Stranger In The Night. Catherine Palmer

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       Praise for

       CATHERINE PALMER

       and her novels

      “Catherine Palmer pens a page-turner with a…thought-provoking plot.”

      — Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Fatal Harvest

      “Palmer knows how to write about a sensitive subject with wisdom and kindness.”

      — Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Thread of Deceit

      “Marked by top-notch writing and sweeping drama.”

      — Library Journal on The Briton

      “Veteran romance writer Palmer…delivers a satisfying tale of mother-daughter dynamics sprinkled with romance.”

      — Library Journal on Leaves of Hope

      “Enjoyable…Faith fiction fans will find this novel just their cup of tea.”

      — Publishers Weekly Religion Bookline on Leaves of Hope

      “Believable characters tug at heartstrings, and God’s power to change hearts and lives is beautifully depicted.”

      — Romantic Times BOOKreviews on “Christmas in My Heart” in That Christmas Feeling

      “ Love’s Haven is a glorious story that was wonderfully told…. Catherine Palmer did a stand-up job of describing each scene and creating a world which no reader will want to leave.”

      — Cataromance Reviews

       Christy Award-Winning Author

       Stranger In The Night

       Catherine Palmer

       A Haven Novel

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

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      To the refugees in Clarkston, Georgia,

       who have brought such joy into my life.

      Acknowledgments

      Many thanks to those who shared stories of their work with refugees. In particular, I’m grateful to Tim Cummins, Terry Earl, Bennett Ekandem, Kim Kimbrell and all the caseworkers and other staff at World Relief. May God bless each of you. As always, my gratitude to my husband is boundless. Thank you for reading every word—sometimes more than once. I love you, Tim.

      “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land,

      you shall not do him wrong.

      The stranger who sojourns with you

      shall be to you as the native among you,

      and you shall love him as yourself…

      I am the Lord your God.”

      — Leviticus 19:33–34

      “Come, you who are blessed by the Father,

      inherit the Kingdom prepared for you

      from the foundation of the world.

      For…I was a stranger,

      and you took me in.”

      — Jesus Christ

       Matthew 25:34–35

      Contents

       Chapter One

       Chapter Two

       Chapter Three

       Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter Eleven

       Chapter Twelve

       Chapter Thirteen

       Chapter Fourteen

       Chapter Fifteen

       Chapter Sixteen

       Chapter Seventeen

       Chapter Eighteen

       Chapter Nineteen

       Chapter Twenty

       Chapter Twenty-One

       Questions for Discussion

       Chapter One

       S weat dampening the wrinkled sheet beneath him, Joshua Duff counted the spurts of AK-47 bullets hitting the front door. The first round slipped into his nightmare—house check on a nameless street in Kabul. A search for insurgents. Dread crawled through him like a snake, twining around his neck, suffocating him as he crept forward in the heat. Faces stared at him, brown eyes luminous beneath long, fringed black lashes. Mouths smiled, lips parting over missing teeth. Hands reached out, fingers extended.

      Friend? Or enemy?

      The second round of staccato hammering woke Joshua from the troubled dream. The strangled breaths were his own. Jerking upright, he reached for a gun that wasn’t there. The smell of gym shoes, basketballs, dusty concrete caught in his nostrils. This was not his barracks.

      Or was it?

      His eyes searched the darkness. Confusion tore through his brain as he worked to decipher data. A form lay on a bed across from him. The mound of muscled shoulder was motionless. Another man sprawled on a mattress near the door.

      Comrade or civilian?

      Asleep or dead?

      A single window filled the only visible wall.

      Somewhere nearby, an animal snuffled.

      Death still stalking him, perspiration beading his bare chest, Joshua gripped the rounded aluminum frame of his cot. He licked his lips, expecting grit. Its absence surprised him. The tendon in his jaw flickered as he tried to force reality into his brain.

      Of all the adversaries he’d faced in his thirty years, this was the most wily. This doubt and hesitation, this inability to decode the truth, eluded him like a Taliban sniper in the Hindu Kush Mountains. He tensed, waiting for an imam’s voice to drift from a distant minaret, the morning melody of Islam. The start of another day.

      The hammering rang out a third time. Not a machine gun, it was fist against metal.

      “Devil take ’em.” Sam Hawke’s familiar voice was drowsy in the stifling room. Hawke was a fellow Marine. Reconnaissance. They had patrolled the streets together too many times to count.

      The other man unfolded now, a hiss groaning through the air mattress beneath him. “Where’s Duke? Come here, boy.”