The Storybook Groom Page 9

  “No touch!” the balding guy yelled to his partner.

  Pasty threw his head back in defiance. “Not yet,” he said, shooting Ginny a lustful glare.

  That confirmed it. These guys were mere henchmen. Ginny needed to talk to the man who sent them.

  Balding pulled out another folding chair and motioned for Ginny to sit with her back to Scarlett. Ginny moved with soft, slow motions to avoid displaying dominance. Scarlett’s body appeared to relax when Ginny kissed the top of her head before sitting with her back to her.

  Pasty examined the beer bottles while Balding wrapped Ginny’s ankles together with duct tape. He continued by wrapping her wrists together in her lap, then wrapping the tape around her center and the back of the chair. She barely struggled, just enough for them to believe she was uncomfortable and frightened.

  Balding prepared a piece of tape for Ginny’s mouth, like Scarlett wore.

  Ginny cleared her throat. “Can that wait until after we talk?”

  He grunted. “Talk about what?”

  “What you want. And why we’re here.” She paused for affect. “I can’t help you with tape over my mouth.”

  Balding crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes, as if screaming at his brain to help him with one little thought. His face was dark and empty. He looked like he had ignored his own conscience one too many times. And without any light, he couldn’t access any knowledge. He threw out his arm in a motion that said what she said didn’t matter. “You’ve already failed,” he said with attitude.

  Ginny firmed up her resolve at his comment. The fight never begins until we’ve failed. It is how we handle that failure that determines if we will ultimately succeed.

  Pasty motioned for Balding to join him at the conference table for a beer.

  Balding looked hard at Scarlett and Ginny. “He told us to call when we had them.”

  “Have a wee seat,” Pasty begged his partner. “We’ll still have them after a Guinness.”

  Balding joined his friend at the table as Pasty popped open the bottles. They laughed as white foam poured out from the top. She had purposefully shaken them on her way up the bleachers to mask that they had already been opened.

  Ginny waited to work on her tape until about five minutes after they had finished off their bottles and their speech began to slur. She conspicuously flipped up the hem of her spanks where a flat razor was sewn into the fabric. When she pulled the hem over, the razor tilted out from it’s protective metal cover with the sharpened end pointed upward.

  Within ten seconds, she had cut through the tape between her wrists. Ginny pulled on the easy-release thread that sewed the razor into place and released the blade. She then brought her hands to her waist and made a liberating slit. The ankle tape would be the most difficult to hide considering she couldn’t lean over undetected since the cretins had immobilized her to the back of the chair.

  When the men began to sway, she kicked her ankles to one side and reached her arm down to the floor, keeping her other hand in her lap. She kept her motions fluid and smooth to avoid their attention.

  Once the tape on her feet was completely cut through, she slowly worked to remove the tape still stuck to her waist. She reached behind her and cut the tape wrapped around Scarlett’s waist.

  Now Ginny’s movements would be fast and precise. She spun around in front of Scarlett and cut at her hand tape with fervor.

  “Hey!” Pasty yelled as he stood, leaning into the table for support. His head did a circular motion as he stumbled forward.

  Ginny placed the razor into Scarlett’s hand and took two running steps before jumping up and landing on the edge of the table. The guns flew through the air as the table tipped on its side. The men now needed to go through her to access the guns.

  Pasty’s arms flailed as he careered toward her. She firmed her stance, grasped her hands together and pointed her locked elbow at his gut. When he barreled into her, she shot her elbow straight through his solar plexus to his back. He fell to the floor in a hump, gasping for air.

  Before Balding made it to her, Scarlett was on the floor wrapping duct tape around Pasty’s ankles.

  “You okay?” Ginny asked Scarlett.

  Scarlett nodded as she feverishly moved to the man’s arms.

  “You,” Balding snarled at Ginny. “What did you give me?”

  “Just be happy I only had two pills and not four.” Ginny looked to his friend passed out on the floor.

  Her comment seemed to infuriate him even more. He was actually foaming at the mouth. Was that a normal side effect of those pills?

  Unfortunately, he had more control of his body than Pasty did. Ginny widened her stance and bent into her knees like a wrestler preparing for a match. When he lunged at her, she extended her leg, sweeping his legs out from under him. Before he could get back up, she kicked him in the groin.

  The man whimpered and curled into the fetal position. Judging by his drooping eyelids, she didn’t have much time to interrogate him.

  “Call your boss,” she demanded through clenched teeth, handing him a phone that had been thrown off the table onto the floor.

  He shook his head in refusal.

  She placed the phone in his hand and stepped onto his head. “I repeat. Call your boss.”

  Within ten seconds, the phone was ringing on the other end.

  The line picked up with a, “Tell me.” It sounded like a middle-aged Irishman. No surprise there.

  “Tell you what?” Ginny said with ire. “That I have your men sprawled on the floor, whimpering? Or that I plan to come and hunt you down if you ever touch my family again?”

  “Ginny.” he said in a mocking tone. “Can I offer you a job?”

  “I have an offer for you, mob boss. My offer is that you never use anyone to get to me and I won’t kill you.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “That’s a consequence,” Ginny said with resolution. “And that’s a promise. If you fear that consequence, then feel threatened.”

  “Where are my men?”

  “Here, writhing on the floor, willing to tell us everything we ask them.”

  He made a snarling sound. “What do you want?”

  Those were sweet words. “You know what I want.”

  “Then we have an arrangement. But I will expect to never hear from your mother again.”

  “And allow me to reiterate our arrangement. If you have future issues with my mother, I will expect you to go directly to her. If you touch anyone I love to get to me or my mother, I will come for you.” She paused. “And when I come, there will be no negotiation. I will mark you indirectly. You will never know what hit you.”

  “It seems we have an arrangement. And my offer still stands if you’d like more promising employment.”

  “You and I? Are finished. You won’t be hearing from me ever again. And I expect the same from you.” Ginny ended the call and sank to the floor next to Scarlett who was still feverishly wrapping tape around Balding’s hands.

  “Scarlett, how thick are you going with that tape?” Ginny laughed out.

  “Twenty layers and counting,” she said with satisfaction.

  Ginny put her arms around Scarlett and rested her head on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Scarlett.”

  “You saved me, Ginny.” Scarlett reached up and cradled Ginny’s head. “If anyone needs to apologize, it’s Mom.”

  Her phone! Ginny ran over to the phone she had pushed against the wall with her foot. She turned the phone around to a video conference with her mom and dad.

  “Did you get all that?” Ginny asked.

  Her mother was completely gray at fifty-eight but her green eyes were as sharp as a hawk. “I am so proud of you, girls! You are definitely from my stock.” She looked over at her husband. “Warriors, through and through.” She clasped her hands together. “What a future!”

  That had back fired. Ginny opened her mouth to speak but her father began, “No, dear.” he said sternly to his wife. �
�These girls will never have to go through anything like that again. And if I so much as hear you think in Irish, I’ll send you back to Ireland myself, and you’ll lose us for good.”

  Ginny’s father had never made her prouder than at that moment. Her mother, on the other hand, crossed her arms with a huff. Ginny rubbed her face with the realization that no matter what Ginny did to convince her mother, and no matter what happened to her children, she would never change. She would never be the affectionate mother Ginny had always longed for. The only thing Ginny could do was decide what kind of mother she herself would be someday.

  The secret knock broke their happy family reunion.

  “It’s time to move.” Ginny nodded to her father. “Everything’s ready.”

  She ended the call as Candace and the rest of their team walked through the door.

  Candace motioned around the room. “You didn’t need us.”

  “I knew you were close by.” Ginny gave a blink of her eyes and nod of appreciation. “Thanks for letting me handle that one on my own.” Ginny’s sight went to the two miscreants passed out on the floor. “What do you want to do with those guys?”

  “We’ll see what they know, then ship their trash back to Ireland. My guess is, they’ll get a more severe punishment there than here.”

  “Sounds fitting.” Ginny agreed and wrapped her arms around Scarlett. “Ready for a trip home to pack up the folks?”

  Candace touched Ginny’s arm and spoke quietly. “What about Torin?”

  Ginny shook her head and released a discouraged sigh. “It’s not gonna work.”

  Having Candance mention his name brought a flash of guilt, mixed with melancholy. After that stunt she pulled in the parking lot, he would never want her now. Even if she did think it could possibly work out between them, which it couldn’t, she wouldn’t subject him to a life of looking over his shoulder.

  “Sorry.” Candance shifted her gaze to the men on the floor. “We’ll clean up here.” She tilted her head to the door. “You two head out.”

  Ginny and Scarlett didn’t speak until they reached the edge of the school parking lot.

  “Scarlett?” Ginny began, her conscience wreaking havoc in her head. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was an intelligence officer.”

  “The real question is…” Scarlett raised an eyebrow. “Can I start signing that song.” She danced as she belted out, “Secret A-gent woman, secret A-gent woman.”

  Ginny put her arm around Scarlett’s shoulders. “How can you crack jokes right now? You could have been killed.”

  Scarlett became serious. “I was terrified at first—you know, when they escorted me out of the party. But then, almost immediately, I heard them speaking to you.” She stopped a few feet from Ginny’s car. Steam rose from the black asphalt, lending Scarlett a spritely appearance. “I knew you’d save me. I had that intuition that comes to twins like us.”

  “We’re not twins,” Ginny said flatly as they got into her car.

  “But you want to be,” Scarlett winked, settling into the passenger seat and stretching her arms behind her head like she didn’t have a care in the world.

  A phone rang in the car’s center console, causing Ginny to tense. She never kept a working phone in there. She did have one or two extras ready to slip a sim card into, but, like she never kept the ammo with her guns, she never kept the sim cards and phone’s together.

  “That’s where I left that this morning after our breakfast at the café.” Scarlett opened the console to her blinking phone. “Oh,” she whined, giving Ginny that look like she didn’t know what to do. “It’s Demitri.”

  * * *

  THIRTY MINUTES EARLIER

  Torin gasped, sucking in a mouthful of dirt as he came to. His body ended up in a funky, contorted fetal position.

  He scrambled into a seated position and scooted to the nearest car. He leaned against the hot metal surface while he hacked up his left lung. Did he still have that lung? There were a few body parts he couldn’t feel, some very important body parts. He sat there for a minute, drenched in his own sweat, collecting his wits—trying to understand what had just happened and how that little device Ginny held in her hand could have caused him so much pain, like his body had been repeatedly slammed by ten of the biggest guys in the league.

  He searched his pockets for his phone. It wasn’t on him. Off in the distance, a ray of lightning shot across the night sky, followed by crashing thunder.

  Someday he and Ginny would laugh about this. He limped to the four-wheeler. But not today. Today, he was in serious pain, and today, he needed to help Ginny find her sister. He pulled himself up and into the ATV, then reached to turn on the engine. No key.

  Ginny had thought of everything to prevent him from catching up to her. He cautiously stepped back out of the ATV, avoiding those muscles still not responding. As he began his trek back to the farm house, the skies let loose, drenching him in a steely rain that turned the dust under his feet to sticky sludge. He laughed that you have got to be kidding me laugh and trudged on.

  When he arrived at the farm house twenty minutes later, the rain had stopped but he looked like he had stepped out of the stagnant pond on the ranch property, and, if his nose was working properly, he smelled like the redolent stagnant water as well. He made his way to the barn where he found a ranch hand scratching his head.

  “Hey,” Torin said.

  The teenage boy turned and whistled, looking Torin up and down. “You okay?”

  “Not really. Could I use your phone?”

  The boy slowly took a phone out of his back pocket and hesitantly held it in the air.

  “Actually,” Torin said, looking down at his muddy hands. “Could you dial a number for me?”

  The boy nodded. Torin gave him the number and the boy placed the call on speaker. When Demitri came on the phone, Torin quickly instructed him to meet him in the barn.

  Demitri plowed through the barn door less than half a minute later. “Dude, I finally got ahold of…” He stopped abruptly and threw his hands in the air. “What happened to you?”

  “Scarlett?” Torin said with hope.

  “Yeah.” Demitri scratched the back of his head. “You okay?”

  “No. Not really,” Torin responded. “Where is she? Is she okay?”

  “Yeah. Why are you worried about her when you look like someone ran you over with a trailer then threw you in with the pigs?”

  Was he being punked? “I thought she was—”

  “Kidnapped!” Cole interjected as he breathlessly entered the barn. “Scarlett was kidnapped.” He turned to Demitri. “When I heard you were looking for Scarlett for over an hour and hadn’t seen her since you dropped her at the front, I checked my video surveillance and these two guys came up on both sides of her, grabbed her by the arms and put her into a white van.” He pulled out his phone. “I’m calling the police.”

  “Dude, no. Hang up.” Demitri shook his head. “I just talked to her and she’s fine. I guess there was some family emergency that she and her sister had to run home for. Maybe those guys were picking her up.”

  “Home?” Torin questioned. “Do you know where they went?”

  “No,” Demitri responded. “But I’ll find out.”

  The farmhand stomped into the barn. “Sorry to bug, but has anyone seen the four-wheeler? People are asking for me to take them to their cars and I can’t find it.”

  “Oh,” Demitri said, holding up a finger. “Scarlett told me the key to the ATV and Torin’s phone are sitting on the wooden gate at the ranch’s entrance.”

  “The key, but not the ATV?” Cole questioned.

  Torin rubbed his face in his hands. “I need a shower.”

  12

  The condo seemed empty; it was empty, and hot. Air conditioning didn’t exist in Steamboat Springs, at least not in the condos built in the ‘70s—like Ginny’s family’s. Today the temperature was supposed to hit in the nineties.

  Ginny sank back into her dad
’s old recliner and scanned the dark living room, paneled in walnut-stained wood. Even at mid-afternoon, when the sun infiltrated every inch of the sky, their condo was still dark, dull, and gloomy like her childhood had been. Scarlett had been the sunshine that broke through the tenebrous clouds to bring Ginny hope.

  She picked up a worn bible from off the coffee table and rubbed the leather cover. When things were especially bad at home, she and Scarlett would snuggle together in bed with the covers over their heads. One would hold a flashlight while the other read from the bible. It was the only thing that brought them any real peace. Their favorite passages were in Psalms; they even memorized most of the king’s songs and poetry.

  Ginny walked down the hall and placed her childhood bible in a box headed to Dallas with her. She wasn’t sure how long she’d be in Dallas, but she needed to tie up some loose ends with the agency. She wanted a slower life. After getting a taste of a healthy relationship, she longed for that normalcy, that affection, that connection. Her body ached just thinking about Torin. She shook her hands out to avert her focus on something she could control.

  The condo was set to go on the market in a week. She wouldn’t miss it, at all, but she was glad she had come back to make her peace with her mother and this town, with every painful memory it had imprisoned her mind with. Had imprisoned. She had finally been set free.

  She wiped the beads of sweat from off her forehead with the back of her hand. She needed to cool off. She went to the storage closet and grabbed an inflatable tube. She hadn’t packed her swimsuit, but Torin had taught her that swimsuits were optional items; any fabric would do. Her light-weight fabric romper would dry quickly.

  When she arrived at her favorite place to put in at the river, by the fishing pond, she had that feeling of being watched—but not in an eerie way, like she had a week ago when she fought with the Irishmen. She did wish she had her gun though, but guns and water didn’t mix; neither did phones and water, even though her phone was touted as waterproof. She strapped her phone to her upper arm and climbed into the cool slow moving water.