Opal obsession, p.1
Opal Obsession,
p.1
Opal Obsession
Redeemed Soldiers
Book Seven
By
Felicia Rogers
Opal Obsession
Redeemed Soldiers
Book Seven
Copyright ©2023 by Felicia Rogers
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Contact Information:
Website: http://feliciarogersauthor.weebly.com
Email: feliciarogersauthor@yahoo.com
Published by:
Felicia Rogers
Cover Design by For the Muse Designs
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Dedication…
To my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
And to all the men and women who have given their lives in service.
Table of Contents
Other works by Felicia Rogers
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
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Other works by Felicia Rogers
Stand alone works:
All I Have
The Holiday Truce
A Month in Cologne
Andrews Brothers (Regency Romance)
The Ruse
The Rescue
Southern Hearts Series
Millicent
Amelia
Cora
“Justice” and Miss Quinn Mysteries
The Case of the Missing Cross
The Case of the Puppet Constable
The Case of the Secret Love
The Case of the Chinese Boxes
The Case of the Hidden Treasure
The Case of the Lost Island
The Kenelm Chronicles
The Golden Goose
The Silver Moon
The Bronze Heart
Hudson Hunts: The First and Last
Secret Defenders (paranormal romance)
Cian and Arin: Beginning (prequel)
The Key
Mara’s Secret
Iceas’ Victory
Meaningful Numbers Series
One of Forty
One of Twelve
One of Three
The Haywood Brothers Series
Love of a Businessman
Love of a Detective
Love of a Rancher
Redeemed Soldiers
Diamond Mine
Pearl Valley
Emerald Street
Ruby’s Way
Amethyst Cove
Sapphire Shoals
Opal Obsession
Ericka Stone Cases
Freelance (coming Sept 15, 2023)
The Board Series by F. A. Rogers
(novellas are listed in order)
Maralie
Reuben
Vanessa
Simon
Darla
Daniel
Irving
Levi
Francesca
Benjamin
James
The Return to Eden’s Hollow
Chapter One
Levi held the flowers close to his chest as he leaned over Coop’s grave.
“Look, Max. I tried. I really did. You just didn’t give me enough information. The army says you didn’t have a sister. And I can’t find a record of it either. The only relative listed is some aunt who has passed. And if it was a girl you dated or helped,” Levi snorted, “then I know I’ll never find her.”
Max had dated more women with the desire to help them than Levi could count. Max had given new meaning to the phrase “a woman in every port.”
Levi laid the flowers on the headstone and rose up straight. The cane was his constant companion. He’d kept his leg but lost most of the muscle. It wasn’t his only wartime injury, but it was the most noticeable to the outside world.
“You’ll never believe what job I’m doing. They have me in a recruiting office filing papers! Me, a file clerk. I’ve done other things, but they want me hidden. I don’t blame them.”
He drew in a deep breath. He’d been coming to the grave once a week on different days for over a year. He’d rigged a deer camera to take pictures, but the graveyard attendant kept removing it. He’d done anything and everything he could think of.
Levi ran his hand through his hair and looked down at the headstone. “Look, Coop, I think I’m going to have to give up the search. I need to move away from here and find another job. Maybe even settle down somewhere. I just hate not fulfilling my promise. But here’s the deal, if you want help then you’re going to have to send me a sign. I don’t have enough to work with.”
A light breeze blew lifting the fine hairs off the nape of his neck. He looked up to the sky. It was a brilliant blue with only a few white puffy clouds.
“Hello.”
The sound of a sweet female voice had him lowering his head and grabbing his chest.
“Oh, I’m sorry to disturb you. I just heard you talking and thought I would say hi.” She paused. “Do you come here often?”
“Yes.” His heart was hammering so loud between his ears he couldn’t hear anything else.
The lady before him had blue eyes and blond hair. She was a little bit on the round side, not as slim as he normally liked a girl, but she had a friendly face and her voice was that of an angel.
She held out her hand. “I should introduce myself, I’m Mae Girasol.”
His heart sank. He’d hoped this was the sign he’d been seeking. She’d shown up right as he’d asked, but it wasn’t. She was Mae. Not Opal.
“Oh, nice to meet you. I’m Levi Anderson.” He took the offered hand and shook.
Their hands unclasped and she put hers to her side. She pointed at Max’s grave. “Did you know Max Cooper?”
“I did. We were in the military together. Did you know him?”
Mae shook her head. “No. I come here to visit my brother, Davis Girasol. He died two years ago, and I’m still coming.”
“Is his grave close by?”
“A few rows over.” Mae looked into the distance as if she wanted to say more, but changed her mind. “I guess I better get back to my car. It looks like rain.” She waved as she turned.
There wasn’t a dark cloud in the sky as she walked away. Levi lowered his head back toward Max. He would have talked more, but he could feel the heat of Mae’s stare from her car.
He shoved his free hand in his pocket and headed back toward his truck. Huge rain drops began to pelt his face as he reached his vehicle and climbed into the cab. Once inside the rain escalated to such proportions that he couldn’t see through the window.
He turned to look over at Mae, but she and her vehicle were gone. Levi rubbed his eyes to see if that changed things, but they still weren’t there.
He waited a few moments before putting his truck in gear and pulling out of the lot. If Max was sending a sign, it sure was a strange one. Maybe he needed to reach out to this Mae Girasol so he could figure it out.
Maybe there was a relationship there that he wasn’t seeing.
****
Mae parked at the graveyard entrance and awaited Levi’s departure. She’d planted a tracking device under his car’s wheel well weeks before. The only place the gentleman frequented, other than the gravesite, was his place of work at the recruitment office and his apartment. Sometimes he attended physical therapy, but that was fewer and further between than it had been.
The information that she’d been supplied on Mr. Anderson left a lot to be desired. He was an upstanding citizen. He’d worked in a food processing plant before joining the military. After several tours he’d been injured in a landmine explosion. The explosion had caused significant muscle loss to one of his thighs as well as burns on parts of his body. The specific parts hadn’t been listed.
Other information included no family. No wife. No girlfriend. No ties of any kind.
The young man of twenty-eight was completely alone. No wonder he’d become such fast friends with Max Cooper.
Mae leaned her head back against the head rest. Levi’s rusty truck was running. Smoke poured from the tail pipe. The disability check he received after giving himself to the military wouldn’t be enough for a new vehicle. The meager pay he earned as a clerk wouldn’t help much either. The man still needed to eat and have a place to live.
Mae started her car but didn’t pull out until he was well past her. She had a guess where he was going.
When he took a different turn, Mae sat straighter in her seat and squeezed the steering wheel.
Her superiors believed that Max aka Walter Gram had told Levi about OPAL and he was biding his time until he could sell the intel. Mae didn’t know if she could blame Levi. A man needed to make a living, after all. But Levi’s character didn’t seem the type, despite his current circumstances.
Levi stopped in front of the First Baptist Church. When he climbed from the truck, his shoulders seemed to slump as if he drew in a deep breath, before walking toward the door. He leaned heavily on the cane.
Mae drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. She considered going inside and eavesdropping. It was her job to contain Levi if he was committing espionage. But was listening to someone’s conversation in church even admissible?
For today, she was going to say no.
Hopefully, she wasn’t making a mistake.
Chapter Two
Levi stopped at the church and made his way inside. He was a tad surprised that his tail wasn’t following him in. Perhaps the lady had a conscience after all.
He’d known he was being followed, but he hadn’t known by whom until today.
Mae Girasol.
Before leaving the graveyard, he’d pulled up the listing of graves on his phone. There was no Davis Girasol anywhere near Max. Which meant she made up the reason she’d been hanging close by.
Not that he didn’t enjoy being followed by a beautiful woman, but whoever had hired her had to have the wrong guy. He’d been a grunt. He’d carried a weapon and dug trenches. Now he shoved papers in a folder. There was no information he had that would be of value to anyone.
“May I help you?”
The unexpected voice made him jump. “Um, yes. Would you be Pastor Gerald?”
“I am.”
“Oh good. May I speak with you in your office?”
The pastor cocked his brow. He had good instincts. One should always be suspicious of new people.
Levi was.
“I should introduce myself. I’m Levi Anderson. I served with Max Cooper. He gave me a mission before he passed away, and I’m having some trouble fulfilling it. I hoped you might be able to help.”
The pastor lowered his head in one brief nod. “Please, come this way.”
They passed a young lady with a telephone headset over her head. She was talking and typing at the same time. She didn’t look up as they entered the door behind her.
Pastor Gerald took the chair behind an oak desk and Levi sat across from him. The cane lay beside him against the seat. It was a constant reminder of his infirmity and how grateful he should be that he was still alive.
“I don’t really remember anyone named Max Cooper, so I’m not sure how I can help you. But please tell me what you need exactly, and we’ll see what we can do.”
Levi leaned forward in the cushy chair. “First of all, thank you for meeting privately with me. Second of all, I apologize for my lack of small talk, but I feel that time is of the essence. I’m literally at my wits’ end.”
The pastor leaned his elbows onto the desk with his fingers steepled. “Go on.”
“Max and I served together in the infantry. He didn’t talk much about himself. I knew that his family had died when he was young, but not much else. Then that last day…” Levi closed his eyes and prayed for the words. “That, um, last day. He was shot and bleeding. I told him I would get him home. He knew I was lying, that it was impossible. So he told me, he told me that I needed to take care of Opal. I assumed it was a sister. Then when that didn’t seem possible, I searched for a girlfriend, a child, anybody with that name. I’ve come up completely empty handed.”
The pastor leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “I’m sorry to hear that son, but I’m not sure what I can do for you.”
Levi wasn’t sure either, but he had to try every avenue. “I heard that he attended here as a child. I thought maybe you might know someone in his past with the name Opal.”
The pastor narrowed his gaze. “What was the name again?”
“Max Cooper. He went by Coop most of the time I knew him.”
“What years do you believe he attended here?”
Levi mentally calculated based on Max’s age and the time that he lived in the area and threw out a timeframe.
The pastor rose and drew down a book from his shelf. “This book has some photos from those years you mentioned.”
Levi opened the book and began to flip through, landing on a page with a group of young boys. Names were written on the sides in no particular order.
Levi leaned closer and looked at the page. The child was young, but it was clearly a picture of Max.
“That would be him.” Levi felt hope swelling in his breast and he tried to tap it down. He’d had hope before.
The pastor frowned as he drew the book closer to him and looked at the picture. “You called him Max?”
“Yes.”
The pastor shook his head as if something wasn’t right, but he said, “I knew that boy. He was a troublemaker. Could never get him to listen. After his parents passed, he lived in a home until his aunt decided to take him in. They came here for a while. The only reason he’s in this picture was because he attended the annual church picnic that year.”
“Oh.” There went his hope.
“I will tell you that you might have better luck at the Scotch House.”
“The Scotch House?”
“It’s a bar over on Fourth.”
“A bar?”
He’d never seen Max drink.
“He used to spend a lot of time there as a teen and maybe even after that. If there was a girl from his younger days, then you’d find information about her there.”
“Thank you.”
Levi rose and shook the pastor’s hand. He left the office only a little wiser than before. Max had been a troublemaker and hung out in bars? None of this sounded like the Max that he knew.
His nickname had been Preacher for how much he talked about the Bible and God. He’d given money to foreign orphanages and schools. On days off, he’d helped build schools for girls in war-torn areas.
The entire story seemed completely unbelievable. Levi climbed into the truck and started the motor. The rain had stopped, and steam was rising from the freshly paved road.
Levi was so focused on reaching the Scotch House that he forgot to look for his tail after he left the church. He glanced in the rearview. Sure enough, the sleek black sedan was right behind him.
The thought had occurred to him that Opal might not want to be found. Maybe the tail was there to make sure he didn’t get too close. Although the idea seemed a tad ridiculous. Other than the witness protection program why would someone need to stay hidden?
****
Mae answered the phone that was attached to her headset as she pulled into slow-moving traffic.
“Girasol, here.”
“Girasol, are we any closer to finding out what Anderson knows?”
“I’m afraid not, sir.”
Some choice words were whispered over the line that she tried to tune out.
“How much longer?”
“Unclear.”
“Those over the project want answers and they want them yesterday. Word of OPAL getting out could be devastating. I need you to get closer to Anderson and find out what he knows before they decide the best way to deal with this situation is to eliminate him.”
“But, sir! He sacrificed his health for our country—”
“I am aware of this. That’s why I’m giving you permission to step up your search.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Good. Report to me as soon as you have anything new.”
The line went dead. Mae had been thinking of a way to get closer to Levi for some time now. Since he wasn’t out and about very often the options were limited. No matter the difficulties, she would find a way. She wouldn’t let a good man die because those at the top couldn’t get the answers they wanted.
Chapter Three
Mae cut the engine and watched Mr. Anderson as he once more climbed from the truck and headed inside a building.
