She felt her mouth drop open. "My gawd. What a snob you are." She probably shouldn't be shocked by the discovery, but she was.
For the first time he took his gaze off the road long enough to look at her, and even in the murky light she could tell he was steamed. "It's not snobbery, you little—" Cutting himself off, he gave her a strong look. "I've been through this shit before."
"Get out! Glynnis has never taken off with another guy." At least… had she?
"Did I say she had? But guess where the last guy she fancied herself in love with was waiting for his ship to come in when I tracked him down?"
"Oh, let me take a wild stab, here. A trailer park?"
"Damn right. And before you get on your high horse, I know living in a trailer park doesn't automatically make a person trash, okay? I'm sure they're filled with hard-working people, but this guy didn't happen to be one of them. He maintained a few pieces of expensive clothing, but otherwise he lived like a pig. And he flat-out lied to Glynnis. Until I took her out there to see for herself, she fully believed the reason they'd always had to meet at her place was because his beach condo was being renovated."
Poor Glynnis, Lily thought. But aloud she merely said, "David's not like that. He loves her."
Zach made a derisive sound and stepped on the gas.
Twenty minutes later he pulled up to a rural mailbox close to the entrance of a driveway. Rolling down the window, he aimed a flashlight on the address printed on its side. "This is it."
Headlights from a car that had turned onto the road behind them swept the interior of the Jeep, then just as quickly disappeared, and Lily turned from staring at the thick stand of Douglas firs that provided the Beaumont property with privacy. She opened her mouth to try one last time to talk Zach out of descending on David's family at this late hour, but before she could say a word, he put the Jeep in gear.
"I'm through debating this with you," he said, as if she'd actually presented her argument, and wheeled the vehicle into the drive.
They drove down a long ribbon of asphalt that unfurled through dense woods. Then the surrounding trees gave way to an acre of meticulously maintained lawn. But it was the lodgings perched midway between the woods and a bluff overlooking the water that caught Lily's attention, and a startled laugh escaped her.
"Oh, my." She turned delighted eyes on Zach. "So much for your he-only-wants-my-sister-for-her-money theory."
Far from the trailer of Zach's imagination, David's home was an estate. Built of fieldstone and weathered shingles, it looked more like a sprawling country inn than a single-family dwelling. Angled to face the cliff and the water below, it had stubby wings on either side of the main structure, several chimneys, and shutters that framed exquisitely crafted windows… every one of which was currently lit up.
Zach didn't look the least bit embarrassed to have jumped to what was clearly a wrongheaded conclusion. He merely shrugged at her jibe, pulled the Jeep to a halt at the top of the circular drive, and killed the engine. He spared Lily a single glance before reaching for the door handle. "Yeah, but everyone appears to still be up. So I guess it's not too late to come calling, after all." He climbed out of the car.
Lily rolled her eyes as she, too, got out, but she couldn't prevent a tiny smile from curling up the corners of her lips. Soldier Boy was wrong, wrong, wrong, and soon he'd be forced to eat his words. She did a little dance and promised herself a ringside seat for the occasion.
She was still smiling as she followed him to the front of the house, and they climbed the stone steps of a generously proportioned veranda. A minute later he rang the bell. When that didn't garner a quick enough response to suit him, he raised a big fist and pounded on the solid portal.
"For heaven's sake, Zach," she remonstrated, but when the front door abruptly opened, pure shock clogged her throat as they found themselves looking down the business end of a double-barreled shotgun.
Whoa, shit! Holding his hands away from his body to demonstrate his harmlessness, Zach stepped in front of Lily. Not that putting himself between her and the shotgun would shield her from a helluva lot if the guy facing them decided to pull the trigger. At this range, two barrels worth of shot would rip a hole through him the size of a volleyball and plow right into her.
Voices rose within the house, most of them feminine, one of them perilously close to hysteria, but Zach didn't take his eyes off the young man with the shotgun. Stowing away the brief regret of having packed his Marine-issue nine-millimeter in his duffel bag before leaving the campground this morning, he said calmly, "Hi. How ya doin'? I know it's a little late to be dropping by, but even so, this is a bit excessive, don't you think? Or is this how you always greet visitors?"
The man's hands tightened on the stock of the gun. "Who the hell are you? And what the hell do you want?"
The guy was nervous, and he was an amateur, neither of which was a condition Zach appreciated in someone pointing a gun at him. Seeing the young man's finger slide off the trigger to tap restlessly against the stock, Zach whipped out a hand and wrenched the shotgun sideways, relieving him of it with a single, supple twist of his wrist.
The man swore and made a grab for it in an attempt to regain possession.
Fending him off, Zach broke open the barrel, slid out the two rounds of shot, then snapped the barrels back into place and passed the shotgun back to the other man. "My name is Zachariah Taylor," he said. "Master Sergeant, U.S. Marines," he added, hoping the fact he had the authority of the United States government behind him would help to cool the other man's jets. The guy looked as if he were about to jump out of his skin. "I'm here to see my sister Giynnis."
He felt Lily unhook her fingers from his waistband where she'd anchored herself, and the warmth of her breasts dissipated as she peeled herself off his back. He barely had time to register the fact, however, before a woman in her late fifties materialized in the doorway.
"Oh my God, oh my God," she said as tears trembled on her lower lashes and her pale, fine-boned hands systematically shredded a lace-and-lawn handkerchief between them. Then she bunched the hankie in one hand as she reached out and grasped his arm with the other. She tugged him into the foyer, then stared up at him hopefully as the young man closed the door behind them. "Have you heard from him, then? Have you news of my David?"
Damn. He didn't like the sound of this. "No, ma'am."
"Oh, no!" An unchecked noise escaped her, and he realized this was the voice he'd heard on the edge of hysteria.
"Take a deep breath, ma'am," he ordered in the same I- will –be-obeyed tone he'd used throughout the years to get more than one green recruit over a hurdle of nerves. "Take nice, deep breaths and let them out slowly. Then tell me what's going on here."
She sucked in air but didn't look appreciably steadier for her efforts once she'd exhaled it. Nevertheless, she drew in and exhaled another, then faced him as calmly as she was able. "They've been kidnapped," she said, her chin immediately beginning to wobble. "Oh, God, oh, God. David and his little girlfriend have been kidnapped ."
Dios, it was cold. Miguel rubbed his hands up and down his arms and wished he had warmer clothing. He missed his beloved Colombia, where the heat sank into a man's bones, and wondered in dissatisfaction if Master Sergeant Oh-Such-a-Big-Man Taylor and his anemic woman had finally reached the destination they'd been heading for ever since leaving California. He certainly-hoped so, because the sooner he accomplished his mission, the sooner he could reclaim his rightful status and return to his village with his pride intact.
He was tempted to gel out of the car and make his way down the driveway where the master sergeant had parked a short while ago, to see if that was where the marine was now. Except it was the dilemma last night at the campground all over again. He didn't dare abandon his car for fear he'd be caught unprepared should the commander suddenly return. And he couldn't park too close for the same reason that had kept him a respectable distance for two long days—an unwillingness to give the game away before he was ready to make his move. As it was, he'd practically driven right up the Jeep's back bumper in his race to catch up earlier, when he'd feared he'd lost them and had instead came across the vehicle unexpectedly parked in the middle of the road. He'd wheeled into the first private drive he'd seen and waited until he'd heard their car drive away before pulling out again. Then he'd found a better place from which he could not only keep an eye on this road but screen his car from the casual glance.