Margaret Daley - Protecting Her Own

Connor’s deep, husky voice intruded into her thoughts.

“Are you all right?”

She tried to shrug away the emotions drenching her. “I’m fine.” She marched over to the safe covered by a portrait of her mother. “I don’t understand why he kept this in here. He didn’t love her.” When she opened the safe, its emptiness surprised her. “This doesn’t bode well.”

“So someone could have come in here and broken into the safe?”

She turned at the same time Connor stepped closer. She collided into him. He steadied her, his hands on her arms branding her. His gaze captured hers and held it for a long moment, the thundering of her heart drowning out all common sense.

Why else would she wonder if he still kissed as good as he did when they were dating?

feels she has been blessed. She has been married more than thirty years to her husband, Mike, whom she met in college. He is a terrific support and her best friend. They have one son, Shaun. Margaret has been writing for many years and loves to tell a story. When she was a little girl, she would play with her dolls and make up stories about their lives. Now she writes these stories down. She especially enjoys weaving stories about families and how faith in God can sustain a person when things get tough. When she isn’t writing, she is fortunate to be a teacher for students with special needs. Margaret has taught for more than twenty years and loves working with her students. She has also been a Special Olympics coach and has participated in many sports with her students.

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God is our refuge and strength,

a very present help in trouble.

—Psalm 46:1

To Jan for all her help and

brainstorming with this story—thank you, Jan.

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

EPILOGUE

LETTER TO READER

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

“I thought that was taken care of.” Cara Madison gripped her cell to her ear so tightly her hand ached as she hurried toward the foyer of her childhood home to answer the door. Exhaustion clung to her as though woven into every fiber of her being.

The bell chimed again.

“No, the State Department still has some questions,” Kyra Morgan, her employer at Guardians, Inc., said.

“Hold it a sec. Someone’s at the door.”

She peered through the peephole, noting a deliveryman with a package and clipboard, dressed in a blue ball cap, blue shorts and white T-shirt. Probably another birthday present from one of Dad’s friends. She thrust open the door and cradled the cell against her shoulder to keep it in place.

“So I have to make a trip into Washington, D.C., to see Mr. Richards at the State Department?” Cara asked her boss while she scribbled her name on the sheet of paper then took the box.

Stepping back into the house, Cara shut the door with a nudge of her hip and carried the package to the round table in the center of the dining room to put it with the multitude of others—all presents from people around the world whom her father knew.

“Cara, I’m sorry you need to go at this time. I know that last assignment was rough and now with bringing your dad home from the rehabilitation center, you don’t need this complication. Mr. Richards assured me it’s just a debriefing about the riots occurring in Nzadi.”

She wished she could say that wasn’t her fault, but what she did had set the protests off. Guilt swamped her. In protecting her client, a revered humanitarian in Nzadi was killed instead. “Don’t worry. I’m tough. I’ll survive. I’ll call the man and set up an appointment after I get Dad home and settled.”

For a few seconds she studied the plain brown box from Global Magazine with C. Madison on the label before peeling back the top flap on the carton. The sound of the tape ripping the cardboard reverberated in the stillness, exposing the top of a gift wrapped in black paper. Black? True, her father was turning sixty tomorrow, but wasn’t black wrapping a little too macabre after he suffered a stroke eight weeks ago?

“I’m sure it’s only a formality.” Her boss’s assurance drew Cara’s thoughts away from the gift. “My impression from the State Department was you won’t have to go back to answer any more questions from the Nzadi government.” The word Nzadi shivered down her length, leaving a track of chills even though it was summer. “I’ll call you after I talk to Mr. Richards. Bye.” Cara clicked off and stared down at the open box that nestled the new present, wrapped in black paper. Black like people wore to funerals. Black as the dress of the beloved lady who had been killed in the café. Cara shivered again. She wanted to forget Nzadi, but she didn’t think she ever would.

The image of the beautiful woman, bleeding out on the floor of the café, nudged those last days in the African country to the foreground. She’d managed to push the trophy wife she was protecting out of the way of the assassin’s bullet, only to have it lodge in the woman across from them. Again she heard the angry shouts from the crowd as she’d been driven to the Nzadian airport. The people’s grief over the death of Obioma Dia had evolved into fury at Cara and the woman she’d been assigned to protect.

A shrill whistle pierced the air.

Shaking the image and the shouts from her mind, she glanced toward the kitchen. The water she was heating for her tea. The noise insisted on her immediate attention and grated her frazzled nerves. But the sound was a welcome reprieve from the thoughts never far away.

She quickly headed toward the kitchen and a soothing cup of tea along with a moment to rest and think about her father’s situation—the reason she was in Clear Branch. She craved peace after the past couple of hectic days—after her last disastrous bodyguard assignment in a country that fell apart around her. Nzadi was still suffering the worst unrest in decades.

Just inside the kitchen she pocketed her phone, wishing she could silence it like she could the teakettle’s racket. But her cell was her lifeline, especially when she was on a job. And now also because her dad’s homecoming celebration was cancelled because of a reaction to a new medication that made the doctor decide at the last minute to keep him a few more days. She’d planned a small birthday party for tomorrow and would need to finish calling his friends to tell them she’d have to postpone the festivity.

As steam shot out of the spout on the white pot, she snatched it off the burner and set it on a cool spot on the stove. Finally the loud, annoying sound quieted. She turned toward the cabinet behind her to get a mug.

Blissful silence—no angry people in Nzadi yelling words that still curdled her blood, no rehabilitation center—