Galen's Gemma - Dale Mayer Page 0,48

and nobody will ever find you. And, yeah, I’ve got your partner,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll be there in a few minutes. Count on it.”

And, with that, he hung up. He picked up the guy, tossed him into the backseat of his getaway vehicle, giving him one more punch to the head to make sure he stayed out. Turning the guy’s vehicle around, Galen drove slowly back to where he had parked earlier with Zack. Then he dragged out the unconscious man, threw him over his shoulder, and hoofed it down to the cabins.

As soon as he got there, the door opened, and Gemma took one look at him. “Are you okay?” she cried out, as she sat up, still on the floor, seated by Becky, patting the girl, calming her.

He nodded and dumped the second man onto the floor in front of the gunman, who still held his own handgun. In the same calm movement, Galen ripped the gun away from him. “You shouldn’t fucking touch these.” Reaching up, he brought the barrel of the gun down hard on the bewildered gunman’s head.

With an odd look on his face, the man went down next to his buddy.

Galen promptly searched him, finding a second gun which he also pocketed. Galen looked over at Gemma. “The question is, are you and Becky okay?”

Looking at the two men on the ground, she looked up at him, now standing. “Remind me never to piss you off.”

“Sweetheart, you can piss me off all you want,” he said. “I would never hit you.”

She smiled, walked into his arms, and held him close.

He looked down to see Becky staring at them from the floor, obviously shocked at the sudden turn of events.

He opened his arms and said, “It’s okay, sweetheart. Come here.”

She raced toward them and wrapped her arms around both of them. Then he turned his gaze to the bitch of a mother. “Well, hello, Rebecca.”

She stared at him in shock, then down at the two men on the ground. Immediately her tone of voice changed. “Well, thank God, you got those two men,” she cried out, rushing toward him. But his arms didn’t open for her. She halted a few steps from them. “Of course I had to say what I said,” she told her sister. “You have no idea how they treated me.”

“Yeah, I do, Rebecca,” Gemma said tiredly. “Give it a break, will you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I set up electronics at Joe’s cabin.”

“What are you talking about? What electronics?”

“You know that we installed cameras at Joe’s house. But we also installed them at Joe’s cabin, when you went to lie down,” Gemma said, hating what was happening. “So we have damn-near everything recorded from the cabin, where you just came from with your so-called kidnappers. Plus, Galen and Zack were there and heard damn-near everything from outside the windows.”

Rebecca turned to look at them. “This is ridiculous. You can’t actually think that I would hurt Becky.”

“I have no idea what you would do,” Galen noted. “I don’t know you, but I’ve seen enough to know I don’t need or want to know any more about you,” Galen said. “What I’ve heard out of your mouth is ridiculous as it is. You’re not my kind of people.”

She sneered. “You’re male. I’m female—that makes me your kind of people. But don’t worry, I don’t want anything to do with you either. You’re a loser.”

“Absolutely,” he said. “By your standards, I probably am. That makes me a winner by mine.” And, with that, he looked down, smiled at Becky, and said, “It’ll be okay.”

She nodded and turned to look up at her mom. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” her mom snapped. “Remember who you’re talking to.”

Chapter 15

Gemma winced at that. “Man, if I had a dollar for every time our mother said that to us …”

“Absolutely,” Rebecca said. “And I’m raising my daughter just the same way.”

“Why would you do that?” Gemma asked. “You know how much she hated me.”

“Of course I do,” she said. “But Becky won’t be like you, I won’t allow it. No matter how hard you try.”

“And what exactly is that? She likes animals. She likes being out in the country. What do you mean by, not like me?”

“She’ll behave and be a good girl. She’ll marry well, and she’ll do her mother proud.”

“Not likely,” she said. “That’s your agenda, not hers. She should be able to make her life as she wants it and to be