A Wish For Love (Gates-Cameron 2)

Cara and Casey screamed.

Bailey ran toward them. “In the bedroom!” she cried. At least there would be one more lock Owens would have to go through if he made it past the front door, she thought desperately.

Wood splintered beneath the force of another kick.

“Get out of here, Bailey!” Ian shouted. “Lock the bedroom door, open the window and scream as loudly as you can.”

They might have made it to the bedroom if Casey hadn’t fallen. Bailey and Cara wasted precious moments hauling the child to her feet.

One more kick and the front door flew open, a mess of broken wood. The man in the doorway was huge. Dark-haired. Red-faced. His eyes were black with rage and what Bailey instantly identified as drug-fueled insanity.

She threw herself between the intruder and the others. She had nothing for a weapon, no lamp, no fireplace poker. Nothing. She really was going to have to talk to her brother about furnishing this place, she thought fleetingly.

Owens glanced at Bailey, curled his lip and jerked his head toward the door. “Get out of here.”

“Cara, Casey, get in the bedroom.” Bailey moved backward with them, toward the open bedroom doorway.

Casey was screaming. Owens advanced steadily toward them, his massive fists clenched, breathing loud and ragged. “Shut her up,” he told Cara. “Or I’m going to have to do it myself.”

“Leave them alone,” Bailey insisted, trying to shield the child.

“Get out of my way.”

“Bailey, run,” Ian urged, looking both deadly furious and despairingly powerless. “Go get help.”

For only a moment, Bailey considered doing as he said, considering the chances that she could escape and bring help before Owens could hurt either Cara or Casey. But then she looked again at the madness blazing in Rance Owens’s eyes as he moved grimly toward Cara, and she knew there wasn’t time.

“Leave them alone!” she screamed again. “Get out of here!”

All his concentration focused on Cara, Owens didn’t even seem to hear Bailey. She might as well have been as invisible as Ian.

“I’ve got you now, bitch,” he said, the words hissing with ominous satisfaction. “You took everything from me. Everything. And now it’s time for you to pay.”

He reached out for Cara. Without stopping to think, Bailey threw herself at him, kicking, swinging, clawing.

As though she were little more than an annoying insect, Owens swung a fist at her, connecting solidly with the side of her head—the same side that was still swollen from the accident.

The blow rocked her backward, the pain stunning her, blinding her. She reeled, then crumpled.

“No!” The enraged roar came from Ian.

Bailey thought she felt something—someone—rush past her. And then Owens grunted in surprise. “Where the hell—”

His voice was abruptly choked off.

Bailey heard the sounds of battle as she tried to rise, blinking rapidly to clear her pain-blurred vision. She focused just well enough to see Ian and Owens strugghng in the center of the room, both staggering to keep their footing as they grimly fought for dominance.

Cara and Casey knelt beside Bailey. “Bailey, are you all right? Oh, God, you’re bleeding,” Cara said, on the verge of hysteria.

“Take—take Casey and get out of here,” Bailey managed to whisper, her stomach wrenching. “Get help.”

Owens’s fist connected with Ian’s jaw, snapping Ian’s head back. Bailey gasped as Ian rocked from the impact. Owens hit him again. A crimson smear of blood stained Ian’s mouth.

She pushed herself to her feet, shrugging off Cara’s concerned hands. Owens was so much larger than Ian, so dangerous in his dementia. She had to do something to help.

The only weapon she could find was Dean’s laptop computer, which she’d left lying on the bar. The sixpound device felt unsatisfactorily light in her hands, but the case was constructed of hard plastic.

She ran up behind Owens and slammed it with all her strength against the back of his head.