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She didn’t think so. She didn’t think they were going to be at all okay.
She had once loved Del Wilder so deeply and intensely that he had been her entire world. The love hadn’t lasted nearly as long as the anger, the disappointment, the heartbreak. Vic didn’t let herself expect anything from the people in her life, not anymore. She always ended up disappointed, but these days no one broke her heart. Del had been an important part of her life, long ago, but she didn’t owe him anything.
Or did she? If they were going to die here, did he deserve to know that he had a daughter?
Vic had always looked like an angel: flowing wavy hair caught somewhere between brown and gold, cat’s eyes of green and gold, lush lips just made for smiling and kissing. She wasn’t a girl anymore, she was a woman, nicely filled out and without the little bit of baby fat that had made her cheeks round and pink, years ago. She was leaner in the face today, shapelier everywhere else.
But of course Vic was not an angel and never had been. She was a mere mortal, with flaws all her own. Del took some comfort from the fact that she was currently sweating like a pig.
Where was Shock? He should have been here by now. Something had happened, something had delayed the planned rescue. They were going to have to get out of here themselves.
“Know what I remember about you?” he asked, smiling crookedly at Vic.
“What?” she asked, as if she really didn’t want to know. Smart girl.
“Your flexibility.”
She looked offended. “That’s what you remember?”
“You could twist your legs, turn your body, bend…”
“All right,” she snapped. “I get the picture. Know what I remember about you? I remember that you were nothing but trouble. I remember that you were the most stubborn, arrogant, possessive, egotistical…”
“Vic, this isn’t helping matters any.”
“And your observations have some deeper meaning?”
Again, he smiled. “There’s a knife in my right boot.”
Her anger faded. “There is?”
“I can’t reach it, but maybe you can.”
She nodded, shook her hair back and began to tilt to the side, her face taut with determination.
“Vic, honey,” Del said calmly. “My other right boot.”
She straightened quickly, gave him a sharp glance that told him it was somehow his fault she had moved to her right and not his, and began again.
Vic was the woman he had spent the past sixteen years trying to forget. Some days he actually succeeded. But when he’d heard her name being whispered over the phone, his heart had just about stopped. Maybe because she was his first. First love, first lover, first real experience with pain. It was perfectly natural that he sometimes remembered her fondly.
And surely it was also perfectly natural that as she moved to the side and her shirt shifted, he was distracted by the new expanse of breast that was exposed. A pale, soft-looking swell of flesh that momentarily took his mind off of everything else.
Del did his best to shake off the distraction. Couldn’t the woman wear a bra? If he didn’t know better, he’d think Vic was doing this to him on purpose.
Vic’s shorts were short, the legs that were wrapped around him were smooth and strong. He hated that his hands were tied. More than anything, he wanted to run his palm up her leg, slow and easy.
Her fingers skimmed down his calf as she reached blindly for the sheath and the knife inside his boot.
What was wrong with him? He hadn’t seen her for sixteen years, and their last parting had been ugly, to say the least. She was married, a mother, the woman who had once been the girl who had broken his heart. In the years since he’d left her behind, he’d cursed her, longed for her and almost forgotten her.
And right now he wanted her. Nothing else mattered enough to get in the way of that.
“Almost there,” she whispered, licking her lips as she stretched and moved just a little bit more. She smiled when she finally found and grabbed the handle of the knife. “Got it.” A grin that didn’t last long flitted across her face. It was the first time he’d seen her smile since he’d walked into this room. Of course, she hadn’t had much to smile about today.
Vic straightened cautiously, the knife behind her back.
“If you can just knick the edge of the tape at your wrists,” Del said calmly, “you should be able to rip it apart. Once your hands are loose, we’re home free.”
She nodded and began, her face once again rigid with concentration. Those cat’s eyes were fixed on the center of his forehead as she worked.
“I wish it wasn’t so hot in here,” she said softly. “My palms are slick with sweat.”
“It’s okay, baby. You’re doing great.”
Her eyes met his, briefly, and then she stared at his forehead again as she continued her efforts. “So close,” she whispered beneath her breath. “I just can’t quite…”
She cursed, flinched, and the knife clattered to the floor. Her eyes met his again, and he saw something new. Panic.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I tried to catch it, I did, but it just slipped right through my fingers.”
“Did you cut yourself?”
She nodded.
“How bad?”
“Not too bad, I think. It just stings a little.”
He kept his knife sharp. If the blade had brushed past her fingers, the cuts might be deep.
Cuts on Vic’s fingers were the least of their problems, and still that knowledge bothered Del more than it should. If she wasn’t here, he’d knock the chair to its side and try to free himself from that position, but he couldn’t take the chance. What he’d seen on the side of the explosive device that had been taped to the bottom of the chair looked to be a tilt detonator. If the chair tipped over, the bomb would go off. He didn’t mind taking chances with his own life. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—take that risk with Vic’s.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, softer this time.
“It’s okay,” he said, trying to ease her distress with a smile.
“You keep saying that,” she said, growing visibly frustrated. Her cheeks flushed, her chest rose and fell with deeper, faster breaths. “Nothing is okay!”
While he thought about what came next, he had to calm her down. He had to get her talking about something else, anything else. “A daughter, huh?”
Her eyes widened, her spine straightened. “Yes.”
“What’s she like?” Mothers liked talking about their kids, right? He might have asked about the husband, but in truth he didn’t want to know about Vic’s marriage. He didn’t want to hear her talk about the man who shared her bed.
Vic took a deep breath. “Noelle,” she said. “Her name is Noelle.”
Del nodded. “Nice name. How old is she?”
Vic hesitated. This wasn’t working. Talking about her daughter was not calming Vic in any way. “Fourteen,” she finally whispered.
“Tough age,” Del said, trying to carry the conversation along. “Is she as pretty as you were at fourteen?” he teased.
“Prettier.”
“Not possible.”
Vic’s eyes latched on to his. She took a deep breath, and something in her changed, slowly and subtly. “Noelle is much more beautiful than I ever was. She’s smart, too, and has a real talent for drawing.” Her lips parted and softened. “She hates that, that she inherited a talent from me.”
“She’d rather be like her father?”
Vic shook her head. “No. I sometimes think Noelle wishes she’d sprung from a pod, fully grown and beholden to no one.”
“Sounds like fourteen to me,” Del said, his voice low. His smile faded. “Was she home this morning?”
Vic shook her head. “No, thank God. She’s in Gulf Shores with a friend’s family. They went on vacation and Michelle refused to go without her best friend.” Finally, she smiled again. “You should see her,” she whispered. “She’s so…so much like…” She stopped, her throat worked gently, and she shook her head. “Del…”
In the distance, he heard a muted noise. With a whispering breath, he shushed Vic. “Hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“A car.” He strained as he listened hard. “A car door.”
She began to tremble. “Do you think they came back?”
Del shook his head. “Nope. I think it’s the cavalry. Can you scream, baby?”
Vic shook her head, and Del shouted. “Up here!” Vic jumped, as if her entire body had been shocked. She didn’t scream. “Hurry!” Del shouted again when he heard footsteps pounding on the stairs.
“If it is the cavalry,” Vic whispered, “are they too late? How much time do we have?”
Del smiled. “Enough, I think.”
“You think?” Vic asked.
The door to the room burst open, and Vic almost fainted. Her vision blurred and her head swam. This couldn’t possibly be the cavalry. The man who stood in the doorway was small, very thin. His hair was as long as Del’s, and the fine strands were a dirty dark blond instead of Del’s thick black. His eyes were…buggy, his face was pale. He held a gun in one hand and a knife in the other and he was poised to do battle.
“It’s about time,” Del snapped. “Get us out of here.”
The little man holstered his gun. “Sorry I’m late,” he said as he came toward them with the knife grasped in his hand. “I got lost. Took the wrong exit.” He glared accusingly at Del. “Man, your one looked like a seven. Anyway, I turned around and headed back this way….”
“Shock,” Del snapped, “I hate to interrupt, but there’s a bomb taped to the underside of the chair. How about take a peek and see how much time we have left.”
The man Del called Shock complied, dropping down and sticking his head beneath the chair. The single word that came out of his mouth did nothing to soothe Vic’s nerves.
“I hate bombs,” he said as he returned to an upright position and began to decisively and expertly cut away the duct tape that bound Vic and Del together and to the chair. “Hate ’em.”
“Tilt detonator?” Del asked.
“Yup,” Shock said as he continued to cut.
“How’s our time?”
“Shorter than I’d like.”
As Shock moved behind Vic, he whistled through his teeth. “You’re bleeding,” he said without slowing his chore.
“It’s not too bad,” Vic said, her voice not rising as much as she’d intended.
Shock just made a noise, something between a groan and a hum.
When she was free, Vic thought about standing. And couldn’t. Her legs shook. Her hands trembled. She glanced down at the gashes on her fingers as Shock cut the last of Del’s bonds away. Blood dripped down her palm, across her wrist.
When Del was free, he put his arms around her, assisted her to her feet and led her from the room. Quickly. Shock was right behind, doing his best to hurry them along. Del, one arm securely around Vic’s waist, pulled her so quickly her feet barely touched the ground as they flew down the stairs.
She wasn’t exactly thinking rationally. Halfway down the stairs, she came up short. “My cell phone is still up there.”
“Screw the cell phone,” Del grumbled as he dragged Vic off her feet and down the rest of the stairs.
They ran through the double front doors, into the bright summer sunshine. Vic apparently wasn’t running fast enough to suit Del; he dragged her along. A moment after they left the building, Shock appeared at her other side.
“Let’s go,” he said as he added his arm around her waist.
The two men pulled her along, her feet off the ground, her heart caught in her throat. They had reached the parking lot and were running hard toward the two cars at the far end when the explosion rocked the building behind them. The noise was deafening, the blast of heat unnatural even on this summer day. Shattering glass was loud, a strangely pretty, dangerous sound. Shards landed in the parking lot, just behind them. As she heard the glass land on the asphalt, Vic was glad Del and Shock had grabbed her up and hurried her along. They didn’t look back, not until they reached the cars.
Vic’s heart sank as she studied those cars, a black Jaguar and an electric-blue Dodge Viper. Those two vehicles together surely cost more than her house. Del Wilder, a drug dealer. She couldn’t believe it. “At least they didn’t take your Jag,” Shock said.
Del responded without emotion. “Even Tripp and Holly are too smart for that. They want to disappear and a Jag is definitely not a ride that makes you invisible.”
Vic listened, but her mind was elsewhere. She had almost told Del about Noelle, she had almost confessed to him that they had a child together. That could never happen. Never. If someone would try to get to Del through her, what would they do if they knew he had a daughter?
They watched the building burn.
“Did they get your Glock?” Shock asked.
“Yep,” Del answered.
Shock mumbled an obscenity, then turned to Vic and smiled, presenting a grin that was all teeth and gums. “Name’s Albert Shockley, ma’am,” he said. “But you can call me Shock. A name should suit a person, you know? I don’t know what my mother was thinking when she named me Albert.” He waited a moment. “And you are?”
“Vic,” she said, the name barely passing through her lips.
Shock’s smile faded a little, and he turned a suspicious glance to Del, who continued to watch the spreading fire.
“Vic,” Shock repeated. “Now, that’s just not right. Vic is a name for a fat, smelly guy, not a pretty lady. Gotta be short for something.”
“Victoria,” she whispered.
Del tore his attention away from the burning warehouse and took her hand in his, studying the cuts on her fingers. Again, he cursed.
