Protective Instincts. Shirlee McCoy

wasn’t as if she hadn’t had the dream many times in the six months since she’d returned from the mission trip, and it wasn’t as if she hadn’t learned how to deal with it.

      She paced to the window then back to the bed, inhaling, exhaling, forcing herself to relax.

      She’d spent the past thirty hours wondering how the young boy who’d given her a drink of water and unlocked her cage was faring. Was it any wonder that she’d had such a vivid nightmare? After fighting red tape and bureaucracy, petitioning, begging, pleading and pulling every string she could think of, Raina had finally managed to get him to the United States on a medical visa. He’d stepped onto U.S. soil the previous morning. The flight from L.A. to Atlanta had gone off without a hitch, but the flight from Atlanta to D.C. had been canceled.

      Good thing Raina had hired an escort to bring Samuel to the United States. One she trusted implicitly. Stella Silverstone worked for HEART, the hostage rescue team that had risked everything to save her and the rest of the mission team. Stella had been brusque and to the point when she’d called to tell Raina about the delay. They were stuck in Atlanta, their flight canceled because of the storms. Samuel was fine. Stella would call again when they got a flight out.

      That had been more than twelve hours ago.

      Raina hadn’t heard a word since. She was worried about Samuel. His leg had been amputated above the knee, and he’d suffered reoccurring infections in the stump. He’d been hospitalized for a few weeks before his trip to the United States, and the doctors hadn’t been hopeful for his recovery. No wonder Raina was having nightmares.

      “But now you’re awake, so do something productive instead of standing around panicking.” Her words echoed in the room she’d once shared with Matt. Like everything else since the accident that had taken her husband and son, the room seemed to be nothing more than a shadow of its former self. Wedding pictures hung crooked on the wall. Family photos lined the dresser, their frames covered with dust. The pretty yellow bedspread that had been a wedding gift was faded to a muted ivory.

      Destiny had tried to get her to redecorate, but Raina hadn’t seen the point, so she’d ignored her best friend’s suggestions. Now that Matt was gone, the room was just a place to sleep. Half the time, she lay on the couch, watching TV until she finally drifted off.

      Matt wasn’t around to gently shake her shoulder and laugh while she grumbled about not wanting to get up. He wasn’t there to usher her into their room and nuzzle her neck while she pulled down the covers.

      It had been years, and she should be used to that, but she wasn’t.

      She left the room that suddenly seemed too full of memories, and walked down the short hall into the great room. That had been Matt’s name for it. It was really nothing more than an oversize living room that had been created when the former owner had combined a formal living and dining area. Matt had lots of big ideas, lots of beautiful ways of looking at the ordinary. She missed his optimistic perspective, but she’d been trying to move on, to create something for herself that didn’t include all the dreams that had died when Matt and Joseph had been taken away from her.

      She pulled back the curtains and stared out into the tiny front yard. The property butted up against a dirt road that dead-ended a half mile to the west. A century ago, the area had been dotted with farms and orchards, the nearby town of Middletown, Maryland, a bustling community of businessmen and farmers. The Great Depression had hit it hard, but it had rebounded in the 1980s when yuppies willing to take on a long commute had moved there from the Baltimore and Washington suburbs. Farther west, though, where farms had once been the livelihood of the town, abandoned properties and fallow acreage had proven a deterrent to the area’s revitalization. Matt had seen it as a blessing, but that was the way he’d always been. Focused on the positive. Willing to work hard to make dreams a reality. He’d seen the old farmhouse and twenty acres of overgrown orchards as an answer to prayer.

      Raina had gone along for the ride. Just as she always had, because she’d loved Matt, and she’d wanted what he’d wanted. Now, of course, she was stuck on twenty acres in the middle of nowhere. No close neighbors to visit on the weekends or children playing basketball or hockey on the street. Just Larry, and he stuck close to his house and his property.

      Something moved in the early-morning darkness, and she leaned closer to the glass. Probably just a deer. This far out, she saw plenty of them. There were coyotes, too. An occasional bear that wandered in from the deep woodland and hill country. The thing crossed the yard, heading toward Larry’s property. No streetlights illuminated the shape, but she was sure it was a biped. Too small to be a bear. A man?

      She flicked on the outside light. The shadow darted across the street, disappearing into heavy shrub.

      Larry?

      She hoped not. Two days ago, he’d been outside barefoot, walking up the road. She’d spotted him on her way home from work at the medical clinic. He’d said he’d been heading to his mailbox at the head of their road, but that hadn’t explained the bare feet in fifty-degree weather.

      She grabbed the phone and dialed his number, knowing that he wouldn’t answer. He never did. That was the thing about Larry. He wanted to be left alone, but if he was outside, he could freeze to death before anyone ever realized he was in trouble.

      She yanked on jeans, pulled a coat over her flannel nightie and shoved her feet into boots.

      The flashlight was still where Matt had always left it—tucked on the top shelf of the closet with a first-aid kit, a box of candles and matches and a stack of blankets. If Matt had been an outdoorsman, she might have a shotgun to take, too, but he’d been more of an academic, country living more a dream than a reality he’d been prepared to deal with.

      She’d been the practical one in their relationship, the one who thought of things like bears and bobcats, who’d built the chicken coop that now stood empty. She’d taught Matt how to camp, fish and even hunt. Not that they’d ever been successful at any of those things. Matt’s idea of camping was staying in a hotel near hiking trails, and his vision of hunting had never included actually shooting anything.

      She smiled at the memories, touching the bear spray she kept in her coat pocket. Better safe than sorry. It was cold for early November, the temperature well below freezing, ice coating the grass and trees. It took five long strides to cross the front yard, the wind snatching her breath and chilling her cheeks. Across the street, Larry McDermott’s house stood shadowy and dark. Shrouded by overgrown trees and a hedge that had probably been planted in the 1950s, it was a Gothic monstrosity that looked as worn and mean as its seventy-year-old owner.

      Not mean, she could almost hear Matt whisper. Lonely.

      Maybe. In the years since Matt’s and Joseph’s deaths, Raina had tried to be kind to her neighbor. For Matt’s sake, she’d baked him bread, invited him for Thanksgiving and Christmas. She’d shoveled his driveway after snowstorms and checked in on him when she hadn’t seen him for a few days. No matter what she did, he never seemed to warm up to her.

      She walked to the edge of his property and made her way along his driveway. Her flashlight beam bounced over cracks in the pavement and illuminated the three stairs that led to Larry’s front door. She jiggled the doorknob, knocked twice, wondering if Larry would hear if he were asleep. Her fingers were freezing, but she wanted to check the back door, too. She swept the flashlight across the front yard, her pulse jumping as it passed over what looked like footprints in the icy grass. Instead of thick ice, a thin layer of slush coated the grass there. She scanned the area, found another set of prints near the edge of the house.

      “Larry!” she screamed, her voice carried away by the wind. “Larry! Are you out here?” She rounded the side of the house, following the footprints to a gate that banged against the fence with every gust of wind.

      “Larry!” She tried one last time, her flashlight tracking footprints to the edge of the woods that separated Larry’s yard from the church his grandfather had pastored. The church Matt had pastored for five years before his death. Their home away from home. The only church Joseph had ever known. She knew the path