His father pressed the pedal completely to the floor, but had to slow down when the accident site came into view. There were several emergency vehicles with flashing lights there, and regular traffic was at a standstill, forcing him to drive onto the side of the road. A fire engine with lights flashing sat diagonally in their path and police on radios had already cordoned off Charlotte’s overturned truck with yellow tape.
“Jeeeesus fuck—” Thyssen’s fingers dug into the molding at the site of all the debris that littered the embankment. He flung open the truck door before Iannis stopped the vehicle. He ran toward the overturned truck and grabbed the first officer he came upon. “Where is the woman in the truck and my son?” His eyes searched the truck and surrounding area, searching with horrible trepidation for a body.
The officer grabbed his shoulder when he started down into the ditch. “They’re okay, buddy, they got out. Gone to the hospital to be checked. Who are you, the husband?”
Thyssen ran back to his truck where Iannis was just stepping off the side rail. “They’ve gone. Hospital.” He pulled open the passenger side door then froze. He stared through the chaos at one man standing still, leaning on a car fender watching him back through the commotion. “Fucking hell . . . The Stop.” Thyssen narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. “Son of a bitch.” His eyes locked with The Stop’s for a long second before a firefighter ran between them, blocking his view. In that moment he knew The Stop did this. He’d forced Lucky off the road, and tried to kill her and his son.
“Thyssen,” Iannis barked. “Get in.”
Thyssen searched the scene but The Stop was gone.
Iannis banged on the truck’s hood. “Fuck him for now. Get in.”
Thyssen gave a final sweep of the crowd before he slowly got back into the truck. “Did you see that?” He turned to Iannis as he put on his seat belt. “That fucker.”
“Ya. I did.” Iannis turned the truck sped down the highway toward the hospital.
“Standing right there. The son of a bitch did this. I’m gonna kill him.” Thyssen slammed his hand on the dashboard.
“Focus.” Iannis snapped his fingers in front of Thyssen’s face. “Just think about what you need to do right now.”
Thyssen pushed backward into his seat and rammed his fist into the side window, shattering the glass.
“For fuck’s sakes,” said Iannis. He glared at his son. “Get your fucking head together.” He checked the rearview mirror. “If he hit them, and let them live, it was only to get to you. He wants to test you, to draw you out. He wants you, not them.”
Thyssen gritted his teeth.
“You either get Charlotte and Ian out of the way, or leave so he follows you.”
“Fuck that, I’m not leaving them.”
“Then get them out of his crosshairs.”
Thyssen saw red. He dragged in a ragged breath stamping down the urge to hit something else. “Fuck.”
“Think.” Iannis pointed at him. “Now he knows your weakness. And he also knows where you’re going. What is he expecting you to do?”
Thyssen inhaled and forced his mind to filter out all personal thoughts and anger. He had to hold his shit together. Think. Get the initiative. “He thinks I’ll go to them.”
Iannis nodded. “So don’t. Do something else. The boys and I will take care of your family.”
Charlotte walked down the side pier holding onto Ian’s hand, her eyes continually scanning the surrounding area. They’d just gotten home, and though she and Ian were both fine, they been shaken the hell up something fierce. Seatbelts really do save lives. The slogan hadn’t stopped ringing in Charlotte’s ears since she blinked her eyes open and found herself upside-down in truck.
“You are such a lucky boy today. You get to go fishing with Papou.” She kept her pace to a stroll as they neared the big fishing boat. It was imperative she kept everything low-key and normal for Ian’s sake. But she was going to kill Thyssen for this. Kill. Dead. Six feet under for bringing this down on them.
They hadn’t found the guy that ran her off the road, but after the heart the heart talk she’d had with Iannis and his buddies, she knew they’d never find him. This ‘Stop’ bastard was cold, and he did not care one iota about collateral damage. He could have killed her and Ian in his determination to get Thyssen.
“It’s because I’m big now and brave. Papou said so,” said Ian. He jumped up and down excitedly and ran toward Iannis’ boat.
“Ian! Wait!” She ran after him almost losing a sandal, her heart exploding in an out of control beat.
Iannis jumped down from his fishing boat to the dock. “Slow down, boy.” He grabbed Ian as he came upon the boat. “We don’t run around boats.” He spoke in Greek, and her son responded in kind.
“Sorry.” Ian looked down at his feet. It still amazed Charlotte how easily her son switched languages when speaking to Iannis and his friends.
“Never mind that.” Iannis picked him up and set him on the boat. “Go get your orange on.”
Knowing just what to do, Ian looked under a seat and pulled out an orange preserver vest. Iannis quickly snapped him securely inside before the little boy went to the other side of the boat to look at the colorful lures in a tackle box.
“All his stuff is in here.” Charlotte gave Iannis the duffle bag she carried.
“What the fuck is in this?” He tossed it onto the boat.
“His stuff.” She chewed her lower lip. “He might need stuff.”
Iannis grunted. It was killing her to separate from Ian. In the past, she had gone into hiding, to get away from some of the rough people Iannis associated with in those days. For example, once when she was 15 Thyssen came to her in the middle of the night and coaxed her to go for a midnight skinny dip from his boat. That had been fun for her, an adventure. They were actually in hiding from some man after his father, but she didn’t care. She was with Thyssen and nothing else mattered. Being in danger was an afterthought.
But she wasn’t a carefree 15-year-old girl anymore. She was a mom, and she was saying goodbye to her only little boy.
She looked at Iannis. “And the boys will meet up with you?”
“Yes.”
“Because you’ll need back up you know.”
He sighed. “There might be snow on my roof, but a fire still burns in the furnace.” He pointed from what was left of his white hair to his heart and then his dwindling arm muscle.
It was her turn to roll her eyes. “Fine. Whatever.” She went up on her toes and waved and smiled at Ian though what she really wanted to do was squeeze him to her and never let go. But that wouldn’t be normal and she needed him to think everything was normal. Just a fishing trip with Papou.
She leaned into Iannis. “I hate this—” she whispered harshly.
“I know,” he grunted.
“And I am going to kill your son, if he shows his face here again.”
“I know.” Iannis held her eyes for a moment, then jumped up onto the boat and turned the key. “Cast me off.”
She gritted her teeth and did as she was told before she stood on the dock and watched them chug away and out of sight. When she couldn’t see Ian’s little hand waving anymore she swallowed and forced back the tears that burned in her eyes.
“Now your turn,” Thyssen’s voice said from behind her.
Charlotte whirled around and glared at his big frame now in front of her. “What?”
“I’m getting you out of here.”
She balled her fist and punched him square in the face.
“Whoa!” His head snapped back just as two whirring sounds sliced between them and bullets lodged into the deck’s wood beside her feet. Before she had to process what happened, Thyssen jumped on top of her and rolled their bodies until they tumbled off the deck and splashed into the water.
*****
Charlotte broke through the surface coughing up salt water and sputtering obscenities she didn’t even know were in her vocabulary. “Are you complet
ely insane!?” Water rushed out her nose, burning her sinuses on the way out.
Thyssen gripped the back of her neck and jerked her ear to his mouth. “He’s moving right now. We need to move. Big breath.” He forced her back down into the water before she could argue. She held her breath on instinct as Thyssen kicked them through overhanging trees toward the other launch dock. Sunlight revealed the bottom of his old speed boat. He led them gently upwards to break the surface beside the hull.
“Who was that?” she demanded the minute she caught her breath. “Is it the lunatic who wants your ass? If it is we need to go back and give him another try!” She pushed water off of her face and looked around.
“Nice,” said Thyssen. He held onto her arm and moved them toward the boat’s drop-down ladder. “So glad you care.” He grabbed the roped ladder and waited for her to start climbing. “We’re heading to our safe place.”
She drew back. “No we’re not.” Her mind jumped to the hidden inlet where she and Thyssen spend most of their summers together, the place he made love to her, where she lost her virginity to him. She was NOT going back there. She hadn’t even looked at the part of the area, on a map, since the day he questioned his paternity. “I am not going anywhere with you.” She started to swim toward the dock. “This guy may be a lunatic,” she whispered harshly over her shoulder, “but he wants you, not me.”
Thyssen grabbed and held onto her foot. “You think I’m going to sit around and let him use you or Ian as bait. Lucky, you know how this works.”
“Don’t call me that.” She kicked her leg from his grasp. “And all I know is that you—you Thyssen have brought this here. You put my son in danger and almost got us both killed. And it’s Iannis who is keeping him safe right now. Not you.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “And my father has never brought danger to the door before?”
She glared at him, hating that it was true. Iannis had brought danger to their door before, a few times, but she was not going to admit that right now.
Thyssen grabbed the ladder and shook it. “Tear me a new one later. We’re losing the advantage staying here.”
She pursed her lips and swam past him. “Don’t think I won’t.” She started up the ladder. “Consider yourself on notice because I am far from done with you.”
She gently rolled herself onto the boat’s floor, the sleek smooth movement something Thyssen taught her how to do in order to stay out of sight. This was all so surreal. She hadn’t done anything like this in years. Run for her life. Have to hide out with Thyssen because some Greek mafia type was snarling at the door. She was an inn keeper with a young son now, living the life of a regular single mother.
She caught her breath and stared up at the perfect blue sky. How did her life turn so weird so quickly? She turned her head as Thyssen rolled onto the deck and pulled up the ladder. Like she needed to ask.
She gritted her teeth as he started the engine. In seconds he slowly backed the boat away from the shore, moving through the water beneath the tree lined rocky edge, staying beneath the canopy of trees, blending in with the other people out on the water. She knew it was all for cover as he headed for that damned inlet, their secret skinny dipping spot that nobody really knew about.
The entrance was very easy to miss in summer with the trees in full bloom, most of them with overhanging branches, and in addition to the thriving ground bush the narrow water pathway to the inlet was always out of sight. You had to know it was there to find it.
Charlotte hauled herself up and went over to Thyssen. “So what’s your plan then? Force me to that stupid place to sit around and wait for this guy to give up looking, get bored and go home?”
He slowed the engine to an idle, blending them completely in with the calm serenity of the day. They just seemed like two people cruising along on a boat like the dozens of others on the water enjoying the day.
“No,” Thyssen looked at her then back at the water. “I planned to stay out of sight until nighttime, then rendezvous you with my father and the boys while I put an end to this. Then—” he looked at her again, “come back here, fall on my knees and beg your forgiveness.”
“Pffft!” She gaped at him. “That will never happen.”
“Maybe after you hear my story. Let me explain, you’ll—”
“What? Roll over and thank my lucky stars that you’ve decided to grace us with your presence?” She wanted to punch him again.
“Maybe. After you get over your initial anger.”
She leaned over and thumped his arm before hissing directly into his ear. “Never. You have some nerve you know that?”
A muscle jumped in his jaw before, with no warning, he leaned down and captured her mouth in a kiss.
“Ah—” she gasped, and he used that moment when she opened her mouth to slide his hot tongue between her parted lips. An onslaught of wild tingles raced over her body before she could stop them. To her horror a moan escaped her traitorous throat before she had the presence of mind to struggle against him.
Thyssen reached around and spread his hand flat around the back of her neck, effectively holding her still and keeping her mouth to his.
She pushed at his chest even as frissons of pure heat and excitement rushed between her legs and vibrated delicious sensations over her sex that she hadn’t felt in years. Another moan, of frustration escaped when he drew her closer and made her body flush with his hard muscles. Now she really couldn’t move, not without sliding her body all over his.
God, this cannot be happening.
“I am so fucking sorry for all of this, Lucky.” He said the words intimately against her lips, the soft movement of his mouth on hers sending more heat between her legs.
She tried again to pull away. “Stop calling me that!” If he used that his pet name for her one more time she was going to lose it.
“But you are my lucky lot in life, Charlotte.” He pulled away and looked down at her. “You’re the only one who sets things right for me, keeps me balanced and in line. Without you the worst shit happens to me.”
She stared at him then pushed him away. “Could you be any more selfish?” She shook out her arms, determined to get the piqued excitement that raced in her body under control. “You. You. You. All the time you! Do you ever think about anyone else but poor bedraggled you? I keep you in line? Bullshit.” She turned to the side of the boat wanting nothing more than to jump over and let the cold ocean douse the heat that raged through her system. Man, she was pathetic when it came to this man. Years ago he took her virginity one night, then made love to her every day after for an entire summer. Now he stoked and brought her into a heat in what, five minutes?
She inhaled as Thyssen turned the boat toward the inlet entrance. “Take me back.” She turned and glared at him. “I’m not going to that inlet with you. I’ll take my chances with the psycho lunatic back there.”
“Not happening,” he said. He didn’t even look at her.
Maybe she really could hire this Stop guy, her mind tempted. Take Thyssen out of her life for good. She turned back to the water in frustration. A warm breeze lifted her drying hair reminding her how wet she still was, and that her clothes clung to her uncomfortably.
She pursed her lips and said, “Hope you have fresh clothes down there.” She started toward the stairs that led below deck, then froze as she imagined who else had been down there. “What am I saying? You probably have a closet full of stuff other women have discarded down there.”
Thyssen turned off the engine and let the craft drift toward the inlet entrance. He looked back at her. “Don’t worry, Lucky. No one else’s been on this boat since you.”
***
Charlotte stepped out of the tightly enclosed shower and drew her old beach towel around her body. She hadn’t seen this bright yellow and white stripped thing since her late teens. Mind you she hadn’t been on this boat in almost as many years. After Thyssen joined the Navy and she had taken over the inn, there wasn’t a lot of time to
be off for day-long cruises on the water, or midnight skinny dipping jaunts.
She wrapped the towel around herself, and draped another one over her head to dry her freshly washed hair. That was when she noticed her old fluffy white house coat hanging on the back of the door. It was not there when she came in the bathroom. She dropped the towel and drew the soft terrycloth robe around herself, momentarily lost to its decadence when she pulled the soft patterned hood over her head.
This robe had been a gift from Thyssen on her eighteenth birthday. Most girls wanted jewelry or dinners at Chez Francois, but she had seen this handmade robe in a shop in Port Raleigh and fell in love with it. Thyssen went back to buy it for her. He teased her that she had looked at the robe the way a priest looks at the Madonna. Charlotte shook her head at the memory and rubbed the soft material again. She’d worn this for him, with nothing beneath, the night he’d given it to her, and he’d made love to her in it several times over.
“Time’s up, Lucky.” Thyssen knocked hard on the door, making her jump almost out of the robe. “Can’t stay in there forever avoiding the inevitable.”
She pulled open the door and glared at him. “I’m not avoiding anything.” She strode into the stateroom. Everything was the same as the last time she’d been in here, complete with Thyssen sitting on a straight back chair, waiting for her with his elbows on his knees, a glass of amber liquid between his fingers. Bourbon, no doubt. The last time she faced this scene she’d told him she was pregnant. This time he looked even more concerned than then.
“You waiting for your execution or something?” She eyed the opened bottle of bourbon. “This your last drink before this Stop guy comes to call?” Was she really making light of their situation? Anxiety did terrible things to logic.
Thyssen reached over and pulled the other chair in the room toward him. “Have a seat.”
“Thanks, but I’ll stand.”
He shrugged, then leaned back and picked up an empty glass, raising one of his thick dark eyebrows at her.
“Again, no thanks. It’s not even noon.” She crossed her arms. “And even it was, I’m not drinking with you, Thyssen. We aren’t teenagers anymore, sneaking off to get loaded together.”
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