Protective Instincts. Shirlee McCoy

making that up,” she accused, and he smiled, dropping onto the pew beside her.

      “Not even a little. The fact is Grandma Ruth has fainted once or twice during revival meetings, and we have to take care to keep her hydrated. The other fact is you look pale as paper, and you really did need to sit down.”

      “At least I’m not beaten up and bruised,” she responded, touching a bump that had formed on his cheekbone. His skin felt warm and just a little rough, and she had the absurd urge to linger there.

      She let her hand drop away, and he touched the bruise. “Guess I ran into something while I was avoiding the Jeep that tried to run me down.”

      “What Jeep?”

      “Parked in the church lot.” He watched her steadily as he spoke, his eyes dark blue with thick, long lashes surrounding them. Women would pay to have lashes like that, and they’d probably swoon to see them on Jackson. “You know anyone with a blue Jeep?” he prodded.

      “No.”

      “That was a quick, decisive response.”

      “Because I don’t know anyone who owns a Jeep.”

      “Have you ever known anyone who did?”

      “Probably, but I can’t think...” Actually, she could think of someone with a blue Jeep. She and Destiny had gone to D.C. for a girls’ weekend, and Destiny had borrowed her boyfriend’s Jeep. “Lucas Raymond has one, but he lives in D.C.”

      “Lucas Raymond,” he repeated. “Who’s that?”

      “My friend’s boyfriend. I’ve only seen the vehicle once. I think it’s newer.”

      “Do you have any reason to believe this guy would—”

      “Raymond is a great guy. A psychiatrist. He’s gotten awards for his work at the hospital and in the community.”

      “That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an ax to grind with you.” He stood and stretched, his T-shirt riding up along a firm abdomen.

      She looked away, because she felt guilty noticing.

      “Say we rule out Raymond,” Jackson continued. “Who would want to hurt you, Raina?”

      “No one,” she replied, her mind working frantically, going through faces and names and situations.

      “And yet, someone chased you through the woods and fired a shot at you. That same person nearly ran me down. Doesn’t sound like someone who feels all warm and fuzzy when he thinks of you.”

      “Maybe he was a vagrant, and I scared him.”

      “Maybe.” He didn’t sound as if he believed it, and she wasn’t sure she did, either.

      She’d heard something that had woken her from the nightmare.

      A child crying? Larry wandering around? An intruder trying to get in the house?

      The last made her shudder, and she pulled her coat a little closer. “I think I’d know it if someone had a bone to pick with me.”

      “That’s usually the case, but not always. Could be you upset a coworker or said no to a guy who wanted you to say yes.”

      She snorted at that, and Jackson frowned. “You’ve been a widow for four years, it’s not that far-fetched an idea.”

      “If you got a good look at my social life, you wouldn’t be saying that.”

      Samuel yawned loudly and slid down on the pew, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyelids drooping. He looked cold and tired, and she wanted to get him home, tuck him into bed, spend a little time trying to decide how best to proceed with him.

      She couldn’t keep being as uncomfortable as she was, couldn’t continue with her stiff and stilted approach.

      “Samuel needs some medicine, and he needs some sleep,” she said, taking off her coat and draping it over him.

      He opened his eyes, but didn’t smile.

      He had the solemn look of someone much older than ten and the scars of a soldier who’d fought too many wars.

      “I’ll go talk to Officer Wallace,” Jackson responded. “See if he’s ready to let us leave.”

      “He’s going to have to be. Samuel—”

      A door slammed, the sound so startling Raina jumped.

      Samuel scrambled to his feet, clutching her coat in one hand and the crutch in the other. She grabbed his shoulder, pulled him into the shelter of her arms.

      “Is someone else in the church?” Jackson demanded, his gaze on the door that led from the sanctuary into the office wing.

      “There shouldn’t be.”

      “Which means whoever slammed that door doesn’t belong here. Stay put. I’m going to check things out.”

      He strode away, and she wanted to call out and tell him to be careful. The church was cut off from the rest of River Valley, the land a couple of miles outside of town. There’d been a few break-ins during the years Matt had been pastor and several more since then.

      She pressed her lips together, held in the words she knew she didn’t need to say. Jackson could take care of himself. She’d seen him in action, knew just how smart and careful he was.”

      “I will go, too,” Samuel asserted, pulling away and hopping after Jackson.

      She grabbed his arm. “No, Samuel. It’s not safe.”

      “There is nothing that is safe,” he responded, and her throat burned with the reality of what he’d survived.

      “You have to stay here. Let Jackson and the police take care of this. Here in the U.S., kids don’t take care of adult problems.” It sounded lame, but it was all she could think of.

      She thought he might yank away and keep walking, but he handed her the coat. “We will go outside, then.”

      “It’s too cold.”

      “But in here it is dangerous for you. Outside, it is safe.”

      Maybe. Maybe not.

      At this point, she didn’t know, and all she could do was stay where she was and hope Jackson or Officer Andrew Wallace would figure out who was in the church or outside of it, who had been in the Jeep.

      “It’s safe here, Samuel. Let’s just sit and wait.”

      He nodded but perched on the edge of the pew as if he were sure that at any moment, they’d have to run.

      She waited beside him, tense, anxious, wanting to pray but unable to find the words that would spiral from her soul to God’s ears.

      Her faith, like so many other things in her life, was a shadow of what it had once been.

      Her own fault.

      After Matt and Joseph died, she’d stopped reading her Bible, stopped praying, stopped believing that God really cared. Somehow, though, He’d still rescued her from almost certain death in Africa.

      There had to be a reason for that.

      She’d thought it was so that she could help Samuel, but Samuel seemed perfectly capable of helping himself. Sick as he was, hurt as he was, he was ready to face the world and whatever trouble it brought him.

      She wished she could say the same for herself, but the best thing she could say, the only thing that she could say, was that she was there, ready to do what God wanted.

      If only she knew what that was.

      THREE

      This wasn’t a good time to be without a weapon, but since Officer Wallace hadn’t seen fit to return Jackson’s Glock,