Too Far Gone

by Marliss Melton

  “Okay,” Skyler squeaked, putting a protective hand across her mother as Drake accelerated suddenly, speeding them out from under the enormous live oaks lining Oglethorpe Avenue toward the double suspension bridge arching into a violet sky over the Savannah River straight ahead.

  Behind them, the cruiser’s siren started to scream.

  Ignoring it, Drake gunned the engine, and the Lexus roared up the steep grade of the bridge, high above the silver river. Too soon he was forced to slow down again. Cars blocked both lanes ahead of them. “Come on!” Drake muttered, tapping his horn. “Move out of the way.”

  A good citizen in a Cadillac figured it was his civic obligation to block Drake’s escape and let the cruiser overtake them. It surged closer, its blue lights flashing into the interior of the Lexus.

  Drake pushed a button on his phone and stuck in his earpiece. “This is Special Agent Donovan,” he clipped. “Are you in place? Over.”

  “That’s a roger, Donovan,” replied a man. “We’re parked on a pull-off just fifty meters past the far side of the bridge. Jesus, is that you being chased?”

  “Yes, it is. Get in a defensive position with your firearms drawn. I’m going to pull around you and in on the protected passenger side. Let’s show this clown who’s in charge here.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  Caught behind another slow-moving car, Drake was forced to decelerate. With a roar, the patrol car tapped the Lexus’s bumper, causing the tires of their vehicle to skid on the dew-slick surface. “Son of a bitch!” Drake muttered.

  In the backseat, Matilda Dulay startled awake. “What!” she cried, fighting the constraints of her seat belt in wide-eyed terror. “What’s happening?”

  Skyler sought to comfort her. “It’s okay, Mama. Don’t panic. Drake’s bringing us somewhere safe.”

  But as the police car bumped them again, sending the back end of the Lexus skidding into the cement blockade, Matilda released her own seat belt and lunged at Drake, clawing at him from behind. “Stop the car!” she cried feebly.

  “Mama, let go of him,” Skyler ordered, wrestling her back into her seat, struggling to refasten her seat belt.

  At last the car in front of Drake moved out of the way, and as the squad car came in for another hit, Drake punched the accelerator, sending them flying down the opposite side of the bridge toward the South Carolina border.

  He could see his colleagues now, parked on the other side of the street, facing oncoming traffic. As per his instructions, they stood behind their doors, badges and firearms drawn.

  “Hold on tight,” Drake warned, slowing just enough to execute a hundred-and-eighty-degree skidding turn.

  Skyler clung, pale-faced, to her seat. In the back, her mother screamed. The antilock-brake system protested; nonetheless, the tires slid in a perfect arc, allowing Drake to drive straight between the federal vehicle and the tall marsh grass. “Go out that side, Skyler,” he said, reaching across the passenger seat to flip it forward. “I’ll get your mother.”

  As Skyler shot out of the Lexus, the squad car flew past them, tires squealing as it skidded to a stop. It was backing up by the time Drake had jumped out of the driver’s seat to help Matilda Dulay from the rear. “Come on, ma’am. You’ll be safe, I promise.”

  To his great relief, Matilda allowed him to assist her.

  “Federal agents, FBI!” shouted Drake’s colleagues, holding out their badges and firearms with fully extended arms as the pursuing officer glared through his lowered window.

  “What in God’s name is goin’ on?” demanded the deputy.

  “Nothing that concerns you, Officer,” retorted an agent. “Everything is under control here. Why don’t you get on back across the river?”

  “I want to arrest that man”—the officer pointed a finger at Drake—“for reckless driving.”

  “Not today, Deputy,” insisted the federal agent. “Now get on out of here before I ask for your badge number.”

  With a glare and a sputter of protest, the deputy flicked off his lights and executed a sloppy U-turn. Drake angled Matilda into the rear seat of a government-owned vehicle, where Skyler fussed over her and helped her to don her seat belt, all the while crooning assurances that everything would be all right. A doctor, also seated in the rear, took Matilda’s pulse.

  At last Skyler looked up and met Drake’s regretful gaze. As she reached for him, he held on to her, wanting desperately to extend this moment with her. Lifting her hand to his mouth, he turned it over and pressed a kiss into the soft center of her palm. “As soon I know it’s safe,” he rasped, his voice strangled, “I will find you again. I promise.”

  “I won’t forget you, Drake,” she swore, her own voice cracking. “I’ll wait for you.”

  The agents, wearing identical blue suits that made them look like twins, slipped into the front. The driver sent a pointed look into his rearview mirror.

  “Time to say good-bye,” Drake added, gazing one last time into Skyler’s blue eyes. On impulse, because he couldn’t bear the thought of her ever needing him and not being able to find him, he withdrew a pen from his pocket and hastily scribbled his cell number on her hand. “Only if it’s life or death,” he whispered.

  With relief shining in her eyes, she nodded. “Until then,” she replied.

  As he closed the door and stepped from the car, the locks gave a click. In the next instant, the official-looking vehicle swung into the northbound lane and pulled away.

  Drake watched it move along the flat, straight road, its taillights growing fainter as the sky brightened overhead. Thanks to Skyler’s defiance and to Ellie Stuart’s determined quest, Owen Dulay’s crimes had come to light. Within hours, a team of federal agents would arrest him and seize his assets. Ideally, this would mean the beginning of the end for the Centurions. Drake’s undercover efforts had blossomed into an unmitigated success.

  Yet he’d never felt more torn than he did now, nor more desolate, as he watched Skyler slip out of reach, beyond sight, sound, or touch for years—possibly forever.

  “Here we are!” Ellie exclaimed, touched by the sight of her little rental house sitting so prettily under the shade of the towering oak trees.

  “Yay!” cried Caleb, who’d squirmed restlessly throughout the eight-hour car ride from Hilton Head. With little room in the back of Sean’s GTO for three boys, let alone for the car seat they’d bought at the outset of their journey, squabbles had broken out and tempers had flared. To keep patient, Ellie reminded herself that she could just as easily be returning home alone. As for Sean, the squabbling rolled from him like water off a duck’s back. Keeping a steady pace on the interstate, he’d gotten them to their destination by late afternoon.

  Ellie pushed out of the car first, eager to smell the familiar scent of home. The boys tumbled out after her, suntanned from their week at the beach, and raced each other to the door, eager to get to their room and reacquaint themselves with their toys. Ducking back into the car to free the baby, Ellie watched Sean fetch their belongings from the rear. The time was approaching rapidly for her to tell him good-bye.

  Holding Colton’s hand, she let him toddle up the walkway as Sean carried their bags to the door. She wondered what he was thinking, whether he was dying to just drop them off and get a moment to himself, or whether he felt obliged to stay until they’d settled back in. Given the wrecked state of her house when she’d left it more than two weeks back, settling back in could take a while.

  She didn’t want him feeling obligated. She didn’t want him hanging around, period—not if he was going to abandon them later. If. There she went again, hoping for more than she had. She should be getting down on her knees, grateful just to have her boys back and forget about having Sean, too.

  It wasn’t like he was going to stop coming by to check on the state of the house and on the boys. She’d overheard him reassure Caleb several times over the past week that he’d see them all the time. Over bologna sandwiches on the beach, he’d also explai
ned, in that oh-so-patient way he had with her kids, what he did for a living. He’d said he had to rescue people in faraway places, which meant traveling for long periods of time. But when he was gone, he promised to keep them in his thoughts and maybe they’d like to remember him at bedtime prayers.

  His words had melted Ellie’s heart, totally and completely. But they’d also reminded her that nothing had changed. He would still get calls at 2:00 a.m. to go “wheels up,” as he called it, and she’d still have three boys to raise, a degree to earn, and a career to start.

  Hadn’t Sean told her on one of their long beach walks that SEALs made lousy husbands because of the stress they put on their families? He hadn’t said as much, but she knew things would go back to exactly as they were, only he would never snuggle up in bed with them as they had in Hilton Head with Ellie on one side, Sean on the other, and all three boys in the middle. There would be no more lovemaking as far as Ellie was concerned—just as before, only now she’d know exactly what she was missing. She couldn’t afford to weaken, to let her independence slip and risk relying on a man for her happiness.

  Yes, she’d been given a second chance—a third chance, really—to get her life on track. Nothing about that had changed.

  Yet, in other ways, things would never be the same again. Never again would she take her sons for granted. No matter how loud, grubby, or naughty they might get, she would imagine life without them and be grateful. Thanks to Ophelia’s exposé, which had begun midweek last week, public opinion had shifted in Ellie’s favor. She and the boys had been swamped by offers to appear on prime-time television talk shows. But Ellie, who relished her privacy far more than she craved the money, had turned them all down.

  In Savannah, the city was in an uproar over the arrest of Owen Dulay, caught by FBI agents trying to steal aboard his private plane bound for Venezuela. A shakedown of Savannah’s infrastructure had resulted in the arrest of the city mayor, the chief of police, and Dulay’s personal accountant.

  Within the FBI, however, the intensive investigation to discover how fabricated evidence had found its way into the lab was beginning to lose momentum. Special Agent Butler, who had voluntarily submitted to a polygraph test, had been cleared of all suspicion, as had his immediate supervisor. A cybercrimes analyst named Dale Robbins had confessed to generating the false e-mails, but he could not identify the FBI employee and fellow Centurion who’d requested his assistance in creating them. With high-level agents complaining that the internal investigation had the hallmarks of a witch hunt and with many threatening to resign, the prospect of finding and prosecuting any single individual looked unlikely.

  “Here, I’ll get the door,” Ellie called as Caleb and Chris vied for space on the narrow stoop and Sean juggled three suitcases in two hands. Scooping up the baby with one arm, she groped in her purse for her keys with the other.

  When Ellie thought of all the money Sean had spent on them, first for the cost of the hotel in Savannah, plus food, then clothing the boys had needed for a week at Hilton Head—including a new pair of sneakers for Caleb—her pride stung. If it took her months of living without air-conditioning and rationing food, she’d pay back every cent she owed him.

  “Lord, I hope this house isn’t as bad off as I remember,” she remarked, wriggling the key into the lock. With a twist and a click, the door swung open and the boys tumbled inside, racing to see who could get to their bedroom first.

  An inviting floral scent had Ellie stepping cautiously inside.

  Not a trace of the destruction the police had wrought was still in evidence. Someone had put the room in order, picking up every spilled toy and righting every overturned piece of furniture. “Who on earth?” she cried, raising the blinds to bring the light flooding in. “Oh, my heavens!”

  “Jordan and Solomon,” Sean supplied, his little smile now an open grin. “They wanted to do something nice for you.” He put the bags down.

  “They didn’t!” Ellie exclaimed, peeking into the kitchen and finding its surfaces gleaming. “They shouldn’t have,” she protested, sending Sean a torn look. “How could you ask them to do that?”

  “I didn’t ask them, Ellie. They offered. You know, it won’t kill you to let people help you sometimes,” he added ruefully.

  Reminded of all that she owed him, Ellie straightened her spine and marched back into the living room. “Well, maybe I don’t like owing people. Maybe I like standing on my own two feet,” she said, angling her chin into the air.

  His smile faded and his eyes became watchful. “Why do I get the feeling you’re trying to tell me something?” he asked warily.

  Ellie drew a deep, resolved breath. “Sean, please don’t take me wrong. I am so grateful for everything you’ve done,” she began, her voice fraying with mixed emotion. “Lord knows I could never repay you for the kindness you’ve shown me and my boys, and I swear I will pay back every cent you spent to help me find them.” She dragged in a breath, wary of the frown gathering on Sean’s forehead. “It’s just that . . .” She groped for the words. “When I came here, I didn’t want a man in my life. Lord knows I’d been bit and cured of that. But then we . . .”

  “Made love?” Sean supplied, obviously trying to follow her line of reasoning.

  “Yes, that, too, but I let you take care of me, of us,” she cried, letting him see how that distressed her. “And I’d sworn, when I left Mississippi, that as long as I have breath in my body, I’d never ever do that kind of thing again.”

  “Have sex?” he asked, still studying her as if she were some lunatic.

  “Yes! No, I mean, I’d never be dependent on anyone again. You don’t get this? I have to know I can make it on my own.” She gestured with a hand, at the same time swallowing the lump in her throat.

  For what seemed an eternity, Sean stared at her like she was a puzzle he would never figure out. She fought to look him in the eye without letting him see that her heart felt close to bursting.

  “You’re saying you want me to leave,” he reiterated with a nod of understanding.

  “You know it’s time,” she said, pushing the words through a tight throat.

  “Even though I own this house,” he added, causing her to gasp.

  “You wouldn’t make us leave, would you?” she asked.

  He crossed his arms over his massive chest and shrugged. “Depends,” he said equivocally.

  “Depends on what?” she demanded, ignoring the baby, who’d tipped over an entire bucket of Lego pieces and started mucking in them.

  “On whether you need more room,” said Sean, confusing her with his reply. Bending over, he plucked Colton off the floor and squeezed a Lego piece out of his mouth by pinching his cheeks.

  “Dadda!” said Colton, slapping Sean’s neck.

  “Why would I need more room?” Ellie asked, dismayed and touched by Colton’s confusion.

  “This house isn’t big enough for the five of us,” Sean pointed out. Keeping Colton in his arms, he blew raspberries in the crook of his neck.

  Ellie’s mouth dropped open. “You can’t be serious,” she breathed. Maybe she had heard him wrong. Had he said the five of us?

  “Why the hell can’t I be serious?” he asked her mildly.

  “Were you not listening to me?” she demanded, going rigid from head to toe, her throat equally tight. “First, I told you that I need to do this on my own. You can’t just adopt us like some strays from the local shelter, Sean. Secondly, you are not the marrying kind; you told me that yourself just a couple weeks ago. And third, I’m not shacking up with you!” she added hotly.

  He chuckled at her word usage. “I don’t have any intention of shacking up with you,” he replied. “And why do you think being married to me would hold you back? I’m not trying to steal your independence, Ellie. I just want to be around to cheer you on. I want the next fifty years of my life to be as good as this last week.”

  His slow smile coupled with his rebuttal turned her brains to mush. She lost all track o
f her argument.

  “Now, I was gonna find you the perfect engagement ring and do this right,” he groused, “but since you’re all fired up and trying to kick me out of my own house, I suppose I’ll have to do it now.”

  A giggle at the head of the hallway dragged Ellie’s gaze toward her two older boys, who were down on their knees, peeking around the corner at them.

  “Do what?” she asked, completely distracted and flustered.

  Putting the baby down, Sean took a step in her direction, hooked an arm behind her back, and brought her hips flush with his. Desire shimmered in Ellie’s womb, shortening her breath, further befuddling her thoughts. “Ask you to marry me, banana,” he told her, gazing deep in her eyes.

  She stared back at him, too stunned to reply. The walls of the room seemed to dance around them.

  “This is where you’re supposed to say yes,” he prompted, starting to look a little worried.

  “But . . .” Ellie tried to reason with him. “Why?” she asked faintly.

  His expression turned suddenly serious. “The night we got the boys back, Ellie, I realized I am a part of this family. That’s something my heart’s been trying to tell me for a long time, only my head wouldn’t listen. I don’t want to marry you so I can take care of you. I like your independence. I need you to be strong and hold the family together whenever I have to leave. I need a woman who can pick up the pieces if—God forbid—something happens to me. So long as I can make life better for you, the way you do for me, then why not marry me, Ellie? I love you. I belong in this family,” he added, including the boys with a nod.

  “Say yes, Mama!” Caleb cried impatiently as he and his brother looked on.

  “Yeah, Mama. You love him, too, don’tcha?” Chris chimed in.

  Suddenly, what had seemed so complicated before was embarrassingly simple. “I do love him,” she realized out loud, and all her fears and doubts fell quietly away.

  Heat flared in Sean’s eyes, and he grinned with triumph. “Say it to me,” he commanded, pulling her into a rough embrace. “Come on. You’re head over heels in love with me,” he proclaimed with certainty. “Say it.”