Tangled Webs

by Irene Hannon

  But until he found that gold—and decided how he was going to deal with Wayne and his meth lab—there wasn’t much chance his stress level was going to diminish one iota.

  “Would you like a visitor?”

  At the familiar voice, Dana sat back on her heels beside Mags’s overgrown perennial garden, angled toward the lake, and shaded her eyes.

  “I took the shortcut.” Finn waved toward the woods but remained by the dock . . . waiting for an invitation to join her, perhaps?

  She pulled off her garden gloves and stood. “Come on up. I was just getting ready to take a break.”

  As he ascended the small incline, she brushed off the knees of her jeans, tugged down her sweatshirt—and reminded her heart to behave. Thank goodness she’d had the foresight to put on some makeup.

  Finn stopped a few feet away, surveying the ground at her feet. “Is that a garden?”

  “Used to be. My grandmother planted it years ago. Pops kept up with it until his health declined. Pathetic, isn’t it?” She inspected the weed-infested five-by-ten-foot patch. The irises were valiantly trying to poke through the tangle of noxious interlopers, and a few hardy phlox had triumphed on one end. But even the stone border had been overgrown in spots by rampaging weeds.

  “Nothing some elbow grease won’t fix. Could you use another pair of elbows?”

  A flush of pleasure warmed her. “You don’t have to work every time you stop by.”

  “I like being busy. I’m not used to sitting around.” He toed a hand trowel at her feet. “Do you have any more garden tools?”

  “Yes. In the shed where the rowboat was stored. I was about to go get a small spade. Some of these dandelion roots are deep. You want to sit for a while first, have some lemonade and cookies after your trek over?”

  “Not unless you do. The snack will taste better if I invest some sweat equity.”

  “Fine by me. I never turn down free labor.”

  “I’ll be back in three minutes, equipped to dig.”

  Once he was out of sight, Dana smiled and knelt back down. It didn’t get much better than spending a beautiful spring day in the garden—especially if a handsome man was by your side.

  It took Finn more like five minutes to collect the tools he wanted. He set them on the ground and gave the garden another once-over. “What would you like me to do?”

  “How much do you know about flowers?”

  “My mom always had a garden, and as the youngest, I often got recruited to help when my brothers bailed. So I know more than they do.” He gave her a crooked grin. “Which, to be honest, isn’t saying much.”

  She motioned toward the irises. “See those spiky leaves coming up over there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They’re flowers. Anything else in that section is a weed and needs to be yanked.”

  “Got it.”

  He dropped down a few feet away from her and went to work.

  Over the next twenty minutes, as they focused on their tasks, Dana gave her volunteer a few surreptitious peeks. The faint furrows on his brow suggested he was concentrating on distinguishing weeds from iris . . . or did he have more serious concerns on his mind?

  A ripple of unease told her it was the latter. Something was up with the subdued man beside her.

  Trowel in hand, she attacked the roots of a stubborn cedar sapling that had sprouted amid the daisies. Had he come to kiss her off? Tell her it had been nice meeting her, but he needed more time alone . . . or was cutting his stay short . . . or didn’t think they had all that much in common?

  Perhaps she ought to initiate a conversation and see if she could ferret out whatever was troubling him.

  “So . . .” Keep it conversational, Dana. “Did you do anything interesting this morning?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she caught his almost indiscernible pause as he worked to free a captive iris. “I had breakfast at the Walleye, answered email, and touched base with one of my brothers. What about you? Did you meet your deadline?”

  “Yes. I was ready for the UPS truck bright and early this morning.” She stifled her irrational disappointment at being left out of his trip to town. The man was under no obligation to invite her to accompany him for another meal at the café. Hadn’t she told him she was content being here at the cabin? “But I’m paying the price today for my late night.”

  “How late?”

  “After midnight.” Thanks to disruptive thoughts about her companion, not the volume of work.

  “Long day.”

  “I’ve had longer.”

  Silence.

  Man, he was not in a talkative mood today.

  She renewed her attack on the cedar, until it at last gave up the fight and relinquished its hold on the garden.

  “Success.” She held up the sapling.

  He inspected it. “Those have deep roots.”

  “Yeah.” She set her trowel down. If he wasn’t going to talk while they gardened, he might be more inclined to converse over a glass of lemonade. “Are you ready for those cookies?”

  “Anytime you are.”

  “Those rockers have our names on them.” She motioned toward the porch and stood. “Meet you there in five.”

  “It’s a date.” His lighthearted tone sounded forced.

  Once inside, she corralled the butterflies in her stomach as she filled two glasses with lemonade, arranged some cookies on a plate, and grabbed several napkins. There was no better place for a heart-to-heart than on the porch of the cabin. She and Pops had spent many a twilight evening there talking about the important stuff in life. If Finn didn’t open up out there, it was a lost cause.

  He was waiting as she pushed through the door, leaning against the rail, his back to the lake. Taking the tray from her, he stepped aside to let her precede him to the rockers. She moved the pot of geraniums to the floor, and he set the tray on top of the small table between the chairs.

  “Those don’t look store-bought.” Finn eyed the cookies.

  “They’re not. Those are my grandmother’s chocolate chunk pecan cookies, which were a staple at the cabin and one of the few recipes of hers I still make on a regular basis—when I’m not eating Oreos.” She smiled. “I have no idea how many of those I’ve ingested through the years . . . nor do I want to know. Some questions are better left unexplored.”

  His mouth flattened, and a muscle flicked in his jaw.

  The man was seriously stressed.

  Could this odd mood somehow be related to his PTSD?

  The only way to find out was to ask—and accept the consequences. She couldn’t just sit here and ignore the tension emanating from him.

  Angling toward him, she spoke quietly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  His head jerked toward her. “What do you mean?”

  She handed him a napkin. Picked up one for herself as she formulated her response. “I don’t mean to intrude on your personal space, but I can tell you’re worried. Is there a family problem?”

  “No.” He folded his napkin in half. Pressed the crease. “This is about you.”

  She blinked. “Me?”

  He gripped the arm of his chair, his troubled gaze capturing hers. “I know about the bank robbery in New York, Dana.”

  Her lungs froze, and the world around her went silent.

  “I took my laptop to the Walleye this morning to check email. That didn’t take as long as I expected, and while I was waiting to place my order, I googled you.” He leaned closer, his posture taut. “I was only trying to find some career background. Senior editor at age thirty sounded impressive. I had a feeling you’d downplayed your accomplishments, and I wanted to know more. I had no idea those news stories would pop up when I typed in your name.”

  “How much do . . . do you know?” Her hollow words seemed to come from a distance. As if someone else was talking.

  “Very little. The stories were short on detail where you were concerned. All I know is you were taken hostage and injured during
the rescue.”

  Dana looked down at the cookies. A fly had landed on one, tainting the sweet treat—just like talking about her experience in New York here, in her special haven, tainted the one place where life had always been happy and safe and unblemished.

  “There’s a lot more to the story.”

  “I thought there might be.” Finn reached across the table, chasing away the fly before touching her arm. “Sometimes it helps to talk about difficult periods in our lives. I speak from experience on that score—thanks to you.”

  She shifted her attention to his strong, lean fingers. Through the fabric of her sweatshirt, she could feel the warmth of his hand.

  His offer was tempting. Bottling everything up inside wasn’t healthy, and despite their short acquaintance she trusted this man. Besides, like it or not, Pops’s place was already tainted by her memories. Why else would she wake up screaming in the room that had always been her refuge? Why else would she leave every light on at night while she slept? Why else had she had new locks installed on all the doors after she arrived?

  Yet putting everything into words as Finn had about his traumatic experience overseas . . . that took a lot of guts.

  Somehow, he’d managed to summon up the courage to bare his soul.

  But could she do the same?

  9

  Finn squirmed as he read the emotions tumbling across Dana’s face—shock . . . distress . . . disappointment.

  She was going to toss him out on his ear.

  “How much do you . . . did you read?” Her expression was wary as she balled her napkin in her fingers.

  Tempted as he was to lie, he stuck to the truth. “Too much. I could have stopped as soon as I saw your name mentioned in the first article about the robbery. Should have stopped. If you’d wanted me to know about it, you would have shared your story. I’m sorry I didn’t wait and give you the chance to tell me on your own, if you chose to.”

  She gazed out over the lake. Exhaled. “The funny thing is, I was considering doing exactly that.”

  But now I’m glad I didn’t.

  She didn’t have to say the words for him to hear the caveat. She’d trusted him up to this point, told him a lot of personal information about her family and her summers here at the cabin. But unless he did some fast damage control, dug deep and found the words to express feelings he didn’t yet fully understand, she was going to shut down.

  And he did not want that to happen.

  “Dana.” He leaned over the platter of cookies that separated them and touched her arm again.

  She stiffened but turned toward him.

  “I didn’t intend to pry. Please believe that. But once I saw your name, once I got the gist of the story, I couldn’t stop reading, because . . . I care about you. I’ve watched you struggle to see. Sensed the fear lurking just below the surface. Heard you scream in the middle of the night. I knew something bad had happened, and I wanted to understand so I could try to help. I know how hard it is to get past trauma.” He paused. Swallowed. Just spit it out, McGregor. “The truth is, despite our short acquaintance, you’ve become very special to me. More special than any woman I’ve ever met.”

  He heard her breath hitch. Watched as a pulse began to throb in the hollow of her throat. Felt her tremble beneath his fingertips.

  “It’s too soon for . . . to say stuff like that.”

  “Maybe. But when something feels right, there’s no sense dancing around the truth. And this feels right—on my end, at least.”

  She caught her lower lip between her teeth. Brushed back a few stray, breeze-tossed strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail. Whispered her response. “It feels right to me too.”

  Lightness filled him, as effervescent—and heady—as bubbles in a glass of champagne.

  And that’s when it hit him, the impact as potent and earth-shaking as the shock wave from an IED explosion.

  Dana could be The One.

  Yet even as he tried to wrap his mind around that blinding insight, he knew one thing with absolute certainty: it was far too early to put that into words.

  Ignoring the giddy buzz in his nerve endings, he squeezed her arm. “That’s good to know. Does that also mean you’ll forgive me for prying?”

  “Can I be honest? In your place, I have a feeling I’d have done the same thing.”

  “I don’t know if I buy that. You strike me as a very disciplined person.”

  “And an Army Ranger isn’t?”

  “About most things. You aren’t one of them.”

  She swallowed. “In light of that admission . . . would you like to know my side of what happened at that bank?”

  Absolutely! Every detail.

  But he tempered that response.

  “If you’d like to tell me. But hang on a minute.” He rose, picked up his rocker, and set it beside her chair. Then he folded her cold fingers in his and gave her his full attention. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  She leaned back and looked at the blue sky, where a hawk she probably couldn’t see circled overhead, drifting to and fro at the whim of the air currents.

  “It started off as a normal day. A busy morning, with typical, routine tasks at work. On my lunch hour, I ran out to the bank to cash a check. After I’d taken care of my business and was walking back down the street, I heard someone shout. There are lots of shouts on New York streets, but this one was different. More like a barked order, though I couldn’t make out the words.” She groped for her lemonade. Almost knocked it over.

  “Here. Let me.” Finn leaned past her and picked it up, pressing the glass into her hand.

  She took a long drink, then rested the tumbler on her jeans-clad leg. “Turns out an off-duty police officer had spotted the robbers and was chasing them on foot. I didn’t know that at the time. All I knew was that two guys wearing ski masks were bearing down on me. I tried to move out of their way, but one of them grabbed me. He had a g-gun.”

  Finn’s stomach contracted, and he squeezed her fingers.

  When she picked up the story, her words were shakier. “He said he’d shoot me if I resisted. They ducked into the lobby of an office building a few doors away. A security guard approached them, and they fired at him as they headed for the mezzanine. The place cleared out fast after that and the building went into lockdown. The guard disabled the elevators, and there was no way off the mezzanine except through the lobby.”

  Finn’s jaw tightened. In a desperate scenario like that, the situation often went south very, very fast.

  Dana could have been killed.

  He tried to push that stomach-churning thought aside as she continued.

  “Once emergency vehicles began to arrive, the robbers knew they were trapped—and that I was their only bargaining chip. So they called 911 on their cell. A hostage negotiator called back in five minutes. They demanded a car and safe exit in exchange for my l-life.”

  Her voice hitched, and Finn stroked his thumb over the back of her hand in a soothing, rhythmic pattern.

  “I knew I might d-die.” Beads of sweat broke out above Dana’s upper lip, despite the mild spring temperature. “The two guys didn’t sound all that balanced—nor were they in agreement about how to proceed, especially when the negotiator didn’t come through fast enough to suit them. Accusations were thrown back and forth. Tempers flared. I began to think they might be high . . . and that scared me even more. People on drugs aren’t rational.”

  Neither were robbers who thought they could pull off a daylight robbery in Manhattan, doped up or not—but Finn left that unsaid.

  “I assumed the police were hatching some sort of rescue plan, but I also knew there was a good chance these guys would crack before it could be implemented—or if not, that I could get caught in the cross fire once the police rushed in. In light of all that, I decided to take the first opportunity I got to break free. They weren’t paying all that much attention to me anyway, since they were blocking the stairway they assumed was my only way out.”
>
  But it wasn’t.

  I got hurt in a fall.

  As Dana’s explanation of her concussion from earlier in the week echoed in his mind, he curled the fingers of his free hand. “You jumped from the mezzanine, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. It was about t-twenty feet high. I knew I’d be injured . . . but I decided injured was better than d-dead.”

  Except she could have died from that fall as easily as she could have died from a gunshot.

  “Is that how you escaped?”

  “Partly.” Her throat worked, and a shiver rolled through her. “The police were monitoring the lobby from the security camera feed, and once they saw me jump, the SWAT team went into action—before they’d planned to. I managed to roll under the mezzanine, out of the line of fire, but one of the robbers got off a shot. A SWAT team member died.”

  “I read that part.” Finn continued to stroke her hand.

  She lifted the glass of lemonade from her leg and stared at the dark round spot the condensation had left on her jeans.

  It looked like blood.

  The ice in her glass began to rattle, and she set the tumbler back on the table. “The whole experience was t-terrifying. But the ongoing nightmares are almost worse. They force me to relive every awful moment. No matter how hard I try, I can’t shake the m-memories—or the guilt.”

  Finn frowned. “Why should you feel guilty?”

  She turned to him, her hazel eyes anguished. “Because I keep thinking that if I’d w-waited for the SWAT team to make its move instead of forcing their hand, that police officer might not have d-died.”

  Without a word, he stood and pulled her into his arms. “You can’t blame yourself for being proactive, Dana. You assessed the risk based on what you observed and took action that seemed appropriate under the circumstances. That’s the same technique I used every day as a Ranger. Don’t beat yourself up about that. If you’d stayed where you were, you might not have survived—and that SWAT team member could still have been killed.”

  A muffled sob shuddered against his chest. “That’s what I keep telling myself . . . but I can’t shake the feeling that if I’d waited, he might be alive today.”