by Cindy Gerard
And yet she, in retaliation for the actions of another man, hadn’t had it in her to accept Blue’s motives as simple and pure.
His handsome features were drawn with concentration as the wind batted his blond hair back from his face. The mobile lines of his mouth were tightened with determination and intensity. And never once did he let his gaze fall on her with anything but a cursory glance.
She felt heartsick. When this was over, she’d make it up to him. She’d tell what had happened to her today. She’d explain about the avalanche of emotions that had caught her off guard and triggered a panic so profound that she’d lashed out at him for the sins of everyone who had preceded him in her life. She’d share everything she should have confided to him long before now, everything she’d intended to tell him when she’d realized he was going to walk out her door tonight, before Abel’s sudden appearance had stopped her.
Her heart stumbled hard over the thought that she might have blown her chance just as Abel cut the motor.
Silence descended over the small watercraft as the bow nestled deeper into the water, settling with the gentle swell of the rocking waves.
“We go on our own steam from here,” Abel whispered, as light as a shadow, through the night breeze. “Our approach was downwind so they couldn’t have heard us, but we don’t want to take any chances. I spotted a ninety-horse outboard on their tri-hauler. We won’t stand a chance in ten of keeping up with them if they decide to cut and run.”
“Then maybe we ought to take those big horses out of commission,” Blue said with grim intent, his voice as hushed as Abel’s.
At his nod of agreement and without further exchange of words, both men lifted paddles from the floor of the boat. Taking deep, silent cuts into the black water, they maneuvered through a maze of channels and humpback rocks toward an island a hundred yards in the distance.
When they were within ten feet of the rocky shore, Blue, with speed and athletic grace, slipped to the bow of the boat. Lowering himself noiselessly over the side, he towed them toward a weedy inlet, beaching the boat quietly.
Abel followed soon after, dragging the bow line with him and tying the boat fast to an uprooted tree that jutted out over the water’s edge.
Not for the first time since they’d cast off, Maggie felt a real and immediate fear for both of them. “What exactly are you going to do?” she whispered when Blue again ordered her to stay in the boat with Hershey.
“We’re just going to keep an eye on them until the DNR men get here,” he whispered brusquely, then cast a telling glance Abel’s way.
She recognized that look. It was a look a man gave to another man when what they’d just told a woman was exactly the opposite of what they meant.
Before she could call him on it, they took off with one last order: “No matter what happens, stay in this boat.”
Maggie didn’t consider herself a particularly brave person— Lord knew, her fear of loving Blue was proof of that. Neither did she consider herself stupid. And as she sat there, shadows blending to stone, stone to timber, and minutes blending into an hour, she didn’t for a minute believe she would do anything but hamper Blue and Abel if she were foolish enough to go after them.
For that reason and that reason only, she made herself stay put, her arm around a restless Hershey, whose whining pants together with the slap of water to shore were the only break in the silence of this dark and potentially dangerous night.
“I don’t know why they just couldn’t have left it to the DNR,” she murmured in a hushed whisper, hoping the sound of her voice would calm both her and Hershey. “Because Abel knows he was a suspect and feels he has a right to see his name cleared, that’s why, right Hershey? And because Blue, in addition to being in on the search from the beginning and feeling entitled to see it through to the end, also wants to show Abel he trusts him.”
Trust. The word fell on her chest like lead. If only she had trusted Blue.
Please, please, please let him get out of this unhurt so I can show him how sorry I am, she prayed in silence to a God she hoped still listened to her.
“They’re big boys, Hershey,” she went on aloud, fighting another overwhelming urge to go look for him. Casting about for confidence and for more reasons to stay in this boat when the man she loved could be in danger, she expanded her argument. “They can take care of themselves. That was a pretty big wrench Blue tossed in…” Her words trailed off when she spotted the knapsack with the wrench and who knew what else on the floor of the boat.
“Oh, Hersh, Blue forgot the knapsack.”
She huddled closer to the lab and scowled toward the dark island, thick with trees and rock and undergrowth and frightening unknowns…and knew she’d just found her reason to go after him.
Ten
“I don’t think I’m heroine material,” Maggie muttered as she snagged the knapsack from the floor, latched onto Hershey’s collar with a death grip and somehow managed to climb out of the boat without making too much noise. At any rate, she hoped she hadn’t made much noise. That feat, at least, would make up for the fact that she was wet to her knees and scared down to her soggy soles of what she might find—or of what might find her—as she made her way up the sloping shore and began hiking slowly toward the center of the densely wooded island.
She hadn’t tripped over more than twenty yards of undergrowth and rock when she heard voices. Heart pounding, she tightened her grip on Hershey’s collar with one hand and the knapsack with the other. Hershey reacted to the sounds with a low, predatory growl.
She dropped to her knees beside him. “Shh. Good dog. Please, please be a good dog and shh,” she whispered urgently, afraid the lab would give them away before she figured out if she’d caught up with Blue and Abel or, God forbid, the poachers.
She snuck up a few more feet, peeked out from behind a tree, then smothered a gasp when she spotted a clearing with a camp fire burning in the center. The low rumble of voices—angry voices—became more pronounced, stepping up the rhythm of her heart to a rate she’d never hit in the most strenuous aerobic workout as it sank home that she’d stumbled onto the poacher’s camp.
Her self-preservation instincts begged her to turn around and go back, to wait it out and trust Abel and Blue to take care of themselves. But every protective instinct she owned sat up and took over when she heard Blue’s voice rise above the muddle of shouted words.
Fear clutched her throat and fisted. Through the cover of night, with the faint light from the fire, she strained to make out the dark shapes of several burly men—and spotted the unmistakable silhouettes of Blue and Abel in the middle of them.
Clinging tight to Hershey’s collar, she inched closer. She bit back an involuntary scream when she realized Blue and Abel were surrounded by—her heart kicked hard and fast when she counted—six men. Two of them were pointing the business ends of long-barreled guns directly at Blue and Abel’s chests as they stood among them, their hands clasped prayerlike on top of their heads.
One thought dominated all others then. The two men she cared about more than anyone else on this earth were in danger and she had to come up with a plan to help them.
They have guns, her common sense screamed. She didn’t know how to deal with guns—just like she didn’t know how to deal with complete and total brain lock as panic stole her powers of reason and clear thinking took a hike to Canada. As it turned out, she didn’t need a plan anyway. Hershey had one of his own.
She didn’t know later if she screamed before or after Hershey lurched toward his master. She only knew that when the dog launched himself, she fell flat on her face and the wind flew out of her body in a hard, agonizing whoosh.
When she’d ridden out the worst of the pain and had drawn the first of several gasping breaths of air, she pushed herself to all fours, shook her head to clear it and took stock.
In one hand, she still had a death grip on the knapsack—in the other she held a broken piece of leather that was Hershey’s collar.<
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“Oh, my God,” Maggie breathed as she scrambled to her feet and raked the hair out of her eyes.
All hell had broken loose around the fire. Blue was doing battle with two bearded thugs. One was riding his back. The other came at him with a rifle butt from his blind side. Abel rolled on the ground with one of the poachers, perilously close to the fire, while another one was bearing down hard. And Hershey—sweet, puppy-eyed Hershey—snarling and sniping, wrestled one man to the ground and latched on to his arm like he wouldn’t rest until he ripped it out of the socket.
When she saw the sixth man raise his rifle and take aim at Blue, she didn’t give cowardice or bravery much thought. She just reacted. She ran headlong into the thick of pounding fists and vicious growls, wielding the knapsack like a war club.
The wrench inside the canvas sack connected with the poacher’s head with a resounding crack. He dropped like a stone, never knowing what had hit him.
For a split second, all Maggie could do was stare—first at the fallen man, then at the sack. A sickening rush of nausea swamped her when she realized what she’d done.
“Maggie! The rifle!”
She jerked her head up at the sound of Blue’s voice.
“Grab it!” he yelled as he ducked a swinging fist, connected with a solid upper cut to the jaw of the man in front of him, then jammed an elbow into the ribs of the man coming at him from behind.
As frightened as she was for Blue, on some subconscious level she knew he was holding his own, as was Abel, whose actions she caught in her peripheral vision.
Forcing herself to back away from the grisly reality that she might have killed a man, she bent on shaking legs and picked up the gun. She hadn’t a clue how to use it. She didn’t let that stop her.
“Hershey!” she yelled, straining to be heard above his vicious growls as he attacked the downed man, who was begging her to call him off.
“Hershey!” she commanded more forcefully, until the dog, his lips curled in a feral challenge, his sides heaving with exertion, backed away.
She pointed the rifle directly at the poacher’s chest.
“I’m shaking so badly right now,” she said in a reed-thin voice, “that any move you make just might make me jerk the finger I have on this trigger. Do you understand?”
He nodded, his face twisted with pain as he clutched his bleeding arm.
“Then you’re going to stay right where you are, aren’t you?”
Again, he nodded, then doubled over with a groan, pulled his knees to his chest and tucked his injured arm close to his body.
Keeping the gun trained on him, she glanced toward the action around the fire. Two men lay unconscious. The other two hadn’t yet figured out that Abel and Blue were pounding the ever-loving daylights out of them and were stupid enough to keep coming back for more.
With a jab to the jaw, Blue laid the last thug low, then stood, legs spread wide, his broad chest heaving. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. One eye was swollen and bleeding as he swung his gaze first to Abel, confirming he was in control of his situation. Only then did he turn to Maggie.
Firelight danced across his beautiful, battered face. Blood lust still raced through his veins, darkening his eyes to midnight blue lasers directed straight at her.
“Don’t,” she said, shaking her head, sensing he was about to rail at her for disobeying his orders. “Don’t,” she repeated on a thin, tortured whisper as hot tears spilled down her cheeks and she started trembling so violently the rifle wavered in her hands.
Blue’s solid, steady strength was at her side in a heartbeat. He snatched the gun and caught her against him just as her knees gave out.
“Duct tape,” Blue said, after he’d used the tape to bind the last poacher’s hands and feet. “Man’s best friend. Next to you, of course, Hersh.” He gave the lab an affectionate pat on his head. “Never knew you were such a tiger.”
His gaze strayed then to Maggie, where she sat huddled against a tree trunk, her hair wild around her face, her eyes still glazed with threatening shock.
With a weary, concerned breath he went to her, hunkered down and touched a hand to her hair. “You okay?”
She nodded but wouldn’t look at him. “Is he dead?” Her voice was as void of strength as her face was void of color.
“No, Stretch,” he said gently. “He’s not dead. But when he wakes up, his head’s gonna hurt so bad, he’ll wish he was. You pack a helluva wallop.”
He’d hoped for a smile. Even a small one. What he got was a fresh round of silent tears.
“Come here,” he said, feeling caught somewhere between anger and heartache.
This was the woman he loved. This was the woman who had just risked her life for him—yet was unable to risk loving him.
His heart beat out his frustration as he held her in the moonlight. Shielding her from the cool night air, he battled back a latent, gut-tightening fear that made him want to tear into her for her reckless actions that could have gotten her hurt or killed.
Yet all he did was hold her while he waited for Abel to return from the shore, where he’d set a bonfire as a beacon for the DNR to follow. He let his head rest against the tree and closed his eyes as silence swelled between them like a barrier.
It was with a sad and weary relief that he heard voices and knew the law had finally shown up.
They all had to give their statements. J.D. kept his eye on Maggie as he did most of the talking, Abel commenting only when asked a direct question.
J.D. watched her shiver when he told the DNR officers how he and Abel had found the tri-hauler and were in the process of disabling it when the poachers had caught them and forced them at gunpoint to their camp. His heart almost broke when she lowered her head between her updrawn knees as he related how they’d been close to getting shot when Hershey had leapt into the campsite like a hound from hell. The distraction had been enough for them to disarm one man and the rest was history.
By the time they finally left the island, she seemed to have gotten control of herself. At least the tears had stopped and the shaking had subsided to occasional tremors.
When they arrived back at her cabin, she insisted that both he and Abel sit at her kitchen table while she cleaned the cuts on their faces and knuckles with a silent but thorough attention to their needs.
Abel left shortly after, looking stunned and shaken when Maggie had thrown herself into his arms and held him for a long silent moment.
“Come on, Stretch,” J.D. said softly as she stood at the window, looking lost and weary as she stared through the night toward the bay where Abel’s boat cut through dark water, leaving a wide, rippling wake in its path.
“Come on,” he repeated, taking her hand and leading her to the bedroom.
In silence he undressed her. She stood as docile as a kitten, lifting a foot when he asked, raising an arm when he gently prodded. He lowered her nightshirt over her head, turned back the covers and tucked her into bed.
“Stay with me,” she whispered when he turned to leave the room.
His heart stilled. His grip tightened on the doorknob. He didn’t have to see her eyes to know they shimmered with tears. He heard every one of them in her voice.
He hung his head, knowing he wasn’t strong enough to go to her and not take her. Knowing that if he took her tonight, it would be with equal measures of love, desperation and anger.
In the aftermath of the violent events of this night, her inability to trust him and the pain her accusations caused came back with double-barreled force. It hammered at him until he wanted to shout at her to look at what she was throwing away.
But he couldn’t shout at her tonight any more than he could leave her. Not like this.
“I’m not leaving you, Stretch. But I can’t share your bed. Not without making love to you. And if I loved you now, I might hurt you.”
His hands shook as he closed the door behind him. His heart thundered as he made a bed on the sofa and sank into it, fee
ling every bruise where a fist had pummeled his body.
He didn’t sleep much that night. He lay in the dark, counted the stars and wondered where they would go from here.
In the morning, he had his answer.
She was gone. The only thing left of her was a two-word note she’d propped against a vase of wildflowers in the center of the kitchen table.
Leaving Blue had been the hardest thing Maggie had ever done. Harder even than returning to New York and confronting Rolfe. Harder than returning to the lake a week later and facing a cabin empty of everything but memories of the man who had taught her about love.
No one ever said life wasn’t hard, she thought, battling cynicism as she walked in the sunlight to the dock. And no one ever said love wasn’t worth fighting for. She just wished it hadn’t taken her so long to figure it out.
The night before she’d left Blue, she’d lain in the dark, her only light that of the moon dancing on the water. Her only company was a troubled sleep in which every childhood nightmare she’d ever had came back as vivid and as frightening as their encounter with the poachers. It had been a long time since she’d feared snakes under the bed— a child’s subconscious fear of the viperous unknowns of life.
She’d realized then that she had to give closure to her past and the unknown consequences of confronting Rolfe. Rolfe represented the snakes under her bed. Rolfe represented most of her demons, too, and ready or not, she had to exorcise them if she were to get on with her life. In those long, dark hours, she’d realized she couldn’t put it off any longer.
And now it was done. A chill ran through her at the memory of the hatred in Rolfe’s eyes. The anger in his words. The threats and contempt and the promises of retaliation.