The Heart of a Hero
The Heart of a Hero
“Susan May Warren whips up a maelstrom of action that slams Jake and Aria together and keeps the pages turning. Twists, turns, and constant danger keep you wondering whether this superb cast of characters can ride out the storm.”
James R. Hannibal, multi–award winning author of Chasing the White Lion
Praise for The Way of the Brave
“The Way of the Brave grabbed me at the first chapter and never let go. Susan May Warren is a master storyteller, creating strong, confident, and compassionate characters. This book is no different. The healing of Jenny and Orion as they brave the elements of Denali is a perfect mirror of our journey in Christ. Daily we must go ‘the way of the brave.’”
Rachel Hauck, New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding Dress and The Memory House
“Warren lays the foundation of a promising faith-influenced series with this exciting outing.”
Publishers Weekly
“The first in Warren’s Global Search and Rescue series combines high-adrenaline thrills and a sweet romance. Perfect for fans of Dee Henderson and Irene Hannon.”
Booklist
Praise for the Montana Rescue Series
“Pitting characters against nature—and themselves—in a rugged mountain setting, Susan May Warren pulls readers in on page one and never lets go.”
Irene Hannon, bestselling author and three-time RITA Award winner
“Warren’s stalwart characters and engaging story lines make her Montana Rescue series a must-read.”
Booklist
“Troubled Waters is a story that will not be easy to forget and one that you will read again.”
Fresh Fiction
“Everything about this story sparkles: snappy dialogue, high-flying action, and mountain scenery that beckons the reader to take up snowboarding.”
Publishers Weekly
Books by Susan May Warren
MONTANA RESCUE
Wild Montana Skies
Rescue Me
A Matter of Trust
Troubled Waters
Storm Front
Wait for Me
GLOBAL SEARCH AND RESCUE
The Way of the Brave
The Heart of a Hero
© 2020 by Susan May Warren
Published by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.revellbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-2321-7
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Contents
Cover
Endorsements
Books by Susan May Warren
Title Page
Copyright Page
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
About the Author
Back Ads
Book Tip In
Back Cover
CHAPTER 1
IN THE DAYLIGHT, Jake Silver wasn’t the devil.
He didn’t hear the screams.
Didn’t smell the pungent residue of gun smoke tinging the air.
Didn’t destroy lives.
In the daylight, he was just Uncle Jake, the guy who knew how to fly.
Jake tucked his feet into the toe straps in the trampoline of his Hobie 16 catamaran and glanced at the sky.
A perfect day. Blue skies overhead, a high in the low eighties, a scattering of cirrus that lent just enough shadow to escape the July heat.
This morning, when Jake rose, gulping back a familiar scream, his body sheened with sweat, the sunrise had cast a glaze over the platinum water that lapped the fifty feet of shoreline of his parents’ lakeside home, leaving a beckoning trail of brilliant orange-and-golden sun. He’d had no choice but to surrender to the lure and drag out his cat, hopefully before the crazies hit the lake with their high-powered ski boats that dragged wakeboarders through the chop of Lake Minnetonka.
Deceiving, maybe, but the cool blue suggested a quietness that might calm the buzz that hummed right under his skin. Always, but especially since he’d come down from Denali a week ago.
No. Since he’d taken down a terrorist in the lobby of the Summit Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska.
A clean shot. A good kill.
But it awakened the demons.
Jake’s plan was easy—keep outrunning them. And for the last hour he’d heard nothing but the wind, felt the sun kiss his face, casting deep into his soul. The fragrance of the lake—brine and seaweed, the fishy scent of bass and sunnies that lived in the shallows—seasoned the air.
Yes, Jake could die happily out here, in the water, away from everything that landlocked him.
He guessed the wind at about 10 knots, enough for a sweet joyride from one side of the lake to the other, past the massive million-dollar homes that edged the shoreline.
He glanced over at the little girl sitting beside him. “How ya doin’, kid?”
Ten-year-old Aggie Jones wore her dark blonde hair in two tight braids down her back under a Twins ball cap his mother had found for her, along with a swimsuit and life jacket. He’d clipped her to the trapeze so she wouldn’t fly off should they catch a gust, but she sat on the lip of the trampoline, her feet tucked into the toe straps, gripping the edge.
Like she’d been sailing her entire life.
Now she looked at him and nodded. No grin, but he didn’t expect one. She might not even understand him. Aggie Jones hadn’t spoken a word since her father found her in Italy a week ago.
Of course, Hamilton hadn’t even known his daughter existed until he received a call from the air force base in Sigonella. The only survivor of a yachting accident, Agatha Jones was found by the Italian coast guard amidst the debris on shore. Although she identified herself to the American doctor serving at the clinic, she clammed up the minute Ham showed up.
Hadn’t said a word since. Just clutched her only possession, a grimy unicorn that had weathered the crash.
Ham was getting desperate. But the kid just needed time. After all, she’d just lost her mother. Jake knew what it felt like to have your entire world ripped out from under you. Hence his suggestion that Ham and Aggie join Jake and the Silver clan for today’s Fourth of July picnic.
When Jake had spotted Aggie up early, sitting in the sunroom, he’d invited her on his morning cruise. Asked permission from Ham, who’d spent way too long mulling over the answer.
Ham was out of his element for the first time in his life. Poor guy—the man could plan an op against a Taliban stronghold, execute and extract key prisoners, and escape through the mountains. But he didn’t know how to talk to a ten-year-old.
Worse, he was shaken by the fact that the woman he’d married had escaped the bombing that he thought had taken her life.
That she’d borne him a child.
That she’d spent the last decade in hiding. br />
And that he’d been too late, again, to save her life.
Yeah, Ham had his own regrets to run from. A snarl of unspoken confusion. And not that Jake knew much about kids, but being the favorite uncle of his sister’s rascals, he knew that sometimes you just had to stop trying so hard.
Probably advice he needed to give to himself. Let it go, let it go, according to his twin nieces, Lola and Darcy.
Someday, maybe.
“Hang on, sweetheart,” Jake said now. “We’re going to fly the hull!”
The cool spray of the water glistened on his surf shirt as he let out a little on the jib sheet. The catamaran rode up, skimming across the waves on the opposite hull. He held the tiller and the mainsheet in his left hand, controlled the jib sheet with his right, the sails on a broad reach.
“Woohoo!” He glanced again at Aggie. No smile as she hung on, her braids flying.
Tough crowd.
The cat rose to a forty-five-degree angle, nearly past the point of no return as they sliced through the waves. A few ski boats bobbed in the distance in Smith’s Bay, one of the favorite wakeboarding spots. He’d probably be buzzing his two nephews through it later today, or maybe farther, under the bridge and into Crystal Bay.
Now, he kept heading west, toward Big Island, along the shoreline of St. Louis Bay. The wind burned his ears, and he pulled in the jib as the cat picked up even more speed.
Yeah, this day had all the makings of a restart. Erase the crazy two weeks he’d spent nearly dying on Denali. And maybe too, stop obsessing over the fact that every time he found something good, he managed to screw it up with his stupid, impulsive behavior.
Like the fact that he’d finally met a woman—the woman—and . . . well, he wasn’t sure what happened, but the fact that the last time he’d seen her she was practically running from him should tell him that hadn’t quite worked out.
Let it go, let it go . . .
Today was the day of freedom. New starts. Taming the wind and moving on.
The jib caught a gust and the cat jerked.
He needed more control. Or maybe it was simply the call of the wind, but he shouted at Aggie, “Stay put!” Then, Jake scooted out and braced his feet on the edge, letting the trapeze hold him as he leaned out over the water. Pulling in the jib, he slowed them just enough for him to set his feet, then let the sail out again.
The wind grabbed him, shot the hull up.
He was flying, water spraying up, his body hanging over the water.
Hooyah.
Better than sky jumping, better than diving, hanging ten on his cat made him feel like Aquaman, master of the waves.
A noise breached the wind and he looked down to see Aggie looking up at him.
Was that a smile? It turned her entire countenance to sunshine and light, her blue eyes luminous. Wow. Jake thought she looked like Ham when she was serious, all intensity and focus, but when she smiled, Jake saw the man who’d led and inspired SEAL Team Three for the better part of a decade. A person of strength and hope.
The kid just might be okay, if they all played this right.
Jake grinned back at her. “Fun, right?”
She nodded.
Well, well.
He angled them around a fishing boat and into the wide-open chop of Lower Lake South.
Jet skiers chased him down the shore, lifting their hands. Early wakeboarders had arrived, surfing behind double-engine boats churning up wake.
A chilly breeze made him glance behind him. A brouhaha of black clouds gathered at the far eastern end of the lake, rolling like fists over the horizon, tumbling his direction. And judging by the sheet of dark blue, rain.
They still had time, but the way the wind bit the bare skin of his legs with icy teeth, probably he should steer them home.
Besides, if he knew his mother, she’d be waiting with a pile of French toast.
A scream jerked his attention down. Aggie was pointing—
A tuber had cut in front of his cat.
Jake pulled in his line and cut hard with his rudder, just missing them.
They lifted their hand, as if to apologize, but he was busy righting himself, the cat slowing fast.
He danced back to the center, drawing in the main and the jib sheet, and gathered himself, tasting his thundering heartbeat.
Maybe taking Aggie out for a run wasn’t the safest idea. But she was looking up at him, still grinning.
Having fun.
And he wanted more of that smile. So he let out the main, coming back around.
Jake moved back, adding more weight and leverage to his hold on the main and jib sheets. There was more chop in the open water, and he had to keep the jib in tight. He wrapped the line around his gloved hand, moving the rudder slightly to head toward St. Albin’s Bay, and home.
Their white legacy-farmhouse-turned-stately-home sprawled along the shoreline with a massive lawn that made for excellent youth group parties as a kid. His pastor father had lucked out with his lineage—the only child of a doctor, he’d inherited the family wealth.
They were skimming across the waves again, Jake standing on the flying hull, when he spotted Ham standing on the dock, still too far away to attempt shouting. His short dark blond hair blew in the wind and he wore cargo shorts and a T-shirt, trying to be casual. Jake hoped Aggie kept her smile for him when they docked.
Motorboats cut in front of him, jet skiers jumping their wakes. This time a water-skier raced him across the water.
The lake was turning into a traffic jam.
He had lowered the hull down to skim the waves, pulling in the main when a cruiser—something built for a day on the lake—sped by, churning up a frothy wake.
And right then, the storm gust caught him.
Maybe it was his balance—off from the sudden gust—or even the tumult of waves from the ski boat, but the cat’s opposite hull rode up the wave, dipping his side downward—
The water snagged him. Bracing, fast, quick, it sucked him under, stole his breath, stung his bones with the chill.
Not a problem—he was wearing a vest—but attached to the trapeze line, his weight dragged the mast with him. The momentum of their ride catapulted the cat forward.
The mast speared the water and just like that—
They capsized.
End over end, the mast pointed downward, turtling in the water.
The jib wrapped around him, the mast hit his head, and in a second, he was cocooned under the clutter of the lines, the sail, the gear.
Water filled his eyes.
His breath burned in his chest as he unclipped his vest. But the nylon of the sail tangled into his legs and he fought to free himself of the mess.
His lungs burned. Aggie!
He finally skimmed his hands down his legs, dove down, and kicked free.
Swimming hard, he surfaced. Breaths razored into his lungs. “Aggie!”
Water chopped over him, and he spat it out, blinking to clear his vision.
No little girl bobbing in the waves. “Aggie!”
She’d been attached to the cat. Which meant when it turned over, she would be caught underneath.
He dove down, under the mess, pushed past the soggy mast, and followed the lines to the trampoline.
She must have fought the trapeze line snagged onto the mast because she was tangled in the lines. Her hands pushed on the mesh of the trampoline, her mouth against the tiniest sip of air between waves.
She looked at him with an expression that could tear out his soul.
“Hang on!” He grabbed her vest and unhooked the trapeze line. Then took a breath and fought with the lines around her legs.
Where was his scuba knife when he needed it?
The cat sank deeper into the water, forcing her under.
She was going to drown.
Not on his watch.
He wrestled with the ropes, his lungs burning.
In BUD/S, the boot camp for SEALs, he’d learned to live without breathing,
half-drowning most of the time.
Frankly, it felt like he lived that way his entire life.
But now he was seeing spots, fighting not to let his body take a natural breath.
No—he wasn’t leaving.
Her legs came free and he kicked hard, dragging her out by her vest, forcing his jaw shut as he propelled them under the hull.
He shot to the surface. His body gulped air, his lungs searing.
She wasn’t breathing, her body limp in the water.
“No! C’mon!”
Please, God!
Then, suddenly, she coughed.
A motorboat sped up and he heard a splash.
Aggie started to cry. Such a blessed, wonderful sound Jake wanted to cry too. She covered her face with her hands, still coughing, crying.
“Give her to me!” Ham was in the water. He grabbed his daughter, such a wrecked expression on his face that Jake felt ill.
The boat came closer and Jake looked up to see his buddy North leaning over the side. “I got her, Ham.”
Ham didn’t seem to want to give her up—Jake could hardly blame him—but Ham lifted her to North, who grabbed her arms and pulled her into the boat.
Ham swam around to the back and hoisted himself up on the deck without a ladder.
Jake treaded water, watching as Ham scooped his daughter into his embrace.
Her arms went around his neck.
Then, Jake watched the bravest man he knew sink down into a seat, trembling.
“You okay, bro?” North said. “Need some help with that?” He wore a blue GoSports T-shirt, his dark brown hair slicked back, a pair of Oakleys on a lanyard on his head. He nodded toward the capsized catamaran. It lay spent, the mast spired down into the depths.
Oh, this would be fun. “No. Take Aggie in. She probably needs to go to the ER and get checked out. See if she has water in her lungs. Don’t worry about me. This is my mess. I’ll clean it up.”
North considered him a moment. “I’ll be back.” He sped off.
And as if on cue, the skies opened up and started to weep. Rain spat upon the water, and thunder rolled in the distance.
Jake grabbed the hull of his sunken ship, not sure how to rescue it from the depths.
Inside, Dr. Aria Sinclair was running.