Lenora Worth - Code of Honor

Brice propelled her toward the plane. Selena’s resistance surprised him—she was tiny, but she showed remarkable strength. She was also remarkably stubborn.

Brice lifted his eyes to the heavens. He’d been sent down here to retrieve the missionary. But Selena was devoted to her work and refused to go. And Brice couldn’t leave without her. She was in a lot of danger. Too much danger.

“I have my orders,” he shouted over the thunderstorm.

“I can’t leave my villagers!”

“Do you want to die, Selena?”

“I want to live—to serve these people and God.”

How could he fight that kind of dedication?

In the end, he didn’t have a chance. Bullets hit like a hailstorm all around them, right along with the rain and wind. With a grunt, Brice picked her up and carried her through the jungle.

While Selena Carter beat at his chest every step of the way.

has written over thirty novels, most of those for Steeple Hill Books. She also works freelance for a local magazine, where she had written monthly opinion columns, feature articles and social commentaries. She also wrote for five years for the local paper. Married to her high school sweetheart for thirty-three years, Lenora lives in Louisiana and has two grown children and a cat. She loves to read, take long walks and sit in her garden.

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He who follows righteous and mercy finds life, righteousness and honor.

—Proverbs 21:21

To my favorite nurse, Patricia Davids.

You are a special friend.

PROLOGUE

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

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

Somewhere in Northern Argentina

“Get on the plane!”

“No!”

Brice Whelan squinted through the rain falling all around him, his patience wearing as thin as his soaked black cotton T-shirt.

“We don’t have time to argue, Selena. You have to get on this plane! Now!”

The slender woman scowling up at him pushed at her wet burnished-brown hair and shook her head. “I can’t leave my villagers, Brice. I didn’t call you down here to rescue me. I wanted you to help me! I won’t go.”

Brice wrapped a rough hand around her arm, using brute strength to propel her toward the plane. Her returning resistance surprised him—she was a tiny bit of a thing—not more than a hundred pounds at best, but she showed remarkable strength. And she was also remarkably stubborn to boot. Double trouble.

Brice lifted his eyes to the fury of the heavens, wondering why he was standing here in the middle of a rain forest when he could have been sitting by a nice fire back home in Ireland or maybe watching a baseball game on television at his second home in Atlanta, Georgia. Then he remembered—CHAIM, the elite secretive Christian organization that worked to protect and help Christians in need all over the world. As a member of CHAIM, he had a duty to bring Selena Carter, a missionary nurse who helped run a clinic here in Día Belo, Argentina, home to Atlanta.

After Selena’s distraught phone call, he’d been sent down here to retrieve the devoted missionary. But Selena took her work very seriously and now she refused to go with him. And Brice couldn’t leave without her. Because she’d had a near run-in with a local guerrilla group known for drug trafficking and smuggling, she was in a lot of danger. Too much danger for the humanitarian organization that had sent her here and too much danger for her rich father back home. They wanted her back in Atlanta. Alive and well, preferably.

Brice just wanted her on that plane so he could get out of this rain. “I have my orders,” he shouted over the thunderstorm.

“And I have my integrity,” she shouted back. “I should have never called you!”

All around them, the jungle and forest hissed and sang with the rage of the storm. It was wet, humid, flashing both cold and hot, and downright miserable in spite of the beauty of the place.

“Do you want to die?” he asked, hoping to sway her.

“No,” she said with an expression full of conviction. “I want to live—to serve these people and God.”

Brice had enough. Pulling her close with his hands over her elbows, he said, “If you don’t get on that plane, you won’t ever be able to do either again, cara. You can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous now. Those men will come back for you, Selena. They’ll figure out you survived the attack.”

“I’m not afraid.”

Great. Just what he needed. A brave skinny woman willing to take on some nasty smugglers with her convictions and her honor as her only shields.

“Well, you should be afraid,” he shouted. “You saw what they did to your friend Diego and to the others. I can’t let that happen to you.” Getting right in her face, he repeated, his Irish brogue going thick, “It’s time to get on the plane, Selena.”

Her violet-blue eyes widened, this time with determination and regret. “I can’t leave them. I can’t. They need me—I give them medicine and tend their wounds. I teach them how to read and tell them the word of God. I can’t leave the clinic. I’m the only one left.”

How did he fight that kind of dedication?

In the end, he didn’t have a chance.

Bullets hit like a hailstorm all around them, right along with the rain and the wind. With a grunt, Brice picked her up and carried her through the jungle, slapping at ancient vines and wet, prickly palm leaves every step of the way.

While Selena Carter beat at his chest and his face every step of the way.

Atlanta, Georgia

Two weeks later

“Are you ever going to speak to me again?”

Selena lifted her gaze from the file she’d been reading to the man standing at the door of her office.

He sure knew how to fill a doorway. And he always made her heart do a funny little lurching thing that she hated and denied each time she saw him. His shaggy honey brown hair and gold-green eyes gave him the look of some sort of modern-day pirate but the precisely tailored lightweight navy suit he wore today gave him the look of a corporate raider. Selena knew he was neither of those things.

He was worse.

Brice pushed off the doorjamb and settled into a squeaky old chair across from her battered metal desk. Loosening his silk tie, he said, “Selena, it’s been a couple of weeks now. You don’t call, you don’t write. You’re breaking my heart here.”

Selena slammed the file into a folder and shoved it in the drawer of the old desk. The drawer stuck, so she tried slamming it again, pretending it was Brice Whelan’s head instead. The drawer squeaked in protest while she flushed a mortified pink all the way down to her toes. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her have a hissy fit.