Getting Lucky (20 page)

Zach swept her into a hug so tight it lifted her feet clear off the ground, and burying his face in her dark hair, he rocked them from side to side. “God, Glynnie, I can’t tell you how relieved I am to see you safe. I was worried sick.”

“You were?” She pulled her head back to peer at him. “Why?”

Zach’s brows came together and he set her back on her feet. “What do you mean,
why
? You think ransom demands for you and your boyfriend here aren’t gonna cause a slight ripple of concern?”

“Ransom demands!” exclaimed both Glynnis and a deep male voice, and Lily’s fascinated gaze left Zach and Glynnis to zoom in on David. Even as she watched, he disengaged his mother’s frantic hold from around his neck and held her at arm’s length to stare down at her. “You thought we were
kidnapped
? That’s what you’ve been screaming about?”

“Yes,” she sobbed, and collapsed against his chest again. Once more David gently disentangled himself from her embrace, but he slung a comforting arm around her shoulders and escorted her across the foyer to where the Taylors stood. He thrust his free hand out
at Zach. “You must be Zachariah. Glynnis’s told me a lot about you. But I don’t understand. Why would you think we’d been kidnapped?”

“Because a ransom note was left in our mailbox,” Mrs. Beaumont said as Zach’s dark eyebrows gathered above his nose. “And we’ve gotten phone calls!”

“But that doesn’t make a lick of sense.” David looked baffled, but before he could say anything further, the front door opened and Cassidy strolled in. She stopped when she saw the crowd in the entryway.

“Well, well,” she said in her I-have-terminal-ennuibut-am-still-terribly-amused-by-the-little-people voice. “What have we here, a military coup in the foyer?” She reached up to pull a bejeweled hatpin out of her beret. “Are you on the rampage again, Master Sergeant? How very macho of you—” Her arms froze overhead as the individuals comprising the group in front of her suddenly registered, and her mouth went round with shock. “David? Omigod, David! You’re all right!” And with a peal of the most genuine laughter Lily had ever heard out of her, she rushed to close the space separating them.

“Cass. I’m fine. I’m just trying to figure out what the hell’s been going on.”

“Aside from that pesky kidnapping thing, you mean?” She gave him a fierce hug.

“We weren’t—”

The front door opened once again and Christopher strolled in. Giving the group a curious glance, he closed the door behind him. Then he, too, went very still. “David.” A smile broke out, making his face, already striking, downright gorgeous, and he closed the space between them, his hand thrust out. “It’s good to see
you, guy. Thank God you’re okay. Jess is gonna be so relieved.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Glynnis snapped, and her let’s-all-just-dispense-with-the-BS tone of voice was so like her brother’s that Lily had to smile. “We were
not
kidnapped.”

Lily had been getting that impression, but it was still a shock to hear it said aloud. And clearly she wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Looking at David’s relatives, she saw they looked as dumbfounded as she felt.

Cassidy was the first to recover. She slid her arms out from around David’s waist and turned to give Glynnis a thorough perusal. “This must be the little girlfriend,” she said and raised her brows at her cousin. “A tad simpleminded, is she?”

“Knock it off, Cass.” Breaking away from her and leaving his mother by the parlor door, David made his way to Glynnis’s side, where he slipped an arm around her shoulders. “She’s telling the truth. We were never kidnapped, and I don’t know why you would think we were. We’ve been in touch.”

“With whom?” Mrs. Beaumont demanded incredulously.

David looked from face to face as if hoping someone would grin and say, “Gotcha!” But when all he received was everybody’s rapt attention he shook his head and said, “Richard.”

For one brief moment, Zach thought he probably should have figured it out for himself. Then he got real. Nothing had pointed to Richard, and Zach wasn’t a man to waste time be
rating himself when there were more important questions to be asked and details to be gathered. So he shrugged his failure aside and looked over at Glynnis’s boyfriend.

What he saw was a sturdy young man who carried himself well and had level eyes whose gaze tended to soften whenever they touched upon Glynnie. Zach gave a single terse nod of approval, then caught David’s eyes. “You called here?”

“Yes. A couple of times.”

“And you talked to Richard?”

David nodded. “I told him the first time that Glynnis and I had gotten caught up seeing the sights along the way and were going to be about a week later than I’d originally told Mother to expect us. He said he’d pass the message along and told me I’d better call him on his cell phone from then on because they’d been experiencing some difficulty with the land lines.” David shrugged. “That often happens after storms here, so I didn’t think anything of it.”

“When did you last talk to him?”

“Yesterday. I told him we’d be home on Sunday.”

Since this was Saturday, Zach simply raised his brows.

Glynnis bristled. “David’s not one of your recruits,” she said hotly. “So you can just quit using your Master Sergeant look on him. And in answer to the question you might have simply
asked
, we’d planned to spend the weekend in Seattle, but when we woke up this morning, I found myself more interested in meeting David’s family and seeing his home than I was in playing tourist in the Emerald City.”

“We figured we could always explore it another
time,” David said, tightening his hold on Glynnis as he smiled down at her.

She gave him a fatuous smile in return, and Zach barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“Right,” she agreed. “So we checked out early and jumped in the car.” She snuggled against David’s side. “And here we are.”

“The question is, where is Richard?” Zach glanced at Mrs. Beaumont and braced himself for her usual argument when he said, “We’d better call the sheriff’s department.”

To his surprise, she merely nodded, her mouth grim. “I’ll do that right away.” She began to turn away, but then swiveled back to face him. “I owe you an apology,” she said. “If I’d listened to you, you probably never would have gotten hurt last night.”

Glynnis’s head came up. “You were hurt?” Pulling out from under David’s arm, she raced over to Zach. “Where? Ohmigod, you’ve got a knot on your head!” She reached up to touch gentle fingertips to his temple. “Are you all right? Did you have a doctor check it out?”

“I’m fine, Glynnie.” Clasping her hands in his own, he pressed them together, palm to palm. “It was pretty much a nothing little bump to begin with, and Lily fixed me up right as rain.”

“But there’s a knot!”

“According to Cooper Blackstock,” Lily said, “that’s actually a good sign.” She cited the explanation she’d been given.

Glynnis craned her head around to stare at her. “
Coop
is here?”

“Not here, as in the house,” Zach told her. “But on the island, yes. He and Miglionni.”

“John, too?” She looked dazed. “My God. You called them in?”

“Yes.”

“Because you thought I’d been kidnapped?”

He shrugged to cover the fierceness of his feelings. “I planned to get you back one way or the other.”

“Aw, Zach.” She kissed him on the chin. “I love you.”

His heart clenched tighter than a fist. “Love you, too, baby sis.” He grinned down at her. “So, I hear you’re getting married.”

To his regret, her eyes grew a little cautious, but he noticed it didn’t prevent her from meeting his gaze squarely. “Yes. I am.”

He looked past her at her fiancé for a moment, then returned his gaze to her face, feeling more grateful than he could express to have her back safe and sound. “David seems all right.”

She flashed him a megawatt smile. “Oh, God, he is so much more than ‘all right.’ He’s
wonderful
.”

“Then if you’re happy, I’m happy.”

“I am.” She hugged him. “I am
so
happy, Zachariah. And I gotta say, I’m delighted you’re pleased for me. For a minute there I was afraid you might have come all the way up here to stop me.”

“Who, me?” Zach shot a glance at Lily. She treated him to an ironic smile but kept her mouth shut, so he graced his sister with a cocky grin and kept up the feigned innocence. “And wreck the course of true love? Not a chance.”

Out of the corner of his eye he watched as Lily and
Christopher put their heads together and spoke in undertones. A moment later the other man left, his forehead furrowed as he took the stairs two at a time. Mrs. Beaumont gave her son a final hug, and announced she was going into the parlor to call the police. Apparently at a loss for a snide remark, Cassidy said she’d go keep her aunt company. All of a sudden, the only ones left in an foyer that only moments earlier had teemed with people were Lily, David, his sister, and him.

Then Glynnis dragged Lily over by the front door to hold a low-voiced conversation, and the two men were left alone. The silence between them stretched out, and Zach began to feel as if he should say something. But, hell, it wasn’t as if he really knew the guy or anything, so he could probably be excused for not having a lot to talk about.

On the other hand, David
was
going to marry his sister, and Zach noticed the younger man’s expression when he wasn’t doing the moony thing over Glynnis was pretty glum. Remembering the comfort he’d gained from Lily’s condolences earlier, he blew out a breath and offered the younger man a light thump on the back. “I’m sorry about your cousin. Hearing what he’s done has gotta be rough on you.”

“I don’t understand it. If he needed money so damn bad, why didn’t he just ask? I would have given it to him.”

“Well, it’s never too late,” another voice interjected. “I’ll take it now.”

Spinning around, Zach came face to face with Richard, who had entered unheard through the front door and now stood across the entryway behind Glynnis.

The shotgun in his hands pointed straight at her head.

I
CE TRICKLED THROUG
Z
ACH'S VEINS, BUT HE
kept his hands loose at his sides and his voice gentle and nonthreatening as he took a step forward. “I don’t think you want to do this, Richard.”

The younger man looked at him as if he were crazy. “Of course I don’t want to do it! I never intended for anyone to get hurt. The plan was just to get the money and be gone before David got home.” He glared at Zach. “But then you had to come along and fuck everything up.”

Zach held his hands wide of his body in a shrug of entreaty as he edged a millimeter closer. “I thought my baby sister had been snatched. You would’ve moved heaven and earth, too, I’m sure, if it had been one of your sisters.”

Richard made a rude noise and pressed the double barrels against the angle of Glynnis’s jaw. Her eyes were huge with fear, but Zach was proud of her; she stood still and quiet in the midst of a situation where anyone could be excused for going all hysterical. Only her eyes moved, flitting between himself and David.

“Not frigging likely,” Richard jeered. “My sisters are
up for grabs, as far as I’m concerned. Jess is nothing but a doormat, and Cass is a bitch.”

“Who are you calling a bitch, you wormy little maggot?” Cassidy demanded as she strolled out of the parlor. “
I’m
not the lowlife thief stealing from my own fam—” She stopped just inside the foyer as if she’d run smack up against an invisible force field, staring in shock at the tableau that greeted her. “Oh, my God, Richard,” she whispered, staring at her brother, Glynnis, and the shotgun. “What on earth are you doing?”

“Go back into the parlor,” Zach said calmly, sparing her the briefest of glances, “and try to keep your aunt occupied. The last thing we want is her out here going into hysterics.”

Cassidy nodded, but as she took a cautious step backward, Richard barked, “Stay right where you are.” He glared at Zach. “How dumb do you think I am? As if I’m going to let her go where she can call the cops.”

“Your aunt’s already called the sheriff’s department, so if you’ve got half a brain, you’ll beat it the hell out of here while you still can.”

“Yeah, right,” the younger man scoffed. “Pull the other one, why don’t you.”

“It’s true, Richard,” Cassidy said. “Aunt Maureen is furious with you. She told me you’re the one who kept reinforcing her fears that the kidnapper would kill David if Zach called the cops like he wanted to. So she didn’t hesitate to call them on you.”

“Fine.” He gave his hair a nervous toss, adjusted his grip on the stock of the shotgun, and glared at Zach. “Give me the goddamn money then, and I’ll be on my way.”

“Just as soon as you let Glynnis go,” David interjected. “I’ll give you anything you want. But first, let her go.”

Richard turned to look at him, but glanced back every few seconds to keep Zach in sight. He bent a scornful look on his cousin. “You always were a chump.”

“Why?” David demanded. “Because I love someone and don’t want to see her get hurt?”

“No, because you’re such a frigging Little Lord Bountiful. You’re just Mister Goddamn Generosity, aren’t you?”

From the corner of his eye, Zach saw Cassidy open her mouth to protest. He gave an infinitesimal shake of his head, and to his relief she subsided. Richard had his attention focused pretty firmly on his cousin at the moment, and Zach wanted to keep it that way, since he was using Richard’s preoccupation to edge nearer an inch at a time.

“Let me get this straight,” David said incredulously. “You’re pissed at me because I invited you to live with us and gave you a good-paying
job
?”

“Please. Like you did it from the goodness of your heart.” Richard’s laugh was bitter. “You’re such a hypocrite. You invited us here and gave me a job because you get your kicks out of lording it over all of us and never letting anyone forget you’re prince of the goddamn castle.”

“That’s bullshit!”

“The hell it is.” As if sensing danger was approaching, he began to turn back toward Zach.

Lily, who stood on the far side of David, took a step forward. “You know what, Richard? You’re a spoiled brat.”

He turned to look at her. “Oh, that’s good. So says the slut. Did I give you permission to speak, blondie? What are you doing out of the kitchen, meddling in the affairs of your betters, anyway?”

She met his eyes coolly. “I hate to burst your bubble, sonny, but I barely have an equal, let alone a better.”

“Yeah?” His gaze did a slow slide over her from head to foot, lingering on her breasts. “Maybe I should take you hostage instead of the little princess here. Those lips look like they could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch.”

If Zach’s anger had been cold before, now it was red hot. He took the final step separating them and wrenched the shotgun from Richard with one hand while shoving his sister toward David with the other. “You’re beginning to seriously piss me off, junior,” he snarled and, flipping the weapon around in his grip, pointed it at the younger man. “Move over next to the bannister.”

Richard didn’t follow orders fast enough to suit him, and Zach gestured sharply with the shotgun. “March! You don’t wanna test me right now, Ace, because trust me on this, I don’t need much incentive to pump both barrels into your kneecaps.”

Richard marched.

Zach didn’t blink until he had Richard where he wanted him. “Lily, give me your belt, will you?”

She unfastened the narrow silk-cord-and-leather accessory and slid it off, dangling it a second later within his line of vision.

Zach traded her the shotgun for it. “This is the safety,” he said, stroking this thumb over it as he passed her the weapon. “It’s on, but all you have to do is push
this little latch up, and it’ll be ready to shoot. Blow his balls straight to hell if he so much as breathes wrong.”

“Oh, believe me.” She looked Richard directly in the eye. “That won’t be a problem.”

Zach’s mouth crooked up, and he raised his eyebrows at the erstwhile extortionist, who was staring in horror at the shotgun trained on his crotch. “You’re looking a little green around the gills there, Richie. I bet you’re kind of regretting those crude sexual innuendos right about now, huh?” Staying out of Lily’s way, he shackled Richard’s hands to the ornately turned dowels connecting the bannister to the risers. Then he straightened and looked over at his sister, who was being held in a fierce embrace in Beaumont’s arms. “You okay?”

“I am now.” She clung to David, but brandished one of her sweet smiles at him. “Thank you, Zachariah.”

“Hey.” He shrugged. “You were the trouper here. And it was a group effort anyway. Everybody helped.”

“Then thank you all.” Her smile widening to encompass the two women, she snuggled her cheek into David’s shoulder.

Zach heard car tires crunching down the drive just as Mrs. Beaumont walked out of the parlor.

“The sheriff is here,” she said. She looked at her nephew, manacled to the banister with Lily’s dainty little belt. “Well.” She walked right up to him, and for a moment Zach thought she might slap Richard’s face. But she merely looked him up and down and said in the coolest, most levelheaded tone Zach had yet to hear out of her, “You ungrateful pup. I hope you rot in jail.”

Richard’s lip curled. “Thanks, auntie. I guess asking you to post bail is out of the question then, huh?”

She looked as if she would hit him then. Her hand came up, and she took an incensed step forward.

But David said, “Mom,” and she swung around to look at him.

“He’s not worth it; don’t waste your energy. Come meet Glynnis. I’ve been wanting to introduce my two favorite girls to each other for quite some time now.”

Mrs. Beaumont turned back and looked at Richard for a long, silent instant. Then she gently patted his cheek. “He’s right, dear. You aren’t worth it.” Ignoring the impotent fury that filled her nephew’s eyes, she about-faced and walked over to the young couple.

A moment later, Zach watched Mrs. B. stroke a hand down Glynnie’s dark hair and heard her coo, “Aren’t you just the prettiest little thing?”

Shaking his head over her effusiveness for a young woman whose existence she’d had a hard time even remembering a few short days ago, he went to let in the deputies.

Jessica jerked in surprise when the door to her sitting room suddenly banged open. Lifting the washcloth off her eyes, she pushed up on one elbow and peered at the bedroom door.

“Jess!”

Her heart began to bang against her ribs at the sound of Christopher’s voice, and she had to steel herself against her usual melting sense of surrender when he strode into the room and crossed to the bed.

He sat on the edge of the mattress and reached out to touch her bangs. “You cut your hair.” Then he shook his head, as if unable to believe he’d mentioned something so immaterial. “Lily told me you were sick.”

God, he was handsome, and she wanted so much to pretend she hadn’t seen what she had seen at the Olga Café. But she was through pretending; she simply could not do so any longer and still face herself in the mirror. She shifted away from his touch. “I am sick. Sick of this marriage.”

“What?” He visibly paled.

“I saw you, Christopher.”

“You saw me what?” He looked at her with baffled green eyes. “Where? What are you talking about?”

“Don’t toy with me, okay? And don’t play the innocent; it makes me want to scratch your eyes out.” She shoved herself more fully upright and scooted back until her shoulders pressed against the headboard. Picking up a throw pillow, she clutched it to her roiling stomach. Then she met his gaze head on. “I saw you with that woman at the Olga Café today, after you specifically told me you’d be—”

He laughed.

Of all the reactions she might have expected, that wasn’t one of them, and she felt as if something inside her had ripped away from its foundation. Tossing aside the pillow, she scrambled toward the far side of the bed. She felt as if she were bleeding to death inside, but damned if she needed to stick around and give him a front row view of the process.

Before she could slide off the other side of the mat
tress, however, he dove after her, catching her by the shoulder. “Jess—”

Years of being a good girl, of staying in the background and never making any waves, went up in smoke. She came completely undone and started kicking, scratching, and flailing. “Get away!”

“No.” He wrestled her flat onto her back and rolled atop her to hold her down. Catching her wrists in his hands, he pinned her arms to the mattress above their heads. Then he pushed up slightly to stare down at her. “Jesus,” he whispered, settling more firmly on top of her. “Jesus, Jessie.”

Her breasts heaved as she tried to drag in enough breath to inflate her lungs. All the fight went out of her, and she returned his stare dully, her emotions a tangled web of loving him, hating him, and wishing herself a million miles away. “Let me go.”

“I can’t,” he said hoarsely. “That’s the one thing I just can’t do.”

Tears filled her eyes and silently overflowed.

“Oh, man, don’t do that.” Turning loose her wrists, he swiped at her cheeks with his fingers. “Please, baby, don’t cry. I wasn’t laughing
at
you, I swear I wasn’t. I was laughing at the situation.” His mouth slanted bitterly. “And you gotta admit it’s kinda funny, in a twisted, dicked-up sort of way.”

She just stared at him, and he insisted, “No, really, it is. This all came about in the first place because I knew you’d been unhappy for a long time, and I wanted to do something about it.”

“So you thought you’d make me feel better by having
an affair with another woman?” she demanded incredulously.

“I’m not having an affair, Jessie. I’m getting a new job.”

“You’re—” She could feel her mouth working like a landed fish’s, and snapped it shut. She shook her head in an attempt to clear it. But still all she seemed capable of doing was gaping witlessly. “What?”

“The woman you saw me with is the personnel director for a company called StarTek. Her name is Lynn Duncan.” He blew out a breath. “You think I don’t understand what’s been going on here? Ever since I took the job with David things have gone to hell between us. I know you believe that’s the reason I married you, but I’m actually damn
good
at what I do. I’m in demand, for crissake—corporations send their top headhunters after me on a regular basis.” With each word he spoke, his golden eyebrows inched closer together, until they met fiercely over his nose as he glared down at her.

Then he seemed to collect himself, and his brow smoothed. “But I thought you wanted to live here with your family, so I took the job with David. I thought it would please you.” He stiff-armed himself away to loom over her on braced hands. And he shook his head and sighed. “But I don’t think you’ve been truly happy since the day we moved into this place.” Rolling off her, he climbed to his feet.

For a minute all Jessica could think was,
It isn’t another woman. It isn’t another woman!
Then her own brow furrowed, and she turned onto her side, stuffing the throw pillow beneath her armpit as she propped her head in her hand. “Have you been any happier?”

He shrugged. “Not really, but I thought I was doing what you wanted.”

Jessica’s heart began to pound, with confusion, with hope. “Why didn’t you ever tell me any of this before?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I just hoped you’d trust me without having to explain myself to death.”

“What do you mean, explain yourself to death? You’ve never explained yourself at all!”

“Yeah, all right, maybe I haven’t.” He thrust his fingers through his hair. “And that was wrong of me. But all my life women have looked at me and seen…my looks. I’ll admit that wasn’t a problem until I met you. When you seemed to see the real me, though, I discovered it’s a lot more exciting being wanted for more than just my face or my studly butt.”

“You can’t simply take your looks out of the equation, though, Christopher. I knew within five minutes of meeting you that you were so much more than just a gorgeous guy. But the fact remains, you
are
a gorgeous guy. And I’m about as far from gorgeous as it gets. I’m just a mousy, average-looking woman.”