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Truth And Consequences
Lenora Worth
THE PROTECTOR’S MISSIONHonoring a promise to a fallen comrade, former army medic David Evans heads to Arizona to check up on the soldier’s sister. But as his train pulls into Desert Valley, David witnesses a drug run gone wrong and narrowly avoids the bullets flying his way.And when the police show up, he discovers the investigating officer is the woman he’s supposed to look after. With a fiercely protective K-9 partner and a new badge, Whitney Godwin insists she can take care of herself and her infant daughter. But the criminals want both David and Whitney permanently silenced, so David will stop at nothing to protect the family he yearns to join.Rookie K-9 Unit: These lawmen solve the toughest cases with the help of theirbrave canine partners
THE PROTECTOR’S MISSION
Honoring a promise to a fallen comrade, former army medic David Evans heads to Arizona to check up on the soldier’s sister. But as his train pulls into Desert Valley, David witnesses a drug run gone wrong and narrowly avoids the bullets flying his way. And when the police show up, he discovers the investigating officer is the woman he’s supposed to look after. With a fiercely protective K-9 partner and a new badge, Whitney Godwin insists she can take care of herself and her infant daughter. But the criminals want both David and Whitney permanently silenced, so David will stop at nothing to protect the family he yearns to join.
Rookie K-9 Unit: These lawmen solve the toughest cases with the help of their brave canine partners
“You were amazing out there,” David said.
He meant that. “If anything had happened to you—”
Whitney shook her head. “Your overly protective attitude is kind of chivalrous, but I told you I had it covered. I can take care of myself.”
“And I told you, I wasn’t about to leave you there.”
“Would you have left a male officer?” she asked.
David glanced at her, hoping to make her understand. But she had him on that one.
“But because I’m a rookie and a woman, you felt the need to rush in and help me. Don’t do that again.”
Wow. She sure had a chip on her pretty shoulder. Seemed she also had a lot to prove. “It’s not in my nature to just leave a woman alone when she could be in danger. I’m not sorry I stayed.”
“Well, cowboy, I do appreciate your assistance, but hopefully there won’t be another time for you to play the hero.”
ROOKIE K-9 UNIT:
These lawmen solve the toughest cases
with the help of their brave canine partners
Protect and Serve—Terri Reed, April 2016
Truth and Consequences—Lenora Worth, May 2016
Seek and Find—Dana Mentink, June 2016
Honor and Defend—Lynette Eason, July 2016
Secrets and Lies—Shirlee McCoy, August 2016
Search and Rescue—Valerie Hansen, September 2016
LENORA WORTH writes award-winning romance and romantic suspense. Three of her books finaled in the ACFW Carol Awards, and her Love Inspired Suspense novel Body of Evidence became a New York Times bestseller. Her novella in Mistletoe Kisses made her a USA TODAY bestselling author. With sixty books published and millions in print, she goes on adventures with her retired husband, Don, and enjoys reading, baking and shopping…especially shoe shopping. Visit her on the web at lenoraworth.com (http://www.lenoraworth.com).
Truth and
Consequences
Lenora Worth
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For where envying and contention is,
there is inconstancy, and every evil work.
—James 3:16
Many thanks to my fellow writers in this series—
Terri Reed, Lynette Eason, Shirlee McCoy, Dana Mentink
and Valerie Hansen. I loved working with all of you.
Contents
Cover (#u47241418-d6d2-54af-b3d2-0b0b57af3390)
Back Cover Text (#ud5962874-048a-5b1b-9651-6031cddefaef)
Introduction (#u959bba6c-5005-5118-90fe-6dee1ff699bb)
About the Author (#u3245c598-0f7d-57d1-9cfa-5c9c2d2aca79)
Title Page (#u0a435798-1342-5015-b6bc-05ea69557b79)
Bible Verse (#ub733f4f6-fb59-57cf-add6-ae537542ba4c)
Dedication (#u86651617-1610-5478-8b48-04ffd6a4e28b)
ONE (#ulink_9f51e382-1288-5116-b14b-7a591b6e7e51)
TWO (#ulink_941c66b2-c674-559e-a71c-1b156affd80e)
THREE (#ulink_9467c7df-4710-5200-9903-02424ece31e1)
FOUR (#ulink_bc4567f8-fa72-56af-983c-385ac8979ff7)
FIVE (#ulink_9afa2e60-e276-5526-890b-f7204e0ae7a9)
SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
Dear Reader (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
ONE (#ulink_33a73bb6-8ca2-5011-890c-8f09f86a3555)
“Next stop, Desert Valley, Arizona.”
David Evans took a deep breath and got up to exit the passenger train, glad to finally be at his destination. Now if he could locate the woman he’d come here to see.
There were only two other people left in this car. Two men wearing baseball caps and dark shades. They’d kept to themselves most of the trip from Los Angeles, and so had David. There was something about these two.
They grabbed their carry-on duffels and rushed out of their seats so fast they stumbled upon the car attendant coming up the aisle. Startled, one of them dropped his tattered black bag, causing it to rip open.
Several colorful bundles covered in shrink-wrap crashed onto the floor. Everything after that happened so fast—David’s blood pressure spiked, and he felt himself slipping back into the arid mountains of Afghanistan.
The attendant’s surprise turned to realization, his gaze moving from the two men to the packages spilling from the duffel.
“Keep moving, old man,” one of the men told the attendant. “Don’t you have someplace else to be?”
The attendant stared at the bag. “No, can’t do that. I’m afraid I’ll have to report this immediately.”
“Wrong answer.” One of them pulled a knife on the frightened older attendant, stabbing him in the stomach. The attendant went down on his knees, shock and fear evident in his wide-eyed stare.
David saw the whole thing from his seat a few feet up the aisle. While the two argued about leaving without the packages they’d dropped, David hurried to help the injured man.
But one of the men pulled out a gun and pointed it at David, his expression hard-edged while his trigger finger twitched. “Get out of here. Now.”
David glanced up at the man holding a gun on him and then down at the bleeding man lying on the floor of the passenger train. “I’m not leaving. I’m a medic, and this man needs help.”
He braced himself and knelt down beside the attendant, fully expecting to be shot. Which was kind of ironic since he’d just returned from Afghanistan. He’d managed to survive the front lines, and now he might be killed while trying to honor the promise he’d made to a dying soldier.
Before the standoff could continue, voices outside caused the gunman’s friend to whirl in a nervous dance. “I didn’t agree to this,” he said in a growling whisper, his oversize red baseball cap covering most of his face. “Man, if you shoot him, the DEA and every cop around here will be on us. We need to leave.”
The man holding the gun glanced around, the sweat of panic radiating off him like hot steam. Then he spouted off to his short but wise buddy, his words as brittle as desert sand. “Get all that up and let’s go. Now!”
He kept the gun on David while his nervous helper shoved the packages back inside the gaping duffel. “You better keep traveling, mister, if you want to live.” Then he pointed to the moaning attendant. “I’ll finish off both of you if either of you talks.”
David held his breath and stayed on his knees near the injured attendant while the two men rushed off the train, baseball caps pulled low over their faces and sunglasses hiding their eyes. But the minute he saw them heading for a black SUV in the small parking lot near the square Tudor-style train station, he pulled out his cell and called 911. Straining to see, he memorized only part of the license plate and quickly glanced at what looked like some sort of Aztec emblem centered over the plates.
“I’m a medic,” he told the shocked older man after giving the dispatcher the needed information. “I’m going to help you, okay?” He checked the man’s vitals and found a weak pulse.
The pale-faced man nodded, his expression full of fright, his pupils dilating as he went into shock. “He stabbed me.”
“I saw,” David said. Taking off the button-up shirt over his old T-shirt, he quickly used it to stanch the blood oozing from the gash in the man’s abdomen. “Lie still while I examine you. Help should be on the way.”
The man moaned and closed his eyes. “My wife is gonna be so mad.”
David sank down beside the man, hoping to keep him talking. “Hey, buddy, what’s your name?”
“Herman,” the man said. “Herman Gallagher.” Then he grabbed David’s arm. “You need to report this to our conductor, too. Drugs. I think they had drugs in those bags.”
David did as he asked, and soon the conductor and several attendants were moving up and down the aisles.
David put up a hand to hold them away and kept talking to the man after handing his phone to a young assistant, who stayed on the line with 911. When he heard sirens, he breathed a sigh of relief. Though he was concerned because of Mr. Gallagher’s age and still disoriented himself, he’d seen much worse than this in the heat of battle. But right now, he was struggling to fight his own flashbacks.
This trip had sure ended with a bang.
And he hadn’t even stepped off the train to his final destination.
He’d come here searching for a woman he didn’t really know, except in his imagination. But a promise was a promise. He wasn’t leaving Desert Valley without finding her.
When he looked up a few minutes later to see a pretty female officer with long blond hair coming toward him, a sleek tan-and-white canine pulling on a leash in front of her, David thought he surely must be dreaming. Either that or his flashbacks were taking a new turn.
He knew that face. Had seen it in his dreams many times over.
While he sat on the cold train floor holding a bloody shirt to a man who was about to pass out, he looked up and into the vivid blue eyes of the woman he’d traveled here to find. The woman who’d colored his dreams during the brutality of war and made him wish he could finally settle down. Thinking of the worn picture in his pocket that her brother, Lucas, had given him right before he died, David couldn’t believe this was really happening.
Whitney Godwin was coming to his aid.
* * *
Whitney took one look at the two men on the train floor and went into action. Turning to her partner, a white-and-tan pointer appropriately named Hunter, she commanded, “Stay.”
