Heartbreak Cove (Sanctuary Island) (RE8) (26 page)

“Good-bye, Mr. Brennan,” he said, holding out his huge, battle-hardened hand. “It’s rare, you know. This kind of loyalty. I hope you appreciate it.”

“Believe me,” Sam replied, shaking the man’s hand with a surreal feeling of watching the whole scene from outside his body, “I do.”

Struecher nodded as if satisfied before shaking Andie’s hand too. “If you are ever in need of work,” he told her, passing her a white card embossed with his name and number, “please call me.”

“Excuse me,” Dabney Leeds interrupted imperiously. “But Sheriff Shepard already has a job.”

Trust Leeds to see which way the political wind was blowing and throw his weight behind the winner. Dabney Leeds never backed a loser.

Andie shrugged at Struecher. “Guess I’m unavailable for now. Thanks for the thought, though.” And she pocketed the card, grinning when Leeds harrumphed in annoyance.

Struecher’s gaze turned to the top of the hill leading up to the town square, the road bordered with maritime pines and the brilliant blue sky stretching overhead. “This is a nice place, your Sanctuary Island.”

And with that, he turned on his heel with military precision and marched back to the ferry to join his men. Buddy spat another stream of tobacco juice and ambled after them to raise the gangplank and ready the ferry for the return trip to the mainland.

Sam watched them go, still in a daze, until Andie threw her arms around him.

“We did it,” she said into his ear. “They’re gone. You and Queenie are safe.”

“Thank you,” Sam said, just for her. Then, more loudly, “Thank you, everyone. This town is amazing. There’s no place like it. I’ve never had a home, not really—but I can’t imagine any place better to put down roots and start a new life than Sanctuary Island.”

All around them, people cheered and clapped. Dylan shook him by the shoulder, and Miss Ruth tugged him away from Andie and pulled him down for a loud, smacking kiss right on the mouth. Lightheaded from the adrenaline crash, Sam reeled from well-wisher to well-wisher as it seemed like every person on the island wanted to hug and congratulate him.

“But how did you all even know what was going down?” Sam finally managed to ask Andie.

“I had Wyatt Hawkins send out one of his special bulletins,” Andie answered. “We’ve really got to get you on the island email loop.”

“And everyone read it,” Sam said, still trying to piece it together. “And somehow, you got every person in town to agree to the same story?”

“This is Sanctuary Island, boy,” Dabney Leeds declared, stooping creakily to pet his panting bulldog. “The answer is in the name. Since the town was first founded, this island has been a sanctuary for those with no place else to go—especially wild horses. We don’t hold with cruelty to animals on this island. No sir.”

“But still,” Sam shook his head. “The lengths you all went to.”

“Mmm,” Andie agreed, shooting Leeds an arch look. “Including reinstating me as Sheriff on the spot. Does this mean you’re withdrawing your grandson from the election?”

“Nash is an amazing young man,” Leeds said, waving away the entire situation as if he hadn’t plotted against Andie’s campaign for weeks. “He’ll find some other use for his many talents here on Sanctuary Island. We already have a sheriff.”

Andie broke into a huge smile, and Sam couldn’t resist the urge to sweep her up and twirl her around. Everything in him wanted to let go, to believe in this perfect happy ending, but he’d lived too many years one step ahead of disaster. It was tough not to look over his shoulder to see what was coming for him.

Letting Andie’s toes touch the ground, Sam stared down into her relaxed, jubilant face. “They could still come back,” he said, fear and worry like a barbed-wire cage around his heart. “If they get a warrant to search Jo’s barn, they’ll find her.”

“No, they won’t. Come on, let me show you.” Andie stepped backwards, her eyes bright with excitement. She kept Sam’s hand clasped in hers, and he followed her.

After this, Sam knew he would follow her anywhere.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“This is the road down to Heartbreak Cove,” Sam said, staring out the SUV’s windshield.

“Where you found Lucky.” Andie steered carefully down the double-rutted, unpaved lane. The wax myrtles and groundsels were taking over again, slowly growing over the tracks made by vehicles. If she didn’t find another couple of teenagers necking out here so she could assign them the community service of clearing back the plant life, pretty soon this lane would be impassable.

Maybe that was a good thing, she decided as the SUV rolled to a stop next to the Windy Corner horse trailer.
This place is meant to be wild and free. Maybe we should give it back to the wilderness.

“What are we…”?

Sam’s voice died out as he gazed out over the waving sea of cordgrass and spotted the horse trailer parked by the willow tree. “Andie. We’re going to turn her loose.”

“Not just her,” Andie said, cutting the engine and opening her door.

Sam met her at the back of the SUV, beside the horse trailer’s open back doors. He peered into it, seeming unsurprised to find Queenie still tied up inside. But next to her, nuzzling affectionately at Queenie’s neck, was a gray-dappled wild colt.

“Jo drove the trailer back to Windy Corner where she picked up Lucky, and then I asked her to drop the horses off here. Taylor and Matt brought Caitlin along with them to let her say good-bye to Queenie, and then they drove Jo home.” Andie was aware she was babbling, but she couldn’t seem to stop. “So far, none of them have done anything they’d need to feel guilty about, and I wanted to keep it that way.”

“You thought of everything.” Sam’s voice was neutral, his expression unreadable in profile as he studied the two horses he’d worked so hard to rehabilitate.

Andie noticed she was twisting her hands in her white cotton shirttails and tried to cut it out. “Well, the turning loose thing was Jo’s idea, actually. She said you’d done it before, when you weren’t able to get an abused horse to the point of trusting humans again.”

Closing his eyes, Sam huffed out a laugh. “So she knew about that.”

“I know Queenie isn’t a hopeless case, and she was never mistreated in quite the same way as some of the horses you’ve rescued, but this land is protected. There are strict rules about who can and can’t have contact with the wild horses, so even if Lieutenant governor Wallace tries to come back here with a warrant—”

“Queenie will be safe,” Sam finished. He glanced down at Andie for the first time since he figured out her plan, and the wonder in his dark chocolate eyes brought a lump of emotion to Andie’s throat. “Andie. I can’t believe … You’re amazing.”

The praise disconcerted her. She tucked her hair behind her ears and gestured nervously at the pair of horses. “It makes sense. And I thought, if we release Lucky and Queenie together, they can start their own band.”

“A second chance at love and family,” Sam said quietly, reaching out slowly to slide his hands around her waist and pull her in tight. He dropped his forehead to rest it against hers. “I can hardly believe you’re doing all of this. Andie Shepard, defender of the law.”

Even though the teasing lilt in his tone was gentle, Andie pulled back. She wanted to make sure he understood. “I know the law says I should turn Queenie over to her rightful owner, but I can’t believe that’s the
right
thing to do. Being with you—loving you—has given me a new faith in my instincts, even when they don’t agree with the letter of the law.”

The corner of Sam’s mouth kicked up in a wry half-grin. “I turned you into a rebel.”

“Maybe,” Andie said, shrugging. “But a rebel with a good cause. I believe in what you do, Sam. And I want to help.”

“You already have,” he told her, shaking his head. “More than you should. If anything blows back on you, or the town, because of this…”

Andie put her hand flat against his chest, feeling the steady thud of his heart vibrate through her palm. “Stop. I made my choice. We all did. Sanctuary Island is behind you, Sam. You’re one of us now, part of the community, whether you like it or not.”

“You too, Sheriff.” Sam raised a pleased brow. “I guess neither of us is an outsider anymore.”

Warmth and acceptance lit Andie up from the inside. “You’re right. We’re home.”

Bending his head, Sam sealed it with a kiss that sent sharply pleasurable tingles cascading over Andie’s whole body. When he lifted his head, he said, “Home. I like that.”

A short whinny from inside the trailer reminded Andie that they weren’t alone. “Are you ready to do this thing?”

Sam grinned, an eager light of anticipation gleaming in his eyes. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

Together they set up the ramp and unhooked the horses, backing them carefully out of the trailer. Andie held Queenie’s lead the way she’d learned during her volunteer hours at Windy Corner, and scratched her short fingernails along the line of the mare’s coarse mane.

“Thank you for bringing him to me,” she whispered into Queenie’s long, sensitive ear while Sam cautiously wrangled the more-volatile wild colt down the ramp.

The mare craned her neck to nudge her nose into Andie’s pockets, looking for a treat. With a sigh, Andie produced one last peppermint and stroked the side of Queenie’s face as she crunched it. The mare gave her an expectant look from her deep liquid eyes, a long silent moment of communication that made Andie wonder just how much Queenie understood. Maybe it was crazy, but Andie almost felt as if the mare was thanking her, too.

“Okay,” Sam said softly, even as the wild colt’s ears pricked and his head lifted to scent the salty breeze. “Time to go home, Lucky.”

With a deft move, Sam slipped the soft halter over Lucky’s ears and turned him loose with a fond slap to the hindquarters. The colt immediately cantered away, down the sloping hill toward the beach, but when he realized he was alone, he stopped. Glancing back over his shoulder, neck arched and long, tangled mane blowing in the wind, Lucky trumpeted a call for his mate.

Queenie jerked her head once, the lead rope almost flying out of Andie’s hands before she tightened her grip, startled. “I think she’s ready to go with him.”

Sam grabbed the sides of the halter with both hands and pressed a fast kiss to the white starburst on Queenie’s black forehead. “Be safe and happy,” he told her. “And live a good life.”

Stepping back, Sam nodded to Andie, who felt her insides clench. She offered him the rope. “Do you want to do it?”

“This is your plan, sweetheart,” Sam said with a quirked smile. “You do the honors. Unless you want plausible deniability.”

“I think it’s a bit late for that.” With fingers that shook, Andie unbuckled the halter that had Queenie’s name scrawled over a bit of masking tape on the side. It took her a second, but she got it off the mare in a jangle of hardware. Queenie shook her head, as if she enjoyed the freedom of movement.

Across the salt marsh, the wild colt called to her again, and Queenie whickered a response. She stepped closer to Sam, bumping him with her head hard enough to knock him back a pace, but Sam leaned into it and slung an arm over her withers. “Go on,” he told her, choking on the words. “Get out of here.”

With one last lip at Sam’s caressing hand, Queenie trotted away, picking up speed until she met Lucky, who wheeled and paced her as she thundered across the beach. The horses’ churning hooves kicked up sand and splashed through the foamy shallows, their tails streaming behind them like pennants caught in a gale.

Andie’s heart swelled until it pressed at the confines of her ribs, a solid ache that felt strangely good. “We let them go, released them into the wild. It’s strange, but
I’m
the one who feels free.”

Sam’s strong arms wrapped around her from behind, his broad chest against her back. “You gave them a new life,” he murmured into her hair. “Together.”

She hummed with pleasure as anticipation, hope, and joy welled up in her chest. Spinning in his arms, Andie crashed her mouth into his with reckless abandon. She felt everything at once, as if the entire universe were contained in a single kiss, in the wild freedom of her body against Sam’s.

“Now it’s our turn,” she whispered against his lips before he deepened the kiss. Every touch was a promise, ever caress a vow for their future, and Andie gave herself up to it.

Amidst the near perfect joy of the moment, she winged a swift prayer of thanks up to the heavens—for the quirk of fate that had landed Sam Brennan, horse thief and ex-con, in the arms of the law of Sanctuary Island. For the family of her heart, the townspeople here, and for the family she’d created with Sam and Caitlin.

And even though no joy could be perfect for her until she could give her niece the knowledge of exactly what had happened to Owen, Andie seized the gift of this moment, and the gift of the man in her arms, and vowed never to let him go.

Epilogue

Landstuhl Regional Medical Center
Germany

Everything was darkness. Waves of pain crested and receded like the ocean. The soldier swam in that ocean, he didn’t know how long. Time meant nothing. The words he heard in snatches from time to time meant nothing, either. If he got too close to the surface, to the patchy light drawing him up from the depths, the pain would wash over him and tumble him back under.

The soldier floated in the black depths and waited for the light to come back. It hurt—everything hurt—but beneath the need to escape the pain, a stronger need began to beat in time with the faint pulse of his heart.

Home.

Get home.

Home.

He didn’t even know what that meant, couldn’t picture “home” in his fractured, tormented mind, but he felt its draw like a hook in his chest. And every time the darkness threatened to drown him, the soldier kicked and flailed, lungs bursting and heart thundering, pushing himself closer to the surface where the pain waited. Because that was the way home. And he had to get there. Not just for himself, but for …

Loud beeping and frantic voices, hands pressing on his arms and legs, a burning rasp in his throat, and a hoarse voice shouting.

Owen Shepard, Sergeant First Class of the Army Rangers of the 3
^rd
Battalion, 75
^th
Rangers Regiment, woke up.

“Calm down,” a German-accented voice said. “Sergeant, please. You must be calm.”

Owen sucked in a shallow breath, and the shouting died away. He was the one who’d been shouting. The other voice leaned in nearer as the IV attached to Owen’s left arm burned slightly. He couldn’t see, everything was blurry white, and when he tried to lift his right hand to pull away the softness covering his face, nothing happened.

“You’re in a military hospital,” the voice said swiftly. “Med-evaced from Ramstein. You were in an explosion, but you are recovering.”

The medic went on, detailing injuries, but it was all static in Owen’s ears. He was messed up pretty bad. That was all he knew, and he’d known that even before he woke up.

Panic welled in Owen’s chest as the dark ocean began to rise, sucking at his consciousness. Whatever the medic had injected in his IV worked fast. Before he slid under again, Owen gritted his teeth and forced his heavy right hand to move, grasping the medic’s sleeve.

“Yes?” the German accent said. “What is it?”

Owen licked his dry, cracked lips. “Get me home for Christmas, Doc. My little girl is waiting for me.”