Love Inspired Suspense September 2015 #1 (48 page)

Jonah hauled Fix to his feet. “I want an introduction.”

Going undercover wasn't completely unorthodox in his line of work, though it wasn't usually necessary. He was going to have to fill out a whole load of paperwork to justify it, but Jonah found he didn't much care about that.

Fix's eyes widened. “You want...what?”

“From now on, I'm your new best friend.”

TEN

E
lise stood back while Jonah ordered the tall one, Parker, and the mouthy one, Ames, to stay on Fix. They were letting him go?

Parker nodded, like this was business as usual. “I'll put a bug on him, and we'll stick close, but out of sight. We don't want the trader to spot us and then run.”

Jonah said, “Great.”

The two marshals walked Fix away from her, something that didn't bother Elise much. It hadn't exactly been a happy reunion with her brother. He was going to jail, and she was going to try not to get killed.

Eric stepped close to Jonah. “I'm going to head to Hailey's and check on Nathan. Make sure they're all doing okay.”

Jonah nodded.

He wandered over to Elise. Apparently they didn't have anywhere to be, the way everyone else seemed to. His lips tilted up in a smile. “He just wants to tell his girls good-night. Hailey lives with her dad, and her daughter—she's thirteen—already calls Eric ‘dad.' She didn't want to wait for the wedding.”

Elise smiled. “That's cute.” She looked around, suddenly overwhelmed by all the work there was. But she didn't have to do it tonight. The mayor knew it would take weeks to get things back to normal, much like the rest of the town's slow recovery after the flood.

“Do you want me to go over things with you? Explain what's happening with Fix?”

Elise shrugged. She grabbed her notebook and meandered around debris to her discarded backpack.

“We'll keep a close eye on him for now, let him go about his business while we're watching. Parker and Ames will be able to track him, and if Fix has a phone they'll put a trace on it. We'll be able to hear when he gets a call, and if it's the animal trader, then we'll be able to run a voice analysis.”

She turned to him and Jonah continued. “I've explained to Fix what we want. For him to set a meeting, and I'll join him as his ‘partner.' We'll go to see the trader wherever Fix is supposed to meet up with the man, and I'll find out who it is. It's a sting operation, but it's also the only way I'm going to get close enough to this guy to find out who it is and be able to catch him in the act so we can arrest him.”

She measured his words. The buzz of doing his job and enjoying it was there, but also something else. “I don't need you to justify it to me. Fix doesn't want me in his life.”

“I'm not going to let him hurt you.”

If she was honest, it was too late for that. Jonah understood a need for physical safety, but he had no jurisdiction over Fix's ability to bruise her emotionally. He never had.

That was just something Elise had to live with, and deal with, considering the fact Fix would always be her brother.

“It's been years.” She glanced at the trees, shadowed in the evening darkness. “I thought they couldn't hurt me because I was gone, like that would keep me from heartache. Nathan filled a lot of corners, a lot of spaces in my heart that were just...bare. I thought that would be enough, but my heart refuses to quit recognizing Fix, and my mother, as family.”

She shook her head. “No matter what they do, or how they are, they shouldn't have the ability to bruise me like this. They don't care, so why should I?”

“When you left, how did you know you were supposed to go?” He hesitated a second. “I know you had a job offer, but you could've stayed and worked here at the zoo. How did you know you were making the right decision for you, and then for Nathan?”

He looked so unsure, Elise wanted to reach out and comfort him. Would Jonah accept that, when he was still in his “work” mode? They were alone, but it wasn't like they were close now.

She thought about his question. “I didn't know about Nathan until after I was in Idaho. But God gave me peace about it. Actually the where didn't matter too much. But I didn't want to come home. I wanted a new place. I just knew that wherever I was, and whatever I was doing, that God would take care of me and Nathan. He wasn't going to leave us hanging.”

“God?”

“First I had to make peace with Him, it's contingent on that. Then He can give you His peace.” She locked eyes with him. “He's never let me down. Not once.”

A darkness flickered in his eyes, like he'd taken on something she hadn't intended to say. She hadn't been thinking about her and Jonah. God was on a different plane. He didn't shift and change the way people did, but it was true that nearly everyone in her life had let her down.

Jonah knew that sad truth. But he also needed to know she hadn't spent years wallowing. She'd rested in God's gifts of joy and peace, and raised her son. She'd found her strength in God.

He gifted her a small smile. “I don't think I've had any peace at all since my dad died.”

She nodded. It had been hard for her, too. Though not as hard as it was for him, Martin or Bernadette. Losing Nathan Senior had been a blow. “You have to find it for yourself. You can't piggyback off someone else's faith. You have to make peace with God on your own.”

Elise figured if explaining this to Jonah, planting that seed for God to grow his faith, was the only reason she'd come home, she was fine with it.
Thank you, Lord.
She'd wondered a lot over the years where Jonah was, how his walk with the Lord was. Now she knew. And while it saddened her that he'd missed so many years of being in fellowship with God, she also knew it was never too late to turn around.

And while she could push him to make a decision now, Jonah was the kind of man who had to think through all the angles before he made a choice. It was why his leaving to join the marines bothered her so much. Obviously he'd thought long about it before leaving. He just hadn't talked it over with her.

His head titled to the side. “What is it?”

Elise didn't think. She just blurted it out. “Why did you leave?”

* * *

Did she really want him to answer that question? Elise was in no way ready for the truth about how strong his feelings for her had been back then. She'd been fifteen, much too young for what—only a few years later—would have been perfectly acceptable.

The only thing for him to do was put space between them. Their friendship had been strong enough it would have survived the years and the distance. Or so he'd thought.

“Are you going to tell me why you married my brother of all people?”

Jonah loved Martin, but his brother had been the party one. How he'd managed to convince Elise to marry him was anyone's guess. She needed someone steady, not the guy who did things on a whim.

Jonah followed her as she strode, head high, in the direction of his truck. Apparently they weren't going to talk about that now. Eventually they'd have to lay it all out, but it could come later. He was willing to let her have time now. He'd waited long enough already. He would get his answers, though. It was too important to just let it go. Again.

Or maybe he didn't want to know. If he'd known when he left that she wasn't going to wait for him, he'd probably have stayed. But then he'd have had to see her every day knowing she didn't feel the same way he felt. He'd rather undergo severe torture than have to face that.

What if she didn't feel the way he did?

Jonah blew out a breath and started the engine, not looking at Elise lest he see it written there on her face.

Her words about peace with God were still with him. Maybe that was what he needed. He barely even knew why he'd voiced the question. Usually he didn't suffer attacks of doubt over operational decisions. That had never happened until she showed up.

The truth was, the cost had reached staggering proportions. There was no way he was going to allow himself to be beaten. Not this time. If Elise and Nathan's presence here meant he had to double back and rethink everything, that was fine. So long as they were still moving somehow.

As much as he could, Jonah was going to keep them safe. It was the variables that worried him so much, those thousand things he had absolutely no control over.

Whether Elise reciprocated or not, Jonah still cared about her. He cared for his nephew, even though he barely knew the teen. They were his family, and they always had been even though he'd been an idiot not to track Elise down for himself. He'd needed her in his life.

Plain and simple.

He'd just needed her.

There was something about Elise that brought him to his knees. It was like being cracked open and laid bare for everyone in the world to see. The scariest thing in the world, and yet the one thing he didn't think he could live without. The years had proven that, if nothing else.

And she'd brought something else with her that she hadn't possessed before. Elise now had a wisdom that drew him in and made him believe there might be a God who would never let him fall. Despite the fact his father and brother had died. Despite the fact she'd left.

Could God still really be good, even through all that?

“You always were sort of broody, but this is ridiculous.”

Jonah glanced at her. “I'm not the only one not speaking.”

“Great. Now we're going to argue about who started it.”

“No, we're not, Lise. We're not ready to go there yet, and that's fine. We have time.”

“I hope so.” Her words were soft.

So soft, Jonah reached over and covered her hand with his. He gave it a gentle squeeze and then let go.

Out of the corner of his eye, she glanced at him again. “Who are you?”

Jonah looked over then. He shrugged.

“I think the Jonah I knew got lost over the years, because once in a while there's this flash that feels familiar, but you're so different from the guy I knew. If you're going to be in mine and Nathan's lives like you want, then we're going to have to get to know each other from the beginning again.”

“We still have things to talk about.”

“I'm not saying we shouldn't do that. Eventually. We can't bury it, but we also can't think we know each other.”

Jonah said, “You know me.”

She shook her head. “Maybe it's been too long. Maybe I don't anymore, as much as I might want to.”

Jonah pressed his lips together, trying to decide if he was okay with what she'd said. Part of him wanted to rail against it. They'd always known each other. Their friendship had been effortless. The years had been long, but still—how could they be strangers? The connection was as strong as it always had been. He'd known that the first minute he saw her again.

Jonah made the right turn, taking the highway back to his house. Headlights glared, coming toward them.

At the last second he wondered that they weren't moving back in their lane. The vehicle was swerving into his, coming at his car faster than he might be able to react. A giant black truck, the front bumper level with Jonah's window.

Elise gripped the dash, bracing herself. They were going fast, but he was going to have to risk it.

Jonah held his foot down on the gas pedal, picking up speed until the last second. Elise screamed. He pulled his foot from the gas and reached with his left hand across the steering wheel, swung the wheel in one hard motion and pulled up the hand brake at the same time.

Elise screamed through the entire turn. When they started to straighten, to face the way they'd been coming, Jonah released his grip on the steering wheel, letting it slide through his fingers so they could straighten fully. He released the hand brake, changed down to second gear and hit the gas. When they got up to speed, he put it back in drive.

Elise sucked in a breath. “You're going to kill us! What
was
that?”

“A hand-brake turn.”

The truck that had been coming at them, determined to crash into them, was now in a ditch on the side of the road, judging by the angle of the lights in his rearview mirror.

As they sped away, Jonah waited. Watched. The brake lights blinked out and the truck roared away in the opposite direction. The driver wasn't hurt, but he was likely going to regroup and try again later.

Elise was gasping. “You think I know you? I don't. You never would have done that.”

“I would have if I'd needed to save your life.” Jonah selected his phone on the display and waited while it rang in the car's speakers.

“Shelder.”

“Keep watch tonight. Someone just tried to run us off the road.”

“You guys okay?” Hailey was in work mode.

Jonah said, “We're fine.”

“We most certainly are
not
fine!” Elise's yell was loud in the cab.

Hailey chuckled. “Alive, aren't you?”

“Barely.”

For some reason Elise's reaction made him smile. Maybe she was right, maybe they didn't know each other now. He had the feeling she'd discover plenty of things about him before they were done. Would she react like this for all of them?

“Are you laughing at me?”

Hailey laughed. “I'm hanging up now.”

Jonah clicked the phone off on his end, just because he didn't want anyone listening by accident. Or on purpose. “They were going to try and kill us. Or me, and then kidnap you. Would you rather have experienced that, or do what we just did?”

“Neither.”

“Face the fact that this is happening, Elise.”

“I'm not in denial. But I don't have to like it.” She folded her arms. “You scared the life out of me.”

Better him than anyone else.

Jonah grabbed her hand again. This time he brought it close to his mouth, touching his lips to the soft skin on the back of her hand. Elise was completely still and silent while he said, “Nothing will happen to you if I can help it.”