Dangerous Proposition

by Jessica Lauryn

“Colin!” she exclaimed, frantically making her way to the end of the pipe. Letting go with one hand, she reached down, grabbing his arm just in time. She tugged him sharply upward.

  Colin grasped the doorframe with both of hands. In one swift motion, he pulled himself up and through the water.

  Dripping wet, he crouched and reached through the doorway. “Give me your hand.”

  Julia reached as far as her arm would go. She placed one hand inside the doorframe, then the other. With all of her might, she pulled herself up. She got to her knees then her feet. Panic seized her when she realized Colin wasn’t beside her.

  “Colin!” she shouted, looking frantically around. She turned as someone tapped her on the shoulder.

  “Oh my God.” She nearly cried.

  Her heart was pounding as Colin took her in his arms. Gently, he stroked her back. They were all right. Though she had no idea how they’d done it, they’d made it out of the basement. They were on the ground floor, safe and sound.

  “You did it, Julia.” Colin’s warm lips brushed her cheek. “It’s all right. We’re safe. Honey, you’re safe now.”

  Julia was about to reply, but she turned her head as several people, men she didn’t know, along with Alec and Lena came charging into the room. Her father was among them.

  “Julia!” Lena, whose white blouse was filthy, hurried toward her. “Thank God the two of you are all right.”

  “Desmond,” Colin addressed one of the men. “What took you so long?” He looked from the shorter man to his stocky counterpart.

  “We had a bit of a run-in with Lucas’s men,” the shorter man, whom Julia recognized as the one Colin had been speaking to that night on his porch, answered. “Nothing we couldn’t handle.”

  “You’re a day and a half late,” Colin said sternly. With a smile, he added, “And thank God you’re all right.” He embraced Desmond, giving him a swift pat on the back.

  As the group stepped outside, Julia hugged her father, then Alec, and then accepted Lena’s embrace. She’d never had the greatest relationship with this woman, and she knew she was to blame for that. Lena had always been the better friend. Yet, they were both here and they were safe. That was all that mattered.

  Julia gave Lena a squeeze, feeling something strike her as she did so. Looking down, she smiled. The baby was kicking. It kicked again, and she looked up, realizing that Lena had felt it, too.

  Staring at Lena’s baby bump, it occurred to her that the unborn child had just been through the same ordeal that they had. That innocent life, who had done nothing to deserve any of this, had come as close to dying as the rest of them. Only, Julia had a feeling that he or she hadn’t been quite as afraid.

  Looking at Colin, who was embracing his brother, she stared helplessly into his eyes. Just as she had that June afternoon all those years ago, she watched him, the most amazing man she had ever known.

  They had all just been through a life-changing ordeal. And she knew that she, for one, would never be the same.

  Chapter 28

  Late Saturday evening, Colin stepped through the entrance to the Conway Diner. Its country-decked breezeway was subdued, consisting of a door and little else. Located on The Green, the restaurant stood between two gift shops, opposite the Conway Railroad.

  It wasn’t his typical habit to eat in a small mom-and-pop establishment in the middle of town. But this was where the group had decided to meet. With Alec and Lena set to move to Connecticut after their baby was born, where Alec would accept his new position as Chief of Staff of Greenwich Hospital, Colin was feeling more in need of conversation than ever.

  A gust of wind breezed by as he stepped through the doorway. It was chilly outside, which indicated that summer had ended. Though he didn’t typically mind the cold, he was grateful to shut the door behind him.

  Making his way through the miniscule lobby, he mused to himself that after several months of insanity, everyone he’d dragged into his mess of a life was finally out of danger. Yet, he found himself growing immeasurably tense as he stepped past the front counter. Looking toward the booth in the farthest corner of the room, it occurred to him that he hadn’t spoken to Julia since the day they’d all escaped from Lucas’s house of horrors. Sitting beside his sister-in-law and nibbling a French fry, she looked more beautiful than he had ever believed any woman could.

  He could have called her. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know how to get in touch with her, and God knew it wasn’t as though he hadn’t missed hearing her voice.

  In fact, he had lain awake the majority of the last six nights thinking about her. About the time they’d spent together, the feel of Julia’s skin, and the scent of her perfume. That night they’d slept together, wrapped in each other’s arms when Lucas’s men were holding them captive, he had slept soundly. He didn’t have to ask himself why that was.

  As he approached the table, Julia’s eyes locked with his. He smiled in her direction, hoping she’d return the gesture. But her pretty blue eyes focused on her plate.

  “Look who decided to show up,” Alec said, turning toward him with a grin. “We thought maybe you’d had a change of plans.”

  “Check your watch. We were supposed to meet at eight, which technically means I’m two minutes early.” Colin took the seat beside Alec, which just happened to be positioned opposite the person he wanted to speak with the most. He cleared his throat. “Hi, Julia.”

  She nodded but avoided looking his way, taking another bite of her appetizer. She chewed it thoroughly then took a long sip of water.

  “How have you been?” He leaned in toward her.

  “Fine,” she said, quickly filling her mouth with another bite of corned beef on rye.

  “She’s amazing,” Lena said. “Not having any idea where her dad was for three months, coming through it without a scratch. If I’d been in her shoes—”

  “Which won’t be happening as long as I’m alive.” Alec gathered Lena’s hand in his, pressing a kiss to her palm. “I never should have agreed to let you come along with me. Thank God I was able to knock Dylan Rossler out before he got you into that car. Tucker busting through the vent in the kitchen and escaping out the window didn’t exactly hurt, either. Colin says his assistant, Desmond, made it out of the building he was being held in just minutes before it exploded. Strycker, Rizzo, and Rossler were all inside, isn’t that right, Colin?”

  “Desmond confirmed he saw all three of them just before he escaped from the house. Lucas had given the order to blow it up just an hour before,” Colin said, looking from Alec to Lena, his eyes resting helplessly on Julia. She wasn’t looking at him, but she seemed uncomfortable, enough so that she might as well be. “It isn’t the first murder Lucas is responsible for, but it is the first time I have his confession on tape.” Colin placed his cell phone onto the table. He played Lucas’s instruction, telling his men to blow up the house, and said, “With Desmond’s help, I’ve put together enough information on Lucas to put him away for good. If he comes within five hundred feet of anyone sitting at this table, it’s getting handed straight to the authorities.”

  Julia blinked, looking at him from across the table. “Wouldn’t Lucas just have a counterargument ready to go? For every piece of dirt you have on the guy, he must have equally as much on you. You were his partner for thirteen years.”

  “Colin hasn’t come close to scratching the surface of the things Lucas did,” Alec said. “Accidental deaths. Secret takeovers. Neither of us knows exactly how much damage the guy is responsible for, and I, for one, don’t care to know. But short of comanaging an organization that imported goods off the books, Colin isn’t guilty of anything.”

  Colin masked a smile. His brother defending him was unexpected and much appreciated. But he wasn’t about to take the easy way out.

  “I wish I could say that was the truth. But there were a lot of things, unconscionable things going on that I overlooked for years. I may not have been the one who put certain practices into motion, but I�
�m the one who allowed them to keep on going. If I hadn’t been so hell-bent on doing things my own way, I could have stopped a lot of harm from being done to a lot of people.”

  “You did what you thought was right,” Lena said, looking toward Julia.

  Julia looked at her lap.

  After the group ate their meal, Alec took a fifty dollar bill from his wallet. But Colin insisted that springing for a couple of deli sandwiches was the least he could do after everything he’d put them through. In hindsight, the cost of a dinner didn’t feel like enough of a payback, considering everyone had almost died. That wasn’t something he could make up for in one evening, if ever. He paid the bill then hurried to catch up with Julia, who was saying good-bye to Lena and Alec outside.

  “Let me walk you to your car,” he said, coming up behind her as his brother and sister-in-law waved good-bye.

  Turning toward him, Julia offered a shrug. “If you insist.”

  Walking side-by-side, they made their way to Julia’s car, not saying a word. It was radically out of character for both of them. But Colin couldn’t think of a damn thing to say.

  When they reached the end of the block, he stopped in front of Julia’s dilapidated vehicle. He was about to break the ice by cracking a joke about the fender, when she turned suddenly toward him.

  “How have you been?” she asked. “Diamond smuggling must get pretty exhausting, though I’m sure you’ve got it down to a science at this point.”

  “Julia, I’ve stopped smuggling,” he blurted out, hardly believing his own willingness to be so forthcoming. But there was no turning back—he wanted her to know everything. “What Lucas Ramone does from here on out is his business. I won’t have anything more to do with him. After what happened to you and your dad, I’m more aware than ever that I was doing more harm than good. I won’t be a party to something that destroys innocent lives. That steals from people, cheats them out of their livelihood.” Colin’s breath formed a cloud in the cool night air. “You may not believe this, but I forged a partnership in Project Gemstone because I was trying to help people, trying to give them an opportunity to work in a world that doesn’t always give them that chance. I saw the way men like my father indiscriminately destroyed lives. I wanted better. And knowing that it would mean our relationship, I still went ahead with my plan. It was the only thing I could see doing, hoping that somehow I was making a difference, doing some good for people who couldn’t do for themselves.”

  Julia was quiet a long moment. She stared at him, a look of understanding in her eyes that was positively astonishing. “You wanted your father in your life. But you knew you could never be true to yourself and to him at the same time.”

  “You surmised all of that from what I just told you?”

  “Let’s just say I know a thing or two about parents who say one thing and mean another.”

  Colin narrowed his gaze. “You’re talking about your mother, aren’t you?”

  She nodded slowly.

  He smiled. It was so good to see that he and Julia were relating. So right. He loved it when she opened up to him, trusting him enough to confide her private thoughts. Corny as it sounded, he wanted her to feel comfortable telling him anything at all that was on her mind.

  “How have you been holding up?” he asked, shortening the distance between them. “Since the escape, I mean. Alec and Lena have agreed it was a pretty horrific ordeal.”

  “I’m fine.” She squared her shoulders. “I’m a lot stronger than most people think.”

  “You’re the bravest person I know, Julia.” He meant it.

  “Then I think it’s time you stopped worrying about me.” She hesitated, turning toward the passing cars on the street. Chest rising and falling, she said, “Unless there’s another reason you’re so concerned.”

  Colin held his breath. He’d half been hoping she would ask him this. It would settle things between them, maybe even change it all for the better. But now that Julia had put the question out there, he didn’t have the slightest clue how to answer it.

  Julia was asking if he had feelings for her. More specifically, she was asking if he was in love with her. It wasn’t an especially difficult question to answer. That was if he wanted to keep hurting her, the way he had the last two months, the way he had everyone he’d crossed paths with during the course of his adult life.

  After everything they’d been through, Julia thought she knew him. The truth was, she didn’t have a clue.

  He looked into her eyes. God, she was so beautiful.

  “You’re Tucker’s daughter,” he said with a smile. “How could I not be concerned?”

  Julia’s eyes widened. Her face reddened then paled. She turned, opening the door of her car.

  “Julia—”

  Turning to face him with a fake smile he thought was going be the death of him, Julia said, “Look. I’m not very good at this, so just listen up. I’m going to make this real easy for you. This can never work. You’re…a doctor. An ex-criminal perhaps, but it’s clear enough that for a large variety of reasons, you and I don’t fit into the same world. We’d drive each other crazy, me with my running commentary, you with your never-ending sarcasm.”

  “Julia…”

  She smiled tautly. “Take care of yourself, Colin.”

  He’d done the right thing, the only thing. Julia Dyson didn’t need a man like him in her life, a man who brought nothing but pain and suffering to those around him. In spite of whatever feelings she’d thought she had for him as a teenager, it was better this way. Better for both of them. Because at least this way, he could never hurt her again.

  But as he watched her get into her car and leave him alone on the empty sidewalk, Colin was filled with an emptiness beyond anything he’d ever known.

  He’d just made the greatest mistake of his life. And unlike anything else he and Julia had been through during their time together, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to make it right.

  Chapter 29

  “Abigail, that’s ridiculous,” Julia said, speaking loudly into the phone as she attempted to clean her father’s kitchen Saturday morning. Going at what had to be a six-month-old grease spot, she said, “You can’t possibly have a pool party so late in the season. Everyone there will freeze.”

  “It’s October,” Abigail insisted. “And it’s a warm October at that.”

  Abigail went on to say something about the new pool she and Ryan were putting in, how the heater controlled the temperature, but Julia was barely listening. Her mind was somewhere else entirely, as it had been for most of the week.

  Ever since her outing to the Conway Diner Thursday night, it was as though she was frozen. At the oddest times she would shut her eyes, and then suddenly Colin would be there, holding her in that room where they’d been held captive, assuring her that everything would be all right. Keeping her safe with his big, strong arms. Kissing her lips. Her shoulders. Her neck…

  A sound on the porch startled her. She dropped the cloth she held onto the counter. “Hang on, Abby. I think there’s someone at the door.”

  Julia hung up the phone and opened the door, surprised and fairly disappointed to find that no one was there. Turning around, she saw that the mail had been left in the mailbox. She took the stack of catalogs and envelopes and brought them inside, setting them down on the freshly cleaned counter.

  It was just as well that no one had been there, she assured herself, tearing open a large white envelope. Today was about helping her dad get his house in order. And with her hair pinned up and wearing an old hooded sweatshirt, she wasn’t exactly dressed for company.

  Having come to the conclusion that there was nothing in the pile besides junk mail and bills, Julia went outside. She took a breath of fresh air and walked across the lawn to where her dad was raking leaves. She’d insisted he wasn’t strong enough to be doing something so strenuous, having barely eaten anything in weeks. But he’d told her he refused to live like an invalid in his own home. Besides, the
doctor had given him a clean bill of health.

  “You look like you could use some help,” she said, approaching him from behind.

  Tucker Dyson stood the end of the rake he held against the ground. “If you’re offering, absolutely.”

  Julia took a spare rake from the shed. Positioning herself beside her dad, she attacked the plethora of leaves. She formed a large pile, bagged it, and moved on to the section in front of the porch.

  Her thoughts wandered. Realizing after a few moments that she was no longer able to give the project her full concentration, she put down her rake. “Dad?”

  “Hmm?”

  “When you were—I mean—when you were being held hostage by those men, was there a moment you thought you wouldn’t make it?”

  Her father was quiet a long while. Noticing that he’d stopped what he was doing, Julia followed suit. As her dad made his way across the lawn, she tossed her rake to the ground and sat beside him on the porch swing.

  “Julia, I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am for everything I put you through. To think that you were—”

  “Dad, that isn’t what I—”

  He held up a hand. “If I was half the man I should be, I never would have put you in the position I did. Do you understand me, Julia? It was wrong for me to get involved with Project Gemstone. I see that now. Regardless of what Colin Westwood was trying to do, of what all of us were trying to do, I knew the risks involved. I risked your life, Julia. For that, I can never forgive myself.”

  She cracked a smile. “At least you learned that much.”

  Her father laughed, and then he threw his arms around her, giving her one of many hugs he had given her since they’d come home. Embracing him felt natural, and oh so right. Giving his frail body a squeeze, Julia prayed it was the first of many times to come.

  “But, actually. I was wondering”—she inched back—“in that moment, when you were trapped and thought you might not make it, was there anyone you thought about? I guess what I’m asking is, were you thinking about…”