Passion to Protect

by Colleen Thompson

  Chapter 12

  The moment the light came on, Liane looked inside and saw the gun pressed into Jake’s back. She saw, too, the blood that soaked his sleeve and the defiant set of his jaw, the way his muscles coiled as he readied himself for what could only be a futile fight against the giant of a man behind him.

  The need to help him surged through her veins like burning jet fuel. But before she could raise the shotgun to her shoulder, an ugly, dark-haired man with a gold front tooth shouted, aiming his gun toward her. Certain she was about to die, she shrieked, her finger contracting on the trigger.

  A blast ripped the night in two, and something struck her squarely in the face. Gasping at the pain, she lost a stunned moment believing that she’d been shot before she realized that, with no time to brace herself against the recoil, her own gun had kicked back and dealt her a bruising blow.

  Scrambling to recover, she looked back into the house. But the room had gone pitch-black again, leaving her with no idea whether the man she’d shot at was still a threat or where Jake had gone—or even if he’d been killed. Aware that she still had a second loaded barrel, she strained her ears toward the sound of something—someone?—being knocked to the floor. Was that fighting she was hearing? With fat raindrops popping all around her, she had no way of being certain, much less of pinpointing the disturbance.

  A flash of red gave her hope—emergency lights rolling toward her down the long drive. Thinking only to flag down help, she spun toward the headlights—and what she prayed would be salvation.

  But she hadn’t made it three steps before she heard the pounding of fast-approaching footsteps just behind her.

  Whipping around, she saw that a man with a gold tooth was nearly on her, bloody spots peppering his face and shirt. “You think you can get away with shooting at me, bitch?” he shouted, but he had to struggle to raise his weapon.

  Pulse roaring in her ears, she used that split second to brace herself before the shotgun boomed in her hands. The man clutched at the huge new hole in his chest and folded in on himself, collapsing in the mud.

  There was no motion, no sound, not even a groan. Dead, she thought numbly. She had killed a man.

  “Liane, be careful!” someone called. Harry! She turned again and saw him rushing toward her as fast as his sixty-four-year-old legs could carry him. “He could still be—”

  “Forget him.” She said as she kicked the pistol away from the limp body. “We have to help Jake. He’s inside with the other one. I saw them in the kitchen.”

  “You stay outside,” he told her. “Or better yet, wait in my car where it’s dry. And lock the doors.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t,” she said, though her teeth chattered and her legs threatened to give out. “My children are upstairs, hiding in a closet.”

  “Get in the damned car, Liane,” he said sternly. “Or I swear I’m gonna cuff you and put you there myself.”

  Stunned into compliance, she did as she was told and was grateful to see a second department vehicle pull up beside the sheriff’s. When the deputy bailed out, she lowered the window slightly and heard Harry tell him, “We’ve got at least one more intruder in the house, along with Jake Whittaker, and there are two kids hiding in an upstairs closet.”

  “That’s one of the escapees,” the deputy said as his flashlight skimmed the body. “I recognize his face.”

  After that they moved away, leaving Liane with no company except her own terror. Shaking worse than ever, she strained her ears and prayed she wouldn’t hear more shots.

  For the next few minutes—minutes that seemed to stretch into an eternity—she heard nothing, until the deputy came outside, trotting back toward her through the slackening rain. When he paused to check the man she’d shot for any signs of life, she climbed out of the car.

  “Where are my children? Please, what’s going on?”

  “Sheriff wants you to come inside now,” he said. “We found another intruder dead in the study, but it looks like the third one escaped out the back. We’ve got more deputies on the way to help track him down, but for the time being, you’ll be safer—”

  “Are my kids all right?”

  “Your kids are fine—Sheriff Wallace just wants to talk to them for a minute before you come up.” A brief smile quirked his thin lips. “Now that he’s convinced your son to open the door for him.”

  She released the breath she had been holding. “What about Jake? He was bleeding—I saw it.”

  “Bullet cut across his arm. There’s an ambulance on the way, but it doesn’t look too serious. He was up and talking ’til the sheriff ordered him to settle down.”

  “Thank God,” she said, breaking into a run. Because she had to see him for herself, to hold the solid warmth of his breathing body close to hers. When she’d glimpsed him through the window with those two men, she’d been scared to death that she would lose him.

  Lose him? The irony of the idea struck her hard, since once upon a time she’d been too excited by the offer of a full scholarship, too certain her path lay elsewhere, to tie herself down with a boy she could never imagine living anywhere but the backcountry. But now that tragedy had tempered her view and she’d seen the value of the man she’d so carelessly walked away from, there was no way she could saddle him with a woman with her problems...a woman who could never give him the one thing he wanted and deserved.

  * * *

  The minute Jake saw her enter the kitchen, he rose from the chair where Harry had ordered him to wait. His lungs filled fully at the sight of her. She was a soaked, muddy, wild-eyed mess, but at least she looked to be in one piece. “Are you all right?” he asked, holding a towel against his bleeding arm. “I was so worried that guy would catch you.”

  “Oh, he caught her all right.” Deputy Winslow gave what looked like an admiring smile. “Right before she blew a hole in his chest that you could pass an arm through.”

  Liane shivered, her teeth chattering audibly and her face as pale as moonlight. Before Jake could say a word, she was leaning against his chest and whispering, “You’re bleeding.”

  And you’re in shock, he thought, feeling like a heel for noticing the way her wet pajamas clung to those gorgeous curves of hers. She was soaking his sweatshirt, too, but he didn’t care about that. Didn’t care about anything except keeping her safe.

  “I’ll be fine. Are you okay?” he asked, wincing when she shifted, jostling his injured arm.

  When she didn’t answer, he wondered if she’d heard him. But she was so close that he felt her nod.

  As Winslow draped a towel over her shoulders, she murmured, “Have to go get the kids. They’ll be so scared. I...”

  From upstairs, Harry called, “Liane, can you come on up? I’ve got a couple young folks here who’re eager to see you.”

  She pulled away, staggering a few steps before Jake noticed the reddened spot on her cheekbone. “You are hurt,” he said. “Let me help you.”

  “I’m fine,” she assured him.

  “You stay right here like the sheriff told you,” Deputy Winslow ordered Jake. “I’ll see Ms. Mason upstairs.”

  His arm throbbing, Jake relented. A few minutes later Harry came back downstairs alone.

  “Thought it might be better to leave Liane up there with the children,” he said. “There’s no need for them to see the dead men, and I can always get her account of all this after you and I talk.”

  “Are the kids all right?”

  “Shaken up, but they’ve got each other. And Liane’s a good mama. She’ll settle ’em right down.”

  But who would comfort her? Jake swallowed painfully, reminding himself that staying in the house for a few days and helping her with the aftermath of her father’s murder hadn’t made him a real part of her family. He’d been fooling himself, imagining he belonged here
. Pretending that the kiss they’d shared was something more than a woman desperately trying to cope with grief.

  “You hanging in there all right, Jake? You’re looking a little rough.”

  “I’ve been worse,” he reminded the older man as he continued applying direct pressure to the wound. Fortunately the bleeding had slowed down to a trickle. “I wouldn’t recommend this, though. Hurts like hell.”

  “I’d call you a liar if you said any different. Paramedics shouldn’t be much longer. We’re gonna need to talk some more about how that dead fella ended up in the study.”

  “It’s a real short story,” Jake said impatiently. “When I ordered them to freeze, he fired at me. He missed. I didn’t.”

  “I’ll want the details later, but right now,” Harry said, “I need to know more about the big fellow you said got away.”

  “After Liane shot out the window, that son of a bitch knocked me off my feet like a charging bull and sent my gun flying. Then he pointed his weapon at my face and...” Jake’s mouth went bone dry as he relived the moment when his assailant’s gun had clicked on an empty chamber. A moment when nothing but dumb luck—or the huge man’s unwillingness to stick around to reload—had saved him. “I can hardly believe I’m here talking to you,” he continued. “When he realized he was out of ammo, he ran for the back door. I would’ve tried to stop him, but...I guess I was a little stupefied to find myself still breathing.”

  Harry snorted. “You ought to be. You were one lucky son of a gun tonight.”

  “We’ll drink to that,” Jake told him, “soon as I get my drinking arm back in working order.”

  The sheriff smiled. “You better believe we will. Now, tell me everything you can remember about his appearance. I’ve already radioed for backup, but I’ll need to call in a more detailed description for the highway patrol, the U.S. Marshals and whoever the hell else I can get out here.”

  “Bald, with a deep voice and muscles on top of muscles. Tattoos on his arms, maybe one on his neck, too.”

  “What kind of tattoos?”

  Jake thought for a minute before shaking his head in frustration. “It was dark, and I was mostly focused on staying in one piece.” Something else popped into his head, something from the convicts’ conversation in the office. “I do remember the guy with the Mexican accent called him ‘Smash.’ Does that mean anything to you?”

  Harry nodded. “Confirms what I’ve been thinking, that you just survived a run-in with an escaped con name of Herbert Newell, who’s serving a forty-year sentence for three drug-related murders.”

  “His real name’s Herbert?” Jake asked, incredulous.

  Harry tilted another smile. “What d’ya want to bet he got the handle Smash from what he did to any idiot dumb enough to call him by his given name?” Sobering, he added, “You remember anything else they might’ve said? Anything about why they came?”

  “They were definitely here looking for Mac’s money.”

  “Mac’s firm’s money, you mean. Every bit of it conned out of unsuspecting investors.” Harry rubbed at the frown lines creasing his forehead. “So the sneaking SOB hid it here, thinking he could come back for it later.”

  “From what I overheard,” Jake said, “that’s exactly what he did. Apparently he promised each man a cut in return for helping him, but the stash wasn’t where he claimed he’d hidden it. They’d already checked out all the cabins and torn through the only one that wasn’t empty.”

  “So that’s who trashed your place.” Harry shook his head. “But what I want to know is where the hell’s McCleary?”

  “Burned to death out in the canyon, or at least that’s what they figured.” Jake shook his head. “I still can’t imagine any way he could’ve made it out of there on his own, blinded the way he was. In that terrain, searchers could’ve missed the body, or it could’ve been burned to the point there wasn’t much left to find.”

  “Well, turns out those hikers are still missing, so somebody took their car. Somebody smart enough to lay low—or get the hell out of Dodge before his partners caught up to him.”

  Harry nodded, then glanced out the broken window. “That ambulance is sure as hell taking its sweet time.”

  “I’m worried about Liane,” Jake said. “She’s the one who needs to be checked out. For shock, if nothing else.”

  “I’ll see to it.”

  “And it’s definitely not safe for her to stay here.”

  “Nobody’s safe here right now. Do you think she’s got a friend she and the kids can stay with for a spell?”

  “I’m sure Em’ll have room for them up at the lodge, but she won’t want to leave the animals. I’ll stay on.”

  Harry shook his head. “I don’t like it one bit, especially since I don’t have the manpower to leave a deputy here to stand guard.”

  “She won’t go otherwise. And she has to. Don’t worry about me. Once I’m patched up, I’ll be fine. I’ll keep a weapon on me, and Misty’ll help keep watch.”

  “You’re sounding awful cocky for a fellow with a black eye and a fresh bullet wound.”

  In spite of Harry’s words, Jake saw nothing but approval in his gaze.

  “Deke would be real pleased, seeing the way you’ve stepped up for her and the kids,” the sheriff told him.

  At the thought of his old friend, Jake felt his gut churn. “Do you really think he could’ve found the money Mac stole and kept it?”

  Harry looked away, shaking his head. “He had plenty of opportunity to find it, and Lord only knows he had the motive. This place meant everything to him, and his bank accounts are all but empty. Have been for a good long while, yet somehow he’d been managing to keep things going. But his tax bill was paid just last week. Cash stuffed in an envelope—the whole year’s worth at once.”

  “Maybe he sold off some other property or had another account somewhere.”

  “Listen, Jake, I want to believe he was innocent as much as anybody.”

  “It’s not about what we want,” Jake insisted. “It’s about Liane and the kids. They’ve already been through so much. It would kill her to think her dad would—”

  “I’m going to have to serve her with a warrant to search the premises.”

  “Just tell her you’re looking for whatever Mac hid, not evidence against the man we just buried. Spare her the worry that she’s about to lose her home.”

  “Even if it’s true? Because if the FBI or the SEC figures out Deke was financing this place with stolen money, then I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do to stop—”

  Jake shook his head. “I’m not asking for forever. I’m just asking you to get solid evidence before you say anything to her about it. Can you do that?”

  “I suppose I can. But you should know, I’ve already put a call in to the agent who’s taken over the investigation into that crooked firm McCleary worked for. Haven’t heard back yet, but I imagine we’ll have federal company down here any day now.”

  “What if the money turned up sooner?” Jake asked. “If someone found it where it couldn’t possibly be connected to Deke Mason?”

  Harry gave him a hard look. “You wouldn’t be considering anything foolish, would you, Jake? Not to mention illegal.”

  “Of course not,” Jake lied, already mentally sifting through strategies to find and move the missing money.

  “And there’s not something you’re holding back? Something you might know?”

  “Deke never said a word to me about Mac McCleary or any missing money.”

  “Then stay out of this, you hear me? Deke wouldn’t have wanted to see you get in trouble, and that goes double for me.”

  Instead of answering, Jake glanced toward the stairwell. “Like I said before, this isn’t about me.”

  Catching his meaning, Harry sighed. “You know, we m
ight not be doing her any favors, keeping this back. Once she hears I’m digging into Deke’s finances, it won’t be pretty.”

  “You have enough on your plate,” Jake told him. “Just let me worry about Liane for now.”

  Chapter 13

  “I hate this,” Liane told Em four days later, as they left the crowded parking lot of the elementary school. It was the first time she’d left Cody and Kenzie out of her sight since the break-in, a thought that prompted a flutter of panic in her stomach.

  Em, who was driving a shiny white Range Rover with the Wolf River Lodge & Spa logo emblazoned on each side, smiled reassuringly. “Look, you were the one who told me you wanted them to get back to a normal routine as soon as possible. And what could be more normal than the first day of school?”

  “I know that. And I know that getting back to work in a few days is going to be a positive for me, too. But I can’t help worrying.”

  “You’ve made the principal, their teachers and the school counselor aware of the situation. They’ve promised you that neither of the kids will be left unsupervised, that you’ll have to come to the office and personally sign them out. And if any strange man shows up around campus, they’ll call the sheriff’s office immediately. And Sheriff Wallace himself came by yesterday to tell you that other convict was caught at a roadblock in a stolen car. He’s locked up tight now, and your ex must have burned to a crisp, which would be poetic justice, if you ask me.”

  “What if he didn’t? What if he’s biding his time and—”

  “You’re obsessing again.” Em slapped on the no-nonsense voice she normally reserved for the occasional drunken rowdy at the lodge’s bar. “You asked me to tell you if you were, so I’m calling you on it.”

  Liane glared at Em—who was sounding more like her counselor than her best friend—for a moment before blowing out a breath. “You’re right. I’m obsessing. I’ve done everything possible already, so this garbage isn’t helping. It’s high time to move the kids back home and figure out our future. Otherwise, I’m letting Mac win.”