AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Going full steam ahead on very little sleep wasn’t easy. He was used to it, but she wasn’t.
“I want you to go home and rest.”
She cut her eyes at him, but didn’t protest. That in itself told him how exhausted she really was.
Ten minutes later, he pulled into her driveway. With a wave to the police cruiser assigned to watch her house, he walked her to the front door.
Placing his hands on her shoulders, he turned her to face him. “Hang in there, Lacey. I think we’re getting close.”
“How can you say that?” Doubt stared up at him.
“Just a gut feeling. The incidents are escalating. We may be making someone nervous.”
“Nervous enough to hurt Bethany?” she whispered.
The quiet words cut a path of hurt through his heart and he pulled her close for a hug. “I sure hope not, but we can’t stop looking. Bethany’s counting on you to find her.”
She gave a weary smile. “I know.”
“Which means you can’t collapse when we finally locate her. Go to bed.”
The light in Lacey’s eyes had dimmed to the point where it wouldn’t take much for it to be snuffed completely out. She had to regroup. Recharge her body and let her racing mind rest.
He placed a kiss on her forehead and she blinked. “Good night, Mason.”
“Night.”
He watched her go and felt weariness creep through him. He’d grab a couple of hours of rest, just enough to keep him going physically, then he’d be back at it.
* * *
Lacey’s parents had gone out with some friends. That concerned her slightly as she was afraid the person who seemed to want to torment her would go after them. However, Lacey felt there would be safety in numbers and told her parents they needed the break.
Plus Mason had asked a fellow off-duty marshal to keep an eye on them. Carly Masterson. Lacey smiled. The woman was getting married soon and yet she’d immediately agreed to help Mason out. That said a lot about his friends and what they thought of him.
So her parents had gone.
Which left her home alone with a police officer bodyguard outside the front of the house.
Lacey grabbed some leftovers from her parents’ supper the night before and absently warmed them up. Three bites of spaghetti and she was nauseous.
Fatigue, worry and anger at the person doing this pressed in on her. What had shedoneto this person to incite such hate?
All her life she’d played it safe, except for that one night with Mason when they’d ignored everything they’d been taught. One: don’t put yourself in a place where it would be easy to give in to temptation. And two: flee temptation when you’re hit with it.
Then she’d had a baby to take care of and no one except herself to lean on.
At least that’s what she told herself.
Really, looking back, she saw where God placed people in her path all along her journey. The Christian counselor at the home, Mrs. Chisolm, who’d rented her one of her spare bedrooms, and then helped take care of Bethany after she was born.
Lacey had walked in on the woman studying her Bible or praying on many occasions. At first it had made her uncomfortable, then she found it sweet that the woman told Bethany Bible stories. As a result, she watched her daughter flourish under the older woman’s love.
The love Lacey’s mother should have been lavishing on Bethany.
But her parents hadn’t mellowed the slightest until after Bethany’s sixth birthday and by then Lacey was well and truly disconnected from them, except for the occasional card she felt compelled to write.
Until three years ago when she came to understand God’s love. Not the kind of God her father preached about every Sunday, the one who was sitting in judgment ready to strike the minute she did something wrong, but a God who loved her just as she was—mistakes and all.
