by Lili Valente
She’s still the same Panties I knew in so many ways.
Exactly, genius. Which is why being with her feels so right.
You say you’ve never been in real love, but the truth is you’ve never fallen out of it. You’ve been in love with that girl since you were both kids, and now you’ve gone and fucked things up one day into the rest of your life.
With another curse, I double back toward the main house again. I’ll tell Julie what’s happened and get her advice. I think I’ve searched everywhere Cat could possibly be, but another woman might have a better gut instinct. And in any case, I need Julie to keep an eye out for Cat, to promise me she’ll take care of Red if she shows up on her doorstep in the middle of the night, needing a glass of water and a place to crash.
Cat may not want anything to do with me, but I still need her to be safe.
I need it like I’ve needed few other things in my life. As long as she’s safe, there’s a chance she’ll forgive me, that she’ll see I’m flawed and clueless at times, but that I’ll make up for it by loving her. Loving her all the ways she needs to be loved, ways only I can love her because I’m hers and she’s mine.
But even as I hope for the best, something deep in my gut insists that Cat is gone. Maybe for good.
And then, halfway to the main house, I get a call from Lipman, and I learn that Cat never called him back. I learn that the sting operation was a success except for one thing, one detail, one person who wasn’t where he was supposed to be tonight.
One Nico Mancuso, who has left the city and is suspected to be en route to Ithaca, New York.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
And now Catherine Elizabeth Legend calls a Time Out.
Hey, you. Yes, you.
The one flipping the pages of this novel.
You’re probably thinking this is the chapter where we get a brief glance into the heroine’s POV as she runs back to her cottage, devastated by the stupid, hurtful things the hero said. Maybe you’re expecting tears or anger or a tormented interior monologue about how stupid it was for her to carry a torch for the one who got away for so long, when she knows damned well that the man in question isn’t capable of forming a lasting relationship.
But that’s not happening.
I refuse to go there. There’s no point in going there. Aidan is who he is, and I am who I am, and if we were meant to be, we would have come together the first time around.
But we didn’t. And that’s just fine.
More than fine. I like who I am without Aidan Knight. I have a great job, wonderful friends, the most adorable dog in the universe, and the rest of my life ahead of me to get over the nightmare with Nico and a certain big, stupid, beautiful idiot who made me think that dreams could come true. Even crazy romantic dreams.
But I don’t want to play the romance game anymore.
I would rather be in a women’s fiction story. Maybe Julie and I can band together, kick the stubborn, pigheaded men out of her house, and run the winery ourselves. She’ll be the mother figure I’ve always wanted, I’ll be the daughter she never had, and we’ll be so, so happy.
At least for a few chapters.
Until it’s revealed that Julie has early onset dementia. Then I’ll have to spend the rest of the book taking care of her as her health worsens, all while learning valuable lessons about the fleeting nature of time and the mercurial disposition of Fate. And maybe somewhere in there, right before the black moment, when we learn Julie isn’t responding well to her treatments, I’ll have an affair with the guy hired to run the harvest.
But that won’t be part of the central plot, and he definitely won’t break my heart.
Yes, we’ll all end up crying at the end of the story when Julie walks into the lake—choosing suicide during a lucid moment in order to be the architect of her own death—but there will be hope, too. There will be kittens born in a corner of the barn, or a new grape clone named after Julie. Or maybe I’ll find out I’m pregnant with the harvest drifter’s baby, and the book will end as I realize that Julie has taught me how to be the mother I want to be. I’ll stand with my hand on my belly as I gaze out over Lake Cayuga and wish for a girl so I can name her after the woman who was my chosen family.
Or if that’s too depressing, we could go with some speculative fiction.
Maybe Aidan and I wake up in the woods eleven years ago with no idea how we got there, but with all our memories intact, and we have to sort out the mystery of our future-past. Or maybe we come home from work one afternoon to find that we’ve both metamorphosed into giant insects. We have a huge argument about who has to make dinner now that we both have feelers instead of hands and end up ordering pizza and eating the delivery boy.
That could make for some compelling book club discussion.
Is our transformation a statement on the current socio-political state of the Western world? Or maybe it’s representative of the author’s growing sense of alienation from the romance genre. Or maybe it’s just a really creepy way of saying that love is hard, and sometimes it turns perfectly decent people into nasty, acid-spewing insects who lash out at those around them instead of examining their relationship and making positive changes.
Or maybe we should just stop this story right now.
Before I cry.
Before I start to hate myself for jumping straight into the deep end of the emotion pool after less than forty-eight hours with the best friend I never thought I’d see again.
Stop before a man steps out from behind the door to the cottage and clamps his hand over my mouth, whispering, “Did you miss me, Catherine?” as he jabs something sharp into my neck.
I flinch, pain flooding through my shoulder, and my muscles going limp. I lose consciousness in the middle of a thick-tongued call for help.
And to be perfectly honest, as I black out, my last thoughts aren’t of giant bugs or book club questions or mother figures. My last thoughts are of Aidan and how much I wish I’d stayed with him and fought for us instead of running away. Because I’m in love with him, of course I am, of course I always have been, from the moment I saw his stupid, furry face.
So I guess this is a love story, after all.
And I guess we should get back to it before it’s too late to prove that, with enough love, it’s possible to find a way back to the precious things you lost.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Nico knows she’s here. He knows. He knows. He knows…
The knowledge squirms through my head like a flesh-eating worm devouring my sanity. I should never have brought Cat here. I underestimated her ex a second time, and now she might not live long enough for me to make up for my mistake.
Not even the police suspected that Nico was tracking Cat’s credit card purchases, or that our stop at the mall would tip him off that she was with me upstate, but that doesn’t matter. I should have stayed glued to her side until I knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was safe.
Now my only shot at making this right is to get to her before Nico hurts her.
I turn on every light at the main house, grab a flashlight from the cupboard for good measure, and search the ground around each exit for clues. Thanks to Cat, I know a little about tracking and how to read the story of footprints in the dirt. But the footprints leading to Dad and Julie’s place all belong to dinner guests and a coyote who circled the gate around the chicken coop in the backyard several times before running into the woods between here and the lake.
“The police are on their way,” Julie calls from the deck overlooking the back yard. “They’ve got cars coming from Ithaca and down the highway in the other direction and they’re setting up roadblocks. They’re going to find her, sweetheart. I know they are.”
“I’m going to go look around the cottage,” I say, cutting through the yard.
“The police said we should stay inside, Aidan,” Julie shouts after me. “That’s why all the guests are in our basement, honey. The people who took Cat could still be close by. It isn
’t safe for you to be out here.”
“At least not unarmed.” My father’s voice is closer, but when I turn it takes me a moment to see him. He’s standing in the shadows leading to the storage area under the house. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I see my old shotgun case in his hands.
He crosses the damp grass and holds it out between us. “You remember how to use this, right?”
I take the case. It’s lighter than I remember, but when I thumb the combination lock to the old numbers, it pops open smoothly, revealing my familiar Remington 870 pump twelve gauge.
It’s the third gun I ever owned, the one I used to take on hunting trips with my dad when I was in junior high. We would spend long weekends shacked up at his friend’s cabin in the woods north of Watkins Glenn, hunting and re-reading our favorite battered paperbacks—the ones that lived on the shelf at deer camp all year round, the pages bloated from exposure to heat and humidity—and eat venison for every meal. Back then, we actually enjoyed spending time together. We’ve never been the sort to have long heart-to-heart talks or share private jokes, but we both looked forward to weekends of shared solitude.
I haven’t shot this particular gun since I was fifteen, the last time I was on good enough terms with my father to willingly subject myself to three days of nothing but his company.
“I cleaned it a couple of months ago,” Dad says, holding out a box of shells. “It’s in good shape, but don’t take a shot if Cat’s close to whoever took her. They’re slugs, but it’s dark, and you’re out of practice. It isn’t worth the risk.”
“I know.” I pocket the slugs before taking the shotgun out and handing the case back to my father. “But I can’t just sit here.”
“I know.” Jim puts a hand on my shoulder. “Be careful. And if you have to shoot, shoot to kill. You wound a man like this and he’ll make you sorry you showed mercy.”
I nod, my throat tight, and reach for the ammo in my pocket, deciding it’s best to load the gun here while I have enough light to see. Better to be locked and loaded and not need the weapon, than need it and be fumbling with shells and a flashlight in the dark.
As I load, my hands aren’t as steady as I would like for them to be. I’ve never shot at a human being before. I’ve shot deer, ducks, and the occasional squirrel back when I was first learning to use my gun. But I ate those things, even the squirrels.
Part of the philosophy of hunting in our house was that it was done for food, not sport. Everything we killed was eaten and every part of the animal was used or passed on to someone else who knew what to do with it. Back when I was very young, my dad and I would squat down beside whatever we’d killed and take a moment to show our gratitude before we touched it. It was part ceremony, part show of respect, and part prayer of thanks.
But gradually, as I got older, we let the ritual go, the way we let so many other things go.
“I love you, Dad,” I say softly, not wanting to head out into the dark without saying the words.
“I love you, too.” He gives my shoulder a final squeeze before letting me go. “And I’m not ready to lose you. Remember, if these people are on our property, threatening the safety of our family, the law entitles you to use deadly force.”
“I wouldn’t care if it didn’t.” I sling the loaded gun over my shoulder. “I just found her again. I can’t lose her now.”
My father nods as I back away toward the cottage. “I’ll be praying for you, Aidan, the way I do every night.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I say, my throat tight as I turn and hurry down the dirt road toward the cottages. Once again, it’s taken a woman we care about in mortal danger to bring us back together.
As I reach the cottage and circle it with an eye on the ground, I send up a prayer of my own: that I won’t be stupid or pigheaded enough to need a disaster to get through my Jim issues next time. And that I will get to Cat before the bastard who took her hurts the woman I love.
Though I might already be too late for that.
Now that I’m looking for it, the trail is as clear as a ransom note scrawled on paper and pinned to the door. One man, about my size, wearing hiking boots, entered the house alone and emerged with his footprints sinking much more deeply into the damp earth. Deep enough for him to be carrying the woman who made the sandal prints leading from the vineyard into the cottage.
Cat went into our cabin on her own two feet, but she left in the arms of a psychopath who left a trail in the gravel beside the road for a dozen feet before veering off into the woods, down the hiking trail leading to the boat dock.
I click off my flashlight and pick up my pace. I don’t know how much of a head start Nico has, but I know this is the only path to Lake Cayuga. I also know that all the land from here to the shore belongs to my parents.
The person who took Cat has trespassed on private property and assaulted an innocent woman, and if I get a clear shot I’m going to make sure he regrets it for the rest of his life, however brief that might be.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
And now for something from Nico Mancuso
It’s cold in the woods, cold enough I’m concerned that Catherine is going to be chilly on the way across the water. She’s wearing a light sweater, but her legs are bare. If I’d known it was going to be this cool at night upstate, I would have brought blankets and warmer clothes.
“We’ll get you warmed up soon enough,” I murmur. She’s still unconscious, but it’s good to talk to her. After the madness of the past several days, I need this, need her, more than ever. “We’re going to Cuba. It’s all arranged. We have new names, new passports, even a new home beside the ocean. There’s a plane waiting on the other side of the lake that will get us there before morning.” I move faster through the moonlit trees, feeling freer with every step I take with Catherine in my arms. “By tomorrow afternoon we’ll be drinking mojitos on the beach and wondering why we ever wanted to take over the world.”
I smile. My dreams of becoming mayor of the city I’ve left behind are amusing to me now. I should have known better. Men like me don’t go straight. Men like me go to hell and have one heck of a party on the way there.
“Who needs the world? Let the world burn and we’ll roast marshmallows over the ashes. Isn’t that right, love?” I hug Catherine closer, eager for the moment when her clever eyes will open again.
Her head is heavy on my chest and her body limp in my arms, but she should come around soon. I used the smallest dose of sedative possible. I just needed her quiet long enough for me to get her away from the thug who’s latched onto her, and someplace safe, where we can talk.
Catherine is one of the smartest women I know, but she’s in a vulnerable place. Her father, her only living family member, recently passed away. That, combined with the abrupt ending of our engagement—a situation caused by an abundance of fear, not a lack of love—and she was primed to fall under the spell of any man with a firm hand.
My Catherine likes to be taken to the edge and held there with her feet hovering over the fire. She craves the extremes of passion and emotion that can only be achieved with a power exchange.
“But the person with the power should be someone who loves you, someone you can trust,” I say, lifting her higher as I step over a branch blocking the path to the lake. “I kept things from you for your own protection, cara mia. But in every way that mattered I was an open book. No man will ever love you the way I love you. That caveman isn’t fit to lick your feet.”
Though he did far more than lick Catherine’s feet, and I know it.
Thanks to the surveillance equipment I had installed in her apartment, I know that Aidan Knight fucked my Catherine. He made her come and beg and cry out his name again and again until all I could see was red. Blood red, streaming down the walls, washing over my hands, flooding my mouth until I couldn’t think straight.
All I could think about was that bearded Neanderthal shoving his tongue, his fingers, his dick in my woman’s pussy.
I don’t
remember exactly what I told Petey when I ordered him to fetch Catherine from her apartment, but I wish I’d told him to kill that muscle-bound fuck. Mr. Knight deserves to die for standing between me and what’s mine, to die the way Petey is going to die for double-crossing me and making plans to murder Catherine on the flight to Cuba tonight.
It will be harder to get to the little shit now that’s he’s in police custody, but I’ll find a way. The detectives who took down my family may have destroyed one of the greatest criminal dynasties in the United States and wrecked my chances at a future in politics, but they won’t take my vengeance away from me.
Petey will pay for his betrayal, and Aidan Knight will pay for trying to take what’s mine. As soon as Catherine and I are safe in Cuba, I’ll start making the arrangements.
I emerge from the woods with a surge of renewed energy, but when I reach the boat dock, I pause, the reptilian part of my brain insisting that something is wrong. Something has changed since I tied up the boat an hour ago. I haven’t survived nearly forty years in a family like mine by ignoring the predator-prey instinct.
I’m immediately on high alert, searching for signs of enemies lying in wait.
I scan the rough boards of the dock, where the boats are moored on either side. My speedboat is still tied between two smaller, older boats on the left and nothing appears to have been disturbed. On the right are three blue paddleboats and a pink swan with a long fiberglass neck that bobs lightly as the waves lap against the shore.
My gaze narrows on the swan, honing in on dark shadows shifting back and forth on the boat’s floor. Whoever it is isn’t making much of an effort to be quiet, making me doubt that they’re here for me, but I’m not taking any chances. I barely escaped the sting tonight without being taken into police custody. From now until the moment Catherine and I land at a private airstrip in Cuba, I can’t afford to let down my guard.