Christmas K-9 Protectors, page 20
Christie approached the bedroom door slowly, setting each foot down as if she was walking on a fragile glass. She couldn’t risk being heard. Placing her ear against the door, she listened, only opening it when she was sure there was no one in the hall.
Rushing into her room, she filled a backpack with a few necessities. Her phone was on the nightstand near her bed. She grabbed it and opened the settings. Quickly, she deactivated the location settings so she wouldn’t have to worry about it pinging or alerting anyone to their whereabouts. She turned the phone off then shoved the device and a charger into the bag. She moved next door to Ellie’s room. They had to escape in her car, but eventually she’d need to ditch it. She packed a little more for Ellie than she’d packed for herself, but not more than they could carry.
She’d taken long enough. Waking her daughter, Christy warned the child to stay quiet. Ellie’s lower lip started to push out in a pout.
“We’re going on an adventure, honey. I need you to not say a word.”
At the word adventure, her big hazel eyes lit up and she nodded vigorously.
They snuck down the stairs and through the kitchen. Once outside, she loaded her daughter into her car. As she was backing out of the driveway, the side door to the house burst open and Bryce ran out, a huge man with a leather jacket and black beard beside him. She threw the car into Drive and gunned it as they yelled at her to stop.
Bryce lifted his arm. He had a gun! She pushed down on the gas as he fired. The blast shocked her. The bullet thudded into the passenger-side door.
Ellie screamed, but was uninjured.
Christy had little doubt the police would be searching for her car. She didn’t know what story her father would tell them, but she knew she and Ellie were dead if they were returned to her father’s house. A sincere face with the same brown eyes as Ellie’s swam in her mind. Sam. She had to call Sam.
* * *
“Sam, you have a call.” Adele grinned up at him.
Sam Burkholder half turned his body on the ladder and raised an eyebrow at his cousin. “I have a phone call?”
Had he ever received a call before? As an Amish man, he’d grown up with no phone in his haus. The bed and breakfast his onkel ran had a phone, but only because it was a business that catered to Englischers.
He narrowed his gaze at his cousin. Adele had just turned eighteen and was readying for baptism into the church. She had a sparkling personality and tended to be somewhat of a prankster. Other than his family, no one would know to call him here. He didn’t work at the Plain and Simple Bed and Breakfast. However, the roof had leaked earlier in the season and caused water damage that had needed to be repaired. Since his family owned a painting business, he was there on official business, prepping two of the upstairs rooms to be repainted. The job wasn’t on the calendar, which meant he was running late to meet his daed and brother Abram at their next appointment. He should have left an hour ago.
He did not have time to play games with Adele today. “Jah, I am sure. I need to finish and move on. Take a message, will ya?”
“It’s a maidel, Sam.”
Her face was avid, burning with curiosity. Well, maybe she wasn’t pulling his leg. He frowned. Other than his mamm or Adele, what females would be calling him? And they wouldn’t call. He wasn’t courting anyone. Hadn’t for the past six years, although he could never tell his family the real reason why.
If they knew the truth behind his reluctance to go to singings or to meet any women, his daed would be sore disappointed in him.
He couldn’t be more disappointed than Sam was in himself. He’d never be taken in again, even if he knew he was free to marry.
The problem was, he didn’t know if he were free. And he had no way of finding out.
Aggravated, he shrugged. “Ack. I’m late. Adele, take a message. If it’s important, I’ll call back when I’m done.”
She rolled her eyes and flounced off. Sam put the conversation from his mind and got back to his task. He had all but forgotten the incident until she returned ten minutes later. Her wide eyes and pale face told him something was wrong.
“Adele?” He hurried off the ladder. What had happened? Was someone hurt? Or sick?
She cleared her throat. “I gave her the message. She said she needed you to come and pick her up. I thought that was strange, and I tried to tell her you were busy. She said—she said—”
He tamped down his impatience. It wasn’t often anything rattled Adele. “She said what?”
She sucked in a deep breath and released the words in a rush. “She said, ‘Tell him his wife is calling.’”
Sam stepped back, his head reeling. His wife? There was only one woman who’d say that.
Looking around, he grabbed hold of Adele, pulled her onto the back porch and closed the door. No one could hear this conversation. “Tell me everything she said. Everything.”
He hardly recognized that rasp as his voice.
She blinked. “It’s true, then?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.” He held up his hand before she could ask more. “It’s a complicated situation, and one I need you to keep quiet about for now. Please, tell me what she said.”
“She said she was your wife. She took a bus to Shipshewana, Indiana, where you met, and asked around until someone gave her this number. She said somebody was trying to kill her.”
Christy never exaggerated. He remembered her, how much she wanted to tell the exact truth about everything. If she said someone was trying to kill her, they were. “Did she say her name?”
She shook her head. “She said she didn’t want anyone to know who she was because they were searching for her.”
It took him five seconds to decide he’d go. Even if she hadn’t been in danger. He had six years of questions to ask her. Starting with, why’d she abandoned him? And why hadn’t she let him know she was alive all these years?
“Okay. I need to find a driver. Shipshewana is a four-hour drive.” He glanced at his watch. It was a little past nine now. Maybe he could get there before dinnertime. “I mean what I said, Adele. No one can know about this. If I’m not back tonight, you can tell anyone who asks that I went to assist a friend. No mention of who she is.”
“Sam...”
He locked his gaze with hers. “I promise, I will explain everything to the family when I return home. But I don’t have the time now. If Christy is in trouble, I need to go fast.”
He waited until he had her nod of agreement then prepared for the journey, his stomach in knots. He’d fallen hard for Christy when they’d met six years ago. So hard, he’d been tempted to leave his faith. He’d been carrying an emotional burden, one no one in his family had known about, and only Christy had seen behind his smile and calm demeanor.
He’d thought he’d found his forever love. Then she’d gone and his heart had broken.
Sam called around to find a driver. Finally, he found one. He had to wait nearly two hours for the driver to arrive, so it was almost six hours later when he stepped out of the car and asked the driver to wait for him. He wiped his hands on his trousers. Regardless of the snow and ice surrounding them, he was cold. He wasn’t sure he had the right place, but she’d said to come where they’d met. Buses lined the parking lot.
Where to begin searching?
He went inside and scoured the depot with his eyes. In the back, nearly hidden, a woman squatted next to the wall, a small girl beside her with her little arms crossed as a storm brewed on her face. She was about five seconds shy of a temper tantrum.
Sam stared at the terrified woman in front of him. She was six years older than the last time he’d seen her, but he’d know her anywhere. Even with her head turned away, he’d memorized the curve of her jaw. Her face was slimmer, more mature, but he knew her.
“Christy?”
Her dark brown eyes shot to his when she heard her name, widening as she took in his appearance, from his heavy black boots, simple trousers and winter coat, to the hat pushed down on his head. She’d never seen him dressed in his Amish clothes. When they’d met, he’d been going through a defiant phase.
“Sam?” Her voice trembled, although whether it was shock, fear or a combination of the two, he couldn’t say.
“Mommy, I’m scared.”
He glanced at the child snuggled up against her side. Then his eyes widened. The child looked exactly like his cousin Adele had when she was little. Right down to the huge hazel eyes gazing at him with suspicion.
“Christy.” He never took his eyes from the munchkin as he addressed the woman. “Who is this?”
“This is my daughter. Eleanor Samantha. I call her Ellie.”
Samantha. Could be a coincidence. He didn’t believe in coincidences. Forcing his stare away from the child, he read the truth in Christy’s face. Not only was the girl he’d loved back, but she’d also had his child and never told him.
“I can explain,” she said, her words rushed in the awkward silence. “But I need your help. Someone murdered my sister last night, and they’re after us. If they find me, they’ll murder Ellie and me, too.”
Copyright © 2021 by Dana Roae
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ISBN-13: 9780369716293
Christmas K-9 Protectors
Copyright © 2021 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Holiday Heist
Copyright © 2021 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Alaskan Christmas Chase
Copyright © 2021 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Maggie K. Black and Lenora Worth for their contributions to the Alaska K-9 Unit miniseries.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Maggie K. Black, Christmas K-9 Protectors
