Protecting Melissa (Holiday Cove 4)

“What did they say?” I asked, halfway not wanting to know the truth.

Chase hesitated. He didn’t want to tell me.

Not a good sign.

“Chase, please,” I begged, my voice barely audible over the wind that whipped between us. “I’m a big girl. I can take it.”

He drew in a quick breath, glanced at some spot behind me, and then dragged his eyes back to mine. “They were talking about how they were under orders to take Jackson, separate him from you, and once you were out of his sight, they were supposed to kill you.”

The boat rocked and I didn’t think it had anything to do with the water beneath us. “Oh, God. I can’t believe he’d—” My stomach churned and I grabbed for the railing to steady myself. Chase took my arm and helped me sit down.

“I’m sorry. I did—” I put my hand up, palm out, to let him know I didn’t want him to talk. I needed a minute.

I knew Henry wanted me dead, or at least, I’d put enough clues together to form that theory. But somehow, hearing his detailed plan made it feel more real than ever before and the reality of what Henry was plotting was mind-numbing.

“Go get Jackson please. I want my baby here.”

“Melissa…”

I wiped the tears from my eyes and stood up. Chase put his hand out to steady me, but my strength was back. “So…how has this become my life, you know? Where is the girl who fell in love with a cheesy timeshare salesman with big dreams?” That girl felt so far away to me. As though that hadn’t even been my life. It belonged to someone else.

“Melissa…” Chase’s soft voice brought me back from the edge and I locked my eyes with his, letting him keep my rooted. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to tell you, because, well fuck, because it’s fucking evil!”

“Yes, Chase, he is an evil man.” I nodded. I gathered up my composure and asked, “What happened then? After you got us onto the boat?”

Chase held my gaze. “I got you on the boat and I went to their boat. I wanted to see if I could figure out how the hell they’d managed to track us to Cabo in the first place. I figured if I could find their tracking equipment, I could destroy or steal it before they got back to the boat, and that would give us time to get away and this time not be followed.”

“But?”

“But I ran out of time. So, I did the next best thing I could think of.”

“Blew their ship up?”

“No,” he growled. “Well, at least that wasn’t my intention. Yes, I attached two explosives to their control panel but they weren’t supposed to blow the whole damn thing up. I wouldn’t have put you and Jackson in that much danger. Something must have gone wrong. I set the devices and was trying to get off the ship when I was stopped by one of O’Keefe’s men. I had to kill him, Melissa. He would have killed me and then he would have come after you and Jackson.”

I put the pieces together. “And when you got done with…that…there were more of them?”

Chase nodded. “I’m sorry, Melissa.”

“Don’t be,” I replied. “You were doing your job.”

“I couldn’t let them come after you, even if that meant sacrificing myself. When the explosion went off, I’d just dove overboard, and my first thought when I hit the water was hoping that you guys were below deck and safe.”

“And your leg?” I asked, dropping my eyes to the place on his leg that I’d patched up the night before.

“I didn’t even feel it when it happened. It must’ve been debris and pieces of their boat. I don’t know why the explosion was so big. The detonators I set should have been more controlled.”

“The news said something about the fuel line,” I offered, not sure if it helped or even made sense. For all I knew that could have been the media spin to keep the tourists in the area from freaking out, thinking there are terrorists on the beach.

Chase shook his head. “They must have had weapons, explosives, on board that got set off.”

Another chill ran down my spine. The idea that they would have killed me and kidnapped Jackson was horrifying enough, but the thought of Jackson on a boat full of brutes, without his mother, and probably a thousand questions…one of them would have lost their patience eventually. They were trained killers—not babysitters.

What was Henry thinking? God, that was a scary idea.

“Thank you, Chase.”

Chase looked surprised at my statement. “You don’t have to thank me. In fact, I’d prefer if you didn’t.”

I reached for him and set my hand on his forearm.

Before I could find the right words, a loud, ear-piercing siren blared from the bridge.