Harlequin Heartwarming May 2016 Box Set

The biggest risk she'll ever take...

Tessa Henning is no damsel. But she's definitely in distress. If her husband really is involved in the ivory trade, he'll come after her when he finds out what she's uncovered. Unfortunately, the only person who can help is Mac Walker. Stubborn, fiercely independent, danger-loving bush pilot Mac Walker—with whom she shares custody of their orphaned nephew. Though Mac's no knight in shining armor, he can keep her and their nephew safe in the Serengeti while they wait out this storm. But he can't protect Tessa from the strange weather brewing inside her, stirring up feelings for Mac she wishes she could ignore.

Mac pulled to a stop and pointed toward a pair of giraffes and their baby enjoying a treetop picnic in the distance.

The female seemed to give Tessa a knowing nod and then lowered her neck and nudged the baby. A family of three. At peace. Something stirred deep inside Tessa.

“Look at them, Nick,” she whispered to their nephew.

“I saw. Now can we go fast again?”

Leave it to a restless teen to spoil the moment. Tessa wanted to stay there and watch. Never before had she been so hyperaware...so in tune with her senses. The way the air softly brushed her skin, the light snap of a twig, the smell of dewy grass and freshly rutted dirt, the striking blue and red of a bird taking flight from the acacia tree ahead of them. Everything around her was awe-inspiring. It didn't feel risky. It felt right.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and was enveloped by a warm, fresh scent that was uniquely Mac's. She quickly opened her eyes again. The stress, drama and romantic atmosphere of the Serengeti were getting to her. Mac belonged here. There was no separating him from the land and life that surrounded them. Mac and the Serengeti had an understanding. A symbiotic relationship.

A balance.

And he'd made it clear he didn't have room in his life for anyone else.

Dear Reader,

One of my favorite poems is Robert Frost's “The Road Not
Taken.” We all know journeys through life tend to be circuitous with many
difficult choices along the way. More often than not, our choice of path is
complex and the driving force runs deep. I look back on my own life (hindsight
is a great teacher) and can plainly see which of my choices were based on fear,
insecurities or even expectations...and which were made because I followed my
conscience, listened to my heart and had the courage to be true to myself.

When faced with divergent paths, are you a risk taker?
Someone who takes the less-traveled road? The beautiful thing about life is that
it allows for change. A journey through life, after all, is about
self-discovery. It's about learning from mistakes and righting the wrong. It's
about connecting with those who share or respect our passions, ethics and
values. It's about opening your heart to love in its many forms.

In this book, the hero and heroine are two very different
people brought together by co-guardianship of their nephew. Mac is a risk
taker...an adventurer who has convinced himself he's better off alone. Tessa, on
the other hand, craves security...a need that led her to a marriage and husband
she's determined to be loyal to. Yet both Mac and Tessa are facing internal and
external battles between right and wrong. Both have made choices based on
childhood experiences and both have now reached a crossroads where their choices
will either drive them apart...or make them stronger.

I hope you enjoy this third story in my From Kenya, with Love
series. My door is open at
rulasinara.com
, where you can sign up for my
newsletter, get information on all my books and find links to my social media
hangouts.

Wishing you love, peace and courage in life,

Rula Sinara

Through the Storm

USA TODAY
Bestselling Author

Rula Sinara

Award-winning and
USA TODAY
bestselling author
Rula Sinara
lives in rural Virginia
with her family and crazy but endearing pets. She loves organic gardening,
attracting wildlife to her yard, planting trees, raising backyard chickens and
drinking more coffee than she'll ever admit to. Rula's writing has earned her a
National Readers' Choice Award and a Holt Medallion Award of Merit, among other
honors. Her door is always open at
rulasinara.com
, where you can sign up for her
newsletter, learn about her latest books and find links to her social media
hangouts.

Books by Rula Sinara

Harlequin Heartwarming

The Promise of Rain

After the Silence

Get rewarded every time you buy a Harlequin
ebook!
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To the elephants and all living things that have endured unspeakable suffering. And to those whose hearts are filled with compassion and respect for all life...regardless of race or species. May your love heal wounds and make the world a better place.

Acknowledgments

To Claire Caldwell—a brilliant poet, writer and editor—for helping to bring each book in this series to life and whose patience and invaluable guidance gave me the courage to dig deeper...and reach
Through the Storm
.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

H
E
WOULD
COME
after her.

Without him, Tessa Henning wasn't worth the dust left by a mercilessly harvested and exquisitely carved elephant's tusk, but once he discovered she knew too much, Brice would hunt her down just the same. He'd come after her because she was a traitor. He'd find her because she was his wife and he believed in gratitude and loyalty. He expected it. Brice had put her on a pedestal...made her feel beautiful and wanted at a time when everyone else saw her as awkward. He'd given her a life of luxury and security. He'd been generous.

He loved her.

She closed her eyes. She hoped it had been love all this time. Maybe it still was. Maybe she was wrong about everything. Brice had always been a decent man. A decent husband. Marriage involved trust. But didn't love and trust take two in a marriage?
Love
and
trust
were funny words. Tessa swallowed hard, but the lingering, bitter taste of uncertainty dried her throat even more. She needed to stop rationalizing.

Listen to your gut. Don't ignore your instincts this time. This isn't just about you anymore. There's a kid involved.

She took a deep breath, the kind she did in yoga class, then opened her eyes and took one last look around. The designer “organic eggshell”-colored paint she'd once thought made their bedroom appear clean and classy now seemed cold and painfully neutral. She ran her hand across the brown silk sheets that lay rumpled next to her duffel bag, making sure nothing she needed had been lost in them. Their silky touch was anything but soothing. It reminded her of how easily comfort and security could slip away. The pit of her stomach quivered.

“Just get Nick out of here first, then figure out what to do next,” she muttered, trying to keep her nerve up. The sound of Nick's name grounded her and she rammed the last few bare essentials she'd piled on her bed into her bag, including her journal and the iPad she'd saved some work, research and personal files on. Nothing was
only
about her anymore. Not since her sister and brother-in-law were killed in an accident six months ago and her thirteen-year-old nephew became her responsibility. Well, hers and his uncle Mac's, but she'd pretty much assumed primary guardianship. It had been Mac's choice at first—a choice that preserved his rugged, bachelor bush-pilot lifestyle up in Kenya's Serengeti. Not that he was entirely delinquent as a guardian, but Mac had managed to convince her early on that there was no way he could raise Nick. He sent money instead.

But she wasn't complaining, exactly. She loved Nick and was glad he was a part of her life. Six months ago, she'd thought that having him around would be like having a part of her sister to hang on to. Things didn't turn out that way. For someone with no child-rearing experience, suddenly having a grieving teenage boy dropped into your life was like expecting a deer to raise a baby wolf. Still, a part of her hated that she was going to lose Nick if her suspicions about Brice proved to be true.

She slung her mini backpack purse onto her shoulder, grabbed the duffel then hurried down the curved marble staircase to the main level of their modern South African villa. The floor-to-ceiling window that framed a spectacular view of the Southern Ocean's crested waters never failed to take her breath away, but today the clawing waves seemed like they were desperate to capture her...to keep her from escaping. That same view made anyone who attended one of Brice's upscale cocktail parties jealous of what they had. Those guests didn't have a clue that his fortune had come at a price. Even Tessa didn't have solid proof, and hadn't even suspected Brice's illegal activity until recently, but she was
not
going to stand by and be a victim. Or watch others suffer at his hands.

The journalist in her had been screaming that something was off for a while now, but given all she was going through after her sister's death, her mind kept telling her to stay out of it, play it safe and take care of Nick. The problem was, there was no
safe
anymore. Home would never feel safe again. Tides changed and the undertow was deadly for the unprepared. She needed to be prepared.

At first, she'd thought Brice's increasing emotional distance, preoccupation with work and irritability were due to the change their daily lives had undergone when Nick came to live with them. She had thought her husband was avoiding the stages of mourning she and Nick had been suffering through, and she had decided not to confront him about it. She figured it would all pass and they'd find a new equilibrium; plus, it wasn't fair to make Nick suffer through their marital stresses. Not after what he'd already been through and not when his uncle Mac couldn't get over his bachelor-ness and take his nephew in. But since her initial suspicions, things had been getting worse. Maybe Tessa's imagination was working overtime and she was reading into the bits and pieces of a phone conversation she'd overheard when Brice didn't know she'd returned home early from taking Nick to one of his posttraumatic therapy sessions, but she needed to know for sure. If Brice was involved in criminal activity, no way was she going to let Nick live around him.

A door on the far side of the living room led to Brice's office. He kept it locked whenever he took trips, but Tessa had been planning today for over a month now.
Trust. Traitor.
She reached into her pocket for the key she'd made, then entered. His office had always made her nervous. Like a mother walking into a crystal display shop with a hyperactive child. Just about everything was made of glass or covered in it. The shelves. His desktop, resting on a sleek, sawhorse-style base with wooden drawers and files under either side. The decorative items between books. It had never hit her before, but now it looked as if he were being daring...seeing just how much load his life could take before everything shattered.

She went to his desk and wondered how he kept the glass fingerprint-free. She avoided touching the surface and opened the drawers. A credenza along the wall behind the desk carried his main computer. No doubt he'd taken his laptop with him.

She wished like crazy that she knew his computer passwords. One backup of his hard drive would be all she needed, but she had no time to guess and no clue how to hack. She'd take anything, though—the last bank statement, receipts...anything that would put her suspicions to rest and prove Brice wasn't involved in dark business dealings. Prove that the man who'd swept her off her feet was still the same Brice she'd married. A charismatic and shrewd but moral and ethical businessman. Her
husband
. Yet the last words she'd overheard from that phone call still echoed in her ears:
No one can find out. I'll deny involvement with my last breath.

The nape of her neck prickled as she rifled through his drawers, careful to leave everything looking untouched. She hated this: the sneaking behind his back, the spying...the adrenaline. Boy, did she hate adrenaline. The longer it took for Brice to notice something was wrong when he returned from his business trip in two days, the more of a head start she'd have. She cursed e-bills and cloud storage, then tried one last drawer. A small clear plastic container lay in the back, covered by a stack of manila envelopes. She lifted it out and stacked the envelopes in place. The container had at least six flash drives piled inside.
Maybe some things are too sensitive to store in cyberspace. Huh, Brice?

Her cell phone ring tone sent her pulse scattering. She fumbled for it in her back pocket and checked the screen.
Katia.
Her editor must have already seen the article she'd sent her just an hour ago. Tessa took a second to steady her voice, then answered.

“Hey, Kat.”

“Tessa, are you crazy? I can't publish this in tomorrow's paper. Have you forgotten who your husband is?”

Tessa pressed a hand over her eyes. Why had she bothered? Had she really thought the friendship that had grown between her and Kat would make a difference this time? How often had she been told “no” and to stick to her assigned fashion column?

“No, of course not. It has nothing to do with him,” Tessa said, as she quietly closed the desk drawer.

The article had everything to do with him, but she wasn't stupid enough to mention his name directly. They wanted her to stick to her fashion column and she had. Only, instead of recapping the season's trends and giving her generalized opinion on them, she'd written about how outdated and deplorable the use of ivory in jewelry and home decor was, especially in an era of animal-rights awareness.

“How can it not?” Katia huffed into the phone. “Tessa, why do you think I offered you this column to begin with?”

Nice. Rub it in. Nepotism. She didn't write for the paper because of any talent. She wrote for it because Brice got her in.

“Not only is he on the executive board of this newspaper,” Katia insisted, “he's the lead investor in half the companies you mentioned here. You have no proof. We'd get sued for defamation. I'm not losing my job over this.”

“You won't
lose
your job. You'll be
doing
it. Isn't uncovering truths and raising awareness what journalism is supposed to be about?”

“Maybe for some journalists, but that's not the purpose of your column. That's not what your readers are looking for. If they want to read about crime, they'll turn to the front page. Your column is in the Arts and Home section. Remember that. Tessa, what's going on? This isn't how you write. Have you been sleeping? Watching too many crime shows?”

Only for ideas on how to rob her husband.

“Kat. Listen to me a minute. As my friend, not my editor. I know something is going on that involves some well-known businessmen and politicians around here, and I have a really strong feeling it involves the illegal ivory trade. We can wave a red flag over the issue.” She looked down at the thumb drives. If there was anyone she could trust, it was Katia. “I'm working on getting more solid proof. If you have to leave company names off for now, fine, but at least print the rest. Get the ball rolling. Attract attention to the cause.”

“Tessa...”

“Look, I have to catch a flight. I'm taking my nephew to his uncle's so that I can focus on this. Just post it. Making waves could be good for both our careers.”

“Forget your career. Stop and listen to me.” Katia lowered her voice. “Nothing is private here. I'm betting every email is monitored. You're playing with fire, and that's not like you. Be careful. It hasn't been that long since your sister and brother-in-law were killed. I think the stress is getting to you. Take a break. I can get someone to cover the column for a while.”

“I don't need a break.”

There was a pause and she could hear someone talking in the background and papers shuffling.

“Tessa, I have to go.”

She started to object, but the line disconnected. Tessa cursed and jammed the phone back into her pocket.
You have no proof.
Why couldn't her instincts count for something? Apparently personal agendas trumped both friendship and truth. She took a deep breath. Katia was afraid to ruffle a few feathers. Well, Tessa was about to do a lot more than that. She grasped the USBs and stuffed them into her backpack, knowing full well they could end up being empty or useless, but she was running out of time. She wiped her damp palms against her beige khakis and tucked Brice's chair under the desk, but then pulled it back out and used the hem of her blue V-neck T-shirt to polish the drawer handle and the glass edge, just in case.

She locked the office behind her, then climbed the stairs two at a time, slowing down only as she approached Nick's bedroom down the hall. She paused, slowing her erratic pulse with deep breaths before tapping on his door and cracking it open.

“Nick, you have thirty seconds or we'll miss our flight.”

“I'm ready,” he said, slinging his bag over one shoulder, swinging the door wide open and shoving past her. He was definitely taking after his dad in above-average height and already matched Tessa inch for inch. His jeans and dragon T-shirt were getting too short again. If only he'd let her take him to cut his hair a few inches to match. His blond side-swept bangs made it impossible to look him in the eye. His room looked like the latest hurricane had made landfall. Good thing Brice never bothered going past Nick's bedroom. If he had any idea there was a room in the house in a state like this, he'd die.

“Uh, are you sure you didn't forget anything you need? Toothbrush, perhaps?” And here she was afraid something had fallen between
her
bedsheets.

“No,” he snapped, reaching around her and pulling the door shut.

“Okay.”
Keep out. That won't be a problem.

She followed him downstairs, letting him out first so she could set the house alarm. The taxi she'd arranged for earlier was idling in their circular driveway. Nick waited for her before getting in.

“You should be happy about taking a holiday.”

The private school he attended—one of South Africa's popular and prestigious ones and the same one he'd attended before his parents were killed—gave its students ten days off in August. He'd complained plenty of times that one of his American classmates had told him kids back home got something like two and a half months off in the summer. How did parents over there survive that? How did parents survive, period?

Nick shrugged and gazed out the window at the passing shoreline as they headed for the airport.

“Whatever.”

Tessa caught the driver glancing at her. Sympathy for Nick's attitude? Or recognition of whose wife she was and curiosity as to where she was going? She wouldn't doubt that half the drivers in their area answered to Brice. He tipped well, but he also had a great rapport with everyone. Which was why getting him to approve this trip had been so important. His approval meant less suspicion on his part and that alone would buy her time.