The Beachcombers: Prequel - Beachcomber Investigations Series

by Stephanie Queen

  “Come inside. We need to talk.” His clipped command startled her and she jumped around, almost ready to pounce.

  He tilted his head and arched a brow, but then he turned from her and walked inside his side door in no particular hurry. She stood where she was. She did not want to talk to him. She most of all did not want to be inside the close confines of his small house with him. That would lead to nothing good. Turning back toward the water, she took a deep breath and wondered what the hell she’d gotten herself into. But that was ridiculous. This was an assignment. An undercover operation. And it wasn’t her first. He wasn’t the first hard-ass that she’d had to prove herself to.

  But he was the first she wanted to prove herself to as a woman.

  When he touched her shoulder, her heart lurched then hammered and she spun with every muscle tightened and ready for assault. Luckily for them both, he caught her arm and wrapped her up, preventing any harm.

  “Looks like you could use a drink. Come inside.” He purred the words in her ear, his lips touching her hair and his breath fanning the skin of her neck.

  She pushed herself from his arms and he let her.

  “Don’t—”

  “Don’t you say you’re fine.” His voice was calm and that maddened her. Clamping her mouth closed, she turned away and walked inside the house, trying not to feel like she was walking to her doom—or to her bliss. Either way, she had to get back on a professional track and she was sure having a drink with him wasn’t the way to do it.

  When he stepped through the door, she said, “I’ll have ice water. And then I’ll want a place to sleep.” The sure and calm sound of her own voice, in spite of the jumpiness of her insides, made her feel better. Maybe she could pull this off after all.

  If he left her alone.

  His response was to reach for a glass from the cabinet, fill it with tap water and then pry some ice cubes from his freezer tray. God knew how long they’d been in there collecting freezer burn. Then he handed her the glass.

  “Can we sit outside?” She asked in a cross between pleading and polite. He didn’t take his eyes from her, but didn’t respond for a few seconds. She held still.

  “Okay.” He turned and walked back outside. It was like he knew she teetered on the edge of—something. She wasn’t even sure what. Professional suicide maybe? Committing the unforgivably clichéd act of regressing to hormone-driven teenage girl?

  “What—no drink?” Her voice skipped and skittered like her heartbeat, dashing her attempt at cool.

  “I need a clear head to deal with you.” He stopped talking and stopped walking short of reaching her where she stood at the edge of his patio. The table and chairs were all askew, so she didn’t bother thinking to sit and relax even if she could have. She saw the chip in the cement and drew a breath. A gunshot.

  “Say it—girlie.” Shana said. “It wouldn’t be you talking if you didn’t say it. I hear it in your voice and on your mind even when you don’t.” She held herself rigid.

  “Bothers you that much.”

  “You wouldn’t bother calling me girlie if it didn’t bother me. Don’t pretend otherwise. And do not even think of pretending you’re all remorseful about it now.”

  He laughed softly. She noticed the genuineness of it as if it was the first time he bothered being genuine—or allowed himself to be.

  “So I’ll ask you again—what’s your story, Dane the Demon?” She did not fold her arms and glare at him, but she knew her voice told him that’s how she meant it.

  He surveyed the waterfront, paused his gaze on the glittering lights of a yacht close by in the harbor and swept it slowly across the horizon until his eyes ended up on her. She didn’t interrupt his silence. Figured an impatient demand would get her nowhere fast and so she met his quiet stare. Taking a step closer, he finally spoke.

  “It’s none of your goddamn business. Least that’s what I tell myself. But maybe the truth is you have a right to know since we’re partners. Haven’t had a partner in a very long time.” He stopped and turned back to the water. Then he reached over and grabbed her hand. “Come on.” He drew her across the patch of grass that led to a cement wall at the water’s edge.

  Sitting and dangling his feet into the water, he patted the spot beside him for her to do the same. What the hell—she may as well. Could be he’d tell her something useful. Could be she needed some calming down and the lapping water might do the trick.

  “No sandy beach for you?”

  “Out of my price range.”

  “And I thought hired guns made all kinds of money.”

  He snapped his head around to squint at her. “That what you think, eh?”

  “Call me wrong.”

  He shrugged. “No matter. Money doesn’t matter much. Not anymore. If it ever did.”

  They sat in silence for a while. She sipped her cold drink and felt the water drift up and down her ankles to her knees and back and damned if she didn’t feel soothed. Leaning her head back to take in the pitch-black night between a few tree branches she spotted the pinpoint lights of stars and smelled the salty air of the harbor and felt the cool clamminess settle in around her.

  “Maybe I ought to sleep out here.”

  “There’s a hammock if you want. Help yourself. But then I’d have to sit in a chair and watch guard all night to make sure no boogeymen like Ned came calling. He’d guess you were here if you weren’t at your place.”

  “There a reason you want him pissed at you?”

  “Sure. Time’s a-wasting for Susan Whittier with the competition starting tomorrow. We need him to show his hand one way or another.”

  “And what about Jean Luc?”

  “What about him? He’s a big boy. I figure if he rats us out, we move fast. We have the advantage being on an island; otherwise he’d be gone. But he probably would figure that out and play it cool.”

  “Do you think Jean Luc will rat us out?”

  He shrugged. He turned and looked at her and that look made her swallow. Made her heart beat faster again.

  “You stuck on him?”

  “No. I’m stuck on you.” The words, her thoughts, her thudding pulse—none of it could be contained any longer. She thought she saw his eyes widen for the briefest of time.

  Then he smiled. It was that genuine smile again, showing his teeth and wrinkling the weather-beaten corners of his eyes, but instead of making him look older it made him look boyish. She reminded herself that he was more wolf than boy or man.

  “I sensed an attraction,” he said.

  She laughed. He reached a hand out and threaded his fingers through her hair in an intimate gesture.

  “I know it’s mutual,” she said.

  He said nothing and it maddened her, raising her temperature in anger and lust both. He would be the death of her. He could be the end of her career, she told herself again and took a deep breath, still watching him watch her.

  “Clearing the air—it’s supposed to be a good thing,” she said. Sounded lame to her, but it was all she had. She felt a plea for his mercy welling up inside her, but it never escaped.

  He pulled her closer by her hair. Leaning into her, he cupped his other hand under her chin and took her mouth with his. Covered her lips with his hot ones so that she tasted his salty sweat and a slight tang of the beer he’d had earlier and felt the velvety roughness of his tongue on hers and the demanding, luscious fullness of his lips sucking on hers and his saliva mixing with hers. She heard nothing but the rushing of blood in her ears and the pounding of her heart as she grabbed the front of his shirt for balance and to hold onto him. The sting of his hot skin through the shirt scalded her like an exquisite thrilling pain. A forbidden thrill.

  She pushed from him and the world came back at once into her consciousness and she heard his hard breathing and saw the beads of sweat on his brow and one line of sweat trickling down the column of his neck over his Adam’s apple. The staccato pace of her heart hadn’t slowed with the end of their kiss
. This was the beginning. Of big trouble.

  There was a slight tremble to his fingers as he unfisted his hand from her hair and pulled back. Breathing heavy, he tried for a cleansing deep breath to regain his control.

  “It’s definitely not a good idea to clear the air. Best we go on ignoring the attraction. We have a job to do.” He watched her as he said the words and he meant them. She only stared back at him with those kiss-swollen lips and electrifying green eyes and heaving breasts. He meant to get up then and walk back inside.

  The booming noise of fireworks in the distance startled them both and he grabbed her arms automatically, leaning into her protectively as he turned to the noise and lights of the colorful display. She gave a nervous laugh.

  “Let’s get inside. You’re under my protection, bottom line. No matter what else is going on or not going on between us.”

  She said nothing, and he thought he’d have appreciated her relative quiet this evening, but it unnerved him. He needed her to be her chippy self so he could keep up his defenses. He didn’t want to like her or feel anything but animosity toward her—not even protectiveness. He hated that he felt protective. Most of all he hated that he felt the lust. That’s what it was. He needed for that to be all there was. Nothing else. He could afford nothing else between them.

  “Maybe we should have it out.” He pushed the door open and stepped aside for her to walk in, but she stumbled and he caught her arm. The sting of her hot skin sent a shot of desire pinging through him so that he let her go and fisted his hands again.

  They walked inside the house and he let the sultry warmth surround him and seep in.

  “I thought we decided clearing the air was a bad idea?”

  “Any other ideas?”

  “How about self-restraint?”

  “You got any left, girlie?” He almost smiled but kept his mocking tone for safety.

  She laughed.

  “What happened to that chip you had a couple hours ago?”

  “Maybe it melted under all the heat.” She gave him a look. “You still haven’t shared anything meaningful about who the real Dane the Demon is—and what’s with the Demon tag anyway?”

  “That’s the general and his idea of team bonding. Everyone gets a name.”

  “Kind of like you naming me girlie?”

  “That’s not a name. Your name would be something else if the gen—Governor Douglas, I should say since he’s your boss—”

  “Isn’t he your boss too?”

  “More like my client. But he’s still the general to me.”

  “So what yellow brick road did you take to lead you to be a semi-retired hired gun living in a beach shack on Martha’s Vineyard?”

  “When you put it that way it sounds like it should be an interesting story.”

  “So tell it and I’ll be the judge.”

  He scoffed and still resisted, but there was an urge to talk bubbling up. The resistance had grown paper thin under the weight of his weariness. He’d needed a rest and this was what happened when the soul-crushing weight of too much darkness, too much blood and too many evil men crossed his path. He needed the peace and quiet and tranquility to assimilate it all. To not feel like the world was a second hell. He took his stare from the ocean and saw she was watching him with her newly adopted patience. She must sense he was cracking, that her warmth had crumbled his defenses. Even his professional pride wasn’t a match for the need in his soul to connect with her.

  “I started out as a surfer in California. When I was sixteen—halfway through high school and making a name for myself in the waves—we moved. My mother and I. It was always my mother and I. My father died in the service when I was fourteen. I supposedly take after him. A lot.” He didn’t mention that his father had been something of a womanizer and had married his mother because she was pregnant. Then he realized he might be more his father’s son that he’d like to admit. He could smell Shana’s sweaty heat and it gave him a rise, God help him.

  “Then we have that in common.”

  “Your father a war casualty?”

  “Of a sort. He died. Line of duty police officer when I was fifteen. I was the oldest—and the biggest. I grew up fast to help my mum take care of my three younger brothers until the ingrates towered over me.”

  “So you’ve been proving yourself all your life.”

  She nodded.

  “I never had to prove myself. Things came easy. Until the move back east. But once I joined the army and the rangers and special services and was recruited by Peter John Douglas—not a general, but that was our tag for him—things started getting easy again. I had a lot of pluck as an ignorant young man.”

  “And now?

  “Don’t have to tell you about now. You’re looking at me.”

  “I see a tired man. Still lots of pluck if that’s your less offensive word for arrogance.”

  He laughed and she went on.

  “I see a very accomplished and scarred man and one who’s driven, but I’m not sure by what.”

  “Does there have to be some deep dark secret driving a man? Can’t it be a quest for justice? A quest to lay his own swath of rightness over the scorched hell of the world?”

  “A closet poet?”

  “A solitary man who does some periodic soul searching about his badass crazy unconventional life.” Right now the scar of a lost love and no children stung most of all. But he didn’t dare tell her that.

  She nodded and her eyes softened, lost their lust and gained a melted heartfelt quality. He felt his heart speed up in recognition of that look and the way it touched him. The way he felt drawn to it like a man seeing a desert mirage.

  “I understand,” she said as she took a step toward him into the circle of his arms, before he even realized he’d held them out to her.

  “And you lost a love?” She held herself back with her hands against the beating of his heart. No sense trying to hide from her now.

  “I had one love.” The words cost him. The clench in his gut tightened as he held her against him. “Her name was Elena and she… died.” He’d never told anyone how. People knew. The people they’d worked with. The people he hadn’t seen in fifteen years until now.

  “How?” Shana whispered the question and pleaded with her intense green eyes, her nostrils flaring as if with the effort of restraint.

  “I’ve never told the story.”

  “In for a penny,” she whispered.

  When he pulled back, she held on. He sighed.

  “After Special Ops I did a stint with Chicago SWAT and we worked together—Elena and I. And…we had a relationship. Serious.” He paused to watch her react. She looked interested, but since she knew the end to this particular story, he figured that stopped her from feeling more. He went on.

  “She was undercover in an operation I was overseeing involving gun smugglers. It was time to take down them down. She ignored my command to shut it down and return, ignored orders from the chief. Instead she tried to back out with the man—the perp heading up the gun-runners. We went in guns blazing. She—they both—got caught in the cross-fire. She didn’t make it.” He watched Shana’s eyes dilate as he said the words and felt her intake of breath and the simmering outrage on his behalf. The tension eased from his shoulders and he pulled her closer, but she still stared straight into his eyes, so he finished the story, answered her unasked question.

  “I quit Chicago and worked for an international security firm until I went solo a few years back. Outside the country most of the time.”

  “Serving justice and the American way,” she said. They both smiled like they meant it.

  “Wish it were as simple as it sounds.”

  “Let it be simple,” she whispered and moved the barrier of her hands, melting against him, hot and simmering.

  “You talking about the job… or us?” He touched his lips to her earlobe and nibbled, breathing in her scent, the salt air, and allowing tendrils of her hair to whisper against his beard-roughene
d chin. He shuddered.

  “I… don’t know. But I can promise you I’m not an Elena.” She turned her head and brushed her lips along his jaw and found his mouth as if to seal her promise.

  His stomach tumbled at the way she spit the name Elena as if it were a curse. He felt light-headed as he tasted the warmth and salt of her mouth on his lips and the rough hot sponginess of her tongue tangling against his. The solace filled him like he hadn’t felt in years. The way she filled his arms, pulsing and alive and warm, she soothed him with her solid frame and scorched him with her desire. Their kiss felt right. Made him feel right.

  He let her warm him and let himself go, let himself peel away her clothing and his. And peel away his defenses, let her sink into him and let himself sink into her. All the way.

  Chapter 19

  Reports on swell size and wave heights dominated the morning weather report on the local news, proclaiming the conditions perfect for the competition, before Dane could shut his radio alarm clock off.

  “Damn. I was hoping for a reprieve,” he muttered as he tossed the sheet aside and shoved his feet to the floor. Glancing over his shoulder, he took in Shana’s too-sexy-for-fair-play form, the thick blond curls splayed over the white of the pillow as she turned lazily in his direction and squinted open her eyes.

  “You were hoping for a reprieve? From what?” she said in a raspy voice, worn from the screams of rhapsody, he imagined. Or maybe rusty from the night’s short sleep.

  He had predicted in his own mind that it would be awkward this morning, but he hadn’t expected the jump in his pulse as her scent wafted toward him and her voice played on his nerves. He fisted his hand to stop himself from reaching out to her. He had to remember their objective. Ned. The Brazilian brothers. The women they bought and sold and did unspeakable things to in between. He shuddered at the rush of fear for Shana’s safety. Turning away, he stood, naked, and headed for his bathroom without speaking. He needed to be all business now. They both did.