Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Other than taking Lovell’s hand to help her up, Daphne refused the help all the Falcons offered.
Not out of any displaced ego or belief that she needed to do it on her own, but out of fear.
If she stopped now, if she stopped moving her body, if she stopped putting one foot in front of the other, she feared she wouldn’t be able to start again, not for a good long while.
And there were things she needed to take care of tonight.
Getting warm was top on the list. Followed by talking with the police.
Food and drink were on there, too. So, like most women everywhere, when shit needed to get done, she’d get it done.
Efficiently, too.
As she dragged her feet, step-by-step up the drive, Lovell on her left, Mantis on her right, and the rest of the men either ahead or behind, she asked them to call the police. If she could check one thing off the list before she made it to the clubhouse, she’d consider it a win.
Mantis protested, but Lovell seemed to understand, and without a word, he brought his phone to life and made the call.
With Ryan Warwick on speaker, she told him everything she remembered about where she’d been held: the color of the cabin, the name of the street, the address of one of the nearby houses she’d glimpsed as she walked by.
Since she’d been carried straight into the room where Weeks and Beeks held her, though, and she’d circled behind the cabin when she left, she couldn’t answer all his questions. Still, she answered those she could.
When the lights of the clubhouse came into view, she stumbled at the sight.
Almost. She was almost there.
Knowing that Callie was safe and waiting for her had her picking up her pace.
A hug from her sister, and maybe a hot shower, was all she needed before giving up the ghost and crashing.
Well, that and food if she didn’t want to wake up in three hours starving.
She hadn’t eaten in over twelve hours. Not the worst fate, but she’d burned a shit ton of energy walking through the blizzard.
Her trek had been far more than the three as-the-crow-flies miles between the cabin and the club.
Lovell wrapped a steadying hand around her arm, but he didn’t offer to carry her again.
It hadn’t gone well for him the first time, and now his big, broody, grumpy self walked alongside her.
Her own personal little storm cloud. One that had grown darker and stormier as she’d spoken to Chief Warwick.
He could have cracked the shell of a stone crab with the way he clenched his jaw when she relayed her encounter with the Taser.
Aside from her sister, though, needling his royal grumpiness was the only thing keeping her going now that the finish line was in sight. Fair? No. Necessary? Also, probably no. But it helped keep her mind off the way her body desperately wanted to give up.
“Do you have a first aid kit at the club?” she asked. Nice, that question netted three tics of his jaw.
“Yes, and Hawkeye will check you out, too. You should go to the hospital,” Lovell said.
“No, but I’ll definitely need some TLC. My wrists, the cut on my face—”
“I’ll clean them up. Hawkeye will check you for a concussion,” Lovell snapped.
Callie had told her he had a reputation for being to the point and not easily ruffled.
She agreed with the former but found it far too easy to ruffle the supposedly unrufflable man.
She really shouldn’t egg him on, but they had less than two-tenths of a mile to go before she saw Callie, and she needed all the motivation she could muster to make that final distance.
“To have the best chance of breaking the zip ties, I had to tighten them super tight,” she continued.
Lovell growled. Mantis chuckled. “How’d you know that trick?” he asked.
She gave a Gallic shrug. Lovell’s hand tightened on her arm. “Writers do a lot of research. We learn weird things.” No need to mention her MI6 friend.
“And your location? How’d you figure that out?” Mantis asked.
Ten more feet and she’d be inside. Talking with Mantis wasn’t as fun as riling Lovell, but it would do.
“I have a sort of eidetic memory—it’s spatial, though.
If I study a map, I remember it. I was always good with directions as a kid, but I had a personal security guy once—former CIA—who figured out my ability when he forced me to study maps of the cities we traveled to.
He wanted me to know my way around in case we ever got separated.
Then it became almost a game. I think it amused him. ”
Lovell’s growl was lost in the whoosh of blessed, beautiful, warm air as Marley opened the door to the clubhouse. The men stood aside as she hobbled in. She paused inside, her gaze scanning the crowd, looking for one face.
A gasp had her looking to the far right. Callie shifted around Gabe and rushed forward, throwing her arms around Daphne.
Forcing her frozen arms to move, Daphne circled them around her little sister and held on tight. “You’re okay,” she said, breathing a sigh of relief for the first time in hours. “You’re safe.”
Callie spoke words not dissimilar from hers, but Daphne didn’t pay much attention. All she cared about was the comfort, the assurance, the love she felt holding her sister.
Feet shuffled around them, and the door clicked closed. A few more seconds passed, and the last of the adrenaline seeped from her body as the warmth of the room permeated her thick coat.
“I’m getting you wet,” she mumbled, reluctantly releasing Callie. Callie gave her one more squeeze, then stepped back.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
“Don’t, Cal. If anyone is sorry, it’s me. You shouldn’t have been there alone with me,” Daphne said.
Her sister’s eyes searched hers, then drifted to the cut on her cheek.
“We need to get you warm and cleaned up,” she said, pulling her over toward the fire.
Two women Daphne assumed, based on pictures she’d seen, were Charley and Juliana, moved away from the large love seat and gestured for her to sit.
Daphne eyed the couch.
“If you can’t get up again, we’ll make sure you make it to bed,” Lovell all but whispered in her ear, startling her. She’d been so focused on seeing Callie, the rest of the room had sort of slipped away. Probably not something she’d share, given Lovell was already worried she had a head injury.
“I’ll be fine,” she muttered.
“Let me take this,” Charley said, reaching for the blanket now draped across her shoulders.
“And I’ll take your coat,” Juliana said.
“I have a blanket for you,” a much younger voice chimed in.
Daphne glanced around as she fumbled with her zipper.
Warm hands, big fingers, gently pushed hers out of the way.
Not having the energy to fight, she let Lovell remove her coat as her gaze landed on a young girl.
Tall and gangly with dark hair in a short bob, her worried eyes tracked Lovell’s movements.
“You must be Kendall?” Daphne said.
“I am. Now, sit,” she said, gesturing to the couch.
“Bossy, I like it,” Daphne replied, smiling for the first time in what felt like forever. Not that she hadn’t found ways to amuse herself as she’d trekked through Mystery Lake, but her cheeks had been too frozen to move.
“You need something warm to drink, too,” Kendall said, holding out a blanket for her. No small throw-sized one either; the down comforter looked as if it had been pulled from one of the beds.
“Coffee, tea, water?” a woman with purple-tipped hair asked.
“Dottie?” Daphne ventured.
“The very one. Once you’re settled, we can do the rest of the intros, but as Kendall said, let’s get you warm and dry first.”
“Any chance you have decaf coffee? I don’t usually drink the unleaded stuff, but I don’t need caffeine now.” She paused. “Although it probably wouldn’t make a difference,” she added. Exhaustion hadn’t fully sunk its claws into her yet, but it was dancing around the edges, testing her perseverance.
“We have decaf. You want a little extra something in it?”
Daphne smiled. “A little whiskey wouldn’t go unappreciated.”
“Is that smart?” Lovell asked. She slid him a flat look. He stood, arms crossed, feet wide, staring at her. When he’d divested himself of his winter gear, she hadn’t a clue. “You might have a head injury.”
“She just walked who knows how far in a freakin’ blizzard. If she wants whiskey, she can have whiskey,” Kendall replied. Then turning back to Daphne, she rolled her eyes. “They mean well, but they can be a tad overprotective.”
Callie took the seat next to her and reached for her hand under the blanket. With the cold no longer numbing her limbs, she jerked when her sister accidentally brushed her wrist.
“Hawkeye,” Lovell called, kneeling at her feet.
“Here,” the man replied, walking into the room carrying a bag she could only imagine was a first aid kit, although it looked like one on steroids.
“What are you doing?” she said, jerking her leg when Lovell’s hand closed around her ankle.
“Stop moving,” he ordered. “Your boots and wet socks need to come off.”
She started to insist on doing it herself, but his fingers deftly untied the laces below her knees, then loosened them all the way to the bottom. A silly thing to be mesmerized by, but she couldn’t pull her gaze away.
“I’m going to clean the cut on your cheek, but I want to start by checking your vitals; is that okay?” Hawkeye asked. She looked up into the man’s deep brown eyes. He held her gaze with a serious, though not unkind, one of his own. She nodded.
And so it went for the next twenty minutes.
Hawkeye attended to her various scrapes and bruises and head wound.
Lovell called for a clean pair of wool socks, filling them with pocket warmers before sliding them back onto her feet.
Dottie—bless her—brought her a coffee liberally laced with whiskey.
Callie hovered by her side. And everyone else shifted restlessly around the room as her body slowly warmed.
Thankfully, Mantis took charge and relayed everything he’d overheard her telling Ryan on the call during their walk in. All she had to think about was drinking her coffee and being grateful she’d made it.
“You need some food,” Amber said. “Can you eat?”
What she really wanted was bed, but again, if she wanted a good night’s sleep, Amber was right, she needed food. “Food, then shower, then bed? Gabe, you can take me home, right?” she asked.
Amber raised a hand, cutting off whatever Gabe was about to say while simultaneously silencing Lovell with a sharp look. “Food first. Something light, like a grilled cheese? Or chicken noodle soup?”
She didn’t think she had the strength to spoon soup into her mouth. She could try drinking it, but she’d need to hold the bowl steady enough not to spill. “Grilled cheese sounds perfect. Thank you.”
Amber nodded, then, with a vague gesture indicating the conversation could continue, she left the room.
“We’re all staying here tonight,” Gabe said, his eyes flickering to Lovell for approval as he spoke.
She got it. She understood that Lovell probably felt guilty for her involvement in all this.
But seriously, he was not her keeper, and they did not have to check in with him.
He was damn lucky she was too tired to point that out.
“Fine,” she replied. “You have room for everyone, I assume?”
“All the members have rooms here, and there’s a guest wing for when…”
“When you have guests,” she supplied. No need for Lovell to dance around the work he and the Falcons did.
He nodded. “Philly gave his room to Kendall until she and Monk move into their new house in the spring, but there are plenty of rooms in the guest wing since Amber is the only one there now.”
“And showers?” She’d need a toilet, too, soon. The fact that she hadn’t needed one yet was a sign of how dehydrated she was, but the whiskey-laced coffee would remedy that.
“All the rooms have attached bathrooms. You won’t have a tub to soak in, but there’s a shower,” he answered.
She sighed. “Heavenly.”
“How about some water?” he asked, nodding to her mug. Her empty mug.
“I wouldn’t mind another one of those, but water is a better idea,” she replied.
A glass appeared in front of her, and she took a tentative sip, grateful it wasn’t cold.
The thought of anything chilly touching her ever again sounded about as appealing as a Brazilian bikini wax.
She’d forget the deep, piercing iciness of her body at some point, but not any time soon.
Kendall yawned, and Daphne withdrew her free hand from underneath the blanket to look at her watch. Only to be met with a bandaged wrist, compliments of Lovell and Hawkeye.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Nearly one,” Callie answered.
Amber returned from the kitchen carrying a plate that she carefully handed over as Lovell relieved her of the glass. Her stomach growled at the familiar smell of buttered, toasted bread and sharp, melty cheddar.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say this right away, but thank you, everyone,” she said, craning her neck to catch the eye of each person in the room.
“I’m sure none of you were sitting around twiddling your thumbs after Callie discovered I was gone.
Maybe tomorrow, someone can tell me, but for now, I’m going to eat this delicious-smelling sandwich.
If you have any questions that Mantis didn’t already answer, now’s your time to ask, because as soon as I’m done, it will definitely be bedtime for me. ”