Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me! For my soul trusts in You; and in the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge, until these calamities have passed by.

      —Psalms 57:1

      To my husband, Mike, who is a wonderful support, and to my son, Shaun, whom I am blessed to have as a son. I love you both.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Epilogue

      Letter to Reader

      Chapter One

      “Mommy! There’s a man here to see ya!” Mandy Witherspoon yelled.

      With a shake of her head, Zoey Witherspoon dried her hands on a towel. “Mom, I don’t know how many times I’ve told that child never to open the door to a stranger. Will she ever learn to listen?”

      Emma Bradford laughed. “You should have seen you at that age. You want me to see who it is?”

      “No, I will, then have a word with my daughter. It’s a good thing we live in a safe, small town.” Already headed toward the kitchen door, Zoey glanced at the clock over the desk and realized how late the hour was. Who would be visiting right before the children’s bedtime?

      When Zoey stepped into the foyer and saw a tall, thin man through the screen, she held back the scream that demanded release. She blinked. Her eyes had to be playing tricks on her. But when she focused on the man again, she realized the impossible had occurred.

      The pounding of her heart threatened to squeeze the air from her lungs. Slowly she moved toward the front door, past her daughter. “Mandy, go help your grandmother clean up.”

      The sound of her daughter racing toward the kitchen faded, and all Zoey heard was the thundering beat of her heart pulsating in her ears. She opened the screen door to get a better look at the man on her front porch.

      Her eyes slid closed. It can’t be Dane.

      Zoey braced herself with a deep, fortifying breath and opened her eyes to stare at the man who had returned from the dead. She took the few steps separating them and laid her hand on his chest to feel the strong beat of his heart against her palm, to assess what she was seeing was real—very real. Then without a word, she threw herself into his embrace.

      He kissed the top of her head, then her forehead and finally her lips. A brief, searing touch of their mouths that left Zoey even more shaken. The warmth of his body emphasized how alive her husband was.

      Finally pulling away and looking up into the face that had haunted her dreams for the past two-and-a-half years, she whispered her husband’s name, “Dane.”

      “Hello, Zoey.”

      “They told me you were dead. I—” No other words came to mind. Releasing the doorknob that she’d clutched so tightly to keep herself upright, she stepped back to allow him into the house.

      “They were wrong.” One corner of his mouth lifted in a self-mocking grin that didn’t stay long.

      Tears welled into her eyes at the sight of him. He was thin, almost gaunt. His face was clean shaven, but she could tell that he’d worn a beard until recently. His black hair was cut short and sprinkled with strands of gray now, even though he was only thirty-eight. Before he had left on his last assignment he had never had any gray. But the most startling difference in her husband was his eyes. When she looked into them, she saw nothing of the man she’d known and loved. For a brief moment she’d glimpsed a vulnerability in his eyes that he would never have allowed to show in the past. A shiver flashed down her spine as she realized he was a stranger to her.

      Standing in the middle of her foyer in her home in Sweetwater, she swallowed several times, feeling as lost as he had been to her. “What happened, Dane?” she asked, her words thick with the tears she was frantic to keep bottled inside. She’d fallen apart once before—when she’d heard the news of his death. It had taken so long to claw her way out of the emotional abyss she’d wallowed in. She vowed then she would never put herself in that position again. She had more than herself to think about.

      “As you know, the plane crashed over the Amazon. I was lucky. I was thrown from the plane when it hit the trees. The Xinga tribe saw the fire from the crash, found me unconscious and nursed me back to health.” A shutter dropped over his features. “I didn’t know who I was until recently.”

      The thought of what he must have gone through threatened to overwhelm her. She again touched his arm, weaved her fingers through his as though that link would solidify her dream of her husband returning to her and the children. He still stood in the foyer. This was no vision, but reality. “You had amnesia?”

      Dane sidestepped away from her touch and turned into the living room. He sought a chair and sat as though he physically couldn’t stand any longer. “Yes. For a long time I only had glimpses of my life, but nothing to help me piece together who I was.”

      “How about the other two people in the plane?” She sat across from him, her own weariness after a long day at work catching up with her.

      “From what the Xingas told me, because I was thrown from the plane, I was saved. The pilot and Bob Patterson weren’t.