Page 33 of SEAL’S Baby Surprise (Lanes #2)

AUSTIN

I’m not big into over-powered four-wheeled vehicles, but I have to admit that Richard’s Wagoneer is a comfortable haven after our encounter with the hostel matron. It has plenty of room for Lee, Ark, and me.

Lee pulls me into the back seat and refuses to let go.

Richard pauses in the open driver’s side door and glares at her. “You’ve been missing for nearly three months, and you treat me like a chauffeur?”

“I want Austin,” she says. Then she adds saucily, “Ark can ride up front.”

“I don’t think so,” Richard replies. “I want an accounting . . .”

“We can walk or get an Uber,” I say, preparing to get out. “If Lee didn’t contact you, even after she knew I was going to your home to visit, then there must have been a reason.”

“It was to keep them safe,” Lee says.

“What?!” Richard and I both explode the word at the same time.

“Jason did something I didn’t like,” Lee says in a small voice. “He threatened to put a hit out on you if I said anything. I just couldn’t marry him after he said that, but I couldn’t go near you because he would know that I told.”

“What kind of thing?” Richard asks, half kneeling in the seat so he can look at his sister.

“I can’t tell you,” Lee says. And then she began to cry. “But now he’ll think that I did tell you. You are in terrible, terrible danger. You, and Kandis, and Charlie. And I guess, now that you’ve found me, Austin, and Julia, too. Oh, this is awful, just awful. I should have walked into the ocean.”

“Rylie Arianrhod Lane!” Richard explodes, while I put my arms around Lee, and say, “No, no, no! I need you. Julia needs you, and so does Ark.”

“But I’m going to get you all killed,” Lee wails. “He said he’d do it . . .”

“Call Caleb,” Richard snarls at his onboard computer.

“Calling Caleb,” a science fiction-y voice drones.

After a couple of rings, a chipper tenor voice says, “What’s up, boss?”

“Caleb, operation secure,” Richard says grimly. Then he adds, “You two are coming home with me.”

“But . . .” Lee starts to protest.

“No, no, nuh-uh,” he says. “I’ve been looking all over for you, hired detectives, the whole nine yards.

You’ve turned up pregnant, and it’s not by the guy you were engaged to marry, and now you tell me Jason is going to put a hit on Kandis and me?

Plus, you look like someone beat you severely.

You’ve got some explaining to do, and so do you, Austin. ”

“You know,” I say, holding Lee wrapped in my arms. I can feel her tremble. “You are making me really sorry I helped you find her. We’ve got her back for less than fifteen minutes, and you’re upsetting her. As for the rest of it, I love her. And I want to marry her.”

“It seems there are no shortage of guys who want to marry her,” Richard says wryly. “And if you’re responsible . . .”

“Boss…” the voice on the phone says.

“What is it, Caleb?” Richard asks.

“You’re doing that thing again,” the voice says.

“What thing?” Richard grumbles.

“That thing that almost kept you from marrying Kandis. Remember that thing?”

Richard groans. “All right. I’ll listen and get the whole story. But you two are still coming back to the house with me. What the heck are you doing living in a van, anyway, Austin? And with my sister? And why is her face bruised?”

“He rescued me,” Lee says, “And I fell off my bike.”.

“I found her on the beach,” I say at the same time.

“It’s a very nice van,” Lee adds. “Austin made it.”

“He what?” Richard asks. “I can’t possibly have heard that right.”

I give a nervous chuckle. “Not the whole van. I refinished the interior while I was looking for Julia.”

We might have discussed everything more, but the big vehicle crunches over the gravel drive in front of Richard’s house.

Kandis meets us at the door, Charlie in her arms and Julia clinging to her side. “We had given you up for lost,” she says. “And I was just about ready to put the children to bed.”

Then Kandis peers closely at Lee. “Rylie? Is that really you? What happened to your face? And your hair?”

A sleek sports car pulls up behind the Wagoneer, and a dapper gentleman in tan slacks and polo shirt hops out. “Rylie!” he cries out. “Darling! I’ve been looking everywhere for you. You! Whoever you are, unhand my fiancée!”

I look the fellow up and down. He looks like a movie set Italian, right down to the thin line of carefully groomed mustache and slicked back hair that went out in the 1930s and should have stayed out.

He’s even wearing wingtip shoes. “Lee, is this who I think it is?” I ask, keeping an arm around her.

“That’s Jason,” she says. “I was supposed to marry him, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Not after the things he said to me. And the things he said about my brother.”

“You signed a prenuptial agreement,” Jason begins to bluster.

“About that prenup,” Richard drawls. “It’s still sitting on my desk.”

“I didn’t sign it,” Lee says. “It was after I wouldn’t that he started saying all the mean things and threatening my family. He even threatened Andrew.”

“Who’s Andrew?” I ask, wondering if I need a scorecard to keep all the people straight.

“My older brother,” Richard said. “You’ve never met him because he was in Africa. Some weird little place that isn’t even on the map.”

Another car pulls up behind the sports car. This one is a plain sedan, so ordinary you’d never notice it in traffic. Two men get out, then a third. My heart freezes.

The third guy is carrying an assault rifle. He’s got it pointed at the ground, and his finger isn’t on the trigger, but he looks like he knows how to use it and will be glad to do so.

Then three things register with me. First, Kandis and the kids aren’t in the doorway any longer.

Second, Lee has stepped slightly away from me, and is standing relaxed and easy.

Third, Ark is crouched between us, and he isn’t barking. He’s growling, low and mean down in his throat.

“Fork over the dough,” one of the first two men says. “The boss doesn’t like it when players don’t pay up, ya know? You can pay up or pay the price.”

“I . . .I don’t have it,” Jason stammers. “I’m trying to get it.”

“I thought you was gonna sell some gems, some pearls an’ get the money,” the second of the suit-wearing men says. “They ought to at least make a down payment. But you are in deep, and the interest is totting up every day.”

“I. …I couldn’t,” Jason said. “The pawn shop said they looked like some that were listed as stolen.”

“Did you report them stolen?” Lee asks, so carefully casual I could almost hear what she was thinking. I remembered her saying something about a martial arts teacher . . .

“Lee,” I caution, edging forward. “You aren’t bullet-proof.”

At the same time, Richard says, “I reported them stolen when you disappeared. I hoped they would surface somewhere, and I could find you.”

I noticed that he, too, had taken a casual stance. Only someone who knew him back before his football injury would have known what that meant.

Before anyone could do something rash, a police car pulls up behind the sedan, and that assault rifle disappears like it had melted into thin air.

Then another car pulls up behind that, and a long, lanky man accompanied by four more men in security uniforms get out of it.

It is kind of like one of those old movies where all the cars show up and clowns start piling out of them. Only these clowns all have guns, and one of them has some papers he was waving around.

Jason and the men who had gotten out of the sedan are all leaned up against cars, and the policeman who has the papers is saying things like, “right to remain silent,” and “can and will be used against you.”

Then the four men are being bundled into cop cars, and a tow truck loads up the sedan and the sports car. And then they are all gone.

“Good work, Caleb,” Richard calls to one of the security men.

“Thanks, Boss,” Caleb calls back. “I see you got Rylie. Good to see you, Miss Lane. He’s been some hard to live with while you were lost.”

Lee, I guess I should call her Rylie, looks at her brother open-mouthed. “You cared?”

“Well, of course I cared. You’re my baby sister. You didn’t think I bought all those dresses for you because I hated you?” Richard asks.

“But you always caught me and made me come back,” she says.

“When you ran away from school, yeah. I was sure glad when you were old enough I didn’t have to do that anymore,” Richard explains.

“So you wouldn’t have made me marry Jason?” Lee asks.

“Not if you didn’t want to,” Richard replies.

“But the threats, and the indemnity clauses, and all that stuff,” she says.

Richard laughs. “I was pretty sure the signature on it was forged, and I wasn’t easy about signing off on it anyway. ‘I thee endow with all my worldly goods’ is the guy’s part.”

“Oh,” she says, and sidles up to me. I put my arm around her.

“But you two,” Richard fixes us with a glare, “have some explaining to do.”

We go inside to discover Kandis leading the children out from a room hidden under the stairs.

“Daddy!” Julia shrieks and pitches herself at me.

I catch her before anything, or anyone could get broken.

“They’ve got a Harry Potter closet. Only, it’s lots nicer than in the books you were reading to me. ”

“I’m glad to hear that,” I say. “Harry Potter closet?” I lift an eyebrow at Richard.

“Hidden entrance to a secure room,” he says. “Pops Quinn laughed at me for installing it, but tonight I was glad to see Kandy get the kids to safety.”

I nod. That could have gotten messy.

“So, now I want explanations,” he says. “How did you wind up with my sister, and why didn’t you tell me she was with you?”

It takes us a while, since Julia has to help tell the story, especially the part about the bike wreck and the newsie that Ark chased off.

“So tell me again,” Richard says, “Why are you living in a van?”

“Because I want to show Julia more than one part of the world. The van has everything we need — power, water, places to sleep. It’s a little tight with the three of us, but we’ve managed.”

“Managed enough privacy to get my sister pregnant,” Richard growls. “What are your intentions?”

“Marriage, of course,” I say, keeping a firm hold on Lee, who looks like she might bolt at any minute. “Unless Lee doesn’t want me?”

“I want you,” she says, hanging onto my arm, and snuggling closer. “But where will the baby sleep?”

“Hmmm….” I pretend to think. “We might have to upgrade to an airstream and a truck. I’ve had my eye on one . . .”

“Do you need money to buy it?” Lee asks. “I can sell some pearls now that my brother can vouch for ownership.”

“No need,” I say. “I have more than enough money to trade up.” I snuggle her a little closer. I’d like to do more, but Richard has a stern eye fixed on us both.

“Then why,” he asks, “are you living in a van on Freedom Beach?”

“Well, for starters,” I say. “I own Freedom Beach. It was unincorporated when I bought it, and I set up the park because I was tired of having to pay pet deposits for Ark — which isn’t supposed to happen because he’s a registered Emotional Support Animal, but that doesn’t seem to stop some people.”

Richard gives me another look. “And the other reason?” he asks.

I sigh. “People fix up a van or a camper hoping to live cheap, then they discover that they have to pay rent on a lot or park somewhere illegally. Some of those lot rents are pretty expensive. A fine or a parking ticket can wipe some peoples’ budgets right out.”

“What about winter when the storms get bad?” Kandis asks, proving that she knows a little more about house holding than her husband does.

“Then we’ll all migrate to the mountain retreat,” I say. “It’s like moving my own little village. There’s a lodge in case the weather gets too wild, and we need a real house for a while.”

“Will I get to see it?” Lee asks.

“Of course, you will,” I assure her. “You didn’t think I would leave you behind?”