“Hey, buddy.” Jagger needed to add guns to his supply list. Shane’s service weapon was too big to carry discreetly, although it would be nice to have it now.
Shane and the dog seemed to be at a standoff. If he ran back to his truck, it would not only be unmanly; the dog would chase him. It might be more macho to order the demon dog to cease and desist.
“No,” he said firmly. The dog snarled and took a step closer. “Sit. Stay.” The black muzzle wrinkled and contracted, showing more teeth.
“Tank, down.” Gillian stepped out the back door of the cottage and propped her hands on her hips. “Come.”
With a final deep growl, the hellhound turned and walked to Gillian, circled her, and sat beside her. His upper lip curled in a canine, Elvis impersonation, except with evil intent.
“Nice dog.” A mutt if he’d ever seen one, but she probably thought he was Westminster worthy. “His name is Tank?”
She leaned down and scratched behind the demon’s ears and the black fuzzy tail thumped happily. “What did you do to him?”
“Me? I was minding my own business and he attacked me.”
“Uh huh.” She looked him up and down, but then frowned, and came closer. Tank moved with her. “Did he cut your lip?”
Shane touched his finger to the wound. “Well, no, Jagger did that.”
Gillian laughed. “You’re certainly popular today.”
“Yeah, let’s not even talk about the guy who threatened to kill me.”
Her smile faded. “Did you make a decision?”
Part of him wanted to make her wait, let her sweat a while longer. But this wasn’t her fault. “Yes, I’ll help you. Jagger’s in, too. At least we’re going to do our best.”
Oh, hell. She was going to cry.
She threw her arms around his neck in a tight hug. “Thank you. God, I’m sorry you’ve gotten dragged into this, but thank you.”
Shane glanced down to see how the hellhound was reacting to his master’s public display of affection, but the damned dog had gone to sleep. Might as well take advantage of the opportunity. He slipped his arms around her and hugged her back.
Shane was six three, so he gauged Gillian to be about five eight, a nice height for hugging. Her dark hair smelled like lemons and he wished more than anything he was here for pleasure, that they could order a pizza and watch the sunset and get to know each other.
She looked up at him, and he felt the moment her heart rate sped up, beating a steady rhythm against his chest. He angled his head and leaned in, touching his lips to hers in a soft exploration, then grazing her cheek below her closed eyes, then her jaw line.
He stepped back, and the look she gave him when she opened her eyes was sad and maybe filled with the same regrets he was feeling. “I wish we’d met under different circumstances,” she said.
“Me too.” But they didn’t have time for personal stuff. Not now. Maybe not ever, depending on how this adventure played out. Shane glanced back at the water, which looked black now that the disappearing sun had only a few faint glimmers left. “I thought maybe we could go through your family stuff.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I have it on the table inside.” She stepped over the now-snoring dog and held open the back door. “Want a sandwich or something?”
“Sounds good.” He’d only made it through half his lunch and had been too preoccupied since then to think about food. He’d been too busy avoiding alcohol.
He followed her into the little house, where she opened the hinged lid of the carved wooden box that sat on the table. Musty envelopes covered in ornate writing slid off the top, and Shane glanced at the postmarks. Most were from 1940s Louisiana, addressed to various Campbells and Jeffersons and Mitchells.
For the next hour, they ate turkey sandwiches, made small talk, and combed through a lot of old family documents. The only thing useful, or at least Gillian hoped it would be useful, was a letter from her great-uncle Zeke to her grandfather.
“It has a phone number on it,” she said. “The letter’s more than ten years old, but it’s a start, at least. Maybe he still has the same number.”
Shane read the letter, which didn’t make any mention of the Campbell legend. “What makes you think he’ll know anything?”
“My dad said Zeke had done some digging into the family genealogy.” She gathered the plates and took them the four steps into the kitchen. “Plus, he’s the oldest living Campbell, by far. I just hope he can remember something useful. Of course we have to find him first.”
She sat back down at the table and began piling papers back into the box.
Shane laughed and held up a photo he’d set aside. “Care to explain this?”
“Oh jeez, let me see that.” Gillian snatched the photo from him and groaned. “Why did my grandmother keep this?”
It showed a teenage Gillian, all long legs, short shorts, and big hair, sitting astride an alligator, her hands placed on its neck.
“Were you riding him? He doesn’t look too impressed.” Shane grinned. “Nice legs, though. Yours aren’t bad, either.”
Gillian shook her head. “Her name was Bertha, and she was one of the first gators my parents brought to the farm. She was pretty tame—well, as tame as any gator ever gets. They’ll still take an arm off if they get in a mood.”
“What gets a gator in a moo—”
Outside the door, Tank sprang to life and barked, but this time he wasn’t barking at Shane.
“What’s he barking at?” Gillian pushed her chair back, but Shane beat her to the door. He walked onto the patio, looking around. He didn’t see anything—until he followed the dog’s gaze. Tank seemed to be barking at the sky.
“Look up, over the tree line.” Gillian came to stand beside him and pointed in the direction of town. One section of the night sky glowed with a golden, hazy light. “Looks like a fire, coming from the direction of town.”
“Maybe we should check it out.” Shane pulled his Jeep keys from his jeans pocket while Gillian tugged Tank inside and locked the cottage door.
He was behind the wheel and she’d climbed halfway into the passenger seat when an explosion seemed to rock the very land beneath them, followed by a plume of flame that shot high in the sky from the other side of the island. They’d gotten to the end of the airport runway and curved toward town when the second explosion went off.
This time, more flames were visible, reaching red, angry fingers all the way to heaven.
EPISODE 3
CHAPTER 9
The closer they got to town, bumping along the uneven roads in Shane’s old Jeep, the higher the flames in town grew. Gillian hoped God forgave selfish prayers made by frantic women; still she prayed that this fire—these explosions—had nothing to do with her.
“Damn it.” Shane jerked the Jeep to a stop when he tried to turn onto C Street and found the road crammed with traffic at a standstill. He managed to back out and continued another block. This time, he got a couple of streets farther before running into a makeshift barricade manned by a young uniformed cop who didn’t look a day over eighteen.
“Let’s walk from here.” Shane pulled the Jeep into an alleyway and tucked it tight next to a building so another vehicle could get by if necessary.
They got out and walked toward the fire. Its heat warmed Gillian’s skin even from two blocks away and by the time they rounded the next corner, it had become downright hot. The air smelled of smoke and charred wood and rotten eggs.
“Gas,” Shane said. “Probably what caused the explosions.”
At least the night was still, the wind fairly calm for the islands, so maybe it wouldn’t spread and burn the whole town down.
Oh, God. “It looks…” Gillian didn’t want to say it.
Shane said it for her, his tone flat. “It looks like it’s coming from Harley’s.”
They remained silent the rest of the way, and Gillian had to walk fast to keep up with Shane’s long strides. Even before they turned the last corner, they sa
w it. Harley’s was engulfed in flames, and Cedar Key’s volunteer fire department personnel were out in force with ladder trucks, a fire engine, and rescue vehicles.
A lot of their work seemed focused on hosing down the adjacent structures to keep the fire from spreading. Gillian didn’t see how anything in the restaurant itself could be saved.
She spotted Jagger near the far end of the building, leaning over a figure on the sidewalk. “Shane, look.”
“Shit.” Shane wove through the onlookers, and Gillian trailed in his wake.
Harley sat cross-legged on the ground, the tears that streaked down his cheeks reflecting the red of the flames. Shane knelt beside him and talked for a moment, then he and Jagger walked a few yards down the block, deep in conversation.
Did Harley have family? Did he have a home, or did he live here? Gillian couldn’t stand to see him sitting there alone, so she went to stand beside him, leaned over, and gave him a hug.
“It’s all I have.” His salt-and-pepper hair was wet and plastered to his head, and he had a scar on the side of his head near the hairline that Gillian hadn’t noticed at lunch. He still wore the old apron he’d had on in the restaurant earlier, but it was more black than white now.
“Did you live here?” Gillian sat on the sidewalk beside him and, after a short hesitation, took his hand. Harley needed to talk, and listening might be the only way she could help.
“Yeah, I do—I did.” The tears had stopped, but he still watched the fire as if in a daze. “Bought this place with Cal Mackie when he came back to Cedar Key for good, about a year before he got sick.”
“That’s Jagger’s dad?”
Harley nodded. “Fine man. Jagger is, too, although he tries like hell to cover it up. He’ll find himself eventually; took Cal a while to figure things out, too.”
Harley’s voice had calmed from a thin, shrill rasp to something deeper, closer to what Gillian remembered from their brief acquaintance. She needed to keep him talking. “What about Jagger’s mom?”
Harley smiled. “She thought she was a free spirit, said she didn’t mind that her man stayed gone most of the year riding out the summer season in New England and Canada and the winter fishing in the South. But she wandered off and left the boy behind when he wasn’t but five or six.
“Fine man, Cal.” His gaze followed the line of flames, which had finally begun to lose some height. “Did I tell you I bought this place with Cal when he came back to Cedar Key for good?”
Gillian was no doctor, but state wildlife employees had to be trained in basic emergency treatment. Though she didn’t think Harley was hurt, psychological trauma was another matter. They needed to get him someplace where he could dry off and get warm.
She craned her neck to look around the sea of legs surrounding them and finally spotted Shane and Jagger walking toward them. Jagger looked almost as shocked as Harley and also was wet and dirty. Shane’s face was set in granite, his jaw clenched, eyes stony and cold. The man was pissed.
Gillian’s heart took a dive toward her ankles. That expression had to mean her worst fears were true; this fire was somehow related to her. Damn it.
All the stress of the last two days sat on her shoulders, and it felt almost too heavy for her frame to support. She struggled to her feet just before Shane and Jagger reached her.
Jagger nodded toward Harley. “How’s he doing?”
Gillian dropped her voice so Harley wouldn’t hear. “I think he’s in shock. Is there somewhere we can get him some dry clothes? I guess”—she looked around at the emergency personnel and spotted a couple of Levy County Sheriff’s Office sedans—“the deputies will want to talk to him but maybe they can do it later?”
Shane had spotted the cars as well. “I’ll talk to them. We’ve got a short-term solution at least.”
“I’m gonna take Harley to The Evangeline,” Jagger said, looking back at the bar, which continued to burn but at least was well under control. “I’ll stay there with him tonight and Shane’s staying with you.”
Gillian dropped the volume of her voice even further. If Shane thought she needed a big bad protector, that further confirmed her suspicions. “Was it the guy we saw at lunch today?”
Jagger nodded, and Gillian realized she’d never seen him so serious. No songs, no grins, no jokes. “It was my fault. I went after him and this is what happened.”
Gillian needed to hear that story, but not now. Jagger had his own shock to cope with. “Harley loves you—you know that?”
He looked back at her, a bedraggled stray cat now instead of a swashbuckling rocker. His brown eyes told her he felt the same way about Harley. “He loved my dad,” Jagger said. “He worked for him for years, whenever Dad would fish the Gulf. I thought going out on the open water with them was the coolest thing in the world.”
“He loved your dad, but he loves you too—a lot.” She looked down at Harley, who seemed to have sunk into his own world, a world that had nothing in it but his stunned mind and the smoking ruins of his life. “I think you’re probably the only one who can help him through this unless…does he have family?”
Jagger smiled at the older man. “No, he’s an old bachelor playboy.” He smiled bigger. “Me, I guess. I’m his family.” He stuck his hands in his jeans pockets and shivered. “Just so you know, I told Shane we should take Harley with us on the dive. He doesn’t know the waters in that area, but he knows The Evangeline and he can fix anything with a motor in it.”
Damn it, no. Not another person at risk. “I don’t want him involved. He needs to—”
“He needs something to keep him occupied and whether we like it or not, he’s already involved.” Jagger stepped around her and knelt down beside the older man, their foreheads almost touching, Jagger’s long dark hair mingling with the short white-tinged brush cut of the old fisherman as they talked.
Harley nodded, and Jagger helped him to his feet. “When Shane gets back, tell him we’re headed to the marina. He can tell the cops where to find us.”
On impulse, Gillian stretched her arms around Harley’s waist and, in a few seconds, she felt him return the hug. “I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered. About more than she could ever tell him.
She watched them walk away, Jagger with his arm looped protectively around Harley’s shoulders, never mind that the older man had at least two or three inches of height on him.
“Let’s go—cops say they can talk to Harley tomorrow.”
Gillian flinched at Shane’s voice close behind her. She was so damned jumpy, but that seemed normal under the circumstances. Shane’s face still wore that stony, cold expression so she walked alongside him and didn’t try to talk.
They remained silent on the drive to The Evangeline, until Shane parked in the marina’s private lot. “I’m going to spend tonight at your place but need to pick up some clothes. Come on board while I get them.”
Gillian bit her lip to keep from telling him to stop being so damned bossy but reminded herself he had every right. She got out of the Jeep and slammed the door. “You going to tell me what happened?”
“No.” Shane locked the vehicle and headed toward the slip where The Evangeline was docked. Gillian could either trot after him or walk at a more dignified pace.
Hell, she grew up on an alligator farm; she’d never been dignified. She ran to catch up with him. “‘No’ isn’t an acceptable answer. I have a right to know what kind of damage I’ve caused now.”
He wheeled on her, causing her to crash into his chest. And here they were again, with his hands on her waist and her nose pressed into that sexy little dent between his pecs—which she could see because her nose hit at the exact point he’d stopped buttoning his shirt.
They stayed that way for a few heart-racing seconds before Shane released her. “Stop being a martyr. You’re a victim here as much as anybody; nobody’s blaming you except yourself. And I’ll fill you in. Let’s just get back to your place first.”
“Okay, sorry.”
&n
bsp; “And stop apologizing.”
“Sor…Okay.”
The tension between them dissipated, and he walked at a more comfortable pace, turning along the maze of piers until they reached the gangplank. Shane stood back and motioned her ahead of him.
“Aren’t you being gallant tonight.” She walked across the narrow wooden structure and stepped down onto the deck.
“Not really. You’re a klutz and I have a better chance of catching you—and not ending up in the water—if I’m behind you.”
“Nice.” Except, as soon as they walked back to the door into the interior, Gillian remembered why they were here and her lightened mood came crashing back to earth. “Is Harley going to be okay?”
“Yeah, he’s tough. He’ll reel for a while but he’ll land on his feet.” Shane led the way through the door and cut right into the hallway behind the pilothouse, then descended a few steps into the bedroom.
Now that she wasn’t distracted by an almost-naked man with a mostly empty bottle of bourbon, Gillian had a chance to look around. She stood in the doorway while Shane went into the bathroom and banged drawers and cabinets. Like the rest of The Evangeline, the room was heavy on the honey-colored wood—birch, she thought.
But it was a lot more spacious than she’d have expected on a ship this size. The queen-size bed had enough room on either side to walk; an entertainment system and night stands had been built into the slightly curved wall that followed the shape of the hull. She’d spotted a small washer and dryer in an alcove across the hall.
Shane came out with a toiletry case and tossed it on the bed, then went to the closet and pulled out a small duffel. Black straps stretched around the sturdy gray-green camouflage sides. Stamped on the outside was “Burke, S.”
“You were in the Army?”
Shane glanced around at her as he tucked the toiletry case into the duffel and went back to the closet. “Marines. Long time ago.”
Wait. “Do Marines have divers, sort of like SEALs? Is that where you trained?”
Lovely, Dark, and Deep (The Collectors) Page 8
