Chapter 11
R
ick’s daughter? Here?
Stomach as shaky as her newly rocked world, Nola watched the father and daughter ready to greet each other. Lauren resembled her dad so strongly, Nola recognized the family connection even if Rick hadn’t cursed and explained the second they’d pulled up in the driveway.
Nola and Rick exchanged a look with a world of meaning. Lauren was in grave danger being here with Nola’s stalker on her tail.
Rick didn’t grab for his crutches. Nola wanted to chastise him for being reckless with his health but knew she needed to butt out of this father-daughter moment. No easy feat when she longed to tell him not to come down too tough on Lauren, who looked as though she was trying very hard to play it cool while she bit the side of her lip in obvious worry.
Teeth set, Rick made his way slowly across the walk toward the willowy brunette dressed in shorts that had probably been right for wherever she’d come from, but that gave her goose bumps in the South Carolina autumn night. Although something seemed off in her greeting. The patient way Lauren watched her father make his way across the patchy lawn… Ohmigod, Lauren showed no surprise at her father’s pained progress. What was going on?
“Lauren.” Rick held out his arms and Nola wondered if he noticed his daughter’s calm reception when he had devastating injuries he’d kept from her.
“Dad.” She shrugged off her backpack and hugged him back, but with little enthusiasm for a kid who’d made her way this far.
Nola watched the two and wanted to knock some sense into both their heads. She’d known things were strained, but she’d had no idea how much. Their awkward hug just about broke her heart.
She realized Rick cared about his daughter. Anyone could hear the concern in his voice. And the yearning for affection was obvious in the teenager’s face as she embraced her father—when he couldn’t see her.
Then they pulled apart and the blasé expression was back on the girl’s face again.
He stepped back and it was all Nola could do not to shove them both inside so the man could rest the legs he pushed too hard every day. “Your mother’s going to have a coronary.”
She shrugged again.
“You’ll need to do better than that. Why aren’t you with your friend? And where have you been for the rest of the week while you were supposed to be there?”
“I’ve been following you around.”
“What?” His so-quiet response spoke louder than any lion’s roar.
Nola hung back, waiting by the SUV, delaying by searching in her purse—nothing actually—to give the father and daughter a moment’s privacy.
Lauren finally fidgeted. Heck, Nola found herself fidgeting, too. She knew how tense Rick had been about his daughter. This news had to be rough.
“Gawd, Dad, it had been so long since we’d seen each other. You’d never been gone a year without at least coming home for a week. Never. So I called your squadron commander and pretended to be Mom. I found out what happened.” Lauren’s eyes outlined with mascara filled with tears. “You’re a real jackass for not telling me, ya know?”
Ouch. Looked as if Rick had raised his daughter to be just as plainspoken as him. That could work in their favor if Lauren was strong enough to wrestle the relationship from her father that she wanted. Or, it could mean there would be a lot of hurt feelings before the two of them were done with each other.
Either way, Nola couldn’t wait to duck inside the house and take refuge from this battle of wills.
“I understand that you’re frustrated, but you can’t talk to me that way, kiddo,” he said with just the right amount of parental censure before looping his arm around her shoulder. “Honestly, I didn’t want to worry you.”
“That’s bull.” She stared him down, defiant. No question where this kid got her strength. “Anyhow, I decided if you wouldn’t see me, I would see you. So I left New Hampshire and went to Texas. I even got a job as a waitress for a few days where I thought I could watch you. That gave me enough money to follow you here when you left after I’d only been in town a couple of days.”
Fear sloshed over Nola like a tidal wave as she imagined all the things that could have happened to this child during the week she’d spent on the road alone. No matter how steely Rick appeared, she could see the fears seething under the surface for him. A protectiveness she couldn’t squash drew her nearer to the pair.
“Enough.” He cut the air with his hand. “I understand you think you’re being all grown-up, but you’re damn lucky you’re not dead. I love you, kid, but there’s going to be some serious grounding over this stunt. Did you ever consider there might be some things going on that you know nothing about?”
She furrowed her brow. “Like what?”
“Nola.” He gestured for her to close the rest of the gap between them. “Lauren, I would like for you to meet my…friend, Nola.”
Friend? Nola turned the word around in her head. She could live with that description. Heaven knows she didn’t expect him to announce to his daughter that they were lovers. As a matter of fact, she didn’t know what they were. Friendship almost involved more intimacy and that knotted her stomach all over again at a time she really needed to get her head in the moment.
She was meeting Rick’s child. This was important. Big-time.
She extended her hand. “Hi, Lauren. I’m Nola Seabrook. Your dad and I met a long time ago when we were both TDY in Texas.”
The teen offered her hand but her eyes offered no welcome. “Yeah. I saw you in Texas this week, too. You’re the cookie lady.”
Sheesh, the kid didn’t have to make the cookies sound so…lame. How did teenagers manage to reduce competent adults that way?
“Lauren,” Rick said in that low parental tone of his again.
Nola shook her head and smiled. “It’s fine.” She shook the teen’s hand. “Nice to meet you and I would be glad to make you some of those cookies while you’re here. You’re very welcome in my home. I know you’ll want to talk to your dad, so I’m going to head inside and make up a bed for you.”
Nola made tracks toward the front door, Rick’s conversation with his daughter drifting on the marshy breeze.
“Lauren, you should have called. I’m here helping Nola because she’s got a stalker threatening her life. Now my attention will be cut in half watching over the two of you.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Of course. You want me to go.”
He sighed and slung his arm around her shoulders again, obviously trying his best in a situation that had no doubt thrown him for a loop. “I don’t
want
you to go. You have to leave for your own protection.”
Her head spinning with images of Rick with his daughter, Nola trudged up the steps into her house. He’d handled the situation as well as any parent could when faced with a surly teenage runaway—a child so obviously hungry for love.
Nola snagged extra sheets from the linen closet. The sleeping arrangements would definitely change since they all couldn’t sleep in the garage. She imagined what Rick would want in the way of security. He would insist on sleeping in her living room after all, and Lauren would sleep on a roll away in her office. He would undoubtedly make arrangements to send her home ASAP.
The girl’s bravado hadn’t come close to covering her heartbreak.
Nola clutched the sheets to her chest. She knew Rick would place a call to Lauren’s mom and reserve a plane ticket for the girl. Meanwhile, the three of them would stick together like glue until Lauren had a seat on an airliner home.
No more hot tub moments. Nola had gotten her breathing space.
She should be happy. Instead she felt as if she’d screwed up and lost something.
Her phone jangled from across the room. She dropped the sheets on the sofa and rushed to snatch up the receiver in case Rick needed something more for his daughter.
“Captain Seabrook.” A low, electronically distorted voice eased over the line with insidious chill. “Did you enjoy your flight today?”
“Who is this?” Nola swallowed down a bilious dread and wished she had made arrangements with the phone company to have her calls traced. There could be no doubt but that her stalker had finally made contact. Did it mean he was getting more serious that he would risk a phone call? Things certainly felt more eerie, more horridly personal.
“I wonder how you paid for that airplane with all your financial problems lately. Your new man friend, I assume. I watched you both from the field. If only I owned a shoulder-held rocket launcher…”
He continued to talk about how he’d enjoyed his view from the ground. His words looped over her like an icy noose around her body. Thank goodness her flight had been a last-minute decision. If she’d planned ahead and somehow he’d found out he could have sabotaged the plane in countless ways.
Her knees folded and she sank onto the sofa arm. She couldn’t bear to think she would have caused Rick’s death. As much as she craved his comfort, she also longed to tell him to leave, go anywhere far away from her, but she knew well nothing would peel him from her side now. His protector instincts were too deeply honed.
As deep as her own, because she couldn’t leave his side now that he needed her help with his daughter. Hmm. What an odd thought and God, her mind was wandering when she needed to focus on what this maniac was saying.
She wished the cops had tapped her phone, or that Rick was in the room with her. Now wasn’t that the ultimate in selfish? She had no idea what she expected him to do, but she hated being alone with the mechanically altered voice. It could be anyone babbling on the other end of that line. A stranger.
Or someone she knew. “So you’re finally ready to talk to me rather than hiding behind letters.”
“Soon we will talk face-to-face and you will remember me then. Your time is almost up.”
“You say we know each other.” She shivered at the thought. Was it someone she faced on a daily basis? She wanted to scream. This person had filled her life with fear for long enough. “Be a man and show yourself now. Who are you? Other than a coward who doesn’t reveal his face.”
“Not a coward,” he insisted with pompous indignation. “A careful strategist.”
She forced herself to stay calm and think, not to let fear overtake her. She could use this chance to gain information. “What have I ever done to you to warrant you hijacking my life this way?”
“I am reasonable. You will understand when we meet face-to-face.”
She wanted to shout her frustration. She’d learned nothing except that she’d met him. Although with stalkers, they could imagine a connection based on simply brushing arms in a crowd, interpreting an accidental exchanged look as having a secret code.
In essence, she’d learned nothing. “When will that be?”
“Soon. Very soon.” He went silent for a few crackly moments and she thought he’d disconnected, then he continued, “You look quite lovely in that color of green, my dear. You really should choose it more often.”
He disconnected.
Nola dropped the receiver as if it carried contamination. He knew what she wore. He’d seen her. He was that close. She raced across the room, toward the front door. She had to tell Rick and Lauren to get the hell into the house. This man was seriously gunning for her, and now she’d not only put Rick in danger…
But his innocent daughter—a precious teenager whose beautiful eyes mirrored her father’s—was in the line of fire.
Rick had longed for the days when he had people to protect and save again, but he hadn’t envisioned it quite this way. Now he had both Nola and Lauren to think about right at the time when the stalker seemed ready to make his move.
He had to keep Nola and Lauren safe as best he could. For the moment a large crowd seemed in order—and on the day after Thanksgiving, an amusement park fit the bill. As much as he hated the crutches, a full day on asphalt necessitated he use the damned things.
The hot dog stand steamed a tempting smell to his left, a definite must in the very near future. Meanwhile, he made his way alongside Nola, his eyes firmly on Lauren a few steps ahead strolling past the Tilt-A-Whirl.
Rick had thought he’d put his past behind him.
Hah.
All his honed instincts and training had come roaring back to the fore the second Nola had shown up at the garage apartment door, her face pale. Once he’d heard about the bastard’s call and threat, Rick had found his rescue training resurfacing with a speed that let him know he’d been fooling himself. Injuries be damned, he couldn’t deny who he was.
That Others May Live.
His only focus now was to keep Lauren and Nola out of the line of fire. The police had sworn there wasn’t anything more they could do. He’d stepped up the pace and spoken with Special Agent David Reis of the Air Force’s OSI. They couldn’t do anything immediate, either. The police were following up on the identity theft, but it was a slow process since the stalker was obviously more skilled than a first-time hacker.
Still, that phone call changed everything for him. The look on her face after the call had rattled his foundations, something that deeply hit home. She’d battled too hard to survive her bout of cancer to be taken down by a faceless maniac. Rick refused to let that happen.
Hell. His chest pulled tight. He hadn’t realized until just that moment how much her admission of nearly dying had affected him.
Breathe, damn it, breathe. He couldn’t afford this kind of emotionalism, not now. He’d made a promise to Nola, and he’d made a promise to his child the day she was born.
He would keep both females safe or die trying.
They weren’t staying at her place. First up, he’d told Nola to pack a suitcase and meet him in the SUV. A quick trip to the ATM machine later and he headed out. Making sure he wasn’t followed, he’d found a hotel, paid cash in case the bastard was tracking his credit cards, and checked them in for the weekend until he could get Lauren on a plane back to her mother’s. He’d had to pull strings and stay in a dive to get around using a credit card, but he’d made it work.
He’d considered staying on base, but he would have to use a credit card there. And the bastard had tampered with her car in the parking lot at a military hospital.