Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
T ildi cringed as the man’s voice penetrated the thickness of the door from the other side. He’d only spoken a few short sentences in her presence, but she would never forget that voice. After a year of waiting in terror for him to show up, he was finally here.
Fear curdled the very blood in her veins. Even the huge man standing beside her, with all his might and confidence, couldn’t stem the wash of terror pebbling her skin. Her gaze fell to the pathetic mat shoved against the far corner. Why didn’t her freaking prison mattress have a frame to lift it from the floor? Then she could at least pretend to have someplace to hide.
Mr. Midnight continued to shout through the door. “Open the door, Boone, or should I call you Bossman like the cowpokes on your farm do? We have that in common. Only I act like a boss, and you hide behind locked doors like a pussy. You might as well open it and face me like a man. If you go out the window, my soldiers will shoot you before you hit the ground. Be smart and open the door.”
Even with terror burning her stomach like acid, Tildi couldn’t keep herself from rolling her eyes at his words. The man was either crazy, or he thought they were. She’d just met Boone, but she already knew he was nothing like the monster who had held her prisoner for the past months.
At least now she knew her rescuer’s name. She liked the name Boone. It suited him. Strong and bold.
Hopefully, he was also a magician. Only instead of pulling a rabbit from a hat, he’d need to pull a machine gun out of that pack he’d brought with him and shoot everyone outside the door. Ooh, or a rocket launcher. Yeah, that would work even better.
He motioned for her to stay quiet. Like she wanted to talk.
Mr. Midnight wasn’t done. “If you hadn’t been such a coward three years ago, you wouldn’t have lost your woman. I warned you to stay out of Family business, but you wouldn’t listen. You left me no choice but to kill her. Just like I’m going to kill you. It’s only a matter of time until I get this door open. There’s no escape for you.”
“I knew this was a one-way trip from the start. I’d just planned on it being a little longer than this and us both being dead at the end of it,” Boone called out in a deep, confident voice.
Um, what?
He didn’t plan on making it out alive? She didn’t want to be selfish or anything, but how the heck was he supposed to rescue her if he was dead? As if he heard her thoughts, he twisted to face her and winked. Winked!
Her confusion shifted to relief when he snatched open the bag he’d left on the floor. He searched through a massive collection of weapons in his pack, hopefully for a bazooka or a cannon or some other form of mass destruction.
Visions of Boone, bandana tied around his forehead, muscles bulging in his sweaty, bare arms and chest, going all Rambo on the men outside the door popped into her thoughts. Of course, that was just stuff in movies. Those kinds of things didn’t happen in real life. At least not in hers.
When all he pulled from the bag was two blocks of modeling clay with a walkie-talkie taped to each, her confusion returned. What the heck? She was as up for crafting cool things out of clay as the next girl, but not when their lives hung in the balance.
Maybe he’d been using his head to bang on the door earlier. Whatever the reason for his bizarre behavior, she needed to tell him it was not the time for craft night at the OK Corral.
He crooked a finger for her to come closer, muttering, “I’ll keep Midnight talking until you can make it out the window.”
The hair rose on the back of her neck. Had he just said she was going out the window? She opened her eyes so wide the skin in their corners strained. She shook her head. That wasn’t going to happen. But other than that, it sounded like a good plan.
Boone nodded in return. “Yes, you are. My team will be here soon. When you’re safe, I’m going to detonate these C4 charges and blow that door and everyone on the other side straight to hell.”
Holy heck! Who was this guy? What else did he have in that freakin bag? She had no idea what a C4 charge could do, but she knew it must be powerful and effective. From now on, Boone was going to be her go-to guy in a crisis. At least for now, she would. Once they got off this island, she’d probably never see him again.
He pointed one finger at her and then two fingers toward the window. Okay, he wanted her to head back that way. So, he didn’t want her there to zap anyone who made it through the door? What if his plan didn’t work and he needed her help? She opened her mouth to ask, but he held a finger to his lips and glared at her. Again, more forcefully, he pointed to her and then to the window.
Shaking her head, she glared back at him and stomped her foot. He couldn’t tell her what to do. Yes, he’d rescued her from Moretti, but that didn’t make him the boss of her.
And anyway, he acted as if his telling her to go out the window was completely sane. She held up a hand, palm toward him, in the internationally recognized sign for stop. Snatching the stun wand from her other hand, he grabbed the hand stretched out toward him, turned it palm up, and put one of his many handguns in her upturned hand. Evidence would suggest Boone didn’t speak sign language.
What was she supposed to do with a gun? A real gun filled with real bullets if the weight of it was anything to go by. She’d told him she’d never shot one before. She’d never even touched one.
“Go stand by the window while I set the charges. If you see any movement out there, just point the gun at it and shoot,” he whispered.
She clutched the handle of the gun so tight her knuckles whitened, and the cold metal bit into her hand. Her heart stuttered, but after notching up her chin, she shook her head once more. There was no way she was doing that. She was a party hostess, for crying out loud.
His eyes flared his displeasure at her defiance. Why did his stern expression make her tummy tingle? Staring straight at her, he held up one finger. She almost pretended she didn’t know what he was doing but thought better of it. Anyone would know what that meant whether they’d had a course in sign language or not.
No one had counted to three for her to obey them in, well, ever. That tingle in her tummy migrated south, settling in her lady bits. After one more fierce scowl of protest, she did as she was told.
He’d said to shoot at any movement. Maybe she could keep her eyes closed. If she didn’t see anything, she wouldn’t have to shoot. That seemed like a bad idea because, if someone was there, they might shoot her. What the heck was she going to do if she saw anyone move? She couldn’t shoot a person.
She was no rich debutante worried about breaking a nail or anything. But kill someone? She couldn’t do that. Didn’t he know if you killed someone, they stayed dead like forever?
Anyway, she didn’t have a good track record when it came to aiming. As a teenager, she’d hit a friend with a bowling ball at a birthday party. She’d meant to hit the pins, but she’d let go of the ball at the wrong time and almost prevented Phillip Ingram from ever fathering children. So, no, she wouldn’t be shooting at anyone today.
Boone peeled adhesive covers she hadn’t noticed off both clay blocks and stuck them on opposite sides of the doorframe. As he worked, he shouted, “How do I know you won’t kill us both?”
“Because if I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead. As for the girl, she’s more valuable to me alive. She’ll make me a fortune at the next auction.”
Boone muttered some impolite words she wholeheartedly agreed with. There was no doubt Midnight meant what he said, but if he hoped to get a rise out of Boone, he had wasted his breath. Boone’s jaw tightened, but that was all. His attention was focused on his task. Mr. Midnight wouldn’t be able to bait Boone into doing something stupid. Even she knew Boone was too smart for that. He was the whole package; brains, body, and brawn.
More importantly, he was also kind and protective—everything a girl could want, especially a Little girl. Not that he would care what she thought, but that didn’t matter as long as he helped her escape.
Still, he was deliciously distracting. How was she supposed to focus on movement outside the window when the muscles in his arms and back were rippling like that?
“We both know that’s not true,” Boone called back to Midnight. “The whole reason I’m here is because you tried to kill me. Only, your men were such shit at marksmanship they missed me and hit a woman on my team instead.”
“Just a woman on your team? I don’t think so. All my men are excellent at their jobs, whether digging up the dirt on someone or taking some out. Cara Bradshaw was far from just any woman to you. You loved her. I think they have regulations against that kind of fraternization. She must have been special to risk both your careers. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe she was just some slut you wanted to fuck.”
Tildi gasped. The Boss of the Midnight family had tried to kill Boone and accidentally killed someone he cared about. The need to comfort him swept through her. It was all she could do to stay at the window instead of running to him and wrapping him in a warm hug.
But once again, Boone didn’t take the bait. “That’s your thing, Midnight, not mine. This isn’t going to end as well for you as you seem to think. So why don’t you cooperate? Drop your guns and wait in the hallway for me to come out and put a bullet in your brain.”
Midnight laughed. “Another time, perhaps. I warned you to stay out of my business. You didn’t listen. Taking you out wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun as watching you howl like a wounded dog when we took out your woman. You should have listened to me.”
Boone knelt to get something else from his pack rather than focusing on what Midnight said. When the words sank in, Boone froze. “What the hell does that mean?” he shouted at the door.
Midnight laughed but it was so sinister Tildi shivered. “You cost me a lot of money, Boone. Not to mention wasting my time. But the thing I couldn’t forgive was your costing me my standing in the family. My reputation is everything, and you tried to ruin it. You know how this works. You took something from me. So, I took someone from you.”
Boone flinched as if he’d been shot. His gaze flew across the room, landing on Tildi. So many reactions played across his face she could barely catch them all. One thing was clear. Midnight’s words hit their mark.
The term ramrod straight hadn’t meant much to her until that moment. It was like an electric current had seized every muscle in his body, and the pain in his eyes was just that intense she could feel it all the way across the room. The haunting memories played out before her in his eyes. She didn’t know what had happened, but the pain he carried broke her heart.
But it didn’t stop with pain. So many emotions warred in his eyes. Rage, horror, vengeance, but still, the pain reigned supreme. He must have cared deeply for those under his command, especially the woman. Guilt painted her in broad strokes at the jealousy gripping her. But she’d give anything to have someone care about her the way Boone cared about this Cara person, whoever she was. They must have been really close.
That he was in this kind of pain hurt her soul. She had no idea what to do, but she just couldn’t just stand there and watch his emotions bleed onto the floor. Leaving the gun at the window, she inched across the room and knelt beside him. That didn’t seem enough, so she lifted a trembling hand to touch him. Before she reached him, he froze her in place with a glower.
“What are you doing, little girl? Get back to the window,” he said, his voice no more than a tormented growl.
She jerked away so hard she fell backward onto her butt. Scalding humiliation stole her breath. Of course, he wouldn’t want her to touch him. She wasn’t this woman he’d lost. What had she been thinking?
Besides, she’d been a prisoner of the Cosa Nostra for over a year. Everyone knew what that meant. She was dirty now, tainted. No decent person, and certainly not a man like Boone, would want her touching them. He closed his eyes, unable to even stand the sight of her.
“I’m sorry,” she managed to say before jumping to her feet and racing back to the window. Lifting the gun, she blinked furiously to beat back the tears threatening to escape. Scanning the area outside, she pretended she could see.
She sensed his rise and movement to stand behind her. She sensed because she darn sure wasn’t going to look at him.
He’d told her to watch for movement, and that was what she was going to do. She would take out a blade of grass if it so much as ruffled. Hopefully, she wouldn’t shoot a bird out of a tree when she tried.
A gentle hand gripped her arm as he tugged her around to face him. “Hey,” he said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken like that. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
She nodded her head but still didn’t look at him. Why was he being nice to her? Did he pity her? Of course he did. Just look at her.
He could save his efforts. She didn’t need his pity, just his help to get out of this place. And she darn sure didn’t need him to pretend to care about her. He hadn’t said or done anything she hadn’t heard before.
Be good, be quiet, stay out of the way. That was what she’d heard all her life, so she could take it. What she couldn’t take, couldn’t understand, was him being nice to her. That was a surefire way to bring on the waterworks.
Refusing to look at him or make a sound, she wiped her eyes. She’d been given a job to do. He was right. She should have minded her own business and stayed where he told her. For some unfathomable reason, she’d thought maybe she could help. She couldn’t. No big deal.
“Little one, look at me,” he ordered.
The tone of his voice, firm but kind, forced her to comply. Gah! Why did her defenses disappear with this guy?
He searched her eyes, and evidently, even being held by the Midnight family hadn’t improved her poker face. He hid the rage and guilt she’d seen in his eyes seconds before and now looked at her with searching green eyes. No, not just green. His eyes were the dusty grayed blue-green of fresh sage.
He held her eyes for what seemed forever without speaking. Whatever he found there caused him to wrap his hand around the back of her neck and pull her into his chest.
Never, not in her entire life, had anything felt as wonderful as being held to his warm chest with the strongest arms in the world cradling her as if she might break. She loved it, but what the heck? Mixed signals much?
“I’m a dick, Tildi. I’d like to do better, but I know me. I promise to try, but I’m not an easygoing kind of guy. I won’t be able to handle you with the gentleness you deserve. I am the one who can get you home, though. Deal?”
She had no idea why that warmed her heart, but it did. Honesty was something she could appreciate. Although she suspected that while he was trying to be honest with her, he wasn’t being honest with himself. He had plenty of gentleness in him, or she wouldn’t be in his arms.
She attempted a smile. “Deal.”
Her heart stuttered again when he smiled. It tilted higher on one side than the other in a way that caught her heart, and it went all the way to his eyes. When was the last time she’d seen a genuine smile other than when she was the butt of the joke?
Her smile blossomed into something, well, heartfelt.
“Good,” he said. “Now, hand me my Glock and get behind me.”
Her eyes dropped to his chest, and she gasped. “You’ve been bleeding,” she said as if he didn’t already know.
A shrug lifted and dropped his shoulders. “I ran into a few men earlier who forgot to bring their hospitality to work with them today. I’m fine.”
Tugging the end of her shirt sleeve from underneath his jacket sleeve, she dabbed at the bloody cuts on his chest. Each time she finished with one, she blew on it gently as if she could soothe the sting.
Cupping her cheeks with his palms, he leaned down and kissed her forehead.
“How long did they have you?”
Tildi wished she knew. She’d tried to keep track at first, but it had gotten harder as the days turned into weeks, then months. “I don’t know, exactly.”
She hated admitting that. For some reason, it was humiliating. The blush coloring her cheeks at her admission angered her. She wasn’t the one who’d done anything wrong, darn it. Well, other than being criminally stupid. “A year, I think. Maybe a little more.”
“How are you so sweet after the year you’ve had? You’re like a precious snowflake floating around in a firestorm.”
He thought she was sweet and precious. Her insides warmed, and parts of her she hadn’t felt in a long time tingled again. No one had ever called her anything like that before.
Then she remembered what the Boss had told Boone about his friend. Those words had taken him to a bad place. She’d give anything if she had a way to take his pain away.
Running her thumb along his cheek, she hid the jolt of surprise that hit her when her thumb came away wet. She stared at the tear, feeling his pain as if it were her own. Without thinking, she pressed the tear to her chest, right over her heart. “I’m sorry you feel responsible for someone you cared about being hurt. I know how that feels.”
An expression she couldn’t read crossed his face. “Can you find a way to trust me when I tell you I promise I won’t let anything happen to you?”
“Of course,” she said. For some reason, that made him smile. “What are you going to do?”
“Save our lives,” he replied. He used his bag to break the sea-worn wooden bars lining the window and shoved them off the windowsill.
Tildi was glad he had a plan to get them out of there. Moretti’s assault had given her an adrenaline rush, but that was fading fast, along with her strength.
Mr. Midnight’s voice called out again. “Regrettably, it has come to my attention that I must leave you before our business is concluded. Ah well, duty calls.” After a pause, he added, “Kill the man, keep the girl. We can sell her.”
For the first time in her life, Tildi stuck her tongue out. “You just took over the spot for biggest turd knocker I know!” she yelled out. Turning to Boone, she asked, “Should I still cover the window?”
“Not exactly,” he said slowly.
“What do you mean, not exactly?”
“Bluebell, there are only two ways out of this room. And we can’t go out the door.”
“My name’s Tildi,” she corrected. “I understand we can’t go out the door, but, well, we can’t go out the window, either.” She paused when his brows rose, and he continued to stare at her. Waiting. “Wait… you… you want us to go out the window?”
Her question ended in a squeak.
His head tilted to the side when he shrugged that time. “I’m open to other suggestions, babygirl,” he said.
She paced to the window and back. “What about the guards outside?”
“Midnight only has a few men stationed here. I took out two on the beach and three others once I got to the compound and, of course, our friend Moretti here. Half the remaining soldiers will go with Midnight. That leaves half inside and the rest outside on the grounds. Probably only five or six.”
“ Only five or six? Compared to our two?”
“Frankly, I’d count us as one and a half,” he said. “You’re pretty small, and you don’t know how to shoot.”
That snapped her spine stiff. Crossing her arms, she said, “We can’t all be Rambo, you know.”
Unfortunately, he was right. Their odds of going out the window weren’t great, but they were better than their odds if they stayed where they were.
She glanced out the window again. “We’re really high off the ground.” She hated heights even more than she hated small, enclosed spaces.
Hugging her chest tighter, she snagged her bottom lip with her teeth. She could do this. He wouldn’t ask her to do something that would kill her. Of course, he was used to dealing with super-human commando people.
Yeah, she was going to die.
Boone walked over to her, grabbed her shoulders, and gave them a squeeze. “You just said you trusted me. Were you lying to me, Bluebell? It’s only a two-story drop to the ground. You’ll be fine.”
“My name’s Tildi,” she corrected again. “Two… oh, only two stories? Pfft. Is that all? And here I was getting all scared and stuff.”
He frowned at her sarcasm. “I know you’re scared, little girl, but I’m gonna warn you this once to watch your tone.”
She stared up at him, eyes wide. Opening her mouth to speak, she had to snap it back shut because she had no words. Holy cow! Boone was a Daddy. He had to be. No one said things like that to a grown woman if they weren’t a Daddy.
She’d wanted a Daddy for four years. She’d been tricked into believing the man who lived across the hall from her was a Daddy, but he wasn’t. He’d turned out to be a giant jerkface. She’d kept searching until she’d been kidnapped.
She’d almost decided that kind of man only lived in Darling, Tennessee. And now, while being held prisoner by the Midnight family on the other side of the world, a real Daddy walked into her room. Things like that didn’t happen. Not to her.
Her heart skittered at a sudden dreadful thought. Had she given off any signals that she was a Little? She didn’t think so. She’d gotten good at hiding it. Most men took advantage of women like her when they realized what she was. Being Little could be dangerous.
Right now, she needed to forget about that and focus on Boone’s plan to jump out a flipping second floor window.
“I mean no disrespect, but did they teach you about gravity in your commando school?”
His lips twitched before he spun her to face the window and smacked her on the butt.
“Ouch,” she yelped, even though it didn’t really hurt.
“There’s plenty more where that came from if you don’t march.” He continued to propel her toward the window.
“Okay, okay! Talking time is over then. Aye-aye, Captain Commando.” She did her best to salute.
He glared at her. Wow, somebody had a button that could be pushed. Not that she would dare push it. Probably.
“I was an air commando, but not anymore. I’m a rancher first who’s occasionally called to act as a security specialist. For that part, I run Wilder Security.”
“Is there a difference?”
“I can see you are going to be a handful,” he answered, edging her forward until she could peek down to see for herself how far away the ground was.
Far.
Really, really far. Like to the moon and back far.
He must have depth perception issues. She was about to tell him as much when he said, “See? It’s a seventeen, maybe eighteen, foot drop, Tildi, twenty tops. I’m going to lower you down as far as I can. Between our two arm lengths, that’ll take at least fourteen feet off the distance. So, you’re only going to drop four or five feet, six feet maximum.”
She gave him the “you’re crazy” look he clearly deserved. She, however, was perfectly sane. “So, just to make sure we are on this reality’s page, I’m going to drop seven to eight feet, minimum.” There was no way that was only twenty feet. She spun around to move away from the window and ran into his solid, muscular chest.
“Look at me, babygirl,” he said in such a deep, stern tone her body obeyed automatically. “That’s two. I’ve already warned you about your tone of voice.”
There was nothing that could erase the shocked look from her face, and if her princess parts vibrated any harder she was going to bounce across the floor like one of those crazy Bumble Balls she’d seen toddlers chase around the room. She wasn’t going to ask what happened when he got to three. She was pretty sure she knew.
Instead, she sputtered, “You… but… I don’t think going out the window is a good option.”
“You may be right, but it’s the only option we have. Didn’t I promise I’d keep you safe?”
Her mouth was so dry at the idea of going out that window she could do no more than nod.
“I always keep my promises. You’ll want to remember that,” he said, softening his words with another of his incredible, crooked smiles. “Now, keep your feet and thighs pressed together hard, and bend your knees. When you land, let your knees collapse and roll when you fall.”
“What if I don’t fall?” she demanded. He looked at her as if her words were ridiculous, which they were, but she was terrified. “Okay, so I’m gonna fall. I’m not the one who’s the super soldier air commando guy. Sorry, security specialist guy. Why don’t you jump first, and then you can catch me?”
“I’m going to answer that, then if you don’t jump out that window with no more lip, I’m going to tan your hide.”
Her bottom clenched, but she managed to keep from covering it with her hand. At least that cleared up what the countdown led to.
He continued his speech. “First, I have to detonate the explosives on the door and make sure it takes out the bad guys so they don’t come after us. Second, I don’t believe for one minute that if I go first, you’ll actually jump. Now get back to the window.”
Tildi then stomped her foot for the second time that day, adding a growl this time. Then she skittered back to the window before he could swat her bottom.
Boone helped her up onto the sill, grabbed her arms just above her wrists, and told her to do the same to him.
She grasped his arms just above his wrists as commanded. And then she made what Boone might call a grave tactical error. She looked back over her shoulder to the ground.
It was one thing to talk about a twenty-foot drop. It was another thing entirely to see the ground so far down she couldn’t make out the details, at least not in the middle of the night.
Spinning back to face him, she blurted out, “I have to pee!”
He scowled. “You’re going to have to hold it, little girl. We don’t have any time left for potty breaks.”
“I have to!” she cried. “If I don’t, I’m gonna pee myself.”
Boone seemed in a state of disbelief. Apparently, super soldier commando dudes didn’t have bladders that overreacted when facing terror.
“You’re going to that corner and pee in a bucket with me standing here?”
That was an excellent point. Darn it.
“How’s this?” he said. “You hold tight, and you’ll be able to pee in private soon.”
She nodded and tried to calm her racing heart. She could do this. Not that she had a choice. She tried to take a deep breath but couldn’t. It was as if her lungs already had too much air.
No matter how she tried to breathe out, it didn’t help. Her lungs burned, and spots began to float in the air between Boone and her. Her lungs were too full of useless air to take in the good stuff. She was going to pass out. Time seemed to slow as she tried to decide how she felt about that.
Then Boone’s deep voice broke through her mental gymnastics. “Tildi, breathe with me. You’re going to pass out if you don’t slow your breaths. Breathe in through your nose for a count of five. Slowly. Slower. Good, now out for a count of five. Good girl. Again.”
She followed his breathing, never breaking eye contact. Her heart rate slowed, and she could breathe normally.
“Okay now?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Good, I’m going to lower you down. I promise I won’t let go of you until it’s safe. Your job is to hold onto me. You ready?”
As I’m ever going to get!
She nodded again but couldn’t make herself speak. He slowly lowered her, bending out of the window until he was balancing on his hips.
“I’m going to let you go. It’s not far. I promise you, it’s going to be okay. Remember what I told you. Legs together, knees bent, roll. Got it? Okay, drop!”
He let go of her wrists. She didn’t let go of him, but it didn’t matter because even in the cold, her hands were wet and slippery with sweat. Yuck.
Before she could cry out, her feet hit the ground. He was right. It wasn’t all that far. She tucked and rolled, safe on the grass.
“You good?” he called down.
She nodded again, afraid to yell in case guards were near.
“I’m dropping you the gun. Do not try to catch it. When it lands, you can go pick it up, understood?” He tossed the pistol down, and she retrieved it.
“Should I still shoot whatever moves?”
“No. Wait right there, I’ll be back in a second,” he said before disappearing back into the room.