by Gina Wilkins
“Sorry, but I can’t help you.” The response was brusque, and sounded as though he was moving to close the door.
Shelby was sure Maggie and Aaron were doing everything they could to look beyond Landon, who was undoubtedly blocking the doorway. She tried to cry out, but the only sounds that emerged from her were stifled grunts. In desperation, she threw herself against the door, against the cleaning supplies around her, resulting in a satisfactory crash.
“What was that?” Aaron asked sharply, raising her hopes.
“That was none of your business,” Landon snapped.
“Mr. Landon—”
“I’m afraid I’m the one who made that racket.” Shelby groaned hoarsely when she heard Lowell descend the stairs, speaking with rueful humor. “I just dropped an armful of grooming supplies upstairs. You’ll have to forgive my, um, friend for his rudeness.”
“Mr. Landon, if we could just—”
“Good luck finding your cousin,” Landon said quickly. “I’ll let you know if I see anything.”
He slammed the door, probably in their faces. Shelby whimpered.
Lowell waited only a couple of minutes before saying to Landon, “That’s all the help I’m giving you. They catch you with her now, you’re on your own.”
“Lowell, wait—”
The door slammed and Shelby heard Landon cursing steadily, pacing and slamming his fist on any solid surface. He was angry, scared, trapped by his own stupidity—none of which boded well for her. She was still leaning against the door when he jerked it open and she fell out of the storage closet, landing in an ignoble heap at his feet. For a moment she thought he might kick her, and she drew as far away as she could.
He reached down and hauled her upright. With her feet tied together, she hopped awkwardly, trying to find her balance. He hit her across the face with the back of one hand, almost knocking her down again. Pain exploding in her cheek, she would have fallen had he not roughly caught her. “I told you to stay quiet.”
She glared at him over the tape, trying to express with her eyes all the contemptuous thoughts going through her mind. He looked as though he wanted to hit her again, but instead, he pushed her toward the kitchen. Retrieving the briefcase, he threw the shoulder strap over his arm, then drew a steak knife from a drawer. She eyed it nervously, knowing the blade wasn’t extremely sharp, but also aware that it could do plenty of damage as it was. Leaning over, he slashed the tape around her ankles, freeing her feet. Before she could even take a step, he had the knife at her throat. With her arms still bound behind her back, there was little she could do to ward him off.
“We’re going to walk out to my car,” he said, his face shiny now with perspiration. “We’re driving out of this place. If we make it out without interference, I’ll let you go after we’ve put some distance behind us. If anyone tries to stop us...”
He pushed the blade a bit closer to her throat, letting that gesture finish the warning for him.
She didn’t see how this could end well. Landon or Russ or whatever his name was, was losing control, becoming more irrational by the moment. Her family was looking for her and she couldn’t see them standing back and letting him drive away with her. Not to mention what Aaron might do. Someone was going to be hurt. And she was the one closest to the sharp edge of the blade.
Staying close behind her, he moved her to the door, where he fumbled with the doorknob while keeping the knife close to her throat. A dozen different schemes raced through her mind. She could try to break away and run. She could deliberately fall, buying herself some time while he hauled her back up to her feet. She could try head-butting or kicking him.
In all of those mental scenarios, she ended up with a nasty slice or stab wound.
“Don’t waste time. Straight to the car. You’re driving.” He pushed her ahead of him out the door, using her as a shield in front of him.
He hadn’t accounted for an attack from behind. Though she couldn’t see exactly what happened, Shelby sensed the hit to the back of Landon’s head. He grunted and stumbled forward, his knife-wielding arm jerking outward. Someone caught that arm and swung Landon away from her. Someone else grabbed her and tugged her backward. Reacting instinctively, she started to resist.
“Shelby, it’s me. Maggie.”
The sound of her cousin’s voice in her ear made her go limp with relief. Hearing the thud of a fist, a cry of pain, she stumbled around to look. Landon was on the ground, struggling but obviously overpowered. Aaron straddled him, a lethal look in his eyes as he drove a fist into Landon’s face. Shelby heard shouts, running feet. Her father and uncle and some other men she didn’t immediately identify appeared, surrounding Aaron and Landon, pulling them apart. Someone shouted instructions to call the police. Landon resisted another few minutes, then sagged in defeat as several men restrained him.
Abandoning Landon, Aaron rushed to Shelby. Maggie had been fumbling with the bindings on her wrists. “Let me,” Aaron said, his voice husky.
His eyes locked with hers. She thought he looked a little pale, but maybe that was because she was seeing him through a sudden film of tears. Very gently, he peeled the tape from her face. The adhesive tugged at her irritated skin, pulled at her dry, cracked lips, but she was so very glad to have it gone that she hardly noticed. She tried to speak, but her voice came out a hoarse croak.
“Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”
“I’m okay,” she whispered.
“I’ll get you some water,” Maggie said, turning to dash into the cabin.
“Shelby. Baby, are you okay?” Her dad stood close by while Aaron released her wrists. She moaned in equal parts pain and relief when the bindings fell away and her arms dropped to her side.
Aaron kept an arm around her waist to support her while her dad hovered around her, rubbing her arm, stroking her hair, struggling to maintain his usual composure. Her uncle patted her back. Maggie returned with the water, then fluttered around while her dad held the glass to her parched lips. Pushing the glass away, Shelby looked up at Aaron, giving him a full view of her face.
His stormy eyes narrowed to slits. He lifted a hand to brush the very tips of his fingers against her cheek. He didn’t hurt her, but she felt the tenderness of the area he touched, and realized belatedly that it must be bruised from where Landon had hit her.
Grinding his teeth, Aaron started to turn away, murder in his eyes as he surged toward the man still being restrained by volunteers. Shelby reached out just in time to catch his arm. “No,” she rasped. “Don’t.”
Aaron stood very still for a few moments, almost quivering with a need to avenge her. “Please,” she whispered, not wanting to let him out of touching distance.
Sighing in resignation, he contented himself with one last irate look toward Landon, then he turned his back to the man and drew Shelby into his arms, heedless of the gathering crowd of onlookers. Both her father and uncle were talking into phones; she assumed they were notifying everyone that she had been found. The sound of sirens was growing closer. She braced herself for police interviews.
“The other man. His name was Lowell,” she whispered, her throat still too dry and tight for her voice to sound normal.
“I reported his license number and a description of his car and told them he was a participant in a kidnapping,” Aaron informed her. “He won’t get far.”
She nodded and rested her cheek on his shoulder. Her head was beginning to spin. She was operating on no sleep, still quivering with residual shock. “I think I need to sit down.”
Her father moved toward the door. “Let’s go inside.”
She stiffened. “Not in there.”
She would go inside Cabin Seven again, of course. She wouldn’t let Landon’s actions make her permanently afraid in this place that had always been part of her home. But she wasn’t ready quite ye
t.
“I’ve called an ambulance,” Maggie said.
“I don’t need an ambulance!”
“Shelby, there’s blood on the back of your head, your hands are so swollen you can hardly move your fingers, there’s no color in your face and your eyes look funny. We’ll let the EMTs decide whether you need to be transported,” Maggie said flatly, the strain of the ordeal showing in the lines around her firm mouth.
“We’ll go to my cabin to wait,” Aaron offered. “I’ll carry you.”
“No.” Drawing on every ounce of remaining strength, she straightened away from him, her chin high. “I’ll walk.”
Aaron nodded and took her hand. “We’ll all go together.”
Followed closely by her father, uncle and cousin, and knowing that the rest of the family would surely arrive soon, Shelby limped at Aaron’s side toward his cabin.
* * *
Two hours later, Aaron sat in a chair in a hospital room, watching Shelby as she slept. There was no need to sit guard now, of course. Terrence Landon—or Russell King, as Andrew had discovered, calling after all the excitement was over to report his findings—had been hauled away. He was being charged with assault, kidnapping, fencing stolen goods and probably a few other crimes thrown in for good measure. Charles Lowell was also in custody, having been detained with a trunkful of stolen jewelry, silver and other items of value. More arrests were pending.
For some reason those wannabe criminal geniuses had decided that a busy fishing resort was an ideal, anonymous place for a temporary fencing operation after they’d been forced to leave Austin when authorities had gotten too close to catching them. In another few days, they’d have moved on to another equally random location. Had Shelby not sensed that something was wrong and been so determined to protect the reputation of her family’s once-bitten business, they might actually have pulled it off this time. As Landon had hoped, everyone else had been too preoccupied with either running the resort or enjoying it to pay much attention to the odd occupant of Cabin Seven.
Aaron wasn’t the only one in the room with Shelby now. Her parents and sister sat on the other side of the bed, talking in low voices as Sarah filled in Lori, who had arrived only a short while before, on the morning’s events. The tension between Lori and her parents had been set aside for now as they’d come together in support of Shelby. Steven was at home seething with frustration that his injuries had prevented him from participating in the search for Shelby. He was probably even more determined now to recuperate fully and train for a career that would allow him to be an active first responder.
Shelby’s grandparents, aunt and uncle had all gathered in Aaron’s cabin to wait with the rest of them for the ambulance to arrive, and to support her as she’d talked to the police. They had hovered around Shelby until she’d looked close to snapping. Aaron understood how scared they’d all been, and how relieved they were that she had been relatively unharmed. He knew both feelings all too well.
Her grandparents, especially, had been very vocal about their emotions.
“I can’t handle much more of this,” Mimi had announced, furiously fanning her face with one hand. “Between Steven getting hurt and then giving his notice and Hannah in trouble and now criminals staying in our own cabin, kidnapping our granddaughter from right under our noses—what is the world coming to?”
“It’s okay, Mimi,” Maggie said soothingly, one hand on her grandmother’s shoulder. “Shelby’s going to be fine. Aaron rescued her.”
“Hmm. You’re sure you’re not Andrew?” Pop had demanded, peering hard at Aaron. “The way you handled that situation looked a lot like a professional P.I.—like the man who already rescued this family once before.”
Aaron had chuckled shortly, as had several of the others, enjoying the lighter moment in the otherwise grim morning. “I’m still Aaron, Pop.”
“Humph. Well, I guess you’ve got more in common with your brother than a nice face,” the older man had conceded, slapping Aaron on the shoulder hard enough almost to make him stagger forward.
Shelby and her parents had convinced everyone else to stay behind and take care of the resort when the EMTs had determined that she should probably be scanned for concussion. No one had attempted to convince Aaron to stay behind, not that they would have succeeded if they’d tried.
“I’ll help you finish the roof later,” he’d said to Bryan on his way out. “I just have to know Shelby’s okay first.”
Bryan had nodded in understanding. “The roof can wait. Take care of my niece. I’ll need to run the marina until C.J. gets back, anyway.”
Shelby had a mild concussion and a sprained wrist, but other than needing three stitches at the back of her head, a stretch bandage on her left wrist, fluids and rest, she required no further treatment. She would be free to leave in an hour or so, after she’d received a full IV bag of fluids.
“I still don’t know how you figured out she was in that cabin,” C.J. said in a low voice, leaving his wife and younger daughter talking on the other side of the room as he joined Aaron.
Aaron shrugged. “When we couldn’t find her anywhere else, that was the first possibility that occurred to me. Finding her phone on the road implied to me that she’d been startled, taken against her will. Though there were other possibilities, I kept thinking of the tension between her and Landon—er, the guy that called himself Landon. I wanted to get a look at his face when we canvassed the resort. I knew the minute I saw him that he was hiding something. When I heard the crash from the storage closet, I was even more convinced, though his accomplice tried to explain away the noise by saying he’d caused it.”
“But you didn’t try to rush inside then?”
“I needed a chance to form a plan,” Aaron admitted. “Maggie kept watch while I went around to the back and looked in through a crack in the blinds Shelby and I had discovered last night. I saw Lowell leave, then watched Landon pull Shelby out of the closet.”
He had also seen the knife in the man’s hand. His first enraged instinct had been to crash through the glass door, maybe slamming into it with a patio chair. But then he’d thought of the delay that could be caused by tangling with the broken glass and blinds—long enough for Landon to use that knife in panic—and he’d forced himself to stay in control. With his limited viewpoint, he hadn’t seen Landon hit Shelby, which was just as well, as he’d have probably lost all objectivity at that point, but he’d been able to time his arrival around the front of the cabin in time to attack from behind. His heart had been in his throat, his stomach in knots as he’d prayed he would be fast enough to keep Shelby from being harmed. Determination—and the years of martial arts training he’d taken with his brother—had paid off. The element of surprise had been in his favor, as had Landon’s frantic ineptitude. But he never wanted to be placed in a situation like that again.
“You saved her life,” C.J. said, his voice gruff with emotion. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
Aaron was aware that Shelby’s life might not have been in danger in the first place if she hadn’t dallied in his bed for so many hours, if she hadn’t walked alone in the darkest part of the night. It still made him physically ill to think of the hours she had spent in pain and terror only a few yards away from where he’d slept in his comfortable bed.
He should have seen her safely home, he berated himself, for far from the first time. Despite her protests, despite her familiarity with the resort and her confidence that she would be fine, he should have insisted, even at the risk of bruising her pride. Not because she was incapable of caring for herself, but because they’d both had reason to suspect something shady was going on with Terrence Landon/Russell King and should have taken reasonable precautions. It was going to be a long time, if ever, before he got past that guilt.
She shifted in the bed and opened her eyes, drawing all attention to her. She smiled
weakly at her mother, then turned her head to seek out Aaron. “You’re still here.”
“I’m still here.”
“I’m getting a little fuzzy on the details, but I can’t remember if I ever thanked you.” Though sleepy, her voice sounded stronger now, more like herself.
“Not necessary,” he assured her.
Still smiling, she allowed her heavy eyelids to drift downward again. “Nevertheless...”
Feeling her family’s eyes turning to him, Aaron cleared his throat. “Now that we know Shelby’s going to be okay, I should really get back to that roof. It really should be finished before the rain that’s being predicted for later this week.”
“Maybe you could give me a lift,” C.J. said. “I’ll spell Bryan at the marina so he can finish the roofing job with you. Sarah, you and Lori can get Shelby home, can’t you? You’ll call us if you need help?”
“Of course,” Sarah said, moving to lay a hand protectively on Shelby’s arm.
“We can take care of her,” Lori agreed, tossing a strand of black hair out of her eyes.
C.J. bent over the bed to kiss his daughter’s forehead. “You do what the doctors tell you, you hear?”
Without opening her eyes, she smiled. “Yes, Daddy.”
“I’ll see you at home.”
“’Kay.”
Aaron took C.J.’s place, resting a hand gently on Shelby’s bandaged wrist. “If you need anything, have someone call me. I’ll be here.”
She opened her eyes then, her smile softening. “I know. You Walker boys are quite the heroes to this family.”
Something about that comment bothered him, but he decided he would mull it over later. After a momentary hesitation, he bent to brush his lips across hers. It wasn’t as if her family didn’t know she’d spent most of the night with him, after all.
“See you, Shelby.”
Sighing lightly, she let her lids fall. “See you.”
He paused another moment, his gaze locked on the bruise on her face, then he turned to C.J. “Ready?”