Boot Key Harbor Series: Contemporary Romance Short Story Collection

by Cyndi Raye

  He said this with the same frighteningly sweet grin.

  “What do you want from me?” she asked, the words coming out as a croak from her dry throat.

  “Before we get to that, how about some introductions?”

  He held out his hand for her to shake and she looked at him… Well, like he was crazy since her hands were tied.

  He tskked. “I guess I should not expect proper manners from a woman who lives like a hermit.”

  “Untie me.”

  He let his hand drop and stood.

  Now that he was not taking up her entire visual range, she could make out the room and immediately knew they were on a boat by the condensed furnishings and the sound of the lapping ocean. If those were not clues enough, she felt the rocking motion that only the ocean could bring.

  She wondered how long it had been since she had been abducted. She sat up gingerly, swallowing the bile that rose in her throat, and looked to the small round window on the far side of the room.

  At least several hours had passed.

  Another terrible thought occurred to her. Benny!

  “What did you do to my dog?” she demanded.

  “I know all about you, Jennifer Jameson. Female. Twenty-four years of age. No kids. Never been arrested. Professional hacker. Currently engaged with a project for CYW International Bank,” he listed as if reading from a file. He did not acknowledging her question. “I’m going to tell you about me now so we can level out the playing field a little. My name is Robert Fishberg. Former Senior Manager at CYW International. That’s all you need to know really.”

  The pieces fell into place and she said, “You’re the guy they fired. The one who tried to steal from the bank.”

  “Yup,” he confirmed with no shame. “Because of me, you made a nice little commission, didn’t you? And I bet you now have access to some very valuable information that will make me a very rich man. I need you to transfer 60 million dollars out of the CYW and into this offshore account in the Caymans. I know you can do it. I know you did a demo as a demonstration to show the bank’s vulnerabilities.”

  There was a center table surrounded by cushioned lined chairs. He put a piece of paper there.

  He was right – she had transferred money out of several of the bank’s accounts to show their susceptibility to that type of attack but there was no way she was helping him get a dime of the bank’s money.

  “You can’t do this. Someone is going to come looking for me and you’re going to go to jail for a very long time for this. Let me go before you make things worse for yourself.”

  He laughed. “We’re in the middle of the ocean. No one knows we’re out here. No one’s coming for you.”

  She shivered. He was right about that, too. While she had been in Boot Key Harbor, she had not made many friends and it was not unusual for her to closet herself away in her home for a few days while she worked. It was unlikely anyone would realize she was missing right away, if ever.

  “I don’t have my computer. I can’t help you.” She threw the excuse out while her mind worked, trying to find a way out of this mess.

  He produced a laptop, top of the line model, and placed it on the table. Coming back to her side, he got rid of the tape binding her hands with a small knife. He pulled her up roughly and brought her to the computer.

  He pointed his gun at her head. “No excuses will be tolerated, Jennifer. All you need is a WIFI connection to get me what I need, right? Get to work and get me what I need. You have an hour.”

  Left with no other choice, she sat in front of the device.

  Appeased, he turned away but not without one last warning. “You’d better give me what I want, little nerd, or you’re going to be swimming with the fish as the saying goes.”

  He sat across from her, pulling out his cell phone, gun still in his hand.

  Jennifer booted up the laptop. The operation system loaded and she opened a few windows and soon loaded some complicated looking code that would satisfy Robert’s curiosity should he choose to look over her shoulder.

  She would use the same device he thought to steal with to get help to her. Making an audio call would give her away so that left text messages.

  She knew only one person in Boot Key Harbor that could help her.

  She went to the gamer’s website where she met DeathGod88, logged into the chat room and went to her conversations with him.

  GamerChicksRule: Please help me. I have been kidnapped. Call 911 and give them my location.

  Using the location feature on Google Maps, she gained the information on her exact location. She pasted the coordinates, a trickle of sweat running along her hairline as she waited for a reply. She watched her kidnapper lazily browse his handset under her lashes and let her fingers fly across the keyboard as if she was actually working.

  She had no intention of giving him the information he sought. He never promised to set her free if she delivered what he wanted and she doubted that promise would have held true even if he had made it.

  She had seen the malevolent glint in those horrible eyes. He was likely to hurt and kill her when all was said and done.

  He would find she would not make it easy for him.

  The minutes ticked by and she worried her call for help would go unanswered. Maybe she could contact someone else in the chat room.

  A bubble popped up in the message box.

  DeathGod88: Please tell me that was a joke.

  Her heart was beating so hard, she thought for sure it would give away her actions to her abductor but he continued tapping away at the cell phone, not even sparing her a glance.

  GamerChicksRule: No joke. I am being held against my will on a boat somewhere out at sea. Please contact the police. Give them my location. PLEASE!!!

  The pause before his response came through was only a few seconds this time.

  DeathGod88: I’m coming for you, Jennifer. Hold tight, help is on the way.

  Wait, how did he know her name?

  Chapter Four

  It was barely six PM.

  It was a cloudy evening as the moon pushed passed the horizon, mostly hidden by the gray fluff. The wind was cool and tasted of coming rain.

  Jacob was walking on the paved path along the water’s edge. He had just left the gaiety of Lenny’s Bar and Grill and was heading back to his empty apartment.

  Alone.

  No woman on his arm.

  This was in no way an abnormal fact by itself had he not had the title of Boot Key Harbor resident player.

  He had been in a funk for a few weeks - ever since a tanned skinned beauty took over his thoughts during the day and stole into his dreams at night - and everyone noticed.

  How could they not when he went from hitting on almost any single woman he encountered from the age of twenty to forty to turning in early almost every night without female companionship?

  While he did not sleep with nearly as many women as everyone thought, he admitted his sex life had been pretty active. That is until Little Miss Jennifer blew into his life and changed everything.

  He had not been able to be with another woman since he saw her despite two attempts at getting over his unreasonable infatuation with the prickly woman.

  His enchantment with her only grew as they developed their relationship on the internet.

  She was GamerChicksRule. He was sure of it.

  While they chatted away behind their gaming personas he was free to say how he truly felt and what he wanted even though she thought he was joking.

  When they encountered each other in person, it was another story. He became tongue-tied most of the time and when he was able to speak he said the wrong things.

  Why was it he could effortlessly flirt with other women but when it came to her he became the unsure teenage boy starved of love and affection again?

  Maybe because he knew that she mattered.

  Yeah, maybe, he acknowledged the quiet thought.

  Jacob grew up to an absentee father and
a mother who loved crack cocaine more than she did him. As a result, he grew up on the streets and had supported himself by the time he was thirteen years old. Unfortunately, that meant becoming involved with gangs and violence. He refused to take any drugs though, seeing the effect on his mother and never wanting to end up dependent on the destructive substances.

  He was arrested when he was seventeen years old. Robbing a store at gunpoint was never a good idea. Robbing a store at gunpoint together with people who ran and left you to face the music alone when the cops showed was even more idiotic.

  At his trial the judge gave him two options - enlist in the army or face prison time.

  He chose the army and it was the best decision he ever made.

  The training was grueling and the combat situations truly were life-threatening. Still, he felt part of something great. That his efforts made a difference. That he made a difference.

  His comrades became his family and they bonded in enemy territory. When Ben offered him the chance to be part of BKH Bad Boys, he said yes easily. He had nothing else to go home to. His mother had died of an overdose when he was fifteen. He had no other siblings that he knew of. He had no close friends from the town he grew up in.

  He had no biological family left and the Bad Boys had become his surrogate brothers. He would forever be grateful for their welcoming a kid from the wrong side of the tracks into their midst.

  He lost his virginity by the time he was fifteen years old and the opposite sex became a source of comfort in his unstable life. Women made him forget. Being welcomed into the softness a woman offered pushed back the memories of his misspent youth and the recollections of war that sometimes caught him unawares.

  His and Jennifer’s conversations over that chat room soothed him in a way sex with another woman never had. While they flirted boldly, their talks went deeper, too.

  He shared things with her he had not shared with other people. Like how he was scared of having a family of his own one day. He was scared of failing his wife and children like his own parents failed him. Maybe that was why he played the field so much, jumping from one female to the next so that he would not develop feelings that would force him to face that fear.

  She told him things about herself that revealed that beneath that tough exterior and attitude was a vulnerable young woman with a phobia for commitment just like him. The reason for their fears were different though. In college, a douche had led her on only to leave her in the dust.

  She was scared of getting her heart broken again and his reputation - Jacob - was known for doing just that.

  For the first time in his life, he wished he could shed that go-lucky veneer and be known for something that was not so scandalous.

  He was hoping that through DeathGod88, he could show her he was worthy of at least a chance to be better. Maybe one day he would convince her to meet him and she could not go running in the other direction when she discovered his true identity.

  He never entertained the idea of having what his brothers had - a woman he loved more than life itself and who felt just as intensely about him. He was picturing a house on the beach filled with kids and happiness and the woman at the center of that image was Jennifer.

  His chest ached and he rubbed his hand over his heart.

  The sensation was now familiar. It came whenever he thought of his gamer girl. At first he thought he needed the help of a cardiologist but a talk with the Bad Boys revealed he might be suffering from a condition no doctor had a cure for - love.

  The idea was both scary and thrilling at once but what else could explain his fixation on Jennifer?

  No other woman appealed to him. It had gotten to the point where his body no longer reacted to them. Only the thought of her, of them being together revved his engine.

  He was being faithful without even being in a relationship. How completely ironic!

  He was like an old married guy except the woman he was falling for could not stand the sight of him much less give him five minutes of day outside their online profiles.

  He checked his phone, immediately clicking on the app that led to the gamer chat room. He was smiling like a loon when he saw a text message from GamerChicksRule waiting for him.

  That smile fell when he read the typed words.

  GamerChicksRule: Please help me. I have been kidnapped. Call 911 and give them my location.

  The coordinates were below.

  DeathGod88: Please tell me that was a joke.

  GamerChicksRule: No joke. I am being held against my will on a boat somewhere out at sea. Please contact the police. Give them my location. PLEASE!!!

  Somewhere inside, he was shaking with fear for her but years of training brought the soldier in him to the forefront. He was calculating how he would get her free when he sent the next message.

  DeathGod88: I’m coming for you, Jennifer. Hold tight, help is on a way.

  He pulled up his contacts and dialed a number.

  Ben answered on the second ring.

  “I need you and the other bad boys. My woman’s in trouble.”

  ***

  “Your hour is up.”

  Robert stood up and came over to Jennifer.

  She stood quickly and ignored the dizziness that followed.

  “I need more time,” she stalled, palms sweaty. Thirty minutes had passed since the last text between her and Deathgod88.

  Would he send help? She sure hoped so because time had run out.

  “I see you need more of an incentive to give me what I need. Maybe a bullet to the knee will work.” Robert cocked the gun and pointed it.

  Jennifer looked from his face to the gun then back. The decision was made within a split second. She leaped at him, grabbing the laptop on her way and using it to knock the gun out of his hand.

  There was the crack of bone as the laptop made contact with his wrist and he screamed. She used her weight and momentum to knock him down.

  She tried to go toward the door thinking if she could get to the other side, she could lock him in while finding her way off the yacht. Too late, Robert caught her around the ankle and yanked. She pitched forward. Her elbows and knees took the brunt of the fall. She still tried to scramble away but with his greater weight and strength Robert pinned her easily.

  Flipping her onto her back, he straddled her and wrapped his hands around her neck, rage making his face red.

  Just as suddenly as he grabbed her, the force around her neck was gone. Robert’s presence disappeared from sight.

  Sitting up she found the room filled with a group of scary looking men and knew in an instant it was the BKH Bad Boys. Robert’s face was being pummeled in by a very angry looking Jacob. He slumped immediately, knocked unconscious.

  Jacob left the lawbreaker to another man, crossing the floor to check her bruises. “Are you hurt anywhere apart from your head?”

  “It’s over,” she marveled, disbelieving that the ordeal was over so fast.

  “Everything is okay now, sweetheart,” Jacob crooned, so tender with her compared to the aggression he displayed seconds ago. “You’re safe now.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “I’m DeathGod88.”

  A man in a police uniform entered the room, stopping her from replying.

  He surveyed the damage to the boat’s interior, the unconscious man on the floor and the protective stance of the other men and sighed. “You Bad Boys and your woman can’t seem to stay out of trouble.”

  From then on there was a flurry of activity as Robert was secured. He came to and started shouting about being framed and needing his lawyer. He was carted away.

  “We need to get you to the hospital, sweetheart,” Jacob said.

  Jennifer groaned. She hated hospitals ever since she injured her arm as a child during a softball game. “Do I have to?”

  He looked at the wound on her head and his face grew grim. “You might have a concussion.”

  He stood and bent over to lift Jennifer up. She was im
mediately engulfed in the warmth emitted from his body. A feeling of security washed over her.

  “You don’t have to do that. I can walk,” she protested on principle only because she found she was exactly where she wanted to be in that moment.

  He looked down at her. There was something in his eyes that made her heart race and she licked her lips. Feelings coursed through her in response that she was helpless to identify. They made her hot all over and her heartbeat got all fluttery in its rhythm.

  Jacob’s head bent slowly and she knew he was going to kiss her. She should turn away. This was after all a known player. One she had gone out of her way to avoid.

  But she was not seeing the player then.

  He was the man who saved her.

  The one she stayed up late more than one night talking about any and everything with.

  So instead of giving him the brush off like she normally would, she trembled with the anticipation of his lips against hers.

  And it was nothing short of an explosion of sensation.

  The kiss itself was a simple touch of lips. No tongue. No extravagant moves. But she thought she felt the earth tilt off its axis only to right itself again in a way that made her feel like her world was finally how it should be.

  He lifted his head, the effort of ending the contact visible on his face.

  “I’m sure you can walk out of here on your own two feet simply because you’re so strong and stubborn but please humor me. I almost lost you tonight and I need to feel you close.”

  What else was a girl supposed to say to that but, “Okay.”

  With that he took her into the night. They sped away on a motor boat with the light of the moon guiding the way.

  Chapter Five

  Jennifer knelt and Benny rushed into her arms.

  He covered her face with doggy kisses and wagged his tail so hard, she thought it would break off.

  Several hours had passed since she had been rescued. Dawn was breaking and the sky was filled with warm colors. The hours had been filled with endless questions from the police, being looked over by medical staff and a visit from Mr. Jeffers who got wind of what happened after she missed their meeting. The white-haired man apologized profusely and promised her a bonus despite her protests.