Stranger In The Night
In the dead of night, there's a knock on the door at Haven, an inner-city youth center in St. Louis.A refugee family–scared, tired and hungry–seeks shelter. Fresh back from Afghanistan, former marine sergeant Joshua Duff takes on the mission. He recruits aid worker Liz Wallace, but she has questions for Joshua. Such as why a Texan with an oil magnate for a father is working at Haven. Or why a man who fears nothing–including the gang violence threatening the center–seems scared of opening his heart to her.Joshua will call upon his training and his faith to protect Liz and Haven. Yet the most dangerous threat lurks closer than they realize.
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Praise for
CATHERINE PALMER
and her novels
“Catherine Palmer pens a page-turner with a…thought-provoking plot.”
— Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Fatal Harvest
“Palmer knows how to write about a sensitive subject with wisdom and kindness.”
— Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Thread of Deceit
“Marked by top-notch writing and sweeping drama.”
— Library Journal on The Briton
“Veteran romance writer Palmer…delivers a satisfying tale of mother-daughter dynamics sprinkled with romance.”
— Library Journal on Leaves of Hope
“Enjoyable…Faith fiction fans will find this novel just their cup of tea.”
— Publishers Weekly Religion Bookline on Leaves of Hope
“Believable characters tug at heartstrings, and God’s power to change hearts and lives is beautifully depicted.”
— Romantic Times BOOKreviews on “Christmas in My Heart” in That Christmas Feeling
“ Love’s Haven is a glorious story that was wonderfully told…. Catherine Palmer did a stand-up job of describing each scene and creating a world which no reader will want to leave.”
— Cataromance Reviews
Christy Award-Winning Author
To the refugees in Clarkston, Georgia,
who have brought such joy into my life.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to those who shared stories of their work with refugees. In particular, I’m grateful to Tim Cummins, Terry Earl, Bennett Ekandem, Kim Kimbrell and all the caseworkers and other staff at World Relief. May God bless each of you. As always, my gratitude to my husband is boundless. Thank you for reading every word—sometimes more than once. I love you, Tim.
“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land,
you shall not do him wrong.
The stranger who sojourns with you
shall be to you as the native among you,
and you shall love him as yourself…
I am the Lord your God.”
— Leviticus 19:33–34
“Come, you who are blessed by the Father,
inherit the Kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world.
For…I was a stranger,
and you took me in.”
— Jesus Christ
Matthew 25:34–35
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
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Questions for Discussion
Chapter One
S weat dampening the wrinkled sheet beneath him, Joshua Duff counted the spurts of AK-47 bullets hitting the front door. The first round slipped into his nightmare—house check on a nameless street in Kabul. A search for insurgents. Dread crawled through him like a snake, twining around his neck, suffocating him as he crept forward in the heat. Faces stared at him, brown eyes luminous beneath long, fringed black lashes. Mouths smiled, lips parting over missing teeth. Hands reached out, fingers extended.
Friend? Or enemy?
The second round of staccato hammering woke Joshua from the troubled dream. The strangled breaths were his own. Jerking upright, he reached for a gun that wasn’t there. The smell of gym shoes, basketballs, dusty concrete caught in his nostrils. This was not his barracks.
Or was it?
His eyes searched the darkness. Confusion tore through his brain as he worked to decipher data. A form lay on a bed across from him. The mound of muscled shoulder was motionless. Another man sprawled on a mattress near the door.
Comrade or civilian?
Asleep or dead?
A single window filled the only visible wall.
Somewhere nearby, an animal snuffled.
Death still stalking him, perspiration beading his bare chest, Joshua gripped the rounded aluminum frame of his cot. He licked his lips, expecting grit. Its absence surprised him. The tendon in his jaw flickered as he tried to force reality into his brain.
Of all the adversaries he’d faced in his thirty years, this was the most wily. This doubt and hesitation, this inability to decode the truth, eluded him like a Taliban sniper in the Hindu Kush Mountains. He tensed, waiting for an imam’s voice to drift from a distant minaret, the morning melody of Islam. The start of another day.
The hammering rang out a third time. Not a machine gun, it was fist against metal.
“Devil take ’em.” Sam Hawke’s familiar voice was drowsy in the stifling room. Hawke was a fellow Marine. Reconnaissance. They had patrolled the streets together too many times to count.
The other man unfolded now, a hiss groaning through the air mattress beneath him. “Where’s Duke? Come here, boy.”
A German shepherd’s low-throated growl answered. Joshua recognized it. He had seen the dog before. But where? Toenails clicked across the cement floor as Duke paced. The edges of Joshua’s nightmare began to sift away like desert sand.
“I’ll get the door,” Sam said, rising. He glanced at Joshua. “Duff, you stay put. Let’s go, Terell.”
Terell Roberts—the third man’s name. He stood and stretched. His dark skin shimmered with perspiration.
