Ex Marks the Spot (Harlequin Next)

by Merline Lovelace

  Then they both spun toward the sound of a crash as someone or something slammed into the panic bar on the back door.

  CHAPTER 17

  Dave sprinted through the pulsing spray, his boots like thunder on the now-slick floor as he pounded between two rows of shelves.

  Andi was a half step behind him. Water rained down, drenching her hair, her clothes. She barely registered its sting. Her focus—her only focus—was Dave’s broad-shouldered bulk.

  In the two-or three-second time warp between hearing the sprinklers whoosh on, getting hit in the face and spinning toward the slam of the back door, one grim thought had penetrated the chaos inside her head: someone had been in the shop when she’d unexpectedly returned.

  Now that her shocked mind had jolted back into gear, Andi had a damned good idea who that someone was. As she raced behind Dave, his earlier warning screamed inside her head.

  You corner a junkyard dog, he’ll go for your throat.

  When Dave hit the panic bar on the back door and crashed into the alley behind the shop, Andi barreled through right behind him. He whirled left. She spun to the right and spotted a dim shadow flying down the alley toward a panel truck parked at the far end.

  “There!”

  She took off on a burst of speed fueled by pure unadulterated fury. It didn’t enter her head that her prey might be armed or that she’d make an easy target in her light-colored blouse.

  Both had evidently occurred to Dave. He overtook her halfway down the alley and locked on to her arm. Snarling, he swung her bodily toward a Dempsey Dumpster.

  “You’re too visible! Stay the hell out of his line of fire.”

  By contrast, his camouflage BDUs made him damn near invisible. He shot past Andi and was immediately swallowed by the darkness.

  Scrunching her nose at the stink emanating from the Dumpster, she darted around the metal container and kept to the shadows as she panted after him. Suddenly a bull-like bellow shattered the night.

  “Talbot!”

  The man who’d wrenched open door of the panel truck jumped a good foot in the air. Whirling, he spotted what must have looked like a dim mountain charging straight at him. Cursing, he leaped into the driver’s seat.

  That was as far as he got. Dave was on him a second later, blocking his attempt to slam the door, dodging the boot aimed at his groin, hauling him out by the scruff of his neck.

  Desperation made up for the fifty-or sixty-pound difference between the two men. Dave got in the first blow. Talbot swayed but somehow managed to stay on his feet. When he jerked his arm back, Andi saw what he had in his hand.

  “Dave! He’s got a wrench!”

  He threw up an arm to block the blow, but Talbot got in under his guard. Bone crunched. Blood spurted. Grunting, Dave staggered back.

  Andi didn’t stop to think, didn’t so much as blink. Shrieking with rage, she launched herself through the air.

  “You bastard!”

  No lightweight, she plowed into Talbot and slammed him to the ground. He hit hard, cracking his head against the pavement. One moan and he went out.

  Andi didn’t bother to check his pulse, didn’t worry whether he was concussed, didn’t care if he came to in the next instant and took off running. Jumping up, she whirled and almost let out another screech.

  Dave loomed right behind her, blood gushing from his nose. His eyes were savage, his fists bunched. Dragging his gaze from the building inspector, he raked Andi with a hard glance. Apparently assured she was okay, he relaxed his predatory stance.

  “Nice takedown, Armstrong.”

  She made a hiccuping sound that was halfway between a sob and a laugh. “Thanks.”

  The blood terrified her. The glistening red stream poured from his shattered nose. Andi threw a frantic glance around the dark alley, found nothing she could use and ripped off her blouse.

  “Sit down,” she ordered tersely, wadding the material into a ball. “Put your head back.”

  She got him positioned against one of the truck’s wheels and put the wadded cloth in his hand. She didn’t dare press it against his face herself.

  “Do you have your cell phone?”

  “In my shirt,” he muttered through the cotton. “Right breast pocket.”

  THE GULF SPRINGS POLICE responded to Andi’s call with gratifying speed. Siren screaming, lights flashing, the patrol car screeched to a halt at the end of the alley.

  Andi recognized the uniformed officer who cut the siren and heaved himself out of the front seat. She’d met him on her first visit to the town offices. Hitching his gun belt over the mound of his stomach, the officer surveyed the man just starting to twitch back to consciousness.

  “Yep, that’s Bud Talbot. You say he broke in to your shop?”

  On her knees beside Dave, Andi frowned. “We didn’t actually see him inside. But we heard the back door slam, raced outside and saw him running down the alley.”

  “I yelled at him to stop.” Dave kept his head tilted at a forty-five-degree angle. “Dragged him out of his truck. Bastard let swing with a wrench.”

  A loud moan drew their attention back to the building inspector. Woozy and obviously still half out of it, Talbot levered onto an elbow.

  “Wh-what happened?”

  “The colonel here decked you.”

  “Not me,” Dave corrected drily. “The other colonel.”

  “You don’t say.”

  Beaming his approval, the officer hooked a hand under Talbot’s arm and dragged him to his feet.

  “Come on, Bud. It’ll take our volunteer firemen and EMT crew another ten, fifteen minutes to scramble. I’ll drive you to the hospital, have your head X-rayed. Ms. Armstrong, you want to drive your husband? I have a poncho in the trunk you can pull on.”

  Andi had forgotten she’d sacrificed her blouse to Dave’s bloody nose. Tugging the plastic poncho over her head, she was bending to assist Dave when a small herd charged around the corner.

  Crash was in the lead, followed by Sergeant Duchek, Sue Ellen, Karen, Carol, Heather and what looked like most of the patrons from Cap’n Sam’s. The boys were the only ones missing that Andi could tell. The crowd skidded to a collective halt and left Crash to rush the last few yards.

  “We heard the siren,” he bit out, offering Dave a strong hand to help him up. “Saw the patrol car cut around the block. Took us a minute to realize your shop lights hadn’t come on and make the connection. Sorry.”

  “No problem.” The blood-soaked rag muffled Dave’s nonchalant reply. “Andi took care of the problem.”

  Part of the problem, she realized when Crash asked if she had the keys the Tahoe. “They’re in my purse. In the shop.” A groan ripped from the back of her throat. “Probably under a foot of water by now.”

  “What?”

  “The sprinklers. Talbot turned them on.”

  “Oh, no!”

  The shriek came from Karen. Sue Ellen and Carol added their dismay to hers.

  “Your books!”

  “They’ll be soaked.”

  “Will someone please figure out how to turn the damn things off?” Andi pleaded. “Dave, you have your keys? We can take your pickup.”

  “I’m okay,” he insisted. “You stay.”

  “Forget it, Armstrong. Whither thou goest…”

  “Come again?”

  “I’ll explain later.”

  He let the explanation slide only until she had him in the backseat of his extended-cab pickup. Heather had dashed across to the restaurant and returned with ice wrapped in a towel, which Dave now held to what he insisted was only a broken nose. While Crash wheeled through the night with Sue Ellen strapped in beside him, Andi’s wounded warrior pressed for details.

  “What’s this whither business?”

  Gently she dabbed at the dried blood now crusting his chin and cheeks with a corner of the towel. “I did some hard, fast thinking after I heard about the JTF assignment. I’m going to Qatar with you.”

  The calm announcem
ent whipped Sue Ellen’s head around and earned a quick look in the rearview mirror from Crash. Dave gaped at her in startled silence above his ice pack.

  “A friend of mine from the Pentagon is there now,” Andi said, plunging ahead, “working as a civilian contractor. He can get me on. I’m sure I have some skills that would prove useful.”

  “You have a whole bagful, but…”

  “No buts, Dave, and no more goodbyes. You said it yourself. We have to blend, become one.”

  Silence invaded the cab, broken only by the engine’s muted hum and the squeak of Sue Ellen’s seat as she wiggled around for a better view.

  “Yeah,” Dave finally agreed, lowering the ice pack, “that’s what I said.”

  “Then it’s settled. Good thing I didn’t put my boots and desert gear in storage.”

  “You won’t need desert gear, Andi.”

  “Sure I will.” She swiped gently at another streak of red. “I’ve been to Qatar. I know how hot and—”

  “You won’t need it.” Reaching up, he caught her hand. “Neither will I. I turned down command of JTF-6.”

  “You—you couldn’t,” she stuttered. “You didn’t.”

  “I could and I did.”

  She grasped the implications immediately. A drastic move like that would deep-six any chance at promotion and kill Dave’s career. Senior officers didn’t turn down assignments unless they were prepared to hang up their uniforms.

  “But CENTCOM… General Howard…”

  “I had to drive over there this afternoon. I figured I should tell the general face-to-face.”

  “But—but—”

  He tried a grin, winced and settled for cupping her cheek. “No buts and not one more goodbye.”

  Thrown completely for a loop, she could only stare at his battered, gore-streaked face.

  THEIR SECOND TRIP TO the ER in as many months took several hours. The docs ordered a CT scan to make sure the wrench hadn’t caused any facial fractures besides a dented nose. By the time the results came back, Dave’s nose had swollen to a bruised mound, and the whites of his eyes glowed as red as the fires of hell. Hiding a grin, the ER physician followed his patient’s terse instructions for proper placement of the bandage.

  “Taken a few blows to the face, Colonel?”

  “One or two.” Dave inspected the handiwork and nodded. “Thanks, Doc, I’m good to go.”

  Crash and Sue Ellen were in the waiting room.

  “Sergeant Duchek called a little while ago,” S.E. reported. “He had to take the boys home but said his wife and your sister are still at the store.”

  “Did they get the sprinklers turned off?”

  “Yes.”

  Sue Ellen’s grim expression answered Andi’s next question before she asked it. “I take it the damage is pretty bad.”

  “Yes again.”

  DESPITE THE ADVANCE warning, Andi held her breath when she reentered the shop.

  Carol and Karen stilled the mops they were wielding. After making sympathetic noises over Dave’s werewolf eyes and bandaged face, they both came close to tears as they watched Andi survey the ruin of her bright, shiny dream.

  Her ficus drooped pathetically, its branches bent from its dousing. The paperbacks Andi had so lovingly unboxed, scanned and shelved now lay in sodden heaps on the floor. Every copy of Return to Avaranche stacked on the center round in preparation for Roger Brent’s visit sported soaked, warped covers. Her beautiful window display floated in a foot of water.

  Gulping down the golf ball that seemed to have lodged in her throat, Andi forced herself to think.

  “I’ll, uh, need to print a copy of our inventory for the insurance company.”

  “We tried the shop computer,” Karen said miserably. “It’s shorted out. So are the terminals.”

  “Good thing I backed up everything up on my laptop.”

  Her gaze went to the plastic-coated banner hanging above the remains of her pyramid. The four-foot letters defiantly announced Roger Brent’s visit. Sighing, she added another item to her checklist.

  “I’ve got Brent’s phone number in my home computer, too. I’ll contact him first thing in the morning to let him know the signing’s canceled.”

  Talk about bad PR. Not only did she have to scrub the bestselling author, she wouldn’t be able to spread word of the cancellation in time to notify folks hoping for an autographed copy of his latest thriller. She doubted any of the disgruntled potential customers would return when—if—the shop ever reopened.

  “Why cancel?”

  Dave’s question pulled her from what threatened to become a world-class funk.

  “Huh?”

  “Why cancel Brent’s appearance.”

  “Kind of hard to host a book signing with no books.”

  “You ordered your stock from a distribution center in Tennessee, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So order more. They operate a twenty-four-hour hotline, don’t they?”

  Andi quashed a sudden surge of hope. “They do, but even with expedited processing I could never get an order delivered in time. The distribution center is a good eight hours away.”

  “Not by air.”

  Hope leaped again, wild and joyful, as Dave turned to Crash.

  “Are you certified on a civilian version of the Huey?”

  “I’m current on C, D and F models.”

  “I’ll make a quick call, wake a friend and we’re on our way.”

  “Dave, no!” Andi’s protest was instant and instinctive. “You can’t fly all bunged up.”

  “I’ve done it before.”

  She couldn’t let him take the risk. Not for a few books.

  “If you hit altitude, you’ll start bleeding again.”

  “We’ll skim the treetops.”

  “It’s not worth it, Dave. I can fall back, regroup, schedule another grand opening.”

  “And lose the impact of the publicity you’ve generated for this one.”

  “So I lose it.”

  “Sure you want to do that, Andi? You’re not alone in this enterprise.”

  His gesture encompassed Karen, Sue Ellen, Carol, Crash.

  “They’ve got a stake in the store. So do I.”

  “You? How?”

  His red eyes gleamed fiendishly above the bandage taped over his nose. “I’m going to be out of a job soon, don’t forget. I’m hoping I can talk you into taking me on as a partner. I figure the shop can support us both in the lifestyle we’d like to become accustomed to.”

  “Oh, right! I can see you behind the counter of a bookstore.”

  “Stranger things have happened. Get on the horn, woman. Put in your order and tell the distribution center we’ll be there by first light to pick it up.”

  AGAINST ALL ODDS, ANDI and her crew of determined helpers pulled off one helluva event.

  With the shop still soggy and uninhabitable, Andi had to find an alternate location. She considered, then decided against a sidewalk event. The sun would be too hot, the crowds too big. Thinking fast, she made a call to the mayor and got permission to move the book signing to the small park at the end of Main Street. She also called a local church to secure the loan of eight-foot folding tables.

  Her crew reconvened at six the next morning. Jerry Duchek picked up and delivered the tables. While Andi and the boys set them up, Jerry went to work restringing neon pennants and hanging the plastic banner to mark the book signing’s new locale.

  Carol stayed at the shop to direct traffic to the new location. Sue Ellen and Karen ferried food, drinks and cartons of sales slips. Without her computerized system, Andi could only take cash, checks or, in a pinch, IOUs from the troops already starting to show. Since it was Saturday morning, most of them wore jeans and T-shirts, but there was no mistaking their buzz cuts. Sprinkled among them were a goodly number of women and civilians.

  Andi and her assistants worked the crowd, passing out punch and the assortment of goodies Karen had picked up at the bakery.
Roger Brent arrived right on schedule. With his shaved head and cobra tattoo snaking up one forearm, he lived up to his tough-guy image on the soaked copies of Return to Avaranche.

  The long line already formed puffed up the author’s chest. The empty tables lowered his brows.

  “No books?” he asked after Andi had introduced herself, Sue Ellen and Karen.

  “Not yet. They’re on their way.”

  Or so the call she’d received from Dave several hours ago had assured her. They’d had the cartons loaded and had been about to lift off.

  Signaling to Joe Goodwin, she detached him from a cluster of men and drew him to Brent’s attention.

  “You remember Chief Goodwin, don’t you?”

  “Sure do. How’s that training camp for troubled teens coming, Joe?”

  “Slowly,” the chief replied with a sardonic glance at Sue Ellen. “But I’m hoping to cut through the red tape and open next summer.”

  “Let me know when you’re up and running. I’d like to come out and take a look-see.”

  “Will do.”

  Desperate to kill a little more time, Andi suggested the chief introduce the author to some of his troops. “He might get another book out of them.”

  Or not.

  The chief made only a single introduction before Dave’s pickup wheeled around the corner. Boxes were stacked four or five high in the truck bed. When Dave climbed out, still in his bandage and blood-soaked BDUs, Joe let loose with a long whistle.

  “Hell, Colonel. What country did you just invade?”

  “Tennessee.”

  Shooting Andi a wide grin, he moved to the back of the truck. “Major Steadman and I could use some help unloading these boxes.”

  “All right, troops. You heard the colonel. Fall in.”

  EPILOGUE

  One year later

  “I knew you wouldn’t last behind the counter of a bookstore.”

  Smiling at her husband, Andi stacked chicken popovers in a straw basket. They’d decided against a dinner party to celebrate their first reanniversary but wanted to share their happiness with friends and family. Hence the picnic about to take place at the Gulf Springs Veterans Park against a backdrop of the H-130 Hercules recently mounted on a gleaming marble pedestal.