“Yeah, uh, sorry about that.” Alex crawled out of the tent and wind slapped at him with a cold hand. This grassy knoll right beside the beach was probably not the best place to set up camp for the night. In fact, it probably would have been smarter all around to find a cozy B&B in town or even keep right on driving, but he had to conserve his money and he’d felt strangely compelled to stay right here, in this spot, in this town. He liked the solitude. The ocean churned below him, restless gray and white surges that pummeled the rocky beach without mercy.
“You decide to get rid of the landline?” Nick asked.
“No. I…needed time away to do some thinking and didn’t know when I’d be back, so I had the phone company shut it off.”
“Thinkin’ was never your strong suit, Range,” Nick drawled.
Hearing the nickname his military buddies had given him made something twist nostalgically near Alex’s heart. He missed Nick, who had been spotter to his sniper, and could picture the Sioux man relaxed on the front porch of his Montana ranch, staring out over the horse paddocks to the white-tipped mountains in the near distance.
Alex smiled and squatted down to nurse his sputtering fire. “About like shutting up was never yours, Wolfy.”
“I’m serious. You don’t do so hot when you’ve got time to brood. Where are you?”
Alex sighed and sat back on a jutting rock, watching the flames dance. “Small town on the coast of Maine called Three Churches.”
“What in blazin’ hell are you doin’ there?”
Damned if I know, he thought even as he heard himself saying, “I shot a man on the job.”
Silence echoed over the line and Alex winced, rubbing a hand down his face. “Yeah, uh—shit. Forget I said that.”
“What happened?’ Nick murmured.
He swore under his breath. He hadn’t meant to talk about it. The confession had rolled off his tongue unbidden, but now that it was out, he figured he might as well get it all off his chest. If anyone understood, it would be Nick.
“I don’t know what the hell happened. It went from a quick breakfast with my handler to situation critical in a split second and I didn’t think, just pulled the trigger, almost reflexively. The man wasn’t innocent. He was a very bad guy and deserved more than he got, but it wasn’t my right to give it to him. Webster put me on leave pending an investigation, but we both knew when I left his office I wasn’t coming back.”
“Ah, c’mon, now,” Nick said after a moment. “Don’t say that. You’re a good agent. The DEA wouldn’t know what to do without you.”
“Good or not, I’m done.” He swallowed, forcing down the lump rising into his throat from his chest. “Someone’s gotta pay for it. If I’m lucky, they’ll pin it on my undercover ID and make him disappear. If I’m not lucky…” He let the thought trail off. By voicing the worst-case scenario—the DEA exposing him as a UC agent then tossing his ass in jail with a bunch of guys that wouldn’t be happy to see him—he felt like he was jinxing himself.
“It’s that bad?” Nick asked.
“Worse. It wasn’t a legit shot, Nick. I’ve tried to tell myself it was, but… yeah, it wasn’t. Turns out, the guy had a fucking cell phone, but he was making threats and when I saw him reach for it—”
“I get it. You remembered the sandbox.”
Iraq. Goddammit. He’d traveled to a lot of shitty places in the world throughout his military career, but that place held top spot on his shit-o-meter and as much as he tried to shut it out of his head, it always found a way to creep back. It was in Iraq that his commanding officer, Sully, took a nearly fatal bullet to the chest. Iraq was where their special ops squad experienced its one loss, K.C Archer, to a RPG. Iraq, where you couldn’t even trust the kids not to want your head on a platter, where your brothers could be walking next to you one second and blown sky-high by a IED the next, where he’d almost lost his own life, was where his nightmares returned time and again. Not the jungles of South America, the mountains of Afghanistan, or the hellhole that was the whole continent of Africa. No. Goddamn Iraq.
“That place fucked me up.” He’d never admitted that to anyone, but since this seemed to be the convo for show-and-tell, he told Nick about the lighted pumpkin on Main Street coming from within an inch of breaking his skull: “I froze. I dove out of the way and I froze. All I could think was IED. For a second, I was right back in the sand and heat.”
“You can’t go through what we went through over there and not change some, Alex,” Nick said softly after a moment. “And I don’t be meanin’ to play devil’s advocate, but Webster was right to put you on leave. You need a break.”
I know. He would never confess to such a weakness aloud, yet deep down he knew his boss had done the right thing. He wasn’t sleeping and wasn’t functioning at one-hundred percent. But he’d been on the knife edge for so long, he wasn’t sure what to do with himself now that he didn’t have to play that dangerous balancing game.
When the silence stretched into uncomfortable territory, Nick let out a long breath. “You need me, pal, you call. Day or night.”
“Thanks, but I’m fine.”
“Last time you told me that you had a maggot infested wound in your side and a mean case of blood poisonin’. I mean it. Day or night.” He hung up before Alex had a chance to comment.
Alex closed his phone and looked away from the pathetic fire, toward the lighthouse perched on the edge of a cliff in the near distance.
Déjà vu.
It slid greasily through his gut as the cold beam of light twisted around and around, slicing through the gathering clouds. Without thinking, he stood and started down the slick hill toward the beach, never taking his eyes off the lighthouse. The trees dropped away as he descended and he spotted a small yacht riding out the angry waves at the base of the cliff.
Weird. The back of his neck prickled with warning. Why wasn’t the boat in the safety of the harbor? At any moment, a wave could smash the vessel into oblivion on the jagged rocks. Did someone need help?
He picked up his pace and stumbled when his cell phone shrilled. Heart thudding, he caught himself on a jutting rock and snatched the phone from his pocket before it could ring again. He checked the caller ID, expecting Nick again. Nope. His brother.
“Dammit.” Alex silenced the call and looked toward the lighthouse.
The yacht was gone.
He blinked, then scanned the choppy ocean and saw nothing but a slate gray sky melding into black water on the horizon.
Eyes playing tricks again. He shook his head, stuffed his cold fingers into his jeans pockets, and trudged uphill to his tent. It was stupid enough for him to be out here like this. He didn’t need to go wandering around. The locals would probably call him crazy if they knew he’d pitched a tent on the beach in the middle of October.
Maybe he was crazy. God knew it ran in his family.
***
He dreamed that night, nodding off in a haze of alcohol as the quiet of the country settled around him like a blanket.
The pull to walk forward on the rocky beach was damn near overpowering. The oil lantern in his hand swung to the beat of his stride and a rare smile broke out over his face. He so looked forward to these nightly rendezvous. He was supposed to be working, but he’d made sure everything would run smoothly for the hour or so he’d be gone.
He gazed up at the sheer rock wall of the cliff butting the thin strip of beach, assuring himself he’d be able to see if there was trouble. The lighthouse stood tall and dark against the diamond-strewn night, a watchful soldier with its one bright eye. If the light went out, he could be back in the lantern room with the oil bucket in minutes.
It was a hot night for mid-September, an Indian summer, and she had her skirt hiked to her knees as she kicked at the surf. Her hair hung loose and wavy down her back and her skin glowed alabaster in the moonlight. She laughed, a cool, soothing sound like soft rain on leaves, and he started thinking of taking her right there where the ocean met the beach
. His body tightened in anticipation. He loved her laugh. Loved everything about her. He couldn’t stop seeing her any more than he could stop breathing.
She sighed when he slipped his arms around her waist and drew her into his embrace. Clouds drifted over the moon and the shadow of the cliff deepened. He turned her around, kissed her hard.
Always in the dark. He regretted he could never love her in the light.
“You’re late,” she whispered.
“I had some things to take care of.” He angled kisses down from her ear, enjoying the feel of her dark hair tickling his face. His erection already strained for her against his trousers and the layers of her skirt. Her head dropped back, allowing him access to the ivory curve of her neck.
“No problems, I hope.”
“No problems,” he promised. He’d promise her anything.
“I have something to tell you,” she said.
“Mm. Later.”
“No.” She shrugged out of his arms and faced him, the look on her pixie face so serious his heart plummeted. “Now.”
He gripped her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
She smiled. Slow, satisfied, and intensely feminine. “We’re going to be parents.”
“We’re—”
“Going to be parents,” she finished when his jaw dropped.
The joy that burst through him took him by complete surprise. He hadn’t known he wanted a child. It had always been a vague idea in the back of his mind, but suddenly it was something he wanted very badly. With her.
He cupped her waist in his palms and stared down at her flat belly. “You’re sure?”
She smiled, pressed her hands to her stomach and nodded. He let out a whoop and grabbed her up in a hug. His lips found hers. He was going to make love to her until—
The phone rang.
Alex blinked himself awake, groaning at the interruption of the first good—weird, granted, but good—dream he’d had in ages. He was still semi-hard and adjusted himself before fumbling for the cell phone with fingers that felt like sausages. With some surprise, he noticed his portable alarm clock read a little after one. He’d slept for almost five hours straight.
“New record,” he muttered and answered the phone without looking at the ID. “Brennan.”
“I saw the news,” Theo said. His voice sounded rough, but not at all slurred by the drugs the hospital gave him to control his outbursts, and Alex thought, uh-oh.
“They said you shot a guy,” Theo continued. “Killed him. Uh, they didn’t say it was you specifically, but I knew. The Guides told me.”
Dammit, bro, please leave it alone. For a second, he considered hanging up and yanking the battery out of the phone. Then he’d roll over, go back to sleep, and hopefully end up in the pretty woman’s arms again. He rubbed a hand over his face and beard stubble rasped against his palm. It was a nice idea—if he wanted to drive his brother even crazier with worry.
“You okay?” Theo asked.
What little energy he’d been able to recover during the last five hours seeped out, leaving him deflated. He couldn’t deal with one of Theo’s paranoid rants right now. “Lookit, T, it’s nothing you need to worry about. It was a legit shot.” He waited a beat. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
“Don't use that baby tone with me, Alex. I’m five fucking years older than you.”
“You're going to be in trouble.” He forced himself to sound normal as he switched on a battery-powered lantern. Whenever he spoke to his brother, he fell into using a saccharine tone best reserved for indulging children. It was hard not to when Theo’s disease made him childlike in many ways. “If they catch you using the phone after hours, they’ll suspend your privileges again.”
“But I had to call you. The Guides told me you—”
“The Guides do not exist.” A mantra he was sick of repeating. He rolled over on his sleeping bag and noticed the one photograph he had of his brother, sitting in its plain black frame on top of his duffle. Stupid and sentimental, but he took the damn thing with him whenever he left home for an extended trip. Even to Iraq.
The photo had been taken—Alex didn’t know by whom—right after Theo passed his driver’s test and bought a junker T-bird convertible. He looked happy leaning up against the piece of shit car in his baggy 1990’s style clothes and backwards Red Sox cap, a devil-may-care grin splitting his square face. He hadn’t smiled like that since.
“It’s all in your head, T,” Alex said and picked up the photo. “A manifestation of the schizophrenia. Are you cheeking your meds again? Remember what Dr. Romano told you—”
“I’m not crazy!”
Alex shut his eyes as the ocean wind beat at the nylon of his tent like an angry fist. “Listen, I can’t do this now. I have to get up early. Webster has me out of town on assignment,” he lied. No sense in burdening his unstable brother with his problems.
“Out of town?” A tinge of panic crept into Theo’s voice. Straddling a fine line between calm and hysteric, as always. “Where?”
“Maine.”
“No!”
Alex grimaced, held the phone away from his ear. “Jesus. What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“Oh, God.” His voice shook. “No, listen, you can't go to Maine.”
“I’m already here.”
“No. Oh, no. You have to leave. Get out of there! Al—”
“Theo,” a man interrupted in the background, his voice full of caution. “What are you doing up?”
“Leave me alone!”
“Who did you call? Give me the phone.”
“No, wait—let me—dammit, just let me talk to my brother. I'm not bothering any—don't come near me with any fucking needles!” Something crashed. Feet scuffled. A muffled umph as if someone caught a wayward fist to the stomach.
“Hey,” the hospital aide shouted, “I need help down here! Theo’s having another episode.”
“T, relax,” Alex tried to soothe, feeling powerless lying in a tent in another state while the aides fought with his brother. “Go to bed. I'll call you tomorrow when you’re allowed to use the phone, okay?”
“No, wait, wait—please, I need to talk to Alex. He needs to know what The Guides said—Alex, get out of Maine!” he shouted, his voice echoing as the aides dragged him away from the phone. “Don’t go to the light—”
The line went dead.
Alex stared at the phone. Then he shut it off, dropped it into his bag. He looked at the picture of his grinning brother for a long moment.
And turned it face down.
CHAPTER 4
“Pru, you have a visitor.” Gail, the morning shift waitress, poked her head through the swinging door into the kitchen as Pru rushed around to fill a stream of early lunch orders. The morning had been hectic and she had no doubt lunch would be a zoo. Leave it to Jones, the lazy good for nothing, to call in again. She should ring his greasy neck.
“Visitor?” she said, distracted from the halibut she was slicing for the stew already boiling on the stove. “But Grandma Mae’s not supposed to be back from her trip yet.”
“Now did I say anything about your batty grandmother?” Gail stepped in and planted her hands on her aproned hips. Triton, Pru’s curly coated retriever and the diner’s occasional mascot, whined at the sight of the new person and pawed at the door that led into the diner from the employee parking lot. He sorrowfully eyed the kitchen through the mesh screen, turning on his puppy-dog charms long distance in hopes of a treat. Gail did not attempt resistance. She stole a bit of halibut from Pru’s cutting board, pushed open the door, and tossed it to him. He caught it mid-flight with a short, happy bark.
“It’s a man,” Gail said, watching Triton with a nicotine yellow smile.
The vegetable knife paused for an instant as a thrill raced through Pru’s belly. She turned her back on Gail and continued cutting. It wasn’t Alex. Couldn’t be. He was leaving town. Even if he hadn’t left yet, he wouldn’t come back after the way she acted yesterday.
/> Oh, who was she kidding? Yes, he would. The man struck her as the tenacious type and having her tell him off probably only whetted his appetite for a challenge. Well, she wasn’t interested. She’d just have to set him straight about that.
She tried to keep her hands steady and voice casual. Of course he’d pick today of all days to come back. She was a sweaty mess from working in the kitchen all morning and her hands smelled like fish. “A man?”
“A very good looking one at that.” Gail wiggled her over-plucked brows. “Miranda said you had a thing going with a man from Boston yesterday.”
“There was no thing.”
“Humph. Not to hear her tell it. You’d think you were picking out china patterns with him.”
“I don’t date tourists.” I won’t date anyone ever again. She picked up the cutting board and used her knife to swipe the fish into the stew pot.
“Well, this one’s hoping to change that. He brought you a flower.”
She froze. “No, he didn’t.” Nobody ever brought her gifts, especially not flowers.
“See for yourself.”
Pru ducked her head to peek out the serving window. The diner had emptied some since she last checked, most of the breakfast crowd having finished their meals and gone about their days. She spotted two tables that needed clearing. A family of four tourists waited for their lunch at a table by the front window, the baby in a high chair giggling at the faces the toddler made while the parents talked quietly over a map. Mr. Leary lingered over his coffee at the counter as he did every morning, his breakfast dishes licked clean and stacked in a neat pile in front of him. John Putnam Jr. sat in a booth, tapping his fingers in an impatient rhythm as he waited for his terminally slow brother, Wade, to finish breakfast. Kevin Mallory sat in another booth in the corner, poking at what now had to be stone-cold eggs. He’d been brooding there all morning and didn’t seem inclined to stop anytime soon.
Then there was Alex. He stood beside the counter with a single cheery sunflower in his hand. Dressed in a pair of dark jeans and a black sweater that looked soft and expensive, his hair combed back from his unshaven face, he might as well have the words “city slicker” stamped on his forehead. He looked completely out of his element among the other patrons in their flannels and he knew it. She got the feeling he was not a man that liked standing out.
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