Nightfall

by Denise A. Agnew

  “When I told him what you needed, he volunteered. It’s not company business, so I’d never order him to do it.”

  “That’s great. I’ll definitely pay him for the work.”

  He shook his head. “I doubt he’ll take money for it.”

  “But the parts and labor…I mean doesn’t that cost him?”

  “Sometimes, but a lot of the time he’s good at building things himself, and if he doesn’t he’s excellent at finding people who owe him. So he gets things for free sometimes.”

  She grinned as they left through the back door. “Like day-old donuts.”

  He returned her smile. “Yep.”

  They piled into the SUV and made their way toward her house. Again they crept along at a slow pace in consideration of slick roads.

  Just outside of town, on the road that entered her neighborhood and then segued onto her road, he said, “Son of a bitch.”

  “What?”

  “Someone is tailing us.”

  Fear jolted her, and it felt like every muscle in her body tightened. Her breath shortened. She swung around in the seat and peered through the window. “That black SUV? It looks a lot like this one. He’s not really that close. How can you tell it’s a tail?”

  “Part intuition and he’s been following us for a hell of a long way.”

  She didn’t doubt Alexander’s ability to gauge a threat. “What do we do?”

  “Get outta this neighborhood and back to Sentry. Do you recognize that SUV? Is it Dominic’s?”

  “I don’t know what he drives. I didn’t see it when he was here at the bakery or when he went to my house. Damn.”

  A little muscle in his jaw twitched. “It’s okay.” He turned on the radio and the hands free system awakened. “My cell phone…take it and look up Sentry Security and dial Adam’s number.”

  She quickly found Adam’s number and hoped the cell service worked well right now; she could guarantee it was spotty on occasion and now wasn’t the time for that to happen.

  When Adam answered his voice came over the radio, and Alexander gave him the situation. Before he could tell them exactly where they were at, the cell phone died.

  “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” she said, snatching the phone and trying to redial.

  “It’s okay, the vehicle has backed off a bit. Maybe I overreacted. Try Adam again, though. It’s better to be safe.”

  This time when they connected Adam couldn’t hear them.

  “If you can hear me,” Adam said loudly, “Ian just picked up a call from Dominic Cantrelli. He was frantic. He just woke up in the hospital. Dominic owes some money to some drug dealers for his painkiller fix—”

  The call cut out.

  “Damn it,” Alexander muttered under his breath. “Adam? Adam?”

  Relief eased over her body. “Well, that’s good news, isn’t it? I mean, not that Dominic was beat up, but we know he isn’t following—”

  Out of the corner of her eye, coming from the right, there was a blur. At the last minute Alexander jerked the wheel to the left, but it was too late. A huge explosion of sound mixed with a jolt so powerful she thought her head might be jerked from her body. In the chaos of her mind she knew something had hit them on the passenger side. Pain didn’t register, but the utter chaos of trauma battered her from all sides. Then the lights went out.

  * * * *

  Cold. So damned cold.

  Alexander knew he hadn’t been this cold in ages. His mind registered the screaming winds around his vehicle. Disoriented, he couldn’t seem to get his thoughts clear. Then things started to register.

  Get up. Get up.

  Patty.

  Fear slammed him as hard as whatever had shoved them off the road. He pried open his eyes and came face to face with a white blur he realized belonged to the air bags front and side. He struggled with them, pushing until he pried it away from his face. He saw snow-covered land through a cracked windshield. The SUV tilted into a ditch, the passenger door open. Part of the right fender looked crushed. Airbags had deployed on the passenger side and there was blood on them. Not a lot of but Jesus, blood. Patty was gone. Shit, shit, shit. What the hell had happened to her and how long had he been out? He pushed open his door and fell into the ditch and straight into a snow pile. The cold stung his hands and served to fully waken his scrambled senses. Just as he shoved to his feet, he looked up and saw a black SUV making its way toward his area. He blinked and recognized it as one of the Sentry Security vehicles.

  He stumbled out of the ditch and toward them just as the truck came to a stop near his disabled vehicle. Adam, Ian and Mark piled out in full gear, looking ready for a firefight. The men rushed toward him.

  “Are you all right?” Adam and Ian’s voices chimed in at the same time.

  Mark grabbed Alexander’s arm when he swayed slightly on his feet.

  “Don’t know how long I’ve been out, but we’ve got to find Patty. Someone shoved us off the road and they must have taken her,” Alexander said as he started toward the other SUV.

  “It’s gotta be the drug dealers,” Mark said.

  “As I was trying to tell you when we got cut off, Patty’s ex-husband called from the hospital. While he was getting beat up by the drug dealers last night they said they were going after Patty. Dominic hid money in Patty’s house years ago she doesn’t even know about and he confessed to the goons that it was in the house.”

  “Oh, God,” Alexander said, his body going cold with fear. Anger kicked in a second later. “To the house. Now!”

  They piled into the car with Adam at the helm and sped off down the road.

  * * * *

  Alexander might be dead.

  As Patty sat in the dining room chair in her kitchen with three men surrounding her, that terrifying thought rang through her head and threatened to ruin her ability to function.

  If he was dead…no, she couldn’t think that. Refused. Alexander was the toughest man she knew. He’d been in special forces for God’s sake. At the crash, when she’d looked over at Alexander, his face had been tilted away from her, his arms limp and the airbag obscuring anything else. She’d called his name and gotten no response.

  Though she wasn’t tied to the chair, the men staring at her pinned her in place. Worry, cold, and fear bombarded her. Her body felt bruised, and the airbag had smacked her in the nose. She’d realized she had a bloody nose when one of her captors had grabbed a tissue from the box on her kitchen table and shoved it at her. Her nose was sore as hell, but she doubted it was broken. She’d tossed the tissue on the kitchen counter and tried to steady her erratic breathing. For a few seconds an overwhelming despair threatened. What did a bloody nose matter if Alexander was dead or dying? He could freeze to death even if he wasn’t severely injured.

  After they’d crashed into the ditch, she’d awakened to these men dragging her out of the SUV. Disoriented, she’d thought for a moment they were trying to help. When they half carried, half dragged her to their enormous truck she realized that wasn’t what they had in mind. One of them, a big man with a bullish face, had poked a gun in her face and threatened to shoot Alexander if she didn’t cooperate. They’d ignored her questions and kept mum as they drove to her home. They’d forced her to open the front door and here they were, at a dangerous stalemate. Brute man, who the others called Phil, stood in front of her. Matt, a skinny man with shaggy blond hair stood to her left. Tito, a black-haired man with a cadaver-like face and dark-as-midnight eyes stood to her right. All three men looked somewhere in their thirties, rode hard, and put up wet from life and maybe drug use.

  “Tell us where your husband kept the money,” Tito said.

  When they’d first asked this question she thought they meant her own personal money. Yet her purse was still in the Sentry Security SUV.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I told you this before.” She stiffened her spine and put on a stoic face. “I’ve been divorced from Dominic for years. I don’t know anythi
ng about money in this house.”

  “He owes us.” Phil squatted in front of her. “And he’s going to pay. Or you are.”

  Matt sneered. “Someone’s paying. One way or the other.”

  Her mind raced. She tried to think of where Dominic could have stored money years ago. “Try the attic. I don’t have a basement. Look, you can open any drawers you want. Look everywhere, I don’t care. If you find money, take it and leave. I’m not trying to protect Dominic. We’re divorced.”

  She’d weather a destroyed house as long as she could get them to leave.

  Phil shifted so his weapon hung loosely in his hand. “We don’t have any quarrel with you as long as you ain’t hiding anything. So tell us where the money is and we’ll let you go.”

  She took a breath and let it out slowly, trying to steady her nerves. “Search the house.”

  “I say we just cap her,” Tito said.

  A pause from the others was enough to make her blood turn to solid ice, and she couldn’t repress a shiver as dread made her stomach roll with nausea.

  “Fuck that.” Phil said as he rose to his full height. “We don’t off women.”

  “Always a first time.” Tito sounded pissed.

  “I think she’s telling the truth,” Matt said suddenly, his voice softer than the others. “She looks too scared to be lying.”

  She’d try anything to distract them. If Alexander was alive, he’d come for her. “There’s beer in the fridge. Some leftover from a party some time back. Help yourself.”

  Matt’s eyes lit up. “Yeah? Sounds good.”

  “We ain’t got time for that,” Tito said.

  Matt moved to the refrigerator and pulled out three bottles of beer, then he placed another on the table.

  “You want one?” Matt asked her.

  “No, thank you.”

  “She’s trying to get us drunk,” Tito said.

  “With one beer?” Matt said. “That’s moronic.”

  Come on, guys. Stay distracted.

  Matt and Phil opened beers, but Tito ignored the beer. While Matt and Phil chugged down the cold bottles, Tito pouted, his hard face turning gloomier.

  “I don’t care about any money,” she said. “I don’t want Dominic’s money. So find it, take it, and leave.”

  All three men looked at her a moment, as if they might half believe her.

  “Start looking around the house.” Phil glared down at her as he put his mostly empty bottle on the table. “Stay put. Try and run, and I don’t think I can keep Tito here from putting a bullet in you.”

  As the men broke off to go into different rooms, she stayed in the chair. Her nose hurt, her body throbbed from what seemed a hundred different bruises. Her mind whirled with escape plans, none of which seemed survivable. These men were stronger than her, and three against one also put her odds at failure very high. With Tito trashing the living room right now there was a big chance she wouldn’t make it past him to the front door. The back door wasn’t that far away, but…no. It was too risky. And even if she made it, it was freezing outside. She’d die of exposure. She just hoped to hell they’d find this money and leave. She swallowed hard, her mouth dry, her throat so tight she felt as if she could choke.

  A movement or perhaps a shadow at the front window caught her attention and she stared hard at the half-closed drapes. She wished she’d left them completely open. The men flipped lights on around the house as they searched; cloudy skies kept the day gloomy and the older house cloaked in shadows.

  Phil smashed something in the living room and she winced.

  Fear simmered beneath the surface, threatening to derail clear thinking. She tried one deep breath and then another. At least she wasn’t tied to the chair. Minutes passed as they pillaged, and she struggled to form an escape plan. Maybe Alexander wasn’t coming because he couldn’t, and the thought ripped her to shreds.

  After a half hour of wrecking the house, the men gathered in the front room.

  “What the hell are we gonna do?” Matt asked. “The money isn’t here.”

  “Cut our losses and get out,” Tito said, throwing a glare her way as he gripped the front door knob. “If we don’t kill her, I say we leave. Someone’s going to find that wreck.”

  Phil also looked at her, crossed the front window and stood there. He lifted his weapon and two shots rang out. She flinched, half expecting bullets to impact her. Instead Tito and Matt fell to the floor and lay still. Blood spilled over each of their chests, and she sat in total shock.

  Phil stood over them only for a moment, his expression stone cold. He turned to her, his eyes flat. No emotion. No heart. He’d said they didn’t kill women, but how did she know for certain? Tears prickled in her eyes. Her heart filled with dread.

  Alexander. Alexander, I love you.

  She wished he could hear her.

  Another movement at the front caught her attention. Wait. Someone had to be out there—

  Everything happened at once.

  The front door flew open and slammed against the wall.

  “Hands up! Get down, get down!” Men’s voices shouted.

  On instinct she threw herself out of the chair and onto the floor.

  Sounds of struggle came from the front room, but she couldn’t see what had happened. The back door also came open under a tremendous force. Before she could blink a body came at her.

  “Patty!” Alexander’s voice grabbed her attention as he raced to her side. He crouched by her, a big weapon slung over his shoulder. He cupped her face as she sat straight up. Fear showed clearly in his eyes. “Are you hurt?”

  She heard Phil’s protests, his shouts filled with expletives.

  “Patty? Sweetheart, talk to me.” Alexander brushed her hair away from her face. “Fuck, you’ve got a black eye and your nose is cut. I swear to God if they’ve—”

  “No. I’m…” Relief flooded her as it came together. She was safe. “You’re here. You’re alive.”

  “Of course.” He wiped one hand over his face.

  He helped her stand. Adam came into the kitchen area. “We’ve got him secured. Looks like police are arriving out front.”

  “Right.” Alexander’s clipped voice offered nothing else, and Adam left the kitchen.

  She didn’t speak, body still aching, throat so tight she knew if she spoke one word she’d break like glass.

  Alexander drew her into his arms, and she sank into his warm, protective embrace with a relief so profound she thought her legs would give out.

  “I thought you were dead,” she finally managed to say, trembling.

  He kissed her forehead, then tilted her chin up. He looked deep into her eyes. “It scared the shit out of me when I came to and you were gone. If anything had happened to you…” She saw his throat work as he swallowed.

  She clutched at his shoulders, knowing she had to say the words. But before she could confess her love, he spoke first.

  “Marry me,” he said, his voice raw with emotion.

  Her eyes widened, and those tears she’d been trying to hold back spilled over.

  “Oh, Jesus.” He kissed her forehead again, then found her lips for a sweet kiss. “I’m sorry…this is a shitty time to ask, but if I’d lost you…” He shook his head, and a sheen of tears filled his eyes as well. “I love you so damned much.”

  “Yes.” She had no doubt. None. “Yes, I’ll marry you. I love you, too.” He cracked a smile, and she suddenly found a strength and happiness she wouldn’t have expected in a moment like this. “Get me out of here, General.”

  * * * *

  Monday Evening

  Patty looked out of Alexander’s apartment window, enjoying the warmth of her fleece robe and flannel pajamas. A brand-new blizzard had barreled into town this morning, and with it Buckleport had slowed to a crawl. Alexander, Adam, Ian, and Mark had worked their butts off already today; Alexander had been out with them and had called her once that day with promises to be back as soon as possible.

&nb
sp; She’d taken the last couple of days since her ordeal to relax and regain her equilibrium. Mally, Penny, and Juliet had pampered her in numerous ways, drawing her into their close-knit group in a way she’d never expected. Once they’d learned Alexander and Patty would marry, they’d vowed to give them the best wedding Buckleport had ever seen.

  Patty had humored them, even thought it would be nice to have a big bash. But she would have married Alexander today in the courthouse if she could have. Without frills. Without fanfare. In this world real love didn’t hesitate. Or it might never be fulfilled at all.

  Long Valley challenges would keep coming. Things wouldn’t return to the way they were before the disaster for many years, if not decades. She’d accepted that this world, for her, would be rougher in some ways than it had ever been. In others, it had improved vastly now that she was with Alexander. She had her bakery, and although she planned to keep it closed while the weather raged, she would continue to offer people homemade treats to give them a touch of comfort. Her old house? Well, she was selling that if she could. Dominic had buried the money in a safe in the backyard one year while she’d been out of town and before they divorced. Dominic faced numerous drug charges and likely would have a lengthy stay in prison.

  The investigation into Dominic and his drug dealing friends had taken the better part of two days. Alexander had begged her to see a doctor, and she’d agreed only after he’d submitted to an exam as well. She’d discovered her nose wasn’t broken and she’d suffered no other injuries other than the black eye. Alexander was robust as ever. They’d both fallen into bed the last two nights, sore and exhausted. They hadn’t even made love.

  The apartment door opened and Alexander walked inside. He locked the door.

  “Hey,” he said in that delectably sexy rumble she loved so much.

  His silvery hair was tossed this way and that and he looked tired, but he was also the most gorgeous thing she’d ever seen. She went to him and he gathered her in a big hug. Their mouths met in a sultry kiss that set her on fire instantly.

  She pulled back. “Well, hello. Rough day?”