Christmas on the Run

  “DO WHAT WE TELL YOU OR YOUR SON WILL DISAPPEAR...”

  Master gemstone cutter Carly Rose Kelley will do anything to keep her son safe...but with blackmailers insisting she forge priceless antique stones, she needs help. With Christmas days away, the desperate widow has only one hope—the brother-in-law she never met. Hostage rescue specialist Dallas Morgan never knew about his nephew or his estranged late brother’s wife. Now their lives are in his hands. But the sweet child and vulnerable woman remind Dallas of the family he once had and lost. And he can’t afford distraction. Now that they’re trapped in the sights of ruthless blackmailers, nowhere is safe...but Dallas won’t let anyone stand in the way of him saving Carly and her little boy.

  Something was going on. Something that was putting a six-year-old kid in danger. Dallas wanted to find out what, and he wanted to know exactly how Carly had gotten involved in it.

  “We need to speak with the police.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “If they find out I’ve gone to the police, they’ll take my son. I’ll never see him again.”

  “Is that what they told you?”

  “Yes.”

  Somewhere in the deepest part of the shadows, a twig snapped. He grabbed Carly’s hand and dragged her into thick undergrowth.

  Someone was out there with them.

  A phone buzzed, the sound a discordant note in the eerie silence. He gestured for Carly to turn the thing off but she was staring at the screen.

  “We need to go,” she said, trying to dart past him.

  There was something about the tension in her face that made him glance at the text she’d opened, the photo it contained. A kid staring out from behind a window, his dark curly hair a lot like Carly’s.

  “They’re going to take Zane. I’ll never see him again,” Carly said, her voice trembling. “They’re outside of my house, watching him.”

  Aside from her faith and her family, there’s not much SHIRLEE MCCOY enjoys more than a good book! When she’s not teaching or chauffeuring her five kids, she can usually be found plotting her next Love Inspired Suspense story or wandering around the beautiful Inland Northwest in search of inspiration. Shirlee loves to hear from readers. If you have time, drop her a line at shirlee@shirleemccoy.com.

  CHRISTMAS ON THE RUN

  Shirlee McCoy

  www.millsandboon.com.au

  Lord, your love is as high as the heavens. Your faithful love reaches up to the skies. Your holiness is as great as the height of the highest mountains. You are honest as the oceans are deep. Lord, you keep people and animals safe. How priceless your faithful love is! People find safety in the shadow of your wings.

  —Psalms 36:5–7

  To you. I hope, as you read this dedication, you smile.

  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

  Dear Reader

  Excerpt from Lone Star Christmas Rescue by Margaret Daley

  ONE

  Feet pounding, lungs heaving, sweat dripping down her temples, Carly Rose Kelley raced along the paved path that led deep into Rock Creek Park. Up ahead, an ancient metal bridge traversed the Little Patuxent River, its solid beams rusted red from years exposed to the elements, its joists gleaming dully in the predawn light. The bridge was a remnant of a railroad that had been defunct for decades—tough, old, used up, but somehow still fighting to survive.

  Exactly like Carly.

  Except she wasn’t old. She’d be thirty-three in five days. And it wasn’t her life she was fighting for. It was Zane’s.

  Zane—gift from God. An unexpected one. She and Josh hadn’t wanted kids. They’d both had too much baggage, they’d traveled more than they were home and they’d had goals that hadn’t included slowing down to care for a child.

  But Zane had come along anyway.

  Carly would do anything for him, but she wouldn’t be blackmailed, she wouldn’t be bullied and she wouldn’t be forced to go against her moral code. She could keep her son safe and still do the right thing. She would keep him safe.

  God, please help me keep him safe.

  She reached the bridge, the old metal shaking under her feet as she pounded across it. She knew they’d be behind her, that in a minute or two or three, she’d hear metal clanging as they crossed the tributary.

  She didn’t look back.

  There’d be nothing to see, just a couple of shadowy figures trailing behind her, making sure she knew she was being watched. All day, every day. All night. It seemed that everywhere she went, they were there. Zane was their bargaining chip: Do what we tell you, or he’ll disappear one day and you’ll never see him again. Maybe not tomorrow or next week or even next year, but one day, he’ll leave the house and he won’t come home.

  She shuddered, the sick dread she’d been feeling for two months welling up.

  Call the police and he dies. Tell anyone, and you’ll never see him again.

  Do what we say, and everything will be fine.

  She didn’t believe the last part, but she’d been cooperating because of the photos of Zane at day camp, at school, at music lessons. They’d been slipped under her door at work, emailed to her, dropped in the mail slot at the beautiful brownstone she’d bought in DC. She’d installed a security camera, but all she’d caught was the image of a person with a hat pulled low over his eyes, walking up her porch steps like he belonged there.

  Yeah. She’d been cooperating, biding her time, trying to come up with a plan that would keep her son safe. After the first phone call, she’d lain in bed every night for nearly three weeks, praying and begging and trying not to cry, because she’d escaped poverty, crime, a heroin-addicted mother and a career-criminal father only to come to another place of danger and insecurity. She’d known that crying wouldn’t help, so she hadn’t shed a tear. She’d focused on solving the problem and escaping the situation. She’d managed it as a teenager. She could manage it now. That was what she’d told herself during the long dark hours before dawn. The way she’d seen things, she’d had only two options to keep her son safe—go to the police and hope for the best, or go into hiding, giving up everything she’d worked so hard for. She’d been leaning toward the latter option, because she’d rather give up everything than risk Zane’s life.

  Then she’d remembered the box that she’d carried from one rental house to the next for the past five years. She hadn’t had any use for the stuff inside, but she’d thought that Zane might want it one day. Her husband Josh’s birth certificate. His adoption decree. An antique pendant he’d grabbed from his mother’s jewelry box before he’d left home for good—or, rather, been kicked out because he’d stolen five thousand dollars from his parents to buy drugs and alcohol. He hadn’t been proud of it, but he’d figured it was his parents’ fault. They could have been more patient, more understanding, more aware of how it felt to be an unwanted tween adopted by a couple who’d never had kids.

  That was what Josh had said.

  Typical of him—he hadn’t taken responsibility for anything.

  By the time he and Carly had met, he’d changed his surname
back to what it had been before he was adopted, and he’d put that part of his life behind him. He’d wanted nothing to do with his parents, but he’d idolized his older half brother, Dallas. According to Josh, Dallas had made every effort to fit in with his adoptive family. He’d done well in school, gone to college and joined the military. He’d also turned his back on his own blood. The brothers hadn’t had any contact with each other for years, but Josh had followed Dallas through friends. A year before Josh died, Dallas had left the navy and joined an elite private hostage-rescue team called HEART. An old high school friend had told Josh all about it, and Josh had told Carly. He’d also bragged to anyone willing to listen that Dallas was a hero who traveled all over the world to find the missing and to bring victimized people home to their families.

  Yeah, Josh really had loved his brother.

  Too bad he hadn’t loved Carly. He’d cheated on her, lied to her, taken money from their accounts and used it to buy expensive gifts for other women. Those were things she’d found out after he’d died, and they were things she’d never tell Zane. As far as she was concerned, Josh had been as much of a loser as her parents had been. Just another disappointment in a long list of them, but...

  He’d left that box with everything she’d need to get in touch with someone who might be able to help her.

  Dallas Morgan.

  Decorated war veteran.

  Hostage-rescue negotiator. Sharpshooter. Sniper.

  If she could contact him without setting off an alarm with the people who were manipulating her, she just might be able to stop them.

  Please, God, please, she prayed silently as she raced along the path, the antique pendant, Josh’s birth certificate and a handwritten note sealed in a plastic bag and zipped into the small pocket of her running pants. The path veered to the right, and she followed it, catching glimpses of Christmas lights through the trees. This time of year, everything seemed to glow. Houses, stores and streetlights were all decorated for the season.

  The beauty of those things always made Carly long for the kind of family she could go home to. The kind of family that exchanged gifts and baked cookies, that sang Christmas carols and attended Christmas Eve service together. This year, more than ever, she wanted that. Not the family she’d grown up with. A family that would stand beside her. One that would be just as determined and desperate to keep Zane safe as she was.

  Up ahead, the path was dark, curving through thick tree growth. Dallas’s place was five miles away. If she cut through the woods, she’d get there more quickly and avoid some of the dark stretches, but that would make the people following her suspicious.

  She was a creature of habit. She couldn’t deny it. She’d grown up in chaos; now she liked order, predictability and routine. She left for work at the same time every day. She picked Zane up at school at the same time every afternoon. She went to church every Sunday, grocery shopping every Monday, to the library every Tuesday evening, out with friends exactly once every other week. They knew it.

  They knew a lot.

  But they didn’t know her. If they did, they would have found someone else to do the job, because there was no way she planned to follow through. She had too much integrity, and she was too devoted to the preservation of antique jewelry. Twenty gemstones in four months. That was what they wanted. Polished and cut with antique methods that very few people in the country were familiar with.

  Carly was very familiar with them. Some people called her an expert. She called herself a lifelong student. She’d apprenticed under a man who’d made studying and perfecting those methods his life’s work. Now it was hers. Aside from working as a museum conservator, she freelanced as an antique-jewelry restoration specialist. She could fix Great-Grandma’s Victorian earrings, Aunt Marie’s broken mourning ring. She could cut and polish new stones and make them match old ones almost exactly.

  She did it to pay the bills and because she hated to see a piece tossed into a drawer or thrown into a scrap pile. With every job she did, she provided documentation that included the date of restoration, the modern gemstones that she’d cut and placed into the piece, and the methods that she’d used. Over the years, she’d worked with high-end jewelry shops and for some very wealthy people. She’d also worked for museums and private collectors. She had a reputation, and that reputation must have put her in the sights of the people who were manipulating her.

  But she wasn’t a forger. She would not pass her work off as someone else’s.

  She also wouldn’t replace the very expensive and intrinsically valuable gemstones in the Smithsonian collection she was restoring and preserving with her handiwork.

  That was what they wanted.

  They hadn’t said it, but the stones they’d provided her with, the instructions they’d given her for cutting those stones, made it clear that she was re-creating many of the gemstones from Ida May Babcock’s gift to the Smithsonian. The oil magnate heiress had died six years ago. She’d had no children, no husband, no connections except for a pet cockapoo that had died three years after her. She had had a will and a handful of distant relatives who’d all wanted a piece of her estate. It had taken six years and hundreds of thousands of dollars for her executor to make certain that the will was honored—her wealth and real estate to charities, her art, jewelry and vast collections of antiques to the Smithsonian. Carly had been chosen to itemize the jewelry collection, put together a conservation plan and restore any pieces that needed it.

  She’d been thrilled to take the job. Zane was getting older, and her years of traveling the country working contracted jobs had to end. Zane needed stability. He needed neighbors and teachers who knew him from one year to the next. He needed a group of friends that he’d grow up with. He needed everything she’d never had.

  But, more than anything, he needed to be safe.

  She shuddered, picking up speed as she reached the darkest section of the park. Trees pressed in on either side, the soft rustle of leaves in the winter breeze the only sound.

  She ran to the edge of the paved path and turned left onto packed earth. She could hear her feet pounding against the ground, her breath panting out in the same even rhythm. She couldn’t hear her pursuers. That was good. It meant they were keeping their distance. Just like always. She’d use that to her advantage. She didn’t need to focus on the pace of the run or on the rhythm of her steps. She’d been this way dozens of times before. She knew the path and the park. She didn’t know who was following her. That was a question she asked herself every day. Who? Why?

  Someone at the museum?

  Someone who knew the value of the jewelry she was working with?

  Maybe. She didn’t know, and she hadn’t dared try to figure it out. She’d felt hunted for weeks, stalked by a nameless, faceless entity. And she wanted it over. Now. Not tomorrow or next week or next month. If Josh’s brother wouldn’t help, she’d pack her bags and leave in the dead of night. She’d go somewhere she’d never been before, and she’d start a new life doing something that had nothing to do with old jewelry.

  Of course, that would mean leaving her life behind.

  Leaving Jazz behind.

  Jazz. Her best friend from college. The person who’d shown up on her doorstep the day after Josh died and who’d arrived again two weeks before Zane’s birth and announced that she planned to stay until after the baby was born. It had ended up being much longer than that. Jazz had been working on establishing herself as a children’s book author. She’d needed an affordable home, and Carly had needed someone she trusted to watch Zane while she worked. It had been a perfect arrangement. They were as close as sisters. Jazz was the only aunt Zane had ever known and would ever have. The thought of disappearing and never contacting her again was sickening.

  But Jazz was getting married on New Year’s Eve. She’d have a great life. Even if Carly and Zane disappeared from it forever.<
br />
  At least, that was what Carly had been telling herself. It was what she wanted to believe. She couldn’t stomach the thought of Jazz mourning them any more than she could stomach the thought of living life without her best friend.

  Carly shoved the thoughts way, forcing herself to sink into the rhythm of the run. Frigid November air seeped through the layers of her running gear, freezing sweat onto her skin and making her shiver. Behind her, a twig snapped, and she almost looked back.

  Almost.

  She didn’t want them to see her fear, though. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

  Her lungs burned, her legs trembled as she sprinted through the park. She’d planned everything, timed it all perfectly. She just had to stick to the plan and keep the goal in mind. She had to focus her energy on getting to Dallas’s house and delivering the message she’d brought for him.

  Up ahead, bright lights twinkled through the trees, beckoning her toward the well-established neighborhood Dallas lived in. His house was a 1930s brick bungalow on a double lot just yards from the park. He had a mail slot in the front door, large shrubs blocking the view of the side yards. If she ran fast enough and timed it right, she could be up on his porch, sliding the plastic bag into his house, before the people behind her made it off the path.

  If...

  That was what scared her. She’d been running for years. She knew how to pace herself, and she knew how to go all out for the finish line. But something could go wrong. Life had taught her that early, and it had taught her well.

  She sprinted off the trail and around a small pond, the sun lingering below the horizon, the water glass-like in its stillness. She reached the paved path, ran between old houses that had probably been built long before the park existed, turned onto the road that cut through Dallas’s neighborhood. She glanced back as she reached the edge of Dallas’s yard. The road was empty. Just as she’d known it would be.