Page 71 of Be Courageous
The skipper’s hard expression had Miles holding his breath. He didn’t exhale until the man said, “What do you need to see first?”
“Well, if you could show my mechanic the engine room, that’d be great. I’ll get busy on the upper decks.”
“Fine.” Skipper jerked his head at Dad. “Follow me.”
Given the look his father sent him, Dad wasn’t happy getting stuck with the skipper. But, hey, Miles had the two young-’uns to deal with.
Pretending to look around, he waited for his father and Skipper to disappear belowdecks before he pulled a couple hundred-dollar bills from his wallet, walking back to the teens. “Hey, guys. I’ll give you each a hundred dollars to walk up to the marina store and wait there until we leave.”
The boys looked at the bills in his hand, then looked at each other and shrugged. After taking the money, they jumped off the boat, all the while whispering between themselves and sneaking backward glances.
Miles turned around, his heart pounding with purpose. Now to find McKenzie.
CHAPTER4
Athrobbing pain brought McKenzie’s hand up to her temple. She cracked her eyes open only to squeeze them shut again as nausea roiled and the pounding intensified.Oh, no. Why was she lying on her back in so much discomfort?
The memories came flooding back—how she had foolishly opened the door to a stranger, been overpowered, and forced to breathe some kind of noxious fumes. She jerked upright, only to be yanked back by something biting into her right wrist.
Rolling her head on the pillow, she stared with rising alarm at the handcuff chaining her wrist to a bar on the brass headboard. She whipped her face the other way and took in the odd dimensions of an unfamiliar bedroom. The built-in cabinetry and rounded window made it apparent she’d been stowed aboard a boat. The telltale rumble of the boat’s engines brought a gasp of protest to her lips. Was the boat moving yet? It didn’t seem to be.
One of her father’s favorite methods of disposing of problematic people was taking them out to sea—and never bringing them back. “No.”
Yanking at the handcuff, she tried desperately to slip her hand through it, only the cuff had been cinched too tightly. She fell back onto the leopard-patterned coverlet in defeat.
There was no denying the truth. The Centurion Cohorthad found her.
A barb of terror lanced her chest and nausea stormed her anew. With a moan of misery, she closed her eyes thinking she might be sick, but the sound of footsteps outside her door had eyes flying open. The latch turned and the door swung inward, revealing a familiar visage. As Ashton Ravenel, her one-time fiancé and Centurion elite, joined her, shutting the door behind him, McKenzie cringed.
The blood drained from her head as he drew closer, smirking. Dressed in white slacks and a yellow Bermuda shirt, still wearing the signet ring that declared him a Centurion, he looked like he might have been vacationing in the Gulf for the summer tan on his fleshy face.
“I see you’re finally awake.” He spoke in the same old-money, southern drawl her father had affected his entire life.
She suffered his oily gaze as he leisurely took inventory of her. “Well. Who could have guessed that such a slip of a girl could cause her father and his entire empire so much grief?”
Don’t listen to him. Just think about escaping.
Seizing the bars of the headboard, McKenzie managed to pull herself up to a sitting position in order to appear less vulnerable. Ashton seated himself on the mattress next to her, causing it to dip. She tried not to flinch as he stretched out a hand. The moist pads of his fingers grazed her cheek as he slid them down her neck, toward her pounding heart. Repulsed, she held his gaze defiantly. His watery eyes, half-veiled by puffy folds of skin, testified not just to his age but to his decadent lifestyle.
“You were supposed to be my bride, McKenzie. What happened to the ring I gave you?”
She’d left it on her dresser the morning before she vanished from Savannah with Miles, taking her mother with her. “One of the servants has it, I imagine.”
Anger glittered in his gray eyes. “You killed your father, you know that? He was my closest friend.”
“He was a snake.” It pained her to say so of her own father, but he truly was.
Ashton drew his hand back and slapped her hard across the face.
With a surge of outrage, McKenzie delivered a roundhouse kick to his head. “Don’t touch me!”
Ashton toppled off the bed, landing on his knees. WITSEC’s mandatory course in self-defense had paid off.
With grim satisfaction, she watched him shake his head to recover from her blow. Her victory was short-lived. Ashton’s breath became labored. He tried and failed to come to his feet. As she waited for his inevitable recovery, remorse plunged through her. She and Miles had come so close to being reunited. So close. Now she would never again know the joy of feeling his arms around her.
Oh, God, what about Your plans to prosper me?
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