Storm Force

Nearly a dozen men sat in the uncomfortable seats behind the wire mesh screen that protected the driver and the armed guard in the front.

One of the prisoners sat at the window. Sunlight glinted from his unruly shoulder-length blond hair, picking up the streaks and highlights that summer had burned into it. His face was chiseled, but a few days’ dark beard growth covered his cheeks and jaw. Wide-spaced hazel eyes peered out from under dark brows that arched with sardonic amusement. Despite the shaggy look, the dimple in his chin plainly showed.

He glanced at his watch, then back at Kate. The amusement left his features and concern filled them.

Then the double explosion ripped through the Jeep’s interior.

Dear Reader,

When I look back on life, as I’m sure we all do, wondering how we got to where we are whether for good or bad, I think about the storms I’ve weathered. Personal storms. Broken hearts. Tragedies. Another choice I could have made.

Sometimes it seems as if everything I am today is defined by storms I’ve passed through. But all those things have made me stronger or made me see a little more clearly. Sometimes they made me focus on the little things. And sometimes they broadened my horizons.

More than that, though, I’m an avid storm watcher. I love spring and the wonderful electrical storms that the season brings. There’s something simply exhilarating about lightning streaking across the dark sky. It touches something elemental within me and makes me feel so alive! Those of you who feel the same way know what I’m talking about. And those of you who don’t probably think I need counseling.

Kate Garrett has been weathering her own personal storms for years. But now she’s about to step into the eye of a particularly nasty tropical storm, in the midst of escaped convicts and a sexy man who presents a danger that Kate has steered clear of for years.

I hope you enjoy this one!

Meredith Fletcher

www.bombshellromance.blogspot.com

Storm Force

Meredith Fletcher

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MEREDITH FLETCHER

doesn’t really call any place home. She blames her wanderlust on her navy father, who moved the family several times around the United States and other countries. The one constant she had was her books. The battered trunk of favorite novels followed her around the world when she was growing up and shared dorm space with her in college. These days, the trunk is stored, but sometimes comes with Meredith to visit A-frame houses high in the Colorado mountains, cottages in Maine, where she likes to visit lighthouses and work with fishing crews, and rental flats where she takes moments of “early retirement” for months at a stretch. Interested readers can reach her at MFletcher1216@aol.com.

This book is dedicated to Mary Beth Bulmer,

who lived in Florida for years and makes one of

the best Key lime pies in the world!

And to Tara Parsons and Tashya Wilson,

who make it all possible AND presentable!

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

Chapter 1

Bright morning sunlight slashed across the bug-smeared windshield of Kate Garrett’s five-year-old Jeep Cherokee as she sped along the two-lane highway. Staring into the glare through the map of scattered insect anatomy crusted with road dust, she felt the stress of the day already getting to her. Discomfort knotted up across her shoulders and at the base of her skull. If the frustration kept up, she knew her jaws were going to ache, and that would be the first step toward a killer migraine. She so didn’t need that.

“Are you listenin’ to me?”

Kate tucked the cell phone more firmly under her chin. “Yeah, Dad, I heard you. Tyler called you and told you one of my clients is shooting the local wildlife.”

Tyler Jordan was the eighteen-year-old she’d hired to help with the Mathis contract. He was a local youth and good with the Everglades areas all along the Tamiami Trail, but he didn’t much care for the fact that he worked for a woman. Tyler’s father had worked for her father. As a result of their fathers’ influence, they’d gotten stuck working together.

“That guy’s out there shootin’ up everythin’ that moves,” her dad said.

“I got that,” Kate went on. “I told you I was on my way out there.” She cursed silently. When she’d first seen Darrel Mathis she’d known the man and his buddies were going to be trouble.

“Stupid cell phones,” Conrad Garrett fumed in his coarse gravelly voice. “Oughta be a law, I tell you. You were breakin’ up.”

Despite the fact that one of her high-paying clients was off in the bush chasing after wild boar through the Florida Everglades, Kate had to grin at her dad. He claimed to hate new technology, but he was always the first to upgrade to a new cell phone or computer. And he was the one who had bought her kids the new PlayStation 3, then promptly sat down to beat them at every game they wanted to play. Steven and Hannah, her eight-year-old son and five-year-old daughter, didn’t always seem comfortable with her, but they loved Grampa Conrad.

“If I didn’t have a cell phone we wouldn’t even be having this conversation,” Kate pointed out.

“Yeah, well I’m tellin’ you that if they were gonna put in new digital networks to replace the old analog ones they should have at least put in ones that worked.”

Kate loved her dad. He’d held it together for her and her two sisters and brother after their mother had died of ovarian cancer. Kate had only been four years old. She barely remembered her mother.

But she remembered how her dad had taught her to swim and camp and track and hunt. She’d learned how to fish and run trotlines a couple years before she’d gone to school. She was the baby of the family and the only one who hadn’t promptly moved away from Everglades City when the first chance presented itself. Her sisters and brother couldn’t wait to be somewhere else and seldom visited. Janice and Carol were married and lived in Atlanta, Georgia, and Doug was in the navy. Kate and her dad only had each other these days.

During Kate’s younger years, her dad had worked as a hunting and fishing guide through the Everglades, managing big-game expeditions as well as deepwater fishing. Kate had gone everywhere with him.

Her dad had gotten to where he couldn’t stomach the tourist clientele coming in from northern Florida and out of state wanting to fish and hunt in the Everglades wilderness. These days, he worked as a marine consultant, specializing in shallow-water recovery and occasionally dabbling in treasure hunting. Her dad was always and forever finding some new trade or learning a new skill. He’d passed part of that restlessness on to all of his children, and he blamed himself because they’d all left.

“You gotta get out of the guide business, baby girl,” her dad said.

Kate smiled and shook her head. She was twenty-eight years old, divorced for three years, and running her own business shepherding hunters, fishermen, tourists and the occasional university professor through the Everglades. She hadn’t been anybody’s “baby girl” in a long time.

“Not all of us can get certified to do marine salvage,” Kate responded. She checked the road up ahead and saw a big white bus. The rear of the vehicle had Everglades Correctional Institution stencilled across it in blocky black letters. Department of Corrections was written below in smaller letters. She could barely distinguish the passengers but she imagined the hard-eyed men in shackles and orange jumpsuits inside the bus. Everglades Correctional Institution was over in Miami proper and she wondered what the bus was doing traveling the back roads.

“I could get you certified for divin’ and recovery,” her dad offered. “Be no problem at all.”

“Dad, I don’t want to be certified. You like diving. I don’t. Being underwater makes me feel like I’m drowning.”

“Marine salvage is doin’ good business,” her dad said. “And now that we’re in hurricane season again, I’m bettin’ there’s gonna be a lot more business. There’s a storm movin’ in. Should be here by tonight.”

Kate looked up at the eastern skyline. Darkness already roiled on the skyline. By this afternoon the Miami coastline would start feeling the fury of Hurricane Genevieve.

“Why, if I had a little bit of paint and knew you were interested,” her dad continued, “wouldn’t be no trouble at all to add and Daughter after Garrett Marine Salvage.”

Just like you added and Daughter to everything else you were doing when I was growing up. In addition to the guide business, Kate had also spent time overhauling boat engines, replacing decks and coaming, and piloting airboats. Her childhood hadn’t lacked for something to do.

When she’d been growing up, though, she hadn’t felt the need to stand on her own two feet. Now, with the divorce behind her and only visitation with her kids granted instead of custody, she wanted to be her own person. More than that, she needed to be independent.

“All I’m sayin’,” her dad went on, “is that you should think about it. There’s more money in salvage work than in the guide business.”

“I’m doing all right for myself.” Kate bristled slightly. Her ex had pointed out her inability to care for their children in the manner to which they’d become accustomed—expensive summer camps, nannies and international vacations—every time she’d scraped together enough money to hire a lawyer to make an attempt to adjust the visitation. But she’d returned to what she had known, to what she had loved. There was nothing like being out in the wilds of the Everglades away from civilization. She just hadn’t been able to convince her kids of that.

“You got some almighty prideful ways,” her dad said.

“I wonder where I got that,” Kate replied.

“And did anyone ever tell you that stubbornness was unattractive in a young woman?”

“I prefer to think of it as determination.”

Kate slowed as she caught up with the D.O.C. bus. Her dad meant well. She’d never had a person stand by her like her dad did. Through thick and thin.

“Maybe you could just do marine salvage part-time,” her dad suggested.

“We’ve been over this,” Kate said. “You travel too much. How could I maintain a home for Steven and Hannah if we lived and worked off a boat together?”

“We’d find a way, baby girl,” her dad said in his rough, prideful way. “You and me, we’ve always found a way.”

A lump formed at the back of Kate’s throat. “I know, Dad.” She paused, looking around at the thick forests and the sweeping plains of sawgrass that hid the cypress swamps. Mangroves grew in salt water and cypress grew in fresh water. Big Cypress Swamp was all fresh water until the sea invaded it during the occasional tropical storm.

“And that boy of yours,” her dad said, “why he’d love a chance to play at being a pirate lookin’ for lost treasure.”

Maybe with you, Dad, Kate thought. Steven remained distant from her despite her best attempts to get closer to him. Every time he looked at her, Kate got the feeling that she just didn’t measure up, that he faulted her for leaving.

Looking back on her marriage and divorce, Kate had to admit that he was right. She’d never belonged in Bryce Colbert’s world. He was computers and international deals, long business trips spent in Europe and interviews in Forbes and Money.

She’d always been her father’s daughter. At home in the small towns in southern Florida with the bush and mosquitoes. Tall and athletic, she didn’t look like the tiny fashion dolls Bryce seemed to prefer. She was five feet ten inches tall, had curves that turned the heads of most men, and a thick mane of auburn hair she wore past her shoulders that had humbled the hairdressers in several New York salons. Freckles scattered over the bridge of her pug nose couldn’t be hidden by cosmetics. Her eyes were such a dark green they sometimes looked black.

This morning, since she was going to be in the brush, she wore heavy khaki pants, a black T-shirt under a tan Banana Republic vest and hiking boots. Wraparound amber-tinted sunglasses protected her eyes and she wore her hair tied back. Back when she’d met her future ex-husband, she’d been dressed much the same. She was definitely not Bryce Colbert’s kind of woman.

But Bryce had blown into her world like a hurricane and swept her off her feet. He’d been ten years older, with one marriage already in flames and a string of jilted lovers behind him. Kate hadn’t known that then.

Nine years ago, Bryce had hired Conrad Garrett to lead him and a small party through the Everglades on a hunting expedition. Bryce had brought a woman with him, but she didn’t take to the rough living conditions and the fact that he was paying more attention to Kate than to her. The woman left in a hurry.

At that time, Kate had felt a glow of pride that she was able to turn the head of a man like Bryce Colbert. He was so confident and so sure of what he wanted. Kate hadn’t responded to Bryce’s advances at first, which had only seemed to increase his desire for her. In the end, though, she’d been thoroughly captivated by Bryce’s charm and he’d been driven to win her. That kind of infatuation, and she knew now that’s what it had been, was nothing but trouble.

Shortly after the marriage, Kate had gotten pregnant with Steven. The marriage started falling apart almost immediately, but Kate busied herself with raising her child. There was nothing in the world that she loved like her son and daughter. For the first time she’d known what had prompted her father to set his life aside for her till she was grown.

During the six years of her marriage she’d lived in New York and tried to fit in. She’d worn the dresses Bryce had bought for her, gone to the salons he’d pointed her to, and taken classes to learn how to entertain in his home. Only later did she realize how hard she’d worked to become a trophy wife. She’d been competing in an arena that she didn’t even care about, but Bryce had somehow brought out the desire in her to be the perfect Stepford wife. In the end, she knew she hadn’t been much different than the fish, deer and wild boar trophies she sent home with her clients.

Even before the divorce, Bryce had resumed dating. He hadn’t even tried to hide it. Or maybe his infidelity had gone on longer than Kate had known. Now, she didn’t want to know. Whatever had drawn him to her in the beginning was gone. Bryce had gone back to the same kind of woman he’d always pursued.

Five years old and impressionable, Hannah always talked about the women her daddy dated. She didn’t see the pain it caused Kate, and Kate wouldn’t have let her daughter see it for anything. Hannah was fascinated by the clothing and jewelry the women wore, how her daddy was always dating “princesses.”

Kate wasn’t jealous. For the most part. During the marriage, and especially during the divorce when his attorneys had painted her as a gold digger in court and in the three years since, when he’d fought off every attempt she made to see more of her kids, she’d learned that marrying Bryce Colbert was the biggest mistake she’d ever made.

Of course, she’d made some good ones later too. Agreeing to guide and care for Darrel Mathis’s group was one of those.

“Maybe we could talk about this later,” Kate suggested. “You’re breaking up at this end.”

“Sure, Kate, sure,” her dad agreed. “Didn’t mean to step on any toes.”

“You didn’t.” Kate hated to make her dad feel like he’d said or done anything wrong. “I’ve just got my hands full today.”

“When Tyler called me this morning—”

Kate fully intended to address the “Tyler issue” as soon as possible. Tyler had called her dad no doubt thinking that calming down a drunken hunter was more a man’s work. Wisely, though, her dad had called her.

“—I thought about goin’ out there myself,” her dad said. “Takin’ care of it for you.”

“That would have been a mistake, Dad.” Kate heard the icy anger in her voice.

“I knew it,” her dad told her. “That’s why I called you. But I also knew you had to pick up the kids from the airport in Miami today.”

Kate glanced at her watch. It was 6:14 a.m. She made herself take a deep breath. “I’ve got plenty of time to do that.”

“Yeah. Figured you did.”

Hearing the hesitation in her dad’s voice, Kate relented a little. “I appreciate the thought.”

“Sure. No problem. Did you ever find out why the Toad’s sendin’ the kids down?” Her dad never used Bryce’s name, as if by not acknowledging it he could strip away her ex’s dignity. Toad was short for “scum-suckin’ toad.”

“No.” Outside of the four weeks she got to see Steven and Hannah in July every year, Kate rarely got to have her children. She spent Christmases—either before or after, according to Bryce’s plans—in New York. Surrounded by the snow and the hustle and bustle of the city, she always felt like an alien.

“Did you ask?”

“No.”

“You should’ve.”

“I’m getting to see my children,” Kate said in a tight voice. A lump formed in the back of her throat as she thought about all the times she couldn’t see them. Her vision blurred and tears threatened to leak down her cheeks. She steeled herself. “I’m not going to question that.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” her dad agreed. “I should be clear here in a day or so. Okay if I come by?”

“Of course. They would love that.”

“What about you? Or have I worn out my welcome this mornin’ bein’ a busybody?”

Kate grinned, knowing that despite her dad’s gruff demeanor he really was feeling awkward now that he’d said everything he had. “I’m willing to tolerate it,” she told him.

“That’s good,” her dad said, sounding a little relieved. Most people, except for the ones that really knew him, wouldn’t have noticed the change. “Mighty good. I’ll call you before I come over.”

“Just come, Dad.”

“I will. An’ if you need anythin’, let me know.”

Kate said she would, told him she loved him, and pushed the end button. She tapped the brake to slow down and slide behind the D.O.C. bus as it rounded a sweeping curve between towering cypress trees. Her thoughts ran to her kids again.

Her dad was right: she should have asked Bryce why he was sending Steven and Hannah. During the past three years, he’d never let her see them any more than the court order had declared. For Bryce, custody was all about power and controlling his financial vulnerability. From all accounts, Bryce didn’t spend that much time with Steven and Hannah, but paid others to. She kept having visions of her kids growing up in a vast, empty apartment among strangers.

Put that away, Kate told herself. There’s nothing you can do about it right now. You’re working to change that. Stay with it.

The two-lane highway straightened out again. Kate knew for a fact that the Florida Highway Patrol and the Collier County Sheriff’s Department didn’t monitor the highway. In fact, she was surprised that the D.O.C. bus was using the route. The road was well off the beaten path.

Her cell phone rang.

Kate scooped it up and answered automatically. “Garrett Guides. Kate Garrett speaking.”

“Kate, where the hell are you?” Tyler Jordan sounded scared and pissed and out of breath all at the same time.

“On my way,” Kate said.

“Well, you need to hurry. That damned idiot is out there shootin’ up half the Everglades. He gets around some of the regulars through here, they’re gonna shoot the ass offa him.”

“I’m getting there as quick as I can,” Kate said. “Faster than my dad would have. He was over in Miami when you called him. If you’d called me first, I’d have been a few minutes closer by now.”

“This didn’t seem like something a—” Tyler caught himself just in time and closed his mouth. “Like something you’d want to deal with,” he finished lamely.

A gunshot cracked over the cell phone connection.

“That was Mathis?” Kate asked.

Three other gunshots followed in quick succession.

“Yeah,” Tyler said. He swore vehemently. “He’s a crazy son of a bitch, Kate. If it’s movin’ out there in the brush, he’s shootin’ at it. Damn wonder he ain’t shot nobody. He’s an anesthesiologist, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Something tells me that man’s been raidin’ his own goodie box.”

“Give me fifteen more minutes,” Kate said. She put her foot down harder on the accelerator, getting ready to pass the D.O.C. bus. “I’ll be there.”

Another gunshot echoed over the phone connection.

“Sure,” Tyler said sourly.

Kate pulled alongside the D.O.C. bus. She couldn’t help glancing inside the vehicle.

Nearly a dozen men sat in rigid-looking seats behind a wire mesh screen that protected the driver and the armed guard in the front.

One of the prisoners sat at the window. Sunlight glinted from his unruly shoulder-length blond hair, picking up the streaks that summer had burned into it. His face was chiseled with a few days’ dark beard growth lightly covering his cheeks and jaw. Wide-spaced hazel eyes peered out from under dark brows that arched with sardonic amusement. Despite the shaggy look, the dimple in his chin showed plainly. He wore the familiar orange inmate jumpsuit.

He glanced at his watch, then back at Kate. The amusement left his features and concern filled them.

“Just do what you can,” Kate said into the phone. She tried to shake the prisoner’s gaze but found it hard to look away. The man was handsome and she couldn’t help wondering what he had done to get locked up. “I’ll be there as soon as—”

The double explosion ripped through the Jeep’s interior. At the same time that she realized the sound had come from beside her and not from the cell phone, Kate saw the bus’s front tire shred and come apart. Chunks of rubber flew through the air and slapped against the Jeep, knocking bug debris from the windshield.

Throwing the cell phone down, Kate put both hands on the wheel and tried to speed up as the bus crossed the dotted lines. Before she was able to get clear, the bus slammed against the Cherokee’s right rear quarter panel.

Although the collision barely caught the Jeep, the vehicle wobbled and the tires tore free of the highway pavement. Kate tried to shove the transmission into four-wheel-drive with the shift-on-the-fly selector but by then it was too late.

The Jeep swapped ends, spinning out of control. Metal screeched as the bus slammed into the smaller vehicle again, driving it like a battering ram, striking again and again. The passenger window shattered and fell away. The side mirror crumpled inward and fell off.

Kate struggled to recover, jerking the steering wheel and alternately hitting the brakes and the accelerator. Evidently the bus driver was trying to do the same thing because the bigger vehicle tore free. As she tried to regain control of the Jeep, Kate watched in horror as the D.O.C. bus fell over on its side.

Careening wildly across the two lanes, the bus left a trail of sparks. The sound of tortured metal shrilled over the area, startling dozens of birds from the trees and filling the sky with feathery clouds for a moment.

Then Kate lost sight of the bus as the Jeep left the road and skidded into the swampy treeline. She held on grimly as the vehicle crashed through the brush. The seat belt felt as if it was cutting her in two as it restrained her. She came to an abrupt stop against a cluster of knobby-kneed cypress trees in black water.