Snowed In (19 page)

After Jeremy had kissed the bride, Sarah walked along the edge of the waves with Blake. They’d been in Hawaii for three days, which seemed to be long enough for her to stop worrying about the B and B. She’d left it in the capable hands of her friend Carrie and the twins.

They stood with their toes in the water, watching the rippling reflection of the Pacific sunset. She looked up at him and grinned. “Thanks for making me come here.”

“Compromise can be fun,” he said.

“Not too many changes and not too fast.”

They hadn’t been apart since the day they met, and she wasn’t sure how she was going to handle his deployment. He was scheduled to leave in two days and would be gone for nearly six months.

He took her hand and raised it to his lips, brushing a kiss across her knuckles before he dropped to one knee. Her eyes misted with tears when he opened the small black velvet box and showed her a big, sparkling blue diamond.

“Your decision,” he said.

She loved him, loved that he wasn’t afraid to be vulnerable. Taking the ring, she slipped it on her finger. Under her breath, she whispered, “And the princess lived happily ever after...”

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from ROCKY MOUNTAIN RESCUE by Cindi Myers.

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Chapter One

When the first gunshots sounded, Stacy Giardino ran
toward them. Not because she was eager to face gunfire, but because her
three-year-old son, Carlo, had been playing in the front of the house, where the
shots seemed to be coming from. “Carlo!” she screamed, and tore down the hallway
toward the massive great room, where the boy liked to run his toy cars over the
hills and valleys of the leather furniture and pretend he was racing in the
mountains.

Men’s voices shouted over one another between bursts of
gunfire. One of the family’s bodyguards ran past her, automatic weapon at the
ready. Stacy barely registered his presence; she had to reach Carlo.

The living room of the luxurious Colorado vacation home was a
wreck of overturned furniture. Stuffing poured from the cushions of one of the
massive leather armchairs and a heavy crystal old-fashioned glass lay on its
side in the middle of the rug, ice cubes scattered around it like glittering
dice. But whatever had happened here, the combatants had moved on; the room was
deserted, and the tattoo of automatic weapons fire sounded from deeper within
the interior of the mansion.

“Carlo?” Stacy called, fighting panic. If any of those stupid
men had hurt her son, she would tear them apart with her bare hands.

“Mama?”

The frightened little voice almost buckled her knees. “Carlo?
Where are you, honey?”

“Mama, I’m scared.”

Stacy followed his voice to a dim corner under a built-in desk.
She knelt and peered into the kneehole space—into the frightened brown eyes of
her little boy.

She held out her arms and he came to her, his arms encircling
her neck and his face buried against her shoulder. She patted his back and
breathed in the little-boy smells of baby shampoo and peanut butter. “Who were
those men, Mama?” he whispered. “They came running in, and they had guns.”

“I don’t know who they were, darling. And it doesn’t matter.”
The attackers could have been law enforcement agents, members of a rival crime
family or different factions of the Giardino family turned against one another.
Stacy didn’t care. They were all part of the cruel, violent world of men that
she had to navigate through every day. That was what life was like when you
married into the mob—always running and hiding, never knowing who you could
trust.

The family had come to Colorado on vacation, but there was no
getting away from the reality of their life, from the danger. Her father-in-law,
Sam Giardino, had been at the top of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list ever since
his escape from prison the year before. Which was why they were staying here, on
this remote mountain estate outside of Telluride, instead of in a condo near the
resort like normal tourists.

And even while relaxing, Sam was directing the family
“business,” cutting deals, making threats and building up his evil empire.
Putting everyone around him in more danger.

They could all do away with each other, for all she cared. The
only other person who meant anything to her was Carlo.

She stood, straining to lift the boy, who was getting almost
too big for her to carry. “I’m going to take you some place safe,” she told him.
“Just hang on to Mommy, okay?”

He nodded his agreement and she headed back down the hall,
toward the stairs to the basement, where the safe room was located. The man
who’d built this house—some billionaire who was a friend of Sam’s, or who owed
him a favor, since men like her father-in-law never had real friends—had built
the concrete bunker and stocked it like those preppers she’d read about, people
who were waiting for the end of the world.

Maybe this was the end of her world, she thought. Her husband,
Sam’s son, Sammy Giardino, had been battling his father for months now. Maybe
those arguments had erupted into all-out war and Sammy was trying to wrest
control of the family “business.” She wouldn’t bet against her father-in-law in
that conflict; Sammy only thought he was tough. His father was the hardest,
coldest man she’d ever known. He’d even pledged to kill his own daughter after
she’d testified against him in federal court.

When she reached the top of the stairs, Carlo shifted against
her. “They’re not shooting anymore,” he said.

Carlo was right; the gunfire had ceased. Muffled voices came
from the back of the house, but they sounded more like normal conversation than
angry outbursts. Should she move toward them and try to find out what was going
on?

She stroked her son’s soft blond hair. “What did the men look
like, Carlo? The ones with the guns?”

“They were really big, and they had helmets covering their
faces.”

Not any of the thugs Sam Giardino employed, then. She’d never
known them to wear helmets. These men sounded like law enforcement, maybe a SWAT
team. They’d found Sam’s hiding place at last. Would they take Sammy away this
time, too? She had no idea if federal agents could tie her husband to any of the
Giardino family crimes. Women weren’t supposed to concern themselves with the
“business” side of things. In any case, Stacy never wanted to know.

She started down the stairs. She’d expected to meet others
moving toward the safe room. Where was Sam’s mistress, Veronica, and the cook,
Angela, and the guards whose job it was to protect the women? Surely the cops
wouldn’t have gotten to them all.

But here she was, all alone with Carlo. Nothing new about that.
Even in a room full of Giardinos she was the outsider, the one who wasn’t one of
them. They tolerated her and she tolerated them, but none of them would have
been sorry to see the last of her.

How ironic to think she might be the one to survive this day.
To escape. The thought made her heart beat faster. For four years, all she’d
wanted was to get away from the hold the Giardinos had on her. She wanted to
start over, somewhere safe with her son, where no one knew her and she knew no
one. She didn’t need other people in her life; she only needed Carlo.

As soon as the coast was clear—as soon as whoever had attacked
the house had left—she’d find a car and drive as far away as she could. Maybe
she’d even go overseas somewhere. She’d get a new identity, and a job. She’d
rent an apartment, or maybe a little house. Carlo could go to school and they’d
have a normal life. Just the two of them. Dreams like that had kept her sane all
these years she’d been trapped. The idea that she might finally make them come
true renewed her strength, and she all but ran toward the basement.

The basement was dark, but she didn’t dare risk turning on the
light. She groped along the wall, toward the hidden door at the back that led
into the safe room. Inside, she’d be able to watch the other rooms in the house
on closed-circuit television and see what was going on. The room had its own
generator, its own ventilation, air-conditioning and heating system and enough
food and water to sustain a whole family for a month. She and Carlo wouldn’t
need to leave until she was sure they would be safe.

She was halfway across the room, feeling her way around a stack
of packing boxes, when she froze, heart climbing her throat at the sound of
footsteps on the stairs. The tread was heavy—a big man—and he was moving slowly.
Stealthily.

She cradled Carlo’s face against her chest. “Shh,” she
whispered in his ear.

Light flooded the room. She pressed herself against the wall,
hidden by the boxes, and blinked at the brightness. The scrape of a shoe against
the concrete floor was as loud as a cannon shot to her attuned ears. She held
her breath, and prayed Carlo would keep still. Her arms ached from carrying him,
but she held on tighter still.

“Who’s there?” The question came from a man, the voice deep and
commanding. A voice she didn’t recognize. “Come out and you won’t get hurt.”

She crouched lower and peered between a gap in the boxes at a
man dressed in black fatigues and body armor. He carried an assault rifle at the
ready, but had flipped up the visor on his helmet to scan the basement.

Carlo squirmed in her arms and whimpered. She patted his back.
“Shh. Shh.”

“Who’s there?” the man demanded. He swung the gun toward her
hiding place. The sight of the weapon aimed at her turned her blood to ice.

“Don’t shoot!” she squeaked. Then with more assurance, “I have
a child with me and I’m unarmed.”

“Move out where I can see you. Slowly. And keep your hands
where I can see them.”

Holding Carlo firmly to her, she moved forward. The boy
squirmed around to look, his little heart racing against her own.

The man kept his weapon trained on her as she moved out from
behind the boxes. “Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

He glanced around, as if expecting someone else to loom up
behind her. Apparently satisfied she’d told the truth, he aimed the gun toward
the floor. “Who are you?” he asked.

She met his gaze directly, letting him see she would not be
bullied. “Who are you?”

“Marshal Patrick Thompson, U.S. Marshals Service,” he said.

“Stacy Franklin,” she said. Franklin was her maiden name, but
she didn’t have any desire to introduce herself to this lawman as one of the
Giardinos. “And this is my son, Carlo.”

“Hello, Carlo.” He nodded to the boy. His expression was still
wary, but he had kind eyes, blue, with lines fanning out from the corners, as if
he’d spent a lot of time outdoors, squinting into the sun. Carlo stared at him,
wide-eyed, his fingers in his mouth.

Thompson turned his attention back to Stacy. “I’ll need you to
come with me,” he said.

“Come with you where?”

“First, upstairs. We’ll take a preliminary statement from you,
and then I’ll need you to come with me to our headquarters in Telluride.”

“Are you arresting me? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“No, I’m not arresting you, but you are a witness, and we may
need to take you into protective custody.”

She had no intention of letting anyone take her into custody,
but she kept that to herself. She knew the law; though Sammy had been the one
with the law degree, Stacy had written all his papers and helped him study for
all his tests. She’d read the textbooks and listened to the online lectures and
studied alongside him for the bar exam. None of it was knowledge the Giardinos
thought a woman needed to know, but she would use it to her advantage now.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

Marshal Thompson didn’t answer. He motioned for her to move
ahead of him. “Come with me upstairs and we’ll talk more.”

She climbed the stairs, aware of him right behind her, a
broad-shouldered, black-clad guardian who smelled strongly of cordite and hot
steel from his weapon, which must have recently been fired.

He led her into the living room, where other men milled about,
taking pictures and measurements. She sat. Carlo scrambled out of her arms and
retrieved one of his toy cars and began driving it along the arm of the
sofa.

Marshal Thompson removed his helmet and sat on the arm of the
sofa, his weapon on the table beside him. He had short, light brown hair and he
looked tired—as tired as Stacy suddenly felt. “What is your relationship to the
Giardino family?” he asked.

She thought about lying, saying she was a maid. But they’d
check her story and learn her real identity soon enough. She lifted her chin,
defiant. “I’m married to Sammy Giardino.”

His gaze shifted to Carlo, who was making motor noises, guiding
the toy car along a seam in the leather upholstery. “This is Sammy’s son?”

“Yes.” She patted his chubby leg in the corduroy overalls he
was already outgrowing. He was
her
son—Sammy had
contributed half his DNA, but she had given the boy her heart and soul. He was
the one thing that had kept her sane in this crazy household.

“How long have you been in this house?”

She should probably demand a lawyer, or refuse to answer his
questions altogether. But she didn’t really care about the answers. The sooner
she told him what he wanted to know, the sooner he’d let her go. “We arrived on
Sunday. Five days ago.” Five days of unrelenting tension in which Sammy
alternately sulked and sniped, while his father looked smug. Visitors came and
went at all hours, and twice she’d awakened deep in the night to hear arguments
between father and son, shouting matches she’d fully expected to end in a hail
of bullets.

“Why did you come to Telluride?” Thompson asked.

Because I didn’t have the option of
staying behind,
she thought. “We came on vacation,” she said. “To
ski.” Carlo had loved the snow. He’d spent two half days in kiddie ski school,
thrilled by the rare opportunity to hang out with boys and girls his own age. It
was tough to arrange playdates when you lived with a mobster.

“Who else is in the house?”

“A lot of people. I don’t even know all their names.” This
wasn’t exactly true, but she was wary of telling Thompson anything he didn’t
already know, like the fact that her fugitive father-in-law had been here. If
Sam had managed to escape, she didn’t want him finding out she was the one who
had betrayed him.

“Any other women?” Thompson asked.

Why did Thompson care about the women? “There was the cook,
Angie. A woman named Veronica.” No point explaining her role as Sam’s latest
mistress. “My sister-in-law, Elizabeth Giardino.” Elizabeth had been a big
surprise, showing up for lunch today as if her father had never threatened to
murder her.

“That’s all?”

She looked up at him through the fringe of her lashes. “All the
women.”

“And the men?”

She looked around the room, at the masculine furniture and
big-screen television, at the black-clad men who dusted for fingerprints and
took photographs from every angle. “There were a lot of men here. There always
are.” The women were merely ornaments. Accessories. Necessary for carrying on
the family name, but otherwise in the way. They were kept in the background as
much as possible.