Enamoured (Escape Fantasy Romance) (12 page)

“Come and get it,” she said, her voice low in challenge.

Lowry laughed. “Oh, darling, I’ll get it, all right. I’ve finally got you right where I want you.” His expression was far from fatherly, and Cole stiffened at the threat in the man’s words, and in his stance. He thought of what Melanie had told him, about him getting too close, and a dark fury rose within him.

Melanie snorted behind him. “Of course you have to take, because it would never, ever be offered. You’re nothing more than a bully, Lionel. A low-down, dirty little bully who has to throw a tantrum and hit out when he doesn’t get what he wants.”

Lionel’s mouth twisted, and the gun in his hand shook with his anger. “Oh, I’m so going to enjoy taking you,” he rasped as he stepped closer. “But first, I want lover boy up on deck. I don’t want to get blood all over the cabin, see,” he explained.

Cole kept his expression composed, but had to concede Lowry had a point. If anything happened down here, then forensics would be able to easily locate the evidence. Better to move them to a different location, but even that presented its own risks in the logistics of such a move, for both parties. Lowry and Dunn would obviously be moving them to a more remote place, but the chance of someone seeing them, or of he and Melanie fighting back, were higher. He’d seen Melanie in action. She was no simpering, powerless ditz. He couldn’t quite figure out what Lowry intended, though, or just how the hell he could get Melanie out of this mess.

Lowry and Dunn separated, to give them room to pass. “Get up there.”

Cole silently walked out of the main cabin and into the hallway, and felt the hard rim of Dunn’s gun as it pressed against the back of his head. This is getting ugly. What would happen once they got up on the deck? They couldn’t shoot them, surely? That would draw attention. Were they going to leave the boat? What exactly had these two planned?

“Hands up,” Dunn growled, and Cole grimaced as the barrel of the gun was pressed harder against his head.

He heard a soft cry behind, and turned to see Lionel’s arm wrap across Melanie’s shoulder and neck, clutching her to him. He forced his gun against her temple, smiling as she tried to move her head out of the way.

“Leave her be,” Cole demanded, and Dunn smacked him in the side of the face with the butt of the gun. Cole whipped around, but halted when the barrel of the gun was pressed to his forehead.

“Move on,” the detestable man said.

Lowry smirked. “What are you going to do, lover boy? You’re not really in a position to do anything.”

Cole eyed Melanie, who looked visibly ill. She gave him a shaky nod.

“I’m okay,” she rasped, then grimaced when Lowry pressed his lips to her temple.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of my little princess.”

Cole clenched his hands into fists, and had to bank his fury. The time would come. He wasn’t going down without a fight, neither would Melanie, and these men would pay.

Cole turned and climbed the stairs to the main saloon. Dunn shoved him against the table, and Cole fixed him with a dark glare, and felt a tiny flare of satisfaction as the man momentarily hesitated before waving him out to the deck.

“So, tell me, Lowry, why exactly did you kill Melanie’s father?” he asked conversationally as they all trooped out onto the deck. The wind had picked up whilst they were below deck, a warm, summery breeze that had the boat rocking gently against the pontoon. Some boats were out on the river, as small parties enjoyed an evening cruise, but none were within hailing distance. He looked back toward the shore. Lights still shone in the homes situated on the banks of the river, but most were running air-conditioning, and closed against the sapping humidity and the mosquitoes. Not many people about, and none within any close range to offer help.

“Do you think this is like some crappy T.V. show where I confess to everything, only to be caught at the end? I’m not that stupid.” Lowry shifted his grip, pulling back from Melanie and holding her by the back of her neck as he forced her onto the deck in front of him.

She lifted her hands, as though trying to find something stable to hang on to, and stumbled over to a deck chair.

“Why, Lionel?” she choked. “Why are you doing this? Think of Mum, what it would do to her.” Her voice was low, quaking. Cole glanced over his shoulder. She was a mess. Her shoulders were hunched up around her ears, and tears streamed down her face. Her hands were visibly shaking as she held them in front of her in the universal ‘please don’t hurt me, I’m unarmed’ position. Where was the woman from earlier in the night? The one who’d kicked him from one end of the deck to the other?

Lowry snorted. “Don’t worry about your mother. She’ll cope with it, just like she coped with your father’s death. It will be so sad, I’ll admit, when she loses you so violently. But I’ll be there to help her through it, just like I helped her after your father’s death. Lover boy here will kill you in a jealous rage, and then we’ll kill him in self-defence.”

Melanie shook her head, frowning in bewilderment. “A jealous rage? We barely know each other. Who would believe that?”

“Ah, but I’ve seen you two sneaking around the site for months, hooking up whenever and wherever you could,” Dunn supplied, then smiled. “At least, that’s what I’ll tell everyone. Then, when he stumbled upon you in my arms, he flew into a rage and killed you. If it hadn’t been for Lionel’s intervention, he would have killed me, too. Lionel will be a hero.” Dunn placed his hand over his heart. “And I’ll mourn the love that I’ve lost.”

Cole frowned. Their story had more holes in it than a fishing net. “I’m not quite sure what’s more ludicrous—that you actually came up with that rubbish, or that you think people will believe you and Melanie had a relationship?”

Dunn’s face grew a mottled red. “You sonovabitch. I’ve half a mind to waste you right here.”

Cole smirked. “Well, you got the half a mind part right.” If he was going to die, he wasn’t going to do it quaking in his boots in front of this little turd.

“Hey, ahoy the boat,” a deep voice hailed from the pontoon, and they all jerked around at the sound as a dark figure clomped along the pontoon.

Cole reacted instantly. He shoved the gun out of his face and followed through with a vicious right swing, his fist connecting with Dunn’s cheek. The man bellowed, and tried to bring the weapon around again, but Cole launched at him, ramming him back against the railing.

His focus was on disarming Dunn, but he could hear the scuffle behind him. He glanced over his shoulder briefly in time to see Melanie kick Lowry’s gun-toting arm away from her and angle her leg up to flick a kick against the side of the man’s head.

Dunn tried to ram his fist into his gut, but Cole managed to twist so that he got a thump in the side, deflected and lacking in intensity.

“Hey, is everything all right up there?” the voice came again from below, and the boat lurched as someone grabbed the deck ladder and started to climb aboard.

Dunn brought the gun up, and Cole grabbed his wrist, pushing it away from his face and trying to wrest it out of the man’s hand.

Behind him Lionel bellowed, but Cole couldn’t spare a glance as he tried to stop Dunn from putting a bullet in him. The man was gritting his teeth, sweat dripping down the side of his face as he fought with a panicked ferocity over the gun. Cole was bigger and stronger and just as mean, and he twisted the wrist he held, grunting in satisfaction when he felt the snap of bone and heard the keen of pain from his adversary. He followed through with a jab to his face, and more bone cracked as his nose crumpled under the force of the blow.

The gun clattered to the deck and Dunn collapsed, blood streaming from his shattered nose, alternating between clutching his broken wrist to his chest and covering his face as he howled like a wounded wolf cub.

Cole scooped up the weapon and turned as Gabe climbed on board. The site supervisor immediately put his hands above his head when he saw Cole and the gun.

“Don’t shoot,” Gabe said, trying to keep his voice calm. “I’m unarmed.”

Cole wasn’t sure why the hell Gabe was on Lowry’s boat—was he friend or foe? He kept the gun trained on the large hulk of a man and glanced over his shoulder in time to see Lowry lurch toward Melanie again, raising his gun to strike her with it. She caught his fist in the downward motion. There was a blast that shocked everyone as the weapon fired, and Cole ducked as he moved toward her.

Melanie, still clutching the hand and the gun, swivelled and stepped in closer to Lowry’s body, continuing the downward motion of his strike. Lowry yelled in surprise as he was neatly flipped over her hips and thrown to the deck. Hard. Melanie took a step back and shifted her weight, her movements smooth and fluid, and Lionel screamed in pain as his thumb and wrist were twisted in what Cole was beginning to suspect was Melanie’s trademark hold. Even from this distance, he heard the bone crack.

Melanie tugged the weapon out of Lowry’s now-limp hand. “That was for Dad,” she said casually. She straightened, not taking her eye off the prone man.

“You bitch,” he spat at her.

Melanie gave him a little smile, and kicked him hard in the groin. “And that’s for Mum,” she said sweetly, as Lowry yowled, clutching his manhood with his good hand.

Cole grimaced. Ouch. “You’re under arrest,” he said, waving the gun between Dunn and Lowry. “For….oh, for loads of stuff that I’ve still got to figure out. But we’ll start with assault, possession and use of a prohibited firearm, abduction, deprivation of liberty, and we’ll take it from there. You have the right to remain silent.” He eyed Dunn, who was still crying like a randy cat, and Lowry who was spewing filth at his stepdaughter. “Please…be silent.”

Melanie turned to him, but kept the weapon trained on Lowry, her gaze shocked. “You’re a cop?”

Oh. Damn. He hadn’t planned it to go down this way. “Uh, yeah. Detective Senior Constable Cole Strange, at your service.” He slid his hand into the back pocket of his shorts for his I.D., then remembered he wasn’t wearing his shorts.

“You’re a cop,” she repeated, and her gaze drifted to the two men now whimpering on the deck.

“Mel, I…” he began.

“Ah, damn.” The voice came from behind them.

Cole turned to watch as Gabe stumbled back against the railing, clutching his shoulder. Under the moonlight, Cole could see the wet patch spreading, dark and shiny, across the soft cotton of his t-shirt. Gabe’s eyes wore a dull, shocked expression as his gaze met Cole’s, and the big man collapsed on the deck, his cheek thumping against the surface with a sickening crunch.

“Oh, no, Gabriel,” a soft voice wailed, and light footsteps tapped along the pontoon.

Melanie shifted on the deck, peering into the darkness. She could just make out Esme as she ran, surprisingly spritely for a woman her age, along the pontoon toward the yacht. Randall clambered behind her.

Turning back to the scene on the deck, Melanie surveyed it with a sense of surrealism. I must be hallucinating. Her stomach heaved as the boat pitched under the weight of the elderly couple climbing aboard, despite Colin’s calm instruction to remain on the dock. She glanced down at Lionel, who was glaring up at her with a hate that was almost tangible. Dunn was blubbering, Gabe was out cold and bleeding, and Colin—no, not Colin, Cole, gently rolled the larger man on his back. He stripped out of his shirt and used it as a makeshift compress against the man’s shoulder.

What the hell had just happened? The whole night—the scene in Lionel’s library, then fighting Cole on the boat, the search—oh, God, the ring. She held her hand up and glanced at the dull band of silver she’d slid onto her thumb.
Dad
. Lionel killed Dad.

She could vaguely hear voices around her, sirens in the distance. People were coming out of their homes—they must have heard the gunshot. Esme twittered over her grand-nephew and Randall came to stand on the other side of Lowry, eyeing the man who’d shot his relative with a hard, menacing stare that was intimidating, despite his age and frailty. The deck rolled under her feet, and she shifted with it, as though her whole world was off-kilter.

A hand grabbed her arm, and she felt anchored. She shuffled, regaining her balance, and gazed up the man who held her. Coli…Cole. He slowly took the gun off her, and unloaded the weapon, pocketing the remaining bullets. He was totally at ease with handling the weapon.

Bare-chested, his skin was cast in silver tones under the weak starlight filtering through the clouds, dark hollows marking where his muscles dipped and swelled. Cole. He was a cop. Not The Village People.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice low with concern.

“You’re a cop,” she whispered, and tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry. Her legs were trembling, and she tried to lock her knees into place. A chill crept over her, despite the humid night air. She’d stood up to her stepfather, kicked his butt, and now she felt like she was going to either pass out or throw up. Oh, and the guy who’d kissed her socks off just happened to be an undercover cop. She pressed trembling fingers to her temple.

Cole nodded. “I am. I’m sorry, I couldn’t tell you.”

“So this,” she gestured carelessly between them, the silver ring catching some of the starlight, “this was all so you could get to Lionel?”

Cole opened his mouth, hesitated. “I will admit it started out that way,” he allowed.

Her stomach pitched. He’d used her to get to her stepfather. “I knew it,” she said. “I knew there had to be some reason for this intense interest.” She’d never been pursued, not like Cole had done. She hadn’t trusted him at first, had suspected there must be an ulterior motive… yet she’d still kissed him, still confided in him, damn it. What was wrong with her?

Footsteps pounded down the dock toward them, and Cole glanced up, then pursed his lips as he looked back at her. “We’re about to be inundated by the boys in blue, but I want you to know, it wasn’t all about Lowry.” His voice was low, his expression earnest as the yacht bobbed under the weight of the law enforcement officers who were descending onto the scene.