Izzie made herself calm down. She wouldn’t be able to be any help at all if she was panicking. She’d found help. Real help. That mattered. She knew how to handle herself in a medical emergency. She was a professional. The knowledge that it was the man she loved…now she understood. Now, she got it. “We have to hurry. I had to leave him. I hoped Mel was here. We saw her limo on the exit ramp today. I…we need help.”
He wrapped strong hands around her elbows and turned her to face him. Strong, sure, able to handle things in a crisis; he looked a great deal like his brother—the chief of the TSP.
They could trust Chance. Like they could his brother Elliot.
His presence was starting to help calm her down. Make her somewhat rational again. “I don’t know what to do now.”
“Let me make a phone call, ok? I’m going to have Terrence get you something to drink, ok?” He motioned to the concierge and said something to the older man. She found herself being led to a soft chair fifteen feet away.
She nodded.
Chance called upstairs quickly.
While they waited, she quickly explained what had happened. From the moment the abduction attempt had happened to Elliot and Rafe and Nikkie Jean smuggling her and Allen out. “They caught up with us today. I don’t know how bad the van is, and I need help for him. We need to get him help. He’s probably ok now, but he’s lost a lot of blood. There’s a chance of infection. I have antibiotics to give him, but if I treat him myself, something could go wrong. That’s a risk I’m not willing to take. I think the bullet fragmented.”
He put both hands on her shoulders and turned her toward him. “I don’t know what it is you have stumbled into, Iz. You will be safe here. I can guarantee it. As for Jacobson—I owe him. More than that; I wouldn’t have Brynna if it wasn’t for him. I’m not going to let these sonsofbitches hurt him now when I have a chance to repay the man. What he did for Brynna that day…both days she was hurt. I’ll never be able to repay that.”
“Just…I need to hurry. He’s alone and they could find us. The van isn’t exactly unrecognizable, and it’s out in the open. With obvious damage from gunfire. Close to the police station.”
He looked past her shoulder. Izzie followed his gaze. She fought bursting into tears in an instant. She had never done that before in her life, and she wasn’t going to start now.
Chance’s brothers-in-law stood there. Two of them. Houghton, who had been known to move mountains when needed…and the real answer to her prayer.
“Rafe! Thank God!”
“Izzie,” her boss said. He cupped her cheek lightly, one finger going over the fresh wound. “I’m glad you’re ok, honey. We’ll take a look at this.”
“No. We have to get to Allen. Now. He’s hurt. He’s been shot again. I couldn’t risk taking him to the ER. They were waiting for us. I—”
“Let’s get him,” Houghton said, motioning to someone at her words. One of his guards—someone Izzie had even met before—came hustling up. Houghton gave instructions. “There is a car waiting.”
That was all it took. Chance, Rafe, and Houghton just fixed everything. Maybe it was weak of her, and decidedly un-heroine-like, but Izzie didn’t care.
She just wanted to make certain Allen was going to be ok.
82
His damned shoulder—same one Henedy had shot and Allen had injured working on the van—was on fire. Allen was half-convinced he was cursed or something.
The biggest issue was the headache he couldn’t shake. His damned jaw hurt like hell. He and Logan had been in a car accident once. Allen had slammed his head on the dash in the old truck they’d borrowed from Logan’s father to go way back in the woods for some reason he’d long forgotten.
The concussion and knock to his face then had felt like this.
It had hurt like hell, but he’d lived.
Something was wrong. Someone nearby was crying. He forced his eyes open.
One was swollen shut. His shoulder had been bandaged and elevated. Oliver sat whimpering at him from the kennel nearby. Oliver; that’s who he’d heard crying.
Allen lifted his hand toward his injured shoulder.
That’s when he remembered.
“Izzie?”
Fear shot through him when she didn’t answer. “Iz?”
The side door jerked open, and a man hopped in.
Allen reached for the gun before he recognized the tall man standing there. He swore and dropped the pistol to the table next to the bed. “Rafe! What in the hell are you doing here?”
Someone darted around him. Exactly who he’d wanted to see.
Izzie crawled onto the mattress, her hand going toward his forehead. “I found help.”
Allen sank back onto the bed. He felt like shit. The last thing he remembered was her helping him to the bed and quickly bandaging his shoulder, before forcing a pain pill into his mouth with some water. “I’ll say. I didn’t even realize you’d left.”
“I know. You’ve been out of it.”
“I guess this is my cue,” Rafe said. He helped Allen get himself off the end of the bed. Allen wouldn’t admit it, but the man’s hand did help him steady himself.
Last thing he wanted to do was to plant his face on the ground again.
He hadn’t said anything. He hadn’t wanted to worry her. Ridiculous, since she was as aware of the precariousness of their situation as he had been.
“Chance is going to drive the van,” Rafe said quietly, and Allen finally looked away from Izzie. There had been tears on her cheeks. Tears. Izzie had never cried even once during this entire adventure. “We’re going to hide it at the new Barratt. You and Iz are going to check in to a penthouse suite—Turner’s suite, actually. You’ll stay there until you get the all clear. Houghton is already getting what we’ll need to fix you up in the hotel. Including any medical supplies we might need. He and Jillian are seeing to it.”
“In the meantime, Rafe is going to see to the GSW,” Izzie said, wrapping Oliver’s leash around her wrist. The puppy was terrified. Just sat watching with big brown eyes so full of fear.
Allen’s eyes met Izzie’s. He wanted to pull her closer and hold her—and the dog. He wasn’t about to. Not in front of Rafe.
Not without talking to her first.
Things had just changed between them again.
83
Izzie had been in South Padre Island for seven days—seven days longer than Jake had liked. He’d hated knowing where she was and not being able to get to her.
Now, he’d finally made it down there. He was getting impatient.
Jake had been to the Barratt Finley Creek a few times before.
The most recent was when Annie had adopted her three sons. The owner of the Barratt’s wife, a former TSP detective that Jake had worked with before, had thrown Annie a surprise celebration party. The Barratt—SPI had a similar look. Was slightly smaller. Maybe.
Jake wasn’t exactly dressed for visiting the Barratt, but the man with him was. Elliot wore the suit like it was a second skin. Jake was more at home in jeans and a T-shirt and work boots. He was what he was. His grandfather and brothers still worked as fishermen off the coast of Italy. Jake and his brothers had spent many years on the water, helping in the boats.
That was not a life he wanted to repeat, but damn if he didn’t respect it. Understand it.
No, he was far better at what he did now than what he had done, then.
“I hate this.” Nothing of the situation had settled right around his shoulders.
Someone was awfully eager to get Izzie back to Finley Creek all of the sudden. It stemmed from the district attorney’s office this time. It didn’t feel right.
Jake needed to trust his gut.
“No kidding. She’s needed to testify; we can’t deny that. So is Jacobson. We have the sonsofbitches now. We need to run with it while we can,” Elliot said.
He’d pushed hard for this, from the moment his brother had called to report what had happened to Jacobson
a week ago in South Padre Island.
It had been a long seven days.
It had been easy enough after that to track all the suspects’ movements and narrow it down to who had been in that area at the time of the attack.
They’d arrested a TSP officer out of Wichita Falls that morning. He’d been with the force ten years and eleven months and had a respectable career.
Jake didn’t understand what had made him do any of this.
The man wasn’t talking.
Now, they needed to confirm with his niece that the suspect was one of the attackers.
“Jacobson’s sister called me directly, wanting to file a missing person’s report. He has been missed in the city. I don’t think we can pull this off any longer. People through the hospital have been asking questions, too.”
Callum and Evers had spoken with Jacobson’s sister. They and that little upstart shit Callahan. Callahan had gone on and on about how hot the woman was. Callum and Evers had confirmed that. “Wasn’t someone supposed to give the sister a message?”
Elliot nodded. “I’ve had one of my brother’s men watching her. To be on the safe side. I don’t want any more innocent victims of this. Her questions have drawn attention I’m not comfortable with. I don’t want Jacobson’s only family getting pulled into this as a way to control him, either.”
He got that. Jake considered himself a family man, too. He might not have wanted the life that his brothers lived in Italy. He would fight to the death for one of his brothers. One of his dozen nieces. For Izzie.
It had been because of her Jake had left Italy behind in the first place, when he’d been all of twenty years old and knowing his only sister was so caught up in men and drugs that she was hurting her own child. Izzie had needed him more than the rest of his family in Italy had. He and his brothers had discussed it and decided Jake was the best choice to move to the country of their father’s birth. Jake had had the least amount of responsibilities then, as the youngest of the eight brothers. His brothers had scraped together what savings they could, then sent Jake across the ocean to keep an eye on their oldest niece.
Jake hadn’t stopped doing that since.
He prayed that Izzie wasn’t about to repeat her mother’s mistakes with Allen Jacobson.
He still hadn’t figured that man out. All of Jake’s digging had turned up nothing but privilege, entitlement, and arrogance. The man had been handed everything in life probably from the moment he’d been born. Except for the tragic loss of his parents ten years ago, Jacobson had had an ideal life.
The perfect life.
No doubt Izzie felt the differences between them. The poor kid had to be miserable with that kind of man.
Unless Jacobson had managed to talk his way into her bed. Jake bit back a scowl. He’d like to think Izzie had more common sense than that.
His niece had a good, level head on her shoulders. He wished he had been able to help her more with achieving her goals.
Nothing had been handed to Izzie, not like it most likely had with Jacobson’s apparently hot sister.
He did snarl then, when he imagined it.
He’d always had a problem with women who had that entitlement complex. Even more so than men with it. Women who had everything handed to them irked him on every level.
No, he liked real women. Women who knew what the world was like—such as Bailey or Chuckie, or Haldyn. Especially the law-enforcement world. When he finally did find a woman he wanted to tie his life to, she’d probably be a member of the TSP.
Jake made himself a promise. Once this was over, he’d be asking his favorite evidence tech out. Hell, he may even take her to the Barratt. Chuckie would like that. Maybe he and Chuckie, and Dan and Haldyn could even double date there sometime. He’d get a kick out of that.
“You need to get over your preconceived notions about Jacobson. He’s not who you think he is,” the chief said. “He’s a good man.”
“I’ll reserve judgment on that.”
They took the elevator to the top floor. Marshall typed in a code that allowed access to the private family level. “Mel texted me the code an hour ago. Everyone is waiting in the penthouse suite.”
These people hung out in penthouses. These hotel suites cost more for one night than his apartment went for in a month.
Jake was used to the ground floor. He was going to get his niece and get her back to reality as soon as he possibly could.
84
Izzie recognize the dark-haired man the instant he stepped into the suite almost seven full days after she’d found her way to the Barratt. She hadn’t known he would be one of the ones coming to talk to them.
She should have. Jake had a way of coming to her rescue, almost as much as Allen.
“Jake!” Izzie jumped to her feet and met her uncle halfway across the room. He held open his arms and she jumped into them like she had so many times as a kid. Some habits were hard to break. He had always meant safety to her. “What are you doing here?”
She stepped away and settled onto the couch next to Allen. Her knee touched Allen’s; his arm went around her shoulders instantly. She practically sank into him, without even thinking that her uncle would see. She didn’t care. The two were going to have to get along. For her sake.
Because she loved them both. She knew that without question now. The last seven days with Allen recuperating at the Barratt had cemented that. The first few hours had been horrible, as Rafe handled the gunshot wound with help from Jillian.
Izzie had been a mess. Mel had helped her calm herself—and clean herself up. She’d had glass and wood splinters all in her hair.
Her cast had actually been grazed by a bullet, and she hadn’t even known.
It hadn’t been a bullet wound that went through Allen’s shoulder. It had been a nasty shard of shrapnel from the cabinet above the sink in the RV.
They were ok, now. Healing.
Most of their time had been spent snuggled up together in the suite after Mel and her family had left to return to Finley Creek for a few days. Mel and Houghton had returned the night before, with news that Elliot Marshall would be there the next morning.
Izzie and Allen had spent the time enjoying each other and playing with Oliver.
No one missed how close they were now.
She saw the way Jake’s expression darkened.
Jake understood exactly what they’d been doing. He was going to go into overbearing uncle mode at any moment. Izzie shot him a smirk; it was best not to let Jake get the upper hand. Or think he had any control over what she did with the man she loved.
Allen shot her uncle a challenging look that Izzie didn’t miss.
Well. It was best not to let either of the men in her life get the upper hand. She’d have to remember that.
They both had a similar take-charge arrogance. Both were more alike than they probably realized. They could drive anyone totally insane. Especially someone crazy enough to love either of them.
“We have some questions for Jacobson,” her uncle said. He shot Allen a cold stare.
“About what?” Allen said. He, unlike her uncle, sounded completely calm. Comfortable. Izzie leaned into him before she thought it through, as his arm slipped around her shoulder. Like he was claiming her. Allen was needling her uncle. Izzie leaned over and pinched his thigh. She leaned closer and whispered. “Be good.”
Allen shot her a look in response. One finger drew a lazy heart on the sensitive skin at the back of her neck. She fought a shiver.
Yes, it was going to take some careful planning to manage the two of them.
Izzie felt up to the task.
Elliot cleared his throat. Izzie looked at him.
Life was moving on, changing. Izzie wondered how her life was going to change now.
Because every instinct she had told her that it was about to.
“We’re still looking into who ransacked your condo, Allen,” Elliot said. “We have no real leads, but Bailey and her crew believe they
were looking for something. We had to tell her where you were to keep her from digging deeper into your whereabouts.”
Allen shook his head. “Was anything taken?”
“We had your sister come do an inventory. Daryn Mawbry suggested it.”
“She’s been Shelby’s closest friend since childhood. Shelby and Daryn would probably know as well as I do if something is missing. She took her belongings when she moved in a condo four buildings down. Everything of value, I had already boxed up and moved into storage. I’m trying to sell my condo. There are very few things left out at this point.”
“Is it possible this was random? Some realized you weren’t there and went looking for valuables?” Izzie asked. “Are you working with a realtor?”
Allen nodded. “A friend of mine’s wife has been handling it for me, acting as my realtor.”
“Is it possible she showed it to someone and they realized it was empty, came back, looking for valuables to hock or something?” Izzie asked, even that would be far too coincidental for her.
“It’s possible,” Elliot said. “But with everything that’s happened we want to be on the cautious side.”
“Question is,” Jake asked. “Is someone trying to abduct my niece connected to someone breaking into your condo? If so, why?”
Izzie knew her uncle was gearing up to be a total ass. She’d seen him do that before. “Why does it have to be connected at all?”
“That’s a good question,” Mel said. She’d listened to every word from where she’d sat in the chair near Izzie’s place on the couch. Izzie and Mel had writing in common and had spent several hours each day Mel was around just talking about it and writing—while Allen had rested or read through Henedy’s journals.
We All Sleep Alone Page 26
