Why her? She had no connection to Isla, not anymore. Was Reuben right? She was to be used as a bargaining chip against him? A feeling of dread seemed to have lodged itself deep inside, and she could not shake the idea that she was a part of a game where she didn’t know the rules, hadn’t even known she was playing.
As they approached the bend that marked the last quarter mile back to Isla, Reuben tripped over something and went to his hands and knees. He jerked backward so quickly Antonia thought he must have been bitten by a snake. Recovering quickly, he knelt again, posture stiff with shock.
She bent closer and saw for herself. A man’s feet protruded from the shrubbery, the white stripes on the leather sneakers shining unnaturally in the darkness. Horror filled her every pore. She sank next to Reuben, who pulled the body from the shrubs and began searching for a pulse.
“He’s alive,” Reuben said, rolling him over.
Antonia gasped. Gavin’s eyes were closed, a trickle of blood oozing from a cut on his cheekbone.
Reuben shone his own light along Gavin’s torso, locating the bullet hole in his windbreaker. “We have to get him back to the house. Hector—” He looked around wildly. “Hector!” His shout echoed through the rain-soaked night.
Though Reuben continued to yell, Antonia knew it was futile.
Hector was gone. Maybe he’d decided to go after Leland on his own.
She looked down at Gavin’s slack face.
Or maybe he was running away from what he’d done.
*
Reuben knew his priority had to be the wounded man, though his stomach stayed tied into painful knots as he lifted Gavin free from the branches. Antonia shone her flashlight along the ground, alerting him to obstacles. Even with the light, they stumbled many times, and Reuben nearly lost his grip on Gavin’s limp body. The trees offered some shelter, but they were still battered by wind and rain.
As they staggered on, Reuben figured Antonia was asking herself the same questions he was. Who shot Gavin? And where was Hector?
Reaching Isla, Antonia helped Reuben get Gavin through the narrow door before shutting and bolting it behind them. Reuben, panting hard, made his way arduously through the kitchen until he reached the lobby, where Paula was patting the hand of a groaning Silvio.
Her mouth fell open as Reuben explained that Gavin had been shot.
Paula had enough presence of mind not to pepper him with questions, instead grabbing the first-aid kit and following Reuben to the settee, where he laid the younger man down. She unzipped his jacket and pushed up his shirt to expose the bullet wound and then rolled him slightly to check the exit point.
“I think it missed the vital organs and passed clean through, fortunately for him.” Antonia looked impressed as Paula applied pressure to the wound until the bleeding slowed and taped bandages neatly in place. She caught Antonia’s expression.
“I used to help my father. He was a country doctor, and you wouldn’t believe some of the situations he dealt with.”
Reuben fetched a towel, which Paula used to dry Gavin’s face and hands, and Antonia handed her a blanket to drape over him. “Where’s Hector?” Paula said.
“Out in the storm,” Antonia told her.
Paula frowned, considering, until Silvio groaned again from his prone position on the sofa and she got to her feet to tend to him, mumbling something about being an innkeeper, not a charge nurse.
Reuben bent over Gavin and checked his pockets. “No ID.”
“Why would he have some on him? He’s your gardener, isn’t he?”
Reuben looked down at Gavin’s face. “I’m beginning to wonder.” He removed Gavin’s cell phone and tried to thumb it to life, but he could not get past the password required.
Antonia leaned close. “Who do you think shot him?”
“Not my brother,” Reuben snapped. “Leland, Garza’s guy, did.”
“He didn’t seem to have a gun.” Antonia twirled a strand of her hair tightly around her finger. “Otherwise, he could have just shot us all out there.”
He had no answer for that. Antonia hesitated; there was something she was not telling him. “What?”
“It was definitely Leland who followed me from the airport and sent the watercraft.” She shook her head. “It seems ridiculous to think they could get to you through me.”
“They must have heard—known—how much I loved you.” The words seemed to cut their way out of him. Loved. Past tense. Past, but so powerful Garza knew that Antonia still held sway over his heart even if they couldn’t be together.
Antonia looked at him for a long time before she turned away. “What a waste of effort. They don’t know that I’m not in your life anymore.”
Not in my life, but always in my heart, in my blood, in the memories that keep me hanging on when there’s nothing else. No one else. “I’m sorry, Nee. This never should have happened.” He closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened them, he felt tired and worn. He pulled out his phone and texted, chewing his lip waiting for a reply that didn’t come. “No answer from Hector. He’s in over his head.” He expected a cutting remark from her, indicating Hector had gotten what he deserved.
Instead, her hand found his. “I’m sure he’ll be okay.”
His pulse throbbed. “Thanks.” He held on to her and felt the warmth return to both of them. “I’m going to get you out of this, Nee. I promise.”
She smiled. “I know you’ll give it your best shot.” She pressed his fingers to her lips, and the kiss trailed life back into his body. The old sparks danced inside, though he fought hard to keep them down.
She let go and picked up the rotary phone receiver on the kitchen wall, replacing it when she heard no dial tone. “I’ll try again later.”
“Hurricane is here,” Reuben said. “We’re on our own.”
The words seemed to linger in the dark room.
Antonia hugged herself. “So we wait.”
With a gunman outside and two men incapacitated.
TEN
Reuben frowned. “I’m going to look in Gavin’s room. Maybe he stashed some belongings there.”
“How’s that going to help?” Antonia said, following.
“Probably won’t do anything but keep us busy for a few minutes.”
“Then that’s enough reason for me,” Antonia said.
“Are you going up there dripping wet?” Paula called. “What will it do to the floors?”
Reuben gave her a wry smile. “Paula, in a few hours we may not have any floors left.”
She shook her head and crossed the room to check on Gavin.
Gavin’s room was actually a tiny alcove that housed a library and study. The walls were lined with books—Reuben’s mother’s, she knew—volume upon volume about ornithology and shell collecting, several hefty tomes of collected poetry and a half dozen ragged Bibles. A delicate desk was pushed against one wall to make room for a sleeping bag, which was folded neatly on the floor along with a pillow Paula had rounded up for Gavin.
Gavin’s pack was nowhere to be found.
“If he was going out into a hurricane, wouldn’t you think he’d take his pack?”
“Maybe he did and the shooter took it or it’s lying there in the bushes somewhere and we couldn’t see it.”
“I still don’t see why Hector and Gavin were both out in the storm in the first place. One followed the other?”
Reuben’s eyes narrowed in thought. “I can see my brother sneaking out, thinking he’s going to save us all and put a dent in Leland’s plan.”
“And Gavin followed him? Why?” Antonia recalled the conversation she’d heard earlier between Silvio and Paula.
Do you think Hector knows?
She shivered, recalling Silvio’s last words.
Then there’s going to be blood.
“Paula knows something about Gavin.” She watched him start visibly. “I think you’d better talk to her.”
He jerked, eyes darkening. “Paula and Silvio are m
y friends, like parents. They wouldn’t hide anything from me.”
Antonia hoped that he was right as she followed him back down the stairs. Paula sat calmly on a stuffed ottoman, the two unconscious men on either side.
“Find anything?” she asked.
“No.” Reuben sat opposite her on the sofa, leaning forward with elbows on his knees to look her squarely in the eyes. “Do you know something about Gavin, Paula?”
Paula folded her arms. “Why would you ask that?”
Antonia spoke up. “I heard you talking to Silvio. You said there would be blood if Hector found out. What were you talking about?”
Paula gave Antonia a look of disdain. “Eavesdropping, were you?”
Reuben held up a hand. “Don’t stall. Do you have any information?”
She pursed her lips. “Silvio said we shouldn’t tell because we weren’t sure. He didn’t want to get anyone in trouble…or killed.”
“We’re past that. You have to tell me.” His tone was stern, but he gathered up her hand in his. “I know you would never keep information from me unless you had a good reason. I need to know what’s going on, and Silvio would agree if he was awake.”
“I love you, Reuben,” she said, “and you know I would do anything for you, but Silvio is my husband and I will stand by his wishes.”
Antonia watched the feelings flicker across Reuben’s face like waves tumbling over the sand. Affection, exasperation, respect. “Paula, I love you, too,” was all he said, before pressing a kiss on her wrinkled brow.
That one tiny gesture awakened a flood of respect for Reuben. Even with the stakes mounting higher every second, he would not force Paula to do anything.
Pink cheeked, Paula stood up and checked on Gavin’s wound, replacing the bandage with swift and skillful fingers.
Reuben watched, face drawn in painful contemplation.
Antonia knew that whatever Silvio had to tell them would change everything. She moved next to Reuben. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking Silvio needs to wake up. Soon. I need to know the truth about Gavin.”
“Maybe the real question is not who he is,” she said quietly, “but who shot him.”
He rounded on her. “It was not my brother, not unless Gavin was threatening his life or mine.” He headed for the back door.
“Where are you going?”
“To see if he dropped his pack outside.”
“And if you run into Leland?”
“I won’t. He’s probably gone to meet up with his guy at the boathouse.”
“I’ll help you look.”
“No, I need you to help Paula move all the food and water she can find to the storm shelter. We need to be prepared.”
She was going to protest, but his eyes kindled with fire. “Look, Nee. I can’t do this alone. You have to help me, and right now that means making sure we have enough supplies to outlast the hurricane. Get some rest if you can.” He huffed out a breath and gentled his voice. “Please do that for me.”
It was the quiet tone, the ribbon of worry infusing the words, that struck her, cutting loose a wave of tenderness that she had not known still existed deep down inside. He could not order her to do anything, but if he asked in that sincere way, she could not refuse him.
“Reuben, I will always do what I can to help you.” She added quickly, “As a friend.”
His smile was bitter. “If we just weren’t so busy being enemies.”
They locked eyes for a moment, and Antonia felt again the ache that took root deep down when he had defended his brother, the criminal who would ultimately destroy Reuben. She was sure.
She pulled back and watched him disappear into the shadowed staircase. Fatigue slowed her steps as she returned to Paula, who was bent over a restless Silvio. “He’ll be awake soon,” she said, more to herself than Antonia. Straightening, she marched into the kitchen. “Reuben is worried the roof will go. I think he’s wrong, but we’ll move supplies to the storm shelter in case he isn’t.”
“He’s wrong about a lot of things,” Antonia grumbled.
Paula began to pull cans of food from the kitchen cupboard and put them into a cardboard container. “Do you have two parents who love you?”
Antonia started. “Yes, I did. My father passed.”
“Well so did Reuben, and they’re both dead now, too, but he had to choose between them, two people who loved him to distraction.”
“His dad was a criminal.”
Paula continued to load the box. “Criminals can love their children, too. Reuben went with his mother, and it broke his father’s heart. When he turned eighteen, Hector went with his father, and it broke his mother’s heart.”
Antonia considered how it would be for a child to have to choose between his parents.
She felt Paula’s gaze on her. “I loved Reuben’s mother. She was the child I never had. I saw what it cost her to take the boys out of that life, and I witnessed what it cost her to see one return. She never stopped praying for Hector. ‘No storm’s too big for God,’ she’d say, and she made sure Reuben believed it also.”
An uneasy feeling stirred in Antonia’s belly. She believed it, too, that no one was beyond redemption, or did she? Had the hurts and disappointments caused her to stop believing the truth that God was big enough to change even the darkest heart?
Accepting the two gallon jugs of water that Paula handed her, she started for the back door when a groan stopped them both.
Gavin grunted as he heaved himself upright, eyes wild and mouth tight with pain.
“Where are they?”
Antonia and Paula put down their burdens and hastened to stop him from trying to stand. They were too late; Gavin hauled himself to his feet. “Where is he?”
“Who?” Antonia pressed. “Hector?”
“He’s gone away,” Paula said soothingly.
“They’ll kill him,” he moaned, eyes abruptly becoming unfocused as he collapsed to the floor. Antonia caught him by the arm and broke his fall.
Paula muttered as she took hold of his legs, and they maneuvered him back up onto the sofa. She checked his wound. “Started the thing bleeding again. Bring me a clean towel from the drawer.”
Antonia ran to fetch the makeshift bandage, and Paula wrapped the injury again.
Though she desperately wanted Gavin to come to again and explain himself, his eyes remained stubbornly closed.
They’ll kill him.
Was he speaking about Hector? Or Reuben?
The clock read two-thirty in the morning. The hurricane was due to make landfall within hours.
Hurry, Reuben.
*
Reuben spent a fruitless half hour pawing through wet shrubbery along the rain-slicked path. He noted with growing alarm that the creek was now more than half full. If Tony dropped any more than ten inches, the rain would overflow the banks and likely submerge the ground floor of the Isla Hotel.
He marveled again at God’s incredible power to change the tiny plans of men with one strong blast of weather. On his twenty-acre organic farm on the mainland, he’d learned to stave off frost damage by spraying the fruits with water to form a protective barrier of ice, which would hover just at the freezing point. He’d managed to hang on to a few good workers to help him with the laborious hand picking and ripped out rows of precious trees planted by his uncle when they contracted citrus greening disease. Not once in all the struggles did he consider quitting. It was in his blood since the moment he visited his uncle’s orchard for the first time, and he considered himself blessed to be able to bring something out of the earth with God’s help.
But hurricanes were different. His relatively young Seville oranges, bitter and thick skinned for marmalade, would be decimated by the wind. Maybe the older trees…the Valencias…
No way, Reuben. You’re going to kiss this year’s crops goodbye. Deal with it.
He would. Somehow, he would start over.
A branch snapped loose from a tree an
d skimmed by his feet.
But how would he keep Isla going if she did not survive the storm?
The Lord giveth.
His stomach clenched as he pictured Antonia’s face.
And He taketh away.
He gritted his teeth and shone his flashlight into the shrubbery. She wasn’t his to lose anymore; it would be enough to keep her alive.
Soaked in spite of his jacket, Reuben tried to figure out which direction Gavin would have taken. He could have headed up the small hill on the path toward the Anchor, but considering where Reuben had discovered him lying, he figured the man took the river path…the same direction from which Hector had emerged.
His eyes played tricks on him as the foliage danced and rolled. He wished he could risk another trip to the Anchor to keep tabs on Leland and his men or go after his brother, but he dared not leave Antonia and Paula unprotected.
His brother or Antonia. The choice had ruined them before.
Disheartened, face stinging from the pelting rain, he started the return trip to Isla when he saw it—the strap of Gavin’s backpack, caught by a branch. He rooted around in the shrub until he extracted it. Feeling like Jason finding his golden fleece, he hurried as fast as the wet path would allow back to the hotel.
He slammed inside, arriving just as Silvio sat upright, eyes bleary.
Antonia and Paula stood next to him.
“Is he okay?” Reuben said.
“’Course I’m okay. Musta dozed. Getting old.”
“You had help,” Paula said. “Someone put sleeping pills in the coffee.”
Silvio began to mutter angrily, brushing aside the cup of water Antonia offered him and trying to get to his feet. “Aww, stop clucking around me like a bunch of hens. I’m fine.”
Paula laughed. “So you are.”
Reuben held up the pack. “Gavin’s been shot. I found his pack outside in the rain.”
Silvio’s skin blanched. “Oh, no.”
“Tell me, Silvio. What do you know about Gavin?”
“Didn’t know anything for sure. Wanted some proof before I went blabbing accusations all over.”
Reuben used his last bit of self-control to refrain from barking questions.
Silvio ran a hand over his weathered face. “Last night, while everyone was scurrying around boarding up windows, I went to the shed to get some oil for the lanterns. Gavin was out there, talking on the phone, and he didn’t see me coming.”
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