Page 180 of The Highlander's Holiday Wife

“Girvin, if you don’t let my sister go,” she said, “I’ll kill Arthur. I swear it. I’ll run him through right now.”

Arthur moaned, but Girvin simply laughed, a chilling sound that bounced around stone floors and walls.

“Do you think I care? He wouldn’t even marry me, after all the years I gave him. He used me, and now he wants to pin all this on me and my brother.” Girvin’s lovely features suddenly contorted with fury. “Kill the bastard and be done with it, I say. Makes no matter to me.”

Despair filled Samantha as Arthur moaned again and slumped down on the table. She’d played her last card.

Braden squeezed her arm, then went to stand beside Logan.

“If you hurt Felicity, you’ll never escape us,” Braden calmly said. “No matter how far you run, we’ll find you. Samantha will never stop looking for you, and neither will the Kendricks. You should give up while you still have the chance for some mercy.”

Girvin seemed to waver for a moment before her features went cold and hard as flint. “I’ll take my chances. Now get out of my—”

Suddenly, rapid footsteps could be heard out in the tunnel.

“That’ll be the police,” Braden said. “There’s no escaping, Girvin.”

“No,” she barked. “Make them—”

She let out a startled cry, dropping her hand from Felicity’s throat as she stumbled. Instantly, Logan was on her, knocking the knife from her hand and pushing her down to the floor.

As Kade and several constables appeared in the doorway, Samantha dashed across the room. Felicity threw herself into her arms, burrowing against her chest. Relief almost took Samantha out at the knees as she held the girl in a fierce embrace.

“What . . . what just happened?” Samantha asked Logan.

Logan, down on one knee and pinning Girvin’s arms behind her back, smiled.

“Look at her leg.”

Blood was flowing from a nasty cut on Girvin’s calf. Standing a few feet away was one of the orphanage boys, holding a sharp and bloodied piece of glass.

“Got yourself a nice little weapon there, eh?” Logan said. “Well done, laddie.”

“I picked it up when one of them bastards knocked over a lantern,” the little boy said. “I couldn’t let that mean lady hurt anyone else.”

Samantha let out a watery chuckle as she hugged Felicity. “Very well done, indeed. Logan, this is one of my boys, Jimmy McGrath.”

Braden came to join them. “Jimmy is the hero of the day, now isn’t he?”

“Had to do something, sir.” His small face scrunched up in a fierce scowl. “Scabby goats were hurtin’ everyone.”

Felicity slipped out of Samantha’s embrace and went down on her knees to hug the boy. Another child snuggled against her, while the remaining two ran to Samantha and wrapped their arms around her legs, sniffling away the last bit of their tears.

She bent over the little ones. “There, now, darlings. You’re safe. We’ll take you home very soon.”

Braden rubbed her back. “Are you all right, my love?”

She glanced up. “Yes, although I feel rather upside down and in a muddle. It’s a bit hard to absorb what just happened.”

“Shock will do that to you. It takes some time for one’s brain to catch up with events.”

Samantha almost laughed. His brief analysis was so wonderfully Braden-like.

Kade strode up to them. “Sorry to be so late. Haxton went squirrely again at the station. Took some persuading to get him to open up again.”

“Well, better late than never.” Logan hauled Girvin to her feet, and she cursed him in protest.

“I’d better look at her leg,” Braden said. “You don’t want to have to carry her all the way through the tunnels.”

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