Groom Of Fortune

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Her eyes flipped wide and she jumped to her feet, knocking over her chair. “Oh, my God! My parents! They must be worried sick. I’ve got to call them.” She whirled, searching for a phone, but Link lunged across the table, caught her by the arm and jerked her back around.

“You can’t call your parents, Isabelle.”

“Wh-what?” she stammered, blinking at him.

“No calls.”

“But I have to!” She tugged her arm, trying to pull free. “They’ll be worried. Frightened. I have to call them. I have to let them know where I am, that I’m all right.”

Link rose and ducked a hip around the edge of the table, rounding it. He caught her other arm and forced her to face him. “Isabelle,” he said, giving her a hard shake when she continued to struggle against him. “Listen to me. You can’t call your parents. The call could be traced.”

She stilled, her eyes going wide. “Traced?”

“Yes. Brad, or anyone else who wanted to, could trace the call to this cabin.”

She shook her head, tears filling her eyes. “But my parents. They’ll be sick with worry. You don’t understand,” she cried, and tried to pull free. “I was kidnapped when I was young. I know what they went through then. How much they suffered. I can’t put them through that again. I just can’t!”

Link scowled as he held on to her, refusing to let her go. He understood, all right. He knew all about the kidnapping of Isabelle Fortune. The memory of her parents’ faces on the evening news when they’d offered a staggering reward for any information that would lead to the recovery of their daughter would forever be burned on his mind—as would the image of Isabelle’s pale, haunted face when she’d been rescued three days later and returned safely to her parents.

He released her so quickly, she staggered back a step, unbalanced. “My cell,” he said, and turned for the bedroom.

“What?” she said in confusion and hurried after him.

“My cell phone,” he explained, pulling it from its holster on the belt of his wet jeans. He turned and held it out to her. “City issue. Calls can’t be traced through it.”

She reached for the phone, then glanced up at him in surprise when he didn’t release his own grip on it.

“You can’t tell them where you are,” he warned, his blue eyes piercing hers. “Or that you’re with me. If you do, you’ll jeopardize your safety and that of your parents’. Do you understand?”

Frightened by the rigidity of his gaze and sobered by the threat he alluded to, she slowly nodded. “Y-yes. I understand.”

He released the phone, and she turned away. She punched in her parents’ number, then brought the phone to her ear. At the sound of her father’s voice, she pressed her fingertips to her lips, forcing back tears. “Dad?”

“Isabelle,” he cried in relief, making fresh tears flood her eyes. “My God, honey, where are you? Are you okay?” He clamped a hand over the mouthpiece and shouted for her mother, telling her that Isabelle was on the phone.

“Dad,” she said loudly, trying to make herself heard over his shouting. “Please listen. I can’t talk long. I just wanted you to know that I’m all right. That I’m safe.”

Then her mother was on the phone, sobbing, “My baby, my baby. Isabelle, darling, where are you?”

“I’m okay, Mother,” she said, struggling to keep the fear from her voice, the truth, not wanting to worry her parents any more than they already were. “I’m with—” She felt Link’s hand clamp over hers and glanced up at him, saw the fierce, silent warning in his eyes. “I can’t tell you where I am or who I’m with,” she explained, her gaze frozen on Link’s. “I just wanted you to know that I’m safe and that I’ll be back in contact with you as soon as I can.”

“Isabelle!” her mother wailed. “Darling, what is going on? Brad is beside himself with worry. He’s in the library now. Your father’s gone to tell him that you’re on the phone.”

Ice spilled through Isabelle’s veins at the mention of her fiancé. “I can’t talk to him,” she said, her stomach knotting at the idea of him, a murderer, in her parents’ home. “I have to go. I love you, Mother. Tell Dad that I love him, too.” She quickly pressed the disconnect button, cutting off her mother’s desperate pleas for her to remain on the line.

Link eased the phone from her paralyzed fingers and Isabelle turned away, covering her face with her hands. “Oh, God,” she moaned. “They sounded so worried. So frightened. This must be just like it was before for them.”

She felt a hand on her shoulder, the gentle squeeze of comforting fingers through the flannel shirt. She turned and buried her face against his chest. “I can’t do this,” she sobbed helplessly. “I can’t do this to them again. I’ve got to go home. Talk to them. Explain what’s happened. Tell them about Brad.”

“No.” When she twisted in his arms, trying to free herself from his embrace, Link tightened his arms around her. “Isabelle,” he ordered sternly, “think what you’re saying, what kind of danger you’d be placing yourself and your parents in. Brad’s a murderer. You know that. You heard what those men said. Once Brad knows that you’re aware of the part he played in Mike’s death, he’ll kill you, or try to, at the very least. He’ll have to, in order to save his own hide.”

“But you didn’t hear them, Link,” she sobbed. “They’re so worried. It’s just like before. I can’t bear it,” she cried, balling her hands against his chest. “I can’t put them through this again.”

“This isn’t your fault,” he told her, trying to calm her. “And it wasn’t your fault before, when you were kidnapped.”

“It is,” she argued stubbornly. “I shouldn’t have run away. I should have stayed at the church, found my father and told him what I overheard.”

Furious that he couldn’t make her understand the danger she was in, he pushed her to arm’s length and gave her a hard shake. “Don’t you know what kind of man we’re dealing with here? Brad Rowan’s crazy. Homicidal. If you’d stayed at the church and told your father what you overhead, Brad would have you by now, and God only knows what he would do to you to keep you quiet.” He watched the blood drain from her face, saw the fear in her eyes and knew that he was frightening her even more than she already was. “Isabelle,” he said, trying to keep his tone even, calm. “You did the right thing by running away. I can protect you here. I can keep you safe.”

She stared up at him, wet violet eyes searching his. “Here?” she repeated. “We’re staying here?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

He set his jaw, wondering again how he’d survive being alone with her for even one night. “As long it takes to get the evidence I need to put Brad Rowan behind bars.”

“But my parents…”

He released his hold on her. “As long as they are ignorant of Brad’s guilt, he would have no reason to harm them.”

“But—”

“I’ll arrange for twenty-four hour surveillance for both them and Rowan. At the first sign of danger, I’ll have Rowan arrested on suspicion of murder. Until then, I need for him to think his secret is safe, in hopes he’ll make a mistake and lead us to the evidence we need to nail him.”

Link dropped down onto the lumpy sofa with a weary sigh, scrubbed his hands over his face, then leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his thighs and his fists beneath his chin as he stared at the closed bedroom door.

Isabelle slept in the bed on the other side of the door. Isabelle Fortune. The woman he’d admired, even lusted after from afar, ever since her return to Pueblo less than a year earlier.

The irony of the situation didn’t escape him.

Link Templeton, criminal investigator, lowly employee of the city that the Fortune family all but owned, hiding out in a remote cabin with the Fortune’s only daughter, a woman thirteen years his junior, a woman whose innocence and privileged background was a stark contrast to the streetwise man who’d literally pulled himself from the gutter by his bootstraps.

As he stared at the door, knowing he was crazy for even thinking about her, an image of her as she’d appeared earlier that evening pushed itself, unwanted, into his mind. Standing in the bathroom doorway like a virginal bride on her wedding night. Her cheeks flushed, that thick mane of black hair framing a classically beautiful face and tumbling to hang past her slim shoulders. Breasts quivering beneath the thin silk that enhanced rather than concealed the feminine curves beneath it.

He could imagine himself stroking a hand down the smooth column of her throat, covering a breast, almost feel her flesh swell and arch against his palm, the heat rising from her skin to burn with his. Her head would drift back as he stroked her, her eyes would close, her lips part, and he would capture her mouth with his, sip at her sweetness, grow drunk on her erotic flavor, mate his tongue with hers even as he drew her hips hard against his.

Groaning at the image, he dived his fingers through his hair and held his head between his palms, trying to squeeze the lustful thoughts from his mind. “Crazy,” he muttered under his breath. “Insane. Impossible. Irrational.” Isabelle Fortune was out of his league, out of his realm. And he was out of his mind for even thinking about her. His job was to protect her. Nothing more.

Promising himself that he would remember that, he snatched his cell phone from the sofa beside him and quickly punched in a number.

“Hank,” he said when his partner answered. “It’s Link.”

“Where the hell are you? Isabelle Fortune has disappeared, and the whole town is in an uproar. The chief wants you on the case.”

“Isabelle’s with me. We’re at your cabin in the mountains.”

“Whoa. Back up, buddy, and say that again.”

Link sighed and dragged his palm over the top of his head, mussing his hair even more. “I’ve got Isabelle,” he said again. “She’s with me. I followed her when she left the church. She wrecked her car during the storm, and I picked her up and brought her to your cabin.”

“Damn, Link. Brad Rowan is one angry groom. But his black mood doesn’t come close to touching her old man’s. Hunter Fortune’s got the entire police force out looking for his daughter. He’ll have your ass over a fire for this one, I can guaran-damn-tee it. You better get her back here, and fast.”

“No.”

“No! Man, have you lost your mind? This is the Fortunes you’re dealing with, and you’re not exactly on their top-ten list since you arrested Riley and threw him in jail.”

“I know,” Link said in frustration, “but I can’t bring her back. She knows that Brad killed Mike Dodd.”

“The hell you say! Has she got proof?”

“No. That’s the problem. Just prior to the wedding, she heard two men who alluded to Brad’s involvement in Mike’s murder, but she can’t identify either one of them.”

“So you’re going to keep her under wraps until she can?”

Link’s scowl deepened. “It’s the only way I know to keep her alive.” He glanced at the door, then lowered his voice. “Listen. I need you to get me a list of all the wedding guests. I’m sure the Fortunes have a copy, but keep your reasons for needing it under your hat. I don’t want them to know that Isabelle’s with me, or that she suspects that Brad is the murderer.

“I need you to keep an eye on her parents,” he continued, “as well as Rowan. If he shows any sign that he suspects Isabelle is aware of his guilt, arrest him and hold him on suspicion of murder until I can get there.”

“What about her car? Do you want me to have it towed in? A set of wheels like that? Somebody’s bound to come along and strip it, and make a killing on the parts alone.”

Link dragged a hand over his hair. “No. If you do, someone might suspect that you know something, know where she is. I’d rather her family suffer the financial loss of the car than have them face the emotional loss of their only daughter if Rowan should trace her back here to the cabin.”

“Right.”

“And cover for me, will you? Make up some story about me chasing down a lead in another city. Or, hell, tell ’em I quit. I don’t care. Just don’t let on that you know where I am or who’s with me.”

“My lips are sealed. And, buddy,” Hank added, “watch your back. That Rowan is a cold son of a bitch and madder than a rabid dog. If he finds out you’ve got Isabelle…”

He let the warning drift off, unfinished. But Link didn’t need to hear the warning to know the danger he had placed himself in. “Don’t worry about me,” he told Hank. “Just get me that guest list.”

Isabelle awoke, screaming.

Link was awake and off the sofa and in the bedroom before she could fight her way free of the quilt tangled around her legs. He dropped down on the bed beside her and pulled her into his arms, trying to calm her.

She fought him like a wildcat, clawing at his chest and face with her hands and nails, while deafening him with bloodcurdling screams.

He wrapped his arms around her, successfully pinning her hands and arms between them. “Isabelle. Isabelle!” he shouted to be heard over her screams. “It’s me. Link. I’ve got you. You’re okay. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

He repeated the same assurances over and over again until his voice, at last, penetrated the nightmare that seemed to hold her in its clutches. She grew still, though her body continued to tremble like a struck chord against his, her chest heaving against his with each grabbed breath. He drew her closer, his hands growing damp with the perspiration that soaked her gown and skin.

“It was just a dream,” he told her, stroking a hand down her hair. “Just a dream.”

She drew in a shuddery breath, another, then eased from his embrace and tipped her face up to his. In the darkness, her eyes were nothing but shadowed pools, her features indistinguishable. Needing to see her face, to reassure himself that she was all right, he stretched a hand behind him and switched on the bedside lamp. A soft golden glow spilled over the room, and when he turned back to her, he saw the wildness that flared in her eyes, the fear, and knew the nightmare still held her in its grip. “It was a dream,” he told her again, and dragged a knuckle across her cheek, catching a stray tear. “Just a dream.”

She shivered at his touch, her unblinking gaze locked on his. “Yes,” she whispered, her voice hoarse from screaming. “A dream. A nightmare,” she said on a low moan, and shivered again.

He wanted to draw her back into his arms, comfort her, but thought better of it. Instead, he shifted away, preparing to rise, to put some distance between them. “Are you okay now?”

She grabbed his arm before he could stand. “Please,” she begged, her nails biting deep, her grip on him, as well as her gaze, desperate. “Don’t leave me.”

He sank back down beside her. “I won’t,” he promised. He slipped an arm around her shoulders, shifting her to his side, until their backs rested against the headboard. He stretched his legs out over the quilt still tangled with hers. “I’ll stay with you as long as you want.”

She seemed to wilt beneath his arm at his reassurance, her head dropping to rest on his shoulder. Her fingers found the edge of the quilt and drew it to her waist. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “The nightmare. I don’t have it often. Haven’t in years.” Her fingers curled into the fabric, her knuckles stark white against the colorful squares. “It’s always the same. The men grabbing me, stuffing me into the back of the van.”

A shiver shook her and he tightened his arm around her, held her firmly against his side. “The kidnapping?” he asked, though he was sure he knew her answer.

He felt her head move against his shoulder in silent assent.

“Yes,” she whispered, her voice quivering with the horror of it. “The kidnapping. I was five. They took me to a cabin.” She lifted her head from his shoulder to look uneasily around the room, slowly taking in her surroundings. The scarred chest of drawers. The dark windows with muslin drapes pushed back to let the dim moonlight filter through.

“Like this one,” she said, as if just realizing the similarities. “But much more rustic. There was a bed,” she added, and released her grip on the quilt to smooth a palm over the covers beside her hip. “Nothing more than a bare mattress, really, lying flat on the floor. No sheets. Just a dirty blanket. They kept me there for three days,” she said, then turned her face up to his, her cheeks wet, her eyes haunted by the memory. “Three horrible, terrifying days.”

He could only imagine the fear she must have felt if it was anything close to that which shadowed her eyes. Unable to bear thinking of what she might have suffered, seeing it reflected on her face, in her eyes, he lifted his hand and pressed his palm against her head, forcing it back down to his shoulder. “Don’t think about it,” he ordered, his voice husky. He turned his lips to her hair. “Block it from your mind.”

He felt her stiffen, then she was shoving against his chest and from his embrace. “No,” she said furiously, shocking him with the depth of her emotion. “Not any longer. I want to talk about it. All of it. But my family won’t allow me. Every time I try, they change the subject or pretend they don’t hear.”

“It hurts them,” he said, understanding all too well her family’s avoidance of the subject. “Knowing how much you suffered, how terrified you were, hurts them. Hearing you speak of it would be forcing them to relive it again.”

“But I need to talk about it,” she cried. She pressed her palms against the sides of her head. “The memories are here, in my mind, haunting me, and I need to let them out. To rid myself of them. But nobody will listen. They try to erase it all by pretending it never happened. They always have.”

Her growing fury troubled him, as did her insistence to share the terrifying memories. He didn’t want to hear the details of her kidnapping any more than her parents did, maybe less.

A teenager at the time of the incident, Link had followed the details of the kidnapping on television, along with the other citizens of Pueblo. But unlike the rest of Pueblo’s citizens and the police force who were baffled by the few clues they had to follow, Link had exclusive information regarding Isabelle’s kidnapping…information provided to him by his stepbrother, Joe Razley. Information the police weren’t privy to.

But he’d listen to Isabelle recount the details of her kidnapping, he told himself, if only to ease her mind. “Tell me, then,” he offered hesitantly.

She slicked her lips, inched closer, her gaze on his. “I ran away. Just like I did today.”

He drew his head back frowning, sure that he’d known every detail of the kidnapping. But he’d never heard this one. “Ran away?”

“Yes,” she said, obviously relieved to finally be able to tell it all. “I was angry with my parents because they wouldn’t allow me to spend the night with one of my friends, so I decided to run away. I packed a backpack and snuck out of the house. I walked for miles, not really knowing where I planned to go, but determined to run away, to punish them.” Tears filled her eyes and she dashed her fingertips across her cheeks, swiping them away.

“I made it all the way downtown,” she said as the memories took her. “And I was frightened. More frightened than I’d ever been in my life. I never liked the dark. Always slept with a night-light on. There was a storm brewing. Much like the one today. Clouds covered the moon and stars and there was nothing but an occasional streetlight to relieve the shadows. I’d never walked alone in town, and I lost my way. I was crying, wanting to go back home, but unsure which way to go. A van pulled up to the curb beside me, and a man stuck his head out the window.” She narrowed her eyes, as if, even now, she could picture his face in her mind. “He was young. Nineteen. Or maybe twenty. He had a scar at the corner of his eye.” She touched her own face, demonstrating, then dropped her hand to her lap and gripped her fingers together.

“He asked me if I was lost. If I needed a ride. My parents had lectured me about not talking to strangers, but I was lost, desperate, frightened. I wanted to go home, and he promised that he would take me there. I told him my name and where I lived. I remember him turning to look at the other man, the one who was driving, and they started laughing. Then he opened the door and got out. The next thing I knew, he grabbed me and shoved me inside the van.

“I knew then that I had made a mistake, and I tried to get away. I started kicking and screaming, begging him to let me go, but he slapped me hard across the face and told me to be quiet. He tied my hands behind my back and my feet together at the ankles, then stuffed a dirty rag into my mouth and forced me down on the floor in the back of the van. I remember gagging at the sour taste on the rag. The van’s metal floor was rough and scraped my cheek and knees, making them bleed. I was sure that I was going to die, that they were going to kill me.”