Gabe yanked his phone from his pocket and tossed it to Sam as he climbed back behind the wheel. “Call Bryan.”
“We can’t wait for the police,” Sam said, but he was dialing as he said it.
“I know. Just call anyway.”
Nodding hard, Sam continued hitting numbers. Then he pointed. “It’s around the next bend. Stop here. We’ll cut through the woods.”
“Okay.” Gabe pulled over and got out. “You stay here. Wait for the cops. I’ll go get her.”
“Yeah, right.” Sam was out of the car as soon as it came to a halt, speaking rapidly into the phone as he ran. “Hunting cabin off Tower Road. Ambrose Peck has my mom and a gun. Hurry!” Then he pocketed the phone and ran ahead of Gabe into the woods.
“We’ve got to save my mom, Gabe. I know she’s done some things she maybe shouldn’t have, but…” His voice tightened, as if his throat were closing up. “I love her.”
“So do I,” Gabe said, and then he realized he’d said it and blinked in stunned shock. “Hell, so do I.”
“Shh. There’s the cabin.”
Sam parted some branches, and they looked toward the cabin. Light was flickering through the open windows, and everything was quiet.
“Livvy and I met in the hospital when we were both very sick,” Ambrose was saying as he paced. “It was love at first sight.”
Carrie had shaken off her stupor to find herself bound to a rickety chair with what felt like duct tape holding her wrists and ankles. But she hadn’t been gagged, so to buy herself some time, she’d started talking, asking Ambrose about why he thought he was Sam’s father.
“Was it a mental hospital?” she asked.
He shot her a hateful look. “I am not insane. And she was only there for a suicide attempt. Signed herself in to keep herself alive.”
“This was the one in Galveston?” she asked.
“How do you know that?” he demanded. “You knew her, didn’t you? Sam is her son, isn’t he?”
“Sam is my son,” she said. “And even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be yours. Not if your only contact with Livvy was in that hospital. Because that was well over a year before he was born.”
“It was not!”
“Yeah, it was. Think about it, Ambrose. Think really hard.”
“You’re wrong. He’s mine. I know he is.”
“He’s not yours, Ambrose. He’s mine. Mine…and Gabe’s.”
He shot her an expression that was nothing short of stunned. Good. It was keeping him distracted. “I was under the impression you and Gabe had only just met.”
“That’s what we wanted people to think. Until I was ready to tell Sam, I mean.”
He lowered his head and was silent for a long moment. And then he lifted it again, his eyes ablaze with something she hadn’t seen in them before. “I know what you’re trying to do. Keep me here until the help my son has gone for arrives. But it’s not going to work.”
“I was only trying to clarify the situation for you, Ambrose. You’re on a path of destruction—destruction of everyone you encounter, and of yourself, in the end—all in search of a child that cannot possibly be yours.”
He blinked at her. “Even if that were true, and it’s not, but even if it were, I have to kill you. You know that, right?”
She could hardly believe he’d looked right into her eyes and told her he was going to kill her. It was the most frightening thing she had ever experienced, because she could tell he meant it.
“You don’t have to kill me. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. You have a choice, Ambrose.”
“You know who I am.”
“So do the police, by now. Killing me just gives them more to charge you with. Look, why don’t you run right now? Go to Mexico or South America or somewhere without an extradition policy and—”
He brought the gun up, pointed it at her head, thumbed back the hammer. “I’m sorry, Carrie. I actually kind of liked you.”
“Ambrose, this doesn’t make any sense.”
“My son chose you over me. It makes perfect sense. Goodbye, Carrie.”
The door crashed open. Ambrose turned involuntarily in that direction even as the gun went off, and Carrie saw Gabe jerk backward, then catch himself and surge forward again. He tackled Ambrose, and the gun went flying. As the two men wrestled on the floor, Sam ran in, moving quickly to her side, and freeing her hands and feet.
She stood up and pushed him toward the door. “Get out. Get out now!”
Then she let go of him, her eyes glued to the men still fighting on the floor. As they rolled briefly apart, she saw the spreading red stain on Gabe’s shirt, and her heart turned into a machine that pumped raw fury through her veins.
Ambrose scrambled for the gun, and Carrie heard a roar like that of an angry lioness, then realized she was the one who’d made the sound. She lunged, kicking the gun aside, then kicked again, this time connecting with the side of Ambrose’s head.
He rolled away, then pushed himself up onto hands and knees, but she strode after him, delivering a kick to his belly that lifted him off the floor, and when he landed facedown and tried to push himself up again, she grabbed the chair that had held her and swung it over her head and down onto his. It splintered to bits.
He stayed down that time.
She picked up the gun and hurled it out through the open door, then realized Sam was still there. “Get help, baby,” she told him. “Get help for Gabe.”
“It’s already on the way, Mom.”
Nodding, she dropped to her knees beside Gabe, tearing open his shirt and looking at the pulsing wound in his abdomen. She ripped a section off the shirt, then tore it into two pieces, which she wadded up before pressing one to the entry wound in his abdomen and the other to the exit wound in his back.
Gabe reached up to take her bloody hand. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” She managed to drag her gaze from the wound to meet his eyes. Sam was kneeling beside them, too. He’d found the shirt he’d been using as a pillow earlier, and put it underneath Gabe’s feet, to elevate them and prevent him from going into shock. Trying not to cry, Carrie asked Gabe, “Why did you go and get yourself shot like that?”
“Seemed like the thing to do at the time.”
“That’s so much bull,” Sam said. “It’s because he loves you, Mom. He said so on the way here.”
She blinked rapidly, her gaze jumping from Sam’s to Gabe’s again. “You did? You said that?”
But his eyes had fallen closed just as sirens started screaming their way.
Sam leaned close and spoke near Gabe’s ear. “I know you’re my dad. So you better be okay, Gabe. You’ve got a lot of time to make up for.”
Carrie saw Gabe’s eyes twitch at those words and decided to believe he had heard them. And that they would help.
20
“Ambrose Peck did spend some time with Livvy Dupree in that psych center in Galveston,” Bryan explained. “Fixated on her, even though he only knew her for a week or less. His scrambled brain ignored the fact that a pregnancy takes nine months, not eighteen. When he saw the headlines, he believed they were placed there to get his attention by some higher power. And the rest of the tale spun out in his mixed-up mind from there. Somehow he got one thing right when he finally fixated on Sam as Livvy’s son.”
“Where is Ambrose now?” Carrie asked.
“He’s been transferred to a psych ward for the time being. He’s unfit to stand trial the way things stand. He’s admitted to killing Kyle Becker, though he insists the murder wasn’t intentional. He also admits to killing Nate Kelly, and that one he said was deliberate.”
Carrie stood in her doorway, dressed to the nines and eagerly anticipating a special night out. But Bryan’s visit was welcome, all the same. “He really is ill. And Kyle’s still dead. I just—there’s just no sense to be made of any of this, is there, Bryan?”
“I can’t see any. But at least it’s over. Truly over, this time. And the ki
ds of this town are safe again.”
“Thanks for the news, Bryan. I appreciate you keeping us posted.”
“You’re welcome.”
He headed back to his car and pulled away just as the VW Bus arrived. Gabe got out, favoring his left side only a little. He was still sore but otherwise fully recovered from the bullet that had passed cleanly through him.
He stood beside the bus, smiling at Carrie, waiting.
She’d asked him a dozen times since that night how he felt about her. But he kept putting her off, telling her it had to wait, first until he got out of the hospital, then until he was fully healed. And then until this special night. It had been two weeks. Two grueling weeks.
But he loved her. She had taken Gabe’s own philosophy to heart and simply decided to believe that he loved her. And tonight, she thought, he was going to tell her so.
He’d had a lot to deal with, she knew that. His mother had been transferred to a hospice center in the Hamptons, very high-end. He hadn’t made peace with the life she’d forced on him, but he wasn’t moping about it, either. It was in the past, he said. And maybe before she died they would even become close again. Gabe was certainly making an effort.
Carrie descended the stairs and hurried toward the bus, where Gabe waited, holding her door.
“You look gorgeous, as always.” His eyes said he meant it.
“Thank you. Are you ready to tell me yet what this is all about?”
“Yeah. I’m taking you to meet the rest of my family.”
She frowned at him, both puzzled and excited. “Am I overdressed?” she asked, looking down at the little black sequined dress, the high heels, the shoulder wrap.
“You’re beautiful and perfect. And your chariot awaits.” He indicated the door, and she got in, trying to stop smiling so much.
An hour later Carrie sat in the reserved box seat beside Gabe, the man she adored but hadn’t yet told so. When they’d arrived at the venue, the marquee out front had announced that Sammy Gold was playing to a sold-out crowd for one night only.
“I had no idea,” she’d told Gabe breathlessly, leaning close. “And these seats!”
“It was the least he could do for the son he never knew he had,” Gabe said. “Relax, enjoy.”
“I can’t believe you talked to him and didn’t tell me about it.”
“I’ve actually been talking to him quite a bit. He helped me plan this night, as a matter of fact. But I didn’t want to ruin the surprise, so I had to keep it to myself. And it wasn’t easy, keeping it quiet that he was going to be playing only two hours from home.” Gabe looked into her eyes. “It was killing me not to share it all with you, but I’ll fill you in. Later, though.”
She blinked, because that meant something. Didn’t it? That he wanted to share what was happening between him and his long-lost father with her?
No time to think. The lights went down, the spotlight came up, and the crowd roared as Sammy Gold took to the stage. He wore black jeans and a Western shirt with rhinestone stars on the shoulders, and he began playing one of his most beloved tunes. It was hard to hear above the wild applause, but eventually the noise died down and Carrie was able to enjoy her favorite artist playing one of her favorite songs.
When he finished, he took the microphone from its stand and looked out over the crowd, his face a road map of the life he’d lived. He held up his hands for silence and said, “This next number is a very special one, a brand-new song written by the son I never knew I had—and since it’s gonna be hittin’ the tabloids next week, I may as well break the news myself right here and now. It turns out that I am the proud father of the award-winning songwriter Mr. Gabriel Cain. Stand up, Gabe, so the folks can take a gander at you.”
There was a gasp, a lot of muttering, a smattering of applause that grew louder, as Gabe rose to his feet and the spotlight picked him out. He gave a shy wave, then sat back down.
“And here to help me perform it,” Sammy Gold went on, “is my grandson, Sam Overton.”
“Sam?” Carrie whispered, with a quick look at Gabe.
He nodded, smiled. “Just watch.”
She did, returning her attention to the stage as her Sammy stepped out from behind the curtains and shyly took up a position beside his grandfather.
“Say hello to the audience, Sam,” the living legend said.
Sam gave a confident wave and leaned closer to the microphone before him. “I’m pretty much a classic rock guy, but I guess I’ll have to learn to adjust. Turns out, country music runs in the family.”
Laughter broke out, and then Sam the elder struck the opening chords of a song and Sam the younger joined in.
“You are the woman
I’ve waited my whole life to find.
You’re the one who makes me want to leave
My wanderin’ ways behind.
You’re the one who’s had my heart,
Holdin’ it for me to claim
And now I’m here, to take it back,
If you’ll just take my name.
Carrie, sweet Carrie
You’re the girl I want to marry
Damn far-sight from ordinary
Won’t you say you’ll be my wife?
Carrie, marry me.”
As the final chord echoed throughout the arena, Sammy Gold pointed at the spotlight and led it with his forefinger until it fell on Carrie, sitting dumb-struck in her seat in the balcony.
Grinning, the living legend boomed, “In case you didn’t get it, little lady, that was a proposal. Uh, from my son, that is. What do you say?”
She turned to stare at Gabe in shock, even as he dropped from his chair and down onto one knee in front of her. It was a moment before she could tear her tear-filled eyes from his long enough to realize there was a ring in his hand. The audience had fallen stone silent.
“You wrote that song…for me?”
“I did.”
“You really did say you loved me that night, in the woods, didn’t you?” she whispered.
“I did. And I’ll say it again and again. I love you, Carrie. You’re the only woman in the universe I would have wanted raising my son—our son—all this time. I’ll die being grateful for that—and for that alone, if you say no. But I’m hoping you’ll say yes and give me even more to be grateful for. Say you’ll marry me, please?”
Tears streaming now, she smiled through them and managed to blurt the words, “Yes, Gabe. Yes, I’ll marry you.”
The crowd roared, every single member of the audience rising to their feet as the thunderous applause grew louder.
“Well, now,” Sammy Gold drawled. “I guess I just got me a little more family to love.” He hit the strings again and launched into a happy song as Gabe rose and folded Carrie into his arms for the kiss to end all kisses.
Right then and there, Carrie decided to believe that she would always be this happy. And she was right.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6541-1
KISS ME, KILL ME
Copyright © 2010 by Margaret Benson.
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