“I disagree,” she rushed. “I think the cost is temporary and there is a limit, especially when the person paying the price was a victim. What do you say we make a deal?”
As he looked into her eyes, his heart wanted to shatter. How had he ever been so lucky to have found a woman like Georgie? Damn, she not only met his every move, challenged him on every level, she forced him to challenge himself. She wasn’t going to let this go until she was damn good and ready.
“What kind of deal?”
She kissed him again, a slow, melting kiss that warmed his blood and fuzzed his brain. When their lips parted, she whispered, “Let it go now, Ethan. Let it go now, this minute. Never forget Cathy and what you had, but go now, out into the world, and be happy. It’s what Cathy would want. You’re being terribly unfair to her memory by not giving yourself a chance at happiness. She sounds like a strong woman. She’s going to be really pissed at you when you see her again in the Afterlife.”
Past the spears of pain and doubt in his heart, he said, “Yeah, she had quite a temper. Didn’t take any shit off of anybody. Like someone else I know.”
She shrugged, making her bare breasts rub against his chest. “I guess it’s your curse to be attracted to smart, strong women.”
Smiling into her eyes, he said, “Okay, if that’s my part of the deal, what’s yours?”
“Mine? Oh, well, that I…uh…”
“How about that you let your guard down a little? That you step out from behind that barrier you’ve built, and start trusting people. Not everyone is out to screw you over, Georgie.”
“I’ve stepped. I mean, I told you I love you, didn’t I?”
“Love and trust are two different things, Georgie. I’m a clueless male, and even I know that. Love usually implies trust, but in your case, it’s an add-on, sort of like when you buy an electronic gizmo and the box says batteries sold separately.”
Her brow creased in a worried frown. “All right. Deal. You put Cathy’s death behind you, and I go buy some batteries.”
Smiling at her, he said, “Deal. I guess we can work out the details later. Right now I’m starving. Can we heat up that soup?”
He helped her off the bed, then began retrieving her clothes from the floor where he’d tossed them in his haste to get her naked. Down the hall in the kitchen, his cell phone bleeped.
“I’ve got to get this,” he said on his way out the door. Reaching the kitchen, he grabbed up the phone and flipped it open. “You got something for me, Nate? Anything on the Preston woman?”
He felt Georgie’s presence behind him, turned to her, and slipped his arm around her waist. Her eyes were wide with worry, so he tugged her a little closer.
In his ear, his brother said, “No word on Ms. Preston, but there has been another, interesting development.”
“Define interesting.”
“Interesting meaning, I don’t know if it’s good or bad.”
“If you aren’t sure, then it’s probably bad.”
Nate blew out a harsh breath. “That’s my take. Anyway, I thought you should know. Vaughn Corcoran had a weekend rendezvous scheduled with some woman, but he never showed up. He’s been missing since Saturday, and nobody seems to know where in the hell he is.”
Chapter Twenty
Visualization is a very powerful tool and can be used to attract anything you desire. Detailed visualization directs your subconscious mind, the chi, the universe, and your own belief system to manifest what you want. In going after your man, clearly see the initial circumstances of your meeting; visualize how your courtship will go; and see being in the arms of the man you love, forever and ever.
Georgiana Mundy’s Feng Shui for Lovers
“Hey,” Honcho growled as he punched Lucas in the shoulder, rousing him from his feigned sleep. “Bastardo estúpido. It’s midnight. Time to go, man.”
Sitting up on his bed, Lucas scratched the stubble on his jaw with his knuckles. By the dim light of the small table lamp on the nightstand, he watched his roommate tuck a .38 into the waistband of his pants.
“Time to go where?”
Honcho grabbed for his worn parka and shoved his arms into it. “Drool and Corcoran are getting the chickie and her kid into the van. Time to split.”
“Cool. Guess you can return my gun and my cell now.” What the hell; it was worth a try.
“Right,” Honcho snorted. “You may be working for Mr. Corcoran’s padré, but you wasn’t part of the original team. We’re all going in the van, one big happy family. I keep your phone and your gun, and your car keys, until we’ve delivered the goods. Then”—he grinned, showing crooked yellow teeth—“you can have all your shit back.”
Lucas pushed to his feet and followed Honcho out the door, apprehension churning away at his insides. Approaching the black delivery van, he took note that Drool was behind the wheel, while Paul Corcoran sat in the passenger seat, relaxing against the headrest, arms crossed over his chest, eyes closed.
Everybody was loose, casual. They obviously weren’t expecting any kind of trouble. That might give him the edge he and Raine needed.
Behind the driver and passenger bucket seats in front, the van contained two rows of bench seats. As he slid across the cold vinyl behind Drool, Lucas shot a quick glance at Raine in the back row, the sleeping baby secured next to her in a sturdy car seat. Though Raine’s gentle eyes were alive with fear, she held her jaw clenched tight, her mouth a determined line across her face. She gave him a subtle nod; she was ready.
If he was going to make a move, he needed to do it before they got on the road.
Pretending to fiddle with his safety restraints, he surreptitiously glanced around, checking his options. Honcho stood at the driver’s-side window, giving Drool instructions on how to find the freeway. Corcoran still sat sprawled in his seat, eyes closed, not paying any attention to what was going on around him.
Lucas watched as Honcho finished talking to Drool, then walked around the front of the van. As the headlights flicked over the man’s bloated body, the thug looked like a fat eel slithering through deep waters, black eyes alert, ready to go for the jugular.
When Honcho reached the open door on the passenger side of the van, he reached in, grabbed the handhold, and began hefting himself into the seat next to Lucas. For a moment, he was poised in midair—not in the van, not out of it. His center of gravity was off balance…
Lucas jerked to the right, bringing his elbow up, smacking Honcho’s nose. He let out a yelp that was silenced when Lucas’s fist slammed into the side of his head, sending him sprawling onto the parking lot’s asphalt.
In a second, Lucas was through the open door, but Honcho was quick on the recovery and made a grab for Lucas’s neck, wrapping thick fingers around his throat. With a sharp jerk, Lucas brought up his knee, connecting with Honcho’s groin, making the thug gag and double over in pain.
Lucas grabbed for the .38 tucked in Honcho’s waistband, but his fingers met only soft leather. Shit. It must have fallen out during their scuffle. Somebody shouted, and he spun on his heel in time to see Drool and Corcoran exit the van and begin running toward him. Bending slightly, he readied himself to tackle whichever man came at him first.
But a blow from behind sent him to his knees as Honcho’s boot connected with his kidneys. Gasping for air, he tried to stand, lashing out with his foot, landing a hard kick to his attacker’s ribs, sending the man into a backward stumble. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Drool take a step closer, a weapon in his hand, while Paul Corcoran hovered behind him, his eyes wide with confusion and fear.
Cowardly SOB.
Honcho recovered and stumbled to his feet, his eyes small and gleaming, his face bloody. At his sides, his fingers were outstretched, tense. He was going to kill Lucas with his bare hands. He took a step toward Lucas…
“Freeze! Drool, drop your weapon! Do it now!”
All eyes turned to Raine, who stood a couple of feet behind Honcho. In both her hands, she held t
he man’s own gun aimed directly at Honcho’s skull.
“I said drop it. Now!”
Drool grinned. “C’mon, lady. You ain’t the type to shoot a man—”
Jamming the gun hard against the back of Honcho’s neck, she snarled, “I wouldn’t shoot a man, but I would shoot him.”
“Drop the gun, asshole!” Honcho snarled at Drool.
Lucas reached over and snared the weapon from Drool’s hand. “On the ground!” Lucas ordered. “All of you!”
Amid threats and curses, the three men slowly dropped to their knees, then onto their stomachs.
“You okay?” Lucas said to Raine.
“Y-yes.” Though her reply was hesitant, the weapon in her hands never wavered as she held it on the men who’d kidnapped her.
“Give me Honcho’s gun.” When she complied, he said, “Get into the passenger seat.”
Tucking Honcho’s gun into his waistband, he quickly patted down the prone men, relieving Honcho of the knife hidden in his boot. “Get up,” he ordered, motioning toward the room Raine had occupied. Locking them inside, he said, “Stay put, comprenda? First one of you I see in the rearview mirror, I blow his balls off.”
From behind the closed door, Corcoran shouted, “You’re a dead man, Russell! A fucking dead man!”
Running to the driver’s side of the van, Lucas jumped in, slammed the door, and shoved it into reverse, backing like a shot away from the motel room door.
“You and the kid all right?” he panted.
Raine sent a quick look at the baby sleeping in the car seat at the back of the van. “We’re good.”
Thrusting the gearshift into first, he peeled out of the parking lot and onto the sparsely trafficked boulevard, trying to put as much distance as he could between them and the motel. “It won’t take them long to bust out of that room,” he said, flicking a quick look over at Raine. “They have my car. We’re going to have to ditch this van pretty soon.” As he turned a corner, he said, “You were great. That was a gutsy move. I’d’ve never gotten away from those goons without your help. You saved my life.”
Licking her lips, she nodded. “Well, I think you saved mine, so we’re even.”
Lucas turned off the brightly lit boulevard onto a dark residential street. A few blocks later, he turned again and parked the van behind a huge, overfilled Dumpster, where he turned off the headlights and stared into the rearview mirror. Nothing. No one on their tail. Safe for now.
“We ditch the van here,” he said, turning off the ignition. “It’s dark here, and pretty well hidden from the street. They could drive around for hours and not spot it.”
She nodded, took in a deep breath. “Now what?”
“We walk away, find a secure location, and then I make a phone call. We’ll, uh, we’ll make better time if I carry the kid, if that’s okay with you.”
Raine looked into his eyes for a moment, then reached down and unbuckled her restraints. Silently, she made her way past the middle row of seats to the back where Caroline was still asleep.
By the time Lucas came around to the side door and slid it open, Raine was waiting for him. Holding the baby close to her body, she searched his eyes once more, then gently placed the warm bundle in his arms.
“What happens after you make the phone call?” she said as she hopped out of the van.
He smiled and cradled Caroline close to his chest. “We wait for the cavalry to ride to the rescue. Let’s go.”
“There it is!” Georgie shouted, waving her hand at the windshield as her heart bumped along at twice its normal rate. “The Casa de Palmas Motel. Do you see number four, Ethan? Oh, oh, there it is! There it is! That one, on the corner!”
Next to her, Ethan guided the sedan into the motel’s parking lot. “Try to stay calm, Georgie, or you’re going to have a little Grasshopper heart attack—”
Before he could finish, she flung the car door open and began running toward the motel room. When she placed her open palm on the rough wood, she thought she saw movement behind the fish-eye peephole, then the door squeaked open to reveal a tall man, legs braced, a weapon in his right hand.
A second later, she felt Ethan at her back. “Lucas? Everything okay?”
The man named Lucas nodded as his sharp gaze darted past her, past Ethan, and out into the darkness. Apparently convinced they hadn’t been followed, he opened the door wider, allowing them passage. Immediately he shut it again and slid the bolt home.
“Georgie?” Raine’s voice came from behind the barrier of Lucas’s body.
“Raine!” She pushed past the man, straight into her best friend’s embrace. Their arms wrapped tightly around each other, they hugged and cried, saying nothing, just rocking back and forth. “Thank God you’re all right,” Georgie rasped, her throat choked with tears. “Caroline’s okay?”
“She’s not hurt,” Raine said, her voice tight. Her palm curved around Georgie’s cheek. “She’s asleep. Slept through the whole thing. She’s such a good baby.”
Georgie smiled through her tears. “She is. She’s just the best baby.”
The two women smiled into each others’ eyes, then laughed.
A moment later, Georgie became aware of Ethan’s presence next to her. “I’m sorry to rush things, but we need to leave. If they find the van, they’ll calculate how far you could have gotten on foot and search the radius.”
Without a word, Lucas shoved his weapon into his waistband, went to the bed, and gently picked up the sleeping baby. “All packed,” he said, sending a solemn smile to Raine.
Ethan snapped off the lights before opening the door a crack. Georgie’s eyes never left his back as he took a moment to check outside. “We’re clear. Georgie, you and Raine with the baby in the backseat. Hurry.”
He kept watch while the women got settled into the plush leather seats, and Lucas placed Caroline between them.
“I’m sorry there was not time to grab the car seat. Scoot her up close to you,” Lucas instructed, “then put your belt around both of you. You’ll be okay.”
Georgie watched the conversation with interest, catching the moment when Raine’s and Lucas’s eyes met and held. Was it her imagination, or did Raine’s cheeks flush a little?
Lucas closed the door, and a second later, both men slid into their seats. Ethan pulled out of the parking lot, and they were on their way. But it wasn’t until they reached the highway, zooming along under cover of dark, that Georgie finally let herself relax a little, finally let herself accept that the frantic nightmare was behind them.
The people she loved were safe. Her gaze went to Ethan. All the people she loved were safe.
She covered Raine’s hand with her own. “Tell me more about when you first saw Paul.” In the rearview mirror, her eyes connected with Ethan’s.
Raine let her head fall back against the cushion. “I had just finished shopping at the farmers’ market down on Cabrillo Boulevard. Caroline was in her stroller. And I looked up, and there was Paul, staring at me.”
“Did he do anything?” Ethan asked.
“Well, no. That’s why I wasn’t sure at first that it was him. But, well, he looked at me, then he looked at Caroline, and he got this strange expression on his face. I panicked, turned the stroller around, hoping it wasn’t really him. I hurried through the crowd as fast as I could, trying to lose him. When I got to my car, I didn’t see him. I called Georgie as I drove home. When I got there, I locked us in. Then Georgie called to tell me to look out for Lucas, and then Lucas was at the door, and then…” With a weary sign, she said, “When I opened the door, somebody rushed past him—”
“Honcho,” Lucas snarled. “It was that son of a bitch Honcho.”
She nodded. “Yes, Honcho. He rushed past Lucas, and before I realized what he was going to do, he punched me, and after that, the next thing I remember is waking up to see Paul holding Caroline. It’s something I never want to see ever again,” she whispered. “Not as long as I live.”
Ethan let Rain
e’s words settle at the back of his brain. A scenario began to form inside his head, a scenario in which Lucas’s actions may have been justified. He slid a look at his agent. “I remember warning you that if you fucked me over, I was going to beat the crap out of you. Am I going to have to make good on my promise?”
Lucas met Ethan’s gaze. “If it’ll make you feel better.”
“It might. Start talking.”
Lucas pursed his lips and nodded. “You know about my kids, right? My boys?”
“They live with your ex-wife in the Midwest somewhere.”
“Yeah. Michigan. They’re ten and twelve. They, uh, idolize me.” His shoulder jerked in a quick shrug. “They shouldn’t, but they do. They don’t know about me, my past, why I was booted from the force. My ex-wife promised not say anything. She, you know, wanted to give them a good father as a role model.”
“Okay,” Ethan said. “Okay, so what happened? Corcoran found out about you? Threatened to tell your boys?”
“Yeah.” He shifted in his seat, rubbed his face with his open hand. “He warned me that he’d discredit me in their eyes if I didn’t help him.”
“Jesus, Lucas. Why didn’t you come to me?”
He snorted. “Are you kidding? After years of shit assignments, watching you watch me, I didn’t want to do anything to destroy the credibility I’d finally earned. I…I thought I could handle Corcoran on my own.”
Ethan bit down. Was he that big of a bastard? Had he been so hard on Lucas that when the man had gotten into real trouble, he hadn’t felt he could come to Ethan for help? If that was true, then he was partly to blame for what had happened to Raine. In a more modulated tone, he said, “Go on.”
“I made two files,” Lucas said. “Gave you the real one, all the details on Georgie, Corcoran, Raine, and the kid.”
Uh-oh. Ethan shot a quick look in the rearview mirror, meeting Georgie’s shocked eyes. Oh, shit…
“You knew about Raine and Caroline?” she accused, her eyes wide in astonishment. “You…I…before I told you? You knew?”
Satisfaction Page 20