The Millionaires’ Club: Ryan, Alex & Darin

by Cindy Gerard / Cathleen Galitz / Kristi Gold

  And she had to do something…soon. She was still blindfolded, but oddly, her loss of sight had turned into an advantage. Her other senses were keener. Like her sense of smell that had helped her figure out what that odd mixture of antiseptic, leather, cow manure and whitewash was. Now, if only Trav had picked up on her stockyard clues when she’d spoken with him.

  She could also hear things now she wouldn’t normally hear. Birkenfeld was rooting about in her purse again, like a squirrel digging for nuts. He evidently found the emergency candy bar she always carried because she heard the tear of paper and the sounds of him chowing down. Creep.

  Then she heard something else…just the tiniest inkling of a sound…and immediately started talking to cover what she prayed were stealthy footsteps approaching the door.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said in a loud, desperate voice.

  “And you think I give a fig?” Birkenfeld actually snorted out a laugh. “In about two minutes it won’t matter what you have to do.”

  “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”

  “It’s not that difficult, you know. Taking a life.”

  Oh, God. Carrie swallowed and forced herself to keep him talking. “You’ve already killed someone?”

  “It won’t go as easy for you as it did for Nathan Beldon,” he said, answering her question without actually addressing it. “Sadly, sweet Carrie, I’m fresh out of pharmaceuticals so I can’t just give you a little injection and send you off to never-never land. No, it’s going to be a little messier for you. Unfortunately, that makes it messier for me, too.”

  “It…doesn’t have to be this way, you know,” she said, swallowing back her terror. “We have money. Much more than a half a million dollars. My brother is loaded. And I’ve got a trust fund that will make your stolen money look like loose change.”

  “I didn’t steal that money,” he shouted, infuriated suddenly. “I earned it…not legally, of course. Certainly not ethically, but finding babies for willing buyers takes a certain amount of finesse and skill.”

  “I repeat,” she said, swallowing back bile, “you can get much more in ransom from my brother if you will actually let me go.”

  She heard the unmistakable sound of an ammunition clip sliding home.

  “I’m really a little sorry about this,” he said, and she heard him walk toward her, his breathing heavy. “But…what must be done, must be—”

  A loud crash split the air like a freight train. The unmistakable crack and snap of wood shattering…like a table breaking followed, then the thudding grunt of fist hitting flesh. A shot rang out.

  Carrie screamed and pulled herself into a tight little ball, shielding her head with her hands, not knowing what might come flying at her—knowing only that she and Birkenfeld were no longer alone and if there was a God, it was the cavalry who had arrived just in the nick of time.

  She didn’t know how much time passed as a struggle raged around her. Something hit her arm, and she curled tighter into herself, her heart beating so loud it drowned out any other sound.

  Her world was reduced to a tight knot of fear…when a pair of strong hands cupped her shoulders. She flinched and tried to skitter away.

  “Baby…it’s okay. It’s Ry. I’ve got you.”

  Gentle hands worked at the knot on the blindfold then pulled it away from her face with tender care.

  It was dark, both inside and outside the room that appeared to have once been a storage area of sorts. Her vision was blurry—from the pressure of the cloth, from tears of terror—but she finally put it all together and recognized the voice, recognized the scent and the strength of the man who pulled her carefully to her feet and into his arms.

  “Ry.” She threw her arms around his neck.

  “I know, baby. I know. It’s over. That son of a bitch is never going to get his hands on you again.”

  She clung to him, felt moisture wet her cheeks and Ry’s shirt where she pressed her face into his chest. From the corner of her eyes, she saw Birkenfeld in a crumpled heap by the door.

  “He…he wa-was going to sh-shoot me.”

  Ry’s strong arms folded tighter around her, pressed her face against his neck, holding her together while adrenaline kicked into high gear and she started shaking uncontrollably.

  “Not on my watch, sweet pea,” he murmured into the top of her head, but his voice was shaking, too, as he rocked her. “Not on my watch.”

  In the distance she heard sirens, then the squeal of tires…and the unmistakable sound of feet scrabbling over concrete.

  Ry looked over his shoulder, then abruptly let her go. She followed his gaze to see Birkenfeld had come around and was crawling toward the door that hung by a broken hinge.

  “You can’t run far enough fast enough,” Ry growled, grabbing him by the back of his shirt and hauling him to his feet.

  That’s when Birkenfeld proved he was not only crazy, he was stupid. He took a wild swing…it was all the invitation Ry needed to lay the hammer down.

  He cocked his arm back and punched him in the breadbasket. When Birkenfeld doubled over with an oophing groan, Ry followed with a hard uppercut to his jaw. Birkenfeld stumbled back against the wall with a whimper…and Ry went in for the kill.

  “That’s for touching her, you sick bastard.” He slammed his fist into his face. “And this is for hurting her.” Another head-snapping jab to his jaw. “And this is for scaring her.”

  Trav came racing into the room, took one look at Carrie and scooped her into his arms. Alex and Darin skidded in on his heels…and had the regrettable task of pulling Ry off Birkenfeld before he beat him to a bloody pulp.

  “Easy, big guy,” Alex said, holding Ry back by his left arm, while Darin got a death grip on his right.

  “Save something for the uniforms to haul to jail,” Darin suggested.

  Both men relaxed marginally when Ry seemed to realize he’d gone a little crazy himself.

  “I’m good,” he said, shaking free of their hold and wiping a swollen knuckle over his jaw. “I’m good,” he repeated and, forcing a deep breath, made himself back off just as Chief Vincente and his men arrived, guns drawn.

  “Nice y’all could make the party,” Ry said, settling himself down.

  “Yeah, well, we came as soon as you called to confirm you spotted this cretin’s car,” Alex said with a grin. “Besides…we wanted to give you time to play hero.”

  “You’re not going to be able to pin anything on me,” Birkenfeld whined from his slumped position on the floor. Through bruised and swollen eyes and bloody lips, he glared first at Ry then at Darin. “I’ll sue for assault and battery. I’ll be out of jail in twenty-four hours. And then we’ll see how you heroes feel.”

  “Can we say delusional, boys and girls?” Alex added with a grunt of disgust. “Get him out of here, Vincente.”

  “Why don’t I just help you boys out and get him into your cruiser?” Ry suggested to the two officers who had followed their police chief into the room.

  “Oh, I think your work is done here, Ry,” Alex observed. “I’ll do the honors. Besides, something—or someone—else needs your attention.”

  Darin hauled Birkenfeld roughly to his feet and shoved him in the general direction of the officers and the door. “Let’s go. Your fun is just beginning.”

  Ry turned back to Carrie, snuggled and shaking in Trav’s arms. Something inside him knotted, hardened and he wished with everything in him that he had one more shot at Birkenfeld.

  Bloodlust. He’d never known exactly what it had meant to feel it.

  He knew it now.

  He’d wanted Birkenfeld’s blood for what he’d done to Carrie. Still had a lingering taste for it as he walked across the room, wanting to take her back in his arms so badly, he shook with it.

  “Need to have a word with you, Evans.”

  Ry stopped at the sound of Wayne Vincente’s voice.

  Eyes on Carrie, he let out a resolved breath. “Sure. What do you need t
o know, Chief?”

  Vincente pulled out a notebook. “Why don’t you just start at the top and we’ll see how it goes from there.

  “Now, wait up there, son. I’ll have to interview Carrie, too,” Wayne added when Trav, sheltering Carrie under his arm, started walking her toward the door.

  “Tomorrow,” Ry and Trav said in unison, neither man willing to make her go through any more than she’d already been through today.

  “I’m taking her home,” Trav informed the chief, who recognized the bald determination in Trav’s eyes and finally gave a reluctant nod.

  “I’ll stop by in the morning then, Carrie, if that’s okay with you.”

  “That will be fine,” she said, gathering the courage Ry had been aching to see since he’d found her huddled and terrified on the floor.

  A long hour later, Stephanie opened Carrie’s door at Ry’s knock. He stood just inside the foyer for a long moment when he spotted Carrie on the sofa. She looked bruised, he thought, and for a suspended moment he considered charging right back out the door, finding Birkenfeld’s jail cell and finishing the job of rearranging the sick bastard’s face.

  For Carrie’s sake he settled himself, got his rage under control. For the next several moments all he could do was look at her.

  She was wrapped from head to toe in a soft pink robe. Her hair was wet—as though she’d just gotten out of the shower. Trav sat beside her like a ham-fisted mother hen. A man of decisiveness and confidence, Trav currently looked powerless and concerned and as if he’d rip the head off anyone who so much as breathed a word that might upset his baby sister.

  Only, she wasn’t a baby, Ry thought as his gaze roamed over the soft curves beneath her robe. She was a woman. A woman whose body he knew intimately. A woman who had been through more than any woman should have to endure.

  The hands she’d wrapped around a heavy pottery mug to warm them were no longer shaking, he noticed with a small measure of relief. And when she sipped, then lowered the mug, and a delicate and adorable chocolate-colored mustache lined her upper lip, something inside his chest melted like a sun-warmed ice flow.

  “How’s she doing?” he asked as Stephanie took his jacket and hung it on the oak-and-brass hall tree.

  “She’s tougher than she looks,” Steph said softly. “She was a little shocky when I got here, but she’s doing better now. Better than Trav, if you want to know the truth,” she added with a sympathetic smile.

  “He call you to come over?”

  “From his cell on their way home.”

  He squeezed her arm. “You’re a good friend.”

  “Not good enough, or I never would have let her leave the library with that creep.”

  “Hey, you can’t think that way. You couldn’t have known. Hell, none of us did.”

  She let out a deep breath. “And that’s the real scary part, isn’t? You just never know.”

  No, he agreed, you just never knew.

  He drew another settling breath as a vivid image of Carrie, bound and blindfolded and huddling on the floor like a child, flashed front and center. It was good, he decided, that he hadn’t been able to get to her before now. Now he was at least a little calmer. She needed calm from him, not the kind of fractured control he’d been working to get under wraps on the drive from the stockyard.

  He’d patiently answered all of Vincente’s questions, watched in grim silence as Alex and Darin had helped the two police officers “escort” a handcuffed Birkenfeld out of the building then deposit him “gently” into the back seat of the black-and-white. Birkenfeld had whined and complained and hurled threats about getting even with all of them. And all the while all Ry had wanted to do was get to Carrie.

  Now he was here. And now, he was finally able to take a good long look at the woman he loved to make sure she was all right.

  The woman he loved. Yeah. He loved her. He suspected he’d loved her for years—and he was angry as hell with himself that it took almost losing her to bring him to terms with the truth. Hopefully it wasn’t too late to convince her she loved him, too.

  Jaw set in determination, he walked into the living room. Her head came up when she heard his footsteps on the polished oak floor.

  “Hey, bear,” he said gently. Crouching down in front of her, he covered her knees with his hands.

  Her eyes were big and round and still just a little wild. But she smiled for him. Yes, it was forced, but it was a smile and it told him she was rallying…like she always rallied when life kicked her in the teeth and set her on her tail.

  “Hey, Rambo,” she said, and he let out a breath that had been backed up in his lungs since he’d found out Birkenfeld had abducted her. “Remind me to never make you mad, okay?”

  “Oh…you think I was mad back there?” He squeezed her thighs, smiled then found he had a hell of a time holding on to it when all he wanted to do was drag her into his arms and hold her. “Nah. I was just expressing an opinion.”

  She looked down at his hands, touched a finger to his scraped knuckles. “Thank you,” she whispered. Tears filled her eyes. She laughed shakily and blinked them back. “Sorry. I have definitely surpassed my quota in the waterworks department today.”

  His gaze sliced to Trav who was watching Ry with a hard-edged glare that could have meant anything from “I’d like to kill that bastard Birkenfeld” to “I hate to see her hurting like this” to “Get your bear paws off my sister, pal.”

  Ry didn’t care what Trav’s look meant. He kept his hands where they were…and his gaze fixed on Carrie’s face. “I want to talk to your sister, Trav. Alone.”

  He loved this woman. Cared about her the way he’d never cared about anyone else. And whether Trav liked it or not, whether it cost him their friendship, he was going to do everything in his power to convince Carrie she needed him in her life. Starting right now.

  “And what if I don’t want to leave her alone with you?”

  At the grim sound of Trav’s voice, Ry looked up and into a pair of brown eyes set with stubborn determination. He closed his eyes, let out a breath. So, they were going to do this the hard way.

  He stood—so did Trav. And, expressions hard, they faced off against each other.

  “What I have to say to Carrie is between the two of us.”

  Trav gave him a slant-eyed stare. “What could you possibly have to say to my sister that you couldn’t say in front of me?”

  Ry studied the face of the man he regarded as a brother. And knew he was going to miss him.

  “Okay…look. I never meant for this to happen but it has. I fought it. But I lost. So here it is. I love your sister, Trav. I love her.

  “So…if you want to have it out with me right here and now then I guess we’ll just have to have it out. You can whale on me all you want.” He held his arms out at his sides, his stance a study in supplication. “Have at it. But I won’t hit you back. You can beat me into the ground if you think I deserve it—and I probably do. Lord knows I’ve beat myself up about it often enough—but I’m going to have Carrie for my own, one way or another, with or without your approval.”

  Speech ended, he watched Trav’s face and braced for the first blow.

  “Well,” Trav finally said, then surprised the hell out of Ry when he broke into a broad grin. “It’s about damn time you slow-witted lug nut. I’ve been waiting for years for you to come to your senses and realize you love her.”

  Ry blinked, dumfounded. “Say what?”

  “Take her,” Trav said with a laugh. “With my blessings. She’s yours. Now maybe the two of you will lose those lost-puppy looks every time you see each other, and get on with your lives.”

  Trav stuck out his hand. After a moment’s hesitation while Trav’s reaction set in, Ry took it. Shook it hard, then covered it with his other hand and shook some more.

  “You knew?” he asked, incredulous.

  Trav snorted then rolled his eyes at Steph who was smiling—a bit tearfully—in the background. “Yeah. The whole
damn town knew…everyone, that is, except you two.”

  Grinning from ear to ear with relief and elation, Ry turned to Carrie.

  His smile fell like a hot air balloon with a burst seam.

  Oh-oh. She was mad. Nest-of-hornets mad.

  “Carrie?” he asked, reaching for her as she rose from the sofa.

  She batted his hand away. “You’re going to have me?” she spit out. “Have me?”

  “Oh, bear. Sweetheart. That’s not—”

  “And you.” She ignored Ry and rounded on her brother. “You’re giving me to him? You give me to him and then shake on the deal like…like I’m some piece of property you can pass around as you see fit?”

  She shoved her fists deep into the pockets of her pink robe—then just as fast, jerked them out again and crossed them over her breasts. “Well, you can both go straight to the devil. Nobody gives me to anybody. And nobody has me unless I want to be had.

  “Go away. Both of you. Before I decide to express my opinion of your XY-chromosomes mentality and your incurable macho thought processes by breaking a couple very expensive vases over your very thick, very dense skulls.”

  “Whoa-ho,” Trav said, looking marginally chastised and wholly entertained. “Looks like you’re in for a knock-down, drag-out—”

  “Save it,” Ryan interrupted, his grin turning into a steely glare. “You heard the lady. She wants you to leave.”

  “I want you both to leave,” Carrie reminded him, and with only a little imagination Ry could picture smoke rolling out of her ears.

  “Steph,” Ry said politely, “could I bother you to make sure Trav finds the door?”

  Stephanie threw Carrie an apologetic smile then snagged Trav’s arm. “Come on, Travis. I think they want to be alone. Well…at least one of them does.”

  “Bye, Steph. Get lost, Whelan,” Ry said, following them to the door and shoving Trav’s coat into his chest.

  “My money’s on you, bud,” Trav managed to say just as Ry shut the door on Trav’s stupid grin and Steph’s whispered wish for good luck.

  He stared at the closed door for a moment, gathering his thoughts. He was going to need luck. Lots of it.