Escape to Morning

by Susan May Warren

  Until he’d met Dani.

  Until she’d looked him in the eye and said, “I’m willing to take my chances.” She’d reached past his iffy exterior and been his friend. Trusted him. Believed in him.

  With a realization that should have sent the stars leaping across the sky, Will looked heavenward, a strange, wild feeling springing into his heart.

  Lord, You’ve been trying to teach me this entire time about knowing You, and I haven’t been paying attention. I’ve expected You to change me, to heal me, but I haven’t taken more than baby steps in Your direction. Mostly because I’ve been afraid that You’ll take a good look and revoke all that forgiveness. But I’m going to believe You when You say Your compassions never fail. Help me remember that as I walk every day in Your direction.

  Please be with Dani tonight. Great is Your faithfulness, and I ask You to make that known to her. And please keep her alive. Thank You for bringing Dani into my life, but even if I never see her again, You’ve taught me about friendship. About taking a chance on someone even if you don’t understand them. Teach me to take a chance on You. Teach me to be Your man.

  Amina hobbled beside him, holding her injured arm. She looked exhausted and defeated.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Will assured her. “We’ll find your father.”

  She gave him a soft, disbelieving smile.

  They rounded a bend, and in the distance, he saw Lake Superior, a shining pool of moon-kissed water. And at the end of the road cutting down to the lake was County Road 63.

  “We’ll flag down a car.”

  She nodded, but fear edged her eyes.

  He knew what thoughts sparked her worry. She had told him that the Hayata thugs had radioed in their position before the crash. In the time since, someone surely would have gotten suspicious.

  As if on cue with his thoughts, lights heralded a vehicle turning off the county road and onto the forest-service road. Will grabbed Amina’s arm, pulled her toward the ditch, but not before lights illuminated them like deer caught in mid-flight.

  Amina scrambled into the ditch with him, trembling. “Don’t let them take me,” she said.

  After the lights had passed, Will put his arm around her and ushered her out of the ditch and back into the dark forest.

  “The LORD is my portion. …”

  Don’t be afraid. Dani heard the voice in her head—soft, like a song—as she shivered under Will’s coat. The wind rustled, hidden in the trees overhead, and night sounds rippled under her skin. She shouldn’t sleep; she knew that. She didn’t want to slip into shock—more trauma victims suffered from shock than their actual injuries.

  Will had left her. “Just go,” she’d said, but inside she’d been screaming, Stay. Oh, please, stay.

  She fought a fearful tremble. He’d left her.

  Somehow she wondered if that scared him more than it had her. That thought helped. In fact, it found the still-aching places in her heart and soothed them. She searched her memory for the moment before the crash and found Will’s words: “I know I’m not the guy you thought I was. But in every important way, I want to be. I want to be your friend, and … more. I want to be God’s man for you—today and every day.”

  Lord, I thought I asked You not to let me fall for him. Tears slipped down into her ear, pooled there, turning cold in the night air. Not only had she fallen hard for Will the reporter, but he wasn’t a reporter. He was some die-hard federal soldier who lived life on the edge. A guy whose life defined the word danger. Who could come home any day in a box with a folded flag. If he came home at all.

  She could not fall in love with Will. Could not. Because even if she could forgive him for lying—and everything inside her yelled yes! to that thought—she couldn’t stand on the doorstep and wave good-bye to him, maybe forever, every time he went out the door.

  Another tear dripped into her ear. The trees swayed overhead, caught by a breeze. She remembered the night after the tornado long ago. She’d sung and held Ashley’s hand and told her so-very-quiet-sister stories. As the night wore on and help failed to arrive, she had tucked herself into the furrowed earth next to Ashley and draped an arm over her cold body and slept.

  She dreamed that night of a friend. Someone strong who lifted her sister and carried her into the vault of heaven. Someone who then carried her, held her to His chest, and kept her warm. She remembered His smell, sweet like the corn silk that lay in tangles around her.

  When she awoke she was in her bed, covered in her mother’s quilts, her mother’s arm over her body. They’d waited a day to tell her the truth, but she knew it anyway. She’d seen Ashley go to heaven, after all.

  Since then, her adult mind told her that stress had conjured up the dream and that the arms had been her rescuers’. Still, in the private, small place where she stored her childhood, she fell into that smell and embraced it. Believed that, yes, Jesus had visited her that night. That she and Ashley hadn’t been abandoned.

  God is my portion. My sustenance. Sarah’s words felt like a long-awaited embrace. How long had it been since God had been her portion? She’d done a pretty good job of filling up her life with her SAR career, her dogs, even her Team Hope friends. She couldn’t even remember the last night she’d spent alone. Another tear slipped down her cheek, bypassed her ear, and fell into her hair.

  Missy had been her portion. Missy and Sherlock. And before them, her grandma and grandpa.

  In fact, God had provided someone to love her throughout her life, despite her losses. He’d even provided Will to watch over her as she tramped through the woods. What if the Hayata terrorists had found her? They might have forced her and Missy to help them find Amina. And then left them as crow fodder in the woods.

  But instead of seeing Will and Missy and even Team Hope as God’s provisions, she’d made them her portion. Her lifelines.

  Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father,

  Morning by morning new mercies I see;

  All I have needed, Thy hand hath provided—

  Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

  The hymn filled her mind, and with a gasp that she felt to her toes, she realized that God had been faithful. All she had needed, He’d provided. From a grandmother who filled her dark moments with songs of faith to a man who had filled her heart with a new song. And God would not leave her tonight or tomorrow, for that matter. Morning by morning He’d be there.

  Even if Will wasn’t.

  God may have provided Will, but tonight she was on her own. And if she decided to give Will her heart, to love him, she’d have countless nights on her own.

  Or with God. Who had truly been her portion since she’d been lost, or rather, alone. Not really lost. Not ever. And not forgotten.

  Lord, I know that I asked You not to forget me and to send someone to find me, to save me. And I guess You have. You’ve provided and protected me in ways I can’t even imagine. She smiled as she watched the stars, feeling warmth pervade her muscles, her bones. Maybe she did need God as much as her friend Lacey did. And maybe Dani too could radiate her own salvation.

  Lord, You are my portion. And I am satisfied to wait for Your deliverance. Just as You have been faithful to deliver me over and over…

  She heard the sound of tires crunching gravel up the road. She tensed, tried to hear past her thundering heartbeat. The car stopped, doors slammed; then flashlights scraped over the forest above her.

  She closed her eyes.

  … and over. …

  Chapter 21

  “YOU’RE NOT GOING in there, Wild.” Micah stood outside the emergency-room door like the commando captain he’d been, and by the look on his face, Will would have a better chance moving a longhorn steer than Micah.

  “I am. Please, Micah. My boss and Amina are waiting for me. I just have to say good-bye.”

  Conner joined Micah, a look of compassion on his face. “What if it were Lacey, Micah?”

  Micah gave Will a hard look. The fluorescent lights of
the hospital did nothing to soften his expression of anger.

  Well, get in line. Will already felt disgusted with his behavior over the past several days, and Jim Micah’s indictment wouldn’t do any more damage.

  “Listen, I just want to see if she’s okay. I … probably won’t see her again, and I …”

  “Then it’s better if you leave. Now. Without breaking her heart. You’ve already done enough. I know this isn’t totally your fault, but what if she never walks again, Wild? Then what?”

  Will turned away from Micah, feeling rotten.

  Conner paced in a small circle not far from them, and Will could play a mournful tune from the tension in the hospital hallway. Inside the emergency room, the doctor and Sarah attended to Dani. Her friend Andee and Jim Micah’s fiancée, Lacey Montgomery, had gone for coffee. As if Will needed a reminder of the guy he’d been, the guy who had let his emotions finally have sway and suck the woman he cared for into trouble, Lacey had to recognize him as the wild-living Green Beret who’d helped her infiltrate Iraq and rescue the man she loved.

  Obviously, he hadn’t changed too much.

  “Wild!” But she’d hugged him as if he’d been a friend instead of a scoundrel.

  Despite the fact that he had to walk out of Dani’s life, he still wanted to be the guy who made her feel safe. The guy who did things God’s way, one day at a time.

  “Micah, I gotta go.” Will caught sight of Jeff Anderson— his ride—in the hallway with a look of exasperation on his face. He turned to Micah. “Just … tell Dani …” Tell her what? That he was falling in love with her?

  He felt sick with the hollow feeling he’d become accustomed to years earlier, when Wild had been an appropriate moniker for his love-’em-and-leave-’em lifestyle.

  Only, he didn’t want to leave Dani.

  “Tell her … thank you for being my friend.” He stalked out, past Jeff, straight to the SUV, and slid in beside Amina, hating the man he had to be.

  Had every friend she had abandoned her? Dannette lay in a hospital bed with her leg elevated—hungry, bone tired, wanting to rewind time and start over.

  But would she have done anything differently? Probably not. Her instincts had told her to find the girl. Mission accomplished.

  So maybe her heart was an acceptable casualty.

  She could hardly believe, even after a day in the hospital, that Will had left without saying good-bye.

  That thought had the ability to sweep her breath out of her chest, leaving only heartache in its wake.

  A knock at the door. Conner poked his head in. “Hey.”

  “I thought visiting hours were over.” Dannette smiled, however. “Did you bring me a pizza?”

  Conner grinned, slipped into the room, and produced a box containing a Sven and Ole’s pizza from behind his back. “Pepperoni, mushrooms, and double cheese. Just hope the nurses can’t smell it.”

  “You’re my hero, Sparks,” Dannette said as she motored the bed into a sitting position. “When did Homeland Security cut you loose?”

  “About an hour ago. Micah’s still under the lights, but he’ll be over later too.”

  “Doesn’t anyone care about the sleeping needs of the infirm anymore?” Andee said as the door opened and Andee and Sarah swept into the room, followed by Lacey. They each toted a two-liter bottle of soda.

  “I could get into so much trouble.” Dannette laughed.

  “Yeah, well, if it were up to Sheriff Fadden, you’d be sitting in a jail cell right now. Good thing you have a friend at Homeland Security,” Sarah remarked.

  Yeah. A friend. Who would remain unnamed.

  Conner set the pizza down and opened the box while Sarah poured Dannette a glass of Coke.

  “I still can’t figure out how you found me,” Dannette said to Conner as she wiggled a slice of pizza out of the box.

  “You dropped your GPS in the forest,” Conner answered as he helped himself to pizza. “Micah and I found it and Kirby, collarless. We tracked you for a while, and when we realized you were hiking out a different direction than where we’d parked our vehicles, we took a chance and headed into town for Sarah and Andee. We got out our maps, did some quick home-work, and found Service Road 16. Good thing, um … Will and that girl were hiding in the woods, because we might not have found where they hid you after the crash.”

  “They hid me?”

  “Yeah. And Will was really torn up before he left. Wanted to say good-bye, but Micah wasn’t having it.”

  Oh. Well, she couldn’t really blame Micah for his overprotective streak. That’s what made him Micah.

  And she’d certainly been thankful for said protectiveness when he and the rest of Team Hope appeared in the forest to rescue her. She still shuddered when she thought of that moment of panic when the car drove up and flashlights illuminated the dome of forest over her.

  “Dannette?” Andee MacLeod had shouted into the darkness, her petite frame belying her loud, panicked voice.

  Dannette had mustered the strength to groan. Loudly.

  “Thank You, Lord,” Andee said and yelled for Micah.

  They had Dannette bundled and in the backseat of Sarah’s SUV in record time. Micah held her head in his lap as Andee muscled the Jeep out of the hills and into Moose Bend.

  Shortly after they’d checked her into the hospital, a few Homeland Security agents showed up, taking Sarah, Micah, and Conner with them for the better part of yesterday. So much for their girls’ weekend canoe trip. By the time the agents debriefed her friends, she’d been out of surgery, was starting to get cranky, and wondering why Will hadn’t shown up. She hadn’t asked because, well, the answer hurt too much.

  Obviously he hadn’t cared for her as much as she thought.

  Thankfully, Sarah had read her silences. She’d found a quiet moment, sat on Dannette’s bed, took her hand, and simply said, “He wasn’t much of a reporter, anyway.”

  No. He was probably the worst reporter in history. But he made a superb undercover operative. Had her completely fooled.

  Lacey sat on Dannette’s bed. “The doctor says you’ll be discharged tomorrow. I want you and Missy and Sherlock to come and stay with us while you recuperate. Emily is dying to see you, and I need wedding advice.” She smiled, kindness in her silver eyes.

  Dannette nodded, Lacey’s words soothing some of her ragged wounds. “How is Missy?”

  “Good.” Andee pulled up a chair next to the bed. “I’ve got her bed made in your truck, and the vet said he’d discharge her tomorrow also. Conner will follow you and Sarah in your truck back to Kentucky. And I’ll be there in a month for the wedding.” She touched Dannette’s hand. “I’m sad we didn’t get our vacation on the trail. We’ll have to have a cookout on the beach or something tomorrow, a sort of Memorial Day consolation prize.”

  “Next year we’ll hit the BWCAW for sure.”

  “What’s going on in here?”

  Dannette froze, and the look on Conner’s face said busted.

  Dannette recognized the night nurse, the one with gulagguard warmth.

  “Out of here, all of you,” Nurse Guard commanded.

  “Right. Okay.” Conner saluted her but grinned, softening his sarcasm. “We’re just tucking our friend in for the night.”

  Obviously even the night nurse wasn’t immune to Conner’s charm. She smiled and even blushed.

  Dannette saw Andee roll her eyes and laughed.

  Maybe in time being around her friends would make Dannette forget the man who’d infected her with his own charm.

  The group left, and she was alone with her pizza, her heartbeat, and the night pressing against the windows.

  Will, wherever you are, I pray that you find the man God wants you to be.

  “That’s him.” Fadima pointed to a man on one of the four video monitors.

  From his position in a room in the dome of the U.S. Capitol Building, Will used his binoculars to scan the crowd of ten thousand strong gathered on the Washington Mall, looki
ng for the man she indentified.

  The holiday had warranted roping off the mall, posting added security, and requiring a security screening to enter. Homeland Security had capitalized by setting up cameras at the four entrances so Fadima could eye each visitor entering the mall.

  Will couldn’t contain his fury that Hayata had picked Memorial Day to bring their brand of terror to American soil. Balloons, parades, hot-dog carts, and war protesters clogged the mall from this end, past the Washington Monument, down to the Lincoln Memorial. Music from the U.S. Drum and Bugle Corp set a festive beat, and right below the steps of the Capitol, the U.S. Marine Corps Chamber Orchestra warmed up in anticipation of the president’s speech. The aura of honor, of America, of freedom hung in the air, and a brilliant sun gave the illusion that all was well.

  Hardly. Will tried to slow his heartbeat, focus on each face. His partner, Simon, had talked about Bakym more times than Will could count, but mostly his description was couched in adjectives like dedicated, focused, ruthless, and evil.

  “Which one is he?” Will asked.

  Behind him, Jeff and other Homeland Security agents sat at a bank of computers, running profiles and communicating with agents positioned throughout the crowd.

  Please, Lord, help us find him.

  “Black hair, silver teeth. Wearing the red sweatshirt.”

  Will spotted him. Figures the scumbag would wear a University of Minnesota sweatshirt. Just an average college student. But looks could be deceiving. Will knew that better than anyone.

  Only not today. Today Bakym was going to find out that Will lived up to every inch of his past reputation. Because God might have changed Wild Will on the inside, but on the outside he’d be exactly who he appeared to be. Dangerous. Wild for justice. A man who got the job done, despite the shoulder sling.

  “Got him.” He keyed his radio. “Target is wearing a University of Minnesota sweatshirt, dark hair, about six feet tall. Approach with caution.” Especially since Bakym had parked himself next to a family with a double stroller. This could get ugly, fast. “I’m coming down there.”