Love Inspired Suspense December 2013 Bundle: Christmas Cover-Up\Force of Nature\Yuletide Jeopardy\Wilderness Peril (29 page)

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euben frowned. “I'm going to look in Gavin's room. Maybe he stashed some belongings there.”

“How's that going to help?” Antonia said, following.

“Probably won't do anything but keep us busy for a few minutes.”

“Then that's enough reason for me,” Antonia said.

“Are you going up there dripping wet?” Paula called. “What will it do to the floors?”

Reuben gave her a wry smile. “Paula, in a few hours we may not have any floors left.”

She shook her head and crossed the room to check on Gavin.

Gavin's room was actually a tiny alcove that housed a library and study. The walls were lined with books—Reuben's mother's, she knew—volume upon volume about ornithology and shell collecting, several hefty tomes of collected poetry and a half dozen ragged Bibles. A delicate desk was pushed against one wall to make room for a sleeping bag, which was folded neatly on the floor along with a pillow Paula had rounded up for Gavin.

Gavin's pack was nowhere to be found.

“If he was going out into a hurricane, wouldn't you think he'd take his pack?”

“Maybe he did and the shooter took it or it's lying there in the bushes somewhere and we couldn't see it.”

“I still don't see why Hector and Gavin were both out in the storm in the first place. One followed the other?”

Reuben's eyes narrowed in thought. “I can see my brother sneaking out, thinking he's going to save us all and put a dent in Leland's plan.”

“And Gavin followed him? Why?” Antonia recalled the conversation she'd heard earlier between Silvio and Paula.

Do you think Hector knows?

She shivered, recalling Silvio's last words.

Then there's going to be blood.

“Paula knows something about Gavin.” She watched him start visibly. “I think you'd better talk to her.”

He jerked, eyes darkening. “Paula and Silvio are my friends, like parents. They wouldn't hide anything from me.”

Antonia hoped that he was right as she followed him back down the stairs. Paula sat calmly on a stuffed ottoman, the two unconscious men on either side.

“Find anything?” she asked.

“No.” Reuben sat opposite her on the sofa, leaning forward with elbows on his knees to look her squarely in the eyes. “Do you know something about Gavin, Paula?”

Paula folded her arms. “Why would you ask that?”

Antonia spoke up. “I heard you talking to Silvio. You said there would be blood if Hector found out. What were you talking about?”

Paula gave Antonia a look of disdain. “Eavesdropping, were you?”

Reuben held up a hand. “Don't stall. Do you have any information?”

She pursed her lips. “Silvio said we shouldn't tell because we weren't sure. He didn't want to get anyone in trouble...or killed.”

“We're past that. You have to tell me.” His tone was stern, but he gathered up her hand in his. “I know you would never keep information from me unless you had a good reason. I need to know what's going on, and Silvio would agree if he was awake.”

“I love you, Reuben,” she said, “and you know I would do anything for you, but Silvio is my husband and I will stand by his wishes.”

Antonia watched the feelings flicker across Reuben's face like waves tumbling over the sand. Affection, exasperation, respect. “Paula, I love you, too,” was all he said, before pressing a kiss on her wrinkled brow.

That one tiny gesture awakened a flood of respect for Reuben. Even with the stakes mounting higher every second, he would not force Paula to do anything.

Pink cheeked, Paula stood up and checked on Gavin's wound, replacing the bandage with swift and skillful fingers.

Reuben watched, face drawn in painful contemplation.

Antonia knew that whatever Silvio had to tell them would change everything. She moved next to Reuben. “What are you thinking?”

“I'm thinking Silvio needs to wake up. Soon. I need to know the truth about Gavin.”

“Maybe the real question is not who he is,” she said quietly, “but who shot him.”

He rounded on her. “It was not my brother, not unless Gavin was threatening his life or mine.” He headed for the back door.

“Where are you going?”

“To see if he dropped his pack outside.”

“And if you run into Leland?”

“I won't. He's probably gone to meet up with his guy at the boathouse.”

“I'll help you look.”

“No, I need you to help Paula move all the food and water she can find to the storm shelter. We need to be prepared.”

She was going to protest, but his eyes kindled with fire. “Look, Nee. I can't do this alone. You have to help me, and right now that means making sure we have enough supplies to outlast the hurricane. Get some rest if you can.” He huffed out a breath and gentled his voice. “Please do that for me.”

It was the quiet tone, the ribbon of worry infusing the words, that struck her, cutting loose a wave of tenderness that she had not known still existed deep down inside. He could not order her to do anything, but if he asked in that sincere way, she could not refuse him.

“Reuben, I will always do what I can to help you.” She added quickly, “As a friend.”

His smile was bitter. “If we just weren't so busy being enemies.”

They locked eyes for a moment, and Antonia felt again the ache that took root deep down when he had defended his brother, the criminal who would ultimately destroy Reuben. She was sure.

She pulled back and watched him disappear into the shadowed staircase. Fatigue slowed her steps as she returned to Paula, who was bent over a restless Silvio. “He'll be awake soon,” she said, more to herself than Antonia. Straightening, she marched into the kitchen. “Reuben is worried the roof will go. I think he's wrong, but we'll move supplies to the storm shelter in case he isn't.”

“He's wrong about a lot of things,” Antonia grumbled.

Paula began to pull cans of food from the kitchen cupboard and put them into a cardboard container. “Do you have two parents who love you?”

Antonia started. “Yes, I did. My father passed.”

“Well so did Reuben, and they're both dead now, too, but he had to choose between them, two people who loved him to distraction.”

“His dad was a criminal.”

Paula continued to load the box. “Criminals can love their children, too. Reuben went with his mother, and it broke his father's heart. When he turned eighteen, Hector went with his father, and it broke his mother's heart.”

Antonia considered how it would be for a child to have to choose between his parents.

She felt Paula's gaze on her. “I loved Reuben's mother. She was the child I never had. I saw what it cost her to take the boys out of that life, and I witnessed what it cost her to see one return. She never stopped praying for Hector. ‘No storm's too big for God,' she'd say, and she made sure Reuben believed it also.”

An uneasy feeling stirred in Antonia's belly. She believed it, too, that no one was beyond redemption, or did she? Had the hurts and disappointments caused her to stop believing the truth that God was big enough to change even the darkest heart?

Accepting the two gallon jugs of water that Paula handed her, she started for the back door when a groan stopped them both.

Gavin grunted as he heaved himself upright, eyes wild and mouth tight with pain.

“Where are they?”

Antonia and Paula put down their burdens and hastened to stop him from trying to stand. They were too late; Gavin hauled himself to his feet. “Where is he?”

“Who?” Antonia pressed. “Hector?”

“He's gone away,” Paula said soothingly.

“They'll kill him,” he moaned, eyes abruptly becoming unfocused as he collapsed to the floor. Antonia caught him by the arm and broke his fall.

Paula muttered as she took hold of his legs, and they maneuvered him back up onto the sofa. She checked his wound. “Started the thing bleeding again. Bring me a clean towel from the drawer.”

Antonia ran to fetch the makeshift bandage, and Paula wrapped the injury again.

Though she desperately wanted Gavin to come to again and explain himself, his eyes remained stubbornly closed.

They'll kill him.

Was he speaking about Hector? Or Reuben?

The clock read two-thirty in the morning. The hurricane was due to make landfall within hours.

Hurry, Reuben.

* * *

Reuben spent a fruitless half hour pawing through wet shrubbery along the rain-slicked path. He noted with growing alarm that the creek was now more than half full. If Tony dropped any more than ten inches, the rain would overflow the banks and likely submerge the ground floor of the Isla Hotel.

He marveled again at God's incredible power to change the tiny plans of men with one strong blast of weather. On his twenty-acre organic farm on the mainland, he'd learned to stave off frost damage by spraying the fruits with water to form a protective barrier of ice, which would hover just at the freezing point. He'd managed to hang on to a few good workers to help him with the laborious hand picking and ripped out rows of precious trees planted by his uncle when they contracted citrus greening disease. Not once in all the struggles did he consider quitting. It was in his blood since the moment he visited his uncle's orchard for the first time, and he considered himself blessed to be able to bring something out of the earth with God's help.

But hurricanes were different. His relatively young Seville oranges, bitter and thick skinned for marmalade, would be decimated by the wind. Maybe the older trees...the Valencias...

No way, Reuben. You're going to kiss this year's crops goodbye. Deal with it.

He would. Somehow, he would start over.

A branch snapped loose from a tree and skimmed by his feet.

But how would he keep Isla
going if she did not survive the storm?

The Lord giveth.

His stomach clenched as he pictured Antonia's face.

And He taketh away.

He gritted his teeth and shone his flashlight into the shrubbery. She wasn't his to lose anymore; it would be enough to keep her alive.

Soaked in spite of his jacket, Reuben tried to figure out which direction Gavin would have taken. He could have headed up the small hill on the path toward the Anchor, but considering where Reuben had discovered him lying, he figured the man took the river path...the same direction from which Hector had emerged.

His eyes played tricks on him as the foliage danced and rolled. He wished he could risk another trip to the Anchor to keep tabs on Leland and his men or go after his brother, but he dared not leave Antonia and Paula unprotected.

His brother or Antonia. The choice had ruined them before.

Disheartened, face stinging from the pelting rain, he started the return trip to Isla when he saw it—the strap of Gavin's backpack, caught by a branch. He rooted around in the shrub until he extracted it. Feeling like Jason finding his golden fleece, he hurried as fast as the wet path would allow back to the hotel.

He slammed inside, arriving just as Silvio sat upright, eyes bleary.

Antonia and Paula stood next to him.

“Is he okay?” Reuben said.

“'Course I'm okay. Musta dozed. Getting old.”

“You had help,” Paula said. “Someone put sleeping pills in the coffee.”

Silvio began to mutter angrily, brushing aside the cup of water Antonia offered him and trying to get to his feet. “Aww, stop clucking around me like a bunch of hens. I'm fine.”

Paula laughed. “So you are.”

Reuben held up the pack. “Gavin's been shot. I found his pack outside in the rain.”

Silvio's skin blanched. “Oh, no.”

“Tell me, Silvio. What do you know about Gavin?”

“Didn't know anything for sure. Wanted some proof before I went blabbing accusations all over.”

Reuben used his last bit of self-control to refrain from barking questions.

Silvio ran a hand over his weathered face. “Last night, while everyone was scurrying around boarding up windows, I went to the shed to get some oil for the lanterns. Gavin was out there, talking on the phone, and he didn't see me coming.”

“Talking to whom?”

“Not sure, but I thought...”

Reuben's stomach tightened. “You thought what?”

Paula blurted out the words. “He thought that Gavin was talking to his boss.”

“What kind of boss?” Antonia asked.

Silvio coughed. “He said
sir
and
investigation
.”

The words fell heavily and left a silence in their wake. “He's a cop?” Antonia ventured finally.

Reuben flopped on the couch, his head falling against the back, eyes closed. He let out an enormous sigh. “Probably DEA. I should have known. Why else would a guy like that want to work here?”

Antonia fisted her hands on her hips. “It makes perfect sense. He's been working here for months trying to gather information about your brother or maybe to find out if you're working with him. Hector is dragging you into ruin,” she snapped. “Your loyalty to him will destroy you, Reuben. What's it going to take for you to see that?”

He jerked upright, eyes flashing. “I love my brother just like you love your sister, and I'm not going to believe he's back in the mob.”

“He's a criminal, and he has no right to involve you.”

Reuben stood. “And so are you, Antonia, because you helped your sister kidnap my niece. Did you have the right to do that?”

The tension crackled between them until he broke away and grabbed the backpack. “Let's see what our spy packed for the trip,” he said bitterly. The pack was wet but the inside still relatively dry thanks to a nylon lining. Dumping the pack out onto the table, he found ammunition for a gun that wasn't there.