Chapter 4
4
Hardy Anderson had grown up in public housing, entered the Army at eighteen, and spent six years living around the country and surviving two deployments. He’d seen a lot, both very good and very bad. Until ten minutes ago, he’d thought he’d seen it all and that nothing could surprise him anymore.
He’d been wrong.
He’d never met anyone like Stephanie Miller.
As he drove down the stretch of highway, he felt the girl’s attention on him once again. She was shy but observant. So very quiet.
He couldn’t believe Bev had sent her to him. The poor thing would likely be more comfortable with twenty other people his sister knew. But maybe that didn’t matter. For all his life, he’d always done what his sister asked of him. It was the least he could do.
When he felt the girl’s gaze on him again, he decided to say something. “You okay?”
“Yes,” she said after a brief pause.
What did that mean? Had she been afraid to admit that she needed something? Searching for ideas, he found only one that made any sense. “Do you need to go to the bathroom?”
“No.”
She sounded horrified that he’d mentioned it at all. It would be kind of cute if they weren’t going to be in his truck for at least another two hours. “Are you sure? If you need to go, we can stop. I know of a couple of places where not too many people frequent. They’re clean too.” Bev always loved a clean bathroom.
“I do not need to stop. Or, um, use the toilet.”
“Okay. If you do, tell me. But give me some warning, yeah?”
When she didn’t reply, he glanced her way again. She’d closed her eyes.
All right then. Reluctant to turn on the radio—she was so skittish he figured his usual preference of Southern rock would rattle her—Hardy allowed his thoughts to drift again.
Back to another time. Back to when he and Bev used to dream about getting in a vehicle and going anywhere.
They’d always been sure that anywhere else would be better than where they’d been.
Though he and his sister had grown up in public housing, he’d somehow still grown up believing in the power of the human spirit to overcome almost anything, even though he witnessed the depravity that hid in some people’s souls. His mom worked several jobs in order for them to have everything they needed—and then partied in her extra time.
In school, he and Bev had taken different paths. His sister had worked as hard in school as their mother did in life. Because of that, she’d earned every teacher’s respect and support. She’d graduated near the top of her class and gotten a scholarship to college.
He had not done any of that. He’d never been close to failing in school, but he sure hadn’t ever been a scholarship candidate either. If they’d gone somewhere different, he might have been able to excel in athletics and gotten ahead that way. But their school didn’t have an athletics program; the focus was solidly on academics.
When he turned eighteen the beginning of his senior year, he knew he was going to need the help of the United States Armed Forces to move forward.
The sergeant he interviewed with had practically held his hand as he’d guided him through the physical and written tests. Then, after he joined up, the man had kept close tabs on him, reminding Hardy constantly of the better future that was in store for him. Holding on to that dream kept him on track those last few months of high school.
That had been so long ago.
Feeling the girl’s gaze on him once again, he coughed. Not wanting to talk about bathroom breaks again, he tried another conversational thread. Something else obvious that maybe, if talked about openly, would ease her mind. “I know you can see that scar on my face. The doc tried his best to sew it clean, but what could he do? He was in a tent in the sandbox.”
She didn’t say a word.
Feeling more awkward, he added, “It’s just a scar from being in a war zone overseas. That’s all. I mean, I know I don’t look like much, but you don’t need to be scared of me.”
“I’m not.”
He laughed softly, mainly because she sounded so hesitant. “You sure about that?”
“As sure as I can be, I suppose. After all, you are a stranger.”
“That is true.”
“Besides, your sister told me you were a good man.”
He couldn’t help responding to that. “Bev said that?”
“Jah. She said you were a hero in the military.”
“I was no hero, but I was in the military. I served in the Army.”
“In Kentucky?”
“Oh no. I was stationed all over.” Glad she was finally speaking to him, he smiled slightly. “I went wherever I was told to go.”
“Mmm.”
When she turned away, obviously content to end their brief conversation, his thoughts returned to his past. About how those six years in uniform had taken a punk kid and turned him into a man.
There, he’d trained in combat, mechanics, and self-defense. He’d learned to get along, and he’d learned to listen and keep his mouth shut.
Once he’d been armed with those skills, he’d moved up the ranks. Soon, he had new recruits reporting to him. His orders were to make soldiers out of them. Usually, he succeeded in that.
He’d been deployed, earned his sergeant’s rank, and was then deployed again, where he’d met his lieutenant. Carter Russell.
“Where are we going again?” Stephanie asked.
“My boss is a wealthy man. He owns a lot of property in the southern part of the state. I’m going to put you at one of those properties.”
“What’s your boss’s name?”
“Carter. His name is Carter Russell. I doubt you’ll meet him, but if you had the opportunity, you’d like him a lot. Most people do.” Carter was not only rich, he was also easy going and friendly. Those were good qualities in life, though they had given him a rough road when he’d first been in the Army.
“You like him, don’t you?”
“I do consider him to be a friend, but it’s more than that. I owe him a lot.”
When Hardy had been discharged, Carter offered him a different kind of future. A future in the country, where there were horses and trees and peace. Where he would work for both Carter and the Russell trust but not be told what to do every hour of the day.
Now, he lived on the Russell property. A two-thousand-acre cattle ranch that had been owned by the Russells for several generations. Carter had been a late-in-life baby. His father had passed when he was still in the Army, and his mother was spending her last years with a niece in Jupiter, Florida. Carter spent half his time on the ranch and the other half in Cincinnati, overseeing a variety of holdings run by his family’s trust.
When they met, Hardy had just made sergeant and Carter had been a fresh-from-college second lieutenant. He’d been as green as the spring grass.
Most everyone had written him off. Hardy had learned that Carter was smarter than he looked, though. He was some kind of mathematical genius, and Hardy reckoned that the higher-ups were just putting the guy through his paces until they stuck him in a cubicle in the Pentagon and asked him to use that big brain to help solve a hundred logistical and financial problems.
That had happened. Eventually.
But until then, Hardy had taken it upon himself to protect the guy. He’d gotten adept at advising Carter with a nod or a sideways glance. And Carter, to his credit, had shown that he’d not only been blessed with a big brain but also a good dose of common sense. The kid had watched him closely and learned quickly.
Before long, Carter wasn’t quite so green, most everyone had stopped hazing him, and a major had taken notice of Carter Russell’s big brain.
Eventually Carter had been transferred to DC. But before he left, he’d become a good enough friend to wonder what Hardy was going to do when he got out.
And that’s how Hardy had ended up on the Russells’ property. There, he oversaw security, supervised a half dozen men, maintained vehicles, watched over the massive main house and guest cabins, and pretty much did whatever the Russell family asked him to.
It was a quiet job. A lot of times, it was a lonely one, but he didn’t mind. He knew the family counted on him, and they paid him enough to have a pretty cushy life. So much more than he’d ever dreamed he’d have growing up in the projects.
Hardy looked over at Stephanie. When Beverly had called him and explained the situation, Hardy had instantly gotten on board. It wasn’t just Carter who’d taken care of him—he owed his sister a lot too. And he knew some of the people she’d worked with over the years—well, they had nothing to lose and a lot of time to devote to making sure they stayed out of prison.
From what Bev told him, the Amish girl was on the run for her life. She absolutely was going to need a protector because sometimes a person’s family just wasn’t enough.
Especially when the Broken Arrows gang was involved.
A year ago, when his sister had first told him about the gang that had recently formed on the outskirts of Appalachia, he’d been tempted to roll his eyes. A bunch of bored small-town teenagers wreaking havoc didn’t scare him.
Not after the evil he’d witnessed overseas.
But of late, Bev’s stories had started to sound more worrisome. The gang had become organized, aligned themselves with some bigger gangs who were affiliated with the drug trade, and were recruiting members right and left, especially some of Bev’s lost boys. The foster kids who had so little and even less of a future.
It was obvious that his sister had reached her limit. The gang might have gotten ahold of some of her boys, but she wasn’t about to let them have an Amish girl too.
So he was Stephanie’s new protector. No matter what.
He didn’t mind taking on that role either. He might not know many Amish people, but he’d had plenty of practice looking out for other folks. If he could keep Carter alive in the middle of the sandbox, chances were pretty good that he could do the same for this woman.
She might be in danger, and he was good at fighting.
If she needed to disappear, he could pull her into one of the many cabins on the property, and no one would be the wiser. The ranch had two thousand acres, every bit of the perimeter surrounded by electric barbed wire.
There were also only two ways in or out of the property, and both were manned 24-7. That guard station also had a camera on the main house and the main barn and would let out a signal if any of the fencing was breached.
It was a whole lot safer than most places she could have gone. He instinctively knew Carter would approve of it too.
All Hardy had to do was hope this girl wouldn’t get so freaked out by the sight of him that she took off running before he had time to get her to trust him.
That was a legitimate worry too. The sizable scar on his face, courtesy of a pair of insurgents, made a person want to keep their distance.
He didn’t even like looking at himself in the mirror.