Felicia Mason - Sweet Devotion

“Mason is a superb storyteller…she creates magic.”

—Publishers Weekly

“[Mason] places the Christian theme front and center while also making room for a touching portrait of human desires and frailties.”

—Booklist

“Felicia Mason…will make the reader sigh, cry, then shout for joy at the triumphant, healing power of true love.”

—Romantic Times

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This book is for all of the Ambers

who seek shelter, peace and hope.

A portion of the proceeds of this book

is being donated to Transitions Family

Violence Services, an organization

that supports women and children in crisis.

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

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Author Note

Armed with a carving knife, Amber Montgomery took cover as a metal folding chair hurtled her way. The chair crashed against the edge of a white-draped carving table, taking out the end of the serving station where she’d been carving beef at the Wayside Revelers’ Annual Dinner Dance.

She watched in horror as eight pounds of beets splattered to the floor sending deep red beet juice splashing up and out like a demented geyser.

She’d known, of course, that taking this catering job carried a certain amount of risk. The Wayside Revelers tended to revel a bit too much at their functions. But after their last fiasco at the VFW hall, Amber thought they’d mellowed and would be on their best behavior tonight.

That, obviously, wasn’t the case.

She didn’t know how this melée started, but she needed to—

“Watch out!” someone yelled.

Amber ducked just a moment before another chair came within inches of taking her out.

This was getting personal!

She jumped up. “Hey, I’m the caterer. Why are you attacking me?”

But no one heard her or paid any attention. They were too busy destroying the hall and themselves—and having a great time doing so. The scene in front of her looked like a barroom brawl in the wild wild West. Except, this wasn’t the eighteen-hundreds frontier. It was peaceful little Wayside, Oregon, population 17,800, in the twenty-first century.

Over the commotion, Amber heard what sounded like police sirens. Help was on the way!

Maybe she could salvage the trays of lemon meringue tarts—six hours of work. Amber inched toward the desserts, but someone else spied them at the same time. An elderly man grabbed one in each hand and smiled.

“Don’t you have any respect for food?” she demanded.

Unmindful of the scene playing out behind him, the man shook his head, grinned a toothless smile and aimed.

“Don’t you dare!” Amber said, holding a hand up in front of her face.

“Lighten up, honey,” he said. “It’s just a pastry.”

And then her own lemon meringue hit her in the face. Amber shrieked and whirled around—

“Hold it right there.”

With one hand Amber wiped pie from her face. She cleared her vision enough to see the pie thrower scuttle off to the side and disappear into the crowd. She wiped away more meringue and the shadow in front of her came into focus, the details registering. Tall, with broad shoulders, a slim waist and feet planted apart, he scowled at her. A very big, very threatening cop stood not three feet away.

“You’re under arrest, lady.”

“Me? What did I do? I’m the one being attacked. Arrest one of them,” she demanded, waving the carving knife toward the Revelers now merrily flinging the rest of her lemon tarts at each other.

The cop didn’t spare a glance at the havoc being wrought behind him. “Drop the knife now.”

Amber tensed at the tone. Then she looked up at the cop. His eyes glinted and she realized that his hand hovered near his revolver.

“What knife?”

He took a menacing step forward, and Amber whimpered. The carving knife she’d forgotten she clutched in her hand clattered to the floor. In the next moment, the cop was all over her. He grabbed her arm, yanking it around her back.

“You’re hurting me.”

He didn’t answer. Instead, she felt the cold steel of handcuffs clamp on her wrist.

Something snapped in her then, and Amber fought. A fragment of the self-defense she’d been taught flickered through her. She kicked out at him. “No! You can’t do this. I won’t let you do this…”

One of her kicks connected and she heard his intake of breath. Her small victory, however, was short-lived. He held her tightly and secured the other wrist.

“Lady, if you don’t settle down,” he said, his voice a deceptively calm growl, “I’m going to add resisting arrest to your charges.”

It wasn’t so much what he said as the way the words sounded that got to her. They held a rumbled warning of coming pain. She knew that tone, knew what would happen to her if she defied him again. She’d tried to fight. She’d tried to remember she didn’t have to be a victim. She’d also tried to remember how to defend herself.

But he had the physical advantage of height and weight and strength. Resistance was futile, she realized. Why did it always have to be this way?

Amber closed her eyes and surrendered to the inevitable.

The handcuffed woman went limp, and Paul had to move fast to catch her before she hit the floor.

Police Chief Paul Evans commanded a force of forty sworn officers and a full complement of dispatchers, secretaries and other civilians whose job it was to maintain the peace in Wayside. He’d been warned that the Wayside Revelers had a tendency to get out of hand at their events. So he’d been on patrol in the vicinity of the community center.

When he heard first a shout and then breaking glass, he’d called for backup and rushed in, just in time to have a small, blond beauty threaten him with a wicked-looking blade.

Even now, with the hellion subdued at his side, his officers swarmed the building rounding up rabble-rousers.

He turned to call one of the officers—

Thwack!

A mound of potatoes au gratin hit his forehead. Paul spotted the culprit, a little old man who quickly ditched the serving spoon he’d used as a missile launcher. The man then snatched up a serving tray lid and used it as a shield against the lemon tarts hurled his way.

“Jones!” Paul bellowed.

The cop sprinted forward.

“You there,” Paul ordered the old man. “Stop it.”

The devilish gleam in the elderly man’s eyes was replaced by an expression of innocence and fake senility. “Me?”

“Yeah, you.”

Dragging along a remarkably subdued knife wielder, Paul unlocked a second pair of cuffs.