Nighthawk & The Return of Luke McGuire

by Rachel Lee

  Unless he wasn’t coming back until morning. Or afternoon.

  She couldn’t allow herself to believe that or she would panic. And panic was going to get her hurt, raped or worse.

  With a tremendous effort she put as much amusement as she could into her voice and face and asked Snake, “Doesn’t anybody else talk but you?”

  “Shut up, bitch,” Fargo snarled.

  Amelia lifted a brow. “He does talk!”

  “I do the talking because I’m the head man,” Snake said, gesturing with his own knife.

  Amelia looked around at the others. “You guys elected him? Whew. Good thing you’re not old enough to vote yet.”

  Snake lunged toward her. It took everything she had not to recoil, not to break and run. He stopped short, looking at her with intense curiosity tinged with the slightest touch of wariness.

  “Why ain’t she scared, Snake?” one of the others asked. Amelia didn’t see who; she never took her eyes off of Snake.

  “I don’t know,” Snake muttered, clearly disconcerted.

  You’ve got brains….

  So use them, she told herself. “She ain’t scared,” she said sweetly, “because she has a silent alarm and the cops are roaring over here right now.”

  All of them jerked upright and looked toward the street. Amelia took full advantage. She darted back toward the hallway. The instant she was out of their sight she reached out and slammed the door to the spare bedroom shut as she passed it. She dodged sideways into the next room, the second bathroom, but left the door open. She hid in the dark behind it, holding her breath.

  She heard them shouting. Heard them running. And seconds later heard them pounding on the closed bedroom door. More shouting, epithets she’d never even heard before, and threats she was pretty sure were physically impossible. She held her breath, waiting for one of them to realize the door wasn’t even locked.

  That it stupidly took them so long gave her hope. It was a good minute before she heard one of the yell, “Hey, the door isn’t even locked!”

  The slam of the bedroom door back against the wall. Rapid footsteps as they charged in. The moment she was sure they were inside she gathered every bit of nerve she had—and borrowed more from Luke’s faith in her—and came out from her hiding place.

  With their voices ringing from the room, she grabbed the chair from the vanity in the bathroom.

  “Check the closet!”

  “Under the bed!”

  “Isn’t no window, she’s gotta be here!”

  She crossed the hall to the door they’d opened in one swift step. She reached in, praying they were too occupied to see her.

  She yanked the door shut.

  She jammed the chair under the knob.

  She held her breath as they realized what had happened and tried to shove the door open.

  The chair held. She let out her breath in a nearly sobbing gasp of relief.

  Don’t let down now. That chair won’t hold forever. Call the police.

  She whirled, headed for the cordless phone that she could take outside.

  She’d missed one. Snake and his knife were waiting for her.

  Her relief vanished. She tried desperately to pull herself back together. Her mind was racing as Snake started toward her, his knife at the ready. She saw his gaze flick to the blocked door. There was the slightest hitch in his steps as he pondered his options.

  “Think you’re clever, don’t you, bitch?” he snarled.

  “I know you’re a coward,” Amelia said with all the cool she could muster. “Why, I’ll bet right now all you want to do is let your friends out, so you don’t have to face the big, bad woman all alone.”

  He stopped dead, and she knew that was exactly what he’d been going to do. He’s a hothead, she told herself. Push him, maybe he’ll do something stupid.

  Yeah, and you’ll be on the receiving end, the coward within told her.

  Stall, at least, she thought, hating herself for her paralyzing fear. The boys in the bedroom were still pounding and yelling. They shoved against the door. Amelia held her breath, but the chair held.

  “You’d better shut up,” Snake said, waving the Balisong at her. She should have read that book, she thought. Maybe there was a way to disarm somebody with one of those.

  Stop it, she snapped inwardly. If there was, she didn’t know it, and she didn’t have time to waste thinking about it.

  “And don’t you try one of those fancy things you did to Fargo. I’ll cut your leg off.”

  Sticking with what had worked so far—and what had worked for Luke the other night—Amelia laughed. She leaned against the back of her overstuffed chair, trying for the most insouciant posture she could manage. “Oh, no, I wouldn’t think of it. I’ve got a much better one in mind for you. If the cops don’t get here in time to save you.”

  She didn’t know how much longer she could keep this up. She tried desperately to think of something else to distract Snake, but she was running out of ideas and had the terrifying feeling she was running out of time, as well.

  “Cops’d be here by now if they were comin’,” he sneered disbelievingly, but there was just enough doubt in his face to give her the fortitude to keep going. “I didn’t see no alarm.”

  The boys trapped in the bedroom shoved against the door again.

  The chair began to slip.

  God, I hope I’m wrong. I hope it’s all a mistake, that their talk was all bluster, that it wasn’t tonight, anything. That I’ll get there and everything will be quiet, she’ll be sound asleep, just as I left her, soft, warm, sexy….

  Luke ignored the protesting howl of the tires as he rounded the corner. For the first time in his life he prayed for the cops to see him, chase him. But also for what seemed the first time in his life—in Santiago Beach, anyway—there were none in sight.

  He had to trust David. He had to trust that the boy felt awful enough and guilty enough that he would make that call, no matter how hard his mother tried to stop him.

  He barely touched the brakes as he made the turn onto Amelia’s street. His eyes flicked to the little white house with the profusion of flowers.

  There was an old, dark sedan parked half in the driveway and half on top of her flowers.

  Every muscle in his body tightened, and Luke’s heart slammed into high speed like a kayak coming out of the slot. For an instant he debated. Better to arrive with tires squealing and horn blaring, so they would know she had help now? Or would that startle them into doing something they hadn’t intended? Something they might do out of panic? Something irreversible…?

  He couldn’t, wouldn’t, take that chance, not with Amelia. He blacked out the lights, then yanked the wheel to the left, pulling the big car in at an angle that blocked the other car’s exit. He got out and spent a precious second listening. That was all it took for him to hear voices yelling from inside the house.

  It took every bit of restraint, every ounce of patience he’d gained in years of learning when to fight the river and when to just go with it, to stop himself from blasting through the front door. Instead he crept up to it, avoiding the sidewalk for silence, keeping to the shadows of the greenery.

  He got up to the edge of the porch, beneath the window thankfully open to the summer air, just in time to hear Amelia say, “—could see it and disarm it, it wouldn’t be a very good alarm, now would it?”

  To anyone else, Luke was sure she would sound utterly unconcerned. But he’d come to know her voice rather well, and he could hear the undertone beneath the nonchalant words.

  He heard another voice, lower, male and young. Snake, he guessed. He could hear Amelia more clearly and hoped that was because Snake had his back to the window. He risked a peek.

  Amelia was leaning against her chair as if she hadn’t a care in the world, facing the door. Snake did indeed have his back to the partly open door, and he was the one who looked unsteady, shifting his feet nervously, waving that damned knife around. If he was just a step clo
ser to the door, Luke thought, he could take him out with it. Hit it full force and it would knock him sideways.

  For an instant he thought he saw Amelia look toward him. Her expression didn’t change, but he was very in tune with that body of hers, and he saw the sudden increase in tension. He made a quick gesture at Snake and then toward the door, hoping against hope she had really looked, had seen him and had correctly interpreted his signal.

  “Don’t tell me you walked right by the control pad and didn’t even see it?” Amelia said to Snake with creditable disbelief. “I mean, it’s right there by the door.”

  Snake turned to look. And took that crucial one step.

  God, he loved this woman! Luke went up and over the porch railing. He never stopped. He hit the front door hard with his shoulder, felt the satisfying thud as it connected with flesh on the other side.

  He heard a string of curses. Saw Snake scrambling to get to his feet. Saw the glint of metal in his hand. Luke tackled him. They went down in a pile. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Snake’s arm flailing. The silver knife waved in a dangerously close arc. Luke saw Amelia move. He put into play all his considerable upper body weight and strength against Snake’s struggling. With a grunt of pain, the boy gave up.

  Luke rolled him over, face down on the floor. Amelia was there, armed with a formidable looking brass lamp she’d apparently been about to bring down on Snake’s knife hand.

  Keeping one knee in the small of his back, Luke told Snake, “You’re lucky I got here. She would have busted your arm. Or your head.”

  In that moment he heard the approaching wail of sirens; David had come through. The pounding and shoving from the spare bedroom stopped at the sound. Amelia slowly lowered the lamp. Luke looked up at her.

  She looked fine. She looked unhurt. She looked damned beautiful. He grinned at her.

  “Ms. Earhart,” he said, “would be proud.”

  “We would have been here sooner,” Jim Stavros apologized to Amelia, “but we thought it was some kid making a crank call.”

  Jim had just arrived, now that the dust had settled; he’d heard her address go out on the radio at the station, he had explained.

  “That’s all right. It’s over now,” Amelia said.

  “Yeah,” Luke agreed, one arm around Amelia, holding her close. “And I don’t want to hear any more about nerve or courage or any of that. I’ve got proof now, lady.”

  Amelia blushed, but she had to admit that perhaps, just perhaps, she wasn’t quite as timid as she’d always thought. She leaned into him, loving that it was her right to do so. He’d explained about his leaving, castigating himself so fiercely for it that she’d silenced him with a kiss.

  “Just leave a note next time, will you?”

  He looked relieved that there would be a next time, then said rather sheepishly, “I’m not used to having anybody who’d miss me.”

  “I missed you. Even before they got here, I missed you.”

  She would have shown him right then how much, but it didn’t seem quite right, with the police scrambling all over the place. And then Jim had arrived and taken charge, and things seemed to smooth out with only him to deal with.

  Jim looked over at Luke now as two officers led Snake and the hapless Fargo away; the others were already in the back seats of patrol cars. It seemed to Amelia that the entire graveyard shift of Santiago Beach PD must be here.

  “And I should have figured you’d be right in the middle of it all,” Jim said.

  Luke shrugged. “Hey, I just did the clean up. Amelia handled the tough part.”

  Jim eyed Amelia somewhat doubtfully. She couldn’t blame him; she couldn’t quite believe it herself, that she’d even survived this.

  “Sarge?” The voice came from one of the officers at the door. “I think our reporting party just showed up.”

  Amelia looked at Luke. He had related in a few brief sentences what David had told him. He’d also told her he thought his little brother had learned a very painful lesson in a big hurry, and that he’d done some very fast growing up tonight. She looked at Jim and nodded.

  “Send him in,” Jim told the officer.

  David came in slowly, hesitantly, as if the room were mined. He looked like he would rather be anywhere else, but he kept coming, until he was standing in front of Amelia.

  “I…I’m sorry Amelia. I never meant for any of this to happen. I never meant any trouble for you. I thought…” He stopped, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. “I thought they were my friends.”

  Amelia looked at his anxious face, saw the tearstains and his bruises. He gulped and went on.

  “But they tried to hurt you, and you…you were my real friend.”

  “You’re wrong, David.” He seemed to crumple before her eyes, his shoulders sagging. “Not were. Am. I am your friend.”

  David’s head came up. “You are? After…what I did?”

  She glanced at Luke pointedly, then looked back at his brother. “I believe in second chances, David. And you did the right thing in the end.”

  She held out her arms, hoping that under the circumstances David wouldn’t think he was too old for a hug.

  He didn’t. And he hugged her back, rather fiercely.

  “And he’s agreed to give testimony about what he saw and heard, and being coerced into trying to pass a forged check,” Jim said. “Haven’t you?”

  David nodded; Amelia could feel the slight movement against her shoulder. She looked at Luke over David’s head and smiled when she saw the look of approval he was giving his little brother.

  After a moment David pulled back. He sniffed. And a tentative smile tried to surface. “Boy, is my mom mad.”

  “I’ll bet,” Luke said dryly.

  Jim cleared his throat. “Does this have anything to do with the car out front registered to Jacqueline Hiller?”

  Amelia blinked. “What car?”

  “Yeah,” Luke said. “I…borrowed it to get here.”

  Jim looked at Luke for a long, silent moment. “Seems to me I’ve heard that from you before, that you ‘borrowed’ a car just to get somewhere.”

  “You heard that from a scared, angry kid.” Luke let out a weary-sounding sigh. “But I suppose that doesn’t make any difference. I presume she’s already reported it stolen?” He laughed sourly. “God, this’ll make her year, being able to get me tossed in jail.”

  “As it happens,” Jim said, “she did call. But with all this going on, nobody’s gotten over there yet.”

  “Jim,” Amelia protested, unable to believe what she was hearing. “He saved my life. Snake had that knife, and the kid called Fargo had a bigger one. You saw it!”

  Jim nodded, but his eyes never left Luke. “I think I’ll go on over there now. Somebody needs to explain to Mrs. Hiller how badly it will reflect on her if she tries to press charges against a man who was only trying to prevent assault, mayhem and possibly murder.”

  Luke drew back, his eyes widening as he stared at the man in the police uniform he’d learned to hate.

  “There’s no damage to the car that I can see, you’re related to the owner, and you took it to help one of Santiago Beach’s finest citizens…no, I don’t think that would look very good, even if you are Luke McGuire.”

  Luke looked so shocked that Amelia had to smother a smile. She gave Jim a grateful clasp of his hand. He squeezed back, but he still looked at no one but Luke.

  “You know, after our little encounter last night, I did a little checking up on you.”

  “You…did?” Luke said, his voice oddly tight.

  “Uh-huh. Ran your record, got a name. One Officer Rob Porter, from the Los Angeles Police Department. He had some pretty interesting things to say.”

  Luke let out a long breath. His shoulders sagged, much as his young brother’s had, only Amelia could see that in his case it was in relief.

  “One of the best river guides in the state and one of the top ten river kayakers in the country?” Jim asked.
>
  This time it was Amelia who was surprised; she’d assumed he was good, to be a guide, but he’d never told her just how good.

  Luke shifted uncomfortably, not meeting Jim’s gaze. “So they say.”

  “And then a couple of days ago I talked to Gary Milhouse, too. He informed me you’re also certified in swiftwater rescue, not to mention first aid and CPR. And an expert on hydrotopography and river dynamics.”

  Amelia stared at Luke, who was studying the floor too intently; she was going to have to talk to him about this understatement business.

  “Milhouse also said,” Jim added, “that he’d trust you with anything he owned or anyone he loved.”

  Luke’s head came up then, sharply. “Gary said…that?”

  “He did.”

  Luke swallowed. “How about that,” he said softly.

  “I take that as a good reference,” Jim said, with a rather pointed glance at Amelia. “Looks like it took the newcomer to see the truth. We were all blinded by past history.”

  Luke drew himself up straight. And Amelia had never been prouder of him than when he looked Jim in the eye and said, “So was I.”

  Jim smiled. He held out his hand. After a split second’s hesitation, Luke took it. They shook, and Jim nodded. “I’ll be on my way. I have some gossip to spread.”

  Before Luke could protest, Jim turned on his heel and was gone.

  Luke swore.

  Amelia laughed.

  “Hail the conquering hero,” she said softly. “Luke McGuire has returned.”

  Chapter 18

  “Whoooooeeee!”

  David’s yelp carried for yards, and Amelia had to laugh; she knew exactly how he felt. She was wet, she was tired, she was a little chilled, but she’d never been so totally pumped and exhilarated in her life.

  Well, she amended as she watched Luke tie up the raft they’d just taken down a section of his beloved river, maybe when they made love, but that was the only thing that even came close. The heat that thought brought on did away with her slight chill.

  “That was so utterly cool!” David was practically dancing on the dock at Whitewater West. “Wasn’t it, Amelia?”