Janelle Taylor (22 page)

A mob hit man?

He pushed the thought from his mind.

One thing at a time.

First, he just had to get back to them.

Or die trying.

With a violently trembling hand, Beau pressed the intercom. He radioed the tower and uttered the four words he never thought he’d say again.

“Ready for takeoff.”

A distant thumping sound roused Jordan from a light sleep.

She found herself still on the couch, with Spencer’s head on top of a pillow on her lap. Her neck was stiff from having fallen asleep in an upright position, and she winced as she turned her head, listening.

It must have been the wind, she decided. It was still blowing like crazy, hurling sheets of rain against the windows.

She tilted her head back and forth several times, rubbing her neck to get the kinks out. She should really carry Spencer down to his bedroom so that he could sleep comfortably in his own bed.

As for her, she had no intention of going to bed. Not with Beau out there somewhere in the storm. Shouldn’t he be here by now?

What if something had happened to him?

Maybe he’d been in an accident…

Or maybe the pirate had gotten to him …

No! Stop thinking that way!
Jordan scolded herself. Of course Beau was fine. There was an indestructible aura about him.

Or maybe she just wanted to think that of him because she couldn’t bear to consider the alternative.

Her world had become an infinitely more interesting and less lonely place with Beau in it. Granted, they had shared more drama in the past few days than some people lived through in a lifetime.

Jordan couldn’t help wondering what would have happened if they had simply met for the blind date Andrea MacDuff had arranged.

Would they have shared a polite dinner and then gone their separate ways?

Probably. Neither of them had been willing to take a romantic risk. Now she knew why he was emotionally distant. He had no idea about her past, or Kevin….

But being a jilted bride paled in comparison to what Beau had been through. Her curtailed wedding and losing Kevin paled in comparison to the trauma of these past few days.

How had she managed to hang onto that pain for so long? If Kevin came to her tomorrow, single, available, and contrite, she wouldn’t want him back. He belonged in another lifetime, to another woman—the woman she had once been.

Yes, what he had done to her had hurt. But it hadn’t come as close to destroying her as she had once thought.

What Beau had been through, that could destroy a person.

But it hadn’t. He had somehow survived.

Just as Jordan had survived.

Just as Spencer would survive whatever lay ahead.

Jordan stroked the little boy’s silky hair, looking down
at him lying asleep in her lap. She would miss him when he was gone, she thought tenderly. Maybe she could visit him, wherever he wound up living.

She could tell him stories about Phoebe. Stories only she knew. She could make sure that he grew up knowing what his mother had really been like—knowing her as only a best friend could.

Tears were trickling down Jordan’s cheeks.

She thought about how it had been Phoebe who cradled her, very much like this, as the sun set on her wedding day. Jordan couldn’t seem to drag herself out of bed for at least twenty-four hours after leaving the church, and Phoebe had stayed right there with her. Jordan had allowed her to do what she wouldn’t let her mother do: hug her while she cried, and assure her that everything was going to be all right.

Jordan hadn’t believed her, of course.

But everything really was all right. She just hadn’t realized it until right now. She had picked up the pieces of her old life and she had built a better life. And if she hadn’t been so damned frightened of being hurt again, it might not have had to be such a lonely life, either.

Well, that was going to change.

When she got back to Georgetown, she was going to start living again. She was going to start taking time for herself, to do the things she used to enjoy. To bake, and garden, and maybe even travel.

What about dating?
she asked herself.
What about Beau?

Being with him, lying in his arms, had awakened needs Jordan had buried for years. Needs she had tried to forget even existed.

Thinking about those stolen moments together sparked renewed hunger inside her even now.

Was she anxious for Beau to get back only because she
was worried about him, and because she was frightened here alone with Spencer?

Or was it partly because she craved close contact with him: the kind of intimacy they had shared last night?

A little of both, she admitted to herself…

And then she heard it again.

A thump.

It had come from somewhere outside.

Perhaps just the wind. Or maybe a tree branch hitting the house, Jordan thought, as her heart began pounding.

But she didn’t remember seeing any trees nearby.

Maybe it was just deck furniture, then. Maybe it blew off somebody’s deck
—
or even one of ours
—
and was swept against the side of the house by the wind.
…

As she tried to quell the wayward fear that had suddenly surged inside her, Jordan heard another sharp, sudden sound.

Breaking glass.

Spencer stirred in her lap as she jerked her head toward the sound—and the nearest set of French doors leading to a deck….

Just in time to see a black-gloved hand reaching through the shattered glass panel to turn the knob from the inside.

Beau clenched the controls as the little plane bounced violently. He reminded himself that storm chasers flew into hurricanes all the time.

But they were experts.

And maybe they had a death wish.

He didn’t.

Not anymore.

If he survived this, he would never again entertain thoughts of suicide. Not even for a moment. He had never wanted to live as badly as he did right now.

His chances of doing so had never been slimmer.

He was close to the Carolina coast, but he wasn’t going to make it past. He wasn’t going to make it to the airport on the Outer Banks. He wasn’t going to make it to any airport. He had lost communication with the tower that had been trying to guide him in at Elizabeth City.

He had to put the plane down now—literally on a wing and a prayer.

All he could hope for, at best, was a long, deserted stretch of highway below. What were the chances of finding one? At night, in a storm?

He descended another thousand feet.

He was flying by instruments alone. He could see nothing. It was pitch black outside the windows.

Panic swelled within him.

He pushed it back.

Panic now would be deadly. If he managed to keep his wits about him, he might be able to survive a crash landing.

He cursed, wrestling with the wind for control of the plane.

He should be able to see lights below as he descended.

He went down another thousand feet.

Again, he nearly lost control of the plane.

Memories rushed back at him. He could feel the plane spiraling earthward, could taste the metallic flavor of fear in his mouth, could hear Jeanette’s screams, Tyler’s frightened whimpering …

No.

That was then. This was now. Now, he was alone. If
he lost control and this plane went down, it would carry only him with it.

And he wasn’t going down without waging one hell of a battle.

He descended again. He was flying dangerously low. Coming in for a landing, if he could just find a place to land. He glimpsed occasional lights through the rain-shrouded mist…. Twin pairs of white lights. And red lights.

Head and taillights, he realized. There was a road down there.

But it wasn’t deserted.

He cursed.

He couldn’t put the plane down on a highway full of cars.

Not
full
of cars,
he told himself. The lights were few and far between. This wasn’t a well-traveled road. Maybe if he just…

No.

He couldn’t take even the slightest chance of placing innocent men, women, and children in harm’s way.

He descended lower, the little plane jarring and bumping along its turbulent course as he frantically sought a place to put it down.

He could now see a vast black patch below, devoid of lights. It was either a large empty field, or water. From here, it was impossible to see which.

Water…

He remembered the sickening smell of jet fuel mingled with the dank scent of the bayou.

The terror of surfacing alone with nothing but black sky overhead and black water all around.

The ominous, barely-there current signaling him that
a large gator or snake was moving silently through the murky water nearby.

The sickening knowledge that an encounter with either of those predatory bayou creatures would be nothing compared to facing the chilling, heart-wrenching certainty that everything that mattered to him was lost forever in the twisted metal wreckage mired in muddy water.

The plane jerked violently. He wrestled it lower.

That was then.

This is now.

This is only about me, alone in the plane
—
about my survival.

He would have to come down right here, and right now.

No, it isn’t just about me.

If I die, Jordan and Spencer will be on their own.

If I make it, I can get to them. I can save them.

Once again, in a cruel twist of fate, the lives of a woman and child hung in the balance with his own.

He scanned the sprawling darkness below.

If it was a large, flat patch of farmland, he might survive.

If it was water …

Oh, hell.
Was
it water?

There was only one way to find out.

He braced himself for the answer.

The shadowy figure blew into the room in a swirling gust of wind and rain.

Seized by terror, Jordan felt a strangling scream lodge in her throat.

Spencer was slowly sitting up on her lap, rubbing his
eyes. She squeezed him tightly against her, warily staring at the intruder as the child squirmed, trying to pull free.

The man’s clothing was black, as was the eye patch that left only one frighteningly dark eye to glare at Jordan and Spencer as he crossed swiftly toward them.

Jordan’s thoughts whirled.

She had to do something.

She couldn’t just sit here and wait for the stranger to attack.

But there was no escape. There was no way she could lift the struggling child into her arms and run. She wouldn’t get anywhere.

“Jordan … what are you …
doing?”
Spencer tried to wrench himself from her viselike grasp, then twisted his head to look up at her face.

He followed her gaze …

And screamed.

“Shut up!” the intruder rasped.

“The pirate! Jordan!” Spencer buried his face against her shoulder, crying.

“On second thought, go ahead and scream,” the man said. He was standing over them now, a murderous gleam in his eye. “Nobody’s around to hear you.”

Jordan found her voice. It emerged low, trembling, stricken with fear, and she fought to keep it level. “Who are you?”

“Didn’t you hear the kid? I’m the pirate.” He laughed, a sinister sound that sent icy fingers of dread down Jordan’s spine.

“What do you want? Why are you here?”

“Just following orders, ma’am,” he said mockingly. “The man I work for, he doesn’t want the kid around spreading stories. He doesn’t want the kid around at all.”

Jordan’s stomach lurched.

She saw the man reaching into his pocket as he continued talking.

“I tried to leave you out of it, lady. My boss, he doesn’t like things to get more complicated than they have to. I tried to take care of business back at your place, like he wanted. But the kid had to wake up and you had to come running.”

“You really were in my town house,” Jordan said, dread mingling with a new emotion that sprang forth deep inside her.

It was fury.

Fury that this man had been prowling in her home in the dead of night.

That he had taken a defenseless little boy from his bed.

That he had come here to finish the diabolical deed.

She had to buy time.

To keep him talking.

If she did, maybe Beau would get here….

Though the stranger kept his hand concealed at his side, she glimpsed the familiar dark metal object he had removed from his pocket She knew it was a gun. She knew he was going to use it to kill both her and Spencer.

And even if Beau showed up any second now and caught him in the act, he couldn’t save them. He would only be shot, too.

Spencer was whimpering, his face buried against her breast, soaking her with hot tears. His entire body was quaking in fear. She stroked his hair, wanting to soothe him with words, but afraid to trigger a violent response in the intruder.

Jordan knew she had to do something. Fast.

“How did you find us here?” she asked, as though it mattered.

He laughed again, as though she were a source of great amusement. “You can’t be serious.”

She was silent, waiting.

He had left the doors open.

Rain was blowing in, and the wind’s gusts banged the doors repeatedly against the walls, rattling the panes. He didn’t seem to notice.

“It wasn’t difficult to find you,” he said with a shrug. “You were careless. I was watching.”

“You didn’t follow us here.” She tried not to let her eyes drift to the gun in his hand. Forced herself to hold his gaze with her own, to keep him focused, and talking.

“No,” he agreed. “I didn’t follow you. I didn’t have to.”

“Then how … ?”

“Mr. Beau Somerville.”

The mere mention of Beau’s name sent a ripple of hope through Jordan. He had promised to come back. She hadn’t even known him for a week, and she didn’t know much about him, but she was certain of one thing: he was a man who didn’t make promises lightly. He would be back. She just had to keep herself and Spencer alive until he got here.

“Beau Somerville told you where we were?” Jordan asked, as though that were an actual possibility.