Footfalls sounded behind Becky. She spun around as a brawny arm locked her in a stranglehold.
“Jake Hawkins?”
“Yeah, but we’re about to be real friendly, and my friends call me Bull.”
Becky tried to break free of his hold, but a sharp prick at the base of her neck stopped her. He had a knife. One jerky move and her jugular would be sliced.
“Where are my sons?”
“Where I left them. Bleeding. Crying for their momma.”
She fought the rush of panic and fury that shook her. She’d never hated another person, but she did now.
“Why? Why us? Why David and Derrick?” Her heart cried into her words. “We did everything just the way you said. We had the money. You didn’t show up to get it.”
“You called in the authorities.”
“We didn’t.”
“Don’t lie, you bitch. The cops swarmed my wrecked car like a hive of killer bees.” He spit the words at her.
He knew. There was no use in lying. Less use to fight as long as the knife was at her throat. “We only called them after you didn’t show up as planned. We thought you no longer wanted the money.”
“Like you’d know about wanting money. You living the friggin’ dream life of a princess. Texas royalty. You like that, don’t you? You always did.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“High school, Becky. I’m talking Colts Run Cross High School. You parading around the football field in that cheerleading outfit that barely covered your behind. Wearing that stretchy top so that your young tits taunted every guy who passed.”
“That was years ago, Jake. I wore the uniform they gave us. I didn’t mean to taunt anyone. I barely knew you.”
His grip tightened, and he lifted the arm under her chin, pulling her head back until she was looking up into his snarling face. “You didn’t want to know me. You acted like I was dried-up paint on the wall until you started your nasty rumors. You liked thinking of me as a murderer, but you didn’t know the half of it.”
“That’s not true. I never thought you killed your grandmother. I didn’t.” Not until now.
“The woman nagged me all the time. Told me I was as worthless as my tramp mother. Said I was a curse to her.”
Becky fought to swallow against the pressure on her neck. “I’m sorry, Jake. I am. I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t know. You didn’t care. And now I don’t care, either, not about you or your bratty kids. Not about Nick Ridgely, either.”
Her face was so close to his that even in the dark she could see the rage in his eyes. The same fury he must have felt when he’d pushed his grandmother down those stairs. When he’d pulled a pregnant woman from her car and stabbed her with a pocketknife. When he’d killed two men for no reason at all.
But she couldn’t give up. They’d find her body, but would they ever find David and Derrick in time?
“Nick has the money, Jake. Let me call him, and he’ll bring it to you,” she pleaded. “All five million, in small bills, just like you said. You get the money, and you give us back our sons.”
“Where’s your phone?”
“In my handbag. I left it in the car. I’ll get it and call him.”
“Sure you would, right after you drove off and left me here.”
“No. You can go to the car with me.” Anything to give her a chance to get out of this alive.
“One call, Becky. One chance. If anything goes wrong, I’ll kill you along with your sons and then wipe Nick Ridgely’s face in your blood.”
She would have gladly given him the money, only Nick didn’t have it on him. It was back at Jack’s Bluff. He’d be here in minutes if she called, but she had to keep him from walking into a trap.
“Nick will want to know where the boys are. He’ll want to talk to them.”
“Haggling won’t work, Becky. You lost all the pawns in the game the second my knife touched your flesh.”
Jake pulled her into the clearing and started to drag her toward her car. The lights from an approaching car stopped him. He yanked her back into the trees, the knife piercing her skin as he did. She felt only a quick sensation and then the hot, wet trickle of blood dripping from her neck.
A pickup truck pulled to a stop behind her car. The beams from its headlights sent a muted whisper of illumination through the trees. Jake’s right hand stayed around her neck, but he pulled the knife away and exchanged it for a pistol.
“Make one sound and you’re dead.”
She had no doubt he meant the threat. But if she stayed silent and the driver of the truck walked toward them, he’d be the one who was dead, shot just as Hermann Grazier and Bruce Cotton had been.
A man stepped from the driver’s side of the truck and walked to her car. Her heart jumped to her throat and sent agonizing stabs of dread through every fiber of her being.
The driver of the truck was Nick
* * *
NICK STARED INTO Becky’s empty car. Her keys were in the ignition. Her purse was in the passenger seat. Her jacket had been slung to the backseat. He struggled for some positive spin to put on the situation, but there was none.
Trepidation gave way to full-scale alarm. He peered into the darkness on either side of the road and then went back to the truck for a flashlight. He shot the bright beam into the trees, searching for a sign of Becky, though he couldn’t imagine any reason that she’d have ventured into the heavily forested area.
He fervently wished that he hadn’t given the weapon back to Zach when they’d left the cabin where the kidnapper had been holed up with David and Derrick, but he’d had no idea that he’d need one tonight.
Muscles clenched and adrenaline pumping, he stepped off the road and toward the trees, shining the beam toward the ground to search for Becky’s trail. He found it quickly, imprints of her boots carved into the muddy clay.
“Becky!”
No response. Yet he was sure she’d come this way. Or been lured this way. He called her name again, louder, panic adding a crusty crack to his voice.
Something rustled the grass to his left. He took off running toward the sound.
“Don’t, Nick. It’s Jake. He has a gun.”
Too late. Nick saw Becky being thrown to the ground and Jake Hawkins’s heavy foot stamp down on her stomach. The gun in his hand was pointed at her head.
“I want my five million, Nick Ridgely, and I want it now.”
This was crazy. Becky surely hadn’t come out here alone to meet the kidnapper. But she was here, a gun at her head. Nick had to think fast.
“The money’s in my truck,” he lied. “Let Becky go, and I’ll get it for you.”
“I don’t like those rules. Let’s try mine. You bring me the money, and I’ll let your bitch live.”
He obviously didn’t want to risk coming out of the clearing for fear an armed deputy might come along as Nick had. That was Nick’s only advantage.
“Drop the gun.”
“You’re not giving the orders.”
“Then shoot me.”
“Nick, don’t.” Becky was crying and straining against Jake’s killer hold on her. “Just go.”
“Drop the gun, Jake, or get the money yourself.”
“Get the money or she dies.”
“Where are my sons?”
“Dead.”
Becky wailed as if her heart were spilling onto the ground.
A blinding fury roared through Nick’s veins along with the sure realization that Jake had no intention of letting either of them walk away from this alive.
“Your sons didn’t cooperate, so I killed them, the same way I’ll kill Becky if I don’t have that money in my hand in thirty seconds. One.”
Nick’s past flashed before his eyes in living color. The red blood as his mother had drooped against him. The plum-colored dress Becky had worn on their first date. The baby-blue blankets they’d wrapped David and Derrick in the night they were born.
“The money, Nick, or do I just pull this trigger now?”
So who would it be in tonight’s game? Nick Ridgely who let everyone down? Or Nick Ridgely, star receiver for the Dallas Cowboys. Great hands. Lightning speed. Amazing timing.
Or Nick Ridgely, his own man?
Nick took one more step toward the car, then turned, diving into the air in that unexpected split second and coming down on top of Jake. His left hand cracked against Jake’s right one, sending the pistol flying though the air.
Jake recovered quickly, planting a fist into Nick’s injured neck at the top of his spine. Nick went down in excruciating pain, then stumbled back to his feet. He swung at Jake and missed as Jake hammered him with another right punch to the center of his back and a left jab to his collarbone.
He was hitting the right spots to make the most of Nick’s injury. Delivering blow after blow. Nick stumbled away, trying to get his balance. He spotted Becky clawing in the pine straw for the gun. “Get out of here, Becky. Now!”
Jake was at him again, fists pounding into Nick’s neck and spine as he jumped on his back and dug his knees into his side as if he were riding a wild bronco. The pain was so intense, Nick was afraid he’d pass out or that the doctor’s fears would materialize and he’d fall into a paralyzed mass.
It would take that for him to give up and leave Becky with this madman. He fought back, finally slamming his backside into a tree with enough force to shake Jake loose and send him sprawling to the ground. Nick backed away to catch his breath and regroup. Jake came up with a knife, the blade extended. He swiped it across Nick’s chest, drawing blood.
Becky was still on her hands and knees in the mud. “Take the car, Becky. Get out. Please get out of here.”
Jake sliced into him again, this time across the right thigh. Nick grabbed a broken limb from the ground and poked it into Jake’s face. Jake howled but never slowed down, coming at Nick and knocking him to the carpet of pine straw that was fast turning red with his blood.
He was losing feeling in his arms and legs. His vision was blurry. In spite of all Nick’s vows, Jake Hawkins was going to win.
And then a blast of gunfire exploded, and Jake Hawkins finally quit coming at him.
“Nick. Nick.”
“I’m sorry, Becky. I’m sorry I let you down.”
“You didn’t. Oh, Nick, say you’re okay. Please tell me you can move.”
His brain was too hazy to know for certain if he was alive or dead and dreaming. He rolled over and spit out a mouthful of blood and what felt like a dozen teeth.
“I thought he’d killed you, Nick. I was so afraid.”
Slowly the scene came into view. Becky was crying and pushing Jake’s body off him. He pulled her into his arms with the last of his energy and lay in the mud with her tears running down his chest.
“Are you all right?” she whispered between sobs.
He wasn’t all right. He might never be all right again. Neither would Becky. He’d failed them, and their sons were dead.
“I’ll call an ambulance,” she said.
“I think it’s too late for that. He looks dead.”
“I meant for you.”
“Not yet.” He couldn’t bear to have her leave his arms.
They lay in the dark holding on to each other, her sobs open and honest, his tears a burn of moisture seeping from his eyes.
He didn’t know how much time had passed before the flashing blue lights from a squad car lit the area. The cops Jake had been trying so hard to avoid. He managed to stand and help Becky to her feet. There wasn’t a part of him that didn’t ache.
“Nick. Becky.”
The deputy was no surprise. You could count on a Collingsworth. “Out here, Zach.”
Zach strode to them. “What the devil happened here?”
“I saw someone in the trees,” Becky said, her voice shaking and drenched in heartbreak. “I thought it might be David and Derrick, that they could have escaped from the kidnapper and were on the run. It was Jake.”
“And then Nick came along and shot him,” Zach said, jumping to the erroneous conclusion. He offered Nick a high five. “Good work, man. I didn’t even know you were carrying a gun.”
“I wasn’t. It was his.”
Zach knelt and felt for Jake’s pulse, making sure he was really dead. “I guess the boys were wrong. They thought they’d taken his only pistol. He must have stolen one from Hermann Grazier.”
Nick shook his head to clear it. “What are you talking about?”
“Why don’t I let your sons tell you?” Zach whistled and motioned to the car. The door opened, and David and Derrick jumped out and started running to them.
“Becky wasn’t that far off,” Zach said. “The boys escaped and came walking out of the woods to where the cops were stringing yellow tape a couple of minutes after Nick drove off.”
Becky didn’t wait to hear the rest of her brother’s explanation. She was already rushing toward David and Derrick. The three of them literally collided, tangling in a boisterous three-way hug before they pulled her down on top of them.
Nick couldn’t move that quickly, but he did pretty well for a guy with a few new contusions to add to his medical report. He fell gingerly into the tangle of arms, legs and unadulterated joy.
* * *
THE HOMECOMING for David and Derrick was everything anyone could have expected and more. Every light in the big house was on, and every single member of the Collingsworth family had been waiting on the front porch when they arrived.
The only lull in the celebration had occurred in the short period of time it had taken for Becky, Nick, David and Derrick to shower off the mud.
Now David and Derrick were holding court in front of the fireplace, drinking hot chocolate, munching on cookies and fudge explaining for at least the tenth time how they’d lassoed the kidnapper and used his own duct tape stunt to render him helpless and at their mercy.
It was three in the morning, and no one seemed to realize that they should all be in bed.
Nick was the only quiet one, and Becky was certain he was paying the price for tangling with Jake Hawkins. He looked as if it hurt to move, but he never complained. It wasn’t his style, and just maybe that wasn’t so bad.
Becky slipped unnoticed from the family room and went back to the kitchen for a glass of water. Lenora was standing by the range, wiping tears from her eyes with a Santa Claus towel.
“So this is where you disappeared to,” Becky said.
“I needed some alone time to count my blessings.”
Becky put her arms around her mother, enfolding her in a hug. “You always believed they’d come home safely, didn’t you? I tried, but I never seem to have your faith.”
“I’ve had years to work on it. And I believe in miracles.”
“After tonight, I think we all do. But I was afraid, so very afraid. And not only for the boys. I think the divorce may be a mistake, Mom. I don’t think all the problems with our marriage belong to Nick.”
“Tell your husband that, Becky.”
“Tell me what?”
Neither Becky nor Lenora had seen or heard Nick come into the kitchen. Now that they knew he was there, Lenora slipped from Becky’s embrace and left them alone.
Nick frowned. “If this is bad news, I don’t want to hear it tonight. Let me have Christmas first. Give me the holiday with you and the boys before I have to come back down to earth.”
Her moment of truth. She took a deep breath. “I love you, Nick. I don’t know if I ever realized how much until I thought Jake Hawkins was going to beat you into a pulverized, paralyzed mess. But I knew it then, and I know it now. I admit our marriage needs work, but…”
Nick crossed the room, slowly, the pain evident in his every step. “Oh, Becky. I love you so much. I’ll do whatever it takes not to lose you. I’ll give up football and move back here to the ranch. I’ll talk every night about feelings until you are sick of hearing me. I’ll attend every school function the boys ever have, even spelling bees. Just say what you need from me to make this work, and I’ll give it my best shot.”
“That’s just it, Nick. I don’t want you to give up football for me. I don’t want you to give up anything. Our problems are not all your fault. They never were. Both of us have to work on being honest with each other about our feelings. You can’t hide behind your past. I can’t hide behind my stubbornness.”
He cradled her face in his bruised hands. “Are you saying you’ll give us a chance?”
“As many chances as we need. I don’t want to face life without you. I want to raise our sons together, have grandchildren, grow old in each other’s arms. I want to love you for the rest of my life. I just want the marriage to be all that it can be.”
He pulled her into his arms and then winced in pain.
She pulled away. “I’m sorry. I guess this isn’t the night for you to crawl back in my bed.”
“Just try to keep me out. But promise not to move—or breathe heavy.” He kissed her lightly on the lips, a sweet promise of all that would come in the lifetime ahead.
“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Ridgely.”
“Merry Christmas, Nick.”
She wouldn’t have thought there was a chance of it a few hours earlier, but Nick had called it right. This really would be the merriest Christmas of their lives.