Hooked (A Romance on the Edge Novel) (36 page)

“Meaning the killer could have been a set netter and not a drifter?”

“Exactly.”

A gunshot split the air over their heads.

Garrett shoved Sonya to the ground and covered her with his body, but not before she caught sight of Aidan on the opposite side of the bank where the creek sliced through the tundra.

A sawed-off shotgun nestled against his shoulder.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY

“You okay?” Garrett demanded of Sonya, his weapon already palmed and pointed in the direction of the blast.

“Y-yeah.” She was trying to catch her breath, and Garrett knew he’d probably knocked the wind out of her when he’d shoved her to the ground. He shifted to the side to give her more room to breathe. “Was that a gunshot?” she gasped out.

“Yeah, your harmless neighbor is shooting at us.”

“That can’t be right. There has to be another reason.” She sounded almost desperate as though she was trying to convince herself of something different than what her eyes had already seen.

Sonya strained to rise, but Garrett threw his free arm over her and knocked her back to the tundra. “Stay down!”

“This is crazy. Aidan can’t be shooting at us. There has to be another—”

Another blast fractured the twilight.

“That’s it.” Garrett clenched his teeth and tightened his finger on the trigger of his weapon. One shot and this whole mess would be over, and Aidan Harte would be out of the picture. He
knew
Aidan had something to do with the “accidents” that had plagued Sonya all season. “Harte! Drop the gun, and step away from it.”

Harte lowered the shotgun from his shoulder but didn’t release it.

“Everything’s—you’re—now.” Harte’s every other word got carried away on the wind and Garrett couldn’t make out what Harte said. All he knew was the man had yet to drop the sawed-off shotgun to the ground.

“Drop the gun!” Garrett rose to a crouched position and held his own weapon on Harte. Harte’s face paled, and he dropped the shotgun like it had bit him.

“What in tar nation is going on here?” Nikolai hollered, half-running around the side of the cabin, cradling his injured hand. He was followed by Margaret with her own sawed-off shotgun, at the ready.

“Stay back, and let me handle this,” Garrett said, keeping his weapon trained on Harte.

“This—big—understanding,” Harte hollered, though the wind continued to pick and choose which words it would allow to be carried. Then he began to point.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Sonya said from behind Garrett.

“I told you to stay down.” Couldn’t she follow the simplest of commands? He was trying to keep her alive, damn it.

“Garrett, put your gun down,” she said.

“Are you kidding me?”

“I’m sure there’s a good explanation.” She touched his shoulder. “Let him explain before you go all cop on us.”

He
was
a cop, damn it. Harte was lucky he wasn’t riddled full of holes right now. Garrett tightened his lips. “Fine, we’ll see what he has to say.” Then he’d take him down.

“I tried to get your attention,” Aidan said again, having joined them from across the creek. They’d all entered the cabin and had taken seats around the table. Garrett and Sonya were on one side, Grams and Gramps sitting cozy across from them, while Aidan sat on Sonya’s left at the end of the table. “With the wind, I guess, you couldn’t hear me. That bear was within twenty feet of you—”

“If there
was
a bear,” Garrett narrowed his brows. “I’d still like to take a look at the area, see if there are any signs.”

“Be my guest,” Aidan said. “Though I doubt you’d be able to see anything in the dark.”

“You couldn’t think of another way to get our attention, other than shooting at us?” Garrett continued to fire questions.

“I wasn’t shooting
at
you. I was trying to scare off a bear before it stumbled
into
you.”

“Isn’t it a bit convenient that a bear wandered close while you happened to be in the vicinity with a shotgun handy?”

“I was out for a walk and everyone knows you don’t stroll around on the tundra at this time of night without protection.” Aidan turned to Sonya. “Which you know better, Sonya.”

“I wasn’t thinking about bears—”

“That was apparent,” he said sarcastically.

Sonya dragged in a deep breath. Aidan must’ve seen Garrett kissing her. There could be no other reason for the poison in his brown eyes. They’d already gone over this. They were just friends now. He needed to stop playing the jealous boyfriend.

“Okay, kids,” Gramps began. “No one was hurt, and the bear was scared off. Aidan, you want a piece of cake? Maggie May baked up a tasty German Chocolate cake today.”

“Yeah.” He sighed, though he didn’t take his eyes off Sonya sitting next to Garrett. “That’d be great, thanks. By the way, I saw that old outboard of yours on the tarp. Did you get it running?”

“Sure as heck, did.” Gramps grinned from ear to ear, and Sonya wished that she’d been the one to bring up the outboard instead of Aidan. She knew Gramps wasn’t happy to be no longer fishing, due to his injury. He wanted to be part of the operation, to feel needed, wanted, useful. She should have recognized this and made more of an effort herself. “Want to give me hand tomorrow mounting it on the skiff?” Gramps asked, sounding like a kid who was dying to play with a new toy.

“You can count on me.” Aidan took a big bite of cake and groaned with pleasure. “Margaret, if you weren’t already married, I’d make a play for you myself.”

Grams actually blushed. Sonya didn’t like where this was going. Granted, Aidan had always been part of the family, but there needed to be limits, especially since there was no way she was getting back together with Aidan. Her family needed to stop encouraging him too.

“Gramps, I can give you a hand with that engine in the morning,” Sonya said.

“Great, Aidan and I can sure use your help. As heavy as that engine is, it’ll take all of us with my bum hand.”

Well, that went and backfired.
If she made a big deal out of Aidan not helping now that she volunteered, she’d come off bitchy. Breaking up was hard to do, she thought. Her family was comfortable with Aidan. She’d have to find a way to be comfortable too. It would be easier if Aidan didn’t look at her like a pound puppy in need of a loving home.

“If you’d like help with the engine tonight, I’d be happy to lend a hand,” Garrett added.

“Much appreciated, but I’d rather do it when it’s a bit lighter outside,” Gramps said. “My eyes don’t see so well in the dark anymore, and it’s a bugger bolting that engine to the skiff.”

A silence settled over the group that had tension testing the waters. It was blatantly obvious how comfortable Aidan was with her family and vice versa, while Garrett, though welcomed, didn’t have that natural rhythm which had developed with Aidan over the years.

“Well, I’d better be headed back,” Garrett said. “The tide will be getting high soon.” Garrett rose to his feet, while Aidan extended his, easing back in his seat, like he had all the time in the world and was welcome to stay as long as he wanted.

Sonya wanted to kick his feet from under the table.

“Walk me out, Sonya?” Garrett asked, holding out his hand in what really wasn’t an invitation, more of a “this is my woman” message directed toward Aidan.

With both men’s eyes on her, Sonya choose to go with Garrett, almost stumbling when Aidan’s stare narrowed with temper.

“I need to know what’s still ‘personal’ between you and Harte,” Garrett said, as they walked in step across the beach toward his Jeep. A burnished moon glistened over the dark surface of the ocean, painting a coppery trail to the horizon.

“I don’t want to get into it.” Sonya wished now that she’d decided to stay in the cabin. The day had already been way too long to venture into the past with Garrett.

He grabbed her arm, and swiveled her around to face him. “Too damn bad. Every instinct I have is pointing me in Harte’s direction. Now, tell me.”

“I can’t.” She looked past him, down the beach. The area was deserted except for an eagle feasting on a fish that had washed up on shore after falling out of someone’s net.

“Can’t? Or won’t, Sonya?” Garrett pressed.

“What difference does it make?”

“Can’t, tells me you don’t trust me. Won’t, that you are protecting Harte. Do you still care about him?”

She bit her lip. How did she answer that in a way that satisfied them both?

“Sonya.” Garrett placed his hands on her shoulders and forced her to look at him, his eyes drilling into hers. “Why are you protecting him?”

“I’m not really. It’s just that…I can’t even contemplate that Aidan would be behind what happened to Kendrick or the attacks on me and my family.” She shook her head and wished she hadn’t as a headache had begun to develop. “Aidan has been a part of our family forever. I even thought that someday we would…”

“That you would what? Marry?”

Her eyes shifted to the encroaching tide and then back to his. “To be honest, yes.”

“Why didn’t you marry?” Garrett swallowed as though the words had been difficult to vocalize. “What happened, Sonya?”

“What always happens when couples aren’t meant to be, we had a fight that couldn’t be resolved.”

“What did you fight about?”

“We’ve already been over this.”

“And we’ll go over it again until I get the full picture.”

“Fine.” She sighed in resignation. “Fishing, remember? We fought over me wanting to drift.”

“Why did that break you up? Why weren’t you able to work through it? What else happened?”

Here was where it got tricky. If she told him that Aidan had hit her, she knew where Garrett would go with that information. “You need to understand something about Aidan. First, his father, Cranky—I mean Earl—is a real bastard. Aidan grew up in a house where his parents fought. A lot. Earl beat his mother, and even though Aidan hasn’t said as much, I think he even beat Aidan.”

Garrett’s mouth thinned. “Go on.”

“That night we fought it got…physical.”

“He
beat
you?” His eyes turned to steel.

She took a long time answering but then couldn’t find a way around it. “Yes.”

“He hit you, and you don’t think he could be a part of this?” Garrett threw his hands out to the sides. “A man who would raise his hand to a woman has no limits.”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand.” She folded her arms. The night air suddenly turned chilly.

“Understand what? Don’t tell me you think it was your fault? You are not one of those women who feel that they are to blame. Come on, Sonya. Tell me you hit the son of a bitch back?”

This man did know a thing or two about her. “That’s beside the point. What I’m trying to get across was that when Aidan hit me, it scared him as much or more than it did me. He hasn’t touched me that way since, and I called an end to the relationship. According to Aidan, he’s been getting help. He hates what his dad did to his mother and is determined not to turn out like him.”