Heartbreak Cove (Sanctuary Island) (RE8) (25 page)

“Yes. He found out she has a heart murmur, which isn’t life threatening but would make it almost impossible to sell her and recoup the hundreds of thousands he paid for her. She’s insured for millions, though—worth more dead than alive, unless anyone finds out about the heart murmur. So he bought off the vet who did the exam, but thank God, the vet had second thoughts.”

“And he came to you.”

Sam nodded briskly, flooded with urgency to get away, get gone before the bounty hunters showed up and endangered everyone he held dear. “The vet told me about the heart murmur. And he also told me he’d filled a prescription for Queenie for a medication that would be deadly for a horse with her condition.”

“Her owner was going to poison her for the insurance money.”

“Gradually, bit by bit,” Sam agreed, the sick cruelty of it twisting his guts. “He was killing her.”

“Okay, I completely see why she needed to be removed from her owner’s custody,” Andie said, putting her hands on her hips. “But why not go to the authorities?”

Sam snorted. “You mean, like the ones who trumped up charges and had me imprisoned for a crime I didn’t commit?”

“That was a different situation,” Andie argued. “A wealthy, connected family, corrupt police…”

Weariness weighed down Sam’s soul. “Queenie’s legal owner is Garry Wallace.”

Andie froze. “The lieutenant governor of Virginia,” she clarified weakly. “Well. Crap.”

“Exactly.” Sam pressed a hand against the closed trailer door. “I couldn’t risk it. I know how these things go. It’s hard enough going through proper channels to get an abused animal rescued—in most states, horses are still regarded as livestock. Their owners can basically do whatever they want to them. Even when the abuse is flagrant, it can take months to get the official wheels turning. Queenie didn’t have months.”

Andie nodded to herself, as if he’d confirmed something she already believed. “Okay, that’s what I needed to know.”

Stepping up close to Sam, Andie put her hand beside his where it rested on the latched door of the trailer, then banged it loudly, twice. With a rumble, the truck’s engine roared to life. Startled, Sam darted around the side of the trailer only to see Jo Ellen give him a cheery salute through the open driver’s window before she pulled the trailer away from the curb, taking Queenie with her.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“What the hell are you doing?” Sam snarled, his big body going tense.

“I’m proving to you that you don’t have to go it alone anymore, since you obviously don’t believe it yet.”

“You mean…”

“I’m not confiscating Queenie to turn her over to the authorities.” Andie faced him down, head held high and voice sure. “I’m helping you steal her.”

Sam’s jaw dropped, then clenched tightly as his eyes darkened with regret. “This is exactly why I tried to leave. Andie, don’t do this. Don’t let me ruin your life.”

Some last bit of worry or doubt that had lain coiled in Andie’s belly melted away. “You left to save us,” she said, aware of the huskiness of her own voice and not even trying to hide it. “But Sam, we don’t need to be rescued. I’m not an abused horse you have to save. I can make my own judgment calls and my own choices, and I’ll stand by them.”

The muscles of his shoulders bunched under his faded black T-shirt. “This is a bad call,” he said baldly. “You have Caitlin to think about—what if your brother never comes home? You’re all she’s got. You can’t get involved in something like this, Andie.”

Andie went toe-to-toe with Sam, poking a stiff finger into his chest. “Don’t tell me what I can’t do. You think I could look Caitlin in the face if I let the horse she loves get sent back to certain death? If I am going to be her only parental figure,” she said, voice breaking, “I’m sure as hell going to try to show her how to be strong, to stand up for what she believes in, and to protect those who can’t protect themselves.”

Visibly conflicted, Sam frowned. “Where is Caitlin, anyway?”

“She’s with Taylor and Matt.”

The ferry horn blew again, piercingly loud. Sam looked around, apparently just now noticing that the town square had cleared out completely. Only a few stragglers remained, tidying up their booths and tables before hurrying down the hill to the docks.

Sam turned back to her, and from the grim determination hardening his jaw, Andie knew he was about to make one final appeal. “Please,” he rasped. “Call Jo back. Let me take Queenie and get on the ferry, and get her out of here before the men who are looking for us make it to Sanctuary Island.”

“It’s too late for that, I’m afraid,” Andie told him, aching to take his hand and squeeze it for reassurance. “I pulled in a few favors and got in touch with the ferryboat captain. Along with the crowd of graduation guests, most of whom are related to Sanctuary residents, there are three large gentlemen who don’t appear to be part of the onboard graduation festivities. According to the ferry’s records, there are three names I don’t recognize as being connected to Sanctuary Island in any way—but when I got Ivy to run them through the system, they popped up.”

Sam shook his head as if dazed. “Oh my God, Andie. How many people are you dragging into this?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” she said, impatience snapping at her heels. “No one has to be dragged. People here care about you, and they care about keeping that horse safe. Once I explained the situation, no one thought twice about helping out.”

He stared at her for a long moment. “I never expected any of this.”

“I know.” He looked so dumbfounded, Andie had to lean up and kiss his scratchy cheek. “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it.”

“To what?”

“Being loved.” Andie gave him a smile that came from the bottom of her heart, then hooked her arm through his elbow and started pulling him toward the docks. Doing something bad for a very good reason was turning out to be as satisfying as upholding the letter of the law had ever been. “Come on, we need to get down there.”

“What for?” Sam resisted, setting his weight against her, and Andie sighed. She’d never budge him if he didn’t want to go. “Andie, stop. What’s the plan? I mean, Jo can take Queenie back to Windy Corner, but they’re bound to search the biggest stables on the island.”

“Jo’s not driving the trailer to Windy Corner,” Andie started, but a loud cheer from down the hill distracted her. “Sam, please. We need to get down there and confront those men when they get off the ferry. Everything hinges on it.”

“Andie—”

“Sam.” She reached up to cup his face between her palms and stare into his beautiful, confused brown eyes. “Can you trust me?”

The fact that he didn’t hesitate for even an instant warmed Andie all the way down to the soles of her feet. “I do trust you.”

She rewarded him with a kiss, the brush of their lips settling something in her soul even as the rest of Andie geared up for a fight.

“Come on, then.” She grabbed his hand and ran for the docks. “Let’s give those thugs a big Sanctuary Island welcome.”

*   *   *

Sam’s mind was racing faster than his feet, trying to figure out what Andie was doing and how he could talk her out of it. Before he could come up with anything, they were pushing through the crowd of Sanctuary Island residents who’d packed the parking lot by the pier where the ferry had docked.

A warm slap on the back startled Sam. He looked around, but everyone in his vicinity was smiling at him, or nodding solemnly. A tiny, white-haired lady leaning on a cane winked at him.

“What’s going on?” he muttered to Andie out of the corner of his mouth. “Why are they all looking at me like that?”

“I told you, they like you. Now stop flirting with Miss Ruth and look for the lieutenant governor’s men!”

Passengers were already pouring out of the ferry, which had been decked out in streamers and balloons in green and white, Sanctuary High’s school colors. All around them, teenagers and their parents shouted, waved over their visiting family. There were hugs and congratulations, enough noise to scare the flock of gulls who lived on the Summer Harbor boathouse into taking wing, adding their loud shrieks to the pandemonium.

And in the center of it all, Sam spotted three huge, hulking muscle men cutting through the happy townsfolk like sharks through a school of clownfish. People shrank from them as they passed, as if they gave off a palpable air of barely contained violence.

At his side, Andie tensed and her hand went to her belt where she usually wore her Taser. But she wasn’t in uniform—because of him, Sam remembered with a stab of self-hatred—and she dropped her hand to her side.

Sam stepped in front of her, confronting the hired enforcers dead on. “Hello, boys. Looking for someone?”

The tallest one, a Teutonic bruiser with an almost colorless complexion and pale straw-colored hair, narrowed his light gray eyes. “Yeah. Sam Brennan. That you?”

“It is. Who’s asking?”

“Lieutenant Governor Garry Wallace sent us.” When the man smiled, a scar at the corner of his mouth pulled his lips into a snarl. “Come with us now, Mr. Brennan.”

“He’s not going anywhere with you, Mr. Struecher,” Andie said, stepping up to Sam’s side.

The way Struecher’s pale eyes zeroed in on Andie made the hairs on the back of Sam’s neck rise. “And who are you?”

“A friend of Sam’s,” she said, with a casual glance around the crowd that had gathered around this little confrontation. “Sam has a lot of friends on Sanctuary Island, as it happens.”

The pair of guys behind Struecher looked around, seeming surprised at the serious nods, scowls, and crossed arms they saw in the crowd. Sam sympathized with them—he could hardly believe what he was seeing, either. Struecher never took his eyes off Andie, though.

“I wonder,” he said. “Would Mr. Brennan have so many friends if they knew he’d stolen a horse from the lieutenant governor’s own stables?”

“They might ask to see proof,” said a querulous old voice from out of the crowd. “Rather than taking some muscle-bound hooligan’s word for it.”

Andie sucked in a breath beside him, and when Sam saw who’d spoken, he understood why. Dabney Leeds hobbled to the front of the crowd, rapping people’s legs with his cane if they didn’t get out of his way fast enough. Trailing behind him on a plaid leather leash was a white bulldog wearing a green and white dog-size varsity letterman’s jacket and a long-suffering expression.

“Now, what’s this all about, Sheriff?” Dabney asked, directing the question to Andie.

To her credit, she never missed a beat. With a cool tilt of her chin in the direction of Struecher and his guys, she said, “These gentlemen believe they have the right to come onto our island and remove someone without a warrant or any proof of wrongdoing. Unless—I’m sorry.” Andie glanced back at Struecher. “
Do
you have a warrant?”

The furious way he clenched his jaw was answer enough. “Two months ago, Queen’s Ransom, a very valuable Thoroughbred mare, disappeared from the lieutenant governor’s barn. Our investigation shows that Sam Brennan arrived on this island with a mare two months ago. It’s not proof, but here is Brennan. Where is the horse? One look at it will prove that it’s the lieutenant governor’s property.”

Sam tensed. Struecher kept calling Queenie “it,” as if she was an inanimate object. Out of sight of the thugs, Andie put a warning hand on the fist he didn’t remember clenching.

“I have no idea where the lieutenant governor’s horse is,” Sam was able to say with complete honesty, meeting Struecher’s assessing stare without flinching.

“Of course, he admits nothing,” one of the thugs sneered, “but someone on this island must have witnessed his arrival.”

“Hmmm,” said Miss Ruth, the woman who’d made eyes at Sam earlier. “I don’t remember a horse, and I definitely remember when Sam arrived. A woman takes note of a man like that.”

“I’m not a woman,” said a male voice behind Sam. “But I’m pretty observant. I think I’d know if a man who’s been living in my house for two months were a criminal.”

Sam turned in time to see his cousin Penny’s rich, handsome husband step forward to stand at his back in a blatant show of support. Sam gave Dylan Harrington a short nod, more touched than he knew how to express. Gratitude dried his throat—not only for the support, but for the fact that Dylan appeared to be alone. Which meant he’d accomplished the impossible and convinced Penny to stay home and out of trouble, for once.

“What about the ferry captain? He will be our proof.” Struecher was going to grind his molars to dust if he kept clamping his jaw like that.

“Well, bring him out,” Dabney Leeds demanded irritably. “Let’s get this business over with, we have a graduation to celebrate.”

Sam’s heart sped up as the crowd parted to let the grizzled old captain through. Sam remembered him from the day he’d arrived, mostly because he was wearing the same neon-green bowling jersey in some shiny material that caught the light. His name, Buddy, was stitched over the right breast in hot-pink thread. “Yeah?”

“Do you have records of this man’s arrival on Sanctuary Island two months ago?” Andie asked in her best official business voice.

Buddy spat a thoughtful stream of tobacco juice into the empty soda can he held. “Nope.”

“No records?” Struecher insisted. “That’s ridiculous. You must have a ship’s manifesto of some kind, for insurance purposes. I demand that you produce it immediately.”

“Can’t.”

Sam had to admire Buddy’s economy with words. A strange sensation was gathering under his breastbone, hot and buoyant as if he’d swallowed a helium balloon. It took a minute, but he finally recognized it as hope.

Somehow, Andie seemed to have gotten the entire town in on her crazy scheme. He couldn’t fathom how such a feat was even possible.

“Don’t keep the logs for longer than a couple weeks,” Buddy was explaining in a bored tone. “Ain’t any kind of point to it.”

“The point,” Struecher ground out, “is that the lieutenant governor’s stolen horse is on this island somewhere, and I intend to find it.”

“Gosh,” piped up a woman wearing a trim shirtwaist dress covered in polka dots, with her hair in sleek waves like she was on her way to a sock hop. “That sounds an awful lot like you want to conduct an illegal search of private property. Can they do that, Sheriff?”

“No, Ivy, I’m afraid not,” Andie replied calmly, hooking her thumbs in her belt and staring at Struecher and his goons, implacable as the dawn. “If these men want to search any part of Sanctuary Island, they’re going to need a proper warrant.”

“Which I’m afraid may be difficult to acquire,” Dabney Leeds announced with visible satisfaction. “Since everyone on this island is prepared to swear that when Sam Brennan arrived on that ferry two months ago, he was alone.”

Sam glanced around the group of townsfolk. Lots of them were familiar faces—the woman who owned the hardware store where he’d picked up leather polish, the parents of Sam’s favorite Windy Corner Therapeutic Riding client, Rachel, a ten-year-old girl with Down Syndrome … but there were plenty of people he’d never met or spoken to. Yet here they were, standing shoulder to shoulder in solidarity to protect a man they barely knew and a horse they were denying even existed.

It was like nothing Sam had ever experienced. He could only imagine that this was what having a family felt like.

“I may have been alone when I got here,” he said, loudly enough for everyone to hear, “but I’m not alone anymore. So go on back to the lieutenant governor and tell him he’s got the wrong idea about me.”

Struecher opened his mouth to reply, but when he hesitated, Andie said softly, “Go on, Kurt. You did your best. There’s nothing here for you, and if the lieutenant governor is smart, he’ll cut his losses and move on.”

“Yes,” Dabney Leeds agreed, banging his cane on the ground. “Tell Garry from me that this is a fight he can’t win. Much like his next election will be, without my contribution to his coffers. I’m not interested in giving money to animal abusers. I’d rather support those who fight for the cause of protecting animals. That makes Sam Brennan a hero in my book, not a criminal.”

Struecher glanced from Leeds to Andie, scanning the determined faces of the gathered townspeople before landing on Sam again. His scarred mouth twitched, as if he was fighting a smile. “I’ll convey your message to my employer. It’s possible this business has become more trouble than it’s worth to him.”

With a sharp jerk of his head, he sent his silent pair of back-up goons hulking off toward the ferry. Sam started to let go of the breath he’d been holding, almost unable to believe everything that had happened in the last few minutes, but then Kurt Struecher turned back one last time.