Jeb pulled the rented SUV into the dark cover of a bridge. “Does everyone have a vest on?” One by one, his family sounded off. “Butch, you’re our getaway man. I expect when we come out, we’re gonna be hot.”
Butch nodded, his gray eyes dark and stormy, mirroring his brother’s.
“Tom, you’re on Peach. You get her out. If I say go, you boys go. Nate and I can take care of ourselves. You get her out.”
“We’re not leaving you, Jeb,” Tom said.
“Not a chance, Clyde,” Butch agreed.
“This is why I don’t work with civilians,” Jeb growled at the pair. “That’s not the way we are playing this.”
“Yes, it is,” they said in unison.
“We go in together,” Tom said.
“We go out together,” Butch finished.
Nate shrugged. “Guess we go out together. You ready for some dirty work?”
“We’ll go to the top of the hill and see what we can see.” Jeb parked in a spot that overlooked the project. He used binoculars to survey the area, then jerked them away, swearing.
Tom ripped them from his hand and pressed them to his eyes. Indistinguishable colors and shapes flashed until he began to make sense of it. A truck and a car were parked on “wrong” side of the trailer, invisible from the road. Two men stumbled around an excavator that reached out into the water. The arm lifted, and something hung from the bucket. Not something…someone.
“They’re going to kill her,” Tom said, jumping ahead to run down the steep hill.
“Not that way. Use your head first.” Jeb caught Tom’s arm and swung him into the grill of the SUV. “Suit up.”
All donned gloves and a headset. Jeb and Nate secured guns in holsters.
Tom shot targets for fun. He’d never fired a gun with any other intent. Until today. “I want one, too.”
Jeb handed him a holster, then a handgun. “The safety is on. This is for emergency use only. Let Nate and me take care of things.”
The heavy weight wasn’t as comforting as he’d hoped. It was hard and cold when he was molten. He’d let Jeb and Nate take the lead, but he knew he wouldn’t hesitate. Not for her. “Let’s go.”
Nate led the way down the embankment—the lake side, covered in small trees and bare shrubs. The land leveled out, and the vegetation gave way to sand. Moving was easier, and they remained screened by the angle of the bluff. They lay low against the breakwall and then, one-by-one, crossed it and hid beneath the remnants of the building.
Tom followed Nate and obeyed Jeb because there was no margin for error. He wanted to run wild, jump to her defense, but they had to get to her first. She had come to him that day he was assaulted. He never thought about how she got there, what it took for her to save him. His respect for her doubled, as did his determination to get her out alive.
Over his own heavy breathing, he heard a voice. Fabrini, Junior. Stinson. A new voice.
“You’re going to tell us what we want to know, sweetheart,” Stinson shouted. “Why not make it easy on yourself? What does Tom Riley know about the accounts?”
“Your ass is fried,” Peach shouted, her voice rough and raw. “He has it all and sent it to Fabrini and the FBI. My advice, get on a plane and get out.”
The arm on the excavator lowered, dropping Peach into the water. It killed him, watching her body thrash as she disappeared below the surface. Then she was raised up again.
“Where is Hawthorne?” Stinson shouted.
“Fuck you,” she yelled back.
Junior laughed, sick and disturbing. “We’re getting to that.”
“Jeb,” Tom whispered. “We gotta do something. Now.”
The excavator lowered again. Peach’s legs pumped hard, trying to stay out of the icy water. Tom closed his eyes as he struggled with the need to run to her. Peach was here, and she needed him. She needed all of them.
The arm of the contraption holding her lowered again. The water below her feet was just deep enough to submerge her fully. The toes of her heavy shoes scraped the bottom but gave her no leverage to free her hands. Junior had dunked her three times, and each time, she tried to leap off the sandy bottom and lift her arms off the tine that held her.
The arm went down again, and she tried a different tactic. She swung her legs, using them like a pendulum to reach the bucket over her head. She was close, but then she was in the water and it took any momentum she had. Hanging, she ordered her body to rest, to ignore the cold pressing on her chest. The only saving grace was that her calf no longer burned. Air was a precious commodity, and she was losing it. Then she was raised back up. Once she was raised out of the water, she would attempt to flip up.
Her chest came out of the water, then her hips. Finally, her knees. She went American Ninja and flipped. One leg made it in. She squeezed with her arms, using that thick tine for leverage, and got her other leg over it. Now she just had to reach out far enough to unhook her waded hands. The tape they had used to gag her still stuck in her hair, to her face. They had cut it only enough so she could answer their questions.
“Whoa! Hey! Michael! She’s getting loose!” Drug Dealer paced on the dry land.
“No, she’s not. I know what I’m doing.”
The bucket started lowering again, this time with her in it. Then it jerked to a stop. With nothing to hold onto, she tumbled deep into the mouth. She was jerked backward, then to a stop. Then down again. She crawled to the edge to see what was going on, but she couldn’t see the cab. Stinson shouted to her.
“Last chance, sweetheart. Tell us where Riley is and we’ll let you and your grampy go free.”
Peach held herself on stiff arms. “You touch one hair on his head and I’ll Brazilian wax your manhood off you.”
“You looking for me, Stinson?”
Tom? He couldn’t be here. He was tucked safely in his house several states away. She couldn’t see where the voice came from, but it couldn’t be him. How was she going to protect him now? “Tom! What are you doing here?”
He stepped into her field of vision, looked at her, and a cocky smile grew on his face. “Being your hero.”
Drug Dealer broke for the fence, shooting wildly as he ran. Gunfire was returned as Tom hit the dirt. Then Stinson charged him. The bucket began lowering. It tipped down. Peach dug her wet heels in, hoping the rubber of her tennis shoes would hold against the roughed metal.
“Tom! Tom!” she called, and then she understood the bastard’s plan. He was going to pin her underwater. She had to jump out and away before she was trapped. Scrambling to one side, she prepared to jump, but the bucket jerked again, throwing her to the back. The arm went down, and water began pouring it.
There was nothing to grab on to. Nothing to climb. Still, she had an option. Once it was filled, she would swim out. The bucket dropped, hard, and gallons of frigid lake water poured on her head. She spat water, tried to use her hands to protect her face. The floor moved, and she was under the water. One foot slipped, but the other didn’t, and she broke through the surface, filling her starved lungs. She was pulled backward, and the water sloshed against her, throwing her around like a pinball. Closing her eyes for protection, she lost all sense of direction. Her muscles ached; her lungs and throat burned.
The bucket tipped, and water poured back out. She was left lying on the metal like a fish washed ashore. She closed her eyes, readying herself for whatever came next.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Tom leaped into the excavator’s cab, shoving Junior out the other side. He worked the levers, getting Peach out of that God forsaken lake and back to shore. Junior wasn’t going to let it be easy. He grabbed the entry handle, came back into the cab, and punched Tom’s ear. The blow was awkward, but it hurt. Still, he didn’t protect himself, using his hands to keep the machine moving his woman to shore.
Junior wailed again and then a third time, this time catching Tom in the eye. When Junior’s arm went up, Tom brought his shoulder into the exposed gut, throwing Junior
out to the ground. His gaze alternated between the machine he was running and the man he was going to kill if Peach wasn’t all right. Junior was going to try something else; Tom saw it in his eyes. Nate stepped into view and used handcuffs to put an end to his scheme.
Tom worked fast now, swinging the excavator around until the bucket was waist high over dry ground. He leaped from the cab, noticing Jeb had Stinson and Drug Dealer back to back on the ground. It’s over, really over, he thought as he came around the bucket.
A foot met him, right in the chest. He stumbled back then, grinning, ran back to her. “That’s my Peach. I knew you’d give them hell.”
She was soaking wet, covered in tape, with cuts and bruises everywhere he could see. But she smiled at him as he lifted her out of the metal scoop. She lifted her still-bound hands and touched his cheek. “You’re not supposed to be here,” she said in the cracked and ragged voice of a frog.
“Neither are you. Where are you hurt?” Tears filled Tom’s eyes. His hands ran over her body, looking for injuries. “Jeb, give me your knife.”
“My leg. My head. Kind of…everywhere.”
Tom stripped his vest and shirt off. Jeb cut her hands free, and they helped her out of the shirt. Then Tom pulled her tightly against his chest. “She’s freezing. We need an ambulance.”
“It’s on the way,” Jeb said, wrapping Tom’s coat around her and adding his own.
She looked up at him, those beautiful eyes clouded with pain. “Don’t leave me alone,” she said, teeth chattering.
He kissed her forehead. “Never. Never again. I promise.”
Saturday, April 15 eight-thirty p.m.
Lying in the hospital bed, Peach felt like she’d rolled down a mountain. Warming up hurt. On top of it, she was feeling every bump and bruise those idiots gave her dragging her around and hoisting her on the excavator. The bullet hadn’t hit her calf, but it took more than a little digging and a few stitches to get the metal and wood splinters out.
“How about more tea?” Tom brought the sippy cup to her mouth. Her throat hurt worse of all, but the warm liquid soothed the ache.
He hadn’t left her side, even when they ordered him to. That surprised her, just as much as when he claimed to be her fiancé to the floor nurse who wasn’t having any of his shit.
He was here, sitting on her bed, and she was afraid to hope it meant anything.
“You shouldn’t have come.” Her voice wasn’t her own, but the words were. “They were going to hurt you.”
“There were so many things I shouldn’t have done, but coming for you wasn’t one of them.” He took her hand, brought her knuckles to his mouth. “I’m sorry for last night. I know it doesn’t come close to making it right. But it’s important that you know.”
“Why?” she asked voicelessly.
“For almost fifteen years…I’ve been afraid to love a woman. I thought I was in love once, and I asked her to marry me. She didn’t just say no, she…”
Peach felt his pain, as real as her own. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“You’re the only person I do need to tell. Because you changed everything. When she threw everything I offered back in my face and slept with my roommate, she ruined a part of me. I thought I was stronger, more focused, without the distraction of love, but I was broken. I’m done with being that person.”
She dared to hope. It was blossomed like a rose bud, sweet and beautiful. A heavy hand pounded on the door, breaking the moment and earning her scowl.
Jeb, Butch, and Nate stepped into the small room, taking it all up. “What the hell was that?” Jeb barked. “You scare us like that again and I’ll kick your ass myself. You understand?” Butch leaned around his brother and set a stuffed black dog in her arms. Jeb rolled his eyes. “Don’t be nice when I’m giving her what for, Clyde.”
She pursed her lips and tried to look contrite but grinned when Jeb bent down to kiss her. Planting her hands, she tried to sit up.
“Easy, honey. Let the bed do the work.” Tom helped her sit tall as the bed lifted. It was her favorite face, even pale and with worry lines cutting the surface.
“We’ll let you get some rest,” Butch said. “We’re going back to the farm, but you need us, just call.” Peach nodded, pressing her fist to her heart because she knew he meant it.
Nate stood in the background, as much a stranger as she was. “Thank you,” she said hoarsely to him.
Nate nodded. “And to think I was worried civilian life is going to be boring when I get out next fall.”
“You know you have a job,” Jeb said to Nate. “If you want one.”
“I just might take you up on that.”
Peach tugged on Jeb’s sleeve again and then pointed to herself. Jeb raised an eyebrow. “You want a job? With me?” He lifted his eyes to Tom.
She tugged again, resenting that he looked to Tom, as if she needed his permission. “Me,” she hissed.
“We’ll talk,” Jeb said to her and then looked at Tom. “We’re taking the plane back tonight. Let me know when she’s released, and I’ll send it back for you.”
Tom went around the bed and clapped on tightly to the men who had come with him. He walked them to the door and then turned back to her.
She might look like she was headed for the injured reserve but was downright pissed. “You don’t speak for me.” There was heat in her whisper.
“You’re going to hurt your throat. Don’t talk.”
“Don’t tell me what to do. I don’t need you.”
“That’s fine with me,” he said, tucking the thin blanket around her. “Like I started to tell you, I have no interest in anyone needing me.”
“Go get Jeb.”
He shook his head and lowered the bed. “You don’t tell me what to do, either. Now you rest.”
She pounded her fists against the mattress in frustration. “You don’t understand.”
“I do. Move over.” He climbed onto the bed, curling his long body around her. She lifted her head to accept the arm he offered as a pillow. He ran his fingers through her long hair. “You and I are on the same page. We don’t need anyone, and we don’t want anyone to need us. To other people, that sounds horrible, but it’s just the honest truth. There is an obligation with needing that neither of us is interested in. A mandatory reciprocation. If you need something, you can’t survive without it, like air.”
She touched her hand to her throat and nodded.
“You won’t die if you don’t have me. I won’t die if I don’t have you. So we don’t need each other.”
She nodded again in complete agreement.
“Another honest truth is that we want each other—which is completely different than needing. Wanting is giving yourself freely without obliging the other person. I can admit that I want you. I want to go to bed with you every night and wake up with you every morning. I want you to be the one on my arm when I go out and be the one pinned under me when I stay in.”
She patted his chest, pointing from her to him.
“You feel the same way?”
She nodded.
“Another honest truth is…I love you. I never knew what that was.” He looked in her eyes. “Now I do. Do you think, you could love me back—”
“I do.” It was important he heard it, that he felt it. “I love you. I don’t think I understood that I didn’t love Anderson until I loved you. He embarrassed me, but he didn’t hurt me like you did.”
That was the power love had and why it always scared him. “And I’m so sorry for that. I have to live with it, not you. It was my fault, my issues.” He dimmed the lights and pulled her closer. He took the biggest risk of his life. “I have a proposition for you. Come back to Tennessee. Move back into my bedroom and we’ll spend days and nights loving each other for as long as it feels right to both of us. We’ll live our life on our terms. Poppy stays in his room, unless he wants something more private. We can build him something.”
He looked into her eyes, and what he saw
there humbled him. Then she smiled, wickedly, and he worried a little.
“No candles,” she whispered.
He laughed. “Agreed. Do we have a deal?”
“Need to find a job,” she said slowly. “If I can, then yes. Won’t live off you.”
“I think we can find something that fits your talents.” He lowered his head, found her lips, and sealed the deal. He started to pull back, satisfied having her in his arms.
She had other ideas. Her top hand tightened around a fistful of his hair, holding him in place while her bottom hand snaked to the front of his pants. She smiled when he jumped in surprise, tightening the grip on both hands.
A groan rose from deep in his chest as she pulled the shirt out of his waistband and stroked his back. He caressed her, careful of her tender body, but she arched into him, filling his hands with her breasts.
“Are you sure you want this?” he asked, willing to deny his own wants, so evident in her hand.
She looked up at him through her thick lashes and smiled, slow, sexy. An invitation.
He ripped the snaps apart on the little pink shift, exposing her to him. He gasped at the blue and purple blossoms that had erupted over her skin. Her shoulders, her ribs, her hips, the swell of her breasts all bore witness to the violence she had survived.
She brushed the hair off his forehead. “Let it go,” she whispered. “You came for me. That’s enough. That’s everything.”
He wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted her until she straddled him. Then he took his time nursing the aberrant marks, worshipping her battered body.
Her hips rocked over the hard length so obvious through the denim. His hands held her strongly against him as his mouth suckled on her breast. He wanted to replace the aches and pains with something to be remembered. She clawed at his back, drawing his shirt up until the length was bunched in her hands. She pulled it over his head and groaned at the warmth that came with being skin to skin.
Lost in Deception (Lost series) Page 29
