Returning to Eden (Acts of Valor, Book 1): Christian Military Romantic Suspense

by Rebecca Hartt

Jonah wasn’t sure he believed him, but he trusted Rivera’s judgment. If the man wasn’t concerned, he shouldn’t concern himself either.

  “No te preocupes. Don’t despair, Jonah.” Rivera sent him a smile of support and certainty. “You say God brought you through captivity and safely home again.”

  “Right.”

  “Then He’s got you. He isn’t going to let your marriage fall apart, not now.”

  The words touched a place deep in Jonah’s heart, soothing him.

  “God brought you home for a reason,” Rivera added. “Put your trust in Him, and remember He works all things for the good of those who love him. All things, Jonah.”

  “Yeah.” Jonah nodded in agreement. A calm wind blew through his spirit. “Thank you,” he said, holding Rivera’s gaze to convey his gratitude. “I really needed to hear that.”

  “Any time. I will pray for you, night and day.”

  “Thanks.” The last ounce of energy seemed to leave Jonah’s body all at once. Closing his eyes, he dropped his head against the back of the chair again.

  “You look exhausted,” Rivera said. “I think I should leave and let you rest.”

  Jonah pried his eyes open. “Sorry. This happens to me every afternoon and evening. My meds run out of steam.”

  “It’s okay. You’re recovering.” Rivera touched the top of Jonah’s head as he stood up. “Stay here.”

  Ignoring the words, Jonah struggled to his feet, determined to escort Rivera to the steps.

  With a shake of his head, Rivera let Jonah follow him to the recycle bucket by the front door.

  “You take care, my friend,” he said, laying the glass bottle in the bucket, then straightening. “Call me any time. When you’re ready, we’ll train on the beach or something, yes?”

  “Sounds good.” Jonah’s words slurred together, he was so tired.

  “Good night.” With a brief hug, Rivera took his leave, running lightly down the stairs and across the yard. Watching his shadow race toward the street, Jonah realized he intended to run all the way to his house, about a mile and a half away.

  I used to be able to do that like it was nothing. In that moment, just entering the house to get to his bedroom felt like a monumental task. He headed, instead, for the closest thing he could collapse on—a lounge chair on the deck several feet away.

  He would take a nap here so as not to disturb Miriam and Eden’s movie. When he awoke again, refreshed, he’d go back inside and take his nighttime medication.

  That was his last conscious thought as his muscles went limp atop the chair’s wooden slats.

  A sense of impending danger preceded the sound of voices. Barking at him, they descended without warning, seizing him with rough hands and dragging him off his ledge. Pushed down a dimly lit hallway, shoved through a door, Jonah was grappled into a reclining chair. Familiar straps closed around his wrists, ankles, and forehead. A man on either side of him cinched the straps tight, keeping him immobile. It was time for El Jefe to try to break him again.

  Not the electricity, Jonah silently beseeched, as sweat poured off him.

  The dreaded footsteps of his tormentor made Jonah’s heart pound. Give me strength, Lord.

  El Jefe dropped his carrying case on the table. He opened it—click, click—and lifted the lid. Silence ensued as he ran his fingers lovingly over his instruments of torture, searching for the one that would finally loosen Jonah’s tongue.

  Jonah knew the kinds of questions that were coming. He’d been trained to answer them with misinformation. But these were questions he didn’t know how to answer because he couldn’t remember. Through bits of conversation and by process of elimination, he had determined where he was. But he couldn’t recall a single detail of the op that had evidently taken him to Venezuela.

  He knew his tormentor would ask him, “Who destroyed my warehouse?”

  Jonah didn’t know the answer, but the question suggested he and his teammates had been interdicting weapons when—obviously—something unplanned had occurred. Jonah had evidently been captured—impossible if he’d been conscious. He must have blacked out. Where were his teammates? How could they have left him there alone?

  Jonah’s captors believed the Americans had blown up their warehouse. El Jefe queried him endlessly, unleashing every punishment at his disposal until he wearied at his lack of success and sent Jonah to his cell.

  “Unbutton his shirt.”

  The command filled Jonah with dread. His body coiled like a spring as the commander’s assistants laid his chest bare.

  Relax, he ordered himself. It wouldn’t do him any good to resist the wracking pain wrought by the electric nodes being attached to him. He drew a steadying breath, counting seconds as he inhaled and exhaled. A humming sound filled the chamber as El Jefe flipped the switch on his machine.

  All at once, Jonah realized the strap around his left wrist was compromised. In his many struggles, he’d managed to tear the seams that bound the leather to the armrest.

  A miracle!

  Strategizing the best means of debilitating the guards who flanked him, he opted to seize the man on his left first, dragging him across his body to act as a human shield while he freed his right wrist.

  Cool fingers touched his chest as one of the guards bent over him. Now! Jonah jerked his wrist free, seizing the man’s windpipe. A curtailed shriek filled his ears. Hands flew to his shoulders. Sharp nails dug into his flesh. Hair fell across his face.

  A familiar scent layered his dream, but it didn’t belong there. Questioning reality, Jonah felt the slats of the chaise lounge beneath his shoulder bones. He forced his eyes open and realized he was lying on his deck at home, and the guard he was choking was his beautiful wife.

  With a cry of denial, his hand sprang open. She collapsed atop him, sucking air into her lungs like someone trying to breathe through a straw.

  Oh, God. Oh, dear God.

  Galvanized by horror, he launched them both off the chair. On his feet, he half-dragged, half-carried Eden to the door. Shouldering it open, he hit the switches. Light flooded the entryway, illuminating her pale face and her wide-open mouth as she hung in his arms struggling to breathe.

  Stricken by what he’d done, he sank to his knees in the foyer and brought her to the floor with him. In the back of the house, the dog barked.

  “Eden. Jesus, what have I done?”

  No answer. Her enormous eyes shone with panic as she managed to suck another breath through her crushed windpipe.

  “Keep breathing! I’m going to call an ambulance,” he said, preparing to release her.

  She fisted his shirt and mouthed, “No.”

  “I have to. You can’t even breathe.”

  “I can.” The hoarse words were followed by another painful-sounding intake.

  The scrabble of paws heralded Miriam’s sudden presence as she and the dog emerged from her bedroom.

  “What’s wrong?” she cried.

  Jonah wanted to die. “I hurt her by accident. I was dreaming. Help me get her to the couch.”

  Eden waved them off and clambered to her feet by herself. They each grabbed an arm and escorted her to the sofa, where she sat rocking herself gently and, with a look of painful concentration, continued to wheeze on every breath. Sabrina ran back and forth, excited by the late-night stirrings.

  “I’m calling 911.” Jonah headed for the home phone sitting on the end table.

  Eden tried to shake her head and winced. “No!”

  Her hoarse protest made him hesitate. He glanced at Miriam for her input. She sat beside her mother, smoothing a hand up and down her spine. She lifted accusing eyes at Jonah.

  “Should I call them?” he found himself asking the fourteen-year-old.

  “What do you think?” Her hard voice matched the look in her eyes. “You want them to cart you off to jail for domestic violence?”

  The harsh words made him blanch.

  “Miriam!” Eden scolded on a whisper.

  Looking at
his stricken wife, Jonah cast his own cares into the wind.

  “I’ll go to jail,” he decided. “I don’t care. She needs help.”

  He started for the phone again.

  “No!” This time it was Miriam who protested.

  Shoving fingers into his hair, Jonah prowled to the kitchen and back.

  To Jonah’s surprise, Eden stretched out a hand of reconciliation as he approached her again.

  Desperate for forgiveness, Jonah clasped her hand in both of his, dropping to his knees by her feet. Immediately, the dog came over to lick him.

  “I’m so sorry,” he stated. His eyes stung with helpless tears as he released her and put an arm around the dog to subdue her. “I didn’t know it was you, Eden. I thought it was…other people. And they were going to…work me over.”

  Eden and Miriam both stared at him in a way that was fast becoming the norm.

  “Did you remember something?”

  Eden’s hoarse question nearly succeeded in redirecting his focus. Yes, he had.

  “That doesn’t matter right now. Are you getting enough air?” His gaze went to her red, swelling neck. He couldn’t believe, looking at it, that he was responsible.

  “I’m fine,” Eden said.

  Miriam touched her mother’s neck lightly. “Can you swallow?” she asked. Her tone sounded slightly less accusatory.

  Eden tried to swallow. With a grimace, she succeeded. “Yes. See, I’m fine. I was just a little shaken is all.” Her amber gaze met Jonah’s glistening one.

  “It’s my fault,” she insisted, her voice still husky. “I should have said something to wake you up, not just touch you like that.”

  “It’s not your fault!” Self-loathing drove him to his feet, making the dog start barking again. “It’s mine. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep without taking my meds first. The doctor said this would happen. Ice,” he added, as his training kicked in belatedly.

  “I’ll get it.” Miriam darted off the sofa, Sabrina on her heels.

  Dividing his gaze between his stepdaughter and his wife, Jonah wondered if his latest faux pas would have a lasting, negative consequence.

  “Jonah.”

  Eden wanted his attention. She patted the spot Miriam had vacated. He eased into it, eager to do anything in his power to lessen her discomfort.

  “What can I do? Can I get you anything? Tylenol maybe?”

  “In a minute.”

  Miriam returned from the freezer with a blue medical ice pack. “Hold this on your neck,” she told her mother.

  Eden took it, and for the next few seconds, they watched her close her eyes and draw several easy breaths.

  “See, I’m fine,” she said, opening her eyes to look at them both.

  Jonah went to hug her. Why shouldn’t he? At least she would know his remorse was bone-deep.

  She put her hands on his chest, preventing him. “Did you remember something, Jonah?”

  Her question demanded an answer. Glancing at Miriam’s set face, he decided it wouldn’t hurt to play on her sympathies in the hopes of gaining some forgiveness.

  “I did, actually.” To his gratification, the dream was still crisp within his mind, and his eye didn’t hurt when he tried to remember. “I was being questioned about—” He cut himself off. “That part’s not important.”

  “What is important?” Eden prompted.

  “I knew what they were going to ask because they asked it every time they questioned me. Thing is, I also knew I couldn’t remember. I had no idea what I was doing there, or how I even got there. I had no memory of the op at all, which means I must have lost my memory before my captivity.”

  “That’s odd.” Eden looked perplexed. “You were fine when you went wheels up.”

  Jonah paused to let vignettes of the recent past flicker through his mind like a slide show.

  “Well, guess what?” he said with an unpleasant shiver. “I can remember some of my captivity now.”

  Visions came of a squalid cell, dirt floor and cinderblock walls, a slit for a window, too high to see out of. He almost wished the memories had stayed buried.

  “This is huge,” Eden insisted, her own trauma seemingly forgotten.

  “Yes,” Jonah agreed.

  “The blow to your face!” Miriam spoke up on a note of excitement. “Maybe it happened before you were taken captive. Maybe you lost your memory then.”

  Eden’s expression cleared. “That has to be it.”

  A memory nudged the outer wall of Jonah’s consciousness. He fought desperately to pull it closer.

  “Oh, my gosh, you’ll have so much to tell Dr. Branson tomorrow.”

  Oh, him. Eden’s comment caused the memory to slip away.

  “Yeah,” he said, puzzled by his reticence where the doctor was concerned. He focused his attention again on Eden’s neck. “You’re sure you’re okay?” he asked her.

  “I’m fine,” she assured him, managing a wan smile.

  He studied her a moment longer, then regarded Miriam.

  “How about you?” he asked. “You okay?”

  She petted the dog in silence for a minute, then looked up and, in a firm voice, said, “I just want to say that if something like this ever happens again, I’ll call the police myself.”

  Her protective spirit pleased him immensely, making him want to grin with approval. Instead, he sought to look remorseful and said, “I get that. And you should.”

  Miriam shrugged. “All right. Well, if you people are done with all the drama, we’re going back to bed. Come on Sabby.” She caught the retriever’s collar and led her away.

  “What time is it?” Jonah’s gaze went to the kitchen clock. “Wow, it’s two in the morning.”

  Eden started to rise from the couch. He jumped up to help her.

  “I’m good,” she murmured, extracting her arm from his grasp. “When I woke up and found your door open and your light on, I thought you might still be outside, so I went looking for you.”

  He grimaced. “I was so tired I had to lie down outside.”

  They eyeballed each other for a moment, Eden still holding the ice pack to her neck.

  It occurred to Jonah, even if they were happily married, it wouldn’t be safe for him to sleep in her bed. Heaven knew what manner of violence he was capable of until he got his memory back.

  “Good night, Eden. I’m sorry,” he said again.

  Her gaze softened as she considered him. “And I’m sorry you were tortured,” she whispered.

  Rolling up on her toes, she planted a quick kiss on his cheek and retreated.

  Hah. If she had any idea the kinds of scars he was hiding under his shirt, she would probably freak.

  Safeguarding the memory of her freely given kiss, he decided to savor it. More than likely, a kiss on the cheek was all he’d ever get from then on.

  Chapter 9

  “Mrs. Mills, may I borrow you for a few minutes?”

  Not again. Eden hid her frustration behind a smile and lifted an enquiring gaze to the doctor. She was making inroads into the fascinating article on PTSD. Seeing Jonah exit the doctor’s office and drop into a seat in the waiting room, she realized she wouldn’t be joining him but rather taking his place. Oh, dear. He must have told Dr. Branson about her ultimatum. Wouldn’t this be fun?

  Setting the magazine regretfully aside, Eden sent a searching look toward Jonah but couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Dr. Branson closed the door behind her as she entered his office. Sitting across from her, his denim blue gaze went straight to the bruise on Eden’s neck, and his expression reflected dismay as he beheld what Eden had tried, and failed, to cover with makeup.

  “Jonah told me what happened last night—or rather, early this morning,” he corrected himself. “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine.” Eden shrugged and touched her tender neck. “I bruise easily. It’s no big deal.”

  “It’s not?” The doctor searched her face. “He’s very aware that he could have killed you.”


  “But he didn’t,” Eden pointed out.

  “And why do you think that is? I mean, in his mind, you were the enemy and you were a threat to him. He is trained to protect himself.”

  Eden counted the beats of her heart. She wished the doctor would speak in sentences and not ask questions to which he already knew the answer. “I suppose,” she answered, drawing out the words as if they had just occurred to her, “he must have recognized me.”

  The doctor nodded profoundly. “Exactly. And my guess is he recognized you by your scent. He has told me more than once that he knows it.”

  Eden countered his comment with a thoughtful hmm.

  “Are you—” Dr. Branson seemed to search for the right words “—afraid to stay in the same house with your husband, Eden?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him wondering where he was going with the question.

  “No,” she said truthfully.

  “Are you afraid to spend time with him?” the doctor added, closing an invisible noose around her.

  With a burst of impatience, she opted to bring the elephant out into the open.

  “He must have told you what I said to him yesterday. About wanting a separation,” she added when the doctor merely looked at her blankly.

  Branson’s bushy eyebrows pulled together. “Actually, no. This is the first I’ve heard of it. You asked him for a separation?”

  Darn it! She’d opened that can of worms for no reason.

  “No, of course not. I mean, not right away. I explained that…we had probably married for the wrong reasons, and I’d realized while he was gone we’re better off apart.”

  The doctor appeared stunned. “I see,” he said, absorbing her news with several slow blinks. “So that’s why you’ve been avoiding him.”

  “I’m not avoiding him,” she protested.

  “He told me you asked your daughter to look at family photos with him.”

  Eden had nothing to say to that.

  “Not that he minded,” the doctor added. “He speaks very highly of Miriam.”

  Nina’s words of warning returned to Eden, keeping her from saying anything.

  The doctor looked at her funny. “Do you disagree?”

  Eden looked down at her hands. In her head, she could hear Nina’s words: If anything, he’s exploiting your weaknesses. He knows how to get to you—through your daughter and through your body.