“You’re changing the tire? By yourself?”
Marlene’s snarl was her only reply.
I took off my suit jacket and tossed it through the window. “I’ll do it,” I said, motioning toward her.
“What?” she stood slowly and stared me down, tire iron in her hands. “Listen, if you want to help me that’s fine, but just so you know, I am not helpless.”
“You can go on and wash up. You got some dirt on your face. Hand over the—”
I was shoved backward so hard I almost landed on my ass. Big brown eyes full of rage levelled on me, and a finger was pointed at my face. The kid bolted for the store.
“Let’s get one thing straight, Oliver,” Marlene roared. “I am no damsel in distress. I don’t need saving, or protecting, or any sort of looking after. I’m going to fix the tire on my truck, and you’re going to get your ass in the passenger seat and do a whole lot of nothing. And if you ever treat me like I am useless, weak, or incompetent again with your macho baloney, your man-danglers will be bathed in barbecue sauce for the dinner special at the next truck stop. Got it?”
I backed away, hands up in self-defense. “Sorry, I—”
“And quit with the ‘sorry’ bull crap too! What is that, six times now you’ve apologized to me since we met? How about you just man up already and don’t do stuff you need to apologize for in the first place.”
Whoa. Who was this woman? A rush of heat pulsed through me with her every word. My feet were moving, my hands opening the passenger door of the truck as my body obeyed and my mind spun. I watched her shake her head, muttering to herself as she wrestled the spare tire on and tightened the lug nuts.
She caught me ogling her in the side mirror. “Honestly, if you didn’t mean so much to Kaya, I’d take the next logging road and drop you off at the end with a stale sandwich and no bug spray.”
I smiled despite myself. Even though she appeared to hate me, something about her intrigued me so deeply I couldn’t conceal the strange giddiness tingling down my spine. “Speaking of sandwiches, I could get us some,” I said, hoping to break the ice and pointing to the gas station. “In there.” Then I realized I didn’t have any money.
“Already did that,” Marlene said. “Look on the seat next to ya.”
I was so busy checking her out that I hadn’t even noticed the brown paper bag. Ravenous, I tore into a cold, crusty sub layered with mystery meat and plastic cheese. I ate while she finished with the tire.
Poking her head into the open window, she tossed in the tire iron. “We’re gonna keep this up front just in case.” She eyed the paper bag. “I hope you saved me a couple of those.”
A couple? They were foot long sandwiches. “Yes, of course.”
“Good. Get down,” she said.
“Pardon?”
Marlene smiled and reached in for a ratty ball cap resting on the dash. She made a quick attempt to stuff her hair up underneath it. “Two suits are getting out of a flashy BMW behind us. One is carrying heat. So get your head down.”
I leaned over, almost burying my face in the bag of food, and waited for what seemed like forever until I felt the truck lurch as Marlene lowered the jack. She climbed back in, turning the key in the ignition. I was about to tell her to get in the back so I could drive, then remembered that might end up with my private parts salted and deep fried.
“They won’t recognize me,” she said under her breath, “but you’re like a neon sign at midnight.”Why wouldn’t they recognize her? She had just walked down the aisle pretending to be Kaya Lowen, her face captured on every recording device.
“Just trust me, okay?” she said as if reading my mind, then tossed her jean jacket over my head.
I didn’t answer because she wouldn’t have heard me anyway. Cranking the stereo up as loud as it would go so the bass threatened to stop my heart and blast apart the windows, Marlene spun the tires out onto the highway while Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love blared through the speakers.
“You need coolin’, baby, I ain’t foolin’,” she sang at the top of her lungs.
And right there and then, with my face buried in a bag of submarine sandwiches, everything I thought I knew about women was completely obliterated.
“Marchessa, Lowen—whoever those suits were working for back there, they can kiss my ass,” Marlene yelled between song lyrics, and the truck fishtailed obscenely.
Yep, completely obliterated.
It was an hour before sunset, and through stifling traffic, construction re-routes, big city chaos and masses of people everywhere, Marlene calmly maneuvered the truck to our destination. It sputtered in relief when we parked in a motel lot, the ocean sprawling out before us like a luxurious glittering bed.
As soon as the salt air filled my lungs and my shoes hit the beach, a childhood memory resurfaced. I was six again, holding hands with my little sister and pulling her away from the water. This is not a safe place to swim, Mom was saying to both of us, the red scarf tied over her hair billowing out behind her. Maisy, the youngest and bravest of us all, gave Mom no mind. Her little feet were bare. She was off and running into the water, ignoring Mom’s warning about the rocks. Maisy was soon ankle deep, tears instantly streaming down her face, and I marched in, shoes and all, and picked her up. Of course she fought me even though she was being rescued. She was stubborn, like my oldest brother, and just as mean; when her tiny hand reached out to hit me, it was caught by Dad.
“Don’t hit Oliver,” he said.
He’d been passively standing by with one eye on the ships and the other on his watch, but his children had his attention now. “Your brother is just trying to protect you, Maisy,” he’d said. “That’s what family does, protects each other. Right, Ollie?”
There was pride in Dad’s eyes when he towered over me, patting me on the head, but there was sadness in them, too. Worry furrowed his brow. He held my gaze while Maisy ran off to chase a crab, and what he said next put the weight of the world on my shoulders.
“You’ll protect your family, won’t ya, kiddo?”
I crisscrossed my fingers over my six-year-old heart. “Yes, Dad.”
“You’ll protect them with your life. Promise me that, Oliver.”
I nodded.
“Promise!” he said with a ferocity that made me jump.
“I promise,” I said.
That was the last time I’d heard his voice. His words stayed with me forever, though. I’d carried them around until I’d found Kaya, and then I made her the focus of that promise I’d failed to keep.
I talked to the heavens. “I’m sorry, Dad” I started to say, then remembered Marlene scolding me for constantly apologizing. “I will avenge your death. That is a promise I know I can keep. You see, after all these years, I have finally realized that what happened wasn’t my fault. Now, I have a name. I know who did it. And I know why. I can let go of the guilt that’s been eating away at me all this time.”
Why was I suddenly able to do this?
Marlene came running up behind me, breathless. “Can you believe it?” Her cell phone was thrust at my face.
Marlene?
She pointed to the phone. “On the news they’re saying the gunshots at the estate were the result of one of the guards drinking the ‘tainted’ champagne and falling on his gun. My Lord, Henry is amazing at covering things up. I watched him just now, not even batting an eye when he was interviewed, blissfully happy about the marriage of his daughter to her bodyguard. You’d think he’d at least falter or break out in a sweat.”
Her voice trailed off when she realized my mind was elsewhere and that maybe she’d interrupted a private moment. She cleared her throat and changed the subject. “Um, it’s beautiful here,” she said softly. “You know, I’ve never seen the ocean.”
“Neither has Kaya.”
I stared off across English Bay at the oranges and reds lining the horizon. Marlene stared too, her jaw dropping slightly in awe of the sparkling water and distant ships and barges.
“Why are all those boats just sitting there?” she asked.
I turned to admire her. She was shielding her eyes, feet inches from the lick of the waves, back straight as an arrow. I liked how the breeze made her eyes squint and her hair flutter. I liked how her chin jutted out when she was staring hard at something.
“Free parking,” I said with a lump in my throat. “They will sit there for hours, sometimes days, waiting until the time is right to go into the harbor.”
Here in the heart of Vancouver, hotels and restaurants dotted the shoreline, people ran and cycled the sea wall, and the hustle and bustle of it all ended at the beach. It was peaceful here. Beautiful. And it all disappeared completely when Marlene turned to look at me. Those big brown eyes…so badly I wanted to reach out and push the windblown hair from her face and look at them closer, then wipe the new smudge of dirt from her cheek.
She saw me staring and quickly turned away. “Stop looking at me,” she snapped.
“No. You’re beautiful.”It just came out of my mouth.
She spoke into the wind. “I’ll beat the living daylights out of you if you ever say anything like that to me again.”
“Stop threatening me. All right? Obviously, you’re not so good at receiving compliments, but that’s no reason to be nasty. Besides, a man should be able to admire his wife.”
“Wife, eh? Well, hubby, if you want to keep your eyeballs and your hands, you best be keeping them to yourself.”
I grinned madly at her. I knew I was smiling like an idiot, but I couldn’t help it. She brought out this feeling of elation in me. A happiness I’d never experienced.
I suspected she was trying not to smile, too. When she turned and faced me, her lips pursed as if to give me a tongue lashing for something, but her eyes said otherwise. I wanted to kiss her again, here, on this beach with the sun setting and the ocean serenading. As if in a dream, I inched forward, just slightly, then bridged the gap and reached for her face. Her body tensed in fear—or what might possibly even have been terror.
I stepped back at once. “I’m so sor—”
We both heard it; my name carried on the wind along with the squawk of a bird and a car alarm going off.
“She’s here,” Marlene said, relieved to be released from the awkward moment, eyes still wide.
She was referring to Kaya, and I should have been anxiously scanning the beach to see her, but I wanted to know why Marlene, a girl who didn’t seem scared of anything, was terrified of an affectionate advance. What had I done wrong? I wanted to ask, wanted to know everything about her, but there was a female approaching. Black hair trailing out behind her and tears streaming down her cheeks. I braced myself as Kaya dove into my arms, and then gave myself over to the rush of love that flooded in with the familiarity of her body next to mine.
My girl.
I buried my cheek in her hair and returned the embrace. She was thinner than she was weeks ago. More delicate. But I held her tight anyway and for much longer than would have been proper if it wasn’t us.
“I was so worried,” she said after a long while, her head against my chest. I could feel her tremble.
“Back atcha, my girl,” I said.
Luke was standing behind her, a relaxed smile on his face and his hands in his pockets. Thomas—eyes shadowed like he hadn’t slept in days—was a few feet behind Luke. We exchanged a polite nod.
“I can’t believe our plan worked,” Kaya said to Marlene when she finally broke away from me. She was tying her hair back from the wind, cheeks flushed and eyes dazzling. “You saved them. You saved me. I’m so grateful for you, Marlene, so very—”
“Ah, quit yer blubbering,” Marlene scolded as Kaya reached for her and forced an embrace. “You’re all right?”
“I’m fine,” Kaya said, pulling back to ponder her friend. “But hey…” she paused and regarded Marlene with a puzzled expression. “Someone could recognize you.” She reached for Marlene’s cheek to wipe at the dirt that seemed to gravitate to her face. “Why are you still wearing makeup?”
Marlene’s eyes darted nervously in my direction. “I’m not wearing any makeup,” she said loudly, and reaching for Kaya’s hand, led the two of them to a log of driftwood that glowed in the lowering light. There they sat and spoke in hushed voices.
“How did Kaya get out?” I asked Luke, barely able to tear my eyes away from them.
Thomas spoke before Luke could. “Climbed her way down with us.”
That got my attention.
“She was so brave,” Luke said proudly.
“It was a stupid thing to do,” Thomas said icily.
Luke snarled. “Yeah, because staying where she was and being locked up and forced to do things against her will would have been better.”
Huh. It seemed that Luke’s seemingly endless patience was being tested. How entertaining.
“She could have died.”
“Are we going to keep discussing this, Thomas?”
The tension was thick between the two of them, and I realized—quite unexpectedly—that I was just an onlooker now. I wasn’t trying to tame the old jealous monster that would have reared its ugly head because the girl I loved also loved these two blokes. Somehow, my chest felt lighter. Easier. And when Marlene’s laugh made me turn to look at her again, I knew she was the reason why.
The sun was rapidly slipping away. The air growing colder. My heart skipped a beat when the girls rejoined us, and Marlene stood at my side.
“Well, what now?” Kaya asked, caught in the net of Luke’s blue gaze. “All of us but Thomas are homeless and since everyone thinks Marlene is me, she has a huge target on her back. We have to hide her.”
“We could keep moving. Not stay in one place too long. Separate if we must,” I suggested.
“I think we should stay together,” Thomas said, pushing the sand around with his toes and clearing his throat. “You know, strength in numbers.”
Luke reached for Kaya, his hand tight around hers as he warily watched Thomas. “Why? You’re free now. You can go home. There is no reason for you to stick around.”
Kaya seemed to become pale. Thomas stared at her, not caring about the man at her side who could take him out in a second.
“I’m not leaving Marlene,” Thomas said. “Not in a million years. She needs me.”
We all knew he meant he wasn’t leaving Kaya. It was obvious by the way his eyes hovered over her, the way he forced his arms to stay still at his sides when he really wanted to reach out and pull her away from Luke. Tension amongst the three of them was a simmering pot about to boil over.
“I don’t need a babysitter, Thomas,” Marlene said. “You can go.”
Kaya’s eyes clouded. There was a storm raging in her heart.
“Actually, you all need me,” Thomas said. “Money is pretty handy, and I’m the only one who has any—besides you Marlene—but a couple of hundred bucks isn’t going to go far. You guys can’t even rent a motel or a car without me. What’s in your wallet, Luke? Do you even have one? No, don’t answer—” Thomas put his hands up, blocking replies. “Besides that, I do truly need to stick around. Marlene’s safety is my priority.”
Marlene was about to complain, but one look at Kaya’s hopeful face changed her mind. “Yeah. You’re right. I, uh, need you Thomas.”
Luke could barely hide his irritation. “So, it looks like we are all sticking together then,” he said.
Relief flooded Kaya’s face. I gave Marlene a discreet nod of approval to which she rolled her eyes.
Luke rubbed his head. “Well, as you all know, I have a little sister that could use some extended family and a lot of spoiling. So, how about we spend some of your money, Thomas, and do a little Christmas shopping on the way back to Seth’s ranch? Lisa is there and it’s safe.”
Kaya hated Christmas, but she squealed with delight and threw her arms around Luke. “That’s perfect,” she said. “Thank you.”
Luke all but turned to a puddle. He co
uldn’t help but smile. Actually, none of us could help our smiles. The word family had struck a chord amongst us, and Luke, bless his forgiving heart, extended the offer to Thomas graciously.
“For now… truce,” he said.
Thomas, blinking with shock and relief, squeezed his hand agreeably.
“My little sister, Louisa, loves bunnies,” Luke said to him.
Thomas nodded with a gulp. “All my sisters did too when they were little.”
There wasn’t going to be a bloodbath on the beach today—oh well.
“Hey, are we invited to the party?” said a familiar voice at my back.
I spun around; two figures, one wide and sturdy, one thin and limping, crept up to our circle. Stephan was leaning heavily on a wide, stocky man. He’d lost so much weight his cheekbones stuck out at a horrifically sharp angle, and his patchy beard barely concealed the many new scars. The twinkle in his eye was still there though, and it beamed as he smiled at us now, holding the hand of the love of his life, Chef William.
“Hi, butter bean,” Stephan said to Kaya.
“Stephan!” His name burst from her lungs, but she was so shocked to see him she didn’t move. She just put her hands over her mouth and tears sprung from her eyes.
“My sweet petunia, I’ve missed you so much” Stephan said, giving the rest of us a polite nod while he let go of William and moved in front of Kaya, arms spread.
Sobs instantly racked Kaya’s body and brought her crumbling to Stephan’s feet. He kneeled and held her like she was a little girl. Like he always had. I felt a bit choked up and tried to hide it. Luke’s eyes were threatening to tear up, too, and he tugged at the shirt tight at his collarbone. Thomas shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked at the sand.
“So you’re Luke Ravelle,” Stephan said, holding Kaya tightly and peering up over her head to study the man she would do anything for.
Luke nodded. “You must be Stephan,” he said. “Glad to meet you again under better circumstances. I’m sorry about back there, in the cells… I—”
Rhapsody Page 19