New York Times Bestselling Author

CHAPTER ONE
 

Amanda Rush was scared. Not just a little scared either. Terrified. According to her calculations, it had been two weeks, give or take a day, since she and twenty-three kids had been taken from their school in Guyana, put into a truck that had crossed into Venezuela, and then forced to walk day after day deeper into the Amazon rainforest.

She was exhausted, dirty, hungry, and petrified over what the men holding them hostage could possibly want. They hadn’t spoken a lot, just prodded them along with their rifles when they slowed down too much. They hadn’t explained where they were going or why they’d been taken in the first place.

Even though she wished she was anywhere other than where she was, Amanda wouldn’t change what she’d done. If she hadn’t stayed with the children, if she’d run in the opposite direction when the men stormed into the classroom, like the other adults had done, the children would be out here all alone.

And while she didn’t think she was anything all that special, Amanda was proud that she’d stayed with them. Even though it probably meant she’d die as a result.

But she wasn’t dead yet. And even though things were bad, they could always get worse. So far, none of the rough-and-tumble soldiers guarding them had made any kind of move toward her. They hadn’t beaten her or any of the kids. They’d kind of seemed like robots…quiet, blank…unmoved by the children’s crying. Immune to Amanda’s begging on their behalf for food, water, to be able to sit for a moment.

So on they walked.

Rain was falling, as it had been for basically two weeks straight. Not constant, but just when she thought she might have a chance to dry out, inevitably it would start raining again.

But today things had changed. They’d arrived at a sort of makeshift camp. There were quite a few ratty canvas tents in a small clearing in the trees. A large firepit sat to one side of the camp, smoking as the rain did its best to extinguish the flames. She didn’t see anyone there when they arrived, but someone had to be close, since the fire was lit before their arrival.

The man who she assumed was in charge—since the other soldiers did whatever he ordered without hesitation—gestured to the tents.  “Boys over there, five to a tent. Girls, there,” he said, pointing to the other side of the camp. “All eight in the far tent.”

Looking where he was pointing, Amanda realized it was going to be a tight fit to get all eight of the girls into the smallish tent he was pointing to, but she didn’t protest. She actually preferred they all stay together. The girls ranged in ages from four to eleven, and the boys were anywhere from three to thirteen.

She gave Michael a small smile, trying to let him know that she was okay, that everything would be all right. The boy had stayed near her side for the last two weeks, doing what he could to protect her. It was both heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. Because she knew without a doubt if the soldiers wanted to harm her, there wasn’t anything he’d be able to do to stop them.

“We want to stay with the girls,” Michael told the leader.

He ignored him, turning his back on the group and heading toward a bigger tent near the edge of the trees.

“Hey! We want to stay with the girls,” Michael said again, louder and more forcefully.

The man stopped, and Amanda’s heart nearly quit beating in her chest. Something bad was going to happen, she knew that as well as she knew her name.

He turned around and stared at Michael for a long moment. Then he slowly walked toward him.

Michael’s shoulders went back and he lifted his chin. His refusal to back down to this man was impressive…and not very smart.

Before Amanda could utter a word to tell the leader that Michael was tired and hungry, that he hadn’t meant to be disrespectful, his arm swung. He backhanded the boy so hard, Michael went flying backward, landing in the mud several feet from where he’d been standing.

The leader nodded at one of the other soldiers, and the man leaned down, hauled Michael to his feet, and shoved him toward the trees.

Amanda could barely breathe.

“Please don’t!” she begged. She had no idea what the soldier had in store for Michael, but it couldn’t be good.

The leader turned his icy gaze on her, and for the first time since she’d been taken, Amanda felt as if he was seeing her. Truly seeing her. His gaze roamed up and down her body, but she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

She’d never seen herself as very attractive. She was…cute? At five feet tall, she’d been mistaken for a teenager more than once, even though she was almost thirty. Back in Virginia, at the school where she’d taught, she was shorter than many of her seventh-grade students. Her hair was a mix of light brown and blonde and she kept it short, simply because it was easier to take care of, something she was very glad for here in the rainforest. Her eyes blue, her weight average. Not too skinny and not overweight. In truth, she was average. Not height-wise, but in every other way.

But when the leader looked at Amanda, her skin crawled.

“You want to join him?” he asked in a low, smooth voice that lacked any real emotion. His khaki pants and shirt were sweat-stained and dirty, just like Amanda’s and the kids’ clothing. He had dark hair, a square jaw covered by a full beard. The rifle strapped around his chest was a vivid reminder of her current situation…that it was in her best interest not to piss this man off.

“No, sir,” she said, as respectfully as she could. “Michael is just worried about the girls. He’s always done his best to look after them.”

“They are no longer his concern. He has a new job…to become a soldier.”

Amanda’s belly clenched. She’d been pretty sure that’s why the kids were taken, but to hear this man say it so nonchalantly was still a shock.

“That’s what you all will be!” he said a little louder, looking at the rest of the boys, who were huddled together. “You will learn everything you need to know here. You will be trained, and as long as you cooperate, you will earn the right to sleep in the tents and eat. If not…”

He didn’t have to finish his sentence, it was obvious what would happen if they didn’t. Michael’s pained cries seemed very loud in the clearing.

He’d been taken deep into the trees, so Amanda couldn’t see what was happening to him, but her heart broke with every sound he made.

“And you,” the leader continued, looking at the girls, as if he couldn’t hear the pathetic cries of a child echoing through the forest, “will be responsible for cooking and cleaning, at least for now. Husbands have already been chosen for you, and they will begin arriving to retrieve you in a few days. Your job is to serve your husbands and make babies who will further our cause.”

If she thought she’d been horrified before, Amanda was even more so now. Bibi was only four. And Natasha, the oldest, was eleven. The thought of anyone hurting them made her physically sick.

“What about Mandy?” Sharon asked. She’d been extremely clingy throughout their trek through the rainforest, and while Amanda also wanted to know her fate, she wished the girl had kept her mouth shut at that moment.

The leader smiled then—an evil smile that made the hair on the back of Amanda’s neck stand up.

“Ah yes, the brave teacher who refused to leave her students. We definitely have plans for her. But for now, she continues to do what she’s been doing…keeping you all in line.”

And with that, he turned and headed in the direction he’d been going when Michael interrupted him.

A shiver swept through Amanda from head to toe. She wasn’t going to make it out of there. That much was obvious. She was being used to keep the children calm and compliant, but as soon as the girls were given to whomever came for them, and the boys were cowed from exhaustion or beatings, she was expendable.

And the looks of the faces of the men around her were suddenly a little too eager. As if they’d been wondering what the leader had in store for her, and now that he’d spoken, they assumed she’d be nothing more than a plaything to use as they saw fit until her death.

“Mandy?” Sharon whined.

Turning her thoughts away from her inevitable future, she straightened her spine and faced the girls. “Come on, let’s go get settled in our tent,” she told them. Looking at Joseph, the oldest boy, she added, “Joe, look after Richard, James, and Mark. Split them up amongst the rest of you.” The three boys she’d singled out were the youngest, and would need looking after if they were going to survive.

Joseph nodded, and Amanda was glad to see the boys immediately split themselves up, each tent housing a mixture of older and younger kids.

Natasha, the oldest girl, picked up Bibi and carried her toward the tent they’d been assigned. The other girls followed suit, the older girls pairing up with the younger ones, holding their hands as they trudged toward their new home for however long they’d be there.

Amanda wanted to ask if they’d get some food. Some water. If they’d be able to wash their clothes. After two weeks of walking, they were all pretty ripe. But she also didn’t want to bring any more attention to themselves than they already had. As much as she wanted to come up with a strategy to escape, to run into the jungle and get away from whatever this group of men had planned, she knew that wasn’t exactly viable.

She had no idea where they were. Couldn’t survive on her own in the jungle, forget about taking twenty-three boys and girls with her. And Amanda would no more leave the kids to fend for themselves than she’d kick a wounded puppy in the streets.

No, she was going to be here until she died. No matter how this played out.

She had zero confidence that a miracle would happen, that they’d either let them go or someone would come to their rescue. Life only worked like that in movies and novels. The reality was, the boys would be forced to fight for these rebels, and the girls…

She didn’t want to think about their fate.

Refusing to cry, as that wouldn’t solve anything, Amanda herded the girls to the tent.

One minute at a time. That’s all she could do. That’s all she had the mental bandwidth to deal with. Whatever would happen would happen, but when the time came for her fate, she vowed to fight to the bitter end. She wouldn’t make it easy for them, no matter what their captors had in store for her. 

 

* * *

 

Nash “Buck” Chaney clenched his fists under the table, trying to hold on to his patience. He and his copilot, Obi-Wan, were currently in Guyana, preparing for a rescue mission. Twenty-three children and one American teacher had been kidnapped from their school near the border of Venezuela and taken into the rainforest. They’d just been briefed by the director of the school about what had gone down that day just over two weeks ago, when the school was raided, and nothing they’d heard was making him very happy.

He and Obi-Wan might not be in the middle of a war zone, but knowing there were innocent children going through something horrific right this moment was making him more than a little anxious to get this mission started.

The location of the kidnapping victims was currently unknown, but the Guyanese government had an idea of where they might be, or at least of the direction they’d gone. There were several training camps in the depths of the rainforest they were keeping an eye on, since they were relatively close to the border. Tensions with their neighboring country had ramped up in the last few years, and no one wanted to be surprised by an invasion via the forest.

Hostilities were even higher very recently, because Venezuela announced the annexation of Guyana’s western territories in something they called the Venezuelan Referendum. Guyana had strengthened their military partnership with the US in order to help protect their people and land from their larger neighbor.

But nevertheless, they had been surprised by the kidnapping. It happened so fast. The men had crossed the border without detection, driven straight to the school, loaded up the children and teacher and crossed back into Venezuela, all within ten minutes. There’d been one fatality—a teacher was shot—proving the men weren’t afraid to use lethal force if threatened.

The reason Buck and Obi-Wan were there was because the vice president of the United States had a connection to the small country of Guyana, and he’d pressed the president to take action. To authorize the use of the Night Stalkers to see if they could rescue the children.

Officially, the involvement of the specialized Army unit was because of the American teacher taken with the kids. That was their “in,” so to speak. Sending a message that kidnapping American citizens wouldn’t be tolerated.

It was a tenuous excuse at best. Because Amanda Rush had no connections to the military or government. She had no intel that any foreign military would deem desirable. She was a volunteer, spending time in Guyana helping an organization educate a school full of orphans.

But the longer Buck sat at the table and listened to intel about the group who took the kids and their teacher, the more uneasy he became. This was no unorganized, ragtag group of men. They were terrorists, plain and simple. Reports of the things they’d done in the past made his blood boil. They were ruthless, and they didn’t care if the soldiers they “recruited” were nineteen or nine.

Those children would be forced to do heinous things, whether they wanted to or not.

And worse was the way the group treated women. Girls. They were disposable. Second-class citizens. Only good for the children they could birth. It was a barbaric and old-school way of thinking, and it made Buck genuinely concerned for the well-being of Amanda Rush and the eight girls who’d been taken.

Buck’s question was—why had this school been targeted at all? It wasn’t as if it was full of rich children. It was a school for orphans. Children who had no family. No money. Buck supposed if the rebels simply wanted boots on the ground, it made sense. But there were even other schools closer to the border. So why this school? Why pass up two other significantly larger schools with a lot more children? There was even an all-boys academy with older kids, ages thirteen to eighteen, that the rebels had to have passed in order to get to the small orphanage.

It was possible they chose the smaller school because that meant potentially fewer adults to have to deal with…but would that really stand in their way if they’d hoped to grab a significant number of children?

In the grand scheme of things, Buck supposed it didn’t really matter. All that mattered was getting to those kids and their teacher before they disappeared forever.

That’s where he and Obi-Wan came in.

They were going to fly into the jungle, rescue the kids, and bring them all back to Guyana. To safety. They were taking half a dozen members of the Guyanese military with them, as that was all they could fit in the chopper once the kids were rescued. He and Obi-Wan had been reassured that the six men were more than capable of taking on the dozen or so militants who were hiding out in the jungle.

It seemed like a huge risk to Buck, but he had to believe the army knew the capabilities of both their special forces soldiers, and the men they were hunting. His main concern was the kids…and Amanda.

He didn’t know what it was about the woman that intrigued him so much. She’d quit a job in Virginia—ironically in Norfolk, where he was currently stationed—to fly to South America and volunteer her time and expertise with the orphans at the small school. He didn’t know many people who’d be willing to give up their lives to do such a thing. Yes, people joined the Peace Corps all the time, but many were younger, not already well established in a career. He supposed it wasn’t unheard of, but Amanda’s actions still impressed him.

And something that concerned Buck was the fact that Amanda was twenty-nine, single, no parents, no siblings…and apparently didn’t have one person worried that she was missing. He didn’t even know if anyone knew she’d been kidnapped.

His parents were currently living in Kansas, and while he didn’t talk to them every day, he was still close with them. He reached out at least once or twice a month to touch base. His sister was married with two kids and living in Washington state, but if something happened to him, he knew she’d drop everything and come to Virginia to see if she could help.

Not only that, but he had his Night Stalker family, the fellow pilots he worked with on a daily basis. Who had his back in the air and on the ground. He’d die for them, and he knew they’d do the same for him.

The thought of Amanda not having a single person in the world who cared where she was or what was happening to her…it didn’t sit well with him.

From everything he’d heard from her coworkers at the school here in Guyana, she was a hard worker, considerate, compassionate, and kind. It seemed all sorts of wrong that she was caught up in whatever was going on.

Buck only wished the rest of his team—Casper, Pyro, Chaos, and Edge—were with them to assist. Instead, they were in Mexico, helping with the aftermath of the latest hurricane. Their skills were needed to help rescue stranded victims, and to deliver food and water to those who were cut off by raging floodwaters. He and Obi-Wan had volunteered for the Guyana mission, and they’d meet up with their fellow Night Stalkers afterward in Mexico.

“Are we set on the plan?” Colonel Samuel Khan asked. He was in charge of the rescue mission, and would be monitoring how things were going from a small military base not too far from the Venezuelan border.

Joining them around the table were several other military officials, including the captain in charge of the special forces men tasked with taking care of any resistance from the rebels; the administrator of the school, Blair Gaffney; and her assistant, Desmond Williams.

Blair and Desmond had been tense throughout the meeting, and they’d brought with them a folder with names and pictures of all the children who’d been taken. Looking at them now made Buck’s chest hurt all over again. They were all so young. So innocent. He hated that this had happened to them. Hated that they were probably scared out of their minds. He wasn’t exactly glad that their teacher had also been taken, but he guessed without Amanda Rush, the kids would be even worse off.

“Buck? You good?” Obi-Wan asked.

Forcing his attention back to the present, Buck closed the folder. The faces of those kids were etched in his brain…but it was their teacher at the forefront of his mind. She looked eager and happy in the staff picture that had been included in the packet of information provided by Blair and Desmond.

“What’s the contingency plan?” he asked. He’d already approved of the plan to fly over the jungle, use the helicopter’s technology to find heat sources, make sure they were the right targets, then swoop in and spirit the hostages away in the middle of the night. But even the best plans didn’t always work the way they were intended. The kids may have been split up, the chopper might have engine failure—doubtful, but it could happen—or a hundred other things could go wrong.

He wanted to know what the plan was if they weren’t successful on the first go-round. Because once the rebels understood their location had been compromised, they’d scatter. Possibly taking children with them, or even killing them outright.

It was that thought that had Buck hesitating to call this meeting over so they could get started.

“This is a delicate situation,” the colonel said.

“No shit,” Obi-Wan said under his breath.

Buck did his best to keep his face expressionless as he stared at the man in charge.

“If this mission fails…I’m not sure we’ll be able to launch another rescue attempt for some time,” the colonel explained. “The rebels know that jungle better than we do, so they’ll be able to hide in places that might be impossible to reach. And if they split the children up—”

“That can’t happen!” Blair exclaimed, interrupting. “If they split up the kids, we’ll never see them again.”

“They might have already split them up,” one of the special forces operatives said matter-of-factly. “It’s been sixteen days since they were taken. They could be in Caracas by now, for all we know.”

Buck didn’t disagree, but he was really hoping that wasn’t the case.

“I don’t know why they took the girls,” Blair said, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief. She was in her early seventies, if Buck had to guess, and looked way too fragile to be in charge of an orphanage in the tiny South American country. Originally from Texas, she’d apparently decided to do something different with her life after her husband passed away unexpectedly a decade ago. That something was move to Guyana and start a school for orphaned children.

Desmond was a Guyanese man born and raised, who’d been hired as a liaison between Blair and the other locals.

Over the years, the popularity of the school had grown, and the local people had learned to trust Blair. The school turned into a full-time orphanage, and now children were brought there by locals, the government, or they found their way to Blair themselves.

“If we don’t get the children back, we’re done here,” she said tearfully.

Buck couldn’t keep his lip from curling in disdain. She was worried about the reputation of her school? What about the kids? What about Amanda Rush? The safety of the children who hadn’t been taken? It seemed to him there were other things the woman should be worried about.

Desmond patted her hand. “They’ll find them, Blair. I know it.”

“Those kids are innocent. They didn’t deserve this,” she said between sniffs.

“Yes, ma’am. We’re going to do our best to bring them all back to you unharmed,” the captain told her.

“As to a contingency plan,” the colonel said, his tone hard, “there isn’t one. You have to succeed in getting the kids out on your first pass. Otherwise…”

He let his sentence hang.

Buck knew what he didn’t want to say in front of the civilians. It was likely the rebels would simply shoot any younger kids, because they’d be a liability. They might keep the oldest boys, but that was about it.

And Amanda Rush? She’d be as good as dead as well.

They had to use the element of surprise and rescue the hostages. If they didn’t…

Buck knew there was as much point to finishing that thought as there was to the colonel finishing his directive. He was well aware of the responsibility that sat upon his and Obi-Wan’s shoulders. The same one he had every time they loaded up a chopper full of Navy SEALs or Delta Force operatives before heading into any other hostile territory. 

He was a Night Stalker. One of the best pilots in the world. It didn’t matter if he was flying into a jungle or the mountains. He could handle the chopper and the terrain…but it was the unknown factors that would make the mission succeed or fail.

And Buck refused to fail. Not today. Not when the stakes were so high. Not when so many innocent lives depended on him and Obi-Wan, and the soldiers they would carry into the jungle. They had to not only find the missing kids and teacher, and get them back to Guyana, but mitigate any threats in the process.

There were a few other details that needed to be discussed, but after another twenty minutes, the meeting had disbanded and Buck and Obi-Wan were standing. They had two hours before they’d be heading into the jungle on their search-and-rescue mission.

Blair stopped them before they could leave. She put a hand on Buck’s arm and said in a low, tearful voice, “There’s a girl. Bibi. She’s the youngest. Only four. She’s like a daughter to me. I want all the kids back safely, but she’s…” Tears spilled onto her cheeks as she struggled with her emotions.

The woman’s white hair was messy, and any makeup she’d been wearing had long since worn off. She had bags under her eyes and it didn’t look like she’d slept much recently. Buck felt bad for her…and a little guilty for his earlier thoughts. The woman’s entire world had shifted, and it seemed she was barely hanging on.

“We’ll bring her back. We’ll bring them all back,” he impulsively promised. It was a stupid pledge to make, as he had no idea if they’d even be able to find the missing children, but he couldn’t stand there and not reassure the woman in some way.

“Thank you,” she whispered, before Desmond put his arm around her shoulders and led her down the hall, in the opposite direction from where Buck and Obi-Wan would be headed.

“That was intense,” Obi-Wan observed.

“Yeah.”

“Civilian missions are hard. I think I prefer being a bus for SEALs.”

Buck understood where his copilot was coming from. At least when they were ferreting military personnel to and from hot zones, everyone knew what was expected of them. What they were getting into. That there were no guarantees anyone would survive the extremely dangerous missions they were sent on.

Kids were a completely different thing. They were precious. Innocent. Unpredictable.

As he and Obi-Wan headed to the nearby hangar to check over their chopper one more time and make sure everything was as it should be, Buck couldn’t help but think about Amanda Rush yet again. Everyone’s focus was on the kids, and rightly so. But that didn’t keep him from wondering how she was coping. If she was even still alive.

If the rebels had decided to use her to assuage their baser needs.

He frowned at the unpleasant thought. No woman should have to experience that. Ever. It was the ultimate degradation.

Even if the teacher had managed to escape that fate, she still had to be extremely stressed. Being responsible for over twenty kids, who she probably thought of as her own children, in some ways. She was in an impossible situation, and Buck hated that for her.

He took a moment to hope and pray that they’d be successful. That the intel they’d received about the direction the rebels had gone, and where their suspected camp was located, was correct. If it wasn’t…

It was very likely Amanda Rush and the children under her care would be lost forever.

Gritting his teeth, Buck was filled with determination. He’d do whatever it took to find them. He didn’t know why this mission felt so much more personal than any other he’d been on…was it because it involved kids? Civilians? Orphans who already didn’t have much in this world?

He wasn’t sure. But if he and Obi-Wan found them, he was going to do everything in his power to get them out of the jungle safe and sound.

She thought the most difficult thing she’d ever done was survive the rainforest…she was wrong.

Things between Amanda Rush and Nash “Buck” Chaney aren’t starting out very well. He’s one of two Army Night Stalker helicopter pilots sent to rescue her and the twenty-three kids who’ve been kidnapped from a school in Guyana. But when the time comes for everyone to escape the military rebels who’d driven them deep into the Amazon rainforest, Amanda runs away from rescue, instead of toward it, forcing Buck to chase her down.

As it turns out, she has a very good reason for not immediately rushing into the helicopter with all the kids. But now she and Buck are stranded in the very warm, very wet, and very uncomfortable rainforest—with a whole contingent of pissed-off rebels on their trail, who are determined to hunt them down.

Not on Buck’s watch.

Danger’s a funny thing. It can either bring people together or drive them apart. Despite their rocky start, Amanda and Buck find, to their surprise, that they have a lot in common. And once they return home to Virginia, they think they’ve left that danger behind them in the hot and humid rainforest.

They couldn’t be more wrong. Someone went to great lengths to get rid of Amanda…and they’re determined to finish what they started.

**Keeping Amanda is the 2nd book in the Rescue Angels Series. Each book is a stand-alone, with no cliffhanger endings.

Trigger Warning: This story very lightly explores the distressing reality of child soldiers in other countries, as well as the sometimes devastating impact of adult mental illness on children. For those reasons, it may not be for more sensitive readers.

Keeping Amanda