Just like before, Eric fired down, distracting the shooter and allowing Tate to take his shot. The shooter slumped down on the fire escape, his weapon falling from his hand.
Rank looked up, and yelled, “Helena! Come on! Now, you’ve got it!”
She crawled to the edge and peered over, seeing him just below. Drew and the others made it over, their ropes ready to toss to the second floor but, unaware of their plan, she leaped to her feet and raced to the ladder. She climbed onto it, but it was stuck and did not descend.
“It’s not moving!” she screamed.
Drew tossed the rope up and the hook on the end caught on one of the ladder rungs. Calling out, “Hold on,” he gave the rope a pull.
Standing underneath, with his arms outstretched, Rank gasped as the ladder began to move quickly and Helena lost her grip. She fell, ungracefully, landing in his arms so that he had one hand on her ass and the other on her back.
As he clung to her, a strange sense of déjà vu swept through him. Only this time, he held her with a grateful heart.
Without hesitation, he and the others began to jog toward the back of the building, their way illuminated by the outdoor lights. The area was swarming with Feds, but the Keepers pushed through.
As Bray ran over, Rank knelt, easing Helena to the ground.
“Rank, man, you gotta loosen up so I can check her over,” Bray said softly, a hand on his shoulder.
He tried, but he just could not let her go. A sob ripped through her, stabbing him in the heart, and he clutched her tighter.
“M…Mom…Da…Dad.”
“Baby, baby, they’re all right.” He rubbed the hair back from her face, watching as she blinked in confusion, agony still present in her teary eyes. “Honest, baby, they’re okay. And I swear, right now, the Feds are letting them know that you’re okay, too.”
As her breathing hitched several times, he leaned in and placed a kiss at the corner of her mouth, murmuring against her soft skin. “Trust me, baby. Your parents are fine.”
Realizing he wasn’t going to be letting her go any time soon, Bray moved in, and said, “Helena, where do you hurt?”
She shook her head slowly, licking her lips. “I’m okay. They…they didn’t hurt me.” She winced as Bray took her hand, and, looking down, he noticed that her right palm was bruised. As Bray moved her wrist back and forth, she grimaced again.
“Tender?” Bray asked.
“A little. I must have done that when I hit him,” she said almost absentmindedly.
His gaze jumped from Helena up to Walker and Drew, but they both shook their heads slightly. Bray wrapped her wrist and hand, but spoke to him. “We’ll get it X-rayed when we get back.”
Eric stepped forward, a wide grin on his face, and clapped him on the back. “Looks like Ms. Jernigan knows how to take care of herself.” As he stood, assisting Helena to her feet, Eric continued, “Found Kozlov’s second-in-command on the fifth floor, outside the elevator. He was still on the floor, struggling to stand up after having been kneed in the balls and having his nose broken by Ms. Jernigan here.”
Everyone chuckled and Rank pulled her tightly into his side, not wanting to have an inch separating them.
Mace and his crew came from the front of the building, walking straight to Helena. Mace grabbed the back of her neck gently and pulled her forward, kissing the top of her head. “Thank fuck, Helena. Good to have you back with us.”
Helena smiled up at them, blinking away the tears that remained. A man she did not recognize walked over, and Rank introduced her to Bart, explaining how they had served together overseas.
Like Mace, Bart bent and kissed her forehead. Then, he turned his gaze toward Rank, and said, “You two ever make it down to Virginia, come stay with me and my family.” Shifting his gaze back to her, he added, “My wife, Faith, and you would get along just fine. She’s a quiet one, but a scrapper when she needs to be.”
Rank shook hands with Jack and Marc, then hugged and back slapped Bart as they said their goodbyes. Offering another handshake, which ended up in a man-hug and more backslapping, he said goodbye to Eric. “You ever need anything, you know how to get hold of me.”
Eric nodded and grinned. “Just might take you up on that.”
As Mace and Jack said their goodbyes, Rank noticed Bart and Eric exchanging a look, but he did not think too much of it. Soon, they were all heading back to the helicopters and his attention was once more focused on Helena.
Unwilling to let her go, he strapped her in with him and held her during the entire flight back to Maine.
27
Sunlight streamed through the window of the cabin, illuminating the couple curled up around each other. Helena blinked her eyes open, feeling the heat of Rank’s body all along her back and his arms banded tightly around her, as though afraid she would disappear. Hearing a light scratching on the door, she knew she needed to get out of bed.
Slipping soundlessly from under the covers, she tiptoed to the door and opened it. Greeting Oscar and Grover, she headed straight to the kitchen to feed them. Hurrying back to the guest room, she walked in and smiled, seeing Prairie Dawn lying on her side licking her three nursing kittens.
Making sure Prairie had food and water, she headed back to the other bedroom. Sliding back underneath the covers, she rolled toward Rank, smiling as he pulled her half underneath him.
“Kittens okay?” he mumbled.
“Yeah. I just wanted to make sure everyone was fed.”
Rank lifted up on his forearms and stared into Helena’s eyes. Wanting to keep a pulse on how she was, he searched, but found only peace staring back at him.
She lifted her hand up and cupped his jaw, her thumb rubbing over his beard. “I know you’re worried, but I’m fine.”
“Baby, what you went through, it can mark a person. Hell, it marked me. Never been so fuckin’ scared in my life.”
She continued to stroke his cheek, and assured, “Honey, I’m here. You’re here. We’re safe, we’re good.”
He leaned down and kissed her lips gently, before asking, “That’s all it takes for you?”
Her lips curved into a gentle smile as she nodded, “Yeah. That’s all it takes to make me happy…you and me.”
Their lips met again in a long, slow kiss. Tongues exploring lazily, tasting the essence of each other.
Regretfully, he lifted his head up and, with his thumb sweeping over the apple of her cheek, said, “We need to talk.”
The seriousness of Rank’s words shot through Helena, but before she could imagine the worst, he continued.
“We live a hundred miles away from each other and with some of that being on smaller roads, we’re looking at an hour and a half just to get to each other’s houses. I know your business is in New Hampshire, and obviously mine is in Maine. I can’t be more than about thirty minutes away from LSI, and I sure as hell don’t want you having to drive the roads by yourself, in the dark, or in bad weather. But fuck, babe, I don’t want us to be apart. If you’re up for it, we can start looking for a place that’s in between both of our jobs as soon as we can.”
She blinked slowly, her mouth slightly open as she stared into his sincere face. “You want us to move in together? You want us to find a place together?”
His brows lowered, and he said, “Why the hell not?”
“We haven’t really known each other that long.”
He huffed. “Do you love me?”
Her face softened and her lips curved into a smile again. “Yes, of course I love you.”
“Well, I love you, too. You just said that all it took for you to be happy was for us to be together.” He shifted slightly to the side, propping his head upon his hand with his elbow bent to the pillow, his other hand smoothing over her cheek. “Helena, I’m not trying to rush you if you’re not ready for this. But I know what I want. I know what I’ve been looking for. For me, it’s you. If you’re not ready, we’ll wait. Just know this—until we move in together, we’ll bur
n the roads up so that we can be like this every night when we go to bed and every morning when we wake up.”
Her throat began to burn and her eyes stung as she blinked. Sucking in a ragged breath, she held his gaze, and said, “I’m ready.”
He looked at her quizzically, but she continued, “You’re right. I want us to be together and there’s no reason to wait.” He smiled, and her breath caught in her throat again, this time at the beauty of what was moving through her.
“I’ll start looking for a new place, halfway between where we live now.”
Shaking her head, she said, “No. There’s no need for that.” Seeing him about to protest, she interrupted. “Rank, I can do my job anywhere. I don’t have to be in Portsmouth. Todd’s internship is almost over and he’s going back to school to get his Master’s degree. I adore Anna, but I was also going to have to start looking for a new secretary because she’s decided to move to California with her boyfriend.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that, for now, I can move into your place and then we can look for a new place close by together.”
With a grin, he moved in, capturing her lips. This time, instead of slow and easy, the kiss quickly became wet and wild. Shifting back over her body, he held his weight upon his forearms planted on either side of her shoulders. His hips pressed against her pelvis and she widened her legs, wrapping them around his waist.
“I know you said Mace wanted us to debrief today,” she said, her arms holding him tight. “But do you think we have time for a little fun beforehand?”
Grinning, he replied, “Hell, yeah, babe. I’ve got nothing but time for you.”
Once more ensconced in the main lighthouse dining room, Helena looked around at the gathering. No longer strangers, every person there was someone she felt as though she knew. Sylvie and David had come by the cabin earlier, to check on the kittens. Sylvie had taken her to the side and asked if she had decided what she would do once the kittens were weaned.
Smiling in anticipation, she had replied that she planned on finding good homes for them. Just as she hoped, Sylvie confessed that David really wanted one, and she and Mace felt like he was at a good age to have a pet. She had also mentioned that Marge was looking to take on another cat, since one of hers had passed. Promising to let David have the pick of the litter, she had watched as he carefully put down fresh water and food, watching the kittens from a short distance away so that he would not make Prairie nervous.
Now, at the table surrounded by friends, she looked to the head, where Mace stood.
“Helena,” Mace began, “it’s good to have you back with us, safe and sound.”
She smiled. “I owe that to all of you.”
“I hear you put a whoopin’ on one of your captors,” Babs called out, her grin wide as the others chuckled.
“Thanks to you,” she assured, her smile equaling Babs’.
“As a group, we debrief after every mission and, of course, have already done that. But I wanted to make sure that Helena understood what was going on,” Mace announced. Holding her attention, he continued, “Frank Tercelli has been laundering money for years as part of tax evasion fraud. In case you’re wondering why he wasn’t arrested years ago, it takes a while to build a case and, as sad as this fact is, he’s only one of many who do such things. Generally, unless they’re also involved in something else, the Feds don’t have the time or resources to step in and investigate what all they are doing.
“One of the things he had been involved in was finding smaller, unscrupulous nonprofit organizations to donate money to. They, in turn, would hold onto it for him and then pass it on when he needed. Of course, he paid a fee to do this, usually a hefty fee, so they were more than happy to accommodate.”
“And that’s where I came in,” she said.
He nodded. “He had been looking for a place where he could dump a lot of money at one time and when your father mentioned what you were doing, he felt as though he’d found the answer to his need. Under the guise of having donations from his business partners and employees, he was able to give you a large sum. As you discovered, he also buried it under a great deal of paperwork, making it difficult for you to ascertain what he was doing.
“Always greedy, he came in contact with Anatoly Kozlov, an arms dealer who was looking for someone to help him launder money. What Frank didn’t count on was how thoroughly you do your job. When you discovered that his list included organizations that were not real, and then tied it into Kozlov, he panicked. You wouldn’t budge, and Kozlov was going to take his revenge.”
Stunned at the depth of Frank’s deception, she said, “But my parents?”
Rank put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her in, offering his comfort. “Desperate people do desperate things, babe.”
Sighing, she leaned her weight against him, turning her attention back to Mace.
“Rank’s right. Frank became desperate and knew the only way to get you to do his bidding, was to threaten your parents. He needed to get you in order to get to the money. And he needed the money to hand off to Kozlov. I don’t know that he thought through anything else other than that.”
“And now?” she asked.
“Frank has been arrested for money laundering, fraud, tax evasion, kidnapping, extortion, and attempted murder. And the Feds have Kozlov on all of that, plus they boarded three of his ships and found stolen arms.”
Shaking her head slowly, she thought of Frank’s son. “Poor Thomas.”
Marge piped up, and said, “It’s been on the TV all day. He’s resigning his Senate seat.”
Eyes wide, she asked, “Did he know what his father was doing?”
Mace shook his head. “From all indications, no. But I assume he feels like he wouldn’t be able to complete his duties as a Senator with all the negative press that’s swirling about what his father has done. And, of course, there’s the murder of his aide, Lawrence Griffey. Anatoly took care of that, at Frank’s request. Frank felt Lawrence was getting too inquisitive and thought that if he could be gotten rid of, it would make things better.”
Mace finished, by saying, “You’re welcome to stay in the cabin—”
“That won’t be necessary, boss,” Rank interjected. He smiled down at her, and announced, “We’re moving in together. She’s going to move into my place to start off with, and then we’re looking for a place together around here.”
Walker clapped him on the back, as the others shouted out their congratulations. She beamed at those around the table before looking at Rank and he bent and placed a quick kiss on her lips. As she turned to face the others sitting around the table, she noticed Babs’ gaze fixed on Drew, but Drew appeared unaware as he joked about another good man falling. As though realizing someone was staring at her, Babs’ eyes shifted over to her and she offered a smile. Babs winked and smiled widely as well, but it did not meet her eyes.
With the meeting now over, the group disbursed. She and Rank walked back toward the cabin, arms around each other. “I need to get to my apartment,” she said. “I’ll need to pack things up and have a week or so to finish things in my office. I talked to my parents earlier and promised I would go by to see them, as well.” Shifting her eyes to the side, she grinned. “They also can’t wait to meet you.”
“That reminds me…talked to my parents last night. They want us to make a trip to North Carolina some time. Thought maybe we could go around Thanksgiving, but I know you have to think about your folks.”
Pleased that he wanted her to meet his family, she said, “We’ll work it out.”
With his arm draped over her shoulders, he smiled as she slid her hand around his waist, and they walked down the path together. “When do you need to leave?”
She shifted her gaze slyly up toward him, and grinned. “Well, I definitely think another night here in the cabin would be good for us.”
With a whoop, he bent and scooped her up, starting to jog. They made it to the cabin i
n record time.
28
Helena walked out onto the front porch of the house, carrying three beers in her hand. Smiling, she handed one to Rank’s father, Tom, and his brother-in-law, Jim, gaining thanks and smiles in return. She turned to hand one to Rank and he reached out and grabbed her hand. Gently pulling her into his lap, he nuzzled her neck, and mumbled, “Thanks, babe.”
She looked out over the lawn, seeing his niece and nephews chasing each other around, and said, “How do they have that much energy after such a big meal?”
Rank’s mother, Hannah, walked out onto the porch with his sister, Carol, and they all settled into chairs. “I know I said this earlier, but the Thanksgiving meal was wonderful,” she said, leaning around to look at his mother.
“We’re just so pleased to have you come,” Hannah said. “I’m sorry you weren’t able to be with your folks, though.”
“My parents and I see each other a lot,” she replied, thinking that after the trauma with Frank, her parents had been constantly calling or she had visited. “They finally decided to take a trip when I told them I wanted to come here. They headed off to Venice for a vacation and I’m glad. My dad hasn’t taken a vacation in years, and he and Mom really wanted to spend some time away together.”
“That sounds lovely,” Hannah said. Her gaze drifted to her grandchildren and a wistful sigh left her lips. “I wish…”
Helena caught Rank’s sly grin and was about to ask him what he was smiling about, when a taxi pulled up to the front of the house.
“Who on earth is that?” Hannah asked, as Tom stood to get a better view.
“Looks like Santa may come early this year,” Rank said, drawing her attention back to him.
“Oh, my God! Richard!” Hannah screamed, bolting off the porch.
She jerked her head around to see who was alighting from the taxi. A large man stood in the driveway and, for a second, she thought she was looking at Rank’s double—except for the military uniform.
Rank: Lighthouse Security Investigations Series Page 23