“Screw it,” she finally said, heading for the
command bridge. She had one step to go when the sputter of a small
outboard engine cut the night.
Evie squeezed the warm metal railing beneath
her sweaty hand, listening for any indication it was Matt. The
engine drew closer, until she could hear the water softly soughing
away beneath the hull of a craft.
Finally, the motor cut back. Water sloshed
against the
Candyland
. It had to be Matt. He was going to
tie up and come aboard.
But what if it wasn’t? What if they’d caught
him? What if they were coming for her?
She slipped down the stairs, wishing like
hell she’d thought to carry the gun Matt had left below. Did she
have time to get it?
“Evie?” The sound of her name reached her and
she sagged in relief.
“Here.” She went to peer over the side of the
yacht. Matt sat in a tiny aluminum boat at the rear of the
Candyland
. Thankfully, he was alone.
“Catch.” She caught the rope he threw and
held the small boat against the bigger one while he pulled himself
onto the rear platform. He took the rope and made a quick knot
around one of the cleats, mooring the little boat securely.
“I was beginning to think you decided to go
without me,” Evie said as he stood on the deck beside her and
reached for the towel she’d brought up for him. He wasn’t very wet
after riding back, but he rubbed the terrycloth over himself
anyway.
“I did. But it took longer to find this boat
than I thought it would.” He finished toweling off and yanked his
dark T-shirt over his head. “I figured if I didn’t come back, you’d
try to come after me in this monster.”
“Damn straight. And I’m angry you were
planning to go without me, by the way. Just so you know.”
He finished buttoning his jeans and clipped
his phone to the waistband. Then he grinned. “I know it. But I
thought of a better idea anyway and this one involves you.”
She crossed her arms. “I’m not sure that
makes it better, but I’m listening.”
“I’ll take us as far into the bayou as
this’ll go. You can wait while I go downriver in the other
boat.”
Evie wanted to stay on the bigger boat, no
doubt about it. But she couldn’t endure this kind of uncertainty
again. She couldn’t drive herself nuts with regrets and
what
ifs
. She’d just have to face her fear, suck it up, and get on
board that wafer of a fishing boat. It was the only way to know he
was safe. And to help him if he needed it. “I’m going.”
He scrutinized her. Just when she thought he
was about to order her to stay behind, he shrugged. “Suit yourself,
Evie. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
* * *
Sarah woke up when someone banged open the
door and flipped on a light. She tried to stretch her cramped limbs
and bit back a wince. Her stomach growled loudly and her head
throbbed—less painfully than before, but still badly enough that
she knew the migraine could come back full force if she wasn’t
careful. She needed food, caffeine, and ibuprofen. None of which
she was likely to get.
“Get up, kid.” Brianna tossed a warmly
scented bag down beside her. Sarah sat up and ripped into the food
with her free hand. Brianna popped open a soda and set it down.
Sarah gulped half of it at once.
“Slow down or you’ll make yourself sick.”
Sarah slowed only marginally, figuring the
bitch was probably right.
“You should have fed her hours ago.” It was a
man’s voice. The man from earlier tonight. She squinted at him. He
was good-looking, sort of familiar in a way.
Sarah swallowed a mouthful of burger. “You
look like that other guy, the one who smelled like smoke all the
time.” She winced when she realized she’d spoken aloud. What if he
was mean? Would he come hit her?
“First cousins. You’re observant.”
“Too observant,” Brianna grumbled.
Sarah’s heart dropped to her toes. She didn’t
like the way Brianna said that, the way the woman chewed on the
inside of her cheek like she was thinking about something.
“Doesn’t matter, Bree. In a couple of hours,
we’ll be out of here.”
Brianna whirled away and gathered some things
into a bag. “You better be right. It won’t take Rivera long to send
in reinforcements. We need to be long gone from this place.”
“Let the kid finish her food. We have enough
time for that.”
Brianna stopped what she was doing and glared
at the man. “We had an agreement.”
“Still do.”
“So what are we after? Evie either doesn’t
have a clue, or she tried to pull one over on me with that media
card. If I have to call her back, I need to know what it is. I’m
tired of these games.”
The man simply looked at her. “Relax.”
Brianna exploded. “How can you tell me to
relax? Our lives are at stake here, and you promised me we’d be
safe. If you’d just tell me what we want instead of casing those
houses and chasing after Evie and her boyfriend like some kind of
stunt driver, I could get her to bring it to me. You nearly got us
killed back there.”
The man’s expression grew black. “We’re doing
it my way. If you don’t like it, you can leave.”
“Yeah, so you can put a bullet in my back or
stab me? No, thanks.”
Oddly enough, his glare turned into a grin.
“I could have already done that, so stop bitching. We’ll be out of
this town before dawn. You’ll be sipping a margarita on the beach
by this time tomorrow.”
* * *
It was too dark to see much of anything, but
Matt knew Evie was white-knuckled right about now. They’d left the
Candyland
behind an hour ago and begun their journey
downriver to Reynier’s Retreat. It wasn’t that it was a long
distance, but the boat he’d
borrowed
was small and only had
a twenty-five-horsepower motor. He’d wanted something bigger, but
the opportunity for this one presented itself and he had to take
it. There’d been too many people at the marina tonight, partying on
that houseboat or grilling at the pavilion, and he’d been a man in
underwear lurking around the boats.
Yeah, like that wasn’t going to get him
noticed.
So he’d taken the small fishing boat, knowing
Evie would hate the very idea of getting on the thing—though she’d
tried to hide it from him—and crawled his way back to where he’d
left her. He hadn’t really expected she would come with him. He
hadn’t argued with her, figuring by the time they anchored at the
mouth of the bayou and he prepared to climb down into the small
craft, she’d chicken out.
If that didn’t do it, then she
had
to
chicken out when she made the descent and stepped foot onto the
rocking aluminum. He didn’t know why she was afraid of boats, but
he knew that she was. She’d nearly wet herself trying to climb into
the pirogue earlier.
But she hadn’t chickened out when push came
to shove. She shook, that much he knew because he’d steadied her as
she transferred from one to the other boat, but she’d steadfastly
refused to wait on the yacht for him to return. One of these days,
he was gonna have to ask her what about boats terrified her so
much. He knew he’d taken her out in a pirogue when they were kids,
but that had been a long time ago.
She turned around to look at him, her fingers
clutching the edge of the johnboat.
“Almost there,” he said. He’d told her not to
speak unnecessarily since their voices would carry on the still
air. She’d taken him so seriously that she hadn’t spoken at all.
“Are you all right?”
She’d faced straight ahead again. She glanced
over her shoulder and nodded once.
He hoped like hell that Brianna Sweeney
hadn’t gotten to the CDs yet. Maybe the guy who knew what to look
for had finally caved. And maybe they’d taken the opportunity while
Matt and Evie disappeared from the radar to go back to the
guesthouse and try the search again. Obviously, whoever’d been
there before got interrupted before he could finish.
Matt wanted to know what was in the files.
They had to point to accounts where West stashed money, he was
certain, and yet his gut told him there had to be something else to
it. Something Rivera wanted even more than he wanted money.
Until Matt found the files and decoded them,
he couldn’t verify what that was. He slewed the tiller to the right
as they entered the final turn.
The bayou at night was a fascinating place.
He knew this water like he knew his own skin. When he was younger,
before his mother died, he’d spent time on the bayou with his
great-uncle Remy. It was Remy who taught him where to look for
gator nests so he could spy on the creatures, how to tell the
weather by the way the leaves on the trees looked, and how to fish
for bass the size of his arm. Remy’d also given him a deep
appreciation for the uniqueness of the Louisiana wetlands, their
fragility and beauty, and the necessity for preserving them.
Something twisted inside him. Regret? He
loved this place, and yet he’d blown out of here at the first
opportunity and left the conservation and preservation to others.
Matt didn’t think he’d actually been on the bayou since he’d left
home ten years ago. That he could still navigate it in the dark
ought to come as a surprise, and yet he’d have expected nothing
less.
Rochambeau—the lake, the bayou, the town—and
Reynier’s Retreat were in his blood. Would always be in his blood,
no matter how far he went or how long he stayed away. He understood
why Evie disliked it, why she wanted to get away. Hell, he’d done
the same thing.
But he’d always, on some level, pictured
himself returning. It might be in a coffin, though he definitely
hoped not.
At that moment, exactly when he’d expected
it, the ghostly white form of Reynier’s Retreat appeared in the
darkness. What must his ancestors have thought when they returned
from the fighting and saw their beautiful mansion intact, unharmed
by the destructive force of a war that had ruined so much in its
path? Did their bodies sizzle with a primal recognition the way his
did?
Light spilled from her leaded glass windows
onto the lawn, illuminating the colonnade fanning from the back of
the house. A faint burst of laughter drifted to his ears and he
realized someone was still in the garden.
Of course they were
. The rehearsal
dinner had been tonight. The dinner was over hours ago, but some of
the guests had lingered to enjoy the setting. It might be hot, but
Misty Lee had no doubt had fans brought out and set up on the
perimeter so people could enjoy an
al fresco
meal. Not only
that, but no mosquito would dare to crash Misty Lee’s party.
Whoever was out there was having a great time and probably had no
plans to leave anytime soon. He just hoped no one decided to go
wandering down toward the guesthouse because he didn’t want to end
up immobilizing the wrong person.
Worse, he didn’t want to incur Chris’s wrath
if he accidentally punched, say, Ben’s brother instead of one of
the bad guys.
Dieu
, no.
As the estate loomed closer, Matt seriously
considered anchoring the little boat in the channel and swimming to
shore, just in case anyone was waiting in the guesthouse for them
to return. He hadn’t seen any signs of recent boat traffic, so he
didn’t think anyone had come by water. And though it was more
difficult for unauthorized people to enter the estate by road, it
wasn’t impossible. Not with the wedding in two days. Caterers,
florists, guests, wedding participants—a whole host of people had
passed through those gates today.
Their opponents could be hiding their boat
against the shore somewhere, concealed by vegetation, waiting for
Matt and Evie to return. It was a gamble to wait, though, and
unless there was a whole platoon of men out there, it was a poor
use of resources. The bad guys had no idea
how
Matt and Evie
would return, or even
if
they would do so.
No, Matt was driving straight to the dock and
tying up. If someone was waiting on the water, he couldn’t leave
Evie behind and put her in danger. If someone were already here, at
the house, then he’d deal with that complication when he came to
it.
He stood up as they approached the low wooden
dock. The pirogue sat where they’d left it, dead in the water. He
shifted the tiller slightly, brought the aluminum boat alongside
the dock, and tossed a rope around one of the thick pylons. He made
quick work of tying up, then hopped onto the dock and turned to
help Evie.
She stumbled when her feet hit the solid
structure, knocking heavily against him.
“Careful.” He brushed a kiss across her
forehead. It was disconcerting, he knew, to go from the rocking
motion of being on the water to suddenly standing on land. He’d
done it a thousand times, though, both as a kid growing up on the
bayou and as a Special Forces soldier inserting into hostile
territory by whatever body of water happened to be convenient to
the target. It was as easy for him as breathing.
She leaned against him for a moment, her
hands pressing into his chest, her fingertips burning through his
T-shirt and into his skin. What he wouldn’t give to take her into
the house and straight to the bedroom, to make love to her until he
had to go board that plane for North Carolina.
Why’d all hell have to break loose the minute
he found her again?
“Stay on my six,” he said, nuzzling the hair
at her ear and breathing deeply the sweet scent of her. “You
remember what that is, right?”
“It’s your ass.”
He bit back a chuckle.
“Yeah, that’s right. You watch my ass and
I’ll watch yours. That’s how a team operates, got it?”
“So we’re a team, huh?”
“We’re a team.”
“Then let’s go get ’em.”
“Easy, tiger. We’re going through the back
door, but only after we’ve set up a perimeter.”