to trust anyone. It’s a lucky thing for her that former hotshot firefighter Jake Whittaker, her first love, who’s never been able to forget her, isn’t the type to take no for an answer.

  I hope you’ll enjoy this dangerous journey into the California backcountry with a courageous woman and a hero I couldn’t help but fall in love with. Thanks to my editors and everyone at Harlequin Books for helping me bring this story to life!

  Happy reading,

  Colleen Thompson

  Colleen

  Thompson

  Passion to Protect

  Books by Rachel Lee

  Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  Passion to Protect #1729

  Silhouette Romantic Suspense

  Deadlier Than the Male #1631: “Lethal Lessons”

  Harlequin Intrigue

  Capturing the Commando #1286

  Phantom of the French Quarter #1302

  Relentless Protector #1376

  COLLEEN THOMPSON

  After beginning her career writing historical romance novels, in 2004 Colleen Thompson turned to writing the contemporary romantic suspense she loves. Since then, her work has been honored with a Texas Gold Award, along with nominations for a RITA® Award, a Daphne du Maurier Award and multiple reviewers’ choice honors. She has also received starred reviews from RT Book Reviews and Publishers Weekly. A former teacher living with her family in the Houston area, Colleen has a passion for reading, hiking and dog rescue. Visit her online at www.colleen-thompson.com.

  To all those who risk their hearts—and sometimes their lives—to protect the powerless.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Prologue

  If politics made strange bedfellows, prison breaks made far worse ones. But Mac McCleary, who hadn’t gone by his given name in decades, had seen no other way out than to promise each participant a cut.

  That promise, he feared, was about to cost him his life.

  Outside the hollow shell of one of several dilapidated cabins, all three of his coconspirators glared at him: the Mexican called Goose, who had been the one with the connections inside; the cadaverous, balding AK, who provided both the brains and plans; and most frightening of all, Smash, who had offered the muscle and the intimidation factor, not to mention a pair of skanks on the outside with an almost religious need to prove themselves to the convicted murderer.

  As a dry wind rattled its way through the parched pine boughs overhead, Mac reminded himself that he had been the linchpin, the only man with both the story and the discipline to weave four antisocial convicts into one cohesive unit. A unit he had lost control of the moment he discovered that the lure he had dangled was gone.

  “It was all bull, wasn’t it?” demanded Smash, the skin-headed mountain of a man he’d been initially horrified to have as a cell mate. The fury smoldering in his tiny, dark eyes promised the explosion Mac had spent the past few years avoiding. “The whole freakin’ fairy tale was nothin’ but a scam, first to keep me off your ass and then to bust you out. While you planned all along to ditch us first chance you got.”

  “I swear,” Mac told them, looking from one man to the next, “that was never the idea.”

  Ignoring his denial, the nearly mute AK glared, while Goose looked up coolly from where he’d been paring his nails with a fifteen-inch hunting knife, part of the haul from the sporting goods store they’d hit on their first night out before heading for the California state line. “That’s where you’re wrong, Gringo. Only one who’s gettin’ ditched is you. Except we might be leaving you in a hell of a lot more pieces than you figured.”

  Sweat dampening his stolen clothing, Mac raised his palms. “Wait a minute, guys. It’s gotta be the old man. Looks to me like he’s fixed up the old bunkhouse. Who’s to say he hasn’t been digging around under those rotten floors in the other cabins?”

  “But you told us the money’s never been found,” Smash said. “You said you hid it so well, there’s no way it never would be.”

  “It’s never been reported found,” Mac amended, “but why would the old man report it if he could take it for himself? Bastard never did like me.”

  Mac turned to glare at the big, two-story log lodge—referred to as the homestead, since it had been in his ex-wife’s family for generations. In far better shape than the outbuildings, the Yosemite-area landmark stood proudly as a refuge for the ex-wife who’d never understood that everything he’d done, he’d done for his family. Instead she had betrayed him, walking into open court and saying all those things about him, things that had been used to put him in a cage, where he’d been forced to scramble for survival among lowlife rats.

  “He decide he hated your ass before or after you shot his little girl?” The hairless mountain—whose own mama had been beaten to death by her boyfriend—had never made any secret of his contempt for Mac’s crime, but this time, as the huge man scowled down, violence gathered like a storm behind his coal-black eyes.

  Mac fought the temptation to take a step backward. If he turned to run, the
y would be on him in a second, and his gut contracted as he imagined the things they would likely to do to him before he died. “I’ll find it, I swear to you. He must’ve moved it, that’s all, and you mark my words, it’ll be around here somewhere. Whenever I tried talking to him about investing in securities, that old gasbag was always saying how the Mason Ranch and Homestead were all the security he needed.”

  AK, who had injured his leg in the escape, limped closer and finally spoke up, menace freezing his words solid. “So let’s go have a talk with him, then, shall we?”

  They had already knocked at the door and looked around enough to know the lodge was empty, and Mac didn’t find him in the stable, either. Panic thumping in his chest, he almost forgot to check out the dry-erase board, the one where the sanctimonious old John Wayne wannabe had written out a message to any potential customers who stopped by:

  Howdy, partners!

  On an overnight trip to Elk Creek Canyon with the grandkids.

  Expected return: Friday at 4:00 p.m.

  To schedule your Equine Adventure, call 1-559-555-6840!

  Deke

  Smash cursed, “Hell, man. I don’t wanta cool my heels around here waiting for him. You said yourself, once the Nevada cops catch up with the girls and figure out we’re not the ones runnin’ up those charges or usin’ that old geezer’s cell phone, this’ll be the first place they come looking.”

  As a plan came to him, Mac felt a slow smile pulling back his lips. “No need to wait the old man out. I’ve suffered through my share of camping trips with him and my ex, and I remember the way to Elk Creek Canyon just fine.”

  “Back in all them woods? That what you talkin’, padre?” Looking past the horses in the corral, Goose sounded dubious—or nervous—and the injured AK crossed his arms, looking even more miserable.

  “Aw, come on, boys,” Mac said, eager to be the man in charge again and knowing only one sure way to do it. On his terms, on his turf. “How ’bout the four of us go on a little equine adventure of our own?”

  Chapter 1

  The dark silhouettes of pine trees swirled around Liane Mason, the evening sky behind them as red as fresh-spilled blood. Behind the wheel of her parked Jeep, she was shaking so hard she barely managed to slip her phone back inside her purse.

  Closing her eyes, she gulped down several deep breaths, allowing the crisp mountain air to remind her that there were a hundred different reasons, benign reasons, why her father might not be answering either his cell phone or the radio, and just as many why the kids weren’t, either.

  More than likely eight-year-old Cody and his six-year-old sister Kenzie were outside, helping their grandfather put away the tack and camping supplies they had taken on their first overnight horseback excursion. His business might be a far cry from the carefully manicured and wildly successful Wolf River Lodge and Spa, where she spent her days managing the needs of wealthy and sometimes-famous clients, but Deke Mason had been known for decades for the personalized guided trail rides he’d offered generations of tourists of all stripes. Though his business had fallen off in recent years, he had safely and successfully taken thousands in and out of Elk Creek Canyon. Well trained in first aid, he was carrying the kit that contained Kenzie’s medication—and Liane trusted him to deal with anything that came up.

  So there was absolutely no reason to believe that he’d had any trouble this time. No logical reason to allow her smoldering panic to ignite. But that line of thought didn’t ease her worry for a moment, regardless of anything her post-traumatic-stress counselor had told her.

  You could always call Jake Whittaker, have him go outside and check. But the thought of asking a favor of her dad’s new tenant, who had taken up residence in the rebuilt bunkhouse about six months before his accident last summer, stopped her. Though she knew Jake would insist on going out to check, she hated to think of him walking the uneven ground, maybe missing his footing in the deep drifts of rust-colored pine needles, thicker than ever thanks to what had been the driest summer in a decade.

  She shook her head, realizing she was lying to herself. Prosthetic leg or not, Jake was getting around fine these days, just over a year after the accident and amputation. More than fine, considering the glimpses she’d caught of him toweling sweat from his body after a run—a body even more buff and masculine than when the two of them had dated back in high school.

  Awkward as it had been facing the boy she’d left behind—facing the whole town of Mill Falls—since her return last fall, the truth was that she had no intention of admitting exactly how close to melting down she was right now. Now that she’d finished her busy shift, she could be home in twenty minutes, anyway.

  She visualized herself arriving at the big, comfortable log homestead and hugging her kids close. As they excitedly chattered about the trip they had been begging her to let them take all summer, her dad would grin and tell her how proud his family made him. And his eyes would meet hers in silent acknowledgment that he was proudest of all that she had made it through the night alone....

  Or as alone as a woman could be, with her father’s seventy-pound shepherd mix hogging most of the bed. But since Misty could be trusted to keep a secret, Liane wouldn’t mention the sleepless hours she’d spent stroking the shaggy, blue-gray head and praying for the night to pass more quickly.

  As she drove along the tree-lined highway that skirted Bear Mountain, she told herself she would catch up on her sleep tonight. Safe at home, they all would, nestled in their beds.

  Focusing on that image, she relaxed her death grip on the wheel and consciously deepened her breathing. It was enough to get her through the drive home.

  And enough to distract her from the teasing flicker of the gathering darkness illuminated by summer lightning in her rearview.

  * * *

  The night cried out for flame. As Jake Whittaker stood on the porch of his mountain valley cabin, he heard it in the hiss of hot wind through the drought-scorched treetops, the creak of trunks so parched and resinous that the slightest spark would send them up, and the restless nickers of the horses that milled about his friend and landlord Deke’s corral a short distance downhill.

  But most of all he felt it in the phantom ache in the lower left leg he’d lost: the warning that a storm was brewing. A dry electrical storm that would light up the backcountry near Yosemite in time to choke the dawn with thick smoke.

  Last year’s accident, the result of a tree whose fall had knocked Jake out of his fire boots as he’d been racing to the aid of his trapped men, had nearly killed him, but there was nothing wrong with his instincts, which had his blood quickening and his pulse thrumming with the first flicker of heat lightning along the ridge to the west. Though he now spent the better part of most of his days at a computer translating scientific articles and tech support documents into the Russian he’d learned at his grandmother’s knee, it was still everything he could do not to jump into his truck and join the crew of hotshot firefighters he had once led—firefighters, he reluctantly admitted, whose effectiveness and safety would be jeopardized if he were selfish and foolhardy enough to try.

  For now, at least, he told himself. But maybe by next summer’s fire season, if he worked hard enough to convince the district supervisors...

  Another flicker pulsed behind Bear Mountain, and thunder rumbled a dark warning. From the corral, he heard a terrified equine squeal, followed by deep barking and a frantic female cry.

  “Copper, stand still! Please!”

  Jake reached inside the front door for a flashlight and was on the move an instant later, driven by the desperation in Liane Mason’s voice. Something had to be wrong for the woman he’d once known so well to be out messing with the horses after dark. He hadn’t been raised around the animals as Liane had, but even he knew that both the weather and the panic in her voice would do nothing but upset them. What
could have happened to make the Ice Princess forget that?

  As he threaded his way through the trees, Jake’s prosthesis caught a branch buried in leaf litter. Cursing the hurry that had made him lose his focus on his footing, he recovered from his stumble, then gritted his teeth and hurried toward the security light just outside the stable.

  Beneath it, he spotted the woman it still hurt to look at, even a dozen years after she had dashed his naive schoolboy fantasies and kicked him to the curb. As slender and agile as she’d been at eighteen, she was struggling to saddle a horse, her long brown braid whipping along the back of the chambray shirt she wore hanging over her jeans. As the dog paced nervously, the muscular bay danced sideways, tossing his head to throw his weight against the lead rope that bound him to the hitching post. Even from this distance, Jake could make out the whites of the horse’s rolling eyes.

  “Put that saddle down and back off.” Though it wasn’t his place, he made it an order, too concerned for her safety to do any less. “He’s about to break loose, and you’re going to end up hurt.”

  Liane whirled toward him, her face milk-pale and her beautiful blue eyes huge with terror. “I have to,” she said, all traces of her usual coolness toward him absent. “I have to go and find them.”

  “Find who, Liane?” he asked, but already he was putting the pieces together. How Cody, the outgoing and talkative second grader, had been jabbering nonstop for the past week about the planned adventure to anyone who would listen, including the tenant his mother so consistently avoided. How her father had taken her kids out on two of the gentler horses for a camping trip yesterday. How Deke’s favorite mount, a huge black mule named Waco, remained as absent from the corral as the children’s horses.

  “Did your dad radio you?” Jake asked, knowing that cell phone coverage didn’t extend into Elk Creek Canyon. “Has there been an accident?”