Brandon would never say something like that. Neither would John, for that matter. Except, Brandon was often the more honest SEAL, wasn’t he? So, okay, maybe that was what he wanted to tell her.
“Go, Brandon.” Weariness tinged her voice and she hoped he didn’t pick up on it.
“Will you come to John’s after while so the three of us can talk?”
“Yes,” she said, just to make him go away. “I’m come over there after while.”
She rested her forehead on the door and listened. She was pretty sure she heard the faint sounds of his footsteps as he walked away from the cottage. Good. He’d come looking for her again when she didn’t show, but hopefully by that time she’d be on the excursion boat heading away from the island.
She straightened, turned, and went straight to the fridge for the bottle of wine. She didn’t bother with a glass. She popped the cork and drank straight from the bottle as she made her way back to the bedroom. She didn’t want to do it. She didn’t even want to look at it, but she knew she couldn’t leave the used butt plug lying in the bathroom sink. She could, however, clean it and toss it in the trash, which was exactly what she did. Even if she decided again someday to experiment with anal sex, she would never use that plug, or the larger one that had come with it, again. She’d bought them to ready herself for Brandon. Using them alone or for any other man would be far too weird.
Her cleaning task complete and disposed of, she wandered out of the bedroom, only to stop when she heard a sound outside the back door. Her hand tightened on the wine bottle as she angled her head, straining her ears to listen. Someone was out there. She was sure of it. And wasn’t it just like a SEAL, or even a former one, to scale over the privacy fence and try to sneak in her back door?
Fury made her vision go red around the edges. She slammed the wine bottle down on the nearby end table and stomped to the door. A flick of her thumb freed the lock and she wrenched the door open.
“I told you I didn’t want to—” The last words stuck in her throat as she found herself looking down the barrel of a gun held by a man she didn’t recognize. Except, holy God, she did recognize him. Harold Taggart had died his blond hair a dark brown, covered his natural eyebrows with what appeared to be fake ones to match his new hair color, and added black-rimmed glasses to his face. Upon closer inspection, she saw he was wearing makeup, too. He’d applied a layer of foundation to his naturally paler flesh to make him look as though he had a tan.
“But I want to talk to you.”
The sound of his voice sent a wave of fear washing through her blood even as a creepy sensation traveled down her spine. She stepped back when he poked the barrel of the gun into her chest, and kept stepping back when he continued to use it to push her inside.
She didn’t think to scream. Brandon could still be out front somewhere. But, wouldn’t he have seen Taggart if he was? Hell, what did it matter? Her screaming and him having to come to her rescue would only prove she’d needed him and John all along.
I don’t need them, she thought more out of sheer desperation than conviction. She could handle Harold Taggart. She should’ve handled him a long time ago.
“Harold, why did you follow me to the island?” It surprised her the way the words came out steady and calm when nothing about her felt that way. She kept back-stepping until she reached the center of the living room floor. Harold stopped, too. The gun was no longer poking her in the chest, but it was still aimed at her heart.
“For the same reason I’ve followed you everywhere.” He said it as if it should’ve been a no-brainer. “For the chance to get close to you.”
“I told you I’m not interested in dating you. You’re a nice guy, Harold.” She put as much compassion and sincerity in her voice as she could muster. “But I don’t want a boyfriend right now.”
He snarled. “No, you would rather have two. I’ve seen you with those guys you’ve been shacking up with.”
Her eyes widened before she could stop them. Dear God, how long had he been on the island? She knew it couldn’t have been more than several hours. John had said one of his contacts in Silver Springs had seen Harold there last night.
Lara tried a different, even more honest approach. “Who I choose to be with is none of your business, Harold. I appreciated the flowers you sent. I thanked you for those when you called.”
“You never thanked me for the letters I left you or the other gifts I gave you.”
Sardonic laughter bubbled in her throat, but she swallowed it down. “I’m not that kind of girl, Harold. I don’t get turned on by those sort of things.”
“Of course you do,” he said as if he were truly disgusted. “I saw the catalogue in your mailbox. That’s how I knew what kind of vile shit you like to have done to you.”
“Catalogue?” Lara stared at him, dumbfounded. What was he talking about? A lightbulb flicked her memory to life and she thought she understood. She’d ordered her vibrator online and had it delivered to her house. The webstore she’d purchased it from had begun sending her promotional fliers and catalogues in the mail after that. She’d requested to be removed from their mailing list, but her appeal had gone unanswered. She’d taken to simply throwing the material away as she did with all the other junk mail she received.
“The special hard-core toys for the BDSM lover. It was so grotesque they had to send it in a manila envelope to cover up the pictures.”
Oh, God. Of all the times for the webstore to decide to put out a special edition catalogue like that.
“But you didn’t get to see it, did you? Because I took it.”
“You took it, ordered things from it, and then left them on my doorstep,” she realized. “If you think it’s all so grotesque, why did you write that stuff in the letters you left with the items?”
He snorted. “To show you I could get you off the way you like, of course. It was supposed to make you finally come to me. You were supposed to realize I’m the man you want to be with after all.”
Lara shook her head. “I’m sorry you misunderstood, Harold. I—”
“I didn’t misunderstand shit,” he shouted. “You’re doing it here, too. I saw you go to that porn store today.”
Ice chilled the blood in Lara’s veins. He’d been watching her then? He really had been on the island for hours.
“None of that matters.” He waved the gun slightly as if shooing away the subject, but then steadied the barrel on her chest once more. “I never wanted to fuck you anyway.”
Lara blinked at him. “Then why send the gifts and the letters, why keep calling me and following me everywhere?”
“I asked you out at the benefit that night because I wanted time to talk to you. You wouldn’t even give me that. You would never give me that.”
Lara felt her jaw drop. He’d stalked and terrorized her for months, he was holding her at gunpoint now, and all of it was because she hadn’t taken the time to talk to him?
“I’m sorry, Harold. Apparently I’m the one who has misunderstood everything. Why don’t you put the gun away, come sit on the sofa with me, and we’ll talk now? Okay?”
He was already shaking his head vehemently. “It’s too late for that. I’ve lost all desire to talk to you.”
He’d obviously lost more than that, but she kept that observation to herself. “Won’t you at least tell me why you wanted to talk? Did you have something important we need to discuss?”
“You’re damn right it’s important,” he shouted at her. “Your father and those stupid-ass changes he’s insisting must be made to the gun control bill before he’ll give it his support is very fucking important.”
Son of a bitch. She was so stunned, she forgot to be frightened for a moment. This was about her father. Her father! The man who hadn’t even wanted to listen when she’d tried to talk to him about the things Harold was doing to her. She’d been going through hell for him!
“You want me to persuade my father to drop the amendments he wants made to the gun co
ntrol bill?”
She searched her memory for exactly what those amendments entailed. She knew the original bill proposed would take away the right to purchase or possess firearms from the general public. Her father disagreed, stating the general public had a right to protect themselves from armed assailants. The counter attack had been that there wouldn’t be any armed assailants if attackers couldn’t get their hands on the firearms. Still, guns always found their way to the black market. Her father argued that there needed to be stricter laws on the purchasing and possession of firearms, yes, but that the people’s right to bear arms should not be taken away completely.
“I thought you could at first. Then I realized Lawrence doesn’t listen to you anymore than you wanted to listen to me. You’re his trouble child.” A menacing grin unfolded on Harold’s lips. “But parents have a way of loving their trouble child no matter the grief that child causes them. See, I’m a normal, everyday citizen.”
Lara would give him the everyday citizen part, but she was certain he was far from normal.
He turned the gun slightly and looked at it pointedly before aiming it back at her chest. “I walked into a gun store and purchased it legally. There’s records to prove it. Now, I’m going to use it to kill you. When your father loses his only daughter at the hands of a citizen with a gun he bought because the law said he could, your father will give the gun bill his full support.”
Lara thought fast. Rushing him wasn’t an option. She might be pretty quick on her feet, but he towered at least three inches over her and had her by a good hundred pounds or more. She’d never be able to take him down and wrestle the gun from his hand without getting shot. She could dive for cover. Except, with the furniture arrangement in the cottage in comparison to where she currently stood, there was nothing to dive behind. She’d locked the front door when she’d come in, so attempting to run that way would only land her in a dead end.
The back door is still open.
She glanced past Harold. He stood slightly further right, giving her a clear view past him to the back door. The very open back door in which, holy shit, another man stepped into view.
It was all Lara could do to keep her facial expression from changing. She shifted her gaze back to Harold, but her attention remained on the man in her peripheral vision. He was tall, overweight, but muscular, and as naked as the day he’d been born. He made a Pac-Man motion with his hand. He wanted her to keep talking. Then he made a shooing gesture before pushing his palm out. He wanted her to dive out of the way and he intended to rush Harold from behind.
Whoever naked man was, he was crazy, but he was bigger than Harold and armed with the element of surprise, if nothing else. His plan just might work.
“You’re doing this because your sister was killed at the university.” Lara said the first thing that came to her mind. “Killing me won’t bring your sister back, Harold.”
“Of course it won’t, but it will keep whack jobs with guns like the guy who shot her from killing more innocent people. Congress isn’t going to do a damn thing about the gun problem in this country until somebody forces them to. All the innocent people dying isn’t hurting them. Their family is safe.” A malicious expression overtook his face. “Well, except you.”
Lara heard the faint click as he thumbed the safety of the gun and readied it to fire. Then three things happened at once. She saw the naked man start to run, she dove right and hit the floor, and the front door burst open.
The naked man barreled into Harold from behind, startling him so badly the gun flew out of his hand just as Brandon, John, and another naked man tackled him from the front. Harold Taggart never got off a shot and never stood a chance.
Chapter Eight
“I only had your best interest at heart.” Kenneth Winters held Lara at arm’s length in front of her cottage. The rain had stopped, the clouds parting to bathe the island in the pink and orange glow of the setting sun. “You know that, right?”
Lara looked at the man she thought of as a father and couldn’t find it in her to be angry with him. “I know you thought you were doing what was best. You were trying to keep me safe. I’ll thank you for that.”
Kenneth lifted a brow. “But you won’t thank me for using Harold Taggart as a way to bring you, John, and Brandon together?”
Lara shook her head. “No. I can’t thank you for that.” What he’d done was open the door for John and Brandon to use her just like Joshua Snyder had done.
“You love them.” Kenneth didn’t ask her. He told her in a tone that let her know there wasn’t a doubt in his mind it was the truth.
“It doesn’t matter how I feel about them. They lied to me. They hid the truth from me and led me to believe…”
“That they love you,” Kenneth finish when she trailed off. He pulled her in closer and kissed the top of her head. “Sweet Lara, forget the past and see what’s right in front of you. Give them the chance to prove it to you. You owe yourself that much.”
What she owed herself was a solid kick in the ass for allowing herself to make the same mistake twice, but Lara kept that to herself. She forced a smile to her lips and swallowed the lump forming in her throat.
“And forgive me for playing cupid,” Kenneth added before she got the chance to speak. “You’re the closest thing to a daughter I have left. I only want to see you happy and as blissfully in love as Charlotte is with me and Marcus.”
Lara cupped his cheek and her smile turned genuine. “You’re forgiven.”
“And John and Brandon? Will you forgive them, too?”
Lara glanced to the open door of the cottage where the nudist, Bob, stood quietly watching her and Kenneth. Brandon was pacing the floor behind the other man.
She looked back at Kenneth, rose to her tiptoes, and planted a kiss on his cheek. “I have someone over there I owe a huge thanks to. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
* * * *
Brandon’s hands trembled. A SEAL’s hands were not supposed to tremble, but the emotions whipping through him weren’t the run of the mill, scared-shitless type of feelings he suffered sometimes on dangerous missions. This confusion, anger, and fear were new to him.
He stopped pacing and stood back, watching Lara as she said good-bye to Kenneth and then turned to give the nudist, Bob, a giant hug. If it were up to Brandon, he’d be awarding the man and his buddy, Al, with a Purple Heart. All he could think was he’d nearly lost her this afternoon. He’d been standing in the window across the street at John’s house staring at the front door of Lara’s cottage, waiting for her to come out. Instead, he’d gotten a naked man running across the street with his arms and cock waving frantically through the air. That had been Al coming to fetch the sheriff like his buddy Bob had told him to do.
Unlike most of the island, when the sky had opened up, Bob and Al had stayed in their spot on the nudist beach and enjoyed the cool shower from above for a while. It hadn’t been until the lightning had started in the distance that they’d decided they had better abandon their place and head for home. That’s when Bob had spotted Harold Taggart skimming the privacy fence behind Lara’s cottage. He’d sent Al across the street to see if the sheriff was home while he followed Taggart over the fence. Taggart never saw the man, not even when Bob had taken him down.
“I can’t thank you enough for what you did,” Lara was saying as she eased out of Bob’s embrace.
“You don’t need to thank me at all, Miss Lara. We islanders take care of our own. You’re the sheriff’s woman. That makes you one of us now.”
“I…” Lara started to say something, but trailed off and shook her head instead. “Thank you for that, too.”
“I should be going now. You have your other man here. He’ll see you stay safe.” Bob shot Brandon a look full of warning at that.
Brandon snapped to attention and saluted the man. “Yes, sir.” He used the tone he usually reserved for his superiors in the Navy. It made the man smile.
“I’ll see you around, Miss Lar
a.” Bob leaned in and brushed a kiss to her cheek. “You come down to our beach sometimes. You can wear your bathing suit if you like. We won’t mind.”
Lara giggled. “I’ll do that. And will you please thank Al again for me, too.”
Al had gone with John to lock Taggart in the cell at the sheriff’s department. John hadn’t wanted to leave Lara so soon, but he had a job to do. He’d insisted Brandon stay behind, not that Brandon’d had any intentions of doing anything else. No way was he going to leave Lara’s side again until he had to return to the Naval base. John had waved the island law for Al prohibiting the nudists to enter the town area without clothing for a special onetime exception. Al had eagerly agreed to help the sheriff put the low-life scum-sucker, as the man had called Taggart, behind bars.
At the sideways look Bob sent her on his way out the door, she added, “I know there’s no need for thanks, but do it anyway, if you don’t mind.”
Bob nodded once. “Yes, ma’am.”
Lara stood with her back to Brandon as Bob left, closing the door behind him. Brandon wanted to go to her, he wanted to put his arms around her, draw her close against him, and never let her go. That’s where the confusion part of the trembling in his hands came in. He didn’t know if he should just yet. She’d been angry with him not so long ago. She had every right in the world to be even more pissed at him now.
“I didn’t protect you.” He didn’t realize he’d said the words aloud until she turned to look at him. She held his gaze for only a heartbeat before looking away.
“I’m fine.” Her tone was crisp and nowhere near as warm and friendly as it usually was. “It’s all over. Harold Taggart is in jail where he belongs. I don’t have to worry about him stalking me anymore and you and John don’t have to worry about protecting me from him.”
“Lara, I—” He broke off because he didn’t know exactly what he wanted to say. I love you. Yeah, that was definitely something he needed to tell her. I want you to stay with John and me on the island. Yeah, that worked, too, even if he wasn’t able to be on the island all the time the way John would be. I want to marry you and make babies with you and spend the rest of our lives together.
Safe and SEALed with Ecstasy [The Heroes of Silver Island 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 15