Kilted Lover (11 page)

“Scott,” she breathed into his mouth.

His eyes gleamed dark as the deepest ocean and held an intensity she wanted to drown in.

He stroked her cheek. “It wasn’t just about the sex, you know,” he murmured.

“I know.”

His phone rang.

“Dammit.” Pulling back, he opened the flip phone. “Yeah? All right. We’ll meet you on the dock.”

***

Leslie’s stomach gnawed and ached the closer to Isle of Palms they drove. They were in Scott’s truck, Paul driving, while she sat in the middle. The men had tried to leave her on the yacht, but she’d argued her way into the truck.

“You shouldn’t have come, Paul. There was no need for you to put your life in danger,” she said.

“Are you kidding? Scott’s my best friend.”

She definitely regretted putting Scott in danger. But of course, he wouldn’t hear of letting her do this alone.

“So, what’s the plan?” she asked.

“You’re staying in the truck,” Scott said firmly as if that was the end of that subject.

“Are you delusional? How do you know the thieves will let me stay in the truck?”

“I called Murphy,” Paul said.

“What? The thieves said they’d kill Fletcher if the cops got involved!”

“I told Murphy the circumstances. He’s dealt with hostage situations before. He isn’t an idiot.”

No, but you are.
“We’re all going to get killed!”

“Just calm down. No one is going to get killed,” Scott said. “Give me your amulet.”

“No! Beckett said I have to take it myself and exchange it for Fletcher.”

“Leslie, I’m warning you.” Scott’s expression was irritated.

“Don’t
warn
me. What’s gotten into you?”

“I’m a lot stronger than you. If a fight breaks out, I can knock the thieves out better than you can.”

“They have guns. So unless you’re wearing bulletproof body armor, you’re no less vulnerable than I am.”

“I don’t care, Les. You’re not going in!”

“There it is. One-fifty-one Seagull.” Paul slowed the truck. “The gate’s closed.”

“Stop here. Duck down, Les,” Scott said. “And give me the amulet.”

His tone was so forceful that she knew she had no choice but to comply. She handed the amulet to him and then scrunched in the seat. Maybe he knew what he was doing. She sure as hell didn’t. Nor did she want to argue with him anymore. They waited at the curb, one house down from the mailbox in question. The two-story beach house lurked behind a tall, solid wood fence.

Scott pressed buttons and held the phone to his ear. “We’re outside. And we have the amulet. Bring Fletcher out and we’ll make the exchange.”

“We’re here, Murphy,” Paul spoke low into a phone on her other side. “We’re waiting outside. There’s a tall wooden fence separating the house and street.”

She prayed pulling the cops into this didn’t get Fletcher killed.

“What?” Scott stared at her, his face going white, and then he glared through the windshield. “Where the hell are you? Which house?” He paused. “That’s my friend Paul driving. He’s unarmed. Put down your phone, Paul.” He covered the mouthpiece. “They’re watching us from someplace else and they have a rifle with a scope trained on Leslie. Don’t move.” Scott listened in the phone again. “See that blue house there.” He pointed to a two-story house a few doors down on the left. “They want us to pull into that garage.”

Paul muttered a string of curses that Leslie felt like saying, but her tongue was as dry as sandpaper. Lightheaded with fear, she scanned her chest for a red laser dot from the scope, like in movies. Seeing nothing, she clutched her fingers onto the leg of Scott’s jeans.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Paul asked.

“Hell, no, but what choice do we have? We don’t know if they really have a rifle on Leslie or not.”

Paul pressed the accelerator and slowly drove forward while he put his phone on speaker and dialed again. When a man answered, Paul said, “Change of address, Murphy. One-fifty-six Seagull. They’re forcing us into the garage at gunpoint.” He turned into the driveway.

They entered the dark garage, leaving the bright sunlight behind. Leslie saw no one. The garage door screeched closed behind them like the jaws of a giant shark.

The gray-haired British man appeared by Scott’s door, a large pistol pointed at them. “Hands up,” he yelled.

The three of them complied.

“Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God,” she said in a shaking voice. Cold sweat drenched her body.

“Damn, I wish you’d stayed on the boat,” Scott whispered. “Don’t make any sudden moves.”

Beckett opened Scott’s door “Out!”

Scott slowly slid out. “Where’s your hostage?”

“Quiet.” He patted Scott down and took his cell phone.

“We’re unarmed.”

“I said shut your trap.” He glared at Paul. “You, over here.”

After Paul moved around the hood of the truck, the man searched him for weapons and pocketed his cell phone as well.

So, the bastard didn’t think a woman would be armed, huh? Leslie wished she was packing a submachine gun.

Scott stood in front of her in what she took for a protective gesture. She wanted to hug him for that.

“Move it, Conan.” The Brit waved his gun at Scott, then grabbed Leslie’s wrist in a brutal grip and yanked her forward. “Where’s the amulet?”

“Where’s Fletcher?” She forced the words out.

“You are not in any position to ask questions. Hand over the amulet now!”

“I don’t have it.”

“Where is it?” He jabbed the gun muzzle beneath her jaw.

Oh shit.
The cold steel nearly made her heart stop.

“I have it,” Scott said. “Let her go!”

“Give it to me or she gets it!”

Scott dangled the amulet and chain from a finger and then motioned her forward with his other hand. “Let her go and it’s yours.”

Her captor froze, his gaze on the amulet widening with lusty greed. He shoved her forward and dove for the amulet.

Falling, she screamed. Scott caught her before she hit the concrete and pushed her behind him.

“Bloody hell!” Beckett yelled. She peered around Scott. The amulet flew up into the air and then landed on the cement floor. Beckett blew fast, hard breaths against his palm. “The damned thing is hot as a bloody coal of fire! What did you do?” Sure enough, a red circle was burned on the center of his palm.

Leslie shook her head. What was going on? How could the amulet be that hot? Sure, she had known it to be warm before. But it had never burned her.

“Stay back!” Beckett swung the gun their way again, but his attention shifted to the amulet. He glanced around frantically. “Remove your shirt, Conan!”

“What?” Scott said.

“Give me your shirt, now!”

Scott did as he said, then Beckett bent to scoop up the amulet in the shirt.

Leslie froze as Scott bolted forward.

A second later, a gunshot fired.

***

Scott shoved Beckett’s gun hand toward the ceiling an instant before the gun fired with a deafening blast. He squeezed the bastard’s wrist and felt bones crack. The man cried out, dropped the gun, and tried to kick Scott’s legs. Paul grabbed the gun while Scott smashed a fist to Beckett’s face. He crumpled to the floor, his head striking the concrete, and groaned.

“I didn’t know you were so lethal,” Paul said.

“Sonofabitch pushed me too far.” God, Scott thought he would die when the bastard had the gun to Leslie’s head. He’d never felt such cold terror in his life. He dragged the squirming man back to his truck and shoved a foot to the middle of his back to hold him down. He opened the door and searched behind the seat. “You okay, Les?”

“Yes, are you?”

“I am now.” He yanked out a rope. The adrenaline surge made him feel like doing something a lot more violent than tying knots.

“What about the other guy?” Paul asked.

“We have to make sure he’s away from Fletcher.” Scott tied the man’s hands tight behind his back, then his feet.

Paul opened the garage’s side door a crack and peered out.

After making sure Beckett was secure, Scott searched his pockets and took possession of the two phones. He then picked up his shirt. The amulet had burned a black hole in it. “Damn.” He straightened, finding Leslie standing behind him. “Look at this.”

“What caused it to get so hot?”

“I have no clue. It’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t hot when I was holding it, right before he grabbed it.”

“Magic,” she breathed.

He shrugged.

She leaned down and held her hand over the amulet.

“Careful,” he said.

“I don’t feel any heat.” She tapped a quick finger to it. Shook her head and then picked up the amulet. “It’s cool.”

He didn’t know what kind of magic the peridot possessed, but he had other things to worry about at the moment, the most important of which was Leslie. He gently stroked her face. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yes. Thank you. Looks like you did a number on him.”

“When he had that gun to your head, it scared the hell out of me.” He led her behind the truck again. “Stay down behind the tire. We have to get the other guy.”

“Be careful.”

A shot fired outside.

Scott ducked.

“Oh, my God!” she gasped.

“Get down.” Scott urged her into a corner behind a large tool box.

“You, too.” She tugged at his hand.

“No. You stay down and don’t move, dammit! I’ve got to stop this guy before he gets back to Fletcher.”

Paul lay on the floor on his stomach, arms extended. He fired two shots through the crack. The blasts echoed in the garage.

“What the hell, Paul!” Scott said. He’d never seen Paul touch a gun. Scott, on the other hand, had done a lot of target practice.

“I think I got him.”

Another shot from outside shattered the window from the door.

“Maybe not.”

“We have to make sure he can’t get back to Fletcher.” Scott crawled toward Paul. Another bullet zinged over his head.

“I know. I know.”

“Don’t go over there,” Leslie yelled.

“Stay down, Les!” Scott peered out the door. The man was limping back toward the house, blood coating his shoe.

“You got him in the leg, but he’s going back for Fletcher. Give me the gun.” Maybe if Scott saved Fletcher’s life, some of his guilt would be appeased. Anyway, he wouldn’t have Leslie blaming herself if something did happen to Fletcher. “How many bullets are left?”

“Five.” Paul handed him the nine millimeter. Scott crept out the door, staying low, and followed the other man’s progress. Scott aimed at his ass and squeezed the trigger.

At the blast, the man toppled forward, screaming. His pistol lifted and Scott ducked back inside the garage. A rapid succession of gunshots followed, none penetrating the garage.

“You pissed him off.” Paul gave a maniacal grin. The idiot was actually enjoying this. “I think he’s out of bullets.”

“Wait.” A few seconds ticked by. Silence. Low to the ground, Scott sneaked out. The gunman was dragging himself away on his elbows and belly, like the snake he was. His gun lay abandoned five feet behind him. Then, he collapsed.

“Hell, yeah!” Paul said close behind him.

But Scott hoped he hadn’t killed the man. “Call the cops again and have them send a couple of ambulances while I tie him up.”

***

“He’s unconscious and he’s lost a lot of blood,” Scott said, returning to the garage minutes after tying up the second gunman.

Relieved Scott was uninjured, Leslie jogged up the stairs to the wooden door at the top and turned the knob. “Locked. Dammit! One of the men must have the keys.”

“The one in here doesn’t. I’m not searching the bloody one. Moving him could kill him,” Scott said. “Come with me.”

Police sirens screamed in the distance.

“If Fletcher’s dead, it’s my fault!” She followed Scott outside. Her stomach ached with nausea from all the violence, and still not knowing whether Fletcher was alive.

“Stop worrying. He’s fine.” Scott climbed the steps to the front entry door and tried it. No luck. He descended just as quickly and they sprinted to a side French door.

Also locked. “To hell with this.” Scott smashed a pane of glass with an empty flower pot, then reached in and unlocked the door.

“Fletcher? Where are you?” Leslie called, rushing through the carpeted house.
Please be okay.

A muffled groan reached her ears.

“I hear him.”

In a bedroom Fletcher lay tied to an overturned chair. Blood covered his face. He moaned around the gag in his mouth.

“He’s hurt! Help me.”

“An ambulance should be on the way.”

Leslie knelt on the floor. “Fletcher, what did they do to you?” Dear God, his head was bleeding terribly.

“I’ll get a knife from the kitchen to cut the ropes loose,” Scott said.

“Fletcher, stay awake.” After finding a clean white towel in the bathroom she blotted some of the blood from his forehead and hair and then applied pressure to the gash.

“Head wounds usually look worse than they are.” Scott cut off Fletcher’s gag and then started sawing at the ropes binding his hands.

“I hope you’re right.”

Paul burst into the room. “Murphy is here and two ambulances are a few minutes away.”

“Good. How badly are you hurt?” Leslie asked Fletcher.

A grimace contorted his face. “What happened?” he asked in a raspy voice.

“You don’t know?” She hoped his memory wasn’t affected.

“Last thing I remember, that bastard hit me on the head with his gun and knocked the chair over.”

Scott cut the ropes from Fletcher’s ankles and removed the chair.

Fletcher lay flat on the floor. “I didn’t want you to come and put yourself in danger.”

“I’m fine. And you will be, too.”

Fletcher squinted at Paul. “Who are these guys? Cops?”

“No, the cops are downstairs. These are my friends, Scott and Paul.”

So, Scott was more than a friend. Fletcher didn’t have to know that. Across the room, she met Scott’s enigmatic gaze, another of those serious, intense looks that made her wish she could read his mind.
I’m sorry
.

“I need to talk to Murphy,” Scott said, then left. Though she understood why he didn’t want to be near Fletcher, she wished he’d stayed. He made her feel safe and comforted.