arched kitchen door leading to the outside, more to keep Abbie in than to keep anyone out. Her body was tensed for flight. Her gaze kept darting to the door. He didn’t like the pallor of her skin, the dazed look in her eyes or her stubborn insistence that she was fine when her body betrayed her shock at the near miss.
Seeing her again had been a shock to his system—like jumping into ice-cold water—and had knocked him for a loop. But he could not let his teenage infatuation with her get in the way of doing his job.
“Have any new guests arrived since Abbie got here?” Identifying the shooter would make keeping Abbie safe that much easier.
“Other than Abbie, you’re our only arrival this week. Do you think there’s a danger to any of our other guests?”
“No, the shooter is after Abbie.”
“What can we do?” Sister Bertrice clutched her cross as if it would provide her inspiration. He’d leave the prayers to her and rely on a solid plan of action.
Vanderveer couldn’t have bought every cop in the country. Though Gray couldn’t pull jurisdiction, he could get the USMS to, if it came to that. First he’d try the cooperative route. He’d explain the situation to the locals, then hitch a ride back to the mainland. “We’ll have to call the local cops.”
“Gray, no! I can’t go back into protective custody.” Arms wrapped around her middle as if she were in pain, Abbie turned to Sister Bertrice. “If you hadn’t told him where I was, I’d still be safe.”
“If I hadn’t told him, dear, you might be dead.”
Abbie blinked as if to hold back tears and made a small sound low in her throat that made him want to wrap her into his arms and promise her a happy ending. She’d always been a sucker for happy endings.
“Your young man is right, Abbie. This is too big. You can’t handle this alone. You have to trust someone. I wouldn’t have sent him after you if I hadn’t remembered him from your seventh birthday party, when you got hit with the piñata bat. He’s the one who held a napkin to your temple until your father could whisk you off to get stitches. He has your best interests at heart.” She patted Abbie’s hand with obvious affection. “I’ll go place that call now.”
Abbie hung on to the lapels of his jacket that was still draped over her shoulders. The gold feather earrings hanging from her lobes shivered. Her eyes beseeched him. “I can’t go back, Gray. I can’t just sit there and wait for the next shot through the window.”
He crouched beside her and reached for a hand. It was cold in his—as cold as the diamond-and-topaz ring on her finger. He rubbed her fingers to bring back warmth and tried to ignore the kick-in-the-gut need touching her brought. “Seekers is as safe a place as there is. It’s outfitted with the latest security technology. It’s a damned fortress. No one will be able to get to you there.”
“Except Rafe. You don’t know him. He’s a manipulator. He’ll use you to get to me, and you won’t even know it until it’s too late.”
“Is that what happened to your father?”
She pressed her lips into a thin line and nodded.
He didn’t like the mechanical stiffness of her body or the flat look in her eyes. She tried to pull her hand free. He hung on to it, needing to keep that small connection between them. “A bully has power only as long as people believe in his vision.”
“My point exactly.”
Eyes burning with fervor, she leaned forward and her scent of almonds and honey teased him. He’d thought the distance of years had made him immune to her power to dazzle him. But there it was, fizzing through his veins like a shook-up can of soda. “If you testify, you destroy his make-believe world. Without that power he loses everything.”
“You don’t get it.”
“He’s just a man, Abbie, not some sort of superhero.”
“He owns me.”
Gray pounded a fist against the tabletop. “Nobody owns anybody.” Especially not a bully.
She turned her face away from him. The same living-dead expression she’d worn after her mother had died cloaked her face. He hadn’t known how to reach her then, and the same kind of bewilderment rippled through him now. His golden girl should glow with happiness, not have the weight of sadness dull the light in her eyes. “Abbie.”
Her restless fingers knitted themselves with the hem of his jacket. “I know I have to testify. My father used to tell me that with privilege came responsibility. He owned the mill, but he was responsible for the well-being of the people who worked for him. He believed that if he took care of his people, they would return his loyalty.”
“I read about the fire. About his keeping his employees on the payroll while the mill was rebuilt.” Her father’s selfless actions had turned him into a hero. And a hero’s image was a tough one to uphold.
“To keep his promise he had to take on a partner. When George Vanderveer died, Rafe inherited his father’s options in the mill. Without Rafe’s money Dad couldn’t have bid successfully on the Steeltex project, and the mill desperately needed to win that contract. I owe Dad. I owe the employees who trusted him.” She turned to look at him, her eyes an open window to the knock-out-drag-down brawl between her fears and her duty. “But don’t you see? As long as Rafe is alive, he can get to me.”
“Not if we destroy him.” For her he’d conquer the world. She had to know that.
“How exactly do you plan on doing that? He’s already in jail, Gray. What will a life sentence do to him? He’ll still have his pack of goons to send after me. Even if Massachusetts had a death penalty, what would it do to him? He’d still have years of appeals to torture me. After he’s convicted, he’ll be even more desperate for revenge. I won’t ever be safe.”
Gray plucked a piece of twig from her hair and tucked a soft dark gold strand behind her ear, catching the tip of his finger on the chain around her neck. “I took care of Trevor Osborn when he was stalking you.”
The gold flecks in her eyes whirled as she touched the bump on the bridge of his nose. “He broke your nose.”
“And when that dog had you treed when you trespassed at the apple orchard,” he said, his voice rustier than he’d expected. “I got him away from you.”
Her gaze slid down to his calf, where the zigzag-scar souvenir of that battle resided. “He tore your jeans to shreds.”
It was worth every rip of denim and skin to have Abbie fuss over him once the mutt had hightailed it back to the farmhouse. The way she’d clung to his arm all the way back to the mansion had had him preening peacock-proud for days.
Don’t go there, Gray. His brain frantically fired warning messages. The past wasn’t someplace he wanted to get stuck. He’d worked too hard to free himself from the bonds of Echo Falls to get trapped there. “Good thing I’ve got a tough hide.”
“Not tough enough for Rafe. He has no conscience.”
“Bullies rarely do.” Gray had to remember all the hard-learned lessons beaten into him in that snake pit of a town.
“It’s
