Rick figured he would use the time-out near the water to gather his thoughts. The water had served him well in the end, always his friend. Always home.
Except that wasn’t quite true anymore. He’d found a new home.
With Nola.
“Dad?”
He pivoted to find Lauren waiting at the bottom porch step, her long hair wet from her shower. She wore her standard sleep pants and a raggedy T-shirt… Wait. Wasn’t that…? It was. An old T-shirt of his from an air show they’d attended together.
And she still wore it.
He had two choices right now. He could stand here and feel guilty. Or he could move forward on his battered legs and fix things with his daughter.>“Got it.” Rick tucked his weapon out of sight in the small of his back. “We can’t go out with it showing. He’ll only make me throw it down.”
Somewhere in his fifties, the man looked as if he stayed in shape. She’d fought hard to escape Ramon Chavez, a narrow thing a year ago when she’d been in top condition, and now she could barely walk after the scorpion sting. Rick had an amazing amount of upper body strength, but one swipe to his legs…
She couldn’t afford these negative thoughts.
Her hand closed over the doorknob.
Rick’s hand rested on her waist. “Stay on the other side of me, away from him. I can’t worry about you and Lauren. I love you.”
He opened the door.
Good God. He dropped the “love bomb” like that and expected her to keep her cool? Nola scrambled for her scattered wits and—what do you know?—Rick used her hesitation to put himself between her and the gunman.
Rick braced a hand on the porch post.
Nola pulled up alongside him. “So you’ve finally decided to show your face.”
“I decided the time had come.” He caressed the gun along Lauren’s forehead in a sadistic show of force. “My timing. My control. You may have gotten the better of me once, but I will be the victor this time.”
Nola sifted through his words and could hardly believe how the pieces fit together. The man had come after her because of a wounded ego?
She stepped onto the porch, staying behind Rick, not because she felt she needed his shielding but because she didn’t want him distracted with worry. “How did you survive the tunnel collapse?”
“I am a strong man, stronger than anyone gave me credit for.” He hitched his arm harder against the terrified teen’s gut. “I clawed my way to freedom. Revenge can give you more strength than you could imagine.”
She hoped he was right because the need for a slice of vengeance for herself gnawed deep.
At the show of force against Lauren, a vein popped along Rick’s temple. “How did you get to my daughter?”
Chavez tut-tutted. “You two are so predictable. I knew you would send the child away. I am an Internet genius. When you booked her flight, I booked my own on her flight. It was no problem to overtake her in Atlanta when she went to the restroom on her own. I simply waylaid Lauren and told her that her father had been in an accident. Your daughter is truly too trusting.”
Nola rested her hand on Rick’s back in reassurance.
“I do not want to hurt this pretty young child. She has done nothing to me, but you know as well as I that there are casualties in war. It is up to you as to whether she will be one of them. Will you come quietly with me now? Or will you make this a fight?”
Their first order of business had to be securing the safety of Rick’s daughter. Nola knew that. She had beaten this man once before, she could do it again. She refused to think about what the scorpion’s poison had done to her system. Of course that would have been the man’s plan, to weaken her this time. Now it all made sense.
She came level, shoulder to shoulder with Rick, then moved down to the first step.
“I love you, too,” she whispered as she passed, and ohmigod what a time to make this realization.
They should have had more time… She had to think positively. Put one foot in front of the other.
Chavez eased his hold on the girl. Nola wondered if she could trust his word. What if he took them both hostage? But this man had always entertained a twisted sense of frontier justice. Somehow she believed he would let Lauren go. He meant what he said about his vendetta being with her alone. His reasons for killing her were bizarre to say the least, but his obsession was with her alone.
She also knew Rick’s code of honor was unbending. He would not leave with her still held hostage. He would die first. Without question.