by Anna del Mar
The prosthetic arm seemed to work really well for the petty officer. The crowd? Not so much. I could almost feel his anxiety climbing, and so could his service dog. The restless yellow Labrador circled its handler, trying to put some space between him and the others. I wanted to do something to help him. Instead, I froze at the sight of all of those people. My legs refused to carry me forward and my belly squeezed. Faces crammed my visual field and shrill laughter tortured my brain. A cloud of sweet perfume had me gagging. Oh, God. I covered my mouth with my hand. Was I about to throw up again?
The dog’s yelp broke through the din.
“Damn it!” A man dressed in a white tuxedo kicked at the dog and missed. “Did you see that? That mutt just nipped at me!”
“Marie Therese doesn’t bite.” The petty officer knelt on the floor and groped for the Labrador, feeling along the leg that the poor creature held curled up against its chest. “You must have stepped on her.”
“That dog is dangerous.” The guy snapped his fingers, getting the event manager’s attention. “You! Hey, you, yes. You need to kick this dog out of here. Call animal control.”
The sailor’s face crumpled in horror. “Please, don’t do that. My dog is safe.”
The anguish in his stare powered my outrage. The people in the little crowd murmured assorted opinions, but no one intervened. I took an instant dislike to the jackass who chose to make such a racket at the expense of a hero. With his gel-slicked hair plastered to his head, the idiot looked like a plastic doll, like Barbie’s Ken with a rotten attitude. A total jerk. I was furious, but before I could muster my voice, a man I hadn’t seen before stepped into the alcove.
“Why don’t we give Petty Officer Chavez a bit of space, people?”
The newcomer’s appearance scattered quite a few of the bystanders. I watched in awe as a handful of Boston’s power brokers fled from the alcove. Whoever this man was, he commanded a great deal of authority.
The resolve in his voice matched his body language. His brown eyes scoured the place for stragglers, clearing the room without need for words. Everybody left, everybody except for the jerk—who was reckless, dumb and drunk—and the petty officer and his dog. And me, of course.
Blue. The newcomer unleashed the color blue in my mind, and not just any blue, but the most spectacular blue of them all, cobalt blue, rich, deeply hued, velvety and intense. When his gaze fell on me, adrenaline flushed through my veins in buckets. I wanted to run too, and yet despite the urge, I couldn’t move, because a ballroom full of strangers terrified me almost as much as the stare pinning me to the wall.
The man stood tall and imposing, wearing an exquisitely tailored tux that emphasized his body’s broad shoulders and sleek lines. With his brown hair cut razor short and his expressive brows set into a permanent scowl, he was handsome, but in a stern, forbidding, frightening way.
He moved fluidly, with purpose, intensity, confidence and elegance. He owned every stride he took, every gesture he made. He owned the place too, the room, the walls closing in on me, the air barely trickling into my lungs, the world all around me.
His stare stalked me from across the room before it settled back on the drunk. “I suggest you return to the ballroom.” His voice rustled with danger. “You don’t want to miss the auction.”
“I don’t give a damn about the auction.” The drunk glared. “That dog bit me and I want it gone!”
“Perhaps you should’ve given the dog and its handler more space.” The man crouched by the dog and examined its paw. “Marie Therese seems to be okay.” He helped the petty officer to his feet. “Are you all right, man?”
“Fine.” The sailor wiped the sweat off his brow. “But my dog. If that guy complains...”
“Nobody will take Marie Therese away from you,” the man said, and I believed him. “Nobody.” His stare returned to the jerk. “You owe Petty Officer Chavez and his dog an apology.”
“I don’t apologize to dogs.” The drunk blurred his words. “Dogs shouldn’t be allowed in places like this.”
“By law, a service dog is allowed to go anywhere its handler goes,” the man spat out in his exacting tone.
“But that dog is too aggressive.”
“Marie Therese isn’t aggressive.” The sailor’s fingers tightened around the dog’s leash. “She’d never attack anyone.”
“How would you know?” the drunk said. “You’re blind, you retard.”
The newcomer’s face hardened into a blank mask, but the heat in his glare echoed the feral fury fisting my hands and burning through me.
“The dog didn’t attack anybody.” It was my voice and it sounded strong and bold. “This man stepped on the dog’s paw. I saw it. The dog nipped, but only because it was in pain.”
“See?” The petty officer side-hugged his Labrador and turned his face in my direction. “Thanks, miss, whoever you are.”
“She’s lying,” the drunk said.
“I am not!”
The newcomer glanced at me then returned his glare to the drunk. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Edward Lancaster.” He smirked. “My father is John Lancaster.”
“John, yes.” The man crossed his arms and braced his feet apart. “He’s the chairman of Lancaster & Associates.”
“And a platinum donor to the Healing Warrior Development Fund,” Edward Lancaster added with mindboggling arrogance.
“Your father is very generous,” the other man noted. “Wasn’t he a decorated Air Force officer during the first Iraq war?”
Junior hesitated. “Yes?”
“Ah, then, do me a favor.” He flashed a vicious smile. “Go tell your daddy that tonight you trampled on the service dog of a veteran who earned his Purple Heart in goddamn Afghanistan. Tell him that, after you hurt his dog, you whined like a spoiled brat and demanded that the dog be removed. If your father hasn’t choked on his bile or strangled you with his own two hands by then, tell him that you’re an idiot with a goddamn bug up your ass and that you were kicked out of the gala because you insulted a friend of Josh Lane.”
The young man gaped. “You’re Josh Lane? The Josh Lane?”
“Affirmative,” he said. “And you’re done here.”
My stomach convulsed with another wave of nausea. For a moment, I couldn’t move. Numb, I watched as security escorted the drunk out of the alcove, and the man conferred briefly with the sailor before a staff member led the veteran and his dog out of the ballroom. Then the man’s stare narrowed on me, eyes rich with crystal brown hues, gaze curious.
He drew in all the light in the room, consuming it, reshaping it, absorbing it, until he was the only image in my frame and blue was the only color on my canvas. I couldn’t look away from him. I stood there, rooted in place like a potted plant, unable to move. That is, until he started toward me.
I bolted. I ran, back to the restroom, through the lounge, to the stall in the very back of the row. I locked the door and pressed my back against the wall. I had trouble breathing, thinking. Why did I run away when I’d wanted to stay? And why had I wanted to stay in the first place?
I settled my hand over my heart. Oh. My. God. It couldn’t be a freaking coincidence. My anxiety returned in full, because the target of Martin’s plan, the source of my only hope, and the stranger outside the door shared the same name.
Josh Lane.
Chapter Two
Josh
Charity balls were not my definition of fun, but after raising a few million dollars for the Healing Warrior Development Fund, I was in a mildly forgiving mood. If I had to suffer fools, cheap wine, and appalling cuisine, I might as well do it for the right people.
Cinched into a stunning red gown, my co-chair for the evening beamed from beneath the copper sheen of a high-end spray tan. Money excited Lisa Artiaga almost as much as a
dulation, and tonight’s fundraiser was the pinnacle of her social climbing career. I played my part, greeting donors in the lavish ballroom, even though my attention strayed and my patience waned.
Lisa must have noticed, because she pulled me aside and leaned over my shoulder, deliberately brushing her breast against my arm. “How about a little break?” She tilted her champagne flute in the direction of the kitchens.
I took a sip of my water on the rocks. “Not tonight.”
“Now, Josh, you used to like me a lot.” She pouted, sticking out her rouged lower lip. “Why don’t you want to play with me anymore?”
I gestured with my tumbler toward Judge Edward Artiaga III, standing only a few feet away, engaged in animated conversation with a group of Boston’s most rapacious ambulance-chasers.
“Because I’m married?” An expression of genuine surprise overtook Lisa’s perfectly made up face. “So what?”
“I guess I’m just a stickler for details.”
My eyes scanned the crowd, searching for danger as usual, but also for something else—the woman who had come to Chavez’s defense. A looker with a heart, in this crowd. Imagine that. Bravery and brains. No wonder she’d gotten my radar up.
I’d waited outside the women’s lounge a little too long. When was the last time I’d loitered outside the bathroom waiting for a girl to come out? High school? No. Middle school? Nope. Kindergarten?
Jesus Christ, Lane. You’re losing it.
Maybe I’d just caught a break. Bravery and brains entailed risks and liabilities that didn’t figure into my carefully orchestrated life. As to the woman, I was just curious, that’s all.
I suppressed a yawn. Tired. So tired. I was used to going without sleep, but sleep deprivation plus extreme, unadulterated boredom made tonight a particularly trying occasion. I could almost feel my brain cells committing hara-kiri.
Hell, I’d go back to Afghanistan to avoid this show. But nights like these were part of the plan, important to the job description and vital to the causes I supported. I looked at my watch. I’d scheduled myself here for sixty minutes, my very own endurance test. Fifteen minutes to go.
“Oh, Josh, don’t be mad at me.” Lisa batted her impressive eyelashes. “I didn’t want something as trivial as my marriage to get in the way of us. I should’ve told you before.”
“You should have,” I said. “Better to hear it from you than from my security detail.”
“I can assure you, my husband doesn’t mind,” she said. “He’s a power hog with the sexual drive of a celery stick. If he doesn’t care, why should you?”
It was classic thinking around these parts and I wasn’t about to waste my breath with an explanation. Marriages of convenience didn’t rate high on my admittedly flexible moral compass, but I demanded honesty and despised deception. What people said didn’t matter so much. What people did? Now that mattered. Lisa had lied to me and that was that.
I tuned out her chatter and scanned the room. The stale smiles. The idle conversations. The same old players. I was in a funk and I knew it. Too much reality showmanship crowded the place, too much fakeness. Few of the people in the room knew what it was like to fight in Afghanistan or Iraq, or about the shock of coming back. None of them knew what it was like to pledge your life to your country and then have to deliver on that promise.
Except the speakers for tonight, of course: a gunny who had left his legs in tatters in a back alley in Fallujah, and Elton Chavez, who’d been a decorated hospital corpsman first class on the day he lost his arm and eyesight.
The gunny had left right after his speech, but Chavez had gotten stuck on his way out. What a clusterfuck. His service dog was his life link, his only means of independence. To think there was a dipshit out there willing to mess that up.
I left Lisa as she turned her attention to a group of new arrivals, but I spotted Thomas Stratton tracking me from across the room like a cheetah on the prowl. My director of business development might be scrawny, but he was relentless when he smelled opportunity. He made his way toward me, squeezing his slight frame through the crowd, shaking hands and mumbling quick greetings along the way.
“I’ve been trying to find you all night,” he said, looking up at me through his angular eyeglass frames. “Great party.”
“What’s up?”
“Remember that wind power project I pitched you last week?”
“WindTech?” My watch showed eleven minutes to go. “It was a dud.”
“Don’t be so fast to dismiss the new technology.”
“Our investors at Phoenix Prime want profit,” I said. “WindTech offers none.”
“Our future energy holdings need depth,” Thomas said. “How about a quick introduction to WindTech’s CEO, Martin Poe? He’s here tonight, and before you say no, may I remind you that he’s a friend of the mayor’s son?”
Thomas had been with Phoenix Prime for many years, first as my father’s right hand man, now as mine. His attitude and work ethic were good, but sometimes I had to temper his enthusiasm. As Phoenix Prime’s CEO, I’d fielded countless crises and survived shifty markets. With a little luck and a hell of a lot of work, I’d turned my father’s company into the premier energy development fund in the country. Every nut who thought they had new technology wanted to talk to us, and that included Poe, a guy with a long history of claims and little to show for it.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll talk to him. He’s got three minutes, not a second more.”
Thomas signaled and a couple emerged from the crowd across the room. A bearded man with sharp features and longish salt-and-pepper curls approached. With a nervous hand, he adjusted the horn-rimmed glasses perched on the blade of his nose. His rumpled tux strained around the middle, contributing to his disheveled appearance. The woman on his arm, however, was striking. I recognized her right away.
My gaze settled on her luminous eyes. Rimmed with long lashes and set wide apart on her face, they were an extraordinary color, midnight blue leaning to sunset indigo, matching her gown’s jeweled tones. Her eyes widened when they met mine, bright, curious and alert, but also cautious.
“It’s you,” I said.
She shrugged and offered a little wave. “Hi?”
“Where the hell did you go?”
“Oh, um, well...” She flashed a crooked, nervous smile. “I had to go, you know?”
“I waited for a long time.”
“Oh.” She blushed. “You waited?”
“You didn’t come out.”
“Sorry.” She hesitated. “But thank you.”
“For what?” I said.
“For doing the right thing,” she said. “That gentleman needed help and you gave it.”
I considered the woman before me with renewed curiosity. She was perhaps the only person in this place other than me who understood how Chavez felt. I didn’t miss the look that the man standing next to her gave her—a harsh, reproving glare that raised my hackles.
“You two know each other?” Thomas said.
“No,” she said.
“Yes,” I said at the same time.
Thomas looked from her to me. “Which one it is?”
“We haven’t met formally,” I clarified.
“In that case, allow me to make some introductions,” Thomas said. “This is Martin Poe.”
“Mr. Lane.” Martin Poe had a firm shake but a clammy grip.
“I’ll leave you two to talk.” Thomas excused himself from the conversation.
I eyed the woman on Martin’s arm. “And your name?”
“I’m Lily Boswell-Poe.”
Her hand was cold in my grip and yet the contact jolted me like a blast.
CLEAR! The corpsman’s voice echoed in my head. The defibrillator struck—wham—delivering two thousand volts straight to m
y heart. Suddenly there was light, and pain, pain so bad I wanted to die again. The helicopter’s engines roared and blood spilled everywhere, dripping from the litter, pooling on the deck, smearing the face and hands of the young corpsman working on me.
Easy, soldier. I fought to pull out of the flashback. Get a grip.
The flashback that sent me into a tailspin felt as real as the woman standing before me. Clinging to her hand, I escaped the stench of blood and burning gasoline by forcing myself to follow a trace of her delicate scent.
“Mr. Lane?”
The sound of her voice appeased my mind’s racket. I pushed back the grisly memories and focused on her. Reason scattered the old ghosts. I had not died again.
But if the defibrillator hadn’t just delivered an electrical shock to my heart, why then did I feel revived?
Martin Poe cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Mr. Lane?” His voice betrayed a slight accent—French, I remembered from the report. “If I might say—”
“Wait.”
The woman before me looked as dazed as I felt. Her brows dipped in an exquisite frown. “Are you all right, Mr. Lane?”
“Fine.” Had she felt the jolt too? “You?”
“I... I’m not sure.”
I forced myself to think rationally. I was in public, for Christ’s sake. I had to move on.
“Lily.” Her name rolled from the tip of my tongue like a lullaby. “Nice to meet you. What do you do?”
“Me?” She stammered. “Well, I...”
“She works a couple of jobs,” Martin Poe butted in. “Nothing of consequence.”
I flashed him a cutting glare and returned my attention to Lily. “Is that so?”
Her shoulders straightened. “I’m an artist.” Her chin came up. “I paint.”