A man at the end of his rope had two choices: Tie a knot or make a noose.

As Wyatt Caldwell hopped from the rumbling eighteen-wheeler and reached inside for his duffle bag, he smirked at his morbid thoughts. He was a warrior. He didn’t run from trouble. He ran toward it.

Which was exactly why he was on his way home.

“Thanks for the ride.”

“Anytime, soldier. Appreciate your service.” The pot-bellied trucker, both hands on the wheel and a bag of Cheetos at his side, leaned forward. “Sure sorry I couldn’t get you all the way home. Merry Christmas.”

“Same to you.” Wyatt slammed the door, lifted a respectful hand and waited until the big rig revved up and roared away. A chill wind swirled inside his open field jacket, blowing it away from his body. He missed a lot of things about Oklahoma during his stint in Georgia, but the wind wasn’t one of them.

Christmas leave had officially begun for Sergeant Wyatt S. Caldwell, though no one at home expected him. He could have called the Triple C Ranch, and any one of a dozen people would have met his plane at Will Rogers Airport in Oklahoma City. But to a person, they would have asked questions. Wyatt was in no mood for long two-way conversations. Just ask Jimbo, the friendly trucker who’d picked him up on I-44 twenty minutes after he’d exited the airport. Jimbo talked. Wyatt had listened. Or not. Sometimes his mind had wandered. He had a lot to think about.

The news he held inside his always-whirling brain was certain to shock and shake every single one of the people he loved most.

Undeterred by Wyatt’s reticence, Jimbo had prattled all the way down I-40 to the Calypso exit, where he’d dropped the least talkative soldier in Uncle Sam’s armed forces.

It wasn’t that Wyatt didn’t like people. He liked them too much. He liked them enough to dedicate the last twelve years to keeping them safe. That dedication had led him into some hairy situations. Like the one he now faced.

He shouldered the duffle bag and started walking, not caring if he had to walk the full eight miles to the Triple C. Eight miles was nothing compared to the distance he’d marched and run and crawled in hostile territory before the injury that led to his current position. For the past four years he’d served his country in cyber security with the top-secret clearances such a role entailed, a role that put him at risk in every crazy area of the world. He knew things no one else knew or wanted to know. At least in Oklahoma, no one would sniper him just because his sandy hair marked him as an American.

But it wasn’t hostiles weighing on him this blustery December day. Nor was it the forty-pound duffle bag.

The time had come to talk things over with the family. But how did a man toss something like the baggage he carried out into cheerful Christmas conversation?

He couldn’t. Somehow, during this extended leave, he had to get his head together and confess everything. They were his family. They had a right to know. They needed to know. But not yet. Not with the celebration of the Lord’s birth on their minds and in their hearts.

He wasn’t supposed to be afraid of anything, but he feared this. Connie, the Mexican housekeeper who’d raised him, would tell him to pray about it. He had. The rest, he figured, was up to him.

Wyatt sucked in a mind-clearing breath of cold country air and trudged along the shoulder of the highway. Dry leaves and specks of brown grass swirled around his boots, stirring up the scents of home. The air in Oklahoma smelled different, sweeter, purer, than anywhere else he’d been, though the combination of wind and abundant cedar trees was guaranteed to stir up allergies, as well.

Flanked by fence posts and barbed wire and the ever-present cedar and blackjack, the rural highway from the interstate to Calypso seemed deserted today.

He’d no more than had the thought when a green sedan topped a hill and came toward him. It was going the wrong way to give him a ride, but the driver slowed and waved anyway. Wyatt’s mood lifted. Home. He could feel it, smell it, practically taste it, especially Connie’s pozole.

Fortunately for him and his hike, Triple C Ranch land began long before he would reach Calypso, the small town where he’d attended high school, played baseball and experienced his first kiss. He smiled a little at the good memories and counted down the section lines as he passed each one.

The terrain didn’t change much, but he knew when his family’s acres and acres of ranchland began. He veered off the roadway, through a ditch of knee-high grass and up a slight rise to the tightly strung five-strand barbed wire fence where he could gaze at Caldwell land. Slick, fat, black angus grazed in quiet contentment.

No matter where he roamed or how long he was gone, his connection to this place never wavered. Everything he was now or ever would be began right here. Someday, he’d come home for good and trade his uniform for boots and jeans. He’d raise quarter horses and eventually a family—when the planet was once more a safe place to bring kids into the world. He worried about that. Having children. Exposing them to the terrible evil he knew existed. Not that the danger had stopped his siblings from procreating.

Siblings. Family.

The problem came again, plaguing him. Being home was good. Carrying this burden to the Caldwell clan wasn’t.

Making a quick decision, which was more procrastination that need, he crossed to the corner, hopped the ditch, turned west down a dirt and gravel road and headed for The Sanctuary. No one at home was expecting him. A delay wouldn’t matter.

In twelve minutes at a brisk pace accelerated by eagerness, he approached the gate marked with three conjoined horseshoes—The Triple C—tossed his bag over and followed, bounding easily over the metal rungs onto the 500 acres his mother had set aside as a wildlife refuge. The Sanctuary, as the family had dubbed this craggy wilderness of woods, canyons, creeks and ponds, had become a refuge to all of them, especially to his parents.

In minutes, he reached the clearing where his parents were buried—the mother he didn’t remember, the workaholic father he’d hero-worshiped.

Oh, Dad. How am I supposed to handle this?

He stopped at the gravesite and ran a hand over the entwined pair of white doves atop the stone. Someone had been here recently. The site was free of dead leaves. Poinsettia-dappled greenery blanketed the graves. His sister, probably. Emily. Or maybe one of his brothers and their new wives. Funny to think of his siblings as married now. He was the last hold-out, and marriage was about as far from his thoughts as Mars. At present, his military career consumed him, but mostly he hadn’t met a woman who could put up with him. He wasn’t the easiest guy to be around. He blamed part of the problem on his top-secret work. Woman wanted him to talk, to tell them everything. He couldn’t tell them anything.

But he had to tell his family this latest secret. He just didn’t know how.

“Wish you were here, Dad. Wish we could talk for a minute.”

Dad would know what to do. He always did. And yet Dad was part of the problem.

Overhead, leafless oak limbs rubbed together, the only answer to Wyatt’s plea. Cedar bows swayed and whispered while a bracing north wind swirled around trees and seeped into his skin.

Wyatt turned and walked the few steps to Cori’s Chapel, a tiny church built by his father and named for his mother. The inside remained as it had since his childhood. Four oak pews. A giant wooden cross, plain and pure, on the front wall. Separating the two areas was an altar where he was told his mother had prayed during the last, cancer-ridden months of her life. Prayed for a miracle that didn’t come. For the four young children she would leave behind. For the adored husband who had, as the story was told, been lost without her.

These things Wyatt pondered, more so now than ever.

There was no electricity in Cori’s Chapel. Only God’s light filtering in through the skylights and the windows on each side. But not much sun today. Outside was cloudy and gray. A cold front had moved in yesterday, or so his weather app had told him. December in Oklahoma was fickle like that. Pleasant one day. Cold and blustery the next. Sometimes a dusting of snow surprised them and got the kids hoping for a white Christmas.

Christmas. He wouldn’t be very merry with this weighing on him.

Heavy-hearted and dreading what lay ahead, Wyatt tossed his bag onto a pew and rested his back against it to get warm and gather his thoughts. He prayed a little. Felt God here. His mother, too. He always had.

He closed his eyes, and the stress and weariness of the past six months wound down as he relaxed in this serene place of familial love. In minutes, he dozed.

He startled awake. Or was he dreaming? He opened one eye and saw a cross and bright streams of light all around. Was he in heaven? Had he finally managed to get himself killed? Not that he minded all that much. It was tranquil and quiet here, and God knew as no one else did that he needed to quiet his troubled soul. He let his eye fall closed again.

A voice broke through his half-consciousness. Not the voice of God. More of a scream. Wyatt sat upright then, fully awake and aware. Military life would do that to a man. Dream a pleasant dream and wake up to screaming.

The cry came again.

He pushed up from the pew and hustled to the door. Wind rushed in, bringing dry leaves and another cry. This one was clear and nearby.

“Bra-den!”

Curious, Wyatt stepped outside to look around.

A woman appeared from between the crowded cedars, coatless and wearing jeans and knee boots, her long gray sweater snagged with twigs. “Bra-den! Where are you?”

She spotted Wyatt and froze like a doe scenting humans. She was young, maybe his age or younger, and slightly built. Her curly brown hair blew uncovered around her face. She looked terrified.

Wyatt executed a quick, habitual appraisal for weapons, considered the strange woman a non-threat and strode toward her. A dozen dark concerns threaded through his mind. He snagged on the most obvious. “Is someone lost?”

“My son. He’s only four.” She choked on the last words.

Four. Too young to be alone on five hundred acres of wilderness dotted with gullies and caves hiding who-knew-what wild life. Never mind that neither the child nor the woman had any business on Caldwell land. Now was not the time to address that infraction.

“I don’t know where he is!” Her wide eyes scanned everywhere but landed on nothing. “Oh, dear Jesus. My baby’s gone!”

The woman was nearing hysteria. He’d seen it in soldiers. The rising vocal pitch. The loss of control. The wild eyes.

He grasped her upper arms. They were slim but surprisingly fit beneath his touch, and quaking. He gave her a gentle shake. “Easy. We’ll find him. Take a deep breath and focus. Don’t let your emotions get the best of you. That won’t help Braden.”

With a strength he found admirable, she stiffened her back and latched her gaze to his. He saw the inner battle as she reined herself in by sheer force of will. Wyatt had the random thought that behind those brown eyes was a woman who understood trouble and knew how to fight. He experienced an instant visceral reaction—admiration, interest—both fleeting as vapor.

The woman expelled a long breath and shook her head like a boxer shaking off a punch. “Okay. Okay. You’re right. I’m fine now. I’ve got this.”

“Good.” He dropped his hold, but not his focus on her face. He needed her to remain calm and keep her attention on the search, not on the worry about what could happen to a child alone in the woods. He would worry about that for her. “Where and when did you last see him?”

“Maybe fifteen minutes.” She pointed behind her. “Not far. Two hundred yards or so. But the woods are so dense. He could be anywhere.”

Still on Sanctuary land. Which made no sense. He didn’t know her. Why was she on Caldwell property in the first place?

“We’ll find him. I promise.” One way or the other. If necessary, he could have a dozen horsemen riding through the brush within the hour.

He hitched his chin. “You backtrack north. I’ll take east.” Toward the nearest pond, but he didn’t tell her that. She might lose that fragile thread of control, and they had no time for hysterics. The air was cold and getting colder.

He pivoted to leave but remembered something and whirled back. “Wait. We need a signal.”

“I can scream like a banshee.”

He almost smiled. Would have if the situation hadn’t been dire. “You have a cell phone?”

“Not with me. It’s back at the—” She jerked a thumb over one shoulder, did a half turn. “I never expected… When I realized he was gone, I didn’t think. I just ran.”

“Work your way back to your phone. Keep yelling for him. What’s your number?”

She rattled it off. He memorized it instantly and offered his. She repeated it twice, nodded once, took another shaky breath, and turned back the way she’d come.

Wyatt watched her for two beats. He was concerned for her and for her child, but he was curious too. Suspicious even.

Who was she? And what was she doing in the Caldwell Sanctuary?

---

Marley Bannon shoved aside thick branches and sticky cedar boughs, not caring that thorns jabbed through her sweater and destroyed the weave. She had to find Braden. If something happened to her son, she’d have no reason to keep living, to keep fighting.

But God had sent the soldier. Why the man had been there and who he was didn’t matter. Maybe he was an angel. She didn’t know. Didn’t care. Whoever he was, God had sent him.

“Braden! Answer Mommy. Answer me now!” Why did four-year olds have to test boundaries? He knew not to get out of her sight. She’d drilled him hundreds of times. Daily since leaving Tulsa. Since running from disaster. Braden knew to stick close. He knew Mommy was scared of losing him. He was just too little to understand why.

She fought the panic rising in her chest like the worst case of acid reflux and wished the soldier back to calm her again. The man had been so confident and in command, his blue eyes radiating assurance that he would find her son. In an instant, she’d trusted him, which made no sense at all. She trusted exactly no one, especially now. She didn’t dare. She and Braden couldn’t take that chance.

But the soldier was all she had. And she had to find her son.

She ran on, crashing through the trees, snapping twigs, screaming with all her might.

“Braden!” Her breath came in puffs now, and fatigue drained her lungs and legs. He had to be somewhere. But where?

In another minute, she tore through the tangle of dead vines, gnarly underbrush and evergreens that effectively hid her car from view. No one could find her here. Which meant the chances of anyone finding Braden in this wilderness were slim at best.

Panic increased, hot and vicious. Her whole body shook until she thought her knees might give way. She fought the fear, reminding herself again of the soldier’s calm, steady blue gaze. Of his strong hands gripping her arms with exactly the right pressure. Keeping a clear head in Tulsa had saved her before. A clear head would save Braden now.

Please, God. Help me find him.

She snatched her cell phone from the car and slid the lock screen, hoping for a message from the soldier.

Nothing.

Marley squeezed her eyes shut and pleaded. “Show me. Show the soldier. Show one of us where Braden is.”

Even though she tried to be a good Christian, she didn’t feel holy enough to deserve an answer. She’d made too many mistakes and let God and herself down too many times. But Braden was so small. God was too good to hold the mother’s sins against her child.

“Braden!” She headed west, away from the area she’d already searched, away from the soldier.

---

Wyatt spotted blue at sixty yards and picked up his pace. A foot? A tennis shoe?

His hope rose. “Braden!”

The spot of blue didn’t move. Maybe it was only a piece of paper, something blown by the wind.

But his gut, an instinct he knew to listen to, said different. Wyatt broke into a trot. Leaves crunched and swirled, the cold and dust burning his eyes. He swiped at them.

At twenty yards, he could see a leg attached to the shoe. A small leg encased in blue jeans. The rest of the body was hidden in the underbrush.

“Braden!” The kid wasn’t moving.

Fear jabbed at Wyatt’s chest. There were dangers on this land. Wild boar. Cougar.

Don’t let it happen, Lord. Let him be all right.

He reached the silent figure and fell to his knees, clawing at the brush. The child recoiled, whimpered.

Relief shot through Wyatt like a bolus of adrenaline. “Are you hurt?”

Braden thrashed out. “Go away. Go away!”

Wyatt dodged the kicking legs, caught one small foot in his grip. “Hey, little man. It’s all right. I’m a friend.”

“No. Mommy says no. You can’t take me! Don’t take me!”

Wyatt eased to the cold ground and gathered the struggling, terrified child against his chest.

“Easy, Braden. Your mom sent me. She’s looking for you.”

The thrashing stilled. Eyes the color of chocolate, like his mother’s, stared up at Wyatt, wide, anxious. “You know my mommy? Are you our friend?”

“Yes, buddy. I’m your friend.”

Braden’s blue parka hood had fallen back from his dark hair. His face was red and stained with tears. Tenderness washed through Wyatt. The kid had been crying for a while.

Thick, black eyelashes batted up at Wyatt. He was a cute little guy, all chubby cheeks and button nose. “You won’t take me away?”

Take him away? What was that about? Stranger-danger lectures? Was his mother one of those overprotective women who scared her kid to the point of fearing everyone?

Wyatt patted his pocket, drawing the boy’s attention to his uniform. “I’m a soldier. See?”

He rubbed an index finger across his name patch. “That’s my name. Sergeant Caldwell, U.S. Army. My job is to keep you safe and make sure you get back to your mommy.”

Braden sniffled. One finger poked at the emblems on Wyatt’s jacket. His face clouded up again. “I want to go home. I don’t like it here. It’s scary.”

“Let’s call your mom right now. She’s worried about you. Then I’ll take you to her. Okay?”

Braden nodded, still sniffling and wary, the pulse beneath his collarbone fluttering like hummingbird wings. His distress crimped Wyatt’s heart.

Wyatt fished out his cell phone and punched in the memorized numbers.

Before the first ring ended, she answered, breathless. “Yes?”

“I found him. He’s safe. Meet you back at the chapel.” He ended the call when he heard the first relieved sob. He didn’t do well with emotional displays. Another reason he wasn’t married.

He re-pocketed the phone and said to Braden, “Can you walk?”

Braden swiped his dirty coat sleeve beneath his nose and nodded. “I’m big now. Mommy said so.”

A smile tickled Wyatt’s lips. He clasped the small hand in his much larger one, realized how cold the child was, and opted for the faster travel. He squatted in front of Braden. “Climb on. I’ll give you a piggy-back ride.”

The boy was slight, a wisp of humanity. He couldn’t weigh as much as a field pack.

The instant the childish arms encircled his neck, something warm and protective moved inside Wyatt. He clutched the short legs against his waist and stood.

He didn’t know much about kids. He was still getting to know his new nieces and nephew. But when this little boy, who smelled like cedar and childhood, rested his head against a soldier’s back, sighed with relief, and relaxed, Wyatt knew he’d protect this child with his life.