Chapter One

      Jake hated betrayal.

      Six years in the military fighting against injustice, terrorism and the oppression of the weak prepared him for great battles. But he didn’t expect to be fighting one in his own backyard. For something that had been promised to him, to his family. By one of his own.

      But Claudia wouldn’t do that.

      Would she?

      No way.

      She wouldn’t be the first person to break her word...

      Still, there had to be a good reason. It wasn’t like her to go back on a promise, especially to family.

      Well, he might not be family by blood, but Claudia Gaines had been his mother’s best friend since college. And like a second mother since tragedy stole his five years ago in a freak accident.

      Jake sucked down a breath, just enough for his heartbeat to slow in his ears, and rapped weather-beaten knuckles against the red-painted door.

      Midmorning June breezes stirred Claudia’s collection of colorful wind chimes, creating a symphony of low-toned woods clamoring with high-pitched metal. Just enough sound to rouse memories of the scorching desert sun, the air veiled with smoke and sand, the look of hopelessness in the faces of people trapped by a tyrannical government, and the night his life changed forever.

      The night of ultimate betrayal that set him on a journey to bring hope to those courageous soldiers clawing for a way out—an escape from their private wars that raged long after returning home.

      A journey that hit too close to home.

      No wonder he’d taken to stretching out on his back deck and listening to the crickets and cows. Where the stillness served as a balm to the echoes in his head he couldn’t seem to deafen.

      Nestled between a national forest and a man-made lake, the lakefront community of Shelby Lake in northwestern Pennsylvania was a far cry from the Middle East. He preferred hanging out on his family’s dairy farm spanning across most of Holland Hill on the edge of town.

      His place of security.

      Although he disliked coming into town on a regular basis, for once, though, he was thankful for Gossiping Gwen at the feed store. Otherwise, he might not have learned about the sale until it was too late.

      He needed that land. He had a promise to keep. To atone for sins of his past.

      But without Claudia’s land, those promises would remain unfulfilled, and that was a risk he just couldn’t take.

      What was taking