He shoved away from the table, the hate now a living thing. Grace tried not to flinch as he stalked across the room.
“She died out there,” he raged. “Hope died, and you didn’t even let me bury my wife.”
“Jack, please. She…”
“Shut up!”
The backhand exploded against her cheek and slammed her head against the metal pole. Tasting blood, Grace fought to blink away the black spots blurring her vision.
“You’re going to pay for what you did, bitch. You and Dalton.”
With that implacable promise, Petrie went back to the table and picked up the rifle. Grace was still swallowing hot, coppery blood when the door banged shut and the screen door screeched behind him.
* * *
Her head swam. The whole side of her face hurt. She slumped against the metal post until she gritted her teeth and forced herself to think through the pain.
The cabin sat on a high slope that gave a commanding view of the only road in. Anyone approaching by boat would be similarly exposed. Grace couldn’t wait for Petrie to pick Blake off. She wouldn’t!
Breathing through her nose, she twisted to look up at the bunk above her. Its mattress was rolled up, too, revealing a crosshatch of springs hooked through the rectangular metal frame bolted to support poles.
No, wait! She blinked again, praying her still spinning head wasn’t registering a blurred image. The frame wasn’t bolted. With the first thrill of hope she’d felt since she’d regained consciousness, Grace saw the frame fit into Y-shaped supports.
If she could lift the frame out of the supports…
Slide the cuff up and off the pole…
She stretched out on the dank mattress and listened for any sound indicating Petrie’s return, but all she could hear was the thunder of her own heart. Keeping a wary eye on the door, she rolled up on her hips and planted her feet against a corner of the frame above her.
It didn’t budge. Jaw clenched, she pushed again. There was a squeak of rusted metal, an infinitesimal shift. Grunting with effort, Grace applied more leverage and got the frame half out of the support. The cry of the screen door made her drop it and her legs instantly.
“Had to set up a few electronic trip wires,” Petrie informed her when he entered. With brutal nonchalance as he dropped some kind of a battery-operated device on the table. “We don’t want your husband to burst in on us unannounced, do we? Now all we have to do is wait.”
* * *
Neither Grace nor Petrie had any way of knowing his electronic sensors would work against, not for, him.
She lay in stark terror for what felt like hours, alternately praying the black box wouldn’t beep and praying it would signal the arrival of an entire SWAT team. When the box finally gave two loud, distinctive pings, her heart stopped dead in her chest.
Then everything seemed to happen in fast-forward. She didn’t have time to think, barely had time to choke back a sob before Petrie grabbed the rifle and charged for the door. He left it open, giving her a partial view of his body shielded by one of the concrete block columns and the rifle nested snug against his shoulder. Frantic, she rolled onto her hips and jabbed her feet at the upper bunk’s metal frame.
“That you, Dalton?”
The answer came just as Grace got the corner of the frame off the supports.
“It’s me. I’m coming in.”
The frame dropped at a sharp angle, its rusted edges almost slicing into her face. She rolled out from under them just in time and somehow managed to keep the handcuffs from making more than a brief rattle. Petrie didn’t hear it, thank God. His focus and his aim were both on the figure climbing the slope.
“Walk slow,” he bellowed, “and keep your hands in the air.”
Panting with fear and desperation, Grace eased off the bunk and then slid the cuff up, off the metal pole. The steel bracelet dangled from her other wrist as she searched frantically for a weapon, any kind of a weapon. The only thing within reach that wasn’t nailed down were the fishing rods. If nothing else, she could slash and whip one of them. She scooped one up and was frantically trying to disengage it from the others when Petrie bellowed a warning.
“You can stop there.”
Grace could see Blake now, unarmed, more than close enough for a high-powered hunting rifle to drill a hole through his heart.
“I got a score to settle with you, Dalton. I’m going to do it slow, though. I think maybe I’ll put the first bullet in your kneecap.”
“You can put a bullet wherever the hell you want, Petrie. Just let my wife go first.”
“I don’t think so, pal. She’s got as much to answer for as…”
Two loud pings stopped him cold. Instinctively, he tilted his head an inch or two toward the intrusion detection device still sitting on the table. Grace knew that was all the break she’d get. She lunged through the open door, arm raised, fist wrapped around the rubber handle of the fishing pole, and lashed into Petrie’s face with everything she had.
“Sunuvabitch!”
He flung out an arm, caught her broadside and sent her crashing. She slammed into the hard ground and caught only a brief glimpse of Blake hurtling past her in a flying tackle. She was rolling onto a hip, dazed and shaken, when a second figure burst out of the brush on the opposite side of the clearing and raced for the cabin.
Alex pounded past her onto the porch. Blake didn’t need his brother’s help, Grace saw as she staggered to her feet. He had Petrie on his back, straddling his hips while he smashed a fist into his face with lethal precision.
A dazed corner of her mind wondered how a corporate attorney could take down a trained cop. Then she remembered the tales Delilah had recounted about her sons’ rough-and-tumble childhood in Oklahoma’s oil fields and saw firsthand the rage her husband put into every blow.
Finally, Alex had to intervene. “That’s enough. Jesus, you’ll kill him.”
He caught his brother’s arm and hauled him off a now almost unrecognizable Petrie.
“He’s… He’s got another gun.” Still winded from her fall, Grace steadied herself with a hand on the cinder blocks and gasped for breath. “In his waistband, at his back.”
Blake rolled the man over and took possession of the pistol. Thumbing the safety with practiced ease, he passed it to his brother.
“If the bastard tries to get up, blow his head off.”
Then he was beside her, his blue eyes savage when he took in the bruise she knew had flowered after Petrie’s backhanded blow.
“I’m okay,” she said before he could spin around and add to the punishment he’d already inflicted. “Just winded…and scared.”
“Me, too,” he admitted hoarsely, cupping her unbruised cheek with a bloody palm. “God, I was terrified we wouldn’t get here in time.”
She didn’t ask how he’d found her. The details didn’t matter now. All she needed, all she wanted at that moment was to lean into his hard, welcoming body.
He held her off and looked down at her with grim intent. “I never told you I love you. That ripped at me the whole time we tracked you.”
She managed a shaky smile. “Well, now that you’re here…”
“I love you, Grace. I’m sorry it took almost losing you to make me realize how much. Maybe someday you’ll forgive me for that.”
“I will. I do. And you have to forgive me for almost letting my promise to Anne blind me to the promise I made you.”
“I will. I do.”
She went up on tiptoe and brushed her mouth over his—very carefully.
“I love you, too.” She put her whole heart into the simple words. “So much I can’t remember what it was like to not love you. Now take me home so we can clean our scrapes and bruises and start our marriage over.”
Epilogue
Delilah insisted on celebrating her granddaughter’s first birthday with her usual flamboyance and flair. As one of the Oklahoma City Zoo’s most generous benefactors, she chose that as the venue for the mo
mentous event and marshaled her entire staff to prepare for it.
Her social secretary drew up the guest list, which included fifty of Delilah’s closest friends—all potential donors for a new exotic bird aviary—as well as every child enrolled in the Oklahoma City Special Olympics.
Louis, her majestic butler, came up with the design for the colorful invitations. They featured a talking parrot who squawked out the delights in store.
Her chef baked the six-layer jungle-themed main cake himself but graciously allowed a caterer to handle the rest of the menu items.
Naturally, Delilah also marshaled her daughters-in-law for party duty. She brushed aside the fact that Julie had turned over crop-dusting operations to her partners and the two additional pilots they’d brought on board. Julie’s current responsibilities as director of flight operations for Dalton International kept her twice as busy, but Delilah blithely announced she could take the necessary time off to help with this once-in-a-lifetime event, as could Blake and Alex. Grace, who had delayed going back to teaching for a year or two, was totally immersed in the early preparations and event itself.
When the big day arrived, Delilah assigned her daughters-in-law the job of welcoming invitees and handing out goody bags crammed with beak-billed ball caps, macaw whistles, parrot sunglasses and canary-shaped marshmallow bars. Alex she put to work matching golf carts with drivers for kids who had difficulty walking. Blake had been tasked to assist a Special Olympics coordinator organize games suitable for children with varying disabilities. Bow-legged Dusty Jones and various volunteers from DI manned the lemonade, popcorn and cotton-candy stands set up throughout the zoo.
Even Molly participated. Spouting gibberish only she could understand, she played pat-a-cake with anyone who would reciprocate and toddled on wobbly legs after brightly colored beach balls in the infants’ roller-derby. She also locked her arms around several other kids and refused to let go.
“She’s at the hugging and kissing stage,” Grace explained apologetically as she disentangled her daughter from a red-faced three year old. “C’mon, Mol-i-gans, it’s time to blow out your candle and cut the cake.”
Molly came into her arms with a smile so joyous that Grace’s chest squeezed. She could see more of her cousin in the baby now. Not the frightened, cowed woman Hope had become, but the happy, laughing girl Grace had skated and played hop scotch and made mud pies with. Tears stung as she stood for a moment amid the bird calls and colorful chaos, nuzzling the squirming infant.
Oh, Hope! She’s so bright and beautiful. Just like you.
Then she spotted her husband weaving his way through the crowd. A grinning boy in leg braces rode on his shoulders, waving energetically with one hand while he kept a death grip on Blake’s hair with the other. When they reached his mother, Blake dipped so she could lift her son down and stopped to exchange a few words with her.
Grace’s chest went tight again. Could her life be any fuller? Could her heart? This kind, thoughtful, incredibly sexy man filled every nook and cranny of her being. He and Molly and the child just beginning to take shape in her belly. She’d never dreamed she could feel such all-consuming happiness—and such a sharp stab of panic as when Molly gave a joyous cry and all but launched herself from her arms.
“Dada!”
Experience had taught Grace to keep a secure lock on the chubby little legs, thank goodness. Laughing in delight at her neat trick, Molly hung upside down until Blake righted her.
“Think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?”
“Smart,” she echoed from the nest of his arms, adding to her growing vocabulary of one-syllable words. “Molly smart.”
“Yes, you are. Very smart.”
He angled her against his chest and slipped his free arm around Grace’s waist. “Mother texted me with orders to convene for the cake cutting.”
“Me, too. Guess we’d better comply.”
They met Alex and Julie where the paths to the aviary converged.
“Un-ca!”
Molly reached out imperious arms and was duly passed to her uncle. While he and Blake led the way to the tables groaning with cake and other goodies, Julie fell into step with Grace.
“When are you going to tell Delilah you’re pregnant?”
“We were thinking after the party might be a good time. She’ll be too pooped to rush over to our house and start redecorating the nursery.”
“Ha! Don’t bet on it.” The auburn-haired pilot hesitated for a moment, a rueful smile in her unusual eyes. “Listen, sweetie, I don’t want to steal your thunder, but… Well…”
“Julie!” Grace swung around. “You, too?”
“Me, too, unless the stick I peed on this morning is defective.”
“Omigod! This is wonderful! Delilah will have to divide her energy between the two of us!”
Julie burst out laughing. “I thought that advantage might occur to you. It certainly did to me.”
* * *
They waited to spring the news on their mother-in-law until after the last of the guests had left. The family sat amid the party debris to catch their breath before pitching in to help the clean-up crews. Molly was sound asleep in the stroller parked between Grace and Blake. Alex sprawled long-limbed and loose at a picnic table with Julie beside him. Delilah drooped in a folding chair, sighing in ecstasy when Dusty pushed his battered straw Stetson back on his head and began to knead her shoulders. Weariness etched lines in her face but she essayed a smile as she surveyed the deflating balloons and animal-shaped confetti littering the scene.
“The party went well, don’t you think?”
“I’d say so,” Blake agreed lazily. “How much in pledges did you strong-arm out of your friends?”
His mother’s smile turned smug. “Just over a hundred thousand. They could hardly balk when I promised my sons would match them dollar for dollar.”
Neither son so much as blinked at this blithe reach into their pockets.
“Half goes to Special Olympics,” Delilah continued, wincing a bit as Dusty’s gnarled fingers found a knot. “The other half should cover the new exotic bird aviary. The Zoo Director was thrilled at the news.”
Grace and Julie exchanged glances, then both women telegraphed unspoken signals to their husbands. Blake took the cue first.
“Grace and I have some exciting news, too.”
Delilah shot upright and skewered Grace with keen blue eyes. “I knew it! You’re pregnant!” Chortling, she twisted to give Dusty a triumphant grin. “Didn’t I tell you that wasn’t the flu that had her tossing up her breakfast last week?”
“Yep, you did.”
The matriarch faced front again and trained her laser eyes on Julie. “What about you? I figure there was a reason you quit working with chemicals six months ago. You and Alex trying for a baby?”
“Not trying,” Julie admitted. “Having.”
“Whooeee!”
Dusty’s gleeful shout made Molly jerk in her stroller. Startled, she puckered her lips and blinked once or twice, then settled back into sleep while the crop duster danced a quick jig.
“I’m gonna be a three-time grandpa. Not honorary, either,” he added when he spun to a stop. Under his bushy white brows, his glance turned to Delilah. “Guess this would be a good time we tell ’em our news, Del.”
“Guess so.”
The sapphire bangle she always wore winked on her wrist as she reached for the thorny palm he held out to her. She didn’t have to go into detail, though. Both sons and daughters-in-law were already on their feet.
“About time you made an honest man out of him,” Alex said with a wide grin as he pulled her out of her chair and wrapped her in a fierce hug. He yielded his place to Blake, who echoed his brother’s sentiments.
“We’ve been wondering when you two were going to come out of the closet. Literally.”
To the amazement of all present, Delilah blushed a rosy red. Dusty merely beamed while Julie enveloped his bride-to-be in another hug.
/> “I’m so happy for you.” Her laughing glance went to her former partner. “And if anyone can keep you out of the casinos, you old reprobate, it’s Delilah.”
Grace waited her turn, her heart so full it was almost a physical ache. She’d promised during Hope’s last, anguished hours to deliver Molly to her father and make sure she was loved.
She is, Hope. So very loved.
So was Grace. She felt its embrace when she walked into Delilah’s arms and met her husband’s eyes over his mother’s shoulder.
Whatever happened, whatever came in the years ahead, this was one promise she and Blake would always keep.
* * * * *
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ISBN: 9781459230330
Copyright © 2012 by Merline Lovelace
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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