Elisabeth Rees - Safe House Under Fire

Title Page Safe House Under Fire Elisabeth Rees www.millsandboon.co.uk

Copyright ISBN: 978-0-008-90647-4 SAFE HOUSE UNDER FIRE © 2020 Elisabeth Rees Published in Great Britain 2020 by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental. By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher. ® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries. www.millsandboon.co.uk

Note to Readers

Introduction “There’s a fire in the basement and we need to leave immediately…” Lilly looked down at her robe and slippers. “Can’t we get dressed first?” “There’s no time,” said David. “I want to be out of here before the fire department arrives, so we only have five or six minutes at the most.” “You’re talking like they’re the bad guys.” “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of, Lilly,” he said. “Henderson might be masquerading as a firefighter again. We have no way of knowing who to trust.” He pointed to her open bedroom door. “Go get your daughter, and let’s leave.” David’s partner approached the front door as someone knocked. “The fire department got here really quick. It looks like they’re doing door-to-door checks.” The locks turned just as David realized what was about to happen. “No! Don’t do it.” It was too late. The door flew open with a bang, kicked firmly with a firefighter’s boot. “I just want the woman and the girl,” Henderson said from behind his mask. “Give them to me…and I’ll let you live.”

Dear Reader Dear Reader, Thank you for joining David and Lilly on their romantic journey. I hope you enjoyed reading their story as much as I enjoyed writing it. Parenting teens is a subject close to my heart, as I have one teenager of my own, and one in training. It’s often hard to know how to manage teenagers’ ups and downs, coupled with their constant demands. It is the perfect subject matter for a strong conflict between two people. David and Lilly are both stubborn when it comes to accepting criticism of their parenting. Yet none of us is perfect. There is no faultless way to raise a child, no model parent and no foolproof way to avoid the pitfalls. It took Lilly and David a little while to work this out, but once they began adhering to the principle of speaking the truth in love, they let go of the idea of perfection and focused instead on simply enjoying the ride. God only ever speaks to us in love, even when He is reprimanding us, and if we try to do the same with our own children, we cannot go far wrong. Please join me for Goldie’s story in my next book. I would love to welcome you as a reader again. Blessings, Elisabeth

Bible Verse And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. —Ephesians 4:32

Dedication For my daughter, Alys

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TEN

ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

“Astrid, will you please come here this minute. If I have to ask again, you’ll be grounded until Sunday.”

Lilly Olsen rushed around her living room, plumping the cushions, straightening the throws and arranging the magazines into piles. She hated to return from work to a messy home, so she tried to make life easier by keeping on top of things. Juggling her job as bank clerk with parenting a wayward fifteen-year-old daughter was difficult enough already.

“Astrid,” she shouted, feeling her patience wear thinner than ever. “It’s eight fifteen. You’ll be late for school and I’ll be late for work.” She muttered under her breath, “Again.”

“Okay, Mom, you don’t have to yell. Why do you always have to yell?”

Astrid appeared in the hallway of their one-story home, wearing head-to-toe black clothing, topped off with a velvet beret. She was apparently now going through a goth phase. This came on the heels of a skater phase and a Japanese cartoon phase. She was clearly struggling to establish her identity, and Lilly had learned to pick her battles carefully.

“You can take off that black lipstick in the car,” she said, choosing to ignore the rest of the outfit. “I have some wipes in the glove box.”

Astrid flounced past her. “You’re such a killjoy.”

“Yes, I am,” Lilly said, retrieving her keys from a hook on the wall. “And that’s a good use of the word killjoy , by the way. You have a great vocabulary when you choose to use it.”

Her daughter groaned and sighed, picking up her school backpack from the hallway floor and opening the front door. As if the day was set against her, a fine mist of rain was falling. Lilly’s perfectly straightened, fine blond hair would now frizz up in seconds.

“Well, let’s go,” Astrid said with an eye roll. “You were the one desperate to leave.”

“Don’t you roll your eyes at me, young lady,” Lilly said sharply, sounding horribly like her own mother. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately. Did I do something wrong?”

“Um, let me think,” Astrid said. “First of all, you gave me a totally stupid name.”

Lilly was aghast. “Astrid is a beautiful Scandinavian name. You should be proud of your Swedish heritage.”

“Second of all,” her daughter said, beginning to check the numbers off on her hand. “It’s my sixteenth birthday soon and you haven’t organized a thing. You know I want a party.”

Lilly pinched the bridge of her nose. “I know, I know. We’ll talk about it later, okay?” She ushered Astrid through the door and beeped her car to unlock it. “I’ve been so busy dealing with a very important client at work that it slipped my mind.”

“And third of all,” Astrid said, following her mom down the path, clomping in her heavy black shoes. “I wanted Dad to come visit for my birthday, but you drive him away all the time with your snarky attitude.”

Lilly stopped dead, turned around slowly and looked her daughter straight in the eye.

“Is that why you’re acting up?” she asked. “Are you upset because your father never comes to see you?”