The Christmas Target

She wasn’t on a hostage rescue mission in the middle of Vietnam. She wasn’t in Egypt, walking through the slums, searching for a missing child. She was just outside of Boonsboro, Maryland, caring for her grandmother because her grandfather was gone.

He’d been eighty-three when he’d taken his last breath. Stella couldn’t say that his life had ended too soon, but she would have happily traded a few years of hers to have him back. Henry Radcliff had been a keeper. That’s what Stella’s grandmother had said at the funeral. She was right. Henry had been a great guy. A wonderful husband, a loving father, a protective and caring grandfather.

Now he was gone, and Stella had to take his place in Beatrice’s rambling old Victorian, helping her grandmother do everyday chores that suddenly seemed to be too much for her—laundry, cooking, dry mopping the hardwood floor, paying bills and sending thank-you cards. A year ago, Beatrice could have handled all of that and more. Now she seemed confused, frustrated and a little scared.

That scared Stella.

Which was probably why she’d woken in a panic.

That and the fact that Christmas was only three weeks away.

Her least favorite day of the year.

She shivered, glancing at the glowing numbers on the bedside alarm clock. Nearly 5:00 a.m. Her boss, Chance Miller, and a few members of HEART would be converging on the house in a couple of hours. The hostage extraction and rescue team had bimonthly meetings at headquarters. Meeting outside of that secure environment went against protocol. The team coming to Boonsboro should have been out of the question. Stella had tried to argue with the plan. She could have easily found someone to watch Beatrice for the day while she made the three-hour trip to DC.

Chance had insisted that they do things his way. He knew what he wanted, and he always went after it. When Stella had protested, he’d told her that he wasn’t interested in her opinion. Then he’d said goodbye and hung up. If he’d been anyone else, Stella would have seen that as rude, but Chance was never rude. He was almost never wrong, and Stella had been just tired and distraught enough to let things go his way without a fight.

He hadn’t gloated, hadn’t pointed out that he’d finally won one of their many arguments. He’d just emailed notes for the meeting, told her that he’d update her on a few potential clients and asked if there was anything she needed him to bring when he came.

She’d wanted to be angry with him for insisting on doing things his way. Mostly because she’d spent the past year trying really hard to convince herself she and Chance were past tense. Their brief relationship had burned out faster than a candle in a rainstorm, and she didn’t want to relight it.

At least, that’s what she kept telling herself.

For a while, that had been really easy to believe. The two had been butting heads for nearly as long as they’d known each other, but there was something very real beneath the constant bickering, some indefinable thing that always made her want to jump to Chance’s defense, make certain he was okay, watch his back. She knew he felt the same about her. He proved it every time he did something like this—planning a meeting around her schedule and her life.

Truth? Chance wanted to bring the meeting to Boonsboro because he was worried about her. He’d never say it. He didn’t have to. Stella knew it.

Just like she knew that she wanted him there, because she needed someone she could lean on. For just a minute.

She was tired.

Beyond tired.

Her grandfather’s death from a sudden heart attack had been shocking, but finding out that her grandmother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s had pulled the rug out from under every plan Stella had ever made.

Three years. That’s how long her grandparents had known about the diagnosis. Three years that they’d kept it secret because they hadn’t wanted Stella to give up the job she loved. That’s what Beatrice’s best friend, Maggie, had said. Stella had wanted to know about the medicine she’d found in the bathroom cabinets, the post-it note reminders plastered all over the house, the forgetfulness and confusion that Beatrice seemed to be suffering from.

Of course, the nurse in Stella had already known what all those things meant. She just hadn’t wanted to believe it. Maggie and Beatrice had been friends since elementary school, and Stella had known that her grandmother’s friend would have the answers she needed.

She just hadn’t expected those answers to hurt so much.

And they did.

It hurt to know that Nana was losing her memories. It hurt to know that the vibrant, cheerful woman who’d raised Stella was going to become a shell of the person she’d once been.

It also hurt to hear that her grandparents had thought she loved and valued her job more than she loved and valued them. But then, why wouldn’t they think that? She’d spent so much time away that she hadn’t seen the signs and symptoms of Alzheimer’s until her grandfather was gone.

It was a regret she’d live with for the rest of her life. If she’d spoken to them on the phone more than once a week, asked the right questions, delved a little deeper into their lives, maybe she would have realized the truth long before Granddad’s death. Then she could have told Henry that she’d give up her work at HEART for Beatrice.

So far, it hadn’t come to that.

She had given up her apartment in DC, moved back to the huge old Victorian that Beatrice had inherited from her parents decades ago. Stella had even tried to resign from HEART. Working as a member of one of the most well-respected hostage rescue teams in the world took time and energy that she needed to devote to her grandmother.

Chance had refused to accept her resignation. She’d been working for the company since he and his brother Jackson founded it, and he had told her that the team couldn’t run without her. That was an exaggeration. They both knew it, but Stella loved her work. She didn’t want to give it up. She wasn’t even sure who she would be without it. She’d built her entire life around HEART.

Now she was trying to rebuild it around her grandmother.

Chance had made it very clear that he’d support her in any way he could. He’d assigned her paperwork and research, report writing and about six other things that were menial compared to the high-risk jobs she’d been taking before Granddad’s death.

Just until you and your grandmother get back on your feet, and you will, Stella. It’s just going to take some time.

She could still hear his voice, see the compassion in his dark blue eyes. He’d come to the funeral. Of course he had. Chance always did the right thing. Always.

Stella wasn’t sure why that made her feel resentful. Maybe because she often found herself doing the wrong thing. Or maybe because he’d done so many right things the few times they’d dated, and she’d still managed to chase him away.

She stood, her toes curling as her feet hit cold wood.

No sense lying in bed fretting about things she couldn’t change. She’d be better off making a pot of coffee and finishing up the last of the three hundred thank-you notes she’d been writing out since Granddad’s funeral. Keep busy. It had been her motto for as long as she could remember. Especially this time of year.

Wind rattled the old wooden panes and whistled beneath the eaves, the sounds nearly covering another more subtle one. Floorboards creaking? A door opening?

Beatrice?

Had she woken already?

Stella stepped into the dark hall, not bothering with the light. She’d walked through the drafty house thousands of times during the years she’d lived there. She’d memorized the wide hallway, the landing, the stairs and the banister. She knew how many doors were on each side of the hallway and which ones creaked when they opened.

Beatrice slept in the room at the far end of the hall, and Stella went there, knocking on the thick wood door. When Beatrice didn’t answer, she turned the old crystal knob and stepped into the room.

“Nana?” she whispered into the darkness, shivering as cold air seeped through her flannel pajamas.

Cold air?

She flicked on the light, her heart stopping when she saw the empty bed, the billowing curtains.

She yanked back gauzy white fabric, nearly sagging with relief when she saw the window screen still in place, the mesh flecked with fat snowflakes.

“Nana!” Stella called, throwing open the closet door. Just in case. Her grandmother had gotten lost walking through the house recently. One day she hadn’t been able to find the kitchen. Another day, she’d stood in the hallway, confused about which room she slept in.

“Nana!” Stella yelled it this time, the name echoing through the house as she ran out of the room. She could hear the panic in her voice, could feel it thrumming through her blood. She never panicked. Ever. But she felt frantic, terrified.

“Beatrice!” She yanked open the linen closet, the door to the spare room, the bathroom door.

She thought she heard a faint response. Maybe from the kitchen at the back of the house.

She barreled down the stairs and into the large foyer.

The front door was closed, the bolt locked. Just the way she’d left it. She could feel cold air wafting through the hallway, though, and she spun on her heel, sprinting into the kitchen.