Lynn Bulock - Protecting Holly

“You think I don’t know that?” Jake knew he was beginning to sound aggravated. “I’ve been involved in this for months. I’ve seen what they can do.” His brother Adam was still recovering from being shot months ago.

“I have, too.” Rose sounded grim. “I just don’t want to see any more of this close to home. Don’t forget you’ve got one of my favorite cousins working for you, mister. I want to keep her in one piece.”

“No need to worry on that score. I wouldn’t let anybody touch Holly. If I lost her, the office would fall apart.”

FAITH ON THE LINE:

Two powerful families wage war on evil…and find love.

ADAM’S PROMISE—

Gail Gaymer Martin

FINDING AMY—

Carol Steward

GABRIEL’S DISCOVERY—

Felicia Mason

REDEEMING TRAVIS—

Kate Welsh

PETER’S RETURN—

Cynthia Cooke

PROTECTING HOLLY—

Lynn Bulock

has been writing since fourth grade and published in various fields for over twenty years. Her first romantic novel came out in 1989. Her Steeple Hill Café mystery LOVE THE SINNER is a May 2005 release. She lives near Los Angeles, California, with her husband and sons.

Lynn Bulock

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To Joe, always

Keep me, O LORD, from the hands

of the wicked; protect me from men

of violence who plan to trip my feet.

—Psalms 140:4

Jake Montgomery—Someone was out to make sure the FBI agent never finished decoding Alistair Barclay’s secret files.

Holly Vance—She’d loved her boss in silence for years, but would the traumatic past she’d buried keep them apart?

Alistair Barclay—The former hotel tycoon was going down for numerous crimes. Would Jake be able to connect him with Baltasar Escalante and the Diablo crime syndicate?

Maxwell Vance—The former CIA agent has a vested interest in the case: keeping his three sons out of the line of fire.

Peter Vance—He was one of the last ones to see Escalante alive…and one of the many on hand to testify against Barclay.

Dear Reader,

I hope you enjoyed Holly and Jake’s story. It was quite an experience to work with so many fine authors in this series of books about the Vance and Montgomery families and how they used their faith to fight evil. I suppose we all do that in a lesser way each day, without considering it much. So many days in the past six months have started out with knowing that my “sisters” in this project were encouraging me, or holding me up in a prayer. I’d like to thank all of them, Gail, Carol, Felicia, Kate and Cynthia, for all that they’ve brought into my life.

In addition, a book like this with multiple areas of research can’t be completed without a great deal of help from folks in a variety of professions. I’d especially like to thank Nathan Lee and Karen Nicastro for their excellent help in guiding me through the legal system. Anything I got right was due to their expertise, and the errors are all mine.

I love hearing from my readers. You can contact me at: P.O. Box 1167, Thousand Oaks, CA 91358 or find me at www.lynnbulock.com.

Blessings,

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

“You are so lucky.” Sara Phelps straightened a stack of papers fresh from the copier. “You know that everybody else in the Colorado Springs office wants your job, don’t you?”

Holly Vance waved a hand in her friend’s direction. She couldn’t imagine what Sara said being true. “That has to be an exaggeration, Sara. For one thing, ‘everybody’ in this office would only mean about three other people. And why would they want my job, anyway? I do the same things the rest of the assistants here do.”

When Holly told friends she worked for the FBI, they all thought her job must be terribly fascinating. She had to burst their bubble fairly frequently on that little fantasy. For the most part, working for the resident agency of the FBI in Colorado Springs was a lot like working for any other government office. The idea of the work might sound interesting to an outsider, but the day-to-day routine was just that most of the time…routine.

Holly knew that she went to work in a regular office building like most of the population. She spent hours on the computer and a lot of time just like this, queuing up for one of the printers or copiers in the suite of offices, processing a document for her boss, Jake Montgomery. The khakis and sweater she wore on her slender frame weren’t any different from the work outfits of any of her friends. Television, she decided, had overplayed the image of working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Of course there was the fact that Jake could easily have played one of those TV FBI agents. His dark-blond good looks would make him a casting director’s dream. But Holly knew that personally, she’d never make the cut on a television casting call, and neither would most of the people working in the Colorado Springs office.

Sara leaned on the side of the copier and sighed. Holly thought she looked much younger than twenty-five some days, with her spiky hair and clothing choices that always skated to the limit of what the bureau would allow its support personnel to wear. Today her slacks were gray pinstripe, but tailored in such a way that one wrong move would have exposed the tattoo that Holly knew covered the small of her friend’s back. Watching Sara made her feel even older than the twenty-nine she was, and like a much more seasoned veteran of the bureau.

“Maybe you do the same things,” Sara said, waggling deep burgundy polished nails. “But consider how you do them, and who you get to do them for. If either of the special agents I worked with were half as cool as Jake Montgomery, I’d be so happy.”

Holly picked her own documents out of the print tray. She hardly knew what to say to Sara. Jake probably did seem like the coolest guy in the Colorado Springs office. With his specialization in computers, he didn’t have some of the same restrictions or duties as the other special agents, so he was a little more fascinating than the rest of the professionals on staff. On top of that, he was a Colorado Springs native with plenty of history behind him. Most of the other agents were transplants from somewhere else, some still serving their first assignment probationary period with the bureau.

Still, it was hard to believe that working for Jake could be perceived as that big a plum. Colorado Springs wasn’t even that big an FBI office to begin with. There were only eleven people in the FBI offices in the brick building tucked away on a downtown side street, and six of those people were support staff like her, or other non-agent personnel.