His eyebrows drew together and he looked at her, suspicious, assessing. “Fine.” He stepped to the side, not far. She had to walk within a couple of inches, close enough to smell his sweat. Her stomach heaved.
Keep it together. She’d thought to put Leo on his bed in the sleeping loft, but then he’d be a sitting duck, trapped. She didn’t want him that far away from her. So she grabbed a blanket off the back of the couch, wrapped it around him and took him into the bathroom. She slid Leo onto the floor and put a towel under his head for a pillow. Thankfully he was a good sleeper.
She turned on the bathroom light, in case he woke up and was scared. Please, God, whatever happens to me, protect him.
Mitch stood in the doorway, emanating hostility she could feel like radiant heat. She turned, patting for her cell phone. Good—it was in her back pocket. She’d be able to get to it if he turned his back.
Which, from the hawk-like way he was watching her, didn’t seem all that likely.
She walked right up to where he stood in the doorway, knowing that to show weakness would be fatal. “Come sit down,” she said, feigning confidence and hospitality.
When he moved out of her way, she closed the bathroom door behind her. Anything to increase the chances that Leo would sleep through this, that he wouldn’t get set back from all the progress he’d made.
“Would you like something to drink?” Would you like to turn your back long enough for me to call for help?
“Get me a beer,” he ordered.
“Don’t have any. Soda?”
He snorted in obvious disgust. “Fine.” But he followed her to the refrigerator and stood too close, so she dispensed with the idea of a glass and handed him the can. Grabbed one for herself, too. It might come in handy. Lemon-lime carbonated beverage, square in the face, could sting, and a can could work as a missile, too.
She gestured him toward the sitting area and he plopped down on the couch. “Come sit by me.”
Um, no. “I’ll sit over here,” she said, keeping her voice level as she felt for the stand-alone chair and sat down.
“Why are you acting so cold?” He banged his soda down on the end table.
Was he kidding? Hot anger surged inside her, washing away her fear. “You’re an uninvited guest. You broke into my cabin. You expect me to roll out the red carpet?” And then she bit her lip. She had to stay calm in order to keep Mitch calm. It was tempting to scream out all the rage she felt at him, but she had to be wise as a serpent here, pretend a gentleness she didn’t feel.
“You sure it’s not to do with the big guy?”
“What big guy?” she asked, although she knew he must mean Finn.
How did he know about Finn?
“The one that lives right down the road and spends a lot of time with you,” he said. “Finn Gallagher.”
The surprise must have shown on her face, because he laughed, a high, nasty sound. “Oh, I’ve been watching you for days now. I know exactly what you’ve been doing.”
She couldn’t restrain a shudder. “What do you want with us?”
“You’re my wife.” His voice rose. “And he’s my son. You left me. I have every right to bring you home.”
She couldn’t let this escalate. Something she’d read in a publication about dealing with aggressive dogs flashed into her mind. She relaxed her muscles and lowered her voice. “Mitch. I’m not your wife. We’re divorced.”
He glared. Apparently, what worked on dogs wasn’t going to work on Mitch. And then his head tilted to one side as he shook it back and forth, and the whites of his eyes showed, and everything inside Kayla froze.
Mitch didn’t look stable or sane. He barely looked human.
Every other time he’d been rough with her, he’d seemed angry—enraged, even—but he’d had his senses and he’d known exactly what he was doing.
His expression now made it seem like he’d lost it.
He stood and walked toward her, hands out. “I want you back.”
“No, Mitch. Don’t touch me.”
He kept coming.
She jumped up and away from him and pointed at the door. “Go on. Get out of here or I’ll call the police.”
He seemed to get bigger, throwing back his head and shoulders and breathing hard. Heavy and threatening, he came at her.
She spun away. “I mean it. I have no problem calling 911.”
“What’re you going to call with, this?” He reached for the cell phone in her back pocket. She jerked away from his hand and heard her pocket rip.
He had the phone.
Miserable, hopeless thoughts from the past tried to push in: You deserve whatever he does to you. This is the only kind of man who’ll like you. No way can you escape him.
But she was stronger now. Wasn’t she? She didn’t deserve Mitch’s abuse. She wasn’t alone; she had friends. She’d even, for a little while, drawn the attention of a good man.
Finn respected her. Finn thought she was a good mother. A good person.
So did Long John and Willie and Penny.
She had to try to get Leo and run. Or maybe she could barricade them in the bathroom. She made a break for it, dodging Mitch, but he grabbed her arm and pulled it, hard. Pain ricocheted from her wrist to her shoulder, and she couldn’t restrain a cry.
He took a pair of handcuffs—handcuffs?—out of his suit jacket and clicked one side to her wrist, the other to one of the wooden kitchen chairs, forcing her to sit. “Just in case you get any ideas,” he said with a sadistic grin.
She tugged, but the cuffs held. And he’d cuffed the arm he’d hurt, so every effort shot pain from her wrist to her shoulder.
“Mommy?” The plaintive voice from the bathroom doorway made them both freeze. “Daddy!” There was an undertone of happiness there, but fear, too.
“Get back in the bathroom,” Mitch snarled.
“But...”
“Go!”
Leo edged, instead, toward Kayla. She could see the sweat beaded on his upper lip, the vertical lines between his eyebrows, the shiny tears in his eyes.
“It’s okay, honey,” she said, trying to put reassurance into her voice and eyes, her free arm reaching for him without her being able to stop it. “It’s going to be okay.”
Leo took a step toward her and Mitch stepped between. “You pay attention to me, not her!”
He grabbed Leo’s shoulder and walked him back into the bathroom, none too gently. Leo started to cry.
There was a swatting sound, and Leo cried harder.
She exploded out of her chair and headed toward the bathroom, dragging the chair behind her.
Mitch emerged, slamming the bathroom door behind him. From the other side, Leo sobbed.
“Stop right there!” Mitch dug in a black case against the wall and turned toward her with an automatic rifle in one hand and a hunting knife in the other.
Kayla froze, then sank back onto the chair. He’d truly gone over the edge. He’d always liked weapons, but he’d restricted their use to shooting ranges or country roads. He’d never pointed one at her, and he wasn’t doing that now, but the threat was palpable. Not only to her, but to Leo, because a gun like that could make a wooden door into splinters in a matter of seconds.
A stray thought broke through her terror: not one of the vets she’d met at this ranch—Long John, Willie or Finn—would flaunt weapons so casually. Mitch wasn’t a typical vet.
She looked around desperately, wondering how to escape or what to do, aware that if she made a wrong move, it might be her last.
On the counter was the big travel coffee mug Finn had given her when he’d noticed her rinsing and reusing a Styrofoam cup. He was a man of few words, but his actions said it all. He paid attention and tried to make her life a little easier, a little better.
She could trust him because of how he’d
treated her. She should have told Finn the truth. Airborne or not, Finn would never have betrayed her to someone like her ex.
Mitch came closer and again she smelled his perspiration, tense and sour. He loomed over her. “You left me and took my son. You can’t get away with that. You’re going to pay.”
He didn’t care about Leo, had never been even an okay father, but she didn’t dare to say it, not with him this volatile. She pressed her lips together.
Why had she made such a stupid mistake? Maybe if she’d been honest and up front with Finn, he wouldn’t have dumped her.
Leo’s cries were louder now, breaking her heart. “Let me go to him,” she pleaded. “Just let me talk to him a minute.”
Mitch turned toward the bathroom. “Shut up!” he thundered.
But Leo’s crying only got louder.
A desperate plan formed in her head, and without a moment’s hesitation, she put it into action. “Give him my phone,” she said. “He likes to play games on it. He’ll quiet right down.” And maybe, God willing, he’d use his five-year-old technology skills to call for help. She’d taught him how to use the phone to call 911, and he knew how to call Penny, too.
Mitch hesitated. Leo’s wails broke her heart, but they obviously grated on Mitch. He pulled her phone out of his pocket and headed toward the bathroom.
Please, God.
He hesitated at the door and looked back. She tried not to betray anything on her face.
“You’re trying to get him to call for help!” He kicked the bathroom door. “You shut up in there, kid, or I’ll hurt Mommy.”
Leo’s cries got quieter. From his gulps and nose-blowing, it was obvious he was trying to stop.
Poor kid. If they could get out of this alive...
Mitch came back over and squatted in front of her. “Suppose you tell me what you thought you were going to gain from leaving Arkansas.” He glared at her. “Go on—talk. This ought to be good.”
Discouragement pressed down on Kayla.
“Talk!” he yelled, shaking the leg of the chair so that she nearly fell off.
From somewhere inside her, outrage formed and grew. There had been a time when she’d thought she deserved bad treatment, that it was the best she was going to get, but she knew differently now. “I left because I wanted a fresh start for me and Leo,” she said, chin up, glaring at him. “I refuse to live a life hiding from you and terrorized by you.”
Mitch looked...startled? Was that worry on his face? She’d never stood up to him before.
“You unlock these handcuffs and go back where you came from,” she ordered, sweat dripping down her back.
He raised a hand. He was going to punch her.
“Don’t. You. Dare.” She put every bit of courage and confidence she had into the words.
Mitch stepped back and looked around. “What was that?”
“What?” Was he seriously going to pretend he’d heard something to avoid a confrontation with her? Hope swelled. “You didn’t hear anything. Unlock these cuffs!”
“I heard something.” He lowered his weapon and moved to the window of the cabin like a cop in a TV movie. A bad movie.
If she could just get to her phone, which he’d left sitting on the chair...
She tried to scoot, quietly, while he leaped around the room, pointing his weapon into every corner. She got within a yard of the phone. If she could move a few inches closer...
“Aha!” he yelled as he leveled the rifle at her.
And Kayla realized two things.
No matter how weak Mitch ultimately turned out to be, he was holding a deadly weapon.
And he really didn’t act a bit like the veterans she’d gotten to know over the past two months. “Were you ever even in the Eighty-second Airborne?” she blurted out before she could think better of it.
He roared something indistinguishable and came at her.
Chapter Eleven
Finn had been wrestling with God, and God was winning.
Guilt about his past mistakes with his wife, he was realizing, had made him into a worse person. Maybe that was why God forgave mistakes. Because to spend time punishing yourself for all your past sins meant you weren’t much good to anybody in the present moment.
Further, he realized that he did want to be involved with people. He wanted to be a husband and father again and do it right this time.
He’d never entirely get over what had happened with Deirdre and Derek. He’d always wonder whether he might have been able to save their lives if only his reflexes had been faster, his speed lower, his focus more intent.
But he wanted to go on living. And that had a lot to do with Kayla and Leo.
His phone buzzed, and he was relieved to escape his own thoughts. He clicked onto the call. “About time you called me back,” he said to his friend.
“I have very little to report,” Raakib said. “Believe me, my friend, I tried, but I haven’t found anything against Kayla. From all accounts, though, her ex-husband, Mitch, is bad news. Quite volatile.”
It was nothing more than what he’d expected. He knew Kayla was good. Even without someone vouching for her, he knew it.
Crunching gravel outside the window marked Penny’s arrival at her place. Unlike Kayla’s car, Penny’s had a quiet, well-maintained sound.
Kayla’s car. Worry edged into his awareness.
When Finn had been getting jealous of the man in the suit, Kayla hadn’t even been in her cabin. So what was the guy doing there? “What does her ex look like?” he asked Raakib.
“Sharp dresser,” Raakib said. “Tall, about six-two. Large, because apparently he’s obsessed with lifting weights. Though not as large as—”
“Gotta go,” Finn said. “I think he’s here.”
He clicked off the call and grabbed his gun and ran outside. Penny was getting out of her car with a load of groceries.
“Drive me up to Kayla’s,” he barked. “I think her ex might be here.”
Penny’s face hardened. She dropped the bags and got back into the car. Finn got into the passenger side, and she gunned the gas the moment he was in.
The car he’d seen before was gone. But Kayla’s was there.
So maybe it had just been a friend of hers, who’d visited and left, and Finn would be making an idiot of himself. But he wasn’t going to take that risk. Not with Kayla and Leo.
“Whoa—wait,” Penny said as she pulled in beside Kayla. “Look at that.”
Finn looked in the direction she was pointing. Willie was coming up the road at a pace that was almost a run. Behind him, Long John limped as fast as Finn had ever seen him go, Leo beside him, holding his hand.
It would have looked comical, except for the intent, angry, scared expressions on all three faces.
And the fact that both Long John and Willie had weapons at the ready.
Finn had to salute their courage, but mostly, he had to get to Kayla before they did. “Keep them back,” he said to Penny and ran to the cabin door.
Finn walked in on chaos. The man in the suit was on the ground, on top of Kayla. But Kayla was scrambling out from under him. A chair fell and knocked into the man—Kayla almost seemed to be jerking the chair around—and she punctuated that blow with a kick in the man’s face.
She might even be winning the fight, but Finn couldn’t wait for that to happen, especially with the automatic weapon on the floor near the man.
The man was going for it.
No.
No way. Finn moved faster than he ever had in his life, leaping onto the man just as his arm reached for the weapon.
The man was strong, burly. He landed a good punch on Finn’s face.
“Get the weapon,” Finn yelled, and Kayla rolled and stretched her arm and grabbed it.
The door banged open just as Finn started to ge
t the jerk under control. “Sorry,” Penny called, “I couldn’t hold them back. Leo, wait!”
“Mom!” Leo ran to Kayla.
Finn got the guy into a full nelson. He saw that Penny had secured the gun. Kayla was laughing and crying, one arm wrapped around Leo. “How did you get out?”
Leo puffed out his chest and grinned.
“Kid climbed out the bathroom window,” Willie said, shaking his head in obvious admiration. “Came running down and got us.”
Finn’s prisoner—who had to be Mitch, Kayla’s ex—started to struggle.
“I could use a hand here,” Finn said, breathing hard. “We need to tie him up.”
“I’ve got some handcuffs,” Kayla called, “if you can take them off me and get them onto him.”
Only then did Finn realize that Kayla had been fighting this fight while handcuffed to a wooden chair.
Her hair was coming out of its braid, her face red and scratched, the sleeve of her shirt ripped. He had never seen anyone so beautiful.
“Key to the handcuffs,” Penny barked at the man, who stopped struggling and actually looked a little cowed. He nodded toward his side pocket.
“I’d get it,” Penny said, “but I don’t think I can stand to touch him.”
Willie extracted the key from the man’s pocket, none too gently. Penny freed Kayla and handed the key back to Willie and Long John along with the handcuffs. A moment later Mitch was sitting in the chair, his hands cuffed behind him.
“Those military pins you’re wearing,” Long John said. “What unit were you in?”
“Eighty-second Airborne,” he mumbled.
Finn’s head jerked around at that. “Seriously? Dates of service?” This guy did not seem like any paratrooper Finn had ever met. More like one of the wannabes that sometimes hung around veterans’ events acting way too aggressive and boastful. “I think we’re gonna check on that.”
“What’s your full name?” Long John, who prided himself on keeping up with the latest technology, had his phone out and was clicking on it.
“It’s Mitchell Raymond White,” Kayla said.
“Friend in veterans affairs owes me a favor,” Willie said. “Think I’ll give him a call.”
The Soldier's Redemption Page 16
