Page 39 of Two Hearts' Accidental Heroes

She moved over to the seat beside his, reaching for his hand. “I don’t think you could have stopped Wes from having anything he wanted back then, Rick. He was a different person than he is now. I truly believe he’s changed. I think that he might have seen or experienced something horrific while he was holding me captive. The change in him seemed to happen so suddenly.”

“Would it be wrong to tell you that I kind of fell for you, the first time I talked with you that day on the picnic bench?”

“Did you?” she asked. “It was the first time that I cared what a guy thought of me.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “I’ve always felt so alone, but it was your piercing green eyes that I saw every time I was lonely. I suppose that I fell for you too.”

Rick wrapped an arm over her shoulders, and she left her head nestled beneath his chin.

Until the pilot announced that they would be approaching the airport shortly and asked them to attach their seat belts.

“Where are we going?” Shanna asked, once they landed at Schuster Field, a county airport.

“Supposedly, the house is located outside of a town called Ontonagon, and it’s near a major lighthouse.”

When they stepped off the plane with their luggage, Shanna shivered. “I felt a little queasy in the air, but I didn’t have too much trouble, considering I’ve never been on a plane before.”

“I didn’t even consider that,” Rick said, wrapping his arm around her shoulders again. “I promise that you’re going to get to see everything that you ever wanted to see someday.”

Luke Bryant, their pilot, along with their copilot, disembarked from the plane with them, carrying their overnight bags.

“We’ll be able to stick around here for the next few days if needed, but hopefully we can return to Crystal Rock tomorrow,” Luke said.

“There’s a rental car waiting for us somewhere. I think we’re all booked at the same place, so Shanna and I can drop off our stuff before we go looking for the house,” Rick said.

Ontonagon was a small resort town, which only had a few hotels. Jake had booked a couple of two-bedroom cabins for them.

“This is nice and cozy, isn’t it?” Rick asked, as they carried their luggage inside one of the cabins. “I think that Jake said he rented both cabins for two nights, just in case we had trouble convincing Wes’ mother. He said she’s very attached to Johnny.”

Shanna bit her lip. “Maybe we can convince her to come with us for a while, until Johnny is settled in.”

“I guess we’ll have to evaluate the situation. I’m just hoping she’s as good of a woman as Wes claims she is,” Rick admitted.

After unloading their luggage into their rooms, they both looked at the front door a few minutes later.

“Shall we be on our way?” Rick asked.

“I’m ready if you are,” Shanna replied. “Have you got the directions to the house?”

“I do. And I’ve already entered them into the GPS,” he said. “Are you hungry?”

They’d had something to eat before they’d left Rice Lake.

“I can wait. I think I’m too nervous right now,” she confessed.

They got back into the SUV that Jake had rented for them. “Sometimes, I can’t understand how Jake is able to arrange for things like this so quickly. I wonder where the nearest car rental place is?”

Shanna smiled. “Probably not close.”

Rick drove over the lightly packed snow-covered roads, arriving another fifteen minutes later at the isolated house, high on a hill overlooking Lake Superior.

“I didn’t expect a house that was so large,” she said.

“It looks like it used to be an Inn,” Rick observed, pulling into the long driveway, and parking in a small lot beside the entrance to the house.

She glanced at him nervously. “Are we ready?”

Rick heaved a sigh, stepping out of the SUV and walking around to the passenger door, reaching for her hand as she opened the door.

“I am if you are,” he finally said.

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