by Helen Brenna
Billy leaned back, keeping his hands on the bar.
“Now that we understand each other.” Garrett holstered his gun. “You get a valid warrant, Detective Samson, and then you can see Erica’s apartment. Until then, you get off my island. Now.”
Dan stood. “Want some help there, Garrett?”
“Making sure that asshole gets on a boat?” Bob added.
“If you boys are offering, I won’t turn you down.”
“We’re right behind you.” Doc had already made it to the other side of the bar.
Never taking his eyes off Billy, Garrett got on his radio and told his dispatch to arrange for a water taxi. Then he stood and, keeping his distance, signaled for the door. “Time to go.”
Slowly, Billy stood and finished his beer, flipped a five spot onto the counter and focused in on Erica. “This isn’t over, sis. I’ll be back.”
WHATEVER YOU DO, TAKE care of Jason.
Marie had left a lot of unanswered questions in the wake of her disappearance, but one thing had been clear; she believed Billy would hurt Jason. And since they’d been on Mirabelle, Jason had admitted to the abuse. There was no way Erica could stand back and let Billy take back his son. Garrett had no sooner escorted Billy out the door than Erica untied her apron and threw it onto the counter. “I’m sorry, Lynn, I have to leave.”
“No, you don’t,” Lynn said, clearly concerned.
“I don’t have time to explain now, but I’ll call you.”
“Erica.” Lynn grabbed her arms and held for a moment. “Whatever’s going on, you can count on us to help.”
Erica had already seen the proof, the way the islanders had stood up for her with Billy, but she couldn’t risk anything happening to Jason. “I know, Lynn. I can’t tell you how much it means to me, but this is…bad, and I don’t have time—”
“I know enough for now.”
“I’ve been lying. You don’t know anything.”
“I know Zach’s real name is Jason. I know you’re his aunt not his mother.”
Erica’s heart raced.
“I know you love Jason. I know that man who was in here is not a good person. As far as I’m concerned, the rest of the story can wait for another time. For right now, I trust you’ve had a good reason for doing what you’ve done. All you need to do is trust back.”
“I…I…can’t.”
Erica ran double-time all the way up the steps to their apartment. She couldn’t help Marie, wherever she was, but she was going to make damned sure that Billy Samson never hurt Jason again. She pushed open the door, ran down the hall to Jason’s room and shook him awake. “Jason?” She grabbed her nephew’s hand.
Groggy with sleep, he rolled over. “What?”
“We have to leave the island.”
“Why?”
“I can’t explain right now. We have to go.”
Jason’s eyes turned round with fear. “It’s my dad, isn’t it?”
Erica didn’t know how to tell him.
“You said he wouldn’t find us.”
“I did my best, Jason, I’m sorry.”
“But I like it here. I don’t want to leave.”
“We don’t have time to waste.” She pulled his suitcase from under the bed and opened it. “Pack what you can fit in there. Only the most important things.”
While Jason packed, Erica ran into her room, grabbed her bag from the closet and pulled out all the cash she’d been saving since she’d arrived on Mirabelle and the set of fake driver’s licenses she’d had made before leaving Chicago. When a knock sounded on the outside apartment door, she jumped and nearly fell over backward.
“Erica!”
She never thought she’d be so happy to hear Garrett’s gruff voice. She ran to the door and called out, “Is he gone?”
“I put him on a water taxi.”
She yanked open the door.
“Herman’s watching to make sure he doesn’t come back.”
“Oh, he’ll be back, all right.”
Garrett glanced down at the cash in her hands and the fake IDs. “You don’t need to run.”
“Yes, I do.” She ran down to her bedroom, pulled the suitcase out from under the bed and threw things inside.
“I’ve dealt with plenty of guys like him before,” Garrett said. “You’ll be okay.”
She glanced into Jason’s bedroom. “I wouldn’t put it past him to kill me,” she whispered.
“Erica,” he said, holding her shoulders. “I won’t let anything happen to you, or Jason. I will protect you. Both. The people of this island will not let that man get to either of you.”
Erica wanted to believe him. With everything inside her, she’d grown to care for the Mirabelle residents, especially the Duffys, but she couldn’t take this last step. “I have to go.”
“This is exactly what he wants you to do,” Garrett whispered. “You better believe he’ll be watching and waiting.”
“Then I won’t dock at Bayfield. I’ll go to Washburn.”
“That won’t make a difference. When he finds out you’re not on the island, and he will find out, he’ll track you down. And Jason. Then what?”
“I can take care of us.”
“You’ll do your damnedest, I know.” The respect and admiration in his eyes nearly broke her resolve. “You’ve eluded a cop for months. That’s some feat. Eventually he’ll find you. You’ll have to run again. And again. He won’t stop. You know it.”
Hadn’t she told her sister the exact same thing? And where had it gotten Marie? Hopefully, not dead.
“What kind of life is that for Jason? For you?” He reached for her arms and held her still. “You always looking over your shoulder and that boy always afraid. Is that what you want? For him?”
Erica had seen the fear in Jason’s eyes. That little boy deserved to laugh and have fun, deserved to grow up without fear. She had to be honest. She was frightened. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Make your last stand here on Mirabelle. With me. With other people who’ve grown to care about you. People who will protect you.”
“I can’t—”
“Erica, you saw the way Lynn, Doc, Bob and Dan stood up for you in the bar. No one on this island is going to let anything happen to you. I won’t let anything happen to you. Or Jason.” He made her look into his eyes. “Trust me.”
Trust him. What he was asking her to do defied her nature. She’d been alone so long, fending for herself, how was she supposed to step aside and let someone else take over? “I don’t know how.”
“I’m not asking you to stop fighting. I’m asking you to fight back. With help. You stay ready. You stay strong and you watch for him.”
Jason had to come first.
“Erica?” Her nephew stood in the doorway, looking frightened. “I don’t want to leave.”
“I know, kiddo.” She held out her arms and he ran into them, almost knocking her over.
Garrett looked down at them. “All you have to do is believe, trust, that I’ve got your back.”
Amazingly, she did. This stubborn, tough as nails, cynical cop was exactly like her. And he had a big gun. No one was going to get through him. “Okay.” One word had never been so hard to say. “What do you want us to do?”
“Finish packing your things. You can’t stay here.”
“You said we shouldn’t leave.”
“You have to leave this apartment. Not the island. I can’t protect you and Jason here. Can’t see the windows. Too close to shore.”
“Then where do we go?”
“With me. You’re staying with me.”
For a moment, Erica could only stare at him. “Jason, why don’t you go finish packing?” After he’d left the room, she turned toward Garrett, shaking her head. “The two of us sleeping under the same roof is not a good idea.”
“You think I’m not aware of the inherent complication in this plan?” He looked away. “We don’t have a choice.”
“You have a choice. Y
ou don’t want to do this. You don’t need—”
“Yes, I do.”
“Arlo and Lynn? Sarah and Brian? Hannah? They all have room. I can stay with one of them.”
“You want to put any of them at risk?” Garrett whispered. “Billy won’t be coming back during the day. He’ll come at night when Jason is sleeping. The only place I can ensure your safety is at my house.”
He was right, and she knew it.
“I won’t touch you, I swear,” he whispered.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure she could make the same promise.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
WITH ERICA AND GARRETT each holding one of Jason’s hands, Garrett led the way to his house. Once they’d left the relative security of the town center, Erica seemed spooked by every sound, a rustling in the bushes, the hooting of an owl, branches swaying in the wind. After the events of the evening, he couldn’t blame her, but he knew Samson wouldn’t be stupid enough to try anything tonight.
Finally, they reached his yard where golden yellow light streamed from his kitchen window. They’d taken no more than a few steps when a corner porch light flicked on.
Erica quickly pulled back.
“It’s okay. That’s a motion detector, and I left the house in a hurry, so the lights are still on.” He climbed the porch steps, unlocked his front door, and went in first to make sure they were alone. “Come on.” As they followed him inside, he tried not to watch Erica’s reaction. Normally, he wouldn’t have cared what anyone thought of his home, but he wanted her to like the place.
Jason looked around, and his gaze, albeit a bit of a sleepy one, landed on the big-screen TV in the family room. “Wow,” was all he said.
Erica stepped through the threshold and stopped.
With knotty pine walls and a dark plank floor, the place was rustic. Granite countertops and new appliances softened the cabin-y feel, but the brown leather furniture, a big-screen TV and lack of anything even remotely resembling a knickknack made it look, he supposed, like a man’s house.
“Things are a little messy.” Shutting the door and locking it, he went around picking up magazines and mail, a coffee cup here or a water glass there. “I wasn’t expecting visitors.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It is what it is.”
“Did you do the remodeling?”
He shook his head. “The people that owned it before me gutted the place and started from scratch. I’ve made all the furniture, though, except for the upholstered pieces.”
Jason yawned and headed for the couch.
“Jason, let’s get you back to bed,” Garrett said.
“Good idea,” Erica agreed. “You can watch TV in the morning, okay?”
He nodded.
“Where to?” Erica asked.
“Upstairs.” Garrett led the way through the kitchen and pointed toward the guest bedrooms in the back of the house. “I’ll be sleeping back there in case either of you need me.” Then they went up the wide staircase and into the larger of the two upstairs bedrooms. “You guys are in here.” He had a king-sized bed, so Erica would sleep more comfortably here than in the double bed in the other room. “I changed the sheets the other day, so they should be okay for the night anyway.”
He set their suitcases near the bed.
“This is your room.” Erica glanced around. “We can’t stay here.”
“This is where I want you.” In more ways than one, he thought ruefully.
“Why?”
“Because I need to be downstairs. I need to know what’s going on at the entry level.”
She turned toward him. “Garrett—”
“That’s an order.”
Jason had already climbed into the big bed and was snuggling in. No doubt he’d be down for the count within minutes.
“Do you need anything?”
“No,” she said, but she didn’t look pleased.
Too bad. “One more thing.” He pulled her into the hallway. “I didn’t want to say anything before, but you’re going to have to talk to the Chicago police.”
She looked away. “Billy will tell the detectives on the case where I am, won’t he?”
Garrett nodded. “You’ll have some explaining to do.”
“I don’t have anything to hide, but I won’t leave Jason alone and I won’t take him back to Chicago.”
“I’ll make a few calls. See if I can get the detective assigned to the case to come here.” He turned to go.
“Garrett?”
He stopped.
“I won’t tell them Jason is here. I won’t let them take him away from me. If you can’t deal with that, then maybe he and I had better leave.”
“I can deal with that. For now.”
She reached up and touched his cheek. “Thank you. For everything.”
He stepped back, putting distance between them. “It’s no more than I’d do for anyone else.” He knew that wasn’t true. Before he succumbed to the urge to touch her back in a lot of places much more intimate than her cheek, he hightailed it down the stairs.
ERICA AWOKE THE NEXT morning to the sounds of someone quietly moving around downstairs. After a momentary sense of panic passed, she calmed herself with the sounds of water running, cabinets softly closing, and the morning news on the TV. Garrett was awake, and she was in his bedroom, safe and sound, with the scent of his hair—a blend of some spicy shampoo and fresh-cut wood—on his pillow. Smiling, she buried her nose into its downy softness. Good thing Jason was still asleep or he’d giggle at her strange behavior.
Last night, the room had been quite dark, but this morning sunlight streamed through the wall of windows opposite the bed. After a few minutes, she sat up and glanced around the room. The furniture, unlike what she’d seen of the rest of the house, was a mishmash of unmatched pieces. The space was large, simple and uncluttered, and the décor was early male monotonous. The carpet, walls and furniture were varying shades of brown. Everything else, the drapes, comforter and sheets and lampshades were black. About the only personal item in the room was a photo on his dresser.
Moving quietly across the plush carpet, she picked up the frame. Four men, all of them broad-shouldered and built and dressed in black tuxes, stood surrounding a sturdy-looking woman in a pale blue dress, a corsage around her wrist. Garrett was the tallest and in the back. It must’ve been one of his brothers’ weddings and looked to have taken place relatively recently.
They looked comfortable with one another, as if the moment the photographer had finished taking the picture they’d all taken a swig out of the bottles of beer they were hiding behind their backs.
Setting the photo back down, she padded out into the hall and stood at the railing at the top of the stairs looking down below. Garrett was standing at the counter, dressed in a white shirt and boxers, looking down at a newspaper with a coffee mug in his hand. He looked so comfortable, so at home in this setting, a setting vaguely reminiscent of the rustic cottage she’d stayed in on Mirabelle as a little girl with her mother and sister, a rustic cottage that had hung forever in her memory as a dream house. Garrett’s house fit her grownup dream to a tee. With a contented sigh, she went down the stairs in her oversized T-shirt and boxers.
He glanced up, his hair mussed on one side and heavy stubble shading his cheeks. So this was what he looked like fresh from sleep. If only she could curl under his arm and wrap her arms around his waist. “Morning.” He yawned.
“Did you sleep all right?”
“Sure.”
“I’d feel better if you’d—”
“Nope. We talked about this last night.” He shook his head. “If that asshole finds out you’re here and decides to get cocky, he’s going to have to go through me to get to you and Jason.”
“Garrett—”
“That’s the way it’s going to be. I’d appreciate it if you’d make yourself at home while you’re here. I’m not much of a host.”
She wandered over to the cabinets, searching fo
r a cup. He reached behind her, opening the door to her left, his breath buffeting the top of her head. She closed her eyes and barely kept herself from leaning back against him. More than anything, she wanted his arms around her, reassuring, comforting. Arousing, if she were being completely honest with herself.
He held out a mug and stepped back. “Help yourself to whatever, whenever. Same goes for Jason.”
She poured some coffee. “Can I make you breakfast?”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I know…I just…” She hated being a burden, hated imposing or having to lean on anyone for anything, but she was scared for Jason and worried more than ever about Marie. Cooking would make her feel somewhat useful.
“It’s going to be all right.” He reached out and touched her shoulder.
She could almost feel the layers of her thick, tough hide falling away one flake at a time. This island, these people, Lynn, Arlo and Garrett reaching out, protecting, caring, helping for no reason.
“Every islander will know what’s going on by the end of the day. Just to be safe, I’ll be circulating a picture of Samson. He won’t be able to set foot anywhere on this island during the daytime hours without someone blowing the whistle. Mirabelle is the safest place for you and Jason.”
“I know.” The only safer place would be in his arms.
AFTER WATCHING ERICA COOK breakfast in nothing more than a T-shirt and a pair of boxers, Garrett had to get out of the house. The look of her hair, mussed up from sleep, and her clean, unmade-up face, had taken everything out of him. Today was his day off, so he’d gone out to his shop to work on the quickly progressing bed frame for his own bedroom.
After a few hours, he heard Erica call his name as he was dovetailing the end of a long board of cherrywood for the side panel of the frame. He shut off the machine and spun around to find Erica and Jason behind him.
“I have to go to work,” she said. “I’m taking Jason with me.”
Garrett glanced at her, knowing full well the safest place for the boy was right here, at his side, but he wasn’t sure he’d know what to do with the kid for an entire day. He sure as hell had gotten himself in over his head this time.
