Finding Mercy

By D.L. Jackson

You’ll die in three minutes without oxygen, three hours without shelter, three days without water and three weeks without food. But could you live a lifetime with a broken heart?

Mercy Evans has come to Evans Point hoping to collect herself and find a way to resurrect her career as an anchorwoman for Cheyenne’s news station. Sergeant Justin Redway has come to Evans Point to try to forget his past and survive all he’s done.

One is a battle-damaged veteran, the other a desperate woman who will go to any extreme to get his story. When their worlds collide, sparks fly and old wounds open. As the chasm between the fated lovers widens, it might be too big to cross.

One town, two lovers, and a second chance at finding mercy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Decadent Publishing
• Release date: Dec 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781613334485

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Finding Mercy

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2012 by D.L. Jackson

ISBN: 978-1-61333-448-5

Cover art by Tibbs Designs

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

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This Endris Night

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Finding Mercy

A Prepper Romance

By

D.L. Jackson

~DEDICATION~

To Dad, my inspiration behind Will Evans.

You are as enduring as the West and one of the last great cowboys.

Prologue

Evans Point, Wyoming

June 28th, 2010

If he didn’t know better, he’d think the end of the world had arrived. Will Evans tightened his grip on Bear’s and Sadie’s leashes and tuned in for any cries for help. The fresh smell of rain mixed with the industrial stink of spilled fuel and the ozone from a nearby lightning strike pounded reality home.

Even though they’d merely begun, his bones ached. Fifteen years before, he would’ve torn through the wreckage and pulled out survivors without hesitation. Now, he could only survey the destruction and fight the tears that tugged on his eyes. The scene brought back another time he couldn’t stomach, when he’d seen the Grim Reaper rip a hole between life and death, as he’d done this day.

The storms had hit with ferocity, in the middle of the night, without warning. The roaring of the beast had woken some, but not all. Those alerted had rushed for cover in their basements and cellars and now searched for those who were not as lucky. This was all that remained of the downtown after six tornadoes had torn through Evans Point. In all his eighty-four years, Will had seen only one other battlefield like it.

He swallowed and searched his soul for courage. There would be bodies among the rubble, but hopefully, there would also be living. He had to believe to continue, even though he found his faith tested.

So much carnage. Scanning the brightening horizon, he took in the destruction. Brick buildings were blown apart. Vehicles lay on their rooftops, dripping gasoline and other fluids. Even a pickup had been skewered on a flagpole like one of the carousel horses he’d ridden as a child at the fairground. A toy truck lay at his feet, its red paint bright and clean like it was fresh from the box.

His gaze shifted to the left. Someone’s farm equipment sat on top of a local bridal shop. The five-hundred-thousand-dollar harvester would have to come down in pieces, which meant it would remain there for a while. No one would be able to get a crane into the area for months. It all seemed so overwhelming, and he didn’t have a clue where to start.

But his dogs did.

All right, we got work to do. Will squeezed the hooks with his gnarled fingers, unclipping Bear and Sadie to let them do what they did best. Since he’d retired, he’d taken up breeding, raising, and training the Caucasian Shepherds. The dogs originally belonged to a friend who had worked search and rescue in Alaska, but when he’d retired and moved to Florida, he hadn’t wanted to drag the double-coated dogs to Miami, where they’d suffer from the heat.

Not that Wyoming didn’t have hot summers; it did, but they were shorter. When Will had taken the pair on, he’d discovered they made great cattle dogs, and why not? The Caucasian Mountain Shepherds were herding dogs, highly intelligent, possessing giant personalities to go with their enormous size. And the bonus? Mountain lions and wolves thought twice about going after his stock.

Bear barked and dug at a pile of debris that led to a basement entrance of an old bomb shelter under the downtown area. Will picked his way around the rubble, careful where he stepped.

The glass blocks embedded in the sidewalk, part of the old reinforced structure the Army had left behind in the forties, were still intact, and the structure below hadn’t collapsed. An idea woke in his head. Why hadn’t they used it before?

Hey, over here, he called out to a couple of firefighters as he tossed a two-by-four to the side. He wouldn’t be much help lifting the wreckage away, but he’d do what he could, and what he could do was get everyone together and make sure this didn’t happen again. Those who lost their lives here would be the last to die because they hadn’t been prepared.

Chapter One

Rule of Threes to Surviving a Disaster:

You’ll die in three minutes without oxygen.

Three hours without shelter.

Three days without water.

Three weeks without food.

Tangi Valley, Maidan Wardak Province, Afghanistan

July 26th, 2010

They’d come from everywhere: over the embankment, from their flanks, and their six. Before Sergeant Justin Redway knew it, the enemy had surrounded his unit, closing off the end of a horseshoe ambush. Now, half the men were a mess of shredded limbs that resembled hamburger more than human body parts.

The Golden Dragons, men of the Second Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, took cover in the remains of the convoy, and one only needed to open one’s eyes to see the reason they were in the shape they were in. They’d held off the enemy until right after dark, when a call to prayers had rung out across the battlefield and the Taliban had stopped firing. A couple vehicles, one lying on its side and the other on its roof, were pushed together to form a barricade, in an attempt to provide some relief from the barrage of rounds that would fly when the sun came up.

The enemy knew they weren’t going anywhere and would wait for day to break, taking their time to pray, possibly bring in reinforcements, have a warm meal. Thank God for religious conviction and the lack of moonlight. If the assault had continued longer, they’d all be dead.

The break in the fighting gave Justin a chance to treat the wounded. Within minutes, his fatigues were soaked in blood. The metallic stink of raw meat, dust, and sweat saturated every fiber, yet he kept going, knowing one minute’s rest could be the difference between a wounded man surviving or dying.

His company, the closest to the ambushed convoy, had been called in to extract the survivors and shipment. Instead of rescuing them, they’d ended up snared in the same trap, stuck between partially blown buildings in the middle of a small village in the Tangi Valley. Looking at the scene, a person would have a hard time telling the difference between hell and where they’d made their stand.

Members of 75th Ranger Regiment from Fort Benning had been escorting a convoy from the valley when the hostilities commenced. The Taliban rocked their world with anti-armor and rocket-propelled grenades from the high ground in an attack that seemed to go on forever. But even after the onslaught, the cargo they were ordered to keep out of enemy hands still sat in the middle of the kill zone, completely untouched.

It wasn’t the typical jingle truck one would see moving supplies. Justin wondered all the more what the Army had hidden inside the trailer, because even the Taliban didn’t have the balls to fire on it.

To add to the mystery, several Rangers, those not critically injured, stood sentinel, warning off anyone who got too close to the cargo. More than once, after finding himself at the business end of a weapon, Justin raised his hands and backed away from a man who