Lovely, Dark, and Deep (The Collectors)

by Susannah Sandlin

  He stuffed a few clothes in the duffel and strapped it shut. “I grew up on the water but I was a combat diver for the Marines, yeah, and a SEAL instructor.”

  Shane’s history had developed a minuscule crack, but he didn’t seem inclined to open it further.

  “And let me guess,” she said. “We’ll talk about it later.”

  “Nope.” Shane hefted the duffel on one shoulder and gave her a look she couldn’t interpret. “We aren’t going to talk about it, period.”

  Okay. Add that to the list of subjects to explore later. Then again, she probably shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking they were friends. They were, as he said, victims, and victimization probably wasn’t a good basis for a healthy relationship. Plus she had her own ghosts whose chains she didn’t want rattled.

  Gillian waited on deck while Shane checked on Jagger and Harley, then they walked back to the Jeep.

  “How’s he doing?”

  Shane shook his head. “Shocked. Angry. He knows damned well it wasn’t a kitchen fire that started it; he’s worked in ship’s galleys too long and is too careful. What we’ve got to decide—you and I—is how much we tell him.”

  Shane drove back across the key toward the west end, taking the curves and ruts a lot slower than he had on the way into town.

  “So tell me what happened,” Gillian said.

  “After I left Jagger’s yesterday and had filled him in on everything, he went to Harley’s for dinner. He spotted that same guy we saw there at lunch—the one who threatened us.”

  Damn it. Son of Tex. “Did he see him set the fire?”

  “No. He hung around Harley’s until the guy left, then followed him back to one of those little B and Bs on Dock Street—only he wasn’t very stealthy. The guy knew he was being followed and spewed some shit about Jagger having to toe the line now that he was involved. Said he needed to be taught a lesson.”

  Jagger had struck Gillian as pretty laid-back. She’d underestimated at first how deep his feelings went, but he still didn’t seem the fistfight type. “So Jag just left him there?”

  “Oh no. It takes a lot to make Jagger truly anger, but he’d finally had it.” Shane laughed a little. “He pushed past him to go inside and talk to the B and B owner, find out who the guy was. The guy didn’t follow him in.”

  Gillian groaned. “No, he went and set Harley’s on fire.”

  “That’s the presumption. McCaul, the innkeeper, said the guy paid for the room in cash, for the week.” He glanced over at Gillian. “He used your name and address—well, Gill Campbell, with an address on Highway 24.”

  Damn it. Surely these guys had to slip up eventually. At least now she understood why Jagger wanted Harley out of town, even if it meant on The Evangeline. “Jagger told me he wants to take Harley with us.”

  “Us?” Shane frowned at her for a second, then looked away. “Yeah, he told me. It’s not a bad idea, because I think we’d have trouble getting him to take a long vacation like you were able to do with your friend.”

  Gillian hoped Vivian had taken her advice, told Jimmy a big old lie, and left the country. Not that it guaranteed their safety, but it would be less convenient for their guy with the long reach.

  “So we either tell him the truth to make sure he’ll be forewarned, or we tell him it’s an adventure and we want him to join us?”

  “Riiiight…” Shane glanced at her again. “Exactly what do you see as your role on this expedition, Gillian?”

  What? Oh hell no, I see where this is going. “I see my role as being the one whose ancestor started this whole mess and who’s getting the instructions from whoever’s really calling the shots. Don’t think you’re going without me.”

  “Ships are floating metal boxes. People prone to claustrophobia or”—he gave her a pointed look—“klutziness don’t do well on long trips. You get cabin fever or injured, and suddenly our whole schedule is off. Everything has to run like clockwork if we have any hope of meeting that deadline.”

  Gillian stared out the window as he pulled the Jeep into the driveway of the cottage. Tank began a steady barking before Shane had killed the engine. She wouldn’t confront Shane about that belittling comment—at least not yet.

  If she’d learned one thing about Shane Burke in the last couple of days, it was that he was stubborn. Forget stubborn. He was downright pigheaded and had an annoying tendency to think he was always right.

  But he was dead wrong if he thought The Evangeline was heading for Canada without Duncan Campbell’s great-great-great-to-the-nth-degree-granddaughter on board.

  CHAPTER 10

  A shard of sunlight stabbed Shane in his right eye, jolting him awake. His lower back hurt like a sonofabitch and his legs seemed to be paralyzed. Or trapped beneath the cover of the foldout futon on which he’d tried to sleep.

  Mostly, he’d stared out at the sky, thanks to all the waterfront windows with no curtains or shades, enjoying the most intense thunderstorm he’d seen all summer. With the little house so near the water and so small—he doubted there was a quarter-inch of insulation beneath that flat roof—it was almost like being out in the storm, except not as wet.

  He’d finally drifted to sleep when the storm died down. At least he’d drifted off after indulging a few stray, irresponsible thoughts about the woman sleeping in an oversized t-shirt only a few feet away. Just his luck the first woman he’d been attracted to in forever had a curse on her head. Not to mention a stupid ancestor. What kind of guy would think he could tiptoe out of Europe with something belonging to one of God’s medieval holy warriors? A guy with more imagination than brains.

  What the hell is up with my legs? Shane tried to roll onto his back and shift his legs, and they finally budged, followed by a growl. A low, menacing, evil, gonna-eat-your-balls-for-breakfast growl.

  He propped up on his elbows and looked at where his feet would be if they hadn’t been covered by a light quilt and pinned by Tank the Hellhound and his mouthful of glistening white daggers.

  “Uh, Gillian?” He wriggled his feet, hoping to make the beast uncomfortable enough that he’d move; instead, Tank snapped at Shane’s foot. If not for the quilt, he’d be minus a big toe.

  Damn, but he didn’t want to start the day out having to ask for help with a stupid dog, for crying out loud. He was a former Marine, albeit a disgraced one, and besides that, he was doing Satan’s master a favor.

  “Shoo,” he whispered to the dog, which responded with that lip-curling Elvis thing he did so well. “Scram. Get thee behind me.”

  Tank rose on all fours, and Shane had to admit he was beaten. “Gillian!”

  A rustle reached him from behind his head. “Wha? Huh?”

  “Your dog is trying to eat me for breakfast.”

  “Oh, that’s silly.” She yawned—at least he thought it was a yawn. He couldn’t turn to see her with his body pinned under a wooly mammoth.

  “C’mon Tank, let’s go outside.” She shuffled toward the door, and Shane was treated to a hundred pounds of canine using his groin as a staging platform from which to dive toward the world outside.

  Shane gritted his teeth and curled into a fetal position. He would not cry. He wanted to sob, but he was a better man than that. He forced himself to unbend and prop his hands behind his head. No pain here.

  “What’s wrong wi—crap!”

  The spot recently vacated by the satanic spawn now was treated to Gillian’s elbow as she tripped and landed on top of him. God help him, the woman was going to be the death of him before he even had a chance to dive and get himself killed in manly pursuits.

  “Sorry.” She sat up and blew a strand of hair from in front of her lips. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure. I didn’t want to have children.” And his voice sounded sexy a little more tenor than baritone, or so he told himself.

  “Pity.” She gave him a wicked little smile. “They’d be really pretty and stubborn as a gator in a mud pit.”

  “Fighting words.” He reach
ed up and flipped her on her back, pinning her with the portion of his lower body that was aching less every second. He propped up on his elbows and was rewarded with that sweet, warm smile he always had such trouble wresting from her although she gave it so freely to his friends.

  Suddenly he was aware of the thin quilt and not much else between them. Heat spread along his nerve endings, and he could tell the moment she became aware of him not as a playmate but as a man who wanted her. Her lips parted. Their hearts beat in rhythm against each other, as if trying to escape their prisons of flesh and bone and muscle.

  “This is a really bad idea.” He lowered his mouth to hers, sucked gently on her lower lip, and finally kissed her.

  “Mmm-hmmm, an awful idea.” She ran strong fingers over his scalp, grabbed two handfuls of hair and pulled him back to her.

  Gillian slid a hand beneath the quilt. “Damn, now he wears pants.”

  A buzzing sound from the table interrupted his assault on her earlobe. They both froze for a second, then Shane rolled off her and went to get it.

  “Your sister’s named Gretchen Bryant, right?” He held up the screen with Caller ID.

  “Oh, God. What do I tell her?” Gillian grabbed the phone and took a deep breath. “Hey, Gretch. How are you?”

  Shane couldn’t deduce a lot from Gillian’s side of the conversation, but she’d mentioned calling yesterday and leaving a message about going on a cruise. Sounded as if her sister hadn’t believed the story.

  Shane paced around the small living area, watching Tank chase a duck across the yard. She needed to say enough to get her sister on alert, to watch what was going on around her, but not enough to send her scurrying to the police.

  He looked around and spotted the box of family papers that had proved pretty useless, and took out an envelope. He found a pen on the counter and wrote:

  Tell Her U Have Stalker. She Shld B Carful.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll come clean, but I don’t want you to worry.” Gillian frowned at his note and mouthed “carful”?

  Great. If she wanted an English teacher she shouldn’t have come to the marina. He wrote an “E” above the word and held it up again.

  “It’s nothing really,” she said, smiling, and making Shane wish that phone hadn’t rung. Knowing the interruption was for the best and liking it were two different matters.

  She continued with the stalker story, assuring Gretchen she was working with the local authorities. “I just want you to keep your eyes open, you know, in case this whacko comes down your way.”

  Next came some baby talk between “Aunt Gillian” and the little girl, Holly, and Shane grimaced, grabbed his clothes, and went to take a shower. That call was a good reminder of why they were here—not to play tongue tussle and watch the pretty sunsets. A child was in danger. Gillian’s friend had been injured. Harley had lost his home. Jagger had been threatened.

  He had to focus on getting The Evangeline stocked and ready, which started with calling his Uncle Charlie. And if that thought didn’t kill any remaining libido, he didn’t know what it would take.

  When he came back out, Gillian had folded the futon back into its makeshift sofa form.

  “Thanks for the save,” she said. “The stalker story worked, I think.”

  “No problem. Now I have to go back and make my own difficult phone call.”

  Gillian set the box of papers in a corner and took one of the seats at the table. “What’s the deal between you and, what’s his name, Charlie?”

  “Mostly me being stupid.” Shane closed up his duffel and set it on the floor beside the door.

  “Seriously? I find that hard to believe.” She gave him that smile again. He could get used to that, well, except that he was getting ready to sail as soon as possible and she wasn’t going. Whether she knew it or not.

  “You don’t know me well enough to agree that quickly.” He stared out the window at the soft sunlight, thinking about Harley and how that could have turned out. Harley was like a dad to Jagger now.

  And Shane had Charlie, the crotchety old man who’d taught him everything. Except running away. He’d learned that all by himself. If he didn’t make it through this fiasco, he didn’t want things to end with Charlie the way he’d left them for the past decade. Even if it meant eating a big dish of crow.

  “I’ll let you know how it goes. Hopefully, he’ll still have some contacts in Canada and be willing to share them without me going into too much detail.”

  Gillian wrapped her arms around Shane’s waist and pulled him into a hug. She was warm and generous and affectionate. And sexy. Why was she alone? No cadre of friends around her except the one in the wreck. No mention of coworkers.

  There was a story behind Gillian Campbell that had nothing to do with old Duncan, but Shane figured it was no more his business than his Marine Corps experience and problems with Charlie were hers.

  He kissed her, memorizing the feel of her lips as they molded themselves to his, the taste of her, the way her hair smelled of lemons and sunshine. In a perfect world, he’d come back with the cross, the bad guys would disappear, and they could see if they had any chemistry in their normal lives. But in a perfect world, there would be no bad guys. In a perfect world, he’d never have met her.

  He leaned over and picked up the duffel. “Okay, I’m off.”

  “What’s next? Need me to go along?”

  Shane shook his head. “Try to get hold of that octogenarian great-uncle of yours and see if he can remember anything. I’ll talk to Charlie and see if…well, I’ll see if he’ll talk back.” Charlie wasn’t much of a conversationalist, or hadn’t been ten years ago. “Jagger’s taking Harley to talk to the sheriff, and then they’re going to start making lists of the retrofitting we’ll need to do, a tally of food and water and fuel supplies, all that fun stuff. I’ll call you after I talk to Charlie and see what you’ve learned from your uncle.”

  He looked out the window again, knowing what he was about to say would be a lie. “Then maybe you can come over to The Evangeline tonight for pizza, and we’ll look at schedules and routes.”

  “Sounds good.” She opened the door and walked outside with him. At the edge of the drive, not growling but also not happy, sat Tank. “Give Harley my best. And Jagger.”

  Shane unlocked the Jeep and got in, hating that he might not see her again unless the trip was successful, but knowing it was safer for everyone if she didn’t go along on the dive trip. And it wasn’t because she was a klutz or claustrophobic or might get hurt.

  No, he wanted Gillian at home because she was a distraction, and it had been a long time since Shane had done a technical dive this complicated. He couldn’t afford to be distracted.

  When he reached the marina, he didn’t see any sign of Jagger’s old blue VW Beetle, which was good. He could make this phone call better without witnesses.

  Shane boarded The Evangeline, went to his bedroom for his old address book—a tattered black thing the size of an index card that he’d hauled around with him since his days in California. He took it back to the galley, poured himself a bourbon and, after a moment’s reflection, poured the bourbon down the sink. Pouring out booze was getting to be a bad habit, but necessary. He also needed to pull out his weights and start a running routine—he needed to get back in prime diving condition.

  But not this morning. Chili would be a healthy breakfast, right? Right. He pulled a can from the pantry shelf, popped off the top, considered heating it, decided it was too much trouble, and sat down at the salon table with a spoon.

  As he punched in Charlie’s number, Shane had a moment of panic. What if his uncle had moved on? He wasn’t that old—early sixties, Shane guessed. Retired from the hard life of seasonal commercial fishing. He could have moved or gone back to work.

  The call rang through, and equal parts of relief and dread washed over Shane at the sound of that deep, gruff voice: “Burke.”

  Shane had been thinking since last night about what to say, how even
to begin this conversation, and hadn’t come up with anything clever. Instead, he went the simple route. “Charlie? It’s Shane.”

  Faced with a protracted silence on the other end, Shane was tempted to hang up, call it a wash. But the image of Harley on the sidewalk in tears, his life burning to ash before his eyes, propelled Shane to take a deep breath. “Guess you’re surprised to hear from me.”

  “How are you, son? Been thinking about you lately, and here you are, out of the blue. You must need money.”

  Shane winced, but it was a fair assumption. For the first six months after leaving the Corps, he’d spent a couple of weeks at a time wallowing in drunken self-pity and whatever woman he could shack up with. Then, when he ran out of money, he’d crawled back to Charlie’s.

  When his uncle cut off the money and told him to grow up, he’d walked out instead.

  “No, I don’t need money, believe it or not. I need some advice.”

  At first the sound coming over the phone sounded like the man was choking, and it took a few seconds for Shane to register his laughter. He smiled himself. “Yeah, that’s a change of pace for me, right?”

  “I’d say so. But you know I’ve always got opinions.”

  Yeah, that was for sure. Opinionated and stubborn were two words that should have Charlie’s photo next to them in the dictionary.

  “Spit it out, then.”

  Part of Shane wanted to say never mind, let’s just talk. But he wasn’t any better at directly tackling the elephant in the room than his uncle. They’d have to talk in circles until they finally got there. At least this particular circle, the request, was something he’d decided how to handle.

  “I’ve been offered a quick-turnaround job up in Nova Scotia and wanted to see if you still had some contacts up that way to grease the wheels for me.”

  “What kind of job is it—fishing? Bad time of year for that. You still in Florida?”

  Shane was surprised. Last time he’d talked to Charlie, Shane had just left North Carolina and gone back to San Diego. “How’d you know I was in Florida?”