by Dana Mentink
She lit the bunched sweater with her lighter and it began to burn, along with the duct tape. It wouldn’t provide light for long, but maybe it would get her back to the road.
She half walked, half jogged, the light flickering from the stick as her sweater burned. It was not enough to keep her from stumbling, but she soldiered on in the direction of the main road. Bits of sweater now reduced to ash fell from the makeshift torch. How long would the fuel hold out?
Pushing onward, she held the light in front of her, ignoring the sting of smoke in her eyes.
Time was running out for Beckett. Hurry, Laney.
* * *
Beckett held the envelope and Irene stepped forward to take it, but she leaned out, making sure he could not lunge forward and grab her. The gun was aimed steadily as she pried the envelope open and peered inside.
“All right. Did you take anything out?”
“No.”
“I’m going to assume you’re telling the truth. You wouldn’t risk your wife and baby just to send me to jail.”
“You deserve to be there.” As soon as he said it, he wished he hadn’t.
“No,” she snapped. “I’m a good doctor, like I told your wife. She knows I am. I took excellent care of her and the baby.”
When you weren’t killing people and framing others for murder. This time he didn’t vocalize the thoughts. “Where’s Laney?”
Irene backed up several steps toward her car. “I’ll call you.”
Rage reared inside him like a runaway horse. “You’re not leaving here without telling me.”
She fired again. The shot would have taken his head off if he hadn’t dived to the side. He scrambled to his feet to run after her when Jude crested the nearest foothill. “Police! Freeze, Irene.”
She fired.
Jude returned fire. The bullet missed, but she recoiled backward, falling hard into the front of her car. Beckett heard the thunk of her skull against the metal bumper. She collapsed, unmoving.
He ran to her.
“Stay back, Beckett,” Jude shouted.
Irene lay on her side, breathing, but unconscious.
Jude elbowed him out of the way. “Ambulance and park rangers are already rolling.” He checked her pulse. “She’s alive.”
“She didn’t tell me,” Beckett panted, panic consuming him. “I don’t know where Laney is.”
“We’ll find her.”
He whirled away, running to the main road. The asphalt stretched endlessly in both directions. Behind him lay the network of wilderness, acres of desert. He turned in a helpless circle. Which way should he look?
Sirens wailed as the ambulance and park service vehicles roared up, personnel running to assist Jude with the fallen woman. Everything seemed so far off, removed from his stream of consciousness. His hands balled into fists and terror almost stopped his breathing. He couldn’t move, couldn’t talk. He was not even sure his heart still beat. Nothing mattered, nothing at all but Laney, his wife, his love, the mother of his baby.
“Laney!” His shout bounced along the road, echoing cruelly back at him.
What if she was lying hurt, suffering, afraid?
But a worse alternative presented itself to him that almost made his knees buckle.
Officers were moving toward him, he realized. They would start the search party, fan out and do what they did, as Jude said. What would they find?
“Laney,” he shouted one more time.
Only the wind replied.
His vision narrowed, gloom tunneling in, until a glimmer of light appeared on the road in the distance. It flickered and danced as if it was one of those tiki torches Laney insisted on at the hotel. He blinked. The glimmer remained, growing closer. Was he imagining it? He realized it was a torch, almost out, but with a weak glow that outlined a delicate arm holding it aloft.
His mouth fell open.
A hallucination?
But the figure drew close enough that everything stopped, his breathing, his movement, his power of speech, his ability to see anything around him except that God-given sight.
Laney walked closer, limping. Her clothes were torn and filthy. Then the paralysis ended and he launched himself along the road.
She dropped the strange torch she carried and it snuffed out. In less than a minute, he’d gathered her into his arms. For a moment, he could not make words, as he caged her in an embrace, his cheek pressed to her smoky hair, fingers feeling the heaving of her body as she cried.
“Are you injured?” he finally choked out, trying to move her to arm’s length.
She would not allow him to move her from his chest. “We are okay,” she sobbed. “Are you?”
He simply could not answer.
“Is Irene…?”
“Jude has her and the packet Rita hid. It’s over. It’s all over.” He said it as much to convince himself as her. The crimes were solved and his reputation might be shored up, but there was no room in his soul for anything but the most profound gratitude to God for saving Laney and the baby.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Laney insisted Beckett accompany her in the ambulance to the hospital. “Otherwise, I’m not going,” she announced to the paramedics. Jude gestured that he should be allowed. She could not stop crying, for some reason, as the medics took her vitals and checked her over. All her overextended muscles would hurt like gangbusters in the morning, she had no doubt. On the way, her mind was a jumble of fragmented thoughts.
Irene was in custody, and she would never hurt anyone again.
But it was too late for Pauline and Rita.
“Kenny…” she whispered through cracked lips.
Beckett stroked her hand. “He’s under arrest. Levi and Herm took care of things perfectly.”
“And…”
“And Willow is staying with Admiral so he won’t be alone tonight.” He kissed her fingertips. “You don’t need to be worried about anything, honey.”
“As long as the baby’s all right,” she finished.
He cast a longing glance at her blanket-covered tummy. Guiding his hand, she clasped it atop her belly, sandwiching it beneath hers. “But I think you’re right. Muffin is tough,” she said.
“Like her mother.”
“Or his.”
“Either one is fine with me.”
She looked sharply at him. “You still look sad. Why?”
He shrugged. “Nothing… I…” He exhaled. “Someone once told me sharing feelings is everything.” He cleared his throat. “I was wondering if any of this news will change minds in town.”
“Some people will always see you as a bad guy, Beckett. The question is, do you?”
He was silent, staring at his hand placed on her stomach. Before he had time to answer, they were whisked into the local clinic. This time, no one had suggested a helicopter ride to Las Vegas. “Beckett, will you…?” she started to ask as she was rolled into the examining room. His big frame crowded the doorway and she knew it was a silly question. He wouldn’t leave her, unless she asked him to keep the promise he’d made to her earlier.
Should she? Shouldn’t she? The echo of betrayal still sounded deep in her soul somewhere, like a badly played note. Ah, but the other notes, the music that had grown watching him change, to grow into the man God meant him to be… Didn’t that drown out the rest? Suddenly she was too tired to think anymore, and she closed her eyes and let the doctor finish the exam without her help. She awakened just long enough to hear about “strained tendons, pulled muscles, mild dehydration, abrasions,” but all that fell by the wayside when she heard the last bit.
“The baby is just fine, Mr. Duke,” the doctor said.
Too tired to open her eyes, she let the tears leak down her cheeks until someone whisked them away with a tissue. She did not need to see to know who it was.
; * * *
“I want to go home.” Laney did not want to talk about anything, it seemed to Beckett. There was something weighing on her. Residual trauma from the abduction? Physical discomfort? He drove her back to the hotel. Her brows were drawn together, and even his suggestion to supply her and Muffin with a milkshake did not bring more than a polite “no, thank you.”
Uncertainty stripped him of confidence. He knew what he had to do, had to ask, but now he was not at all sure of the answer he would receive. At the hotel, he looped Laney’s arm in his as he guided her through the lodge, where Dan Wheatly greeted them with a smile and news. His assistant stood with him.
“Irene is being charged with the murders of Pauline and Rita. Kenny is also being booked. It will take some more convincing for him to believe that you aren’t to blame, Beckett. The cops got Uncle Leonard too. Jude said to tell you he will be here later. I’m on my way to the station to make sure the paperwork is all in order.”
“Thank you,” Beckett said. The two men shook hands.
Willow launched herself out of the cabin as they approached, Admiral yipping joyfully as he tried to keep up. She hugged both Beckett and Laney at once, pulling them close and squealing. “You’re okay. You’re both okay.” She repeated it over and over until they managed to detach themselves.
“I promised I’d tell Aunt Kitty the moment I clapped eyes on you, but I’ll bring dinner.”
Beckett smiled. “It’s ten thirty in the morning.”
“Oh. Breakfast, then. Scones.”
“When was the last time you made scones?” Laney asked.
“Never, but Aunt Kitty makes great ones. I’ll go fill her in and we’ll return with baskets full of food. Promise.” She smacked a kiss on both their cheeks.
Laney sighed. “I think we are about to be buried in piles of carbohydrate comfort.”
He pushed open the door and held it as she entered. “Worse things could happen.”
Admiral was panting and wheezing, so she lifted him tenderly onto his cushion on the sofa.
And then they were alone. His palms went clammy.
“Laney, um, do you want to sit down?”
“No,” she said with a groan. “My back is complaining from the ride.”
He was about to suggest she lie down and let him fetch her an ice pack when she turned to him.
“I’m not sure what to do from here.” She blinked. “All of a sudden this is awkward, isn’t it?”
Torture, was more like it. He cleared his throat. “I need to say something, and then I’ll go if you want me to.”
She cocked her head, sending hair tumbling across her brow. He longed to touch it.
“I’ve messed up everything in my life since high school. I can’t undo some of the damage, and maybe I’ll always have people whispering behind my back.”
She pressed her lips together and he could not read her thoughts for anything. Shifting, he started again. “You and Muffin… I mean, you deserve a husband and daddy you can be proud of. I want to be that man, but I don’t know… I mean, I’m not sure you can grow to feel that way again, like you did before.”
Still she did not answer.
“I love you,” he said. Her mouth pinched tight, and she looked down.
“I thought I knew who I was and what love meant. I didn’t. Love is…” His voice broke. “Love is when someone is ready to stand by you in the worst moments of your life. You were willing to do that for me then and now. I never knew how strong you could be, but your love is made of steel.”
She still didn’t answer.
“I don’t know if it’s too late, Laney. I promised I’d leave you alone, but I’m going to ask one more time. If you say no, I will honor that, support you and the baby from afar.” He gulped. “I love you. You make me better. You’ve shown me what it means to put everything on the line for someone. You taught me what it means to love for better or worse. I’ve given you worse, but I promise, I want to give you and the baby better.”
She bit her lip. In anger? Forgiveness? Dismissal?
Abruptly, she turned on her heel and left him to go into the bedroom. He wondered if she would slam the door, shut him out of her life.
Beckett, you don’t get a second chance. Not this time. He closed his eyes, trying to keep breathing, to summon the strength to walk out the door and away from where God had meant for him to be.
She returned, her face unreadable. She thrust something out and he held up a palm. Into it, she dropped a plain gold band, her wedding ring. The pain was worse than the beating he’d taken in jail. She was giving it back to him…too little, too late.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“Beckett?”
He looked at her. “I understand. I made a promise and I will keep it. You don’t have to explain anything to me.”
“Apparently, I do. I think what you are asking requires another formal request, don’t you?”
He stared, unable to fathom her half smile.
“Ask me,” she said, a tremor in her voice.
“What?”
She pointed to the ring. “Ask me.”
He looked at the ring and at her. He saw it then, warmth, forgiveness, tenderness and strength all wrapped up in that smile, and those eyes, and that woman.
He knelt, holding the ring gently, as if it might bend under his touch. Hardly able to push past the emotion, he half whispered. “Laney, will you still be my wife?”
She held up her fingers and he slid it on. Her hands were shaking, just a little. “Yes, Beckett. I love you and Muffin will love you too. We will always be your family, and I will always be your wife.”
He leaped to his feet, gathering his wife and his baby in one enormous hug and lifting them up.
Admiral added his excited yelp to the celebration.
Elation, pure and simple, flowed out of him. He set her down but held her close. “It may be a struggle for the hotel, take some time to build back up the business, but…”
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “But you’ll have plenty of time to fix up a nursery for Muffin while things are slow.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He marveled at her, pressing kisses to her temple, her cheeks, her lips. He had his wife back, and what was more, he would soon experience parenting. He gulped.
“What’s wrong?”
“I guess it just hit me, the whole fatherhood thing. I need to learn all about how to do it properly. Maybe read some books. Or, uh, I mean, what should I do first?”
With her fingertips, she smoothed the frown that puckered his brow. “That’s easy.”
He looked at her in astonishment. “It is?”
“Uh-huh. I’m very close to Muffin, you know. We have a connection. The most important thing right now is to make Muffin a big pile of pancakes.”
He threw back his head and whooped with laughter. “With extra syrup?”
“Tons.”
He felt the last fetter that bound his heart drop away, just as God had always meant for it to do.
“I love you, Laney.”
“I love you too. So let’s go see about those pancakes, Daddy.”
Daddy. He laughed again with the pure delight of it. “Yes, let’s,” he said.
* * * * *
Dear Reader,
Don’t you just love fiction? My favorite part is that I get to dish up a big fat happy ending. It’s not like that in life, is it? I am writing this letter during our tenth week of sheltering in place. I am sure your life has been turned upside down too. My college kiddos are trying to finish up online. Folks worldwide are struggling to figure out how to navigate sudden unemployment, missing friends and family, and disconnection from our communities. Throughout it all, I am reminded that God’s love is so deep and wide that it transcends all the difficulties of this world. I hope you find
comfort in knowing that nothing is a surprise to Him. He sees us, He knows us, He loves us, all of us, all the time.
As always, you can reach me via my website, Facebook and Twitter, or you can reach out with a letter to PO Box 3168 San Ramon, CA 94583. May God richly bless you, friends.
Yours truly,
Dana Mentink
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ISBN-13: 9781488072222
Framed in Death Valley
Copyright © 2021 by Dana Mentink
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.