Her Christmas Guardian

by Shirlee McCoy

  “I don’t know anything anymore, Boone,” she replied, her words so quiet he could barely hear them over the storm. “One day, everything was great. I had a job and a daughter and a life that was exactly what I wanted. The next, everything was ripped away from me, and now...”

  “What?”

  “I just want Lucy home. Then I can figure out the rest of it.”

  “Like what we’re going to be when this is over?” he asked, tracking Eleanor as she trudged up another hill.

  “We? As in us?” Scout asked, and he didn’t think she was surprised by the thought, didn’t think she hadn’t thought about it before. There was something between them, a connection that had been building since the moment he’d seen her in the grocery store. Where that would lead, what it would bring them to, was something that he was ready and willing to explore.

  “Why not? We’re both single and unattached,” he responded. Life was too short to beat around the bush.

  “I’m not unattached. I have Lucy.”

  “There are plenty of people in relationships who have a child or two,” he pointed out, and she frowned, rainwater and ice sliding off her parka hood and dripping onto her cheeks.

  “I know, but if I get Lucy back, I can go back to what I had before she was taken. My job, my church family, my friends. Every day just kind of the same as the one before. That’s the way I like it, Boone.”

  “Safe?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s a problem for us, then. It’s never going to be safe if I’m in your life. There’s always going to be the risk that I won’t come back from a mission, that the next time I get on a plane will be the last time you see me.”

  “I know.”

  “So, maybe the two of us together isn’t such a good thing.” He offered her an easy out, because he didn’t want her to live with regrets, didn’t want her heart broken the way his had been when Lana walked away.

  “Maybe it’s not,” she responded, and there was so much sadness in her voice, he wanted to pull her into his arms, tell her that sometimes the reward outweighed the risk.

  There wasn’t time.

  Eleanor crested the rise, paused at the top, turning to look back at them and waving impatiently.

  “I guess she decided not to leave us,” Scout said, sprinting forward as if the most important thing in the world was catching up to her landlady.

  He’d scared her with talk of a future together. He knew it.

  He didn’t regret his words, though.

  Life was finite. In a fraction of a second it could end. A bullet, an explosion, a knife attack. Or the more mundane: car accident, heart attack, falling tree. He glanced at the heavy-laden spruce trees that were bowing with the force of the wind. He was always on guard, always watching, and that made him more than a little aware of just how little time there was. He never wanted to waste any of it, never wanted to miss an opportunity to go where God was leading.

  If He was leading to Scout, if He had brought Boone there, that was where Boone wanted to stay. No matter the risk. No matter the potential for heartache.

  All he needed to know was that Scout wanted to be there, too.

  The thought was better left for another time, though.

  Time was ticking away, the afternoon wearing on, the sun already sinking behind dark clouds. Darkness came early in the mountains. Even without the four o’clock deadline that Eleanor had been given, they’d have had to hurry. Already, the woods were shrouded with shadows, the icy rain and wind limiting visibility. Things were only going to get worse as the day wore on, and every bit of Boone’s focus had to be on getting to the cabin and getting Lucy out.

  He caught up with Scout easily, taking her arm as she trudged the last few steps to Eleanor. She didn’t meet his eyes, refused to glance his way, and he thought that maybe the moisture sliding down her cheeks wasn’t just icy rain. Maybe there were tears mixed in, as well.

  “It’s about time,” Eleanor snapped. “Do you know what time it is? We’ll never make it to the cabin at the rate we’re going.”

  “We’ll make it,” Boone assured her.

  “It was all that planning,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “A huge waste of valuable time. For all any of us knows, Gaige decided to go back to leave with the kid and without me. He cleaned out the San Jose bank accounts, so he’s got plenty of money to do it. He and Lucy could be miles away by now, while we try to execute some stupid plan come up with by a bunch of nincompoop federal agents and foolhardy local—”

  “What do you mean cleaned out the bank accounts in San Jose?” He cut her off midtirade. “I thought you said you didn’t know anything about the guy.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Then how do you know he has bank accounts in San Jose?”

  “He must have mentioned it to me when we were making arrangements for payments,” she responded, her face suddenly devoid of color. She was afraid. That was something she hadn’t shown before, and that made Boone a lot more nervous than he’d already been.

  “I don’t think so,” Boone said. “I think you know him well. I think you’ve probably known him for years.”

  “And I think you’re full of it,” she scoffed, but the fear was still there, her dark eyes hollow.

  “You’re scared of him, aren’t you?” he asked, and she pressed her lips together, trudging on as if she hadn’t heard him.

  “What? Is he a boyfriend? Some guy who abuses you?” He offered her an explanation, curious to see if she latched on to it.

  “Of course not! Gaige would never lay a hand on me. Not in that way! He’s...a friend. Someone I met a couple of years ago.”

  “You’re in a relationship with him,” Boone said. He didn’t make it a question, because he already knew the answer, had heard the same sorry story play out too many times to count. “And he already has a wife and a couple of kids, right?”

  “It’s none of your business,” she snapped.

  “Which means he does. Have you met her?”

  “Who?”

  “The wife? The one he’s left behind so that he can run off with you? How about the kids? How many does he have? Two? Three? Is he missing their ball games and school plays to spend time with you?” He poked at her, hoping to get her riled up enough to let a little more information slip.

  “His kids are grown, and his wife is cold as a dead fish. He says—”

  “I’m sure he says a lot.” He cut her off. Not really interested in the details. “Did he promise to leave them if you helped him with this? Did he say you two would run off together once he got what he wanted?”

  “You know nothing about anything!”

  “I know plenty. I’ve seen this over and over again. Do you know how many women I’ve met who are just like you? So desperate, they’ll believe any lie to have the thing they think they need.”

  “I’m not desperate, and the only thing I need is for you to shut up!” she shouted, her eyes blazing, her hands fisted.

  “And I need you to realize you’re being used. Once you do, then you can be useful to yourself and to us.”

  “I’m not interested in being useful to you, and I’m not being used.”

  “Right,” Boone said, snorting for good measure.

  “It’s true! He showed me the tickets and the passports last night. Everything is set. As soon as I get to the cabin, we’re supposed to leave for the airport. He decided we shouldn’t fly out of any nearby airports, so he’s got us booked on a flight leaving from New York. He laid the whole itinerary out for me last night. First New York, then L.A. After that—” She stopped short of finishing, but it was too late. She’d already said more than she’d intended.

  He knew it.

  She knew it.

  “You really think that’s what was g
oing to happen?” Boone said, wanting to push her even harder, make her even angrier, keep her talking about Gaige’s plans. “I’ve been doing my job for a long time, Eleanor, and I can tell you for sure that if he’d wanted to run off with you, he’d have been waiting for you outside that storage unit. You’d have gone to the airport from there, climbed on board a plane and been at some romantic getaway before the sun rose tomorrow morning.”

  “He didn’t want to be seen.”

  “I don’t see why not. We don’t know who he is. We don’t know what he looks like. He could be standing five feet from me, and I wouldn’t know it.”

  “He couldn’t leave Lucy alone, and if he’d taken her with him, someone might have recognized her.”

  “He’s good—I’ll give him that. The argument would almost be convincing if I didn’t know he has accomplices. Aside from you, there have to be at least three or four people working with him. I saw them following Scout the night Lucy was kidnapped. One of them could have stayed with Lucy while you two took off.”

  “They’re gone. He paid them and sent them away, because he was afraid too many strangers in such a small town would draw people’s attention. He’s smart that way.” She turned away, started walking again, picking her way over fallen logs and through ankle-deep puddles. She was obviously finished with the conversation. That was fine. He could let it go. He’d got more information than he’d thought he would.

  Apparently Scout didn’t feel the same.

  “Did you see the tickets?” she asked, her breath panting out, hot and raspy. She looked worn-out and ready to collapse, but he knew she’d keep going until she found her daughter. That was another thing he’d seen too many times to count. There was no limit to a parent’s love, no way to measure just how far someone would go, how hard she’d push herself for the sake of her child.

  “Of course I did,” Eleanor huffed. “All three of them.”

  She must not have realized what she’d said, but Scout did. She grabbed her arm, pulled her to a stop. “How many tickets did he have, Eleanor?”

  Eleanor stood silently for so long Boone wondered if she’d answer.

  Finally, she looked straight at Scout. There was no color in her face, no emotion. The words, when they came, were as dead as her expression. “Three. One was for Lucy. He said we’d be a family. The three of us.”

  “You were planning to take her out of the country and never come back?” Scout sounded horrified, her eyes wide with shock.

  “We were going to give her what you couldn’t.”

  “There is nothing that she needs that I can’t give,” Scout replied, her voice pulsing with all the emotions that were absent from Eleanor.

  “You’re too young to realize how limited your life is, how little you really have to offer Lucy.”

  “That is one of the most insulting things anyone has ever said to me!” Scout protested, but Eleanor started walking again, stepping over a fallen tree and ducking under a low-hanging branch.

  “I didn’t mean it as an insult. You’re a nice young woman. You work hard. You pay your bills on time. But there are plenty of things that you can’t provide your daughter—culture, wealth, an opportunity to be something more than a small-town kid living a small-town life.”

  “I think she’d rather have her mother than those things,” Boone cut in, and Eleanor sent a hard look in his direction.

  “Lucy isn’t even three yet. Her mother is whoever happens to be taking care of her.”

  “That’s not true!” Scout sputtered.

  “Maybe not, but in a few months, she’d have almost forgotten you. In a year, you wouldn’t even be a memory. Same for you. Eventually, you’d have had other children and forgotten all about Lucy.”

  “I would never ever have forgotten Lucy.” Scout bit out every word, the weight of them hanging in the air.

  “Like I said, you’re young,” Eleanor replied blithely. “You have no idea how fleeting and fragile love is. You have it one minute. The next it’s gone and you move on to someone else.”

  Something inside Scout must have snapped.

  She lunged forward, rage seeping from every pore, pulsing from every muscle.

  Boone just managed to grab her before she made contact, pulling her up short and wrapping both arms around her waist.

  “Cool it,” he said quietly. “She’s not worth your anger.”

  “I am not angry. I’m infuriated!” She shoved at his arms. “How dare she say that I would forget my daughter!”

  “I meant it in a benign way,” Eleanor tried to explain, but Scout wasn’t having any of it.

  She wiggled out of Boone’s grip and pointed her finger in Eleanor’s face. “You are nuts if you think that anything you just said to me was benign!”

  “She’s nuts,” Boone cut in, pulling Scout back into his arms, because he wasn’t sure he could trust her to not tear into Eleanor, “if she thinks Gaige was actually going to take her on that plane. I’d venture a guess that the passport and ticket weren’t for her. Did you get a look at the photo in the passport, Eleanor? Did he give you a good close look at it?”

  She lifted her chin. “I didn’t have to. I trust him.”

  “Trust in men is often unfounded,” Boone responded.

  “Not in this case. Gaige has always been trustworthy.”

  “Except when it comes to his wife and kids?” Scout asked, and Eleanor frowned.

  “They didn’t earn his trust. I have. Not that it matters,” Eleanor responded. “I won’t be going anywhere. Except jail. The way I see it, if I have to be there, he may as well be, too. The problem is, if we don’t get to the cabin by four, he’s going to leave. His flight takes off at one tomorrow morning, and he warned me that if I didn’t make it back to the cabin in time, he’d go without me. He’ll do it, too. I can tell you that right now. He’ll take Lucy and he’ll leave the country, and no one will ever see either of them again.”

  She marched away, chin tilted so high Boone was surprised she didn’t drown.

  “Wow!” Scout breathed, sagging against Boone, her slim weight pressing against his chest and abdomen. He had a moment of pure insanity, a moment when all he could think about was how good she felt in his arms, how right it was to be standing there with her.

  “Wow what?” he asked, stepping back, giving himself a little breathing room.

  “Does she really believe he was going to take her to some exotic location? Did she really think that the two of them could travel with my daughter and not get noticed?”

  “You said it yourself—she’s crazy.”

  “There’s crazy, and then there is crazy,” Scout sighed. “She’s both.”

  He nearly laughed at that, but they had a job to do, and standing around chatting about things wasn’t getting it done. “At least we have some information to go on. Airport. Time. Connecting flight.”

  “It’s great to have, but if he leaves the cabin with Lucy—”

  “Don’t borrow trouble, Scout.” He pressed his hand to her back, urging her in the direction Eleanor had gone.

  “How is it borrowing trouble to think through the possibilities?”

  “It steals energy away from dealing with the realities. Right now, the reality is that we don’t know what we’re going to find at the cabin. Until we get there, there’s nothing we can do but keep running with plan A.”

  “Is there a plan B?”

  “If we need one.”

  “Are you going to tell me what it is?”

  “Once I come up with it, sure.”

  She laughed shakily. “You’re a funny guy, Boone.”

  “I’m also a hungry guy, so how about we get this show on the road and bring your daughter home so you can make me that cake we were discussing?”

  “You make me believe,” she
responded, “that those things are really going to happen.”

  “Believing is half the battle.”

  “What’s the other half?” Scout asked.

  “Knowing that whatever happens, God is in control of it, and that it really will be okay.” He took her hand as they headed up another steep hill, Eleanor marching a few yards ahead, her shoulders slumped as if the reality of what she’d done was finally settling in.

  She was smart to feel defeated. By the time they reached the cabin, it would be surrounded by law-enforcement officials. There was no way Gaige would ever make it past the blockades that were being set or the armed men and women who were lying in wait. If he tried, he’d be stopped.

  FIFTEEN

  Lucy’s prison was nicer than Scout had imagined.

  Or maybe it was the distance that was making it appear that way. From a quarter mile back, the log cabin looked to be in pristine condition, its tin roof sparkling with millions of tiny ice pellets.

  Scout squinted as she looked through the binoculars Boone had handed her, focusing on the windows, trying desperately to catch some glimpse of Lucy while he texted their location to the team, made sure everyone was in place.

  Eleanor stood under the canopy of an old oak, head down, a layer of ice coating her hood and coat. She hadn’t spoken a word since she’d admitted that they’d planned to leave the country with Lucy.

  Was she regretting the confession?

  Realizing what a fool she’d been?

  Or was she as exhausted as Scout, the grueling three-mile hike taking its toll?

  Scout didn’t ask. She was afraid to strike up a conversation, afraid of what Eleanor might say and of her response. She didn’t get angry often. She didn’t ever have much to get angry about, but she’d seen red when Eleanor had said she’d have forgotten Lucy. Every thought in her head had flown out, and all she could feel was rage.

  “We’re ready,” Boone said quietly.

  She turned to face him, her pulse jumping with nerves and fear.

  “You know what to do, right?” he asked, his hand on her shoulder. “There’s no chance he’s going to let you leave with Lucy. You’re going to have to find a way to get your daughter into another room.”