Love Inspired Suspense December 2013 Bundle: Christmas Cover-Up\Force of Nature\Yuletide Jeopardy\Wilderness Peril (27 page)

It was as if both of them, and the island itself, were about to be swallowed whole by a predator like those alien creatures from the science fiction novels he'd devoured as a child. He could not tear his eyes away from the horizon, lost in the last line of an old poem: “And I, cut off from the world, remain, alone with the terrible hurricane.”

Antonia reached for his arm. That touch, those long fingers against his skin, felt like the only bit of reality, the one true thing in the entire surreal scenario. He reached for her hand and grasped it, turning away from the storm. He wanted to try for bravado, reassurance, something smooth that his brother would spill effortlessly, a joke perhaps. Instead he savored the feel of her satin skin in his calloused palm. “I've never seen a hurricane this powerful.”

She did not pull away. “I haven't, either. We're in trouble, aren't we?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “It's too late to get you off the island.”

She offered a small smile. “I wouldn't go anyway. You know me. Trouble magnet.”

The promontory rocked under a sudden onslaught and she gasped. Without thinking, he pulled her close, pressed her forehead to his mouth and closed a protective arm around her back. “Just wind.” He thought she might have sighed.

“What are the odds of escaping a massive earthquake only to run into a hurricane?”

He did not want to speak in case his words would cause her to move away. Unbeknownst to Antonia, he'd contacted her mother when he'd heard about the earthquake and she told him Antonia had escaped unharmed. “Are you scared, trouble magnet?” he asked softly.

“Yes, but at least I can see it coming. Earthquakes just happen. Out of the blue, your world is pulled from under you.”

The sensation seemed all too familiar to him. Two and a half years ago he'd been a semi-impoverished orange farmer, rich beyond belief with a woman who loved him, a new niece and a brother on the straight and narrow. Now... He looked again over her head at the monster gaining strength on the horizon, pained when she stepped out of his arms to peer over the iron railing. He was about to lose it all. Again.

“There,” she gasped.

He joined her at the railing, noting her hand was clasped so tightly around the metal her knuckles glowed white. She pointed in the distance, to the cove where the boathouse squatted waiting patiently, he'd often imagined, for its turn at restoration.

Only the barest outline of the peaked roof was visible now since the sun had given up and left them to the mercy of the storm. He strained to detect what had drawn her interest. “I don't see...”

A flash of light, there one moment, then gone, shone from one of the three square openings on the lower floor where the boats would be piloted in and secured to the sheltered slips. It was steadier now, small but clear in the gloom.

“What would Leland want in the boathouse?” Antonia said.

Reuben took his binoculars out but was able to add nothing to their meager store of information. “At least it's something to tell the police.” At the exact moment he finished giving voice to the thought, another light shone, this time sparkling from the upper level of the boathouse.

SEVEN

A
ntonia scurried down the staircase after Reuben as fast as she dared. He had his own flashlight out now, and the two beams picked up just enough of the chipped cement to guide them down the spiraling interior.

“Leland's got help,” she said, more to make sense of it for herself than to start a conversation.

Reuben grunted something, but she couldn't decipher it. “Where are we going?” she finally managed as they made it to the plywood opening and plunged back out into the rain. She asked again and this time his reply was clear.

“Back to the main house. There's no other choice.”

She did not want to return to Isla and Hector, but she could not figure out any other alternative, with the boathouse home to more than one intruder and Hurricane Tony on the way. Truth be told the storm scared her more than she would admit, though she felt it might be a touch of cowardice for a girl who had lived on the ocean to fear a tropical storm turned hurricane.

She'd been eighteen when Charley blasted the area, but instead of battening down with Mia and her parents, she'd been away, struggling to keep herself afloat financially, waitressing and bagging groceries to scrounge up tuition for her first year at art school. Her father had provided her cheerful reports about their condition until the phones had given up, but she remembered the minutes that ticked into hours, wondering if they had made it through unscathed. Later, she learned, her father's boat had been reduced to splinters and part of their roof lost.

She'd finished out the term and gone back for the second before she'd had to quit permanently. Two years of art school would have to do. Her earning power was needed to pay for her mother's doctors' appointments to treat her diabetes and, though her father would never have said it, to supplement his wages as a mullet fisherman after his equipment was destroyed. The large commercial outfits could recover from a hurricane. Men like her father could not.

She blinked back the tingle of unexpected tears. He never had recovered, not really. The fiercely independent man could not provide for his family, and though they eventually were able to buy him another boat, by then he'd lost a few paces both physically and mentally. All her prayers and working part-time jobs and landing the occasional painting contract had not amounted to much, not enough to save him anyway.

She was snapped out of her reverie as they headed once again into the woods and all her powers of concentration were required to keep her footing on the rocky path. Her hand throbbed and her body chilled in spite of the warm Florida temperatures, which even now hovered in the low seventies.

They traveled on for the next half hour, Reuben detouring to the lagoon to examine the skimmer, which was still where it had been tied. There was nothing on board to shed any further light on Leland and his deadly mission, so they alternated walking and jogging back to the main house, arriving near seven o'clock. Reuben used his cell phone to call Silvio, who opened the door for them and then slid the bolt home behind.

A small generator powered a lamp and a camp stove on which Paula was making something that caused Antonia's mouth to water. Hector emerged in the main room, looking annoyingly fresh compared to Reuben, who sat heavily at the table and wiped his face with the towels Paula fetched for them both.

Gavin trotted down the staircase. “You're back. Finally. Thought we were going to have to go out after you. What happened?”

“Have you caught the bad guy yet?” Hector said.

Reuben shook his head. “Too many to catch.”

Hector's eyes widened.

Silvio grunted. “More than skimmer guy?”

“They're using the boathouse as a base of operations.”

Hector let out a breath.

“What kind of operations?” Paula said, pushing the hair from her face with the back of her hand.

“Yeah, what exactly is going on here?” Gavin said.

Reuben didn't reply.

“They might be waiting out the storm,” Antonia suggested even though no one had asked.

“When the storm is over, the police will come,” Silvio said. “They'll move before then. I'll try the police again.” He squinted at the tiny buttons of his cell phone and finally managed to push the correct keys. After a moment he clacked the phone down in disgust. “Nothing.”

Nothing and no one.
Antonia could see that the others had reached the same conclusion. They were indeed a very tiny island in the middle of a brewing storm.

* * *

Reuben locked eyes with Silvio.

Silvio nodded slowly. “So we wait for them to come.”

Gavin's face went slack. “Are you saying there are some mobsters out there coming here to kill us?”

“Not
us,
” Reuben said. “Me.”

“Why?” Gavin stared at him. “I thought you were not involved in shady stuff.” His gaze shifted to Hector. “Starting up the family business again?”

Hector took a step toward Gavin, who did not back down. “The family is no business of yours.”

“Seems to me,” Gavin said softly, “that since I almost got blown up and now there are bad guys coming here, it is my business.”

Reuben sighed. Gavin was right. “Short version is, Garza's family wants Isla and they've got to go through me to get it. I'm sorry you all got stuck in the crosshairs. If there was any way I could get you out, I would.”

Gavin whistled softly. “Should have made my vacation last week permanent. Coming back here might have been a tactical error.”

“I'm sorry,” Reuben said again. “I'll do everything in my power to fix this mess.”

“Yes, that is the only option we have. Hold out until the storm has passed and the cops make it here. Windows are all secure except for the cupola so we can keep watch,” Hector said. “Women should stay on the lower floor.” He shot a disdainful look at Gavin. “And you, too, I suppose. You'll all be safe there.”

“Too late for that,” Antonia said. “Leland already found me in the bungalow.” She held up her injured hand.

Hector quirked an eyebrow. “And yet here you are. Safe and sound. So much tougher than my brother gives you credit for. Spine of steel, like your sister.”

She started to snarl a reply, but Paula cut her off. “Come here. I'll tend to that hand.” Antonia allowed Paula to take her wrist and guide her to the sink. Reuben held a flashlight to add to the weak lamplight while Paula rinsed Antonia's wound with water from a bottle, then added disinfectant from a first-aid kit she'd retrieved.

Reuben patted Antonia's palm with a clean cloth. It made her stomach jump to have her slender fingers in his grasp. Too many memories, too much pain. Still she held her hand steady and did not react.

The touch doesn't mean anything to him, so it shouldn't mean anything to you,
she reminded herself. Her mind prodded her with a memory of the two of them, standing together at the top of the lighthouse, staring at Hurricane Tony. She could not fathom the reason why God would have thrown them together once more. If Antonia didn't know Him to be a loving father, she would almost have thought it cruel. Paula applied strips of first-aid tape to the gauze Reuben held to her palm.

Antonia nudged him out of the way and took charge of holding the gauze herself. “I got it,” she said. “Thanks.”

Paula finished taping and closed the first-aid kit with a snap. “We will not go into the storm shelter unless there is no other choice. Here,” she said, thrusting a bowl into Antonia's hands and then Hector's and Gavin's. “Eat.”

Hector laughed and took a spoonful of the spicy stew. “Delicious, as always, Paula. Even in the face of disaster, we shall be well fed.”

“Don't poke fun,” she said. “I know your mother would have done just such a thing.”

Hector's face darkened. He put the stew down.

Paula tried to force a bowl upon her husband, but he was busy retrieving a shotgun from a locked safe in the back of the closet. Her mouth opened when she saw it.

“Silvio...”

“After Korea I never wanted to touch a gun again.” The weapon trembled slightly in his grip, and he stowed a box of cartridges in his pocket. “Only if I have no other choice,” he said to Paula before he put it down and took up his bowl and spoon.

* * *

Reuben's mind reeled as he watched the steam rise from the pungent stew. “There's got to be another way,” he mused.

Gavin sat next to him. “All right. If I'm going to help in this incomprehensible situation, have you got a weapon for me?”

Hector pursed his lips. “Do you know how to shoot? I would not think a master's program in botany would cover gunmanship.”

“My dad was army. He taught me enough.” Gavin cocked his head. “How'd you know I'm studying for a master's in botany?”

Hector did not smile, though his tone was light. “One hears things.”

“Yes,” Gavin said. “One does.”

“Hector has a gun. There's the shotgun.” Reuben went to the closet and unlocked the safe, retrieving three sheathed knives, one of which he clipped at his waist. He handed one to Gavin and the other to Antonia. “All I've got.”

The knife looked odd in Antonia's hands, as if it carried a weight heavier than its actual mass. She put it down quickly.

Please, Lord. Don't let her have to use it.
He tried to force the muscles in his jaw to relax. He was handing out weapons to a grad student and an artist, two people ill equipped to handle violence. Who was he kidding? He himself was an orange grower, not a secret agent or cop or marine. There had been school yard fights, some bruises and even a broken wrist, but nothing that would prepare him for the present scenario.

Gavin contemplated his blade as he removed it from the sheath. “Bringing a knife to a gunfight. Puts us at a disadvantage now, doesn't it?”

Disadvantage is an understatement,
Reuben thought as he got up and began to check the windows again, and Gavin took his place next to Paula at the sink, wiping the plates dry after she washed them. The windows were as secure as they'd been the last time he'd checked them, plywood boards still nailed in place, giving the grand hotel the appearance of a derelict tenement building. Would the structure hold? He was not sure. The storm shelter out in the back of the hotel would be their last option.

Since prowling was getting him nowhere, Reuben settled on climbing to the cupola, once he ascertained Hector was safely shut in his room and not inclined to be antagonizing Antonia. He wanted to see if there was any further information to be gleaned. He didn't think there was, but at least it was something to do.

The staircase creaked and groaned under his weight as he fought the tiny door open and stepped into a blast of humid air. The aged wood railings enclosed a small hexagonal space, now puddled with rain and paint chips. A black sky, thick with storm, blotted out any starlight, and even the moon was lost in the darkness.

The door behind him banged. Gavin joined him. They stood in silence for a moment.

“That's one bad-boy storm coming,” Gavin said.

“Yeah.”

Gavin picked at a paint chip on the weathered rail. “You've got bad boys on all sides, Mr. Sandoval.”

Reuben heard the question buried beneath and waited for it.

Gavin ticked off the items on his fingers. “Your father was a mobster, which is why your mother left, so says the gossip machine. Your brother is a mobster....”

“Used to be. Not anymore.”

Gavin paused. “My question is which side did you land on?”

Reuben turned to stare at him, wishing he could see his face more clearly. “Tell me what you're after.”

“Is Garza going after you for Isla or because you crossed him?”

“What you really want to know is if I'm in the business.”

Gavin nodded slowly. “I guess that's it.”

Reuben bit back the tirade that flooded into his mind. “You don't believe what I've told you.”

“You have to admit, this isn't exactly your typical island paradise, what with a couple of mobsters on the loose. All seems mighty coincidental to happen to a perfectly innocent guy.”

“Some might say,” Reuben said, a seed of suspicion taking root into his gut, “it's coincidental that a West Coast college boy decided to get a job here, working in this island paradise, for practically nothing.”

“I guess some might.”

Gavin did not look quite as young as Reuben had thought. Late twenties? Early thirties? He'd answered a help-wanted ad that Reuben placed in the local paper. Perfectly innocent. Wasn't it?

“My daddy told me you can judge a man by the people who surround him,” Gavin said, not smiling now. “You're surrounded by bad dudes.”

Reuben felt suddenly that the cupola was very small and the world around it larger than he'd ever imagined.
Bad dudes. Like his brother? Like Gavin perhaps?
“And my dad used to say the most dangerous enemies are the ones who look like friends.”

“Yes,” Gavin said, voice low. He turned to head back into the house after one more calculating look at Reuben. “Your daddy was right about that.”