by Barbara Gee
She laughed and pushed back up into a sitting position, raising her hand to press a cool palm against his jaw. “Pretty sure I can handle you, big guy,” she said softly, her gaze dropping to his mouth.
Vince’s every sense and every nerve ending was aware of her. The sweet, clean smell of her skin. The mint of her toothpaste. The soft, full lips so close to his own. Her hand sliding down his neck to the hollow of his throat.
She was right about one thing. Four days without kissing her was far too long. He lowered his head an inch and her lips parted in anticipation, her tongue darting out to wet them. His heart hitched and for a split second he flashed back to that moment in the field, when he’d seen her lying there, completely lifeless. When he hadn’t known if she was alive or dead.
Now she was right here, alive and well, and soon to be in his arms, and he was overwhelmed with gratitude. He wanted to kiss her, needed to, but he needed to say some things first.
He ran a hand up her back, under her soft hair to her nape. “You know how glad I am that you’re okay, don’t you? I prayed a thousand prayers, baby. We knew O’Riley was out there with you and we didn’t know what he’d done. Then, after we found you, I had to wait hours, never-ending hours, to know whether you were going to be okay. The only way I could keep sane was by reliving the weeks we had together, in my head, over and over. Those weeks were so good. Every memory with you was good.”
“It’s all been good for me too,” she assured him, her eyes warm and happy.
He smiled. “I only had one regret about our time together.” He brushed his lips lightly across hers, barely touching. “I kept wishing I would’ve told you how I felt. How much I love you. Because I do. I love you, Callie, and I’m not going to pass up the second chance God’s given me to tell you that.”
Her wide eyes held a look of joy and wonder that told him everything he needed to know about her own feelings. Then she confirmed it. She took his head firmly in her hands and pressed her lips to his, warm and soft and so sweet. When she pulled away and looked at him again, her eyes were shiny with unshed tears.
“I love you back,” she whispered. “I never expected to find anyone I could love so much.”
Vince urged her back onto her pillows and followed her down, planting his forearms on either side of her head and claiming her mouth with four days worth of longing. It took a few minutes to make up for lost time, then another minute to save up for being separated most of the day tomorrow.
When Vince knew he was way too close to letting his hands wander under that blanket, he broke the kiss and pushed up onto his hands, smiling as he looked down into her dazed, heavy-lidded eyes. It was one of his favorite looks on her.
“Gotta stop, baby,” he said thickly.
She gave several slow blinks before she tried to talk. “Wow, Vince.”
“Wow, Callie,” he teased.
“How can kissing you be even better than I remembered?”
He almost made a cocky comment, but that was too much like something the old Vince would’ve done. Instead he stayed silent and straightened up to a sitting position.
Her smile was wide but shy. “Maybe it’s because I know you lo—” her voice trailed off mid-word and she shook her head. “I can’t even say it. It sounds too unbelievable.”
“You can say it. I do love you, Callie. I’ll shout it from the rooftops if that’ll help you believe it.”
She licked her lips and it was all he could do not to kiss her again.
“It’s gonna take a while to sink in,” she told him. “I know you see yourself as a regular guy, but for two years I’ve watched you on TV, cheering my heart out for you and your team. I never, ever thought I’d meet you. Or be with you like this.”
“Thank goodness Boone needed a volunteer at the Full Heart,” he said.
“Yeah. And thank goodness you were willing to give up a summer of leisure.” She smiled and ran her hand down his arm, then wrapped her hand around his. “I’ve loved you on the ice all that time, but I love you even better in real life.”
“You can love me both places.” He leaned down to give her one more short, hard kiss, then pushed to his feet. “Good night, sweetheart. Sleep well in your soft, quiet bed. Holler if you need me. I’m a light sleeper, so I’ll hear you.”
“Okay. ‘Night, Vince. You can turn the lamp off. A dark room will be another treat after the hospital.”
He switched it off, watched her roll over and get comfortable, then went to his own room down the hall. He looked forward to the day he didn’t have to leave her. Could hardly wait for that day, in fact.
First things first, though. Before they could focus on their forever, they needed to figure out the Tate mess.
***
In New Orleans:
Elliot opened bleary eyes and raised his head off the dirty, rusted metal desktop to check the time on the burner flip-phone he still had clutched in his hand. He squinted at the screen, rubbed his eyes and looked again.
It was just past four o’clock in the afternoon, which meant he’d slept for almost six hours, after forcing himself to stay awake all day, all night, and part of today—almost thirty hours straight before he’d succumbed. It also meant he’d been holed up in this sweltering warehouse for thirty-six hours with no food or water.
He had to DO something, he’d known that ever since the cops had shown up at his house, but he felt paralyzed with indecision. Every option he came up with was too risky. He knew there had to be cops out looking for him, and if he left the building he’d be spotted. But he couldn’t stay there much longer without water. His head already felt like it was ready to burst.
It would’ve been okay if he had his personal phone instead of just the burner. Or if he’d made the effort to memorize some important numbers instead of always relying on his contact list. He’d tried to be smart under pressure—when the cops showed up and he knew he had only minutes to escape the house, he’d stuffed his personal phone into the back of a kitchen drawer so it couldn’t be used to locate him, and grabbed only the burner phone, knowing it couldn’t be linked to him and he’d need it to communicate with Craig.
It wasn’t until he got to the warehouse and wanted to call his greediest lawyer to come pick him up that he realized he didn’t have any numbers. Nor did he have internet access, since he had only the most basic model phone—because burners were meant to be disposable, not highly functional. He’d tried calling information, because he at least knew enough to dial 411, but of course the man’s number was unlisted. That had elicited a string of cursing before he calmed down and tried to come up with plan B.
He had other lawyers he could try, but they’d be unlisted too. Plus, none of them had ever gotten all the way down in the gutter for him, and he didn’t know if he could trust them. In fact, he was pretty sure if they knew he was on the run, they’d sell him out as fast as possible to try to separate themselves from the shady gray-area deals he’d paid them all too well to take care of in the past.
It was humiliating to realize that without Craig O’Riley, he was basically helpless. Elliot had always been brilliant at identifying shortcuts in his bid to grow the Tate businesses and eventually take them all over, but Craig had been the one to make the shortcuts happen. The fact that many of them involved illegal things, some as serious as arson, assault, extortion, and even murder, had never been much of a problem. Elliot simply told Craig what needed to happen, and the man took care of it. They were the perfect team.
Elliot had been proud of himself for coming up with the idea of hiding in this warehouse, but once he’d arrived and found his way in through a rusted door, he was at a complete loss as to how to get out of the quicksand he found himself in. And so, he’d simply waited. Craig had never let him down before. Surely he’d soon extricate himself from whatever trouble he found himself in up north and call to say he was on his way back to New Orleans.
As the hours had passed in the creepy old warehouse, Elliot fought sleep and continu
ed to cling to the hope that Craig would call soon to give him an update, and then they could plot their next move. Craig would know exactly how to get him out of this blasted place and away from the cops.
At the twenty-four hour mark, his confidence had started waning. He’d told himself he’d wait one more hour for Craig to call. When that hour had passed he’d decided to go for one more. One more, one more, one more—because what else could he do? He had no ideas, and if he allowed himself to think too much about Craig not coming, he started to panic.
At the thirty hour mark he’d gone to sleep, because he couldn’t stay awake one single minute longer.
Now, awake but far from feeling rested and refreshed, Elliot knew he was running out of time. The cops had to be closing in. Plus, he was dangerously dehydrated. He’d peed in a corner soon after arriving at the warehouse, but nothing since. Thirty-six hours of nothing. He needed water, but there was no way he could leave to get it, not without so much as a hat to use for a disguise. The first person to spot him would raise the alarm and that would be it.
He sat at the desk, frozen in his own indecision. His head was throbbing and it hurt to think. He had a vague notion he might be starting to get delirious, probably from the dehydration, but there was no help for it.
How much longer was this going to play out? Why hadn’t the cops busted in already? Surely they’d been studying every building within a certain radius of his house. They had to have found out by now that this building was Tate owned, and the obvious place for him to run.
He checked the time again. The phone was down to ten percent of its battery life, but it didn’t matter. He knew now Craig wasn’t going to call. Too much time had passed. Something had happened in North Dakota, and that had to be why the police wanted him. Had Craig talked, was that it? After all these years, had his best friend sold him out?
The thought made him want to yell with fury and cry from betrayal at the same time.
The pounding in his head increased and he lowered his forehead to the desktop, pushing his palms against his temples.
A scuffling noise came from outside the grimy office. Rats? Or a swat team member who’d found a way in? Elliot was almost beyond caring, but then he had a sudden and horrifying vision of his arrest. It flashed before his eyes in full color. There he was, clear as day, looking like an unwashed homeless person with his hands cuffed behind his back, squinting against the bright light of the sun as the cops pushed him out of the building, prodding him with rifle barrels. Cameras were all over, streaming it live, displaying his current filthy hideousness on every news site in Louisiana and beyond.
It would be beyond humiliating. The dirty, greasy, messed up hair, his unshaven face, the wrinkled, grimy clothes. Those who didn’t know him, who didn’t know how immaculate he usually looked, would look at those videos and scoff at the idea that he was a wildly successful man in both his business and personal life. They’d never believe he had women falling at his feet, begging for scraps of his attention. They’d see only the dirty, disheveled felon emerging from an old rundown warehouse.
He ground his teeth and fought the urge to roar out his frustration at the top of his lungs. The worst thing was that he’d been on the brink having everything he’d been fighting for. His father getting sick had been an unexpected boost to his efforts, finally putting the end in sight. He’d only needed a few more weeks to put the final details in place, and then Howard would’ve been dead, the will would’ve been read, and Elliot Tate would’ve been worth over a billion dollars, and completely in charge of his own destiny.
Now his dreams were over. Gone. Two decades of hard, careful, brilliant work would end with him staring at prison walls.
Fury built to the point where he felt like his head was going to explode. He’d been the man in control for so long, the man who had it all, and now utter humiliation was coming his way. As soon as his arrest was made public, the people who currently groveled at his feet would raise their drinks to celebrate his demise. So many people would rejoice in him being locked up for the rest of his life. They’d jeer at him, at his sudden loss of status and clout, and they’d post stupid, hateful comments below all the articles about him.
So close! So close! So close! He heard the chanting in his throbbing head. He jumped to his feet and ran out of the office into the vast first floor warehouse space, turning in a circle while he clutched at his head and looked for rats or cops, whatever had made that blasted noise.
So close! So close!
He tried to control his breathing. His brain felt all muddled, but he had to think. Craig had let him down and it was up to him now. If he could escape, maybe he could make it to his lawyer’s house. He’d offer huge money and the man would gladly help him get to another country and start over with a new identity.
Why hadn’t he thought of that before? Or had he thought of it and discarded the option for some reason? He couldn’t remember—his thoughts were too jumbled. All he knew was he’d wasted almost two days waiting for Craig to call when he should have taken his chances and run long before now. Anything was better than this.
All was clear in the big space of the warehouse, as far as he could see. No rats or cops—at least not yet. He sidled up to a window in the front of the building, squatted down, and peered through a corner of the dirty glass. In less than a minute he saw subtle movement in the trees across the street, then a figure dressed in black moved quickly from behind one building to crouch at the corner of another.
Elliot’s heart missed a beat, then started pounding double-time. They were here. They knew he was inside and there was no escape. The take-down of Elliot Tate, fugitive and felon, was about to begin.
Sharp pains ripped through his head. He stood up and leaned against the wall, his chest heaving. Then his eyes fell on the rickety metal staircase against the far wall of the building and he ran to it, stumbling up the narrow steps. He needed a better vantage point so he could see what was going on out there. The warehouse was three stories. If he could get to the top, he’d be able to see when they made their move to break in.
He made it up the first flight, then had to rest, his chest burning. He hurled himself up the second flight of stairs and pushed through the door into the cavernous third floor space. It was empty except for some broken pallets and a lot of trash, and an old conveyor running down the middle of the room.
Even in his broken-down state, Elliot was able to picture the room when the building had been in use, decades ago. There would have been pallets lined neatly on either side of the conveyor, hoisted off of trucks down on the ground and lifted up to the third floor loading platform by the broken down crane on the roof.
Elliot stood unmoving as his water-starved brain focused in on the idea of that crane. When he’d purchased the building, he’d agreed to get rid of it, because falling debris from its badly rusted jib would soon become a hazard.
He hadn’t gotten around to the removal yet, and now he pictured that jib, hanging out over the side of the building, so wonderfully high off the ground.
Before he could think twice, he whirled around and stumbled over to the last staircase, the one that led up onto the roof. The door at the top was locked, but the wood the lock was bolted too was rotten and even in his weakened state he was able to break through. Energized by the fresh air and sunlight that greeted him when the door flew open, he ran across the roof directly toward the crane.
He climbed the rusty metal lattice of the tower, jamming his hands and feet into any space he could find for leverage. He felt strong, finally in control again. No one could stop him now. Elliot was calling the shots and this would end on his terms. No one else’s.
Oblivious to his shredded fingernails and torn clothes, he made it to the top and hauled himself up onto the narrow jib. Then he raised his face to the sun and straightened to his full height. The bright light made the pounding in his head reach a crescendo, but it was strangely energizing. He felt powerful. Invincible.
He h
eard shouting below but he ignored it and walked out toward the end of the jib, out to where it hung over the cracked concrete loading dock. He stopped and closed his eyes, letting his head fall back as he inhaled the hot summer air.
He pictured a little dark-haired girl with her daddy’s green eyes, clapping with joy when he told her he was going to take her for a sail.
It was a fitting vision for this moment.
This whole thing had started with Lila….and it was ending with Lila.
He raised his arms, roared her name in a final outburst of fury, and jumped.
CHAPTER 39
Three weeks after hearing about Elliot’s suicide, Callie was zipping her suitcase closed. Dr. Young had finally cleared her to travel, and she was headed to New Orleans to meet Howard Tate. Her father.
They hadn’t spoken yet. Callie hadn’t wanted to have their first conversation over the phone, or via email. She didn’t want to form impressions based on anything other than a real life, face-to-face meeting.
Her father’s attorney had been in touch with Gary frequently, and Kirk had remained in New Orleans, closely following Elliot’s case. As the scope of his exploits had been uncovered, Howard was making every effort to make it right with those his son had wronged. The list was long. It was impossible to undo everything Elliot and Craig had done, but in many cases Howard was able to ease the hurt by restoring jobs, making financial restitution, and clearing reputations that had been wrongfully tarnished.
Based on what she had learned of him so far, Callie already admired the stranger who had given her life and been so greatly wronged himself. She was nervous about this trip, but she was also looking forward to finally getting their first meeting over with. By the end of the three day visit, she was confident she’d have a much better idea of the kind of relationship they’d have going forward.
