Then she realized it wasn’t Beau and the twins, but two adult men, standing on a short wooden dock that extended out through the grassy marsh.
One lit a cigarette. The other cocked a gun.
Anna’s heart fluttered, her throat closing.
“What’s y’all’s business here?” came an unfriendly voice.
“Looking for a couple of missing kids,” Sean called, back-paddling to stay in the same place. He sounded perfectly calm, and that reassured her a little. “Seen anyone pass this way?”
The smoker, a heavyset man, frowned. The other, the one who’d asked their business, spit into the water, and his gun glinted. Neither man spoke.
“Please,” Anna pleaded. “They’re young and afraid. We won’t bother anyone. We just want to find my daughters and go home.”
The two men looked at each other. Then the heavyset one gestured with his cigarette. “That way.”
“Thanks,” Sean rumbled, and took up his paddle again, going faster.
Once they were out of earshot, she half turned. “Do you know them? Are they reliable?”
“I’ve seen them before, but I don’t know more than that. Depends if they’re related to the Mahoney brothers. They could be sending us in the wrong direction, but it’s all we have.”
Gratitude for this steady man flashed through her. They could have been a team, if things were different. Could have maybe found happiness, if Beau hadn’t ruined it for them.
“Look!” Sean pointed to a plastic bracelet floating by. “Is that Hayley’s?”
“Yes!” she almost shrieked, pulling it out of the water. “They’re leaving us signs. Like Hansel and Gretel!”
“And the guys directed us right. You can help paddle now. Gentle strokes on the left until I tell you to switch.”
She followed his instructions, and the canoe sped through the water.
In the deep shadows ahead she saw a dark shape. “Look out,” she called back, “there’s a log, or—”
“That’s not a log. That’s a gator.” Sean paddled hard and the boat swung around it, but not before Anna saw its large glinting eyes.
Her stomach clenched. She just prayed the girls hadn’t seen anything of the sort, because it would terrify them. Or do worse, if they somehow fell into the water.
“We’re approaching the island now,” he said. “Let’s be real quiet and see if we can find them. It’s been a while since I’ve been there.”
Anna looked ahead at the clump of trees that rose out of a wide spot in the river.
“You think they’re—”
“Shhh.” Sean laid his paddle across the canoe and they coasted silently toward the shore.
“You girls better talk to me,” came a thunderous voice out of the darkness.
Beau.
Her stomach cramped so hard she felt like she was going to be sick. But then she heard a whimpering sound.
It was Hope. Maternal instinct took over and she was out of the boat, which rocked wildly. Beneath the knee-deep water, thick muck sucked at her shoes as she splashed her way toward the shore, toward her girls.
She was panting when she reached dry land and saw two small shapes. She knelt and they ran and hugged her. “You came, you came,” Hope whispered.
“Anna, I’m almost there.” Sean was paddling, trying to keep the canoe in place close to the shore.
The sweet, sweaty smell of her girls was heaven. Anna stroked their hair, the silky texture interspersed with twigs. “Are you all right?” Her eyes scanned the water, the trees, the cabin-like structure barely visible through the leaves.
No Beau. Where was he?
“We’re okay, but Daddy’s mean.” Hayley looked back into the thick vegetation of the island.
“Come on. I want you to get in the boat with Mr. Sean.” She wrapped an arm around each girl and hustled them to the canoe, which Sean had steered close to the shore. She lifted Hayley in. “Sit down, honey.”
“I’ve got her.” Sean knelt forward and put a hand on Hayley’s shoulder, moving his weight to steady the canoe. “Hurry,” he said to Anna, low and urgent. “Let’s do this.”
She lifted Hope next and tried to set her in front of Hayley, but the child clung to her.
“Get in, honey. Sit with your sister in the middle of the boat, and then I’m going to be right in front of you.” She glanced back toward the trees. Where was Beau? Why wasn’t he chasing after them?
“Get in.” Sean’s voice was urgent as he helped position Hope, struggling to keep the boat from capsizing. Finally, they steadied it and Sean looked up and held out a hand to help her in.
Suddenly, his face changed. “Anna! Behind you!”
She started to turn, to duck away, and then a heavy hand clamped on her shoulder.
“They can go, but you’re staying,” Beau said. “Thanks for taking my bait.”
Horror and revulsion swirled inside her but there was no time to process that now. Anna used her foot to push the canoe away from the shoreline. “Get them to safety, please,” she said.
“Let Anna go,” Sean said to Beau, paddling to keep the canoe from going farther downriver. His voice was steady, but Anna could hear the fear in it. “You can get away.”
“Oh, I’ll get away,” Beau said. “With her. She’s what I wanted anyway. I have no use for whiny little girls.”
Anna’s stomach twisted, because her girls had heard their own father say he had no use for them. “Sean, please, take them away from here.”
Beau yanked Anna backward and she nearly fell, but he caught her. By the hair, and man, did that hurt.
He uttered a few choice curses into her ear and then looked in Sean’s direction. “Get outta here. I have a gun pointed right at her brain.”
It was true. Anna felt the cold, hard pressure dig into her temple.
“Go!” she begged as the girls cried. “Please! Get them home.”
“I’m not leaving you here.” Sean drew himself up and paddled the canoe closer.
He was strong, so strong. But he couldn’t shield her from Beau’s weapon, and if he used his own, the girls could be caught in the cross fire. “Please. Please, Sean. Get my girls to safety. It’s the only thing you can do for me.” She nearly choked on the words.
Her heart was breaking at the thought of leaving her girls motherless. But at least they’d be safe. Sean would know what to do.
And no way would Beau allow her to live after she’d escaped him, and then dared to connect with another man.
Sean paddled strongly, heading the canoe back in the direction from which they’d come.
And Anna turned to face her outraged ex.
CHAPTER TWENTY
SEAN PADDLED THE canoe with all his might while Hope and Hayley cried. His heart was torn in two.
How could he leave Anna in the presence of that monster? But how could he not do his utmost to get the twins to safety?
The girls’ sobbing diminished, so that was a good thing. But when he took a breath and focused on them, he saw that they were whispering. Then they both stood up in the canoe.
“Sit down!” he told them firmly, but they didn’t obey.
Instead, they held hands, scrunched their eyes shut and chanted: “One, two, three...”
The significance of their words dawned on him and he dived for the girls, grabbing Hope and shoving her into the bottom of the canoe, catching the back of Hayley’s shirt as she catapulted over the edge and into the brackish water. The boat rocked wildly as he hauled her back in, soaked and sobbing. He plunked her down beside her sister, and both girls wailed.
He steadied the boat, heart pounding, kneeling in the center with the girls. But now the canoe was drifting toward the grassy, mucky waters near the shore. Getting stuck there would be a disaster.
“Be still while I get my paddle.�
�� He made an effort to gentle his voice. “You have to cooperate and do what I say. That’ll help me keep you safe.”
“And Mommy, too?” Hayley’s voice trembled.
“Yes. And your mommy, too.” He leaned back, grabbed for his paddle.
Gone. It must have fallen out when he’d dived for the twins. He looked around, wildly, and saw something pale and flat glinting in the dappled sunlight, floating downstream at a fast clip.
Hayley tugged at his arm and pointed toward the front of the boat.
Anna’s paddle, tucked along the side.
“Good.” He managed an approving smile at Hayley while he slid out the oar and used it to maneuver them out into the center of the river.
Out of immediate danger, he stopped paddling and looked seriously at the two girls, whose teary eyes were fixed on him. “You girls can’t jump out of the canoe, understand? There are scary things out there. Fish, and snakes, and alligators.”
Hope whimpered. Hayley wrapped her arms around her twin and glared at Sean.
He started paddling again, guiding the boat into the strongest current. “I have to get you to safety, and then I’ll go back and help your mom, okay? Work with me here.”
Hayley’s glare faded. She and Hope looked at each other as if trying to decide whether he was telling the truth, was to be trusted.
He kept paddling, now at a steady rate. “You have to stay in the boat,” he continued, figuring his voice might soothe them, “because the river is hard to swim in even if you’re a good swimmer.”
He glanced down and realized both girls were shivering. Of course. Hayley had gotten herself soaked in the river, and then she’d hugged Hope.
He paused and stripped off his jacket. “Wrap yourselves up in this, best you can,” he said. “And just hunker down in the boat, try to rest and I’ll get you home.”
The sun was slanting lower, and the shadows along the river deepened. He paddled hard.
Hope screamed. Then Hayley did, too.
They cringed to one side of the canoe, rocking it hard, screaming and pointing and crying.
He saw it a few feet away from the boat: a giant alligator, probably the same one he and Anna had seen, eyes glinting at water level. Then the canoe moved into a deeply shaded area and Sean lost sight of the creature.
The girls screamed and sobbed.
“Hey, listen. He’s more scared of you than you are of him,” Sean told the girls. Still, he paddled away from the spot where the creature had been, making noise, splashing with his paddle. If this gator had been fed by people, then it was dangerous. And it would be looking for food.
He paddled hard, and when they emerged from shadows into sunlight, there was no alligator to be seen.
They were far enough away from the island to be temporarily safe, and he felt for his phone and was relieved to find it in his back pocket. He clicked Liam’s number.
“Yeah?” Liam’s voice was curt.
“I have the girls. Up Santee Mill Creek.”
“They okay?”
“Scared, but okay. Can you send a boat up to meet me? Either you or Cash? And bring Miss Vi, or Ma. Someone who can make them feel safe.”
“That’ll take a few minutes but...yeah. Where’s Anna?”
“That’s the bad news,” he said grimly. “I had to leave her on Ricochet Island.” He paused, swallowed. “With her ex. Hurry. We have to go back and find her.”
“Right. Stay on the line.” Liam shouted some orders, and Sean heard Miss Vi’s voice.
He glanced down at the girls, and found them quiet, staring hopefully at him. He checked their position in the water and then tried to smile reassuringly. “It’s going to be—” He cut himself off. He didn’t know if it was going to be okay, and he hated to say that and then have everything go horribly wrong.
And things could go horribly wrong. Who was to say Beau would stay on the little island until he could get back and rescue Anna?
Who was to say he wouldn’t just kill her? It had happened to his own mother, most likely.
He swallowed against the sudden thickness in his throat. “Miss Vi or Ma Dixie is gonna come help you,” he said to the twins. “It’ll be good to see them, won’t it? And then I’ll go back and help your mom.”
They didn’t speak, but they seemed to be hanging on his every word.
He paddled steadily now, but not as fast. A tap-tap-tap came from a tree and they both looked up, so he pointed. “Downy woodpecker. He’s hunting for his dinner of bugs.”
That made them both wrinkle their noses, so he knew they were listening. Maybe he could glean some information from them, but only if they trusted him. “Listen, did your...?” He swallowed bile. “Did your father say anything about where he was staying? Where he wanted to take your mom?”
They just looked at him, no answer.
If only he hadn’t upset them before, maybe they’d talk to him now. “Did he have a boat?”
They glanced at each other, then nodded.
“A boat like this?”
Hayley shook her head and spread her hands wide.
“A bigger boat? I wonder where he was headed?”
They looked at each other, both with lips pressed tight together. Almost as if they knew something. “Did he say where he was going?” He assumed Beau would want to take Anna back home, if he didn’t kill her on the spot. But then, too, Montana was far away. A volatile man wouldn’t have the patience for several days’ travel before taking his revenge.
He opened his mouth to ask another frustrated question, and then a trembling started in his hands and worked its way up his arms and into the core of his body.
He’d been in this situation before.
“Where would your dad take your mother?”
“What’s the name of the nearest big city to your town?”
“Was there a place your mom and dad liked to go around here?”
But he and his brothers hadn’t known the answers. Would it have helped if they did?
He tried to put himself back into those shoes, those days. What would have prompted his memory? What might have saved his mother?
Getting to her faster.
Knowing the make of truck.
Giving a full description of his father.
Paying attention during their fights rather than shutting it out. But that, he knew, was a terrifying thing for a child.
He had to try, though. “What were some of the things your daddy said when he found you?” he asked, keeping his tone conversational.
The girls glanced at each other. Hope’s lip started to wobble.
“No,” he said, “uh-uh. Don’t cry.” He thought about what Anna did to keep her girls calm and happy. “Let’s play a remembering game—it’ll help you help your mom.”
Amazingly, the mention of a game made Hope’s lip stop shaking and Hayley’s eyes perk up.
“Who can remember one thing your daddy said?” he asked.
Hayley raised her hand as if she were in school.
“Hayley?” He kept paddling, not putting too much focus on the child.
“He said he spied on us.” She glanced at Hope. “When we stayed at that lady’s house while Mommy worked at a party. Hope saw him in his truck but I didn’t.”
Bitsy’s. “Why didn’t you tell your mom?” he asked.
“We ’cided not to,” Hayley explained. “Mommy would be sad.”
Guilt swept through Sean. He’d wondered what had scared the girls at Bitsy’s, but he’d never followed up. “One point for you, Hayley!” He was forcing it, faking it, this role of a game master. “Where’s his truck now?”
Hayley shrugged.
It couldn’t be on the island—no roads led there; it was boat access only. He noticed Hope bite her lip and hug herself. Time to continue the game. He reached
for patience. “Did he give you food?”
Hope glanced at Hayley and then opened her mouth as if to talk.
“Go ahead—tell me what it was,” he encouraged her. “Then you’ll get a point.”
“Biscuit,” she whispered.
He narrowed his eyes. That wasn’t helpful; the guy could have gotten biscuits anywhere. Although at least they were both talking to him.
Fear rose inside at the thought of what might be happening to Anna right now, but he shoved it away.
“He was going to take her dancing,” Hayley said suddenly.
Sean lifted an eyebrow. “Really?”
Hope shook her head. “Not dancing. To a place that’s a dance.”
That made no sense.
“I get a point,” Hayley reminded him.
“Yes. You do.” He just hoped they wouldn’t ask him to tally them up.
“A place that’s a dance,” he said. “I don’t get it.”
The twins looked at each other and grinned. Then they passed their hands back and forth in front of their knees, crossing them over.
Hayley was looking at him like she’d turned the tables. Now he was going to have to guess.
Could they know about...? How on earth...? “Are you doing the Charleston?”
They both erupted into giggles, which just as abruptly went away.
His mind reeled. Someone had taught them the Charleston.
Beau wanted to take Anna to Charleston.
A place where the Mahoney brothers had ties to organized crime, if local scuttlebutt was to be believed.
A place that was reachable through the rivers and delta country, if you had the right boat.
A place where it would be almost impossible to trace Anna. He called Liam again. “The twins think he’s taking Anna to Charleston.”
He could hear the sound of Liam’s exhaled breath. “Okay. I’m on it.”
A sound in the water: the quiet hum of an airboat motor. Sean tensed, scanning the surrounding area.
The boat that appeared was a state-of-the-art mud boat, flat bottomed, wide and fast. At its helm was Miss Vi. In the back were Cash and Ma Dixie.
He waved and shouted and the boat pulled alongside the canoe. Then it was a quick decision: the mud boat would be too loud to rescue Anna; it should be used to take the girls to safety.
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