Courting Ruth & the Agent's Secret Past by Emma Miller

Author:Emma Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781488024917
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 1

Eight years later

Run faster!

He was behind her, gaining speed.

The raspy pull of air in and out of his lungs grew louder, signaling his approach.

At any moment, she expected his work-worn hand to grab her shoulder and send her crashing onto the asphalt roadway.

How had he found her?

For the last eight years, she’d been stationed overseas. Three deployments to the Middle East, a twenty-four-month tour in Korea and a three-year assignment in Germany, all far from Harmony, Alabama, and her past.

She smelled his stench, an evil mix of hay and sweat.

“Becca,” he whispered in her ear.

She gasped for air, woke from her nightmare, clawed at the sheets and blinked her eyes open, searching the darkness of her bachelor officer’s quarters.

Sitting up in bed, she threw the covers aside and stepped onto the floor, the tiles cool to her bare feet. She shook her head in an attempt to scatter the dream that came too often.

She was at Fort Rickman, Georgia, not the Amish community where she had grown up.

Reality check. She had run away from Jacob Yoder eight years earlier. Supposedly he had died later that night after killing her father and sister.

Unnerved by the nightmare, Becca grabbed her holstered, service weapon off the nightstand and stumbled into the hallway on her way to the kitchen. She needed to hydrate her body and clear her mind. If only she could wash the memories away.

She placed the gun, which had been her almost constant companion for the last eight years, next to her purse on the kitchen table and opened the cabinet over the sink in search of a glass. A sickening smell, like rotten eggs, hit her full force.

Pinpricks of fear needled the nape of her neck.

She glanced at the gas cooking range. The burners were off. The flame on the pilot lights glowed crimson in the dark.

The smell was intense, overpowering, deadly.

Run!

She reached for her Glock and slipped her handbag over her shoulder as she raced through the living area to the back door. Fingers trembling, she fumbled at the lock, dead bolt and chain, her progress slowed by the protective safeguards she had put in place. For too long, she had tried to distance herself from Jacob, fearing he was still alive.

Her pulse pounded in her ear, like a ticking time bomb ready to explode. She had to escape before—

The door opened. She ran into the night, inhaling the pure, sweet air that filled her lungs.

In the distance beyond the common green space stood the older BOQ apartments. Even at this late hour a few lights glowed in the windows.

She glanced back at the newly built quad she’d moved into ten days earlier. The only occupant thus far.

Digging into her purse, she traded her gun for her cell and speed dialed the Criminal Investigation Division on post, where she worked. The noncommissioned officer on duty answered on the second ring.

“This is Special Agent Rebecca Miller. Notify the fire department and military police of a gas leak in the new BOQ quad on Eisenhower Drive.

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