I huffed in disbelief.
“By some twist of fate, when I got here, the kids weren’t protected anymore. Not that I planned on using them, I swear. But the idea just fell into my lap when I couldn’t get to you.” He laughed. “And it needed to be tonight, beautiful. It’s our one-year anniversary.”
Horror and shame and self-reproach filled me.
Why had I let my guard down?
Why hadn’t I realized that New Year’s Eve was a night to stay alert?
Probably because you thought Autry or Dad would tell you if Austin tried to leave the States.
Why hadn’t they?
“I was going to take them and leave a note for you to find me, but suddenly you were in the house. Like it was fate. There you were. It was easier to just stash the kids somewhere it might take your boss,” he spat the word, “time to find them.”
“Where?” I demanded, my heart pounding. “I swear to God, if you hurt them, I will fucking kill you.”
His teeth flashed in the dark. “I love it when you’re feisty.”
I loathed him.
I loathed him with every part of my being.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t hurt them. I tied the kids up in the guest house. Everyone will be so busy trying to find them while they’re right under their noses that we’ll have time to do what we came here to do.”
Eilidh and Lewis were physically okay. Traumatized, but alive. I took a deep breath.
“And what did you come here to do?” I dreaded knowing, but I was determined, despite the almost debilitating, pulsing ache in my head, that I wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Tears suddenly thickened Austin’s throat. “Die,” he whispered hoarsely. “Tonight we’re going to die together.”
My breath came in harsh pants as terror tried to seize control of me. “Why? Why?”
“We’re meant to be together, Regan. But you’re too hardheaded to see that. I can’t spend my life chasing you, trying to convince you of something I already know!” His voice got louder with his agitation. “And if I can’t make you see it, then the only way for us to be eternal is to die together. We’ll be together forever in death.”
Oh my God, he’d lost it completely. “Austin, you’re not thinking straight—”
“Don’t tell me what I’m thinking!” he yelled, standing up to pace.
I scooted back a little, careful not to retreat too close to the cliff’s edge.
“Do you know what it’s like to believe something, to know something deep in your soul, and have everyone else call you a fucking psycho for it?” he spat.
“Austin—”
“It’s like you’re already dead!” he continued. “I’ve been grieving you for a year, and no one understands! And I can’t take it anymore. I can’t live like this anymore.”
Hearing the loss in his voice, I shivered harder. He really believed that. His pain was real, even if his delusions about us were not. Needing time to think, time for someone to find us, I stalled. “What about your family? You mentioned a brother.”
He’d never mentioned his brother while we’d been backpacking together. In fact, he’d definitively told me he was an only child.
Austin scoffed. “Like he gives a shit about anything beyond his addictions. He’s an alcoholic and a gambler. Won big, though, a few weeks back. I took the money. I’m not sorry. He’s weak. He doesn’t deserve good things.”
“What about your parents?” During our trip, he’d told us all about growing up in Oregon. His dad was a cattle rancher and his mom a schoolteacher. Austin’s childhood sounded idyllic.
He gave a bark of bitter laughter. “What parents? Are you referring to the mother who took her six- and eight-year-old sons in hand, told them they were going on a trip, and then abandoned them at a bus station? Or the father I never met?”
“But …” I trailed off. He’d lied about his life. About everything.
“No one wants to hear that shit, Regan,” he said, as if he’d read my mind. “They just want you to tell them you had a good life. That you and your brother weren’t abused by a sick fuck of a foster father.”
Renewed tears sprung to my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It made me a better person. Smarter. Harder worker. More intuitive. I mean, women came and went. Always giving me mixed signals. Always untrustworthy and making me work for it. But you … the first moment you smiled at me with those incredible dimples, it was like being hit with a ray of sunshine. And I could tell you were lost. A lost angel who needed guidance.” His voice hardened. “But you’re so damn stubborn and such a typical woman. You don’t even know your own mind. You can’t be trusted with your own feelings.”
Any sympathy or compassion I’d felt died. “You know”—I pushed up onto my knees, the world spinning a little—“I’m getting a little sick of people saying that to me.” I wobbled as I stood up straight, but I forced myself to focus past the dizziness. “I know my mind. My heart. And while I’m very sorry that your life has been difficult, other people have gone through similar shit, and they don’t resort to rape and kidnapping.”
“I never raped you!” he shouted.
“You tried!”
“That wasn’t rape.” Austin tore his hands through his hair. “God, how could you think that, this whole time?”
“Because it’s true! You held me down and you tried to have sex with me against my will. That’s attempted rape, Austin. Never mind the fact you continued to threaten to rape me in your emails.”
“No, no, no.” He started pacing frantically. “No, you’re mixed up. You’re remembering things wrong.”
As he continued to rant, I glanced over my shoulder, and my head spun dangerously as I saw how high up we were.
Turning back to him as he paced and disagreed about what occurred between us last January, I knew there was no arguing with him. He saw things his way, and there was no showing him differently.
Austin stopped rambling and looked over at me, his expression feral in the moonlight. “I’ll just have to show you. Remind you that for us, sex is about making love. Yeah.” He strode toward me. “We should have that from each other before we go.”
“No.” I stumbled sideways and then tried to dart past him. We grappled, me pushing at his face, clawing at his neck, trying to escape. Yet he was so much stronger than I was, and I was so dizzy from the blow to my head.
Robyn’s voice roared in my mind, instructing me, demanding I not let him get me on the ground, but my limbs wouldn’t obey.
My foot slipped, hitting nothing but air, and I cried out in fright.
“Careful!” Austin gripped me to him. “We don’t want you going over the edge just yet.”
Suddenly, I knew why he’d brought me here.
He intended to send me over the edge with him tonight.
And I was not dying in the North Sea.
Tears of fury and desperation streaked my cheeks as he hauled me into his arms so tightly, I could barely breathe.
“God, I’ve missed you.” Austin buried his face in my neck.
Every inch of me was repulsed by his hold.
“Please,” I whispered, “don’t do this to me.”
He lifted his head to stare down into my eyes, and I saw nothing but belief in his.
I had no idea someone’s faith could be so terrifying.
“This is how it’s meant to be. You’ll see that soon.” He curled his foot around mine and I fell.
My back slammed into the ground, my head wound screaming with the impact.
And then Robyn’s commanding voice was in my head again, reciting instructions as Austin fell to his knees and tried to grab at my hands.
Focusing on Robyn’s voice, I forced my left knee into his gut to stop him from coming down on top of me as I wrapped my hand around his right wrist. Then I pulled back my right leg and planted my foot hard on his hip … and I ripped at his hold on my arm and shoved him away from me with all my might, using the strength in
my legs. He toppled backward as I rolled out from under him and scrambled to my feet. Eyes darting to him, I froze in shock as his arms windmilled at his sides.
And then he was falling out of sight.
His scream wrenched through the night air, chilling me to the bone.
Finally, I heard him crash into the waves below, just as they pounded against the rocks.
Nausea crawled up my belly as I tentatively walked over to the cliff’s edge.
There was nothing but white froth in darkness under the moonlight.
No sign of Austin.
Shaking so hard my teeth rattled in my head, I stumbled back from the edge and sobbed. A sense of unreality descended over me.
Focus, Ree, I heard Robyn whisper. Come back home.
“Eilidh, Lewis,” I murmured into the night. No one knew where they were. They must be scared out of their minds.
Rushing forward, pushing through what I was sure was a concussion, I ran from the edge and into fields sparse with winter grass. I had no idea where I was, how far from Ardnoch he’d taken us.
But as I followed the coast, I saw lights in the distance. Hurrying toward them, it took about ten minutes before a sense of overwhelming familiarity rushed over me.
I was near Gordon’s trailer park at Ardnoch Beach.
Loud music thrummed from the park, and I could see shadowy figures outside the trailers, partying together.
Of course. It was still Hogmanay.
“Help!” I yelled hoarsely, running harder now. “Help!” The fields eventually gave way to a path carved by people trekking up onto the cliffs. The path sloped down toward the trailer park, and I stumbled on a large pebble, going over on my ankle. The jarring thud of hitting the ground on my hands and knees made black dots cover my eyes.
“No!” I shoved myself back onto my feet. I had to stay awake. I had to tell someone where Eilidh and Lewis were.
Rushing down onto the gravel, I saw two people sitting on the deck of their trailer watching everyone else dancing and drinking on the road that cut through the park.
“Help!” I yelled, trying to be heard over the music.
But I had to run right up to their deck before the older couple turned to me in surprise. I didn’t know what I looked like, but the man broke out in a curse at the sight of me.
“Please, help!”
“What on earth?” the woman cried out, and they hurried down their deck steps to catch me as I swayed.
Focus, Regan, focus.
It all came out in a rush, and I got agitated as they made me repeat it. We drew attention from other people, and I was aware of the music fading out. Police were called, but I rambled off Thane’s number, insisting they call him to tell him where Eilidh and Lewis were.
“The children are fine,” the woman, Betty, said sometime later when I repeated the demand. “They’ve already found them. Your friend is on his way.”
The news that Eilidh and Lewis were safe made me sob with relief. It was only when Betty said, “Your friend is here,” that I became cognizant of the fact that I was inside their trailer with a blanket around me.
I didn’t realize how much time had passed.
“Where is she?” I heard Thane demand loudly outside. He sounded frantic.
Launching myself off the trailer’s couch, I pushed hands away that tried to stop me and hurried outside. Thane and Robyn stood by his SUV, glaring at two of the partygoers.
“Thane.”
His head snapped toward me. Our eyes caught, his blazing with everything.
It took him less than two seconds to cross the distance between us and haul me into his arms. The feel of him, his scent, all of it overwhelmed me, and I melted like an ice cube by the fire.
“Mo leannan.” I felt his lips on my temple.
I smiled just as the black dots scattered across my vision.
“Regan?” Thane’s voice turned sharp with concern. “Regan!”
I couldn’t answer.
It was like the whole damn world switched off the lights.
40
Thane
Eilidh snuggled sleepily on his lap while Lewis slept beside Regan on the hospital bed. The nurse had not been amused when she’d discovered Lewis asleep on the bed, but Lachlan had made it clear no one was moving his nephew.
Thane had never been more thankful for his brother’s imperiousness.
Robyn was curled up on the armchair opposite Thane’s.
When Regan had collapsed in his arms, Thane almost had heart failure. However, to his everlasting relief, she’d gained consciousness only a minute later. She’d fainted from the shock of her ordeal.
Still, the doctors were concerned because Austin Vale had taken Lewis’s baseball bat to the back of her head before dragging her out to that cliff. The same bat he’d hit Eredine with twice.
If the bastard weren’t already fish food, Thane would have killed him.
Regan was being kept overnight for observation, as was Eredine. They’d both been warned they would mostly likely struggle with headaches for the next week or two. All that mattered, however, was there was no sign of brain injury. Miraculously, neither seemed to have issues with memory loss.
Arro was asleep in Ery’s room.
Thane refused to leave his children or Regan, and the kids didn’t want to be far from either of them. So they’d spent the rest of Hogmanay in the busy hospital in Inverness. Uncomfortable, but together.
He gazed through wearied vision at Lewis sleeping next to Regan, his small hand clasped in hers. Thane’s chest ached.
The attack traumatized his children. He’d have to talk with someone. See if he should get Eilidh and Lewis counseling. This was something that could affect them for the rest of their lives, and Thane refused to allow that to happen.
Lewis’s hand twitched in Regan’s, and he pushed deeper into her side in his sleep. Thane’s eyes drifted from his son to the woman he loved.
He’d almost lost her tonight.
But she was fierce. Determined to live.
Thank God for Robyn and those self-defense lessons.
The hospital door opened, and Lachlan gestured to him. Holding Eilidh close so as not to wake her, he stood slowly and made his way out of the room.
“News?” Thane whispered.
Lachlan reached out to stroke Eilidh’s hair as he replied quietly, “Seth is distraught, as you can imagine. They didn’t have the manpower or authority to keep someone on Austin at all times back in Boston. The last they saw him, he went into a property three days ago belonging to his brother. No one tailed him to the airport. Seth had an alert on his credit card, but he didn’t use it to pay for a ticket. He didn’t use any of his brother’s credit cards either, so we assume he used cash.”
“Regan mentioned a PI?”
Lachlan nodded. “Mac’s still looking into that.”
“Have they found Vale?”
His brother shook his head. “Search and rescue are still out looking.”
Eilidh shifted in his arms, and he cuddled her closer. “When can Regan and Ery leave?”
“Not until later today,” Lachlan sighed. “I know you want the kids with you, but we should really get them home.”
“I don’t want to leave them, which means leaving Regan.” Neither thought appealed to him.
“Let me and Robyn take the kids,” his brother offered. “You stay here with Regan.”
“I can’t.”
“They’ll be fine for a few hours with us,” Lachlan insisted. “And you and Regan need some time alone to talk when she wakes up.”
Thane’s gut knotted. “I doubt she’ll want to hear it.”
“Brother.” Lachlan leaned into him. “Before that bastard showed up … Regan ran to the one place you’d find her.”
It was true. Before they’d walked into the house and his world crashed down, he’d been beyond relieved to see Regan’s borrowed SUV in his driveway.
“Eils and Lew need to eat. If they don’t want t
o go to bed without you in the house, Robyn and I will camp out on the couch and watch movies with them until you return home.”
Knowing Eilidh and Lewis would be content enough with that, Thane finally nodded. “Thanks.”
Lachlan clamped him on the shoulder and gave him a comforting squeeze. “I’ll go wake Robyn so you can tell her sister that you’re in love with her.”
Thane’s lips trembled with tired laughter. “It’s been a strange bloody twenty-four hours.”
“It’s been a strange bloody year,” Lachlan countered before disappearing into Regan’s hospital room.
REGAN
* * *
The beeping woke me up.
As the hospital room came into focus, so did the memories of the previous night.
And the last thing I remembered was Lewis falling asleep on the hospital bed beside me.
Where was he?
Panicked, I patted the space at my side.
“Hey, hey.” A large, masculine hand took hold of mine. I followed it up a familiar arm clad in a white shirt. Still in his waistcoat and kilt, Thane sat by my bedside.
“Where are the children?” I croaked.
My tongue was like sandpaper, my mouth and throat dry as a desert.
Thane released my hand but only to get up to grab the cup of water from the small side table. Sliding an arm behind my back to help me sit up, he handed me the cup.
I drank thirstily, my eyes holding his. When I was done, I repeated, “Where are they?”
“At home,” he said in that deep, reassuring voice of his. “Robyn and Lachlan are watching over them.”
I waited as Thane took his seat again. “You stayed.”
Something like despair flashed in his soulful eyes. “I don’t think I can let you out of my sight for a while. As it was, Lachlan had to persuade me that letting the kids go home was best for them.”
“You should have gone with them.” I felt awful he’d had to choose. “I would have understood.”
“We need to talk,” he said bluntly.
Oh, no. Here it came.
The blame. The shame.
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