Lovely, Dark, and Deep (The Collectors)

by Susannah Sandlin

  “How the hell are we sup—”

  A loud crack echoed through the room, and both men looked at the cheap red-covered Bible that lay on the floor surrounded by glass. One large shard of tinted glass fell on top of it with a final splintering thunk like an exclamation point.

  Gillian had eased open the nightstand drawer, intending to throw the book at Shane’s head, not at the TV. But at least she’d gotten them to shut up.

  After a few seconds, Shane shifted his glare from the broken glass to Gillian. “Are you insane?”

  “Stop arguing with each other and think about Harley.”

  Shane slumped back on the mattress. “We’re arguing because we don’t know what to do about Harley. They could be anywhere. We don’t know what they’re driving. We don’t know where they’re staying. Wilmington’s a pretty big city, and there are a dozen outlying spots like Southport.

  “We don’t even know what they want. Why the hell was Tex searching the luggage?”

  Good question. Gillian looked at Jagger. “Any ideas?”

  “While I waited for my head to stop spinning or for you guys to get here, whichever came first, I was wondering the same thing,” Jagger said. “Maybe they were trying to see if we had any information on the cross or the dive that we weren’t sharing with them.”

  Tex had never been shy about voicing his opinions before, so Gillian wasn’t startled when her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out slowly, knowing what the screen would say: “Private Caller.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Gillian leaned over the rail near the bow of The Evangeline, scanning the night horizon for a light. Just a light. But everything around her, except the foam atop the waves as the boat cut through them, was black. Black sky, black water, black horizon. Black future. The wind sweeping off the ocean, pelting her face with cold spray, made the air feel closer to low thirties than high forties.

  Eight days had passed since Harley disappeared. Eight days since Tex had taken his hostage; Harley was a “reminder,” he’d said, that they needed to work fast and keep their mouths shut.

  Seven days since they’d sailed out of Southport, bound for the eastern coast of Nova Scotia with a lucky wind at their backs.

  Two days since Shane had last been able to reach Charlie.

  One day, Jagger promised, until they reached Main-à-Dieu, the fishing village on the eastern edge of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where an old fisherman named Chevy McKnight would be waiting for them.

  The week had flown by in a blur of routine. Jagger and Shane took six-hour shifts in the pilothouse. When he wasn’t sleeping or navigating, a tuneless Jagger obsessively reorganized supplies and dive equipment. Shane alternated solitary meditation with long, intense workouts—running laps around the deck with weights tied around his ankles and upper arms, climbing the stairs to the flybridge in sets of ten, or riding a stationary cycle, again wearing weights.

  Gillian caught herself watching him, learning how the different muscle groups flexed under his tanned skin as he worked through his reps. Seeing the utter stillness he managed to achieve when he’d sit on the flybridge with his eyes closed, a god of calm and strength unmoved by the buffeting winds of ocean or fortune.

  Then she’d feel guilty, reminding herself where they were going—and why. She had no business entertaining lustful thoughts about Shane Burke. Still, every time he appeared on deck, she’d end up watching him, thankful he was too focused to notice.

  To be fair, Gillian hadn’t been lying around the deck and daydreaming about Shane. Knowing he’d bought plenty of diving equipment in Southport to supplement what he already had, she’d sneaked around in town and bought a heavy-weight wetsuit for herself. With Jagger manning the dive boat and Charlie’s friend taking the helm of The Evangeline, there was no reason she couldn’t dive alongside Shane—no reason except his pigheadedness.

  Then again, she had no intention of asking for his permission. She’d been doing her own exercise routines when Shane was asleep or navigating, building up her lungs and her flexibility. If Jagger had noticed, he hadn’t commented. Then again, Jagger wasn’t talking much these days.

  Whenever she could get an Internet connection, she’d also been tied to her laptop, saving pages of information about diving around Scaterie Island and scoping out possible leads on Tex’s boss—assuming Tex wasn’t lying about someone else being in charge. Her list of names had been long until Shane suggested that if she was so sure of Tex’s accent, she should pull out the people with ties to Texas or its border states. This afternoon, she had decided to hone it further and create a subset of people known to have a lot of money, connections, or both, as well as the Texas link. She now had a list of five names, a couple of which scared the hell out of her.

  “You won’t see anything out here tonight.” Shane joined her at the rail, stretching his shoulders by pulling one arm up and over his head, then the other.

  “Jagger taking over for a while?”

  “Yeah. I want to take her into the harbor tomorrow and meet this Chevy guy. Maybe he’s heard from Charlie.”

  Shane’s uncle had stopped answering his phone two days ago, and while they were a bit worried, they also knew Charlie was eccentric. If he didn’t feel like chatting, he wouldn’t answer.

  Gillian looked down at the sea foam again, stark white against the black of the water and sky. It was hard to look into all of that yawning emptiness and believe anything was out there. No wonder so many ships, sailing without today’s high-tech equipment, ended up on the ocean floor. One tiny error in direction, one failure to compensate for wind speed, and it would be easy to run aground or rip open a hull as it scraped across a rock. Or an iceberg.

  A chill spread up her spine. “Where did The Titanic go down?” Suddenly she felt spooked by the vastness of her invisible surroundings. The Evangeline, which looked so big and solid and sturdy in a sheltered harbor, was in reality a very small blip in the ebony sea that stretched thousands of miles around them.

  Shane glanced over and smiled when he saw her expression. “A few hundred miles due east of where we’ll be diving. But it’s September; we won’t hit an iceberg.”

  What about rocks? Rogue waves? Freaking sea serpents? She closed her eyes and forced herself to slow her breathing and swallow down the fight-or-flight response threatening to kick in. Acting like a hysterical woman wasn’t going to help anyone. Besides, her flight options were limited and there was no way to fight the ocean.

  “Hey, don’t go there.” Shane wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into a hug. He was everything this night wasn’t: warm, solid, steady. “You can’t let yourself start thinking too much about the things out there that you can’t see.”

  She looked up at him. “How did you know that’s what I was doing? You could tell I was wondering about sea serpents?”

  He blinked and almost smiled again. This was the closest to relaxed that she’d seen him since their almost-dinner date. “Sea serpents? Well, hell, maybe so. Don’t sweat it. For people who aren’t used to spending days aboard a ship in open water, shipboard madness is pretty common.”

  Gillian wasn’t sure if knowing her fears were common made her feel better or worse. “And I always thought I was special. Even my madness is common.”

  The wind whipped a strand of hair across her face, and Shane smoothed it back, then traced his fingertips across her cheek. “You are special.” His voice carried strains of sadness and regret. She imagined an unspoken Too bad we didn’t meet in another time or place attached to that expression.

  A surge of fierce anger spread through Gillian’s heart and zinged straight to her gut. She accepted that there was a good chance she was going to succumb to the Campbell curse. If she didn’t die on this trip, Tex or his boss would kill her. And she’d die with regrets. So many regrets.

  But she could avoid at least one of those regrets if she choked down her fear and acted on her impulses for a change. If she reached out for Shane before they
landed again on solid ground, within the grasp of Tex and his infamous reach.

  If she had the guts to let go of her guilt and anger over Sam and admit she was ready to move on and let the albatross of her past slip from around her neck.

  She simply had to let Shane know that she wanted him, no matter how they’d met and no matter what the future might bring. If he didn’t want her, that would be his regret to face, not hers. At least not hers if she tried.

  As if he sensed her change in mood, Shane’s hands slid down to her waist and his gaze dropped to her mouth. But he didn’t move to kiss her. Instead, his brows met in a perplexed frown.

  Great. She was trying to look lustful and bold. Instead, she was confusing the man.

  Here goes nothing. Arching her body against his as if she could absorb his warmth through her skin, Gillian stood on tiptoe and swept her hands up his chest and around his neck. The thick fibers of his blue sweater tickled the pads of her fingertips before they reached the soft skin beneath his hair.

  He remained still, but she felt the thud of his heartbeat quicken against her chest, the press of his arousal growing hard against her belly. Stifling the urge to grind against him, she settled for a handful of hair to tug his head downward. She pressed her lips to his, once, then again. He kissed her on reflex but didn’t pursue it. In the shadows, his eyes were dark pools, as fathomless and unreadable as the invisible horizon. But his body was responding to her, even if his mind wasn’t going along.

  “Stop fighting me, damn you.” Gillian pushed him toward the rail and pinned him there.

  Shane reached up to wrap his fingers around her upper arms but didn’t try to move her back. He was breathing harder, determination visible in every shadow and plane of his face in the dim deck lighting. He spoke low, through clenched teeth. “We can’t do this.”

  If she’d thought he didn’t want her, she would’ve backed away and hidden herself in shame for the rest of the voyage. But whatever Shane’s mouth said, his body didn’t lie, and that pounding heart and hard heat gave her courage to reach between them and stroke him through the denim of his jeans. “Tell me you don’t want me.”

  He groaned and pulled her hard against him, his hands cradling her face, his kiss no longer unresponsive but hard and demanding. He tasted of mint and citrus and ocean air, and every sweep of his tongue offered the promise of obliteration. For a while, he could make her forget everything and everybody but him. She wanted to forget.

  His lips softened, the kiss slowed, his tongue stroked hers more gently, and then he pulled away, resting his forehead against hers, eyes closed. “That’s to convince you how much I want you. Enough that it hurts. But it’s wrong for us to…when your niece and Harley and…” He shrugged. “It’s wrong.”

  Nobility was an admirable trait in a man, but his was misplaced. “How will our being together make their situations better or worse?”

  He opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again. For a few seconds, he looked past her, into the blackness. Again he took her upper arms in his hands, but this time he moved her back a couple of unwilling steps. “I have to go and shave for the dive.”

  What? Gillian propped her hands on her hips and watched, openmouthed, as Shane gave her one last, hard look, opened the door to the boat’s central passageway, and disappeared.

  Suddenly, there was one more regret she could get out of the way tonight: telling Shane Burke where he could stick his razor.

  She jerked open the door and stomped up the steps to the crossway, then down to the hallway that led to the master bedroom suite. The door was closed, and Gillian paused. Did she really want to do this?

  The old Gillian would have walked back to the salon, played on the computer, and felt sorry for herself.

  The Gillian who was determined not to go gently into the good night of the Campbell curse won out, however, and she grasped the handle and turned it.

  Easing open the door, she was surprised to see the room bathed in dark shadows, illuminated only by the light pouring from the open bathroom door. Good. She could take him by surprise.

  She closed the door behind her and walked softly toward the light—only to find the bathroom empty. “What the hell kind of game are you playing, Burke?” she murmured.

  “Looking for somebody?”

  She spun at the sound of his voice behind her and eeked when her back hit the wall less than a second later. This time, Shane was on the attack, his big body pressing hers into the wall, holding her in place.

  Damn it; he’d tricked her. Gillian knew she needed a good comeback, an Is this what you mean by a close shave? or Is that an electric razor in your pants or are you happy to see me?

  But damn if he didn’t take her breath away, and she couldn’t get the words out.

  “Are you sure you’re ready for this, Gillian?” His breath tickled her ear, and while his tongue and lips and teeth made their way down the side of her neck, he slid his hand the length of her body and between her thighs, pressing against her core.

  Some rational part of her brain thought she should be embarrassed that he could feel how wet she was through her jeans, but the prehistoric brain had taken over and erased her higher-brain language skills.

  He laughed, hot puffs of air against her collar bone. “Oh yes, ma’am, I do think you are ready.”

  “Uh huh. I…oh.” Gillian hadn’t felt him unzipping her jeans, but suddenly his fingers were pressing and stroking again, and there was no denim barrier to prevent them from reaching their target. He kissed and stroked until her knees gave way.

  “Damn, I’m good.” Shane scooped her up and carried her to the bed. For a second she envisioned a lovely scene from one of those cheesy made-for-television romance movies that Viv made her watch when Viv wasn’t parked on a shopping channel.

  The vision quickly morphed into a romantic comedy when Shane tossed her on the bed like a load of laundry.

  “Hey, watch it.” She struggled to a sitting position, her sweater twisted beneath her and momentarily trapping her.

  “I am watching it—that’s a good look for you.”

  Her sweater had skewed sideways, her pants were unzipped and hanging off, and thanks to Shane and his wandering fingers, her panties were bunched around her thighs. It was not a good look for anyone who was sane.

  He’d shucked his own sweater and that sight pretty much silenced anything else she might say. Damn but she wanted her hands all over that.

  Gillian figured she’d regret doing it, but she had to ask. “What changed your mind?”

  Shane sat on the bed, leaned over, and wrenched off her misshapen sweater. His gaze drank her in, his expression almost hungry, and she felt beautiful for the first time in longer than she could remember. She hadn’t been with anyone since Sam, and Sam hadn’t looked at her this way…maybe ever.

  He took her hand and held her knuckles to his lips for a second, his eyes closed. “What you said was right. Denying this thing between us, whatever it is”—he turned her hand over and kissed her palm—“it doesn’t accomplish anything. It doesn’t help the people who are in danger, and it sure as hell frustrates us. Well, me anyway.”

  Who knew Shane could be such a romantic? She twined her fingers through his, and, again, wasn’t sure what to say. She’d been so focused on knocking down his barriers, she hadn’t given much thought to what she’d do when they fell. Her inner vixen had gone mute.

  “What was the whole shaving thing about?” Obviously, her inner dork was wide awake and chatty. “Just a way to trick me into following you inside?”

  “I was serious. You ever see a diver with body hair?”

  Oh, that kind of shave. She laughed. “I was on the national champion swimming and diving team in college. And yeah, those guys shaved off anything that might slow them down. Never seen a scuba diver do it, though.”

  “Call it superstition. A dive doesn’t feel right until I go through the ritual.” He gave her an appraising look. “I didn’t know you were
a competitive swimmer.”

  There was a lot he didn’t know about her, and vice versa. Whatever their relationship might be, they’d skipped over the small-talk-get-to-know-you phase and dived straight into the deep water.

  Gillian wondered if he’d done his shaving ritual the day Kevin died, but she didn’t plan to resurrect that ghost tonight.

  Instead, she reached up and ran her fingers through his sun-lightened hair, grown just long enough to curl a little at the nape of his neck, then trailed them down to the light sprinkling of blond hair on his chest. “You’re gonna be suited up, so it shouldn’t make a difference. It would be a pity to lose this.” She looked pointedly at his jeans. “Although playing with shaving cream and razors could be interesting.”

  He groaned in mock horror. “Lady, there are some places you will not be going with a razor.”

  She reached out and stroked the pronounced bulge in his jeans before fumbling with the zipper. “Only if you’re still wearing chocolate boxers.”

  He lay back on the bed, his breath coming faster, and if he minded that she was clumsy, he didn’t show it. He raised his hips and let out a slow hiss as she eased the jeans down and brought the source of all that heat one step closer to freedom.

  Except what the hell was he wearing? Sexy little black boxer briefs covered with—? She leaned over to see better. “Shane, there are dogs on your underwear. Dogs.” Obviously, the man had a weird underwear fetish.

  Although those dogs were getting larger by the second and were pretty impressive.

  “They’re not just any dogs. They have special meaning to me.” His voice was somber, and she looked up, bracing herself to hear an Old Yeller–like tale of a boy forever looking to replace the special dog that died tragically and broke his heart.

  “What meaning is that?” Gillian hoped it wasn’t a total mood-killer.

  “They’re chocolate labs.” He tried to keep the serious look on his face but failed and burst into laughter. “You should see the look on your face. You were waiting for me to tell you a pathetic dog story.”