I love you, too, Kyle. Should’ve told you that, huh? Should’ve told you that, against all odds, I’ve come to love our baby, too.
Tui began to cry, but there were no tears left. She’d never hold her baby and then pass him to Kyle to see the look of wonder on his face. She’d never get to witness first words or first steps or the first ride with Daddy on horseback. There’d be no birthday parties, no presents under the Christmas tree, and no stolen kisses with Kyle under the mistletoe to gross out their teenage son or daughter. She was going to lose everything—her man, her baby, and likely, her life.
If she didn’t move.
No one knew she was there. No one was coming to save her. She bit down on her lower lip, the fresh sting of pain momentarily clearing her head.
She had to save her baby. Or die trying.
Chapter 22
With the ute windows open, Kyle smelled trouble before he saw it.
For an instant, amid his brain’s single-minded focus on finding Tui, the unmistakable scent of smoke threw him back to when the hills around his home were alive with roaring flame destroying everything in its path.
“Can you…” Matt said tersely.
“Yeah, I can.” He punched in the emergency number to request the fire service. “Drive faster.”
Tyres skidded briefly on a loose patch of gravel as Matt turned into the Ngatas’ driveway. Headlights played along the edge of the wire fence line running parallel to the road, picking up two of the Ngatas’ horses racing along it, panicked. They hadn’t gone far along the driveway when an otherworldly glow pierced through the trees providing privacy around the main house.
Fire.
And Tui was somewhere in the vicinity. With God knew who.
The gobbling roar of it grew louder as Matt sped past the cottage turn-off and the magnitude of the fire filled his gaze with boiling orange and yellow flame. Smoke poured from shattered windows, billowing into the night. Pete’s garage, on the southern end of the house, was a gaping maw of greed that provided more than enough fuel for the fire to devour.
Matt hit the brakes again, fighting briefly with the steering wheel, and swearing like a sailor. In those slo-mo moments of the car fishtailing to a standstill, Kyle caught sight of a figure standing almost in the center of the yard, his face hidden by his hood but angled toward the house as if transfixed. So captivated, it appeared, that Kyle had flung himself out of the car before the man realized he had company.
The hooded figure ran, rabbiting toward the horse paddocks and the dense bush beyond. A split-second decision had Kyle sprinting after him. This asshole knew exactly where Tui was, and Kyle needed to know—right now. There was no room for guesswork when a house fire was part of the equation.
The man was fast—desperate and fast—but Kyle was faster. And more desperate.
While he’d never been much of a rugby player at boarding school, he nevertheless channeled his inner All Black, closed the distance between them before the man reached the first fence, and executed a low body tackle that would’ve made his old coach proud. He slammed into the man’s hips, knocking him off his feet onto the ground. Scrambling over the man’s body as he tried to rise, Kyle managed a glancing blow to the side of his hooded head. A beat or two later, Matt had thrown himself on top of the man and half hauled him onto his back. The hood was ripped off the man’s head, the glow of fire revealing a face twisted by rage and obsession.
Their brother’s face.
Everything inside Kyle went numb, like the world’s biggest novocaine injection in his spine. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t utter his brother’s name as Dave struggled against the python-like grip Matt had around his arms. But Matt’s grip was loosening, likely due to his own shock at seeing Dave’s soot-smeared cheeks, his singed eyebrows. His bitter sneer as he locked gazes with Kyle.
He knew then the enormity of what Dave’s appearance there meant. Big-picture stuff that he didn’t dare dwell on, so he found his voice, gravelly and raw though it was.
“What have you done? Where’s Tui?”
Dave’s lips thinned then repositioned into a smirk. “You’re better off without her.”
“Jesus, Dave. What the hell is going on?” The confused betrayal in Matt’s voice hurt Kyle more than he thought possible, but even though he wanted to punch the smugness out of his younger brother, Dave wasn’t the priority.
Kyle snatched up two fistfuls of Dave’s sweatshirt and hauled him half off the ground, getting all up in his face. Half a dozen insults filled his mouth with bitter anger, but he swallowed them, refusing to allow the fury pumping through his veins to show his hand to Dave. “Tell me exactly where she is, or I swear I’ll carry you into the fire myself and make you show me.”
“Like to see you try, dickhead,” Dave rasped, then laughed.
A bone-chilling, soulless laugh that coated ice over the numbness in Kyle’s body.
“Tell me.”
“Screw. You.”
He shook Dave, hard enough to make the man’s teeth snap together, but his brother just continued laughing. Kyle released Dave’s sweatshirt and let him drop back down on the ground.
Tui was somewhere in that house, and although he estimated only half a minute, a minute max, had sped by since he’d leaped from the car, he’d no more time to waste and only one more card to play.
“Listen to me,” he said. “Whatever you’ve done, you’re not a cold-blooded killer. I know Uncle Ross was an accident. But you will be a killer if you don’t tell me where she is. Now.”
Dave just stared at him, apparently unmoved and unconcerned that Kyle had made the mental leap from him starting this fire to the one that’d killed their uncle.
Kyle stood and stared back at him, trying to find some spark of humanity, or his little brother, in the man’s flat gaze. “I’m going in there. If I waste time looking in the wrong place, you’ll have three deaths on your conscience because I won’t come out without her.”
“You think I care?” Dave said.
Kyle kept his gaze steady, forcing his fists to remain at his side. “You cared when Ross died. I’m your brother. Your blood. That used to mean something to you. Does it still?”
For a moment Kyle thought Dave would roll his head away from him and remain silent, but then he spoke, low and bitterly.
“She’s in her old room. It’s the last one along—”
But Kyle didn’t catch the end of Dave’s direction as he’d spun around, sprinting toward the northern end of the house which was still, as of this moment, untouched by flames. The wail of sirens screamed somewhere in the distance, but he couldn’t wait for firefighters to battle their way inside.
A stiff breeze swooping down from the hills blew a lot of the smoke away from him, but his eyes soon stung hot and dry the closer he got. He ran to the front corner of the house, taking the side path to the rear, counting windows until he reached the one he was sure was Tui’s old room. Praying his memory wasn’t faulty, he pressed his face to the glass, slitting his eyes as if that would help improve his vision of the darkened room beyond.
There—through the haze of gathering smoke—a glimpse of white and hot pink on the floor beyond the room’s single bed. He pounded a fist against the glass in frustration, then braced the heel of his palms on the window frame, heaving upward with all his strength. It didn’t budge. A sideways glance along the house to the rear deck and the deadly smoke billowing out of the open sliding door made his idea of going inside a last resort rather than first choice. Going in via a door anyway.
“I’m coming, sweetheart.” Kyle scanned the ground around him.
No convenient bricks or heavy objects caught his eye, but something on the back lawn did—an abandoned cricket bat. He ran, scooping it up on the fly and circling back to the house where, gripping the business end of the bat, he punched it into the center of the window. The pane of glass cracked, shattered, and fell in giant jagged shards inside the room. He used the bat to clear the remaining glass from
the frame while hazy black smoke seethed out to meet him. After dropping the bat, he peeled off his T-shirt and wrapped it around his lower face.
He climbed awkwardly over the windowsill, ignoring the sharp bite of pain under his right thigh as a shard of glass sliced through denim and skin.
“Tui! Hey—” He lost his balance and fell to the floor, palms crunching on broken glass. More pain. He didn’t care. He could see her more clearly now, sprawled on her stomach, inching with single-minded determination toward the door.
Inching, because he quickly spotted her bound wrists and ankles. Dave, that bloody bastard.
Tui was so focused that she didn’t react as he rasped her name again. He crawled forward and clamped a hand around her ankle. She twisted around, and it was too dark to see the expression on her face, but she coughed—weakly—and reached for him.
“I’m here.” He dragged himself up alongside her, hauled his shirt off his head, and somehow tugged it in place over hers.
Crouching on the balls of his feet, he got his hands under her armpits and dragged her closer to the bed, avoiding the glass. He set her gently down and dragged the quilt off the bed. Duck-walking to the window with the quilt dragging behind him, he tossed it over the now empty frame. How he’d maneuver her out without dropping her was something he’d yet to figure out.
A bark of a cough came from outside and Matt’s face appeared outside the window. “She in there?”
Kyle couldn’t manage a word. His throat felt raw and scalded as if by a sandblaster as opposed to a water blaster, so he showed his brother a thumbs-up before turning back to make his way to Tui. He dropped her bound arms around his neck and manhandled her upright, half walking her, half dragging her to the window.
“Pass her through.” Matt held out his hands, and between the two of them, eased a whimpering, weakly coughing Tui through the gap. While Matt supported her upper body, Kyle scrambled over the sill again and then gathered her to him, hauling her into his arms. He staggered the first few steps away from the house but righted himself.
“I can take her,” Matt said.
“No.” Kyle’s voice sounded as if his vocal cords had gone rusty. “I got this.”
He’d gotten her, and he wasn’t ever letting her go.
Matt loped alongside him as they circled the big backyard toward the front. “Fire truck’s here.”
Kyle had barely noticed the screaming siren or flashing lights, his whole focus on Tui.
“Good,” he muttered.
“She’ll be fine.”
“Yeah.” But Kyle didn’t miss the worried glance his brother shot Tui, lying limp and passive in his arms.
“Uh. Dave took off.” Matt rubbed his jaw, wincing. “Clocked me one when I wasn’t looking. I was gonna go after the son of a bitch, then thought calling in an ambo and making sure you didn’t kill yourself was more important.”
“’Preciate it,” Kyle managed.
One of the EMTs aboard the rig ran to meet them.
“Help her,” he ordered the man, who dropped his kit bag at his feet and reached for Tui.
Kyle swayed, his heart racing fit to burst, then somehow managed to pass the bulk of her body weight to Matt and the EMT before he dropped like a stone to his knees, fighting not to hurl his dinner all over his boots.
“Help her,” he demanded again on hands and knees, without the strength to look up past the running firefighters to the ambulance, lights still flashing, that had arrived.
“We’re gonna help her, mate,” the EMT said in that irritatingly calm tone that all medical professionals seemed to have. “Then we’ll take care of you.”
Kyle shook his head, which, dammit, only made him dizzier. He didn’t need taking care of, not when it was his fault this had happened. How could he not have seen what was hiding in plain sight? He’d been so blinded by what he wanted, what he loved body, mind, and soul, that he’d never spotted the danger until it was almost too late.
He wasn’t a praying man, but no man in a foxhole ever was. And even still, as he prayed she’d be saved, he bargained with the devil. Save her life, save our baby’s life, and you can take me.
Only he feared he wouldn’t be enough.
Unlike some people, Tui didn’t mind hospitals—at least, as a visitor who could walk out of there anytime they wanted to. Waking up in a hospital with your whānau clustered around your bed, looking at you with sheer terror still flickering in their eyes, changed her opinion.
She opened her mouth to ask what the hell to the nearest family member—her mum, who clutched her hand hard enough to crush bone—but closed it again with a snap. Her throat felt as if it were coated with ground-up glass and wood splinters, which was odd because she’d already had her tonsils removed before her eighth birthday.
“Don’t try to talk, my baby,” her ma said.
Baby.
That one endearment brought it all rushing back—Dave’s attack, the heat and smoke and powerlessness of being tied up, the growing certainty that she’d die in that room without Kyle ever knowing that she’d seen the light, dammit. Then his strong arms around her, refusing to give her up. Saving her, saving them.
Her eyes widened as she frantically tried to communicate the fear swamping her to her mother.
“Your baby’s fine. As you will be after some rest,” Ma said.
Thank goodness for the mother-daughter mind meld. Next question. She rolled her head to the other side to where her dad sat awkwardly perched on a visitor’s chair. After everything he’d been through during the past year spent in and out of hospitals, she couldn’t blame him for being twitchy. She lifted her eyebrows at him, but unlike her ma, he couldn’t read her mind.
“Don’t worry about the house,” he said. “Your brothers and I will assess the damage once the fire guys have given us the all clear. We’ve got insurance and plenty of whānau to help rebuild.” He patted her limp hand on the sheet.
“She’s not asking about the house, Pete.”
Tui could hear the eye roll in her ma’s voice, but when she went to turn her head to the other side of the pillow again, found she didn’t have the energy. Everything hurt. She blinked back tears as Isaac crouched beside their dad’s chair with Sam standing on the opposite side.
“He’s okay,” Isaac said. “Minor smoke inhalation, cuts on his hands from the glass, and a gash on his leg that needed stitching. He rode in the ambulance with you, refusing to get treatment until we arrived to take care of you.”
Her stomach muscles went rigid as she tried to push herself upright.
“Whoa, little lady.” Sam pressed a gentle but firm hand to her shoulder, and without the strength to back up her resistance, she sank back onto the bed.
“He’s not here now,” Sam continued. “He’s down at the station with the cops, making a statement.”
She couldn’t prevent the tears from returning, and one or two spilled over her lashes, streaking hotly down her cheek.
Isaac, misunderstanding the reason for her tears, tentatively patted her hand. “They got him, Tu—David Griffin. Caught him at his house throwing his grab-bag into his car, still stinking of smoke with his eyebrows singed off, according to my sources.” He sent her a grin that normally would’ve made her smile—because until Natalie came along, Isaac so rarely smiled.
But she’d currently lost the ability to find anything funny in this situation.
Her gaze zipped in pleading silence to Sam.
“He’ll come see you as soon as he’s done, I’m sure,” Sam said. “He wouldn’t leave the hospital waiting room until he knew you were going to be okay.”
“In the morning.” Her ma leaned over and gently kissed Tui’s forehead. “Once you’ve rested, and maybe got your voice back a little, eh?” The corner of Ma’s mouth twitched. “You got some things you need to say to him, I expect.”
Tui nodded.
“Then we’ll leave you to get some beauty sleep.”
“Yeah, you need it, sis,” Sa
m teased, chuckling when she slitted her eyes at him.
She watched her family leave and a nurse enter the room to check whatever it was nurses checked since Tui was suddenly unable to keep her eyelids from drifting down any longer.
Hours or days later, it was hard to tell with her smoked-out brain, she woke smack-dab in the middle of routine hospital life. Doctors stood around her bed, asking banal questions, nurses took her blood pressure and scribbled stuff on their clipboards, hospital staff brought her breakfast on a plastic tray, which remained uneaten. Morning visiting hours started with the appearance of Vee, Petra, and Allison all trying to cram through the doorway of her private room at once. Tori, they said, was at Queenstown airport waiting for a flight up.
After her friends left, with her croaked assurances that she was fine and would see them all when she got out of this damn place, she had a steady stream of flower-bearing visitors including Uncle Manu, Natalie, Olivia, and baby Pet, plus Owen stopped in to give her the real lowdown on what had happened the night before as she’d drifted in and out of consciousness. He also bullied her into eating some lunch.
But still no Kyle.
By midafternoon she was figuratively climbing the walls, and no doubt behaving like the most demanding diva of a patient the poor nursing staff had ever seen. After the millionth time she’d asked her nurse if he’d seen a tall, gorgeous man lurking around the ward, perhaps hopelessly lost even though he claimed to have the equivalent of a mental compass, the man gave her a pained and pitying glance and promised he’d look. Again.
Twenty minutes after that, a frazzled Sam swept into the room.
“Why am I getting increasingly pissed-off messages from Neil asking me to get down here and tell my sister to pull her head in?”
The bloody snitch. She’d momentarily forgotten that her social butterfly of a brother knew pretty much everyone in Bounty Bay, including a large majority of hospital staff since Owen worked here. She ignored Sam’s fake irritation and folded her arms, wincing as the drip inserted in the back of her hand knocked against her bicep.
Tame Your Heart: A Small Town Romance (Bounty Bay Book 6) Page 29