Love Me Tender

by Wendy Vella

  “Jack loves Elvis Presley, and his favorite movie is Pride and Prejudice, the Colin Firth version.”

  “Aw come on,” he mouthed to Bailey, who was still smiling.

  He shot Rory a look, and their eyes connected. He gave in then, and admitted that she was important to him... more than that, he cared about her. Was it the L word? He shuddered at the thought.

  He shouldn’t have followed her after the race; should have let her cool off, then called to see her later. Instead he’d fired up at her because she’d basically told him he was like a dog in heat. That he was dating several women at once, when in fact he hadn’t been near a woman since Rory walked into town.

  He looked at her again.

  She wrenched emotion out of him that he’d thought himself incapable of.

  “Ladies, we left the best for last. Ryker’s most handsome bachelor is waiting for you.”

  He glared at Bailey again, and she hurried over to the mayor and whispered something in his ear.

  “Right, let’s get things started then,” he quickly said.

  Jack knew there was no way Rory was bidding for him, (a) because she was annoyed with him, and (b) he hadn’t given her the money to do it, which (c) meant he was going to have to spend the evening with someone who was not his Princess, and this was not a happy thought.

  “Eight hundred dollars!”

  He tried to see who was bidding, but the lights were too bright. He hoped like hell it was one of the elder folks in town who wanted him to do some chores or cook him a meal.

  “A thousand!”

  God, what if there was more than one of them? Looking down at Rory, he noticed her face was closed, no emotion showing at all, just like him.

  “Fifteen hundred!”

  “Smile,” Bailey hissed.

  “Sing ‘Blue Suede Shoes,’ you know it’s your favorite,” Joe heckled him.

  He forced his lips upward for the rec center children.

  Jack needed to get Rory alone and talk to her... really talk. Tell her how he felt. Just thinking about baring his soul gave him indigestion.

  Out the corner of his eye he watched her press her cellphone to one ear. Seconds later she’d left her seat and walked along the row, then he lost sight of her. Frustrated he couldn’t follow, he paced back and forth across the stage, trying to locate her.

  “Come on now, ladies, it’s a worthy cause,” Mayor Gripper encouraged.

  The bidding crept up in increments of ten dollars after that, and Jack gnashed his teeth. Rory hadn’t returned to her seat ten minutes later.

  “Two thousand dollars! Thank you!” Mayor Gripper roared to loud applause. “Well done, everyone! And filing onto the stage are the children who will benefit from tonight’s events.”

  Walking to the edge, Jack jumped down to where his family were seated. Joe was laughing so hard he had tears rolling down his cheeks.

  “What the hell is so funny?”

  “The knitting club won you, and Mrs. Taft got into a fight with Abigail, who was also bidding. I thought there was going to be blood spilled for a while there, but Abigail backed off.”

  “The knitting club?” Relief filled Jack. Rory wouldn’t have a problem with that.

  “You can knit one, purl one all night,” Dylan added. “You ever tried it with those big needles? Apparently they increase everything a lot quicker, or so my mother told me.”

  “No.” Jack rose to his toes, searching for Rory.

  “Rory said she was going to find her brother,” Pip said.

  Jack walked away without another word. He needed to find her before she left. He didn’t want to spend another minute with them angry at each other.

  It was slow going because everyone wanted to talk to him... especially the knitting club, who were keen to organize the date they’d just won.

  “Okay, Mrs. Taft, we’ll sort it tomorrow.”

  “I have several sweaters I want you to unpick and rewind, Jack.”

  “Looking forward to it.” He leaned in and kissed a paper-soft cheek. “Now let me go and find our girl.”

  She beamed. “I knew it!”

  Finally, he reached the bar, where Chief Blake was in what looked to be serious conversation with Leo Haldane. Something he labeled unease crawled up his spine.

  “What’s going on?” Jack moved closer.

  “Not really something that concerns you, Jack. Nice work on the fundraising, by the way,” Chief Blake said.

  “Tell him. He knows most of it anyway, and has been looking after Rory since she got back,” Leo said.

  “I know that too, but just needed to see if you did.”

  “Will someone tell me what’s going on!” Jack demanded.

  “Someone broke into the house while we were in town watching the Santa run. They were searching for something, or so we think. Rory believes it was the briefcase.”

  Jack’s heart was beating way too hard. Hauling in a deep breath, he tried to calm down. “She should have told me.”

  “She wasn’t talking to you, so that was kind of hard,” Leo said.

  “It was a misunderstanding.”

  “Not as far as my sister was concerned.”

  “So what? Now you’re going to go all big brother, when you let her come here on her own, knowing what she’d face?”

  “I didn’t know that, Jack, but yes, you’re right, I should have known she’d find trouble coming back here. I have apologized to her.”

  It didn’t appease him.

  “I’m going to find her.” He left the men and walked around the room, ignoring anyone who tried to talk to him.

  “What’s up?” He came across Joe, Luke, and Dylan.

  “Rory’s not here, and something feels off.”

  Pulling out his cell phone, he called her. She picked up on the fifth ring.

  “Where are you?”

  She didn’t answer him.

  “Rory?” Jack walked to the door and away from the noise so he could hear better.

  “Rory,” he said again when he stepped out the door. She didn’t reply, but he could hear a voice.

  “…tried to get you out of town, Rory. I tried every tactic I could. I stole things and made it look like you. I even set those silly women onto you, but still you didn’t leave, and now I have to take action before you ruin everything.”

  Hell! Whoever that man was, Rory was in serious danger.

  * * *

  Jack started running with the phone to his ear, heading out of the lodge to his pickup. He heard footsteps behind him. Looking back, he found his brothers, and brother-in-law.

  “What’s going on?” Joe drew alongside.

  “Rory,” Jack mouthed her name. “Trouble.”

  Joe turned to relay Jack’s words to Dylan and Luke. The latter sprinted past, waving his keys. His Jeep was closer. Luke unlocked, and they all climbed inside.

  Jack turned up the volume on his phone and put it on speaker for them all to hear.

  “I don’t understand any of this, Mr. Harvey.”

  The men all looked at each other, shock etched on their faces.

  “This is not what I wanted to happen, Rory, but you wouldn’t leave this business with Jackson alone. Tonight you upset my June again, telling her you and your brothers thought your father was innocent. I can’t have you snooping around in the case, so now I have to kill you before you cause me any more trouble.”

  Jack’s body jerked.

  “Why?”

  “I’ll explain everything when we arrive at our destination.”

  “Which is where?”

  “Somewhere no one will find us.”

  “I don’t understand why you’re doing this, Mr. Harvey?”

  He heard the fear in Rory’s voice and battled his own.

  “Tell me why, please?”

  “You know why, Rory. Whatever you found in that briefcase made you suspicious.”

  “No, I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Harvey. Please just turn the car
around and we’ll forget about this.”

  Jack clenched his eyes shut and tried to breathe.

  “I can’t do that, and believe me when I say I’m deeply sorry to have to do this. But in order for me to survive, and to keep June from getting upset again, unfortunately you can’t.”

  “You’re not serious, Mr. Harvey. You can’t believe you’ll get away with this surely?”

  “Unfortunately for you, Rory, I will.”

  The phone went dead.

  “Shit.” Jack’s fingers shook as he redialed, but her phone went straight to voice mail. “No!” Desperation clawed at him

  “Jack!” Joe grabbed his jaw and turned it. “We’ll find her, I promise.”

  He managed to breathe... just.

  “Mickey got her location before the cellphone died,” Dylan said he then reeled off a set of directions.

  Luke turned on the ignition.

  “Wait! That’s June Harvey,” Joe said pointing out the windscreen. “She could help us.”

  Jack was out of the car in seconds.

  “We need you to come with us, Mrs. Harvey.” He grabbed her arm.

  “I’m trying to find my husband. Let me go at once, Jack!”

  “I know where he is.” He picked her up and headed back to the Jeep.

  “You’re crazy.” She wriggled to get free as he lowered her to the ground beside the open rear door.

  “Your husband has Rory, and is going to kill her. Now get in the car.”

  “No! I don’t believe you!”

  Jack gently forced her into the car beside Dylan, and slammed the door. He then got back into the passenger’s seat. “Drive, Luke!”

  “It’s okay, Mrs. Harvey, I know you’re afraid, but you need to listen to me carefully, do you understand?”

  Jack could hear Dylan talking, but all he could think about was Rory, and how he had to get to her fast. He should have told her how he felt. Told her he loved her. He’d been a coward and now she was in danger and he may not get the chance. No! He couldn’t allow that thought to take root.

  Stay alive, Princess.

  “Jack called Rory, and somehow she managed to answer. We then overheard her speaking with Mr. Harvey. Overheard him telling her he was going to kill her.”

  “Dear God!” June Harvey cried.

  “In order for us to save Rory and help your husband, we need to reach him before he does something that will see him in prison for many, many years, if not the remainder of his life.”

  “No, not Geoff. He’s such a g-good man. He would never hurt anyone. I don’t understand why he would do this. Why he would have taken Rory. You’re lying to me!”

  “We’re not, and yes he is a good man, but right at this moment he’s not thinking straight, and we need to get to him before he does something he’ll regret.”

  “You need to believe us, Mrs. Harvey, this is not something we would lie about,” Joe said.

  “I-I, tell me what you want,” her voice was ragged.

  “What happened tonight to make him react as he has, June?” Joe asked. “Something triggered this.”

  Jack looked out the windscreen as Luke shot out of Ryker Falls, his foot down hard on the gas.

  “I-I don’t know. I got upset after speaking with Rory, and told him she thought Jackson was innocent, but surely—”

  “He must be behind it,” Luke said. “He set up Jackson Haldane.”

  “No!” June’s scream filled the car.

  “Does he know that your son is not his?” Jack turned in his seat to look at the distraught woman.

  “What? H-how dare you.” Her eyes filled her face.

  “We read the cards and ledgers that were in Jackson’s briefcase, Mrs. Harvey. Child support payments were made regularly into an account.”

  “Oh dear God,” she pressed a fist to her mouth. All fight went out of her as she looked at him. “H-he promised he’d stopped. We never used the money, but he insisted on making those payments.”

  “Jackson?” Jack asked her.

  She nodded tears now streaming down her cheeks.

  “Dear God, tell me this isn’t happening. Tell me my husband didn’t do that to Jackson.”

  No one spoke.

  “W-we, I know it was wrong but—”

  “We’re not here to judge you, Mrs. Harvey,” Joe said. “All we want is Rory back safe.”

  “Where would he have taken, Rory, Mrs. Harvey?” Dylan asked her. “A place where no one would find him, he told her.”

  “I-I don’t know.”

  “You have to think harder!” Jack’s voice was harsh. “Because I’m not letting him harm her!”

  “Jack,” he felt Joe’s hand on his shoulder.

  Looking out the window he tried to focus on the road, and Rory. She had to stay safe until he reached her, no other option was acceptable to him. Not now that he’d finally found someone to love. Someone who made him whole.

  Chapter 40

  Rory had taken the call from Mr. Harvey during the auction. He’d said he had something relating to her father he thought would be of interest to her.

  “Slip away, Rory, and I’ll meet you outside. I don’t want anyone else to overhear us.”

  Idiot that she was, she’d walked straight into his trap. She’d climbed into his car, and the doors had locked and then he was driving fast out of the lodge parking lot with a gun pointed at her.

  “You knew my father and your wife were having an affair?”

  “I found a card in her handbag, it was for Valentine’s day,” his voice was cold and emotionless. “The words inside said ‘to my special man, I love you.’ I never received that card. My suspicions were aroused so I followed her one day when she said she was going shopping in Rummer with friends. She met him, your father, at the Lakeside Motel. I saw them through the window.” Anger had his hands clenching in a white knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

  “She was betraying me and our children. I couldn’t allow that to continue.”

  He didn’t know Patrick was Jackson Haldane’s son Rory realized.

  “I had to take action to keep my family together.”

  “It was you,” Rory added it all up. “You set my father up!”

  “I was not going to let that man destroy my family.”

  “You ruined our lives!” Red-hot rage filled her body. “Destroyed us, and all for what? To live with a woman who loved someone else?”

  “She didn’t love him, she loved me!”

  “If that was true then why—”

  “I couldn’t take the risk of Jackson luring my June away with fancy words and promises,” he interrupted her. “I couldn’t let her break our children’s hearts.”

  “So you broke our hearts instead.”

  “He was always a slick bastard, your father. She was devastated when he was imprisoned, but she turned to me, her husband, for comfort. Until you came back to Ryker Falls, everything was as it should be.”

  “You destroyed us and all because your wife wasn’t faithful to you. Because she didn’t love you!”

  “Be quiet!” He pointed the gun at her, waving it in her face. Rory shut up. She’d never seen him angry before, it was terrifying. “This is all your own fault. All you had to do was leave town.”

  Rory hoped whoever called her, heard something of the conversation she’d had with Geoff Harvey. When she felt her phone buzz, slowly, carefully, she’d slid her finger across the screen, and the vibration stopped. Rory could only hope she’d accepted the call, and not accidently rejected it.

  “You should have left town,” he said again.

  “You won’t get away with this. They’ll track this all back to you, because my father’s briefcase holds so much evidence.”

  “They won’t, no one suspects me.”

  “You don’t honestly think you can murder me and get away with it? What about Leo? And Chief Blake is now investigating after I told him everything I found in that briefcase.”

  “I got away with fra
ming your father, I’ll get away with this. No one will suspect me because they don’t know June was having an affair with Jackson.”

  Oh God, he had a point. The man was intelligent and knew how to cover his tracks. Rory felt sick. She had to stop this car before it reached its destination, or he’d kill her.

  He wasn’t driving fast, so she watched the road, waiting for the right moment to grab the wheel. It was her only chance; she just hoped she wasn’t too badly injured.

  Jack. Thinking about him gave her strength. If she got out of this, she was finding him and telling him she loved him. She’d make him see she was the only woman for him.

  The headlights showed a bend was coming. Rory waited. If she could knock the gun away first.... Hell, she was scared.

  * * *

  “Drive faster, Luke.”

  “The roads are icy, Jack. I’m going as fast as I can.”

  The tension inside the Jeep was so thick he was struggling to breathe. June Harvey was crying, soft sobs now. The sounds of a heart broken woman, but Jack didn’t care. Rory was all he could think about.

  Stay alive.

  “What’s that?” Joe pointed out the windscreen. “A car is on its roof.”

  “That’s the Harvey car!” Jack said as Luke slowed. He was out the door and running before the Jeep had stopped.

  “Rory!”

  The car had come to a stop against a stand of trees.

  Pulling out his phone, he dropped to his knees and shone the flashlight through the window. He saw Geoff Harvey hanging upside down, but no sign of Rory.

  “Geoff!” June Harvey’s cry filled the night air as she reached the car.

  “Rory!” Jack yelled her name as he ran around to the passenger’s side. “She’s not in the car,” he told the others. “Start searching.”

  Jack heard Dylan calling the police and paramedics, but as far as he was concerned, Geoff Harvey could suffer—if he wasn’t already dead.

  “Rory!” It was freezing out here, and she’d be in shock. He moved his flashlight from side to side; beside him his brothers did the same thing. They yelled her name.

  “What’s that?”

  Jack focused his light on where Joe had his, and saw something on the ground. He reached it in seconds.