Fraser, page 24
Yes, this life was enough.
God was enough, right here. Right now.
Now. The word spoken in the wind. It hung onto him, filled his bones.
Now. Not tomorrow. Not the grand purpose.
Now, right here, with God, enjoying His presence. Him.
“What are you grinning at?” Pippa had let go of his hand.
He picked up the syrup. “Just…nothing. And everything.”
She cocked her head. Then smiled and nodded.
On the table, her cell phone buzzed, and she picked it up. “Movement from the barn sensor.”
He drew in a breath.
“It looks like a truck. Maybe Ham’s truck?” She handed him the phone.
The familiar F-150 pulled into the drive. “Yeah. And someone’s with him.”
He finished his food, and Pippa cleared the plates by the time the doorbell rang. He answered it.
“Gunner,” Pippa said from behind him.
Right. He remembered the man from the hotel. Tall, blond, wide-chested, although he was out of uniform, wearing black jeans and a leather jacket.
“Hello, Pippa,” said Gunner.
Ham stood with him. “How’s the hand?”
“Getting there. Come in.”
The two men stepped inside. Behind them, the day was breaking over the far horizon, a hint of chill in the air.
Maybe tonight he’d make a fire in the hearth. Pull Pippa into his embrace and just watch the flames flicker.
Pippa was wiping her hands. She wore her hair down today, dark and shiny. And a pair of yoga pants, a white oxford rolled up to the elbows.
Bare feet.
And he couldn’t help but think of the woman he’d met in Geneva. Uptight. Armed.
Yeah, she’d tased him all right. Sent a shock right through to his heart.
“Sorry I haven’t been around sooner,” Gunner said as Fraser closed the door behind them. “I’ve been arranging to bring Fredrik back to Lauchtenland for recovery, interrogation, and trial.”
Pippa’s mouth made a tight line. “Have you gotten much out of him?”
“No. But we’ve gone through his computer, his apartment, and already started our investigation at home. Apparently, he’d been involved with RECO for some time. Gerwig was a mate from uni, back in the day. I didn’t know that.”
“Does he have any connection with Hamish Fickle?”
“None, other than Fickle is also RECO. We’ve kept the incident out of the press for now, so no one knows, including Fickle. We have people on him, watching.”
“I can’t believe Fredrik would…” Pippa shook her head.
“He was my brother,” Gunner said. “So I share your disbelief.”
Ham glanced at Fraser. He had his own sad story of betrayal, so Fraser got it.
“What’s going on?” Imani came down the stairs. She stilled when she spotted Gunner.
“Hello, Your Highness.”
She walked over and stood behind Pippa.
“I’m so sorry for what my brother did to you. You were wise to run. And even wiser to trust your friend Creed. I’m so sorry for what happened to him.”
She offered a bare smile. But Fraser saw her slip her hand into Pippa's.
“I have something for you,” Gunner said. He carried a satchel and now pulled out of it an envelope. “It’s from your mother. It’s airline tickets to Hearts Bend, when you’re ready.”
He handed over the envelope.
She took it. “Thank you.”
“We’ll probably be sticking around here for a while,” Pippa said, glancing at her.
Fraser raised an eyebrow when Imani said, “Anything you say, Pippa.”
Huh.
“Are those waffles for Creed?” She pointed to a stack on the counter.
“Yes. And you. Fix him a plate.”
Imani grabbed a plate from the cupboard and filled it, adding syrup.
“I have something for you too, Pippa. I didn’t want to leave without giving it to you.”
He pulled out a large white envelope from his back. “It’s from Her Majesty Queen Catherine.”
She blinked at him a moment, then opened the envelope. She drew out a folder and opened it. “It’s the Golden Rose.”
“Indeed, it is.”
Fraser walked over to her. “What’s the Golden Rose?”
“It’s like your Medal of Honor, our highest award.”
Her hand covered her mouth, and when she looked at Fraser, her eyes had filled.
“What?” He came over to her.
“It’s for my dad,” she said.
Indeed. Inscribed on the certificate was the name Sir Phillip Butler III.
“I don’t understand.”
“Read the note,” Gunner said.
She set down the folder and opened the note. Fraser read over her shoulder.
To Phillipa Fay Butler, from the Office of Her Majesty Queen Catherine,
It has come to my attention your gallant actions regarding my beloved granddaughter, HRH Princess Imani. Your bravery, sacrifice, and loyalty is exactly what I have come to expect from the House of Butler.
It did, however, bring to mind the tragic events of your father’s sacrifice for our country, and I asked my secretary to look into the events. I discovered, to my dismay, that he was never awarded the honors due his name and actions.
My beloved husband, HM Prince Edric, recalls that day as one of terror and gratefulness. More, upon reading the investigation report, it is clear that your father took the place of a RECO-affiliated guard that day.
He very well knew of his sacrifice before he made it.
This, above all, deserves the honor he was denied until now.
We shall have a proper Golden Rose ceremony upon your return. Until then, my deepest gratitude for your sacrifice and your continued service in Her Majesty's Security Detail.
HM Queen Catherine
Pippa looked up at Fraser, then Gunner.
Gunner stood to attention. Saluted her.
“Thank you, sir.”
“I look forward to seeing you on Her Highness’s service when you return.”
She set down the paper. Looked at Fraser. “Thank you, sir, but no.”
“No?” Gunner raised an eyebrow.
“I have a job, sir. To protect Princess Imani. Where she goes, I go. I…like I said, I understand her. And she needs a special kind of bodyguard.”
Imani had finished plating her food and was heading for the stairs. She looked over at Pippa. Smiled. Nodded. Mouthed, a thank you.
“I see.” Gunner looked at Fraser, back to Pippa. “But after she returns to Lauchtenland?”
“After that…” She looked at Fraser, smiled. “We’ll see.”
And with those words, Fraser’s heart nearly left his chest.
“And what are you going to do?” Ham said to Fraser.
He pointed to his cast. “Eat waffles, and maybe watch paint dry.”
Ham considered him a moment. Then nodded. “Okay then.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Ham closed the door behind himself and Gunner, and Fraser turned to Pippa. She was wiping her face. “Wow.”
He picked up the letter, read it again. Set it down. “He knew he was going to die.”
“Maybe. Maybe that’s why he looked at me.”
“Maybe that’s why God had you there that day.”
She met his eyes. Held his gaze.
“The truth I know now—that I’d forgotten for a while—is that we are never more loved than by our God. Our refuge and strength,” he said.
She nodded. Whispered, “‘Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.”
He touched her face. “Yes. And maybe mine too?”
She leaned in and touched his forehead. “A little bit glad I tased you?”
“A little bit,” he said. Then he kissed her.
And prayed it took a long time for the paint to dry.
“I would have picked you up at the airport. You should have called.” Fraser stood next to the Uber as his father unloaded their suitcases. His mother had come around, wearing a ball cap, a pair of jeans, and a jacket, wearing the four days it had taken them to get home on her expression.
“We left you a message when we got to London,” his father said as he added their backpacks to the pile in the driveway. “But that was two days ago, and we didn’t know when we’d get in, with our flights cancelled from London to Minneapolis.”
The answering machine. Fraser hadn’t thought to check it after he arrived home from the hospital yesterday. He reached for a backpack in the pile.
“Oh no you don’t,” said Pippa, coming out of the front door. She’d been at the monitors, watching, and had alerted him to the unknown car coming up the driveway. He guessed she’d tucked her Magnum back in her belt when she spotted him embracing their interlopers.
“Hi,” she said, sticking out her hand to his mother. “I’m Pippa Butler.”
His mother, Jenny, pulled her into a hug. “Fraser briefed us when he called after Creed got out of surgery. Apparently, you all have had quite the adventure.”
“Sorry to descend on your place—”
“We’re glad to have you,” his father said. “Garrett Marshall.” He shook Pippa’s hand. “Stay as long as you need.”
She pulled the backpack over her shoulder and grabbed the handle of a suitcase. “It might be a bit, given that we still don’t have any leads. Unfortunately, Fredrik, the only connection to what’s going on, is still unconscious after his transfer back to Lauchtenland.”
His father grabbed another backpack and the other suitcase. “How’s your hand, son?”
Fraser realized he’d unconsciously wrapped his good arm around his cast. “Pain is subsiding. And I’m getting some feeling back.”
“Praying hard,” his father said, and gave him a smile.
Yeah, him too. But, “I’m okay on the sidelines for a bit.”
His father glanced at Pippa, now hoisting the bag into the house after his mother. “I’ll bet.” He winked.
Fraser couldn’t help a smile. Yep.
They went inside and Creed met them, on crutches.
“Aw, Creed,” his father said. “It’ll be okay.” He pulled him into a hug.
“That’s what Fraser said.” Creed gave him a thin smile.
Fraser met it, nodded.
Behind Creed stood Imani, getting a hug from his mother.
Creed introduced Imani to their dad, who also gave her a hug. “So, the epic trip to Europe turned out to be a little more epic than you thought,” he said as he let her go, looking at both of them.
Creed managed a wry smile. “Sorry.”
“I’m just glad you’re okay and all of this is over,” his mother said.
His father had walked into his office.
“Can I bring these upstairs?” Pippa asked, referring to the bags.
“Oh, Pippa, you—”
“Fraser, come here.” His father’s voice interrupted his mother’s objection.
Fraser glanced at his mom, Pippa, then headed into the office.
His dad was leaning on the desk, next to the recorder, wearing a grim look.
He pushed play on the ancient machine.
Ned’s voice. “Hey, um, Fraser—tried to get ahold of you, but you didn’t pick up. Hope you got Creed home okay. I just wanted to let you know that I think I tracked down Jonas, and there’s a plan to extract him. And I think we found him in time. As long as he didn’t get too close, you know? So I guess we’ll see. I just wanted to give you an update. Don’t tell Mom and Dad—they have enough on their plate.” A pause, during which Fraser looked at his father. Oddly, the old man swallowed, then looked away.
What was that?
Then Ned continued. “Maybe I wasn’t supposed to say anything, but I don’t have time to record another message…just…stay put. I’ll call you if I need you, but for now, don’t worry…I promise I’ll find Jonas and bring him home.”
A click, and then the message began to play his father’s message from London.
His father pressed End.
Looked at Fraser. “What’s happened to Jonas?”
What happens next?
The epic romance and adventure continues in book 2 of the Minnesota Marshalls. We have a sneak peek for you…
JONAS
The Minnesota Marshalls || Book 2
Chapter 1
He had to get off this mountain.
Because, if Jonas read the skies correctly, a doozy of a storm was headed his direction.
And Jonas Marshall, with his PhD in atmospheric science, always read the skies correctly. Or at least, with a 99.8 percent probability.
The other point-two percent were simply those God moments that no one saw coming. But then again, that’s when people died.
So yes, barring a divine intervention, the altocumulus clouds that had chased him most of the morning, now morphing into dark gray, ragged nimbostratus clutter, would turn this day hike into a soggy, freezing fight for survival.
“C’mon, we need to go.”
He said this to his buddy Nixon, who held his cell phone up, taking a panoramic view of the Julian Alps. “Just another minute.”
The wind cut through Jonas’s Gore-Tex jacket, and he shoved his hands into his pockets against the chill. But he got it.
He could take just another moment to soak in the glorious view from atop the 2,864 meter high Triglav Mountain. Craggy granite spires, high pockets tufted with white, rumpled the horizon from here in Slovenia to Italy to the west, and across the Austrian border to the north and east.
Gray cliffs fell down to green valleys pooled with moraine-blue lakes and countless spectacular waterfalls. Feeding them were roiling rivers that twined through a thick northland forest, ripe with cedar and pine and the sense of a world untouched.
Probably it was, because Slovenia was largely hidden from the popular tourist hotspots. Jonas had only found it because of Tarek—and, of course, the footage from Walter 01, one of his weather dirigibles, a solar powered, directed balloon soaring over the northern border.
Walt hadn’t quite captured the scale of the mountain, the crisp, thin air, the heady feeling of flying as he stood at the top.
Sort of felt like he could just take a step off and soar.
Sometimes, lately—especially since the accident—he wished it.
Shouting in Slovenian turned him, and he spotted a kid, maybe age twelve, sticking his head into the giant white canister at the apex of the mountain.
“Can’t believe that kid made it up here.” He said it to himself, mostly, but Nixon made a noise, even as he kept filming.
“Next time you invite me to visit, maybe let’s not do it on summer holidays,” Nixon said.
“Right.” He expected the holiday crowds down in the Alpine town of Kranjska Gora, on the banks of the river Sava, where Slovenes escaped with their families for the August holiday. But families and day adventurers clogged the trail through the Krma Valley, despite the technical challenges near the top, with him having to use carabiners attached to cables.
A tiny red flag on the apex of the canister whipped wildly in the wind.
Get off the mountain. He wanted to wave his hands and yell, but probably they had hours left, and maybe he shouldn’t be the crazy American on top of the mountain scaring everyone.
But still.
“Nixon—”
“Got it.” He pocketed his camera, grinning at Jonas. “Wait until Geena sees this.”
Jonas tried to keep his smile, nod, but he just…aw. “How is she?”
“She’s good. They have her hooked to a machine that moves her legs, and she sent me a video just a couple days ago of her upright and ‘walking.’” He finger quoted the last word with one hand.
Everything inside Jonas burned. “That’s great.”
“You’ll see. She’ll be walking again this time next year.”
He searched Nixon’s face for guile, but only found honesty in his friend’s brown eyes. Or maybe faith.
“Here, let’s take a selfie.” Nixon held out the camera and stepped up to Jonas, lifting it high to catch the breathtaking terrain behind them.
Jonas managed a smile, the camera and sunlight glinting off his mirrored sunglasses.
“She’ll love that,” Nixon said. “I’ll send it when we get to the mountain hut.” He pulled on his backpack.
“No internet there, Nix. You’ll have to wait until we get off the mountain.”
Jonas also shouldered his pack, glad to see the family with the kid had already left the top. Still remaining were a young couple and two women who’d just arrived at the peak.
He walked by them wanting to offer a “Don’t stay too long,” but opted to keep his mouth shut.
Mostly because he couldn’t speak the language, but also because it wasn’t his…nope, he couldn’t stay silent.
He stopped and turned to one of the women, her brown hair pulled back in a long tawny braid down her back, her eyes shielded by aviator sunglasses. “It’s going to rain. Don’t stay long.”
He wasn’t surprised when she just ignored him. But her friend, shorter with a pixie cut to her dark hair, looked past her. “Thanks.”
Hmm.
The couple was leaving, so he followed Nixon off the mountaintop, clipping into the line that led down the ridgeline.
An hour later, he’d descended nearly a thousand feet and found himself sitting inside the small gathering room of the Kredarica mountain hut, rain pelleting the windows, shivering as a man stoked a fire blazing in the black stove in the middle of the room. Around him, the family he’d seen shared sandwiches, and the couple had heated up some soup, all of them eating their dinners at the rough-hewn picnic tables. Many were still shivering.
“You were right,” Nixon said, handing him a cup of tea, then scooting in beside him. “That mountain is socked in. Hope those women got off it.”
He did too.
