There they were. Up ahead, Elsie could see two men in the trees, moving around, talking to each other. She was too far away to hear them. Willow leaned forward as though to growl and Elsie called her off. Slipped her search vest off.
She could almost feel Willow’s frown. They’d gotten this close to her goal and Elsie was telling her to stop searching now?
“I’m sorry, girl. But you found him. You did well. He’s here somewhere.” She was sure of it. She trusted her dog, even when she couldn’t see. Even when Willow hadn’t given the final alert.
Was trusting God like that, too? Bigger than trusting a dog, but knowing that Someone had your back, even though you couldn’t see the logic behind it?
Maybe, Elsie decided as she crept closer. Picking her way through the spruce trees, wildflowers and brush, she kept advancing until she thought she’d be close enough to hear, then crouched low to the ground and gave Willow a hand signal to do the same. The dog obeyed.
“Back for more?” She heard Wyatt’s voice. The edges of it were sharp, like he was in pain or angry or both. Either would make sense. It took her a moment to get a visual of where he was, where the voice had come from. There, beside a spruce tree, in the forest ahead of her, adjacent to the clearing where the two men were. The ocean was beyond them, but this must be part of the landscape where it dropped off in a cliff. She didn’t see any kind of gradual slope to the beach, but she could hear the waves even from here. Crashing against the rocks, maybe. Her attention went back to Wyatt. Why was Wyatt just sitting there? Why wasn’t he moving?
“Shut up. Keep talking and I’ll shoot you now and hope that stupid dog is able to find you anyway.”
Elsie rubbed Willow’s ears. Stupid dog indeed. Who had tracked them across the island working from scent that had been miles away. “Good girl,” Elsie whispered.
“Why kill her mother in the first place?”
“My political star was rising,” the man said. Something about that voice... “If voters twenty-five years ago knew I’d had an illegitimate child, I’d never have made it out of city council, let alone to the Senate. Besides, it wasn’t just that. It was that her mother—” he bit the word out “—wouldn’t listen to me. If she’d done what I told her to... I assumed she had. I didn’t hear from her for years and then I saw her. And the kid.”
Elsie had to be the kid. Wait—this... Her heart seemed to catch in her throat. This angry man holding Wyatt hostage was her father?
Being kicked, punched, anything would have hurt less than this. She’d thought her whole life until the terror of this week that she wanted to know her past, to know her history, but to be related to a murderer... The rest of what both men had said fully registered in her mind now.
A murderer who had killed her mother.
What a past. What a story.
Elsie wanted to back this one up, get out of these woods, go back to yesterday and somehow keep Wyatt safe and just live...untouched by all of this. She didn’t want this.
“Killing them both made sense. But turns out the kid didn’t die. Till now.”
The man was determined to win. As she had suspected, Wyatt was the bait. She just hadn’t understood why. All this time—this past week, anyway—she’d assumed someone wanted her dead but had never dreamed the reasons were this personal.
But this man—the missing senator?—had killed her mother. Tried and failed to kill her. This was why no one had come forward about a missing toddler, because her mother had been dead and her father had been the killer.
“I won’t be your bait anymore.”
It happened so quickly, Elsie almost couldn’t break it all apart in her mind. But Wyatt, who she’d assumed must have been tied up, flung himself toward the man—her biological father—and the two of them were tangled on the ground. The other man rushed at them. Now it was two against one. She couldn’t wait anymore.
Sprinting out of the woods, she joined the fight, hitting, kicking.
She heard one of the men yelp and realized Willow had joined in, too, and taken a bite out of someone’s leg. “Willow, no.”
For once the dog didn’t listen, though. She must have decided Elsie needed her help whether she liked it or not. Elsie couldn’t focus on the dog because she had enough to do worrying about what was in front of her, on top of her. They were four humans in something of a pile, punching, kicking.
She took a hit to the stomach and cried out.
“Elsie!” Wyatt’s voice was panicked.
“Don’t worry about me.”
“Aren’t...you...noble.” The man who’d been talking before grabbed her by the arm and pulled so hard she thought for a second he’d dislocated it.
That fast, she was out of the fight. She could hear the sounds of the continuing scuffle behind her as the other man and Wyatt fought. Their grunts and groans faded into the background and her world seemed to narrow as she looked at this man in front of her.
This was the man she’d wondered about, this man in too-new outdoor clothes, with a smirk on his face, anger in his eyes. Eyes that looked just like hers. They were related, if what he’d said was to be believed. She had her answers. She had her story. And...
She didn’t need it. Once upon a time she’d have wondered more. How did her parents meet? Why didn’t he want her? Why did politics matter more than his child?
Now Elsie needed none of it. Maybe she’d always been found. Maybe the ache she’d felt inside had been an awareness that she was missing God in her life, and now that she could acknowledge that He’d found her all along, she didn’t need anything else. She didn’t know. All she knew was that she didn’t need this man.
“Not going to cry? Your mother cried.”
The darkness. The closet. The screams. Elsie steeled herself against them.
“She cried because of me. She wanted to protect me.” Elsie remembered now. Enough that she knew that was true. Enough that she knew when this was all over, if she lived, she’d spend some time processing these feelings with a counselor she could trust. “I’m okay, though. I’m not afraid of you.”
Because God was here, God had her. And because Wyatt was somewhere nearby fighting for her.
Because in the end, good was going to win. No matter what happened to her. But... She didn’t want this to be the last part of her story. She wanted that happily-ever-after. Words failed her, but she managed to whisper a please, God to her newly found Heavenly Father.
The man in front of her raised the gun. Aimed it at her.
Elsie closed her eyes.
The gun went off.
He was almost too late. Almost too late. The words echoed in Wyatt’s mind even after he’d slammed against Travis, made his shot at Elsie go wide.
He’d still been fighting the other man, probably Travis’s hired muscle, when he’d caught a flash of metal and realized that Travis had Elsie. He’d landed a hard punch to the man’s jaw, enough to knock him out, and run at Travis with his full force. He’d thought he was going to be too late.
Maybe he had been and God had intervened somehow. He’d slammed into Travis and the shot had missed Elsie. That was all that mattered to Wyatt at the moment.
Travis screamed in frustration and Wyatt wrapped his arms around the other man, reaching for the gun, hitting at him. But he got away. Started to run.
“Elsie, watch out!” Wyatt yelled, but this time Travis didn’t go for Elsie. He just ran, attempting to evade them and escape. Wyatt ran after him.
Willow barked, joined the chase, grabbed the man by the leg. He jumped backward, away from her. Willow lowered her head. Growled and stepped toward him. He took another step back.
Too close to the cliff. Wyatt yelled, “Don’t! Stop!”
But Willow lunged and Travis stumbled back and started to yell as he fell over the cliff, toward the rocks and ocean waves, and Wyatt made it to the edge just in time to see him go under and be swept out with the current.
Unlike the plane crash, this couldn’t be faked. There was no coming back from this. He was gone.
Adrenaline pumping, he turned to see Elsie running toward him. He caught her in his arms.
“He’s gone,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Elsie said nothing, just cried. He held her tighter. What else was there to do, to say?
“I can’t believe he hated me that much,” she finally said and pulled back from him, searching his eyes.
“You weren’t the problem. It was him. How anyone could care about their ambitions like that over other human beings...” Sure, people were selfish, but this was an extreme example. He had been a murderer, with seemingly no remorse. But now he was gone.
“He was my biological father,” she said, still looking at him.
“I know.”
“Does this change...? I mean, I know I messed up, Wyatt. I’m sorry about last night. If you ever forgive me for that, does it change how you feel, knowing...?” She trailed off and he put his hands on either side of her face, gently angled her to look at him.
“I love you, Elsie Montgomery. I know you. I know who you are, and that man does not define you.”
“But knowing all of this...”
“It’s only part of who you are in that it made you who you are. Let the past go, Elsie.” He smiled a little. “Let’s explore the future together.”
“Are you going to propose again?” Her smile wavered a little.
“Only if you wouldn’t turn me down this time,” he teased back. “But you’re right. I will wait. Let’s get to know each other a little more.”
“What if you change your mind and decide you don’t love me as much as you thought when you get to know me?”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead and would have spoken, but a noise behind him caught their attention.
A helicopter was coming toward them, heading for the clearing in the woods. When it landed, troopers came out, guns at the ready.
Elsie and Wyatt put their hands up and Wyatt pointed at the unconscious man. “He’s the only one left. Travis Cattleman threw himself off the cliff.”
The next few minutes were spent sorting out taking the other man off to jail. He started to wake up as they loaded him in the helicopter and had to be restrained. He’d get plenty of years in prison for whatever role he had played in this, Wyatt was sure of it. Elsie would be really and truly free.
They could both face their future, together.
“You ready?” he asked Elsie before they stepped into the helicopter, Willow at their sides.
“If you’re coming with me.” She smiled at him, took his hand.
Wyatt knew he could promise that he would for the rest of his life. But that would wait. Today he would just keep getting to know her. Let her know him.
And they could keep falling a little more in love every day.