Unfortunately, he was breathing that air all on his own.
L
eena was tired of pacing her bedroom. Tired of Ben watching her pace. And she was especially tired of being afraid. She let out a frustrated, shaky breath and took another lap around the room. “Tired of it,” she muttered.
“Tired of what?”
“Following the advice of a crazy guy. For letting him ruin my life. For getting us in this situation. Pick one.”
“I’ll take all three for a hundred, Bob.”
Yeah, she’d really screwed up. “Mostly, I’m tired of letting my life live me.”
“There are always choices,” Ben said, still watching her pace.
“Yes.” She wanted to tear out her own hair for being so damn slow to understand that very fact. “And it’s my own fault that I never made my own, but that’s going to change.” She pivoted, nearly plowing into him because he’d stepped into her path.
“How’s it going to change?”
She stared up into his face, his beautiful, strong face. “I’m working on that.”
“I guess it won’t be easy. Leaving this lifestyle.”
“Look, you don’t need to beat me up, okay? I’m doing it enough for the two of us.”
His eyes never left hers. “Are you?”
“Yeah.” She tried to move around him, but again he blocked her path, this time putting his hands on her arms to hold her in place.
“I’m not staying for the cushy lifestyle,” she said. “I know you probably don’t believe me. You have no reason to, and I deserve that. I deserve a lot of things, but like you said, it’s about choices.
My
choices, so get out of my way and let me think about the ones I need to make.”
She expected him to scoff or show more anger.
But he surprised her. Gentling his hold, he leaned in and kissed her. In that single moment, he awoke every single nerve ending she owned, but the all too brief glide of his lips to hers ended far too soon, and with a slow blink, she stared up at him, stunned to the core. “What was that?”
“A reminder that it’s all wide open for the taking.”
“What is?”
“Your life. It starts now, so go for it. Take it wherever you want. You just need to decide where that is.”
And suddenly she knew. “I want to take it to a place where I have more seconds in which to live it,” she whispered.
Her reward was a heart-stopping smile. “Sounds like a great plan to me.”
Maddie stepped onto the tarmac and faced Brody, who’d readied a plane for her. He stood there in the setting sun, the evening breeze brushing over him, looking bigger than life, utterly competent, and very on top of his world.
That’s all she wanted, damn it—to be on top of
her
world. “Brody—”
“We’re not going to go over this again, are we?” Without waiting for an answer, he took her hand and walked with her toward the Lear, but before she could board, he pulled her around to face him. “A couple of things first.” He spoke quietly, firmly, badass to the bone. “We
are
a unit, you and me.”
When she opened her mouth, he put his fingers to her lips. “I get that scares the living shit out of you. You’re going to have to get over it. I love you, Maddie. You’ll have to get over that, too.”
Well, if that didn’t root her to the spot. Heart pounding, she lifted her hand to his wrist to tug his hand from her mouth but he shook his head. “I love you, damn it, and one of these days, maybe you’ll let your guard down enough to believe it. But for now, let’s get this over with.” With that, he lowered his hand, waiting for her answer.
She found her throat almost too tight for words. He loved her. Oh, God, he
loved her
. Her heart felt so much she didn’t know if she could take it.
“Okay?” he repeated with far less patience.
“I…need a moment.”
“No.” He turned to the plane, his shoulders seeming tense. “If I give you a minute, you’ll be long gone. You can take your moment later, when it’s over. Then, I promise, you can argue with me all you want.”
“You don’t mean that.” She had to clear her throat, still bowled over by those three little words he tended to throw around. “You hate to argue.”
“With you? I live for it. Now let’s do this.”
By the time, Brody stepped off the charter boat onto Stone Cay and turned to offer a hand to Maddie, dawn was streaking across the Bahama sky. The only sound was the water slapping loudly against the sides of the boat in the dewy morning air.
They hadn’t spoken much more than a few words to each other on the flight to Florida then on to Nassau and now here. Actually, Maddie hadn’t spoken to him.
He’d pretty much opened up his chest, exposed his heart, and let her run it over with a steamroller a few times, and she’d gone mute.
She stepped off the charter with absolutely no expression on her face. He had no idea what she was feeling because she’d been careful not to show anything, which pissed him off. A guy says I love you, the least a girl could do is react one way or another.
But she’d retreated within herself, and he realized she probably wasn’t even thinking about him, but looking ahead to what they were going to face.
He got that, he really did, but it’d have been nice to factor in her thoughts as well.
Tiny Tim got out of the Jeep waiting there for them. “Took you long enough.” He eyed Brody before looking at Maddie. “So you’re the one who got married? You cost me five hundred bucks in the pool.”
“Ah, that’s a damn shame because I’m easily worth a thousand.”
Tiny Tim’s eyes darkened. “You’re definitely Maddie.”
“Most definitely,” Maddie agreed.
At her attitude-ridden tone, Tiny Tim’s jaw tightened, and Brody got a very bad feeling. Damn it, a showdown.
But after a second, Tiny Tim jerked his head toward the Jeep, indicating that they should get in.
Maddie didn’t move. “Where’s Leena?”
“Waiting for you.”
Maddie looked at Brody, and they exchanged an unsettled gaze, but Maddie shrugged and got in the Jeep.
What choice did they have?
Brody followed, and then they were being driven along the pristine white beach, all too quickly turning up the road toward the compound.
There’d been another storm, which had left the sand churned up. In the Jeep, they were knocked around a bit by the bumpy ride, and Brody’s shoulder brushed Maddie’s.
She looked over at him.
Her eyes were unreadable, her mouth tight. And given how they’d spent the past hours, which was mostly in silence, what she did next shocked him to the core.
She took his hand in hers and squeezed. He stared down at their joined fingers, hers narrow and smooth and capable, his big and work-roughened and just as capable, and squeezed back. Lifting his head, he met her gaze.
One corner of her mouth turned up, and leaning in, she set her head on his shoulder.
He hugged her close, offering comfort, offering whatever she needed, but it turned out she needed nothing.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispered. “Damn it, you really shouldn’t be here.”
“That makes two of us.”
She sat back, looking frustrated and just scared enough to unnerve him, a feeling that intensified when they were brought into the house where instead of being taken to Rick or even to Maddie’s room, they were immediately brought to the cellar workroom.
And shoved inside.
The ensuing click of the lock indicated that yeah, they weren’t attending any family reunion.
A
s the echo of the lock died away, Maddie sighed, her voice cutting through the pitch black cellar. “This isn’t good.”
With the lights out and no windows, Brody couldn’t see his own hand in front of his face. “Not good at all,” he agreed tightly.
“Okay, any time now.”
“Any time now what?”
“You can say I told you so.”
Goddamn this dark. Reaching out in front of him, he tried to get his bearings but felt nothing. “How about I save the I-told-you-so for when it’s more satisfying to be right. Like when we’re out of here.
Where the hell are you?”
“Here.” Her voice sounded lower now, as if she’d sat on the ground.
“Where the hell is ‘here,’ and what are you doing?”
“Taking off my boot.”
For her knife, no doubt. “You don’t have two of those things, do you?”
“No. Listen, I don’t want to freak you out…”
“Oh, I’m not freaked. I’m as calm as Zen. I’m a fricking Buddha. What is Rick up to do you suppose?”
“I’m not sure. People who cross him, they tend to…”
“What?”
“Pay.”
“Pay as in found in the bottom of a lake with concrete shoes pay?”
When she didn’t answer, he let out a breath. Yeah, concrete shoes. He was so happy he’d asked. “You do realize this is like a bad seventies flick, right? The family patriarch who coerces his helpless nieces into doing his bidding—”
“Niece.”
“Excuse me?”
“Niece as in singular. Leena did his bidding, not me.”
He heard her going through what sounded like drawers. “What are you doing now?”
“Looking for something,
anything
.”
“Another knife would be nice. Or a gun.”
More rustling. “You don’t know how to shoot.”
“Under these circumstances, I think I’d pick it up pretty quickly.”
She let out a huffing laugh that didn’t sound at all full of amusement, and then suddenly, she was back at his side. How the hell she’d been able to maneuver around in the utterly complete dark, he had no clue. Just another secret to the life of Maddie Stone.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
“For not listening to me or for giving me a headache from bashing my head against the brick wall of your stubbornness?”
“For everything. For how this turned out—”
“Hey.” That sounded an awful lot like a good-bye. Oh, no.
No
. “Bullshit to saying good-bye, we’re not dead yet.”
“Also, I’m sorry for lying to you. If I could take anything back, it’d be that.”
“You mean when you tried to come here without me?”
“No.” She came to stand right in front of him. He could smell her shampoo, then felt her hand on his arm. “I lied when I said I don’t love you.”
Well. If that didn’t stun him into silence.
“Brody? Did you hear me?”
“I don’t think I did, no.”
“I said…”—she got closer and louder—“that I lied when I said I didn’t love you!”
Wow. That sounded just as amazing the second time, and in spite of everything, he felt a ridiculous smile split his face.
“Brody?
Did you hear me?”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “I just wanted to hear it again.”
She smacked him in the chest. It didn’t hurt, but he nabbed her hand and tugged her close, cupping her face in his hands. “Maddie.” His throat felt rough as sandpaper, and his voice reflected that, but he was both unbearably moved
and
pissed off. “No fair tossing those words at me now just because you think we’re going to die—”
Before he could properly finish that thought, whatever it might have been, the door to the cellar opened, and a rectangle of light flooded in from the hall. Brody quickly sighted several no-neck thugs, each of whom tossed someone into the cellar and slammed the door.
The lock sliding into place rattled through the silence.
“Hello? Is anyone here?” came a voice that sounded just like Maddie.
“Leena,”
Maddie gasped, and given the rustling and the low, muffled murmuring, the two of them had located each other, a feat utterly beyond Brody.
“I’m sorry about the cell phone switch!” one of the twins cried.
“But not about taking off?” the other demanded.
Maddie
. “Or how about running The Plan without me?”
“That was for your own good,” Leena told her.
“How is that even possible?”
“I was trying to preserve the life you’d made for yourself! And I had it, too, Mad. We were both home free until you came here.”
“Oh, this is
my
fault now?”
“Ladies,” a guy said, but neither sister was listening.
“It’s no one’s fault, but don’t worry. I’ll fix this.” Leena sounded stubborn. A family trait, apparently. “It’s
my
turn to fix things.”
“No,” Maddie said firmly. “I’ve got a plan—”
“I’ve got a plan—”
“How about
this
plan—we get the hell out of here,” Brody said.
“Sounds good,” a mystery guy agreed. “A voice of reason.”
“And who are you?” Maddie demanded.
“He’s with me,” Leena said. “It’s Ben. He was with me when Rick snatched me.”
“Brody wasn’t snatched,” Maddie told her. “He bullied his way along.”
“I came along,” Brody said. “Because you were going to be stupid about it.”
“Oh, so he calls the woman with the knife stupid,” Maddie said to the room.
“I didn’t call you stupid. Your plan is stupid. And don’t even bother yelling at me. You can yell at me all you want when we get off this island.”
“Count on it,” she promised. “Okay, a new plan. I’ve got a knife and a gun, so—”
“Wait a minute.” Brody reached out for her. Finally got her. Fisting his fingers in her shirt, he yanked her close.
When she tried to knee him, he did as she’d done to him the other day—he pinched her ass.
“Hey!”
Oops. Wrong sister. “Sorry.”
“You pinched my ass!”
“What?” Ben asked. “He did what?”
Brody felt around for the right sister. The one who drove him crazy. Snagging her, he held tight. “I’ll take one of those weapons.”
“Leena has tools in here. We can all arm ourselves, right, Leena?”
This was tricky in the dark, but Brody somehow ended up with a hammer, though he’d managed to hold on to Maddie as well. “You have a gun and a knife, and I’m stuck with a hammer?”
“I realize that goes against your Boy Code of Ridiculous Ego and Controller, but I’ll protect you.”
“Give me one or the other.”
“Fine.” She slapped the knife into his hand. “No stupid heroics, do you hear me?”
“Loud and clear, and back attcha.” He tightened his grip on her. “Did you really say you love me?”