Sandpiper Way (Cedar Cove #8)(36)

“I’m finished here,” she told Jane on her way out the door. Jane usually stayed the longest, since she and her husband owned Get Nailed.

With the mall closed, the hallway leading to the exit was semidark and deserted. The dim light wouldn’t have bothered her as little as two months ago, but everything had changed the night she was kidnapped.

Being abducted by two thugs had been the most frightening experience of her life. The bizarre thing was that they’d gotten the wrong woman. The kidnappers assumed they had Teri Polgar because Rachel was in the limo driven by James Wilbur. Teri hadn’t been ready to leave and had offered Rachel a ride. When the kidnappers discovered that, the terror level had escalated by several incalculable degrees.

For a short while Rachel had been convinced they were going to kill her and James and dump their bodies somewhere. They spoke in a language she didn’t understand—Russian, she’d later learned—and frankly, she was grateful for her lack of comprehension. She was terrified enough.

Knowing she might be dead within a few hours, Rachel analyzed her life. Well, not analysis exactly; more like an instantaneous assessment. Oddly, she remembered thinking she hadn’t made her bed that morning because she was running late. The one time she’d left her bed unmade! After her body was found, or her disappearance noticed, all those deputies would traipse through her bedroom and figure she was a slob.

With that rather trivial concern established, her mind had immediately shifted from the mundane to the momentous. All at once it came to her that she might never see Bruce Peyton or his twelve-year-old daughter, Jolene, again. That was when she knew with complete certainty that she loved Bruce. At the time she’d been practically engaged to Nate Olsen, a navy chief. Only it wasn’t Nate who flashed into her mind. Suddenly it became crucial to stay alive. She needed to tell Bruce she loved him. She wanted to be Jolene’s stepmother and have other children with him and spend the rest of their lives together.

Once they’d admitted their love, everything had fallen swiftly into place. When they’d discussed a wedding date, Jolene, with a young girl’s sense of the romantic, had chosen Valentine’s Day.

Rachel wasn’t sure she could get everything organized by then and favored a spring wedding, but Bruce insisted they should be married and living as husband and wife before the end of the year.

So Jolene was campaigning for February, Bruce said December and Rachel wanted April. In a spirit of compromise Rachel and Bruce agreed on Valentine’s Day. Jolene felt vindicated.

Lately, however, two and a half months seemed too far away. Rachel was ready to be Bruce’s wife and Jolene’s full-time mother. Now.

A shadow moved and Rachel automatically tensed. She quickly realized the movement came from a security guard rounding the corner. Exhaling sharply, she walked toward the exit at a faster pace.

Bruce stood waiting for her at the outside entrance, pacing back and forth. When he saw her approach, he smiled—a slow, easy smile that crinkled the corners of his blue eyes and heightened the appeal of his all-American good looks.

“You’re later than you said you’d be,” he told her when she stepped into the cold night air, the mall door swinging shut behind her. The lights in the parking lot shone with a steady, reassuring glow. “I was getting worried.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Rachel hated the thought of him waiting in the cold. She’d told him she could make her own way home, but Bruce came for her as often as he could, intent on making sure she got to her car safely. The kidnapping had frightened him as much as it had her. She’d suggested he come inside the mall to wait, but he declined, preferring to sit in his car and listen to the radio until Rachel finished work.

Rachel cupped her warm hands over his cold ears and reached up to kiss him.

“Mmm,” he whispered. He brought her close and clung to her for a moment before reluctantly letting her go.

“I missed you,” Rachel said.

“I missed you, too,” he murmured, taking her hand. “How much longer are you going to be working these late nights?”

Rachel knew he’d rather she spent the evenings with him and Jolene, but this time of year was just too hectic.

“After Christmas everything slows down,” she said. She assured him of this at least once a day.

Bruce tucked her arm in his and they walked to her car. It was silly for him to come at all, and yet she appreciated his vigilance. Eventually he would believe she was safe. Eventually she’d feel safe again, too. The trauma of the kidnapping would stay with them both, but the possibility of anything like that happening again was remote at best.

“Christmas.” Bruce gave a disgruntled sigh.

“Don’t bah-humbug me, Bruce Peyton. I love Christmas and Jolene does, too.”

He shook his head. “I don’t understand why women are so crazy about holidays. Especially Christmas.”

“It isn’t necessary that you understand.”

He laughed. “You’ve had quite an influence on my daughter. She said almost the identical thing to me.”

Jolene and Rachel had shared a special relationship for years. Because she’d grown up without a mother, too, Rachel recognized the girl’s need for a close connection with an adult friend who could occasionally act as a maternal figure. She’d willingly stepped into that role when Jolene was in first grade, six years ago.