Around the World in 80 Men Series: Books 11-20 (17 page)

“Where
does you grandmother live?”

“Houston...”

Morgan
nodded slowly, then bent down to her bag to find a new shirt. She
took off the bloodied sweater without going into the stall and
replaced it with a clean hooded sweatshirt. One that she could pull
over her head and hide her face. “Well, let's go get you a
ticket,” she said as she zipped her bag back up. She threw her
sweater into the garbage can, pulled her hood over her head and
walked out of the bathroom, leaving Nadia no option but to follow
behind.

“Morgan,
no...I...I can't...” Nadia was talking behind her back, but
Morgan didn't turn around. In less than five minutes, Morgan had the
girl a ticket for Houston, Texas, and her plane left in one hour.
Thankfully, there had been four cancellations for the first leg of
the flight, leaving plenty of room for a last minute ticket. “Oh
Morgan!” Nadia hugged the girl, but not too tightly. “Thank
you...I don't...oh my God, thank you, thank you, thank you!”
She had just seen Morgan spend more than two-thousand dollars for a
one way ticket-that was more money than she would have seen in a
year. She didn't even have the words of gratitude for the girl she
had only met two hours prior.

“Thank
you, Nadia. You saved me, and I owe you one... big time,”
Morgan managed a weak smile in return. Her ribs were screaming at her
and her face was still on fire, but getting her friend to safety was
high on her priority list. Morgan walked over to the ATM and withdrew
three hundred dollars, then handed it to her hero. “This should
get you through a few days of hotels, if you need it. I'll wire you
more money to get you started, after you're settled in the states.
I'd give you more, but all these damn machines have a daily limit.”
Morgan smiled again at her new friend. She also wrote down her
number quickly and handed it to her, hoping that Nadia would call her
when she got to Houston.

“No,
oh, no...I won't take that. You've done enough! No, I won't!”
Nadia waved her arms in front of her, and shook her head at the stack
of money. Morgan just nodded, but as she had done in the past, she
would find a way to get the money to her. “But, what about
you?”

“I...I
don't know where I'm going yet,” Morgan admitted, and her heart
began to race. She hadn't even thought about where she was going to
go.
Shit. They're going to come here. Carlos is going to
know...he'll be here any minute. Shit. Where am I going??? I can't go
home, Julianne is sick, I can't burden her. SHIT!
“You have
to go, you're going to miss your flight.” Morgan wrapped her
arms around the girl and told her to take care. There wasn't time to
draw out their goodbye any longer. Morgan also slipped the money into
the girl's purse during their embrace. After a few final goodbyes,
take cares and thank you's, Nadia made her way toward security, then
toward the terminal that would lead her to her new life. Nadia knew
that she would would never call Morgan, because her new friend would
just insist on helping her, so she walked away with a combination of
gratitude and sadness.

When
the girl was out of sight, Morgan lost her cool. “Fuck! Okay,
shit....relax. Breathe.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket
and with shaking hands, she found Fin's number.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
Ring.
“Answer, dammit!” Morgan paced around the lobby
in front of her line of luggage. A message came through, not to leave
a voice message, but to inform her that his inbox was full. “Shit!”
She tried again, then again. Still no answer. Every few seconds, she
looked toward the front doors for Carlos.

“Angel!”
Morgan was shaking even harder with fear. She knew it would only be
minutes before the men found her. In two rings, her friend answered
his phone. “Angel! Angel, listen to me. I have to leave
Portugal, now. I'm trying to get a hold of Finlay but he won't
answer, I'm going to text you his number, you keep trying him, okay?”
Her voice was low, but Angel could hear the fear in her voice.

“Did
he touch you? Morgan did that motherfucker hurt you? I'm going to
fucking kill that sonofabitch!”

“Angel,
please,” she begged. “I'll tell you everything later,
call Finlay! I'm.....hurt...but I'll live. Please, just keep trying
his number.” Morgan hung up and dropped her phone twice before
she managed to send the number to Angel. She couldn't remember a time
in her whole life where she was so frightened, nor a time where she
felt so incredibly helpless.
Okay, Tanner! No, Tanner is too far.
Kole is too far. Sean!
Just then, she remembered about the
tickets. The tickets that would lead her to safety.

She
dropped to her knees and pulled her scrapbook out of her carry on
bag, then flipped to Sean's page. “Shit! Where are they!? Shit,
no!” She continued flipping through the pages. From Fin's page,
all the way to Jake's. Nothing. She flipped through again. “No,
no...this can't be happening.” Worst case scenario, she could
buy her own tickets, but that would just be more time wasted,
considering the line to purchase tickets had grown.

There
wasn't another option. It seemed like hours had already passed, even
though it had been only three minutes since getting off the phone and
only fifteen minutes since arriving to the airport. Each minute that
went by was bringing her closer to danger. She grabbed her phone
again to call the Irishman.

On
the first ring, he answered it with a typical Sean-like greeting for
his friend. “Hey, beautiful! How are ya?” She didn't
know what else had come over her, considering what she had just gone
through, but the tears came back with a vengeance, and hearing a
familiar voice somehow brought even more fear.

“Sean!
I need...I mean....he's going to find me...and I need to come
there.” He barely made out her words, but he heard her
near-hysterical crying and 'he's going to find me.'

“Morgan!
Where are you?!” His laid back tone changed as he paced the
floor in his sheep filled kitchen.

“Portugal.
It's not...good. Can I come there? Now?” Morgan knew that
several eyes were on her as she held the phone, and her head, almost
in her lap.

“Yes!
Come here, or I can come there. What's going on?” He was
frantic, nothing made sense and she was too far away to help her.

“I'll
tell you everything, I need to go...to find a flight to Ireland.
Thank...you.” She ended the call abruptly and shoved her phone
in her purse before heading to the counter. “Oh my god!”
There, in the small opening in the side of her purse, was her ticket
to freedom. “Yes!” She pulled it out, and nearly ran to
the counter.

Forty
five minutes later, after being safely hidden away in the lobby after
going through security, she was sitting in first class on her way to
Dublin. Her first order of business was to order a drink, then
another. It wasn't her intent to get drunk, but she was trying to
help the pain in her face and side.

When
it was safe to move around, she nearly ran to the bathroom to check
her injuries. “Oh...my...,” her fingers traced the hand
sized bruise on her cheek, then under her eyes at the forming
blackness from the blow to her nose. “Nice, two black eyes,
bruised face, and a busted swollen lip. Well done, Morgan, well
done.” She shook her head at the wounded girl in the mirror,
then closed her eyes as she fought the tears once again. “I'm
just an idiot. So, so stupid. Why didn't I see this in him?”
She opened her eyes again, and couldn't find an answer in the girl
across from her. “Why?” The slight knock on the door
brought her from the stare down with herself, and she pulled her hood
up, put her head down, and left the bathroom.

With
still an hour left in her flight, she snuggled down into her seat and
just stared out the window to pass the time. She was in far too much
pain, and had enough fear still coursing through her body, to even
think about sleeping. She also spent the time continuing to blame
herself, and she even tried to think of ways for Julianne not to find
out. Morgan wasn't sure if her boss would be upset with her for not
seeing through the man in the beginning. He was new, after all, and
it was supposed to be up to the women to give him the final green
flag for their boss. “I failed her too.” Her tiny words
were followed up with more tears that did nothing to cleanse the
soul.

She
held tightly around her middle, cursing the pain that she felt she
brought on herself, and through a miracle, actually fell asleep as
they were nearing Dublin.

“You'll
have to sit up.” A soft male voice brought her back to reality
as the flight attendant made his rounds to get everyone in their
upright positions. She started to rub her eyes before remembering
that doing so would hurt like hell.

She
gathered her carry on and thought about her next move.
I'll call
Sean and wait....it shouldn't take him long to get here. Or should I
get a cab? Yeah, I won't bother him with coming here.
Her mind
was made up that she wouldn't put him out one bit while she was in
Dublin, and she also had also decided that she wouldn't stay any
longer than a day or two. It would be rude to stay much longer than
that, and by then, she could figure out her next move.

“Come
on.” Morgan was leaning against a pole in front of baggage
claim, holding the pain in her side that just wouldn't relent, when
she heard her name from somewhere behind her. She turned her head,
and her tears registered the handsome man before her mind did.

“Morgan?
Fuck! What happened to you?” He rushed to stand in front of
her and nearly picked her up from the ground. He let go quickly when
she cried out in pain, but kept his hands around her waist. “Morgan,
oh my god.” She put her head against his chest and tried to
fight the tears that were clearly winning the battle. “I'm so
sorry, baby. I'm so, so sorry.” His hand brushed the back of
her head until he noticed her bright pink bags heading their way.
“Come on, let's go.”

Chapter
Five

Sean
helped Morgan outside and gave her his thick coat before helping her
into the passenger seat. She had been in too much shock and at that
moment, she had been in too much pain to even think about where she
was going. Ireland, in the middle of December. It looked a bit
different from the last time Morgan had been to Dublin, as everything
as far as the eye could see was covered in a thin, white blanket of
snow, but she was too preoccupied to notice that either.

“Thank
you, Sean. You didn't have to...”

“Morgan,
I'd do anything for ye, and if ye want me to fookin' keel the bastard
that did this ta ye, then I fookin' will.” It was hard to take
his threat seriously when his accent had come out stronger than she'd
ever heard it. She smiled and inched closer to his seat and put her
head on his shoulder. The tears still continued to flow, but she was
more than relieved to be in a safe place with someone she cared
about.

“It's
okay now, I'm fine.” Morgan took his hand in hers and gave it a
light squeeze.

“The
fook it's fine! Look at ye!” Morgan winced at his words, mostly
because he was yelling right in her ear, but also because she was
reminded of how awful she looked. She sat up from his shoulder and
subconsciously adjusted the hood around her face. “Oh, no,
Morgan, I didn't mean it that way, lass. I just mean he's goin' ta
fookin' pay for that, he is!”

They
sat in silence for the rest of the way back to his home, aside from
the exception of him asking her if she wanted to go to a hospital, in
which she politely refused. Sean desperately wanted to know what
happened, but he would wait until she was ready to tell the story. He
was happy she was safe, and that's all that mattered. At least until
he found out who had hurt her, then matters would be different.

When
they got to his house, he helped Morgan inside first and got her sat
on the couch, then went out to retrieve her bags. She had already
taken off his coat by the time he got back inside and was lying down
on the long sofa. It gave her a little bit of relief to stretch out
her side as opposed to being hunched over in a plane and car for the
past few hours.

“Morgan...”
Sean dropped to his knees on the floor and rested his head on the
couch beside hers, then softly pushed the hair out of her bloodshot
eyes. When he had received her phone call, he had been prepared to
pop open a beer and watch television, but his plans changed. He had
gotten ready the second their call had ended, then went straight to
the airport to wait. The thoughts of what might have happened to the
girl had prevented him from even one minute's worth of sleep, but
seeing her standing at baggage claim had delivered him the biggest
sigh of relief that he'd ever had.