I hugged her tightly. “I can’t thank you enough,” I said softly into her perfumed neck.
“Yeah, yeah, quit with the sappy shit. You know I’d do anything for you,” she said with a smile in her voice.
I pulled away to kiss her forehead and the cookies almost hit the floor. Kaya looked up, sensing us there, and I ducked out of sight.
“Listen, go have a shower and clean yourself up,” Lisa whispered. “There are some clothes in the bedroom next door that will fit you. And have something to eat; you look like a bag of bones.”
I was handed a cookie then gently pushed away.
I showered under the hottest water I could stand until there wasn’t a speck of it left in the old taps. The wounds on my chest were a light pink and were healing into some pretty impressive scars, but my hands were a mess. They stung and bled when I washed my hair. I put band-aids on my knuckles and wrapped gauze around my palms once I’d dried off.
I found a neatly folded stack of clothes, all my size and style—T-shirts, jeans, and even a pair of black leather shoes that fit perfectly. I realized when I saw my old backpack hanging from the bedpost that Lisa had gone shopping for me. She knew all I owned was that beat up sack, a few shredded clothes, and a now very precious bar of soap.
I followed my nose to the kitchen where the most wondrous smell drifted from a crock-pot. Dishes shone as they dried on the counter beside a plate of pancakes and cold coffee. I chugged a mug of the black brew like it was a cold beer on a hot day, and then I poured another. Two pancakes were gone in an instant, and then I shoved another in my mouth before bringing two more with me out onto the porch. I leaned back into the same lawn chair I had occupied last night and closed my eyes, savoring every bite.
Then I felt the glare.
Had I known Oliver was there, I would have stayed inside to avoid confrontation. But there he sat on the opposite end of the porch, squished into a plastic chair and facing the pasture just as I was. He looked haggard. Dark circles were visible on his already dark skin, and he was still in the same clothes as yesterday. I wondered if he had moved at all since the night before.
I pretended to be completely busy with my cup of coffee, but it was soon gone.
“Where is everyone?” I asked, not eager to engage in small talk but unable to ignore him any longer.
“That pal of yours, Seth, and Kaya’s other guard, Davis, are taking the tracking device to a decoy location,” he said as he glanced at a small computer screen in his hands, “it’s about four hours from here right now.”
I was shocked at his willingness to offer information. “How come Henry didn’t swarm us last night?”
Oliver cleared his throat. He spoke slowly, his voice deep and thick. “I have no idea. There’s been no communication with him for the last thirty-three hours. If something has happened and security has been compromised, if Kaya’s whereabouts have gotten into the wrong hands…”
“You mean, John Marchessa?”
“Yes. I guess she told you about him.”
“He is the one you protect her from.”
“Him and people like you,” he spat out, cracking his knuckles. “I’m only sharing this information with you because if he is out there, I’ll need all the help I can get. I only want to protect her.”
“Well, I guess we have something in common then.”
“Hmm, I guess we do.”
I put the empty cup down, craving more, but my muscles were not willing to move from the chair.
“The little girl, Louisa, she is your sister, right? She was taken from you?” Oliver asked.
The directness of the question startled me. Yesterday, he wanted to kill me, and suddenly he wanted to get personal. “Yes,” I said, swallowing back the flood of emotion that always came at the mention of her name.
“You did all this… for her?” he asked.
“I had to do whatever it took to get my sister back.”
Oliver seemed to ponder my reply. A restless calf called for its mother in the pasture. The breeze picked up. “Did they hurt her?” he asked.
“Yes,” I choked out. “In the most horrible way you could ever hurt a child.”
“Then I guess, on some level, I have to forgive you.”
I looked at him in shock, but was instantly grateful for his forgiveness. “I’m sorry, Oliver… for the hell I put you through. Truly, I’m sorry.”
He stood and walked toward the railing, his hands looking like dark chocolate against the white paint. “Understand this, Luke,” he said, “that I will do the same for Kaya—whatever it takes.”
“Yet another thing we have in common,” I said softly.
We both stared off into the distance, quietly contemplating each other until Brutus broke the tension by panting hard and strolling up the steps to drop in an exhausted heap at my feet. When the screen door opened and his tail wagged furiously, I knew who was there.
Kaya tentatively emerged from the house without glancing at either of us. I could detect the scent of soap mixed with something flowery on her skin. The large men’s shirt she wore only covered her to the middle of her bare thighs, and although it had probably been thrown on without any thought, she looked incredible. As much as I wanted to grab her, I stayed put. Oliver, however, couldn’t contain himself and practically dove at her. She backed away from him like he was the devil while Brutus bared his teeth in her defense.
“Kaya, I’m so sorry about—”
“Stop,” she said firmly, putting her hand up, “back up, and just… stop.”
Oliver dropped his arms dejectedly.
“I need to talk to you both. But first, Oliver, you must promise me something.” She bit her lip. “He is important to me.” She made the slightest hand gesture in my direction. “You must promise me that you will never, ever try to hurt him again.”
“Kaya, it’s okay,” I said, but she put her hand up to silence me, too.
“Oliver, promise me,” she demanded.
Oliver mumbled something incoherent and looked away.
“Oliver, if you don’t promise me this, if you can’t promise me this, then you will never be a part of my life from this moment forward.”
The pitch of her voice rose with a tinge of unstableness, and she looked as though she might crack. I slowly stood up and moved behind her.
“Okay, yes. I promise!” Oliver said crossly.
She lowered her gaze to her feet and we stood there, the three of us, the tension like a thick haze. Then a phone started ringing in Oliver’s pocket. He furrowed his brow in agitation as he fished it out to look at the incoming call. “Kaya, it’s Henry,” he said, “I haven’t heard from him since yesterday morning, and I have to answer it.”
When Kaya nodded her head in approval, Oliver put the phone to his ear.
“Where the hell are you, Oliver?” yelled an angry voice clearly audible in the quiet stillness of the afternoon.
Oliver straightened up and turned away from us. “Sir, I have been trying to reach you…”
“Well, we had a slight problem with security here. The control room was completely… inaccessible for a while.”
Oliver took a step toward the railing, deck boards creaking under him. “Is everything all right now?”
“More or less, we’ve got it all under control. So, where’s Kaya? Where’s my daughter?”
I heard Kaya gulp loudly at the mention of her name. I hated the way her father said it with such a cold tone to his voice.
“I have her sir. She is with me, safe and sound,” Oliver said.
“Good. I would assume you have eliminated her captors?”
Oliver glared at me. “Yes, as per your request, sir,” he lied.
“Excellent,” said Henry. “We got rid of the idiots who picked up the ransom money. Got only useless information out of them, though. They claimed they were there to do a deal with someone named Luke and didn’t even know who Kaya was. Even as we plucked out his eyeballs, some stupid, French asshole na
med Claude insisted he knew nothing.”
All the air left my lungs, and my head start to spin; Henry had unknowingly either purged me of my past or built me a whole new hornet’s nest of problems. His voice continued on, as clear as the blue sky.
“Oliver, I have your location, and I am sending a car for you now.” The sound of his assistants jumping into action could be heard in the background.
Oliver turned to stare— Kaya and I were too close together for his liking, and I could see little beads of sweat start to form on his forehead. “Sir, the doctor put Kaya on bed rest for today. I will leave first thing tomorrow morning and bring her back.”
“A doctor? You took her to a hospital?” Henry said furiously.
“No, I—”
“Listen, I already have a team heading out. I want her back here, immediately. You know how important this is, Oliver, and you know what you are supposed to do!”
Oliver clenched his jaw and pulled the phone away from his ear, clearly struggling with his loyalty. With a heavy breath, he stared hard at Kaya before fumbling for the right words to say to her controlling father. “Sir, with all due respect, it is important to follow the doctor’s orders in light of her present condition.”
Kaya’s head dropped sadly. I knew the loss of the baby weighed heavy on her heart, and I reached for her hand. Oliver’s eyes suddenly became darker, his stare sharp, like a dagger pointed in my direction. He began to yell into the phone. “Do you understand, Henry—sir? She is not going anywhere today. Call your men off so they don’t waste their time. I’m bringing her back myself.” With that, he hung up and dropped the phone back into his pocket.
Kaya pulled her hand free of mine and turned to face him. “Just so you know, I’ll leave when I’m ready,” she stated.
“Which will be tomorrow.” Oliver replied.
“Uh, no.”
Oliver shook his head with a cocky grin. “Listen, Kaya, I am taking you home tomorrow, and that’s final.”
“It’s her choice,” I reminded him, feeling my pulse quicken at the potential of an argument.
Oliver laughed arrogantly. “Uh, no, actually it isn’t. She is engaged to me. She belongs to me, and I’m taking her home. Tomorrow.”
His words made her body sway. They had such a deep emotional pull that they seemed to rob her of whatever strength she had to stand up to him. I put my hand on her shoulder, steadying her, and then stared at the back of her head, hoping for outrage, yelling, tears… anything… but she didn’t move or speak. The only signal I got that she was still even conscious was her body leaning back into my hand.
Oliver reached out and possessively wrapped his fingers around her arm. Then, he pulled her away.
She didn’t resist. My hand dropped from her shoulder.
“We are going home in the morning,” he said.
“No. I—”
“There’s no arguing, Kaya. You know this is what you have to do.”
Her head turned slightly and those dazzling emerald eyes focused on me momentarily. “I can do whatever I choose…”
Oliver looked about to snap. “You are engaged to me. You, Kaya Lowen, are mine, and you will do as I say.”
“Okay,” she replied meekly.
My heart felt as if it fell out of my rib cage and splattered onto the porch. “What? What do you mean okay?” I repeated, shocked.
“I’m so sorry Luke,” she said quietly. “He’s right.”
A bomb might as well have gone off in my chest. I had braced myself for this, she had told me she wasn’t going to leave him, but I chose to believe she would follow her heart. Everything she’d said led me to have faith. The world went fuzzy as she walked away with him, my ears filled with the rhythm of my own heartbeat, and I stumbled backward while her voice floated around my head like the moths around the porch lights.
“I’m sorry Luke, so, so sorry… but you know this is what I have to do,” she said, crying.
Oliver was pulling her away.
“You’re killing me, Kaya. Please don’t do this… please…”
She gave me a fleeting look before Oliver took her inside.
And that was it—it was over.
I blindly made my way off the porch and toward the old barn facing the house, feeling like I was walking in a nightmare. Pacing around a rusty Bronco parked in the middle of the wood floor, my feet sent so much dust into the air I could barely see. There used to be horses in here, but now it was Seth’s workshop, filled with things that didn’t work—myself included. I slammed my fists onto the hood of the truck and pain surged through my hands. I slammed them again.
“Careful, ‘cause it’s all yours,” said a voice from the door.
Seth.
I tried to say I was sorry, but nothing came out. He handed me a beer and I guzzled it, hoping it would numb any fraction of the heartache.
“I understand Kaya is leaving in the morning. Oliver is inside with that Davis kid making arrangements,” he said softly. “You okay?”
He’d just delivered the final blow to the remains of my wishful thinking. “No. No, I’m not okay. I can’t stand it—I can’t stand being… so close—she’s right there and knowing I can’t—I can’t have her… Jesus. I need to get away from here.”
Seth gave me a fatherly smile. Light filtered between the planks of the barn walls and lit up the dark shadows under his eyes. “You can take this old girl,” he said, patting the Bronco fondly, “she runs well, she just needs that tire put on and some fluid top-offs. I just haven’t had the time.”
“I can’t leave Louisa,” I said bitterly.
“Lisa can manage taking care of her for a bit. I’ll make sure they are both looked after. You have my word. Just don’t go doing anything stupid. That kid needs her brother.”
“No, I can’t—”
“She’ll be fine, Luke. If you gotta go and get your head straight, then go do it. Just do some thinkin' and drinkin', and beat up a few deadbeats while doing both.”
Seth seemed eager for me to leave, but maybe I was reading into it. He’d proved time and again he could be trusted. “How can I carry on, Seth? How do I—how am I supposed to… I just can’t…” I gave up talking. I didn’t even know what I was trying to say.
“Yeah, heartbreak sucks,” he said sympathetically.
He was no stranger to it—his ex-wife was a monster.
“I should have let the bastard drop off that cliff,” I mumbled.
“Nope. You did the right thing. If Oliver had died, Kaya would have never forgiven you.”
He was right, of course.
“Just give it time, Luke. Get some space between the two of ya. Get some perspective. Then you can decide if ya wanna give her up.”
“Give her up?” I replied, but he brushed it off.
“Here,” he said and held out his hand. In it were the keys to the Bronco and a thick roll of cash. “Your full cut is safely tucked away, so here’s a credit card, too. Use it instead of cash whenever you can so I can keep track of things—you know, for accounting purposes and such. Anyway, sign my name when you use it. The limit is high enough that you can buy a darn car with it if ya want too.”
Blood money. Everything about it felt so wrong, but I had to take it. I owned nothing. “What about you, Seth? Your, uh, ‘boss’—or whoever it was you were supposed to deliver Kaya too—won’t he be upset that you’ve done an about face?”
Seth rubbed his cheek absently where the scars from Kaya’s fingernails were still a deep red. “Oh yeah. She’ll be a little pissed.”
Did I hear him right? “She?” I asked.
“Yep… she. The nastiest bitch you’ll ever meet.” He finished his beer, and then he headed for the door. “Well, you go on and do what you gotta do, kid, and good luck,” he said, and then he stopped. “Oh, I almost forgot something… this is yours…” He fished around in his pocket, and then he extended his arm, palm facing up.
I blinked. In his hand was a tooth from the cougar Kaya
had shot. I took it from him and rolled it between my fingers, forgetting I’d insisted he go through the trouble of getting it. It seemed so important at the time—so significant. She’d saved me that day, and the look of worry on her face with my blood on her hands as she patched me up was something I never wanted to forget. I knew then and there, at that very moment, when her eyes met mine with the needle in her hands, that she loved me.
But, now the tooth was just a tooth.
“I won’t break my promise to you,” I said to Seth.
He furrowed his brow questioningly.
“Eronel. Closing it down…”
He looked like he’d forgotten about it.
“I’ll help any way I can,” I offered, “make a new plan, and I’m in. I’ll do anything you want—except kidnap another girl.”
Seth embraced me with a quick hug and a pat on the back. “Maybe don’t give up on her just yet,” he said softly, and then he left.
Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all…
That was one of my mum’s favorite sayings. Obviously, she’d never experienced true love because that was total bullshit.
I drilled a hole in the tooth and hung it on the chain next to my mum’s maple leaf. But I couldn’t put the necklace back on; the visual reminder of such an immense loss was too much to take. I would give it to Louisa. She could have something from her mother and a piece of my heart.
Through the murky barn window, I could see her on the porch with Brutus, her golden hair shining and a pink dress puffed up around her legs as Lisa closely watched through the screen door. Like a zombie, I forced my legs to walk toward her, half expecting my feet to hit quicksand or to be pulled under by the uncut grass and dandelions. I expected her to run from me, too… but she didn’t. Brutus’s tail slapped loudly on the wood slats as I approached, making her giggle.
“Brutus likes you, Louisa. That’s good, because he really needs a friend,” I said and crouched down to pet him. We rubbed the dirty dog. It rolled over on its back and put its legs in the air, making Louisa giggle again. The sound was music to my ears.
Serenade Page 31
