Catherine Palmer - Stranger In The Night

“Catherine Palmer pens a page-turner with a…thought-provoking plot.”

— Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Fatal Harvest

“Palmer knows how to write about a sensitive subject with wisdom and kindness.”

— Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Thread of Deceit

“Marked by top-notch writing and sweeping drama.”

— Library Journal on The Briton

“Veteran romance writer Palmer…delivers a satisfying tale of mother-daughter dynamics sprinkled with romance.”

— Library Journal on Leaves of Hope

“Enjoyable…Faith fiction fans will find this novel just their cup of tea.”

— Publishers Weekly Religion Bookline on Leaves of Hope

“Believable characters tug at heartstrings, and God’s power to change hearts and lives is beautifully depicted.”

— Romantic Times BOOKreviews on “Christmas in My Heart” in That Christmas Feeling

“ Love’s Haven is a glorious story that was wonderfully told…. Catherine Palmer did a stand-up job of describing each scene and creating a world which no reader will want to leave.”

— Cataromance Reviews

Christy Award-Winning Author

A Haven Novel

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To the refugees in Clarkston, Georgia,

who have brought such joy into my life.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to those who shared stories of their work with refugees. In particular, I’m grateful to Tim Cummins, Terry Earl, Bennett Ekandem, Kim Kimbrell and all the caseworkers and other staff at World Relief. May God bless each of you. As always, my gratitude to my husband is boundless. Thank you for reading every word—sometimes more than once. I love you, Tim.

“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land,

you shall not do him wrong.

The stranger who sojourns with you

shall be to you as the native among you,

and you shall love him as yourself…

I am the Lord your God.”

— Leviticus 19:33–34

“Come, you who are blessed by the Father,

inherit the Kingdom prepared for you

from the foundation of the world.

For…I was a stranger,

and you took me in.”

— Jesus Christ

Matthew 25:34–35

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

Chapter Twenty-One

Questions for Discussion

S weat dampening the wrinkled sheet beneath him, Joshua Duff counted the spurts of AK-47 bullets hitting the front door. The first round slipped into his nightmare—house check on a nameless street in Kabul. A search for insurgents. Dread crawled through him like a snake, twining around his neck, suffocating him as he crept forward in the heat. Faces stared at him, brown eyes luminous beneath long, fringed black lashes. Mouths smiled, lips parting over missing teeth. Hands reached out, fingers extended.

Friend? Or enemy?

The second round of staccato hammering woke Joshua from the troubled dream. The strangled breaths were his own. Jerking upright, he reached for a gun that wasn’t there. The smell of gym shoes, basketballs, dusty concrete caught in his nostrils. This was not his barracks.

Or was it?

His eyes searched the darkness. Confusion tore through his brain as he worked to decipher data. A form lay on a bed across from him. The mound of muscled shoulder was motionless. Another man sprawled on a mattress near the door.

Comrade or civilian?

Asleep or dead?

A single window filled the only visible wall.

Somewhere nearby, an animal snuffled.

Death still stalking him, perspiration beading his bare chest, Joshua gripped the rounded aluminum frame of his cot. He licked his lips, expecting grit. Its absence surprised him. The tendon in his jaw flickered as he tried to force reality into his brain.

Of all the adversaries he’d faced in his thirty years, this was the most wily. This doubt and hesitation, this inability to decode the truth, eluded him like a Taliban sniper in the Hindu Kush Mountains. He tensed, waiting for an imam’s voice to drift from a distant minaret, the morning melody of Islam. The start of another day.

The hammering rang out a third time. Not a machine gun, it was fist against metal.

“Devil take ’em.” Sam Hawke’s familiar voice was drowsy in the stifling room. Hawke was a fellow Marine. Reconnaissance. They had patrolled the streets together too many times to count.

The other man unfolded now, a hiss groaning through the air mattress beneath him. “Where’s Duke? Come here, boy.”

A German shepherd’s low-throated growl answered. Joshua recognized it. He had seen the dog before. But where? Toenails clicked across the cement floor as Duke paced. The edges of Joshua’s nightmare began to sift away like desert sand.

“I’ll get the door,” Sam said, rising. He glanced at Joshua. “Duff, you stay put. Let’s go, Terell.”

Terell Roberts—the third man’s name. He stood and stretched. His dark skin shimmered with perspiration.

Duke tensed, waiting for one of them to open the door. The dog anticipated each movement the men made. He knew this routine.

Sam flipped on a lamp and Joshua scanned the room, distinguishing a heap of jeans and T-shirts awaiting detergent and a dryer. He noted a clipboard near his cot, the list of activities Sam had planned for the coming day. Joshua recalled his friend handing it to him, explaining what he’d written—basketball practice, homework and tutoring, woodworking, computer skills, ballet lessons, crochet, arts and crafts.

Hardly the business of their Marine Corps reconnaissance unit.

He spotted his wallet and keys on a low table. That wallet held U. S. tens, twenties, fifties. More than a month had passed since he’d carried colorful paper afghanis with their detailed etchings of mosques, and handfuls of jingling puls in his uniform pockets. He had rented a civilian car at the airport. He recalled parking the black Cadillac near the building’s front door the evening before.

This was what they called post-combat disorder. Post-traumatic stress syndrome…

A fourth round of hammering broke his focus.

“Persistent booger,” Sam muttered.

Shaking off his confusion, Joshua got to his feet. “What’s up, Hawke?”

“Nothing. We get this every night. Homeless folks in search of a bed, a drink, another fix bang on Haven’s door. Some think it says Heaven.”

“Yeah, and they’re ready.” Terell chuckled ruefully as he stepped into a pair of flip-flops.

Joshua recalled the old building now. Haven, the sign over the entrance read. This was Sam Hawke’s place, the youth center he and Terell Roberts had opened about a year ago. While deployed together, Sam had told Joshua about playing basketball in college. He had spoken of Terell, the consummate athlete, destined for the history books. Last night, Joshua learned that Terell had spent a few years in the pros before bottoming out. Sam had come to his rescue, and with the last of Terell’s NBA savings, they had started Haven.