"Aw, geez." I winced.

"And...when it arrived, I was waiting for you, hoping to 'bump' into you." A coy smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

"Don't smile at me. Don't even look at me." I lashed out and turned away, clenching my teeth. I was furious. This was all a setup from the start. It felt like he had just plunged a knife in and twisted. The "accidental" running into each other, the dates, everything. All staged so he could get to the money. Our relationship was a fraud. It had been the entire time. I couldn't stand looking at him anymore. I had to get away.

He held me by my upper arm as I turned to pass him. "You're upset. I can see it in your face. Listen, Dani, I don't care about the money anymore. Yes, in the beginning, I wanted to get it back because I had to get my career back on track. I trained hard for years to get to the level I'm at. I couldn't just throw all that away. But I don't care about that anymore. I care about you. I want this. I know I should've come clean earlier. Told you everything, but I was afraid I would scare you away. See how you reacted? You would have run for the hills if I had told you earlier."

I wrestled his hands off me. "No shit, Sherlock." I retorted in cold sarcasm. Salty droplets stung at my eyes. I refused to let him see me cry. I rigidly held my tears in check and thrust my chin out as I spoke. "I don't believe you. You're just saying that because you want me to hand over the money. I don't even know who you are right now." I huffed. "Whatever I thought we had between us has disappeared-no, it's more like it's been ground out by the heel of your boot, like a dirty used cigarette butt."

He stared blankly at me as I reached over and grabbed my sweater where I'd left it on the countertop. The edges of it whipped the air from the velocity of my pull. "I need to be alone. I can't even stand to be in the same room with you right now." I stormed past him toward the living room and snagged my purse in one swoop, without ever taking my eyes off the front door.

"Oh, and by the way, before you go...would you please remove your knife from where you just STABBED ME IN THE BACK!" I was seething. I kicked open the front door and yelled out into the night air, "Asshole!"

"Dani, I'm sorry, don't go," he called after me, but his pleadings fell on deaf ears. With tears blinding my eyes, I rushed out of his house and down the sidewalk. I nearly tripped on a crack in the uneven cement when the tears slowly found their way down my cheeks. I couldn't even begin to comprehend the amount of deceit that had gone on between us. I needed space. I needed to get away. Far away. Like the other side of the fucking world away.

"Dani," I heard a calm voice from behind me. I stopped, turned, and looked at Luke's handsome face. In an instant, he closed the gap between us. Unspoken pain was alive and glowing in his eyes.

I hesitated and he noticed. He knew he had a magical magnetic pull on me. I could feel the heat from his body. Without asking for an invitation, his lips met mine in a smoldering kiss. The fire between us was still intact. It didn't matter what he had done or how we had come to this moment. All that mattered was this amazing feeling that seared through my core. A feeling only he could create. Fighting hard to awaken myself from the trance he brought upon me, I pushed him away and started running. I ran, as fast as I could, toward the safety of Emma's house. Safety from my own shattered emotions for Luke, who tore at my heartstrings. I knew that I still loved him, and it was tearing me apart.

Chapter Seventeen.

For a summer night, the air was unusually cold on my skin as I came to the front door of Emma's house. I could hear the click of my shoes on the hard surface, an eerie lonely sound here in the wee hours of the morning in this vacation town. My steps should have been tapping out fun, joyful sounds. Instead, all I could hear in my steps was the depressing beat of defeat.

I located the fake rock Emma had told me about with the spare key inside. She said I could use the key in case I came home after she went to bed. I slid the key into the lock and as I turned it, I could feel the lack of tension on the bolt. The door was already unlocked. Strange, Emma always remembered to lock up at night.

The hallway was dark, but light was shining in from the living room. I figured Emma had fallen asleep in her favorite chair. I walked into the room but she wasn't there. She must have gone to bed after all. I turned off the light in the living room, and as I stepped back into the hallway, a thin beam of light shone from under the kitchen door. I noticed it was closed, which was unusual. I padded down the hall, expecting to see Emma fixing herself a nighttime snack. But instead, when I opened the door, a horrifying vision assaulted my eyes.

"Emma!" I cried out. She was crumpled on the floor, slumped down by the sink. Her clothes were disheveled and her hair was messed up, with strands pulled out of her hair clip and matted in the back of her head with dark blood. I rushed toward her. She was unconscious, but thankfully, she was still breathing. I called 911 for an ambulance but was put on hold. What the fuck. Seriously? 911 puts people on hold?

I grabbed a kitchen towel and ran it under the faucet to wet it. Holding Emma's head up, I made sure she had a clear path to breathe, and I cleaned her face. It looked like she had been hit, hard, as in a punch to the face. She had a large bruise under the right eye and probably a huge bump in the back of her head. A splash of cold water on her face made her react, and her eyes fluttered and opened.

"Hanna? Where am I?" Her voice was raspy and weak.

"You're home. I just came in and found you here in the kitchen. What happened?"

As her awareness of her surroundings came back to her, she pushed herself up to a sitting position with her back against the cupboard door. "It was Brian. He broke in the house. I came down here to the kitchen to make a sandwich. He was in a rage, yelling and screaming. I told him to get the fuck out of my house, but then he shoved me and I guess he hit me. I don't remember..."

"I tried calling an ambulance but I couldn't get through. I'll try again."

"No, don't. I'll be fine." She stood up, stumbling a bit.

I grabbed her arm to steady her.

"Are you sure? Because I'm worried about you. You might have a concussion."

"Trust me, I'll be fine. Did you check on Michele?"

"No...isn't she in bed?"

Desperation formed in Emma's eyes, and we both bolted for the stairs at the same time. I followed her into Michelle's room. She clicked on the light switch just inside the door. The bed was empty.

"He took her," she said through gritted teeth. Her voice was low and filled with anger. "I knew it. I knew this was going to happen."

The shock of it held me immobile, and I felt ice spreading through my stomach. I should have called the police on this asshole a long time ago. Instead, I was more concerned about myself, about the police discovering my involvement in the stolen money. How could I have been so stupid? None of this would have happened if not for me. My misery was like a steel weight. This was entirely my fault and now I had to make it right. I had to find Michelle and bring her back. "Do you know where he could have taken her?" I could hear her breathing had changed. Emma was panicking and hadn't heard my words. She heaved and a worried cry escaped her lips as the entirety of her weight hit the mattress. "Oh God, what am I going to do? Hanna, he's got my baby, that fucking, freaking asshole has my baby," she wailed.

"Emma, I'm here to help. Calm down and think...do you have any idea where he may have taken her?"

She sniffed and wiped the back of her hand across her wet cheek. "Brian's brother has a hunting cabin an hour away from here. He could've taken her there. He always talked about that place. 'The perfect hiding place,' he called it. He knows how to hunt and survive in the woods, you know, that kind of psycho, survivalist shit...he always bragged about it."

"So we'll just call the police, and they can find the cabin, and we can get Michele back," I suggested.

Emma's hand trembled as she held it near her mouth. I could hear the click of her biting her nails as she rolled the idea over in her mind. I thought for sure she would jump on the idea of calling the police, but instead she waited, thinking, and then looked me straight in the eyes. In a calm voice she said, "No, we can't call the police. Not yet. There are hunting rifles in the cabin. Brian is a crazy lunatic, and if the police shows up, who knows what he'll do. I can't take that chance. I have to go there myself and talk him out of this." Her eyes were sharp and determined.

Emma was like a rock, ready to conquer anything, but it was going to take something really big, really brutal and strong to face Brian. Of course, I knew exactly who that could be. I took her hand and said, "Okay, but I'm not letting you go there alone. I'm coming with you."

My mind raced with probabilities. Brian could be crazier than we thought. This could end badly. We needed to bring out the "big guns," and although every inch of me wanted to resist, I grabbed my phone and called Luke "Renegade" Romano.

"We're almost there," Emma said as she steered her truck off the highway and onto a dusty dirt road heavily encased in the dense overhang of trees. A few streaks of sunlight crested over the horizon. In a few minutes the sun would rise, and even though I rarely prayed anymore, I said a few words in my mind, hoping this entire situation would not go sideways. And that if all else failed, Luke would keep this devil at bay. At least that's what I was counting on.

All three of us sat on the front bench seat of her truck. I was in the middle as Emma drove the full-sized pickup truck way too fast for this kind of road. Luke sat next to me, holding on to the strap as the truck swayed and jumped over bumps in the road. Despite my best effort to keep a distance between us, the bumps kept pushing me closer to him. Great. He probably thinks I'm doing it on purpose.

"How many rooms in the cabin?" Luke asked.

"It's pretty small. I was only there once, but I remember clearly that it has two rooms. A living room and a bedroom," Emma replied.

"He'll probably have her in the bedroom, I would think."

Emma nodded. "Yes, I think so too."

"Do you remember if there are any windows?"

"I think so. Not sure. It was so long ago that I was there." She threw a side glance at Luke. "There's got to be windows."

We drove on in silence for a few minutes-each of us, I'm sure, contemplating what would transpire once we got to the cabin. Fear and anger knotted inside of me, while Luke was the picture of calm. I saw it with abrupt clarity, the confidence he exuded. His very presence took charge with quiet assurance until finally Emma broke the silence. "Okay, the cabin is coming up right here over that hill. How should we do this?"

Luke cleared his throat. "I have an idea. If one of us can distract Brian at the front door, the other two can get Michelle out of the bedroom. If there is a window, that is?"

"I should be the one who distracts him," Emma said promptly. "He'll have a lot to say to me."

Luke nodded in agreement. "That makes sense." He opened the glove compartment and searched inside it. "Do you have any tools in your truck?"

"There's a toolbox under the seat," Emma said and pointed.

Luke pulled it out, and took out a large gray screwdriver. "This will do."

I was puzzled as to why he would need a screwdriver.

Yellow light filled the frames of two small windows as we could now see the cabin ahead of us. A beat-up dirty white pickup truck with a bent fender was parked in front of it.

"That's Brian's truck," Emma said in excitement. She flipped off the headlights and slowed the truck to a turtle's pace.

Luke grabbed my arm and addressed Emma. "Stop the truck here." She killed the engine and Luke continued in a hushed voice. "We'll get out and sneak up behind the cabin. Give us a couple of minutes, then drive up and knock on the door. Let's just hope he is not a total moron and shoots off the gun."

I swallowed hard. With my luck lately, he would probably do exactly that.

Emma stopped the truck to allow Luke and me to get out. I almost fell as I touched the ground but Luke grabbed hold of my arm. "Careful," he said with a smile. If felt good to feel his touch, despite everything that had happened.

The woods were thick around the cabin, and the air was heavy with the damp smell of dried underbrush. It made it easy for us to sneak around to the back of the cabin without being seen. As we rounded the corner to the rear of the cabin, we spotted a window large enough that it wouldn't require the skill of a Houdini to get in and out of it.

The crunch of tires on gravel alerted us that Emma had pulled up next to Brian's truck. As soon as she knocked on the door we lunged for the window. The cabin was old and feebly constructed, since it was only meant for hunting purposes. To our advantage, the window frame was thin and half rotten.

"This will work," Luke whispered. "Brian will hear if we smash it. I think I can peel off the frame with the screwdriver."

He pulled the large metal screwdriver out of his back jeans pocket and inserted it in between the frame and the house, prying slowly all along the edges. A subdued, yet heated, murmur was faintly audible from within the cabin. It wavered on the verge of coherence, rose up, then sank back down and ended momentarily. At least Emma and Brian were talking, and I hadn't heard any gunshots. The window frame was so worn that it took less than a minute to loosen it. With the hands of a surgeon, Luke carefully held the window glass by the edges and removed it. I stuck my head into the room. It was dark and the bedroom door was closed. The light was too dim for me to tell if Michelle was there or not. I pulled my head back out, turned to Luke and shrugged my shoulders, hands palms up, while shaking my head.

"I'll climb in," Luke whispered. Grabbing onto the windowsill, he pulled his upper body through the opening and stealthily slipped into the room. Moments later, he appeared at the window and whispered, "She's here. Be ready. I'll hand her out to you."

He carefully picked up Michelle, wrapping her bed blanket around her as he scooped her up and brought her over to the window where I awaited. As he leaned down to pass her through the window, she woke up and let lose an ear-piercing scream. "Mommy!"

"Fuck," Luke uttered under his breath. Seconds later, the lights came on as Brian kicked open the door. He filled the doorway with his body. A shotgun the size of a small cannon was in his hands.

Luke pushed Michelle behind his back to protect her from the pellets if Brian started shooting. I ducked down from the window so as not to look like a framed target for Brian, but kept one eye trained on the action inside.

"You again. I was hoping you'd show up so I could shoot you and get your frigging stash." Brian raised the gun to his shoulder and took aim at Luke, but before he could pull the trigger, Emma stepped up behind him and hit him with the hammer she had brought from her toolbox. Although it seemed like everything happened in slow motion, Brian fell hard to the ground, knocked out cold, the gun falling and bouncing awkwardly against the wooden floorboards. Reacting out of instinct, Luke hit the deck and threw his body over Michelle's to protect her. I covered my ears, anticipating the gun might accidentally go off, and pulled my body away from the window.

Releasing my hands, I heard the sweet sound of silence. I looked in the room to see Emma frozen in place, her mouth hanging open. She snapped it shut and rushed to Michelle, her arms opened wide.

"Mom," Michele cried out, and she jumped into Emma's embrace.

Luke reached out his hand and helped me climbed through the window. Emma came over, holding Michelle on her hip. There were tears in her eyes. "Thank you," she said. "You can call the police now."

"I already did." I leaned down and joined in the hug.

Luke slipped over to where Brian lay and checked Brian's neck for a pulse. He looked up and said, "He's still alive."

Emma sighed. "I was hoping I'd seen the last of him."

"Oh, he'll be locked up for a long time because of this. I wouldn't worry if I were you," I said.

Michelle was clinging to her mother's side. "Emma, why don't you take her out to the other room?" Emma nodded and moved the two of them toward the door. I hoped Michelle wouldn't be traumatized after seeing all this.

Luke stood up and brushed his hands on his jeans, nodding toward Brian, "I...I, uh, suppose I should go see if there's any ice for his wound."

"Luke, wait," I...I just want to thank you." I stepped away from where Brian lay and over near the window. I felt as if the fresh night air on my face would feel pretty good right now. He followed me and stood facing me. "Luke, what you did here tonight...was awesome. You're like a hero, you saved Michelle's life."

He looked down at me with deep blue sparkling eyes. "Not just me. You saved her too. You were so brave."

I blushed. "I just can't believe these last weeks. I mean, I was on a bus on my way to Charleston, stopping for lunch and...well, look at me now."

He picked up my hands in his and with our palms touching, interlacing our fingers. "I know. I hadn't planned on meeting someone as amazing as you while chasing down a gambling bet gone wrong, that's for sure." He twisted my hand around and lightly pressed his lips to the back of my hand.

I shrugged and dipped my chin to my chest.

"So does this mean you trust me? That we're okay with each other now?" He peered into my eyes, pinning me to the wall with his gaze. How could I resist those cobalt blue lasers? His strong fingers were still on mine, rubbing and caressing as he waited for the answer.

I gazed up to the ceiling and exhaled. "Yes, of course. When you look at me like that..." He leaned in and our lips met for the soothing kiss. Oh yes, absolutely. Everything is oh so okay.

I heard the police cars roll up outside the cabin with the sound of gears being thrown into park and the engine left running. Blue lights flashed in through the small windows of the cabin, illuminating it and the dark woods around it.

After we all had given our statements, Brian was coming back from unconsciousness, seemingly okay, except for probably a concussion. They arrested him and he was taken away in an ambulance. He would likely be charged with kidnapping, assault, and attempted murder. Emma had seen the last of him for a long time, I hoped.

Packed into Emma's pickup truck, she drove us all home. Michelle fell asleep before we got to the highway.

When Emma's truck stopped in front of Luke's house, he slid out of the seat and paused. I moved over and he reached in and tugged on my hand. I stared at him for a moment and blinked. There were still a lot to discuss and now was as good a time as ever.

"Um, Emma, I think I left my sweater at Luke's. I'll catch up with you later." I jumped out of the truck and into Luke's arms.

"See you later, girl," Emma said and shifted into drive.

The sun had been up for hours by now and I couldn't believe we were just getting in. The lazy activities of the beach-town day had already begun but all I wanted to do was sleep.

"Aaargh. I can't believe how long I've been up." I flung my purse on the floor and plopped onto Luke's couch. He took his wallet and keys from his pockets and tossed them on the kitchen countertop, and joined me there. He put his arms around me and pulled me in close to his rock-hard body. I closed my eyes, tipped my head against his chest, and inhaled. He smelled like the woods and the ocean mixed together.

"Thank you for helping. It means a lot to me," I said as we settled into each other's arms.

"Anytime. I'm glad that asshole can't ever touch Emma or Michelle again."

"Me too." I gazed at Luke. He looked just as tired as I felt. I leaned into his chest and closed my eyes. For the first time in a long time, I felt completely safe. No more lies. No more secrets. Everything was out in the open. In this moment I knew this was where I belonged, in Luke Romero's arms. I trusted him more than ever.

He twirled a lock of my hair between his fingers. "What do you think Brian meant when he said he was hoping he could get my stash?"

"No idea. Who knows what that moron thinks?"

Luke was silent for a moment then said, "I'd like to know. It's bugging me now. Maybe I can talk to him. I'll call the sheriff."

"Call him later, baby," I said and reached up to trace my finger along his perfectly kissable lower lip. "You have a more immediate request to fulfill first."

He smiled, tipped his head down, and those perfectly kissable lips were mine.