On Borrowed Time

by Jenn McKinlay

  Only once when they were nearing the edge of the marsh did Sully stop. He ducked down and pulled Lindsey with him. Crouched low, Lindsey saw the sweep of a flashlight illuminate the tips of the grass above their heads.

  She felt her heart race and she broke out in a sweat. Who was looking for them? What did they want? Was it the woman who had taken Jack? Maybe she should stand up and ask them. Even as the idea flitted through her head, she rejected it. She didn’t want to put Heathcliff and Sully, yes, in that order, at risk.

  As the light flared over them on its second sweep, she glanced at Sully. He was frowning, but when he turned to glance at her, he gave her a small smile and a wink.

  “Don’t you worry,” he said. “I’ve got the home court advantage here.”

  Lindsey didn’t doubt it for a second.

  They waited several long minutes in the cold before Sully gave the signal to start moving. When they neared the edge of the high grass that led to the road, Sully put Heathcliff down. The dog was happy to be free, and he barked once in approval. Lindsey hushed him but a neighborhood dog barked in response so she fervently hoped that whoever was looking for them thought it was just the local dogs reacting to strangers in the neighborhood.

  They were down the street from Sully’s small house, and he gestured for Lindsey to follow him. They strolled through his neighbors’ backyards, thankfully not running into anyone who wanted to stop and chat.

  On the edge of his yard, Sully again had Lindsey and Heathcliff wait while he checked the perimeter of his house to make sure no one was inside or waiting for them out front. When he waved the “all clear” to Lindsey, she and Heathcliff hurried inside.

  “Stay away from the windows,” he said.

  He quickly checked the house and then came back and drew the thick curtains over the glass panes. He kept the outside lights on, but turned out all the lights in the house, save one very dim twenty-five-watt lamp that Lindsey had always thought was decorative.

  “What did you do, back at the shack?” she asked. A shiver ran over her skin and she wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or residual fear.

  Sully switched on the fire in the fireplace and warmth immediately flared out from the hearth. Lindsey sat on the floor in front of it and let it toast her back to her normal temperature. Sully sat beside her, and Heathcliff wedged himself between them, rolling onto his back so his belly was in the air, perfectly positioned for a tummy rub.

  “First, I hid on the back porch,” he said. “Then when the man got closer, I walked loudly across the boards, hoping he’d think we were inside. He did. Then I hurried around the front, slammed the door and wedged a board under the knob so he’d have to work at it to let himself out. I figured it would buy us enough time to get away from him.”

  “Do you really think he was following us?” she asked.

  “No,” Sully said. Lindsey felt her shoulders drop in relief. Then he added, “I think he was following you.”

  “Aw, man, I really only liked the first part of your answer,” she said.

  Sully shrugged. “Just calling it like I see it.”

  “What should I do?” she asked.

  “Go to the police,” he said. Lindsey started to protest but he held up his hand to stop her. “These people are not your garden-variety bad guys. They’ve killed one man and kidnapped another and now they’re following you. What do you think they’ll do when they catch you?”

  “Invite me to tea?” she asked. She didn’t mean to be so flip, but she was scared and she didn’t know how else to respond.

  “I don’t think you’re their Darjeeling,” he said.

  Lindsey blinked at him. Then she laughed.

  “Very clever!” she said and he smiled.

  Sully pulled a cushion off the couch and propped it against the stone hearth. He shifted so he was lying down on the pillow with his legs stretched out in front of him.

  It was so cozy here with him that Lindsey almost forgot that there had been someone following them. She wondered if their imaginations were getting the best of them since seeing her brother abducted. Then again, had Jack really been abducted or had the woman who’d taken him away saved him from her estranged husband? The whole thing made Lindsey’s head pound.

  She wondered if the man who’d followed them had been the woman’s husband. “Did you get a good look at him?”

  “No, I tried, but he was backlit,” he said. “Judging by the size of him and his lack of stealth, I’d say he had some defensive lineman in him.”

  “That big?” Lindsey asked.

  Sully nodded. Being a big man himself, if he considered the other guy on the large side, well, it certainly gave Lindsey pause. She shivered but not from the cold.

  “Sit tight,” he said. He disappeared into the kitchen and she could hear him banging around in there. In moments she caught the faint scent of simmering cinnamon and her mouth watered. One of the first evenings she’d ever spent with Sully, he had made her his patent-worthy hot chocolate. She hoped that’s what he was brewing now.

  He returned in minutes bearing two mugs with steam pouring out of their tops. He handed one to Lindsey, and she gratefully clutched the warm ceramic in her hands. She took a delicate sip, checking the heat. It was the perfect temperature.

  “You still make the best hot chocolate,” she said.

  “Thanks,” he said, resuming his seat by the hearth. “I tweaked my mom’s recipe by adding the cinnamon and nutmeg. She thinks it’s over the top, but I like the oomph.”

  “I like the oomph, too.”

  They were both quiet. Lindsey rubbed Heathcliff’s belly while she pondered what to do next. It wasn’t long before the dog was emitting soft snores. She had thought that the fright would make her jittery and wide awake, but as the adrenaline ebbed from her system, baked out by the heat of the fire and the richness of the cocoa, she felt her head get heavy. She knew she needed to get home while the getting was good.

  “I’d better call it a night,” she said.

  “Not a good plan,” Sully said. “They could still be out there.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s awfully cold to be sitting out there, and I’m sure one of your neighbors would have noticed a strange car parked on the street.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “I’d feel better if we waited just a bit longer. We’re safe inside and have nothing but time. I don’t see any point in rushing out there to be a target.”

  Lindsey nodded. That was reasonable.

  “When you say ‘target,’ do you think their intent is to do harm?” she asked. Her voice sounded a bit fainter than she’d like, but it would be pointless to deny the fact that she was scared. They’d just been chased down the beach by an ogre; any sane person would be scared.

  “I think their intent is to find your brother,” he said. “And I think they’ll do whatever it takes to achieve that goal.”

  “Oh.”

  He held out his hand, and Lindsey gave him her empty mug. Sully rose from his reclined spot and disappeared down the hallway. Lindsey heard a cupboard door open and shut, and Sully reappeared with two heavy comforters and two big fluffy pillows.

  “We can sack out on the couch until the coast is clear,” he said.

  Lindsey gave him a look.

  “Separate couches,” he clarified.

  The thought of burrowing under a thick blanket was too tempting to resist. Sully’s couch was shaped like an L, so they put their pillows in the corner where the two sides met and then they both stretched out on their own side of the couch. Not to be left behind, Heathcliff jumped onto the couch and wedged his way in between their pillows.

  With the fire on low and the lone light glowing, Lindsey felt as snug and safe as a caterpillar in a cocoon. It felt as if nothing could get her here. She wondered how much of that had to do with Sully’s presence, and sh
e tried to imagine if she were home alone whether she would feel this safe. Yeah, no, it was him.

  There was something inherently good and strong and safe about Sully. He radiated a certainty about life and his place in it that she had never known in another person. It made her feel secure. She liked that.

  She thought about what had driven them apart. It wasn’t Sully’s propensity for silence. He was not the world’s biggest talker—major understatement—but that wasn’t it. No, she could handle that because when he did speak, it was worth listening to. Rather what had driven the wedge between them was his inability to express his feelings. It was one thing to be quiet; it was another to be an emotional withholder.

  She knew he didn’t do it on purpose as some twisted form of manipulation. That wasn’t Sully’s style. From what she knew about him, his inability to articulate his thoughts and feelings came from a serious lack of practice and quite possibly an emotional trauma in his past.

  As a Navy man turned boat captain, he was a solitary soul. She doubted he’d had much cause to voice his concerns in his relationships, since he was always away. So instead of having a normal dialogue about things, he just took matters into his own hands and made decisions without consulting the person who would be most affected by his decision. Now how she was supposed to school him about that, she had no idea.

  “Lindsey, you awake?” he asked.

  “Yep,” she said.

  “Ah, I wasn’t sure if that was you or Heathcliff snoring,” he said.

  “I don’t snore,” she protested.

  “You sure about that?” he asked.

  Lindsey felt her face grow warm. When they had been dating, he had never mentioned that she snored.

  “Yes!” she snapped. “Quite sure. You must have me confused with some other girl.”

  Ha! Let him chew on that, she thought.

  “Could be,” he said. His tone was so matter-of-fact that Lindsey sat straight up and turned to look at him. When she did, she found him propped up with his chin in his hand, grinning at her.

  “Oh, you—”

  “Shh,” he said. “You’ll wake the baby.”

  Then he pointed to Heathcliff.

  “Do not try to hide behind the furry boy,” she said. She looked him straight in the eye. “Are you seeing someone?”

  “No,” he said. “I’d like to be, but I get the feeling she’s not ready yet.”

  “Maybe she’s just waiting to see if you can learn to communicate more effectively,” she said. Lindsey could not believe those words had just flown out of her mouth. She wanted to smack herself in the forehead. Honestly, she sounded like a corporate chucklehead.

  “Well, it’s hard to find an opportunity to express myself what with that annoying, limelight-hogging Brit always circling her,” he said.

  Lindsey knew him well enough to know he was making his voice sound grumpier than he actually was.

  “He’s married,” she said. “So I believe that locks him firmly into the just friends category.”

  Sully stared at her for a second, and Lindsey felt like they were coming to an understanding. She settled back down on her pillow, shifting on her side so she could still see him while they talked.

  “There is one other small detail,” Sully said.

  “What’s that?” For a panicked moment, Lindsey wondered if he had some secret bombshell to drop on her.

  Was he married, too? Did he have a gambling, drinking, drug problem? Maybe he had an offspring from a previous relationship that he had neglected to mention. Lindsey felt her palms get sweaty as random thoughts flitted through her head, but she couldn’t latch on to anything specific. It was all white noise.

  “You may not have noticed, but I’m not a big talker,” he said. “The communication thing is challenging.”

  She looked at him. That was it?

  “Shocking, I know,” he said.

  Lindsey couldn’t help but smile. She supposed she could have rolled her eyes or made a sarcastic noise, but she was too afraid of derailing him when he was actually sharing to risk mucking it up.

  “The thing is, just because I don’t tell people how I’m feeling doesn’t mean I’m not feeling anything,” he said. He stared into the fire for a moment. “I always thought it was obvious that if I showed up every day, I cared.”

  “Sometimes people need a little more to go on,” Lindsey said.

  “So my sister has been telling me,” he said. “And telling me and telling me.”

  The harangued look he gave her told her more than words that his sister Mary had a lot to say about his relationship status.

  “Sorry,” Lindsey said. And she was. Sully was a private man and she knew he had to be uncomfortable with everyone being up in his business.

  “No, it’s my own fault,” he said. “I should have talked to you before I cut things off between us. I should have given you a chance to explain what you were feeling before I walked.”

  Lindsey would have disagreed just to be polite, but since he was right, it seemed silly not to agree with him. Over the summer when her ex-fiancé had arrived in town in a misguided attempt to win her back, they had gotten embroiled in a murder investigation that had nearly gotten them all killed.

  Lindsey had naturally felt responsible for her ex’s role in the situation and had felt terrible about what could have happened to him. Sully had misconstrued her concern for her ex as something more and had broken up with her to give her time to figure out her feelings. Lindsey had pretty much been mad at him ever since.

  “It was a preemptive strike,” he said.

  “You don’t say,” she said. This time she couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

  He flopped over onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “Couldn’t I just drop and give you twenty and we could call it even?”

  “You owe me at least fifty,” she said. “And no.”

  “I could run five miles in the rain with a knapsack full of books on my back,” he said.

  “Relationships are not boot camp,” she said. She had to look away so he didn’t catch her smiling and mistakenly think she might give in.

  “No, they’re a lot harder,” he grumbled. “Fine. It was my first year in the Navy and I was stationed in San Diego. I met a girl, a gorgeous girl.”

  While he paused to collect his thoughts, Lindsey chided herself for the spurt of jealousy that was wreaking havoc with her insides.

  She wanted to ask how gorgeous and demand a description, but her good sense prevailed and she kept her mouth shut. She also promised herself that she would interrogate his sister Mary at their next crafternoon and see what she knew about the gorgeous girl from San Diego.

  “We spent all of my free time together,” he said. “Her family was all career Navy, so I knew she understood the life. I really thought she was the one.”

  “How old were you?” Lindsey asked.

  “Twenty-two,” he said.

  Lindsey nodded. It was all coming into focus now. That age was never kind to relationships. While old enough to drink, vote and go to war, picking a mate in the early twenties was fraught with hormone-induced disasters. The relationships that survived from those early years were the stuff of legends.

  “I shipped out, a low-ranking officer on my first time out to sea. We were out in the Pacific on a guided-missile frigate. While there was a lot of excitement, a ship full of sweaty men sure does make whatever you left behind seem even more lovely in comparison.

  “We stopped in Tahiti, which was unlike anything I had ever seen, and I found a pretty black pearl ring. It was set in gold nestled in a ring of diamonds. I knew I had to buy it for her. It wiped out all of my pay and my one credit card. But it was worth it because I was sure she was worth it.”

  Lindsey had a feeling this wasn’t going to end well. A part of her wanted to tell h
im to stop. She didn’t need to know, but then, wasn’t this what she had wanted from him? To know how he felt and why he felt that way? She hadn’t expected that hearing the hurt in his voice would hurt her as much as it did.

  She forced herself to buck up. “What happened?”

  “When I got home, I called her up and asked her out to dinner,” he said. “I told her I had something to tell her and she said she had news, too.”

  “When I picked her up, she threw herself at me,” he said. “It was a pretty passionate reunion.”

  Again, Lindsey felt the green-eyed monster roar in her chest. She shook it off like a dog shedding rain off its fur.

  “Over dinner I gave her the ring and asked her to marry me,” he said. “She hesitated for just a second. I knew I had surprised her, so that was all right. I was enthusiastic enough for both of us. I outlined my dreams for us, you know, big wedding, me moving up the ranks in the Navy, a houseful of kids, the whole shebang. She was quiet and looked like she was going to cry. For the first time, it occurred to me that maybe she didn’t want all that. I braced myself for a solid rejection and then she said yes.”

  Lindsey was shocked. He had never mentioned being engaged before. She knew she shouldn’t feel like it was a sort of betrayal, but that sort of thing was supposed to come up in the first few weeks of dating. That’s what all those awkward meals over sourdough and linguine were made for—to discover the other person’s previous engagements, marriages, time spent in jail and communicable diseases. How could he not have mentioned it?

  “So you were engaged?” she asked. Her voice sounded faint and she cleared her throat.

  “You would think so, wouldn’t you?” he asked.

  Lindsey turned and propped herself up on her elbows while Sully was still lying down. She stared at the top of his head, waiting for him to explain.

  “I’m not following,” she prompted him, and Sully heaved a long sigh.

  “My girl neglected to tell me one thing in her letters to me,” he said. “While I was gone, she had managed to catch herself a higher-ranking officer and married him.”