Continuing to caress his beard-stubbled cheek, she smiled up at him. “If it was something good, yes.”

  He leaned closer to place a kiss on her smoky forehead. “I said I love you.”

  Hearing her own thoughts echoed was both wonderful and terrifying. “I—I was afraid of that.”

  “Why?”

  Honesty was clearly called for and she chose her words carefully. “The only thing you and I have in common is this terrible situation. Now that it’s over, what connects us?”

  “I guess we’ll have to get to know each other better and find out, won’t we?”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  “What do you want?” Rafe asked, pulling her so close his lips brushed her temple.

  Hannah was smiling when she said, “You. Whoever you are.”

  Epilogue

  Posing in front of a full length mirror, Hannah smiled at her grandmother’s reflection behind her. “I can’t believe this is happening, can you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I can.” Eyes twinkling Lucy smoothed the flowing skirt of her Matron of Honor dress. “What I can’t believe is that you chose this smoky blue color. It matches my eyes perfectly.”

  “It’s a good thing Gavin and I waited a couple of months after we decided to get married or you might have had circles under your eyes to match, too.” Hannah embraced her. “I’m so thankful you weren’t hurt worse in that crash.”

  “Don’t hug me too tightly, okay? I’m still sore in places.”

  “You were amazing, Gram.”

  “Not half as amazing as your future husband was—and is.” She chuckled under her breath. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get over wanting to call him Rafe.”

  “I know. But I like his real name, too. In a couple of hours I’ll be Mrs. Gavin Arthur.”

  “So you will.” Lucy sighed. “It takes me back, seeing you in my old wedding dress. I can’t believe you wanted to wear it.”

  “Don’t be silly. I love vintage.” Running her hands over the sleek curves of the ivory colored satin, she gave a little kick to ripple the wider, fluted hem, then picked up a crown of real flowers.

  “You’re a beautiful bride, Hannah. I’m just surprised you didn’t want a more fashionable dress.”

  “A more normal one, you mean?” She laughed. “Gavin asked me the same thing. He even offered to pay for it.”

  “Really? What did you tell him?”

  “I reminded him that there had never been anything very normal about me or my family and suggest he’d better get used to it.”

  “Did he laugh?” Lucy asked with a smile.

  Hannah felt her cheeks flush and saw them reddening in the mirror. “Actually,” she said, pausing briefly for a sigh, “he picked me up, swung me around and kissed me breathless.”

  “I knew he was a keeper,” Lucy said, patting her own pink cheeks with a lace handkerchief as if perspiring.

  Hannah reached for her grandmother’s hands and clasped them, hanky and all. “Are you sure you won’t change your mind and move in with us after we come back from our honeymoon? We have plenty of room.” It touched her to see happy tears welling in the older woman’s eyes and her own began to fill as well.

  “I’m sure.”

  “But what will you do with yourself when you don’t have me to look after and fuss over?”

  “I’ll have Thor for company while you’re gone. After that, I’ll adjust.” Lucy stood tall with her chin jutting proudly. “I was saving this for a surprise but now is as good a time as any, I guess. I’m going back to work.”

  “Not as a...”

  “Don’t be silly. Of course not.” A grin split her face and tiny lines accented the corners of her eyes before she said, “I’ll be joining a senior citizens group that tours all over the world.” She paused, winked and added, “What could be more innocent than a dozen or so old retired folks just hanging around touristy hot spots, listening to local gossip and taking it easy?”

  “A dozen plain citizens or a dozen former spies?”

  Pulling away, Lucy arched an eyebrow. “You just take care of your dog and your new husband, honey. I’ll send you postcards from all the exotic places I go.”

  “And you’ll phone me at least once a week,” Hannah added. “Promise?”

  “I do,” Lucy said before giggling. “Hey, that’s supposed to be your line.”

  A sharp knock on the door caught Hannah’s attention. Smiling at Gram’s silly joke she opened it. Her other bridesmaid, Kristy Fellows, was acting breathless. “Are you ready?”

  “Very.”

  “Are you sure you want Lucy to give you away? My dad said he could do that and still be the best man.”

  “I’m positive. Gram raised me. She should be the one to walk me down the aisle.”

  Accepting the larger of two bouquets from Lucy, Hannah followed Kristy into the church foyer.

  Ushers opened double doors for Kristy to precede them. Lucy took Hannah’s arm. They stepped forward together.

  Hannah realized that if her grandmother had not been there to provide support she might have faltered the moment she laid eyes on her beloved. Gavin was waiting at the altar, just as he had waited at the end of that fire hose to save her life—a life she was now going to share with him.

  Blinking, she willed away her happy tears and took the first steps into her future.

  * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Witness Protection Ambush by Jenna Night.

  Dear Reader,

  First, let me assure you that I invented both Lyell Prison and the abandoned hotel on Gabaret. Sometimes it’s necessary to bend the truth a bit and, after all, this is a work of fiction.

  The spiritual truths in this book, however, reflect my personal beliefs and the way I try to handle the difficulties life throws at me by leaning on my faith. It is my pleasure to have written over seventy-five stories for Love Inspired since the imprint began back in 1997, and each one has blessed me. Each one has also taught me things as I puzzled out life and relied on faith with my characters.

  It’s a journey I have been thrilled to share with all my readers. God is in the details, as always.

  Many Blessings,

  Valerie Hansen

  Courage. Danger. Faith.

  Find strength and determination in stories of faith and love in the face of danger.

  Six new books available every month!

  Witness Protection Ambush

  by Jenna Night

  Chapter One

  “Single vehicle crash. Sedan struck a tree. I’ll check with the occupants and see if there are any injuries.”

  Part-time EMT Emma Hayes was actually off duty as an emergency responder for the small mountain town of Cedar Lodge, Montana. She was on the way to her second job as a librarian when she came across the accident scene along a narrow road skirting the edge of Bear Lake. But she always kept her emergency radio with her in case she came across situations like this when someone needed her help. She gave the dispatcher the specifics on her location.

  “Copy EMT-26” came the staticky reply over the radio. The town was in a narrow valley surrounded by jagged mountain peaks and radio reception wasn’t always the best. “Standing by for your update.”

  There was more radio traffic after that, but Emma tuned it out for the moment as she pulled up closer and parked. Lakeside Drive was curvy as it edged along the waterfront on one side and a grassy, forested hill on the other. Emma had caught a glimpse of the dark green four-door a few moments earlier, but she’d had the impression that it was parked alongside the shoreline. At the very least, it hadn’t had the front bumper pushed up against a big pine tree like it did now.

  She grabbed the basic first aid bag that she kept in the car—she didn’t carry the advanced equipment the paramedics had, but it was definitely better than nothing—and got out. She approached the car and yelled, “Hello! You okay in the car? Anybody hurt?”

  The car made some ticking, settling noises as a result of the crash.

  Lord, please let the person or persons in this car be okay. And if they need my help, please guide my actions.

  The driver’s-side door was open, likely knocked that way in the collision. Emma approached it, concerned when she didn’t see the driver’s head, and she prepared herself to see them slumped over the steering wheel, possibly unconscious. But when she looked into the vehicle, she didn’t see a driver. She didn’t see anybody.

  The accident had happened just moments ago. She put a hand to the dented hood. It was still warm.

  The crunch of a footstep on gravel pulled Emma’s attention toward two men walking in her direction. Like her, they were on the lake side of the road and they’d apparently been hidden from view by the trees. The occupants of the crashed car, she assumed. They must have gone searching for help. This stretch of road didn’t get much traffic in the late morning.

  It seemed strange, though, that they’d gone in the direction they had. Because the main section of town—where they could have found people and businesses—was in the opposite direction.

  But they had just been in a crash. Could be that they’d bumped their heads and they were addled.

  With her determination to help undiminished, Emma sped up to close the gap between them. “Hey, what happened?” she called out. “Are you guys okay?”

  “We’re fine,” one of them—a bald man with a beard—called out. “Must have been a problem with the brakes.”

  His companion, a tall and slender guy with a ponytail, said nothing.

  Both of them fixed their gaze on her in a way that caused her to slow her pace without consciously deciding to. And then she realized her mind had registered something. In the dappled light shining down through the branches of the trees alongside the road she saw sunlight glint off of an object. It was metallic and located just below Bald Man’s right hand. The same kind of glimmer showed itself beneath Ponytail Man’s right hand, too.

  Guns.

  Emma stopped. Her breath caught in her chest and her body tensed.

  Eight years after her family was whisked out of Los Angeles and dropped into northern Montana, she’d believed they were safe. She’d imagined the threat was over.

  Maybe this was unconnected to all of that. Maybe it was just some random robbery.

  No, she knew better than that.

  She thought of the car crashed into the tree. No occupants. A staged accident. Their witness protection handlers had told them stories of people who’d been captured and tricked by pursuers in the past. But those witnesses hadn’t been securely hidden with solid cover stories and new identities. They’d all been people trying to evade the bad guys on their own. The point of the stories was to convince Emma’s family to go into the protection plan.

  “Emma Burke,” Bald Man called out her old name. Well, same first name, old last name. Either way he confirmed what she’d just thought. He knew her true identity.

  So what had happened? How had they found her? And what about the rest of her family? Fear twisted her heart. Had they already captured her parents and her younger brother?

  Her thoughts froze as Ponytail Man raised his gun and pointed it at her. “You’re going to have to come with us.”

  Her heart thudded so hard that for a moment it was all she could hear. Her body began to shake. She was on the sharp edge of panic with no idea of what to do. Emergency responders should be on their way, but waiting and hoping they’d get here in time was not a great plan.

  A loud growling sound caught her attention. Someone riding a personal watercraft on the lake jammed by with the throttle fully opened.

  Emma realized the gunmen were also distracted by the loud noise.

  Run! Now!

  She let the bulky first aid kit drop to the ground and darted across the road and up into the forested grassy hill. Her emergency radio slipped through her fingers. The crack of a gunshot kept her from stopping to retrieve it.

  She still didn’t have a coherent plan, just a panicked impulse to survive and get to her family to warn them—if they hadn’t already been discovered and snatched up by Royce Walker’s criminal gang members.

  She raced up the grass-and tree-covered hill, immediately feeling short of breath, as if her lungs were locking up. Some of it was triggered by panic and exertion, but there was no mistaking the tight, wheezing sensation of an asthma attack. And of course her inhaler was in her purse back in the car.

  She forced herself to continue on. Trying not to leave a trail was hardly an option when it took all of her focus to keep moving and breathe. Finally, she slid behind a group of towering pines with thick trunks and a deep bed of dropped, dried needles at the base. Maybe she could bury herself underneath it. But first, she had to catch her breath.

  Listening carefully, she dared hope that the pursuers were straight out of Los Angeles where the gang was centered and that they were helpless and unable to track anybody in the woods.

  The sound of male voices along with footfalls in the wild grass and atop fallen pine cones confirmed that her hope was misplaced.

  Where was everybody? Where was the cop who should have been on scene by now? Why were they taking so long? Even though she hadn’t given the dispatcher an update, some kind of official response should have been activated.

  With the next labored breath she realized that it hadn’t been so long since she’d called in the crash. Just a few minutes. Of course all the emergency responders knew minutes could be critical, but you could only do so much. There were immutable laws of physics. There were other vehicles on the road and sometimes trains at railroad crossings. Even when you were responding to a call and desperately wished those things were not in your way, they were.

  The tightness in her lungs eased a little. She didn’t want to go farther up the hill because of the added exertion triggering her asthma, but heading that way made the most sense. It might not feel like it right now, but this was a relatively small hill. On the other side it dropped down into the edge of town where there were small farms and then farther on some streets with houses and shops. There had to be somebody in the vicinity who would help her. And maybe if she got to a populated area, that would be enough of a deterrent to make the gunmen back off.

  Her body tensed with fear as the sounds of the pursuers grew louder. She pushed herself to her feet and continued up the hill.

  She was gasping loudly now. She couldn’t help it. Each step felt like her foot was chained to a block of cement. Sweat ran down to her brow and into her eyes. She told herself that she could rest when she was safe. Right now she had to keep moving.

  She avoided the open areas on the hillside and kept to the shadows beneath the trees until she finally reached the top. She didn’t hear anyone following her and she had to rest for a moment. Pressing her hand against a tree trunk to help her keep her balance, she took a moment to just breathe.

  Bang!

  A bullet tore through the tree trunk beside her hand.

  Fresh waves of icy terror sent her diving to the ground and frantically trying to roll out of the way of gunfire. She tucked her body into a ball, desperately shrinking her profile so she wouldn’t get hit as one of the thugs fired another shot.

  After a few moments of quiet, she got back to her feet and continued down the hill on the other side to put some distance between herself and the attackers. But it was clear that continuing along in the same direction was no longer a good option.

  New plan. Forging a different path, she’d head back the way she’d come. If she moved quietly enough, maybe the gunmen wouldn’t realize she was doubling back to the road.

  She’d just have to breathe the best she could while moving quickly enough to get to her car. Then she could drive away before the creeps noticed. She’d go directly to her parents’ house to make sure they and her brother Austin were okay. Even better, she could grab her phone from the purse she’d left in the car and maybe even retrieve her emergency radio if she came across it and alert everyone in the county about the dangerous situation that was happening.

  Doing her best to ignore the fear that nearly overwhelmed her and focus on a good outcome instead, Emma pushed herself to hike back downhill and toward the road.

  Halfway there it was painfully obvious that her body was not receiving the benefits of optimal amounts of oxygen. Her head was pounding and her gait was stumbling and clumsy. But she kept going, telling herself that she was almost to the street and soon she would be safe.

  She pushed through the edge of the forest where it met the road, grateful to see that she was very close to her car. It was only a few steps away. But she had to take a moment and at least partially catch her breath before she fell over. She was lightheaded and her vision was getting blurry. Her fight to save herself would all be for nothing if she passed out here.

  She didn’t hear the bad guys behind her, so she figured she could just take a couple of good breaths and then move on. Well, as good as they would be in the middle of an asthma attack.

  Exhausted nearly to the point of collapse, she bent forward and braced her hands on her knees as she took first one breath and then another. Then it was time to get moving again.

  But before she could straighten, she felt the tip of a gun barrel press against the back of her neck followed by the voice of Bald Man. “It was a mistake to stop. You should have kept running.”

  * * *

  Paramedic Cole Webb knew something was off as soon as he arrived on-scene.

  It had been years since he’d served in a combat zone as a Navy corpsman routinely heading out on patrol with a squad of Marines, but the old instincts and habitual vigilance had never completely left him. Not even back home in Cedar Lodge.