The shadows in the room grew long. And if it wasn’t love, it was the closest Audrey had ever known.
THE SUN HAD DROPPED low in the sky when Nicholas awoke with Audrey still curled in the curve of his arm. He brushed a kiss across her forehead.
He’d had women in his life. It was not something he could deny. But there had never been a woman like this one. Not for him. And without knowing the why of it, he knew there would never be another.
Before, he had not known she was what he was waiting for. But he knew it now. He could not explain his certainty—he simply knew it to be truth.
And having found her, he also knew he could not let her go.
He’d had only to look in Audrey’s eyes a short while ago, before they’d made love, to see that she believed they had no future. Somehow, he had to make her see that they had a right to it, that her life was her own, that she could not continue to live in the shadow of Jonathan’s threats.
Just the thought filled him with a rage so intense it felt as if it were burning a hole inside him. He had learned long ago that the world was stitched together with injustices. He’d spent his adult life trying to right as many of them as he could, only to realize that he was never going to make a difference.
He’d accepted that and tried to point his life in another direction and had discovered that he couldn’t live with himself wearing those shoes. He couldn’t turn his head. He couldn’t walk away. Not from whatever small differences he might make in the work he had once loved. And not from this woman who had unknowingly forced him to turn the mirror back at himself and reminded him of who it was he had once wanted to be. He wanted to be that person again. For himself. And for her.
LATER, THEY LAY IN BED, her head on his shoulder, her palm on his chest. It was difficult to find the words, but she needed to say them. “There’s never been anything like this for me.”
He smoothed his hand across her hair. “I know we’re talking about different things, Audrey, but I feel the same.”
She raised up on one elbow, met his serious gaze with a questioning look.
“I’ve spent my life avoiding anything that felt remotely close to the real thing,” he said. “Turns out I didn’t know what it was, anyway. But I do now.”
“And you’re not running?”
“I’m not running.”
Audrey splayed her fingers across the muscles of his abdomen. She held the words deep inside her, protecting them as she would a candle whose small, vulnerable flame she did not want to let burn out.
AROUND SIX O’CLOCK, Audrey called Celine to say they would be late. She got the machine and left a message with the number of the hotel in case Celine wanted to call back. She felt a little strange openly acknowledging what they were doing, but somehow she knew the other woman would be happy for her.
They ordered room service for dinner, taking their time with their food, enjoying it as they enjoyed each other. For Audrey, the hours were a gift in a life long devoid of such luxuries as tenderness.
It was nearly eleven by the time they arrived at Celine’s. Audrey had called again before they left San Gimignano. Celine hadn’t answered, but since she usually went to bed early, Audrey decided she was probably asleep and hadn’t heard the phone.
The house was dark when Nicholas stopped the car in her driveway. “Celine must have forgotten to leave the outside light on,” Audrey said, opening her door. “I’ll just run in and get Sammy.”
“I’ll come with you,” Nicholas said.
Halfway to the front door, Audrey heard a noise. “That sounds like George barking. From the backyard.” She frowned. “Celine never leaves him out.”
“Hold on,” Nicholas said. “Let me grab a flashlight. There was one in the glove compartment.”
Audrey started around the house, unsettled by the dog’s barking which had picked up in intensity. Nicholas was right behind, arcing the light across the backyard. They followed the sound to the small potting shed at the far corner. The dog was whining now, scratching frantically at the door.
Nicholas pulled it open, and the dog lunged out, running past them to the front of the house, barking furiously.
“Something is wrong,” Audrey said, her heart in her throat.
Nicholas grabbed her hand, and they ran after George, now scratching at the door.
“Celine?” Audrey called out. “Celine, are you there?”
Nicholas turned the knob. It was locked.
“Let’s try the side door,” Audrey said, and they sprinted back around the house.
It, too, was locked.
“We’ll have to break a window.” He grabbed a rock from Celine’s flower bed.
The urgency in George’s panic-filled barking, struck Audrey with terror. Nicholas tapped the pane at the corner of the door. When it shattered, he reached in and unlocked it. It swung open, and George leaped past them, still barking.
“Celine? Sammy?” Audrey called out, hearing the panic in her own voice.
They followed George through the house. He had stopped at Celine’s bedroom door, again whining frantically.
Nicholas opened the door, while dread ran through Audrey’s veins. There was Celine on a chair in the middle of the room. Her hands were bound behind her, each foot tied to a leg of the chair. Her mouth had been covered with duct tape. Tears ran down her face and left wet splotches on her jeans.
Audrey did not have to ask because she already knew the answer.
Sammy was gone.
“A MAN,” Celine said once Nicholas had eased the tape away from her mouth. “We were outside this afternoon, and he just walked into the backyard. I never heard a car. He locked George in the shed and forced me into the house. My God, Audrey, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
Audrey sank down onto the bed, clasping her hands in her lap. “Did Sammy know the man?”
Celine shook her head. “No. He told Sammy his father had sent him.”
Fear turned Audrey’s skin cold. “Was Sammy all right?” she asked, barely able to get the words out.
“He’s a brave boy, Audrey.”
“We’ll find him,” Nicholas said, his voice ragged. “I promise.”
“I have to go back,” she said, feeling her new life collapse around her. The day had been too perfect. She should have known it could not end that way. Because if life had taught her anything in these past ten years, it was that happiness always came with a price.
IT WAS his fault.
The words played through Nicholas’s head over and over, the same refrain he had heard all these years since his sister’s death.
He’d led them right to Audrey. He’d thought he’d been so careful. That it was impossible anyone could have followed him.
They were in the car on the way to the airport. Nicholas had his passport. He didn’t want to waste time going back to the hotel for things he could replace. Audrey had grabbed a few things from her house, telling him in a numb voice that Sammy’s passport was gone but hers had been left. On instructions from Jonathan, no doubt. The son of a bitch had known that by taking Sammy he would force her to come back.
He had to make this right. Somehow, he had to make this right. He reached for her hand, holding it in his. But hers remained limp, as if there were no longer any feeling there at all.
THE AIRPLANE RACED down the runway and then lifted high into the sky. Sammy looked out the window at the disappearing ground below, his hands clenching the chair’s armrests.
The man beside him leaned over, his voice close to Sammy’s ear. “Remember, you just do what I tell you, and you’ll be okay. If you don’t, you’ll never see that mama of yours again.”
Sammy stared out the window at the clouds below the plane. His chest hurt with a sudden yearning for his mother and their new life. He never should have believed it would last. He’d wanted it to so badly.
All the while he’d known that nothing good ever did.
AUDREY AND NICHOLAS landed some twelve hours after
they’d left Florence. They caught a connecting flight out of New York to Atlanta. Audrey had not slept, but had sat staring out the window, playing out a dozen different scenarios for what lay ahead.
But she always came back to the same one. Nothing had changed. Jonathan was never going to let her go. She’d been a fool to think she could actually escape him. And now he had Sammy. Just the thought tightened her throat, filled her with a choking need to put her hands on her son, to know that he was all right. Just when she felt herself sinking beneath the weight of her fear, she realized that it was her he wanted. Not Sammy. Sammy was nothing more than insurance to Jonathan. Above all else, she hated him for that.
In the seat beside her, Nicholas sat solemn-faced. She knew he blamed himself. She wished she could find the words to make him understand that in the end it wouldn’t have mattered. The outcome would have been the same.
He couldn’t help her. She’d told him that from the beginning. But he hadn’t believed her, and the funny thing was, she’d actually begun to think she’d been wrong. She’d been right, though, and she knew now that this was something she would have to finish alone.
Nicholas had left his car at the airport. They took the shuttle to the long-term parking lot, and he pulled out into the merging traffic with a grim set to his mouth.
“Could we go by your house first?” she asked. “I think a shower would help me think more clearly.”
He glanced at her, obviously surprised. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m sure.”
NICHOLAS LIVED in an older neighborhood in Buckhead. Audrey followed him inside his house and he led her to a guest bedroom with a connecting bath. “I won’t be long,” she said.
“Okay.” He pulled the door closed, and she locked it behind her. She went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. A pang of guilt hit her for the deceit. But this was something she had to do herself. Face Jonathan alone without putting Nicholas or anyone else at risk.
She waited a couple of minutes, then opened the door and stepped out into the hall. From the next bedroom, she could hear another shower running.
Closing the door behind her, she ran down the stairs and out of the house.
THE SHOWER did him good, lifting the fog clouding his mind, muddled as it was with lack of sleep and the kind of anger that can lead a man to do things he will surely regret.
It would be easy to lose his head and take care of Jonathan Colby in the only language the man seemed to understand.
But then that would be putting himself on the same level, and that was the last thing he wanted. And the last thing Audrey needed.
He pulled on clean jeans and a sweatshirt, unable to shake the memory of the look in Jonathan’s eyes when he’d said he’d find her. The man believed he had rights to her in some demented way that Nicholas would never understand.
Just the thought of what he might do to her left Nicholas cold. But he would be with her. He would make sure she was safe. He had to.
From the hall, he heard the shower still running. He knocked on the door of the guest bedroom. “Audrey?”
No answer. He waited a minute, then knocked again, before stepping inside the room. “Are you all right?” he called out. “Audrey!”
When no answer came, he flung open the bathroom door. But the glass-enclosed shower was empty. She wasn’t here. Panic cut off the air to his lungs.
She had gone without him.
THE TAXI pulled up in front of the house, its screeching brakes strumming Audrey’s already strung-out nerves.
All the way here, she’d focused her thoughts on Sammy, praying that he would be here, that he was all right. She could think of nothing else.
She paid the driver and got out. She’d left her keys behind when she’d fled this house, thinking she would never be back or perhaps it had been nothing more than a symbol of what she’d hoped would be true. At the front door, she closed her eyes for a moment, sending up another silent prayer for Sammy’s safety. Strange as it felt, she knocked.
The longest minute of her life passed. And then the door opened.
Jonathan stood with his arms folded across his chest, looking down at her with a complacency that told her he was not surprised to see her. “Hello, Audrey,” he said.
“Where is he?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.
He stared at her for a long moment, his eyes dark with the kind of anger she knew too well. “What kind of greeting is that? At least come in.”
“Jonathan—”
“Come in, Audrey,” he said, his voice smooth as glass.
She stepped inside, her heart pounding. He closed the door behind her with a menacing click that sent echoes of the past rippling through her. She turned and said, “I need to see him.”
“He isn’t here.”
“What have you done with him?” The question was edged with hysteria. She’d held it back all these hours during the plane trip, but now it felt as if it were taking over inside her, and she could barely control the urge to slap the smugness from his face.
“Don’t worry. He’s somewhere safe.”
“I want him back, Jonathan.”
He smiled a smile that did not reach his eyes. “So now you know how it feels to have your son taken away. Your own family.”
“You left me no choice,” she said, shaking her head.
“Oh, you always had a choice.” He reached behind him, pulled a knife from the back of his pants, slipped it out of its leather case and held it to the light, its sharp edge glinting. “Did you really think you’d get away with this, Audrey? Didn’t I tell you what would happen if you left me again?”
Audrey backed away. “Jonathan—”
“You’ve made a fool of me. My own wife. How can I just let that pass?”
Audrey’s eyes never left the knife. She forced herself to breathe evenly, willing the panic aside. “Put that away, Jonathan.”
He laughed, a harsh, empty sound, and moved toward her, forcing her farther into the living room, the look on his face one of resolve. He lunged for her then, knocking her to the floor. She struggled to get up, but he pinned her with an elbow to her neck, cutting off her air.
“I gave you everything a woman could possibly want,” he said in a deadly voice. “And you threw it back in my face. As if it were nothing.”
Red-hot anger set her on fire. She pushed at his arm and turned her head, gasping for air. “All I ever wanted was a home where my son could feel safe. Where I didn’t have to worry about the next time you would explode or what I would do to cause it.”
He put one hand around her throat, squeezing. The other hand held the knife above her. “I told you I’d never let anyone else have you. Do you expect me to go back on my word?”
Audrey felt the rage in his gaze and knew that this scene had been inevitable.
“I should have tried to talk to you before I left,” she said, turning the blame on herself in one last hope of calming him.
He went still, his expression icy. He placed the blade against her throat. “Before you started screwing Wakefield, you mean?”
Tears welled in her eyes, sliding down her cheeks.
At that moment, the front door exploded open, banging against the wall behind it.
“Police! Get your hands up! Drop the weapon!”
Audrey used Jonathan’s distraction to attempt to get away. But he grabbed her leg and hauled her back to him, throwing an arm around her shoulders, the knife again at her neck.
Three policemen stood in the doorway of the living room. Each one pointed a gun straight at Jonathan. “Let her go!” the officer in the middle shouted.
Jonathan’s arm tightened against her neck. She felt the change in him, confidence melting to sudden uncertainty. “Jonathan, end this now,” she said softly. “Please.”
He pushed the knife blade against her throat. She sucked in a terrified breath.
“There’s only one possible ending, Audrey,” he said. “And you
wrote it.”
A click sounded from behind them, the safety of a gun being released. Audrey felt Jonathan stiffen in surprise.
“Let. Her. Go.” The words deadly quiet.
Nicholas. Audrey blinked, an awful blend of hope and terror sweeping through her.
Jonathan laughed an unamused laugh. “I read your file, Wakefield. Webster did his homework. You think you’re going to take me out and make up for that little sister you failed to protect? Isn’t that what Audrey is to you? A chance to make up for what you broke?”
Audrey closed her eyes. “Jonathan, don’t.”
“You really are a son of a bitch, Colby,” Nicholas said.
From the corner of her eye, Audrey saw Nicholas shove the gun against Jonathan’s head. Jonathan jolted forward, then righted himself, keeping the knife at her neck.
“Don’t!” Audrey screamed. “Don’t do it, Nicholas. If you do, you’ll be doing this his way. I never wanted that.”
Heavy silence followed her words.
“Put the knife down, Mr. Colby,” the police officer said again in a calm voice.
Audrey could feel the weight of Nicholas’s struggle. “Please,” she said. “Not like this.”
An unbearable stretch of time passed before he pulled the gun away and said, “You’re right. He’s not worth it.”
Jonathan relaxed. “I didn’t think you had it in you, Wakefield.”
In the next instant, Nicholas slammed the butt of the gun into Jonathan’s head. He went limp and slumped to the floor.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AUDREY FELL to her knees, the dam inside her breaking, sobs shuddering through her. Nicholas dropped down beside her, pulled her into his arms and held her tightly, as if he could physically hold her together.
Two of the policemen handcuffed Jonathan, who had begun to come to.
Nicholas picked Audrey up, carried her outside where she sagged against the police car and pulled in ragged gasps of air.
A Year and a Day (Harlequin Super Romance) Page 18