“Shit.”
She turned to Dane. It was the first thing he’d said to her since the shootout.
“What?” No use trying not to sound worried now. All the worry she’d held in for the last few days came spilling out of her until she had to bite her lip to keep from crying on the spot.
“It’s the governor and the Chief of the State Police.”
Shana turned, strained to get her professional cool back, and watched the two men pile out of the copter. Then she saw a third. Exhaustion pulled at her more than panic about her career ambitions and making an impression.
“And David Young, Chief of the Scotland Yard Exchange Program.” Dane turned to her. “Your boss.”
He walked forward to meet the landing party short of the rotor spin, dragging her with him. She clung to her last grain of control. She still wore her bathing suit, although one of the nurses had given her a dressing gown to cover it up after she refused to be checked out in the emergency room. There was nothing wrong with her that a good meal and a shot of something strong wouldn’t cure. Or maybe a night in the arms of a good man was the cure she needed. She glanced under her lashes at Dane and wondered if he’d understand. Her worry picked up, thinking about it layering on top of the deep weariness.
They met the three overdressed, distinguished-looking men on the grass as the copter’s rotors slowed to a stop and the engines silenced. She lifted her chin. Scraping all the bravado she had left into place, she gave them her steely professional stare, hoping she wouldn’t burst into tears.
“Peter—you’re late for the party.” Dane put his hand out and the man she presumed to be Governor Peter John Douglas took it and then pulled Dane in for a man hug. She watched Dane tap his friend’s back in affection and saw the real smile on his tired face. It pinched at her gut. She felt like an outsider. Again.
“This is the lovely Shana George, rescuer of Susan Whittier and indispensible on our mission,” Dane said and put his hand on her back. He gave her a wink. If it were anyone else in the world she’d have sworn there was pride in his words of introduction.
The governor was gracious and no one mentioned her ridiculous outfit—or lack thereof—as she was introduced around. The numbness returned to her as a matter of survival. She felt like she was watching a play and some actress played her role as she shook hands and said the right things. They made arrangements for statements to be made back in Boston with the respective chiefs since Cap was down. A trooper was sent to collect her things and within an hour—before Cap was out of surgery—she and Dane were dressed in dry clothes and in the copter with the bigwigs on their way to Boston.
Meeting at the Governor’s Mansion for the debriefing was not what Shana had expected. After the helicopter landed, she’d been swept up by Chief Young’s staff and taken to a hotel where she was pampered—treated to dinner and then the spa and shopping the next day. Now two days later, it felt like her week on Martha’s Vineyard was some long ago memory from another world. Except for Dane. He felt like the only real thing in her life right now. His face, his touch, his smell filled her mind; the way he’d touched her and his intense stares filled her dreams. She wished to hell she knew where he was or had his cell number.
Giving up on feeling disgusted with herself at her girlishness, mooning over a man—especially that man—she’d forgiven herself because he was that man. Legendary. Shana followed the state trooper down a hall and into a large comfortable room with couches, chairs and a large desk, holding herself steady and erect though her nerves jumped, making her feel like a disconnected live wire.
Governor Douglas, her boss David Young and Chauncey were all seated when she walked in. They all rose at once. She smiled at Chauncey and went to him without hesitation, clasping him in a lopsided hug to allow for his arm sling.
“I’m glad to see you’re all right. I thought you were in dire straits when they coptered you to Boston.”
“No. A clean shallow wound half healed by all the salt water.” He smiled at her, then tilted his head toward the governor. “Peter had me flown back at my dear wife’s request, but don’t tell anyone.”
Peter, looking very gubernatorial until he winked at her, gestured for her to take a seat. She sat in one of the two empty chairs, conscious that everyone wasn’t here. Cap. And Dane.
Dane Blaise. With a sudden jump of nerves, her chest hammered. She was scared to death to see him. She was scared to death she’d never see him again.
Peter smiled at her and looked like he was about to say something, but stopped when the door swung open. They all turned. Except her. She knew it was him. She held herself miraculously still.
“You got coffee in this place?” He walked into the room, attending to the greetings showered on him, shaking hands and exchanging manly pats on the back. He stopped in front of her where she sat. She looked up at him.
“Shana.”
She nodded. Mute. Digging her fingers into the sides of her chair while he pinned her with that stare he had. Accusing, cold and pleading all at once.
“You look fine. Very fine.” He nodded at her in approval and sat in the only other empty chair, the one next to her.
“How’s Cap doing?”
“Well. He should be back at his desk inside a week,” the governor said and sat back down behind his own desk.
While the governor updated them on the FBI’s further investigation into the Tavares brothers, Shana couldn’t move her surreptitious stare from the side of Dane’s head.
“Ned’s in jail along with Ruse and we have an ironclad case with your testimony and that of Susan Whittier. Susan is doing well and her parents, my friends, are very grateful. They’re good people to have on your side, owing you a favor.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dane said. “I can often use a favor.”
The governor chuckled. Chauncey smirked. Whatever reaction might have been appropriate for her, she didn’t know. She concentrated on containing her thunderous heartbeat.
“You all did a brilliant job,” Director David Young put in.
“It was Dane,” Chauncey said. “He’s one of the best actors I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m a terrible actor. That shit was all real, don’t you know?” Dane smiled his professional smile. There was some warmth behind it for these men, his friends, but there was no joy.
He turned to Shana as his smile faded and nodded. “You sticking around for the trial?”
David Young said, “The trial won’t be for several months. We’ll use your affidavits to assemble the case until then.”
“I’m going back to London.” She met his glare for a moment and turned away.
“I’m staying at Martha’s Vineyard for a while. I need to stay put and finally get that restful vacation I had planned.” He stopped speaking abruptly and stood.
The governor took the cue and called an end to the meeting. They left the room and walked through the corridor back to the entry hall. Shana and Dane were escorted to the front portico to a waiting limousine.
“Where we going?” Dane asked the driver, putting his hand out to shake the driver’s hand. “Dane Blaise.”
“Charlie. Simms. Do not call me Charles.” He softened his warning with a grin and nodded at Shana. “Miss George.”
“You’re the new driver? Let me guess—an ex-marine.”
“Very good. I’m the temporary driver—while Joe is on honeymoon. I’m taking you to your hotel, Ms. George.” Then Charlie turned to Dane and said, “And I’m taking you to the airport unless you say otherwise.” He waited next to the open rear door of the limo.
Dane nodded and gestured for Shana to get in first, his blank game face in place.
Once inside with the doors closed, the motor humming and the car gliding, the intimacy of the quiet space overwhelmed her and she turned to Dane.
He spoke softly. “You’ve been quiet.”
“To tell the truth, I don’t know what to say to you.”
“I know exactly how
you feel.”
She looked at him now, forcing herself not to back down, shoving all her fear aside and taking a chance. Would she or would she not see him again, and why?
He met her eyes and looked different, like he’d taken off his mask. He spoke first. “We both have something to prove. You’re trying to prove you’re going to make something of yourself, that you have a future in this game. I’m trying to prove that I can still contribute something, that I’m not all washed up in this game. We’re bookends is all.”
She heaved a sigh, realizing if she wanted to get to the point she’d have to bring it up herself and didn’t know if she could. “Anyone ever tell you that you take yourself too seriously?”
He saw her frustration. He was trying like hell not to be too serious. About her. But then he knew she knew that. He said, “They try. But then I—”
“Don’t say it. I bet you’ve never really killed anyone. Except in self-defense.”
“How the hell you figure that?”
“First tell me I’m right.”
He thought about not telling her, but she was right. Still, all he could give her was a deep sigh of acknowledgment. It was enough to make her smile like the sunrise. Enough to make his chest tighten. It could be a good tightness or a bad one. Jury was still out on it. He couldn’t tell her what she wanted to know. He didn’t know if there was anything for them.
“How long until your next mission?”
“Not sure. Maybe I need a vacation in London first.” He surprised himself with the impulsive declaration.
Her smile set the small space on fire, speeding his pulse and calming him at the same time.
“As soon as I have time off I’m planning a vacation to Martha’s Vineyard. Surfing’s tame there. My speed these days,” she said. The sun streamed in the limo window making her golden hair glow and her smooth tanned skin shine. She looked like she was nineteen. He felt like he was eighty. Hell of a thing.
“Then it’s settled.” He nodded, not willing to commit to saying all the words she wanted, all the words she deserved. All the words he was feeling.
“Yeah. We’ll have one of those long-distance, casual relationships. See what happens.” She still smiled at him.
He turned away as his chest tightened to a suffocating pinch. He couldn’t see it happening. He couldn’t see never seeing her again either. He had no idea what the hell to think, let alone say. So he tapped Charlie on the shoulder.
“Head directly to the airport first.”
Charlie glided the car to a stop at the departure curve in one of the terminals at Logan and reached over the seat to hand Dane a piece of paper he supposed was his e-ticket. Dane turned back around to look at Shana. And this was the moment, the time to suck it up, to remember who he was. He was not a coward, not a blackguard or a scum-bucket who used women, no matter what.
He looked at her and saw a warrior princess where a girlie used to be and smiled automatically and proudly. She lit her face with that smile again and her trouble-green eyes turned molten as she leaned forward to catch him in a hug.
He circled his arms around her and nuzzled her neck, smelling her hair, letting it wisp across his face. He pulled back to hold her face in his hands and claim her lips, her luscious full innocent devil lips, with his mouth. He wanted her, craved her, but most of all he feared her. The shock waves of longing and heat and anxiety mingled through him as her hands raked through his hair and caressed the back of his neck and shoulders.
Taking a deep bracing breath, he wondered why he was leaving. Why wasn’t he going with her to her hotel room to spend the night making love to her the way his body screamed at him to do? He wanted that much from her, he knew, but he didn’t know what else he had for her, and not what she had for him. There was too much unknown. He pulled back, letting her lips go as he parted from her, feeling her breath on his face and then the cold air filling the space between them.
He got out and left her in the car without another word between them. No good-bye. No see you soon. No pausing to get his luggage from the trunk. That was one of the good points about traveling lightly. He had no bags to worry about. No arrangements to make. No planning required. He could travel on a dime.
His only baggage was the kind he carried inside his soul.
Shana went back to the hotel to prepare for her flight back to London. She had baggage to pack. She sat on her bed and contemplated her baggage. All of it. The physical and the emotional.
Dane had baggage too, but it was the kind that made him need to travel and not the kind that stopped him. He took it with him wherever he went, and she knew he knew it too. Shana felt unsure and sure at the same time. Sure she’d see Dane again, but unsure why or how or if it would be soon enough.
Chapter 27
A week later, although it felt like a millennium, the island settled down and Dane ventured out past his local coffee shop to visit Captain Lynch at the Vineyard General hospital. Cap’s secretary called to tell him that Cap was in decent spirits after his recovery and almost ready for release from the Island’s small hospital. Dane knocked on the doorjamb and walked into the semiprivate, taking one of the two chairs. He glanced at the empty chair and it made him think of the day he’d met Shana George for the first time.
Inhaling a big breath to ease the churn in his gut yet again, he forced a grin at good old Cap.
“You look like shit,” Cap said.
“That’s my line.”
“At least I’m getting back to work tomorrow, not sitting on my butt wallowing.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dane felt exposed and alarmed because he had been wallowing, but he hadn’t even admitted it to himself—until just now—let alone to another soul. Like always. He took his rule about not confiding very seriously. There was a damn good reason for that rule. The Elena Rule.
Instead of answering him, Cap looked over Dane’s shoulder and, with a big grin, he rose from against his pillows. He was glad to see someone, Dane thought.
But without turning around, Dane knew who that someone was. Before he saw her or heard her, he knew the scent of her.
Shana walked past Dane without looking at him and straight into Cap’s arms for an embrace with a dear friend. She pulled back and examined the bandage at his collar bone and was careful not to jostle his slinged arm.
“You look in good spirits in spite of everything.”
“It’s your beautiful self brightening my day,” Cap said without a trace of anything but sincerity. She felt a warm blush rise up her neck. She’d needed that. She’d needed that strong dose of real emotion to fortify her. She turned to Dane.
When she looked at Dane, she took the envelope from her bag and held it in her hand. It felt old and fragile and she hoped to God it contained the answers he needed and a peaceful end to his story. She thrust it forward at him without saying a thing and cursing the tremor in her hand. She had no idea what to say. Never seemed to know the right things, the things that wouldn’t set him off or make her angry at herself. He didn’t take it. He only stared at her like she was an indecipherable puzzle.
Cap cleared his throat in a Mr. Obvious way and said, “I need to do a few things. You two take a few minutes to talk. Outside.”
She and walked out of the room down the end of the corridor where they found an empty lounge.
“I thought you’d be in London by now.” Dane’s voice sounded scratchy, raw.
“I took a detour.” She sat on one of the hard chairs. She was reminded of the day they’d met, not all that long ago in clock time, and rested the envelope on her lap. She remembered the beach rose he’d given her that day and felt her gut clench at all she’d squandered.
He sat in the other hard wood chair a foot away from her. He said nothing, didn’t ask about her detour, just watched her. Dane being Dane. She added, “I went to Chicago.”
In an instant his demeanor went stiff and wary—even pained—as if she’d lashed the word Chicago at him like a chain acro
ss his soul.
“What business—” Anger cracked the stony surface of his face. She understood and put up her hand.
“None of my business. But that didn’t stop me.”
“Because?” He showed his cruel taunting smile because she’d made herself vulnerable. Even after everything, he still played this game. That gave her pause. That told her how deep his wound went, and too late she wondered if there was no hope of rescuing him. Returning to the fact that she’d already jumped off that cliff, she continued, with her emotions back behind the familiar shutters and her heart beating a little faster as if she might need to run—figuratively of course.
“Because I care.”
As predicted, he scoffed. But it wasn’t the usual offhanded kind of scoff. It was a cruel snarl of a scoff—the kind he’d reserve for the person he reviled most in the world. She took a breath and took another stab at detaching herself, even though she’d planned to make the admission, meant to make herself vulnerable. How could she do it? Did she think he’d thank her for the good news or would he not bother to listen, let alone believe her? No matter at this point—no use speculating since she’d find out quick enough.
“After you dropped me at the hotel, I couldn’t help my curiosity.” She held her hand up again, in case he thought of interrupting her, and gave him a glare. “I called Chicago to find out what happened to Elena. I tried doing some Internet research but found almost nothing on the woman’s death.
“Now, I’m not the most experienced or smartest detective in the world, but that smelled wrong to me.” She paused a beat to test him. He listened passively. Maybe he was curious too, in spite of everything.
“So I called the Chicago P.D. I found out that Elena had one sister, Marion. The department gave Elena’s personal effects to Marion, so I called her.”
“I could have told you about Marion.” His voice was quiet, almost disinterested. But at least Shana knew he was listening, and maybe interested under the self-imposed numbness. She knew what he was doing, how it felt.
The Beachcombers: Prequel - Beachcomber Investigations Series Page 23