The Art of Loving Lacy (Sweet with Heat

by Addison Cole

  Dane loved Hugh, but the idea of entertaining his self-centered younger brother when he was in such a crappy mood was painful. “I’ll call him,” he said.

  After Josh left, Dane checked out of the hotel and texted Lacy again. I’m sorry for everything. I hate how we left things and I miss you. Can we talk? Please? He tossed his luggage in the trunk of the rental car, then texted Hugh. I’m heading to Chatham. You up? A minute later, his phone vibrated and a burst of excitement sent him fumbling with his phone. Lacy? His hopes deflated when Hugh’s name appeared. He read the text.

  My day freed up. Mind if I tag along on your trip? I’m taking off later tonight but I have a few hours to kill.

  Great. Dane took one last long look at the dunes where he and Lacy had made love, remembering the way his brain hadn’t zoned out like it had in the past with other women. With Lacy, he’d been both mentally and physically present. The feel of her skin remained on his hands, the taste of her on his lips, and the memory of those unfamiliar feelings pierced his heart like a spear.

  He knew it wasn’t fair to take his trouble with Lacy out on Hugh, and he didn’t see Hugh often enough to warrant turning him away. Maybe the distraction would help him get through the day. He texted him back. Sure. Meet me in pkg lot in 10 mins.

  Dane looked back at the hotel, a wave of sadness washing through him. He should stick around and say goodbye to his father and his siblings, who were all due to fly out over the next few hours, but the last thing he wanted was to hear them say they told him so. The last thing he needed was to walk back into that hotel and remember what he’d felt like the night before, knowing that he’d lost any chance he might have had with Lacy.

  THE SUN HAD yet to ease the brisk New England morning. With coffee in hand, Dane pulled the hood of his Brave Foundation sweatshirt over his head, stuffed his wallet and cell phone into the pocket of his cargo shorts, and headed down the dock toward his slip with Hugh in tow. On a normal day, heading into New England waters would have his mind reeling with anticipation, his body infused with adrenaline. Today his mind was back in Wellfleet, stuck like a pig in mud in that moment at the park when he felt Lacy tear her heart away from his, when for the first time in his life he’d been unable to talk his way into a woman’s arms.

  “Where’s Rob?” Hugh asked.

  “Your guess is as good as mine.” Maybe it was a mistake bringing Hugh with him. Dane wasn’t even sure he could muster pleasantries or patience.

  Dane eyed the sixty-foot lobster boat. Sturdy. Seaworthy. He checked his phone again. Where the heck is Rob? Rob had worked for Dane for the past ten years. He’d come on almost every assignment, and they were the safest and best team around. Hugh eyed a woman on a sport fishing boat a few slips away. Come on. Really? Dane didn’t have time for this. He climbed aboard.

  “Let’s go,” he snapped at Hugh.

  “Chill, bro. I’m just taking in the eye candy. Man. You know she’s hot beneath those sweats,” Hugh said.

  Two years ago, he’d have been right beside Hugh, drinking in the curves of some anonymous woman, but now the only woman he wanted to ogle was the one who wouldn’t even return his texts.

  Dane spotted Rob heading down the dock in rumpled clothing, his eyes locked on the ground and the temporary deckhand they’d hired to help them out following behind him.

  “You all right?” Dane ran his eyes down Rob’s clothing.

  “Yup,” Rob said. “This is Tim.” Rob lifted his gaze to Hugh. “Hugh, good to see you, man.”

  “Rob,” Hugh said. His eyes followed Rob’s every move.

  Dane watched Hugh scrutinizing Rob. He was surprised to see Hugh paying such close attention to someone other than himself. Hugh was usually too self-centered to worry about anyone else. Then again, Dane had learned about another side of Hugh on the boat yesterday, too. Maybe his baby brother was finally growing up.

  Rob moved robotically through the motions of checking equipment. At five foot ten, Rob was a good five inches shorter than Dane. He was a burly man with an ever-present five-o’clock shadow and thick brown hair that had recently begun to gray at the temples. Rob was usually like a lion, strong and sure. Today he moved like a wounded housecat.

  “What’s up with him?” Hugh asked. “The last time I saw him, he was all big talk and false bravado.”

  “Dunno,” Dane answered. Rob was a forty-four-year-old father of two, and Dane had always been able to count on him. Only over the past few weeks had he noticed a change in Rob’s demeanor, but today was far different from anything he’d seen before.

  Dane scanned the deck for the chum barrels. “Where’s the chum?” he asked.

  “Shoot,” Rob said. “Tim, go get it ready. We’ll come pick it up. It’s down at the wharf.”

  “Dude, we were supposed to pull out of here half an hour ago.” Dane shook his head.

  “Sorry, man. I was up all night. Sheila and I are having a boatload of trouble,” Rob said.

  “Trouble?”

  Rob put his hands on his hips and spit in the water. “Yeah. I didn’t want to say anything, but she left me, Dane. She said she needed a break, to clear her head or some crap like that.”

  “You didn’t want to say anything? Rob, you tell me when she breaks a nail,” Dane said. “We just had dinner together a few weeks ago. You guys seemed fine. How does that happen after fourteen years of—”

  “Fourteen years of marriage? You’ve got me,” Rob said. “She took the kids and went to her mother’s three days ago.”

  “What happened? Was it because of all the travel?” Dane asked. In all the years they’d worked together, Dane had never seen Rob do anything inappropriate with women. He’d always spoken highly of his family, and as far as Dane knew, he was a great father. He couldn’t imagine him doing anything that would cause Sheila to leave.

  Rob shook his head. “I just don’t know.”

  Dane noticed the evasive shift in Rob’s eyes, and he realized that Rob knew why Sheila had left, but he wasn’t ready to share it with him just yet. “We can table this run.” Dane put a hand on Rob’s shoulder. “Take a day. It’s no big deal.”

  Rob shrugged him off. “Yeah, right. I’m fine.”

  “Rob—”

  “I’m fine. Let’s do this.” Rob turned and stalked to the far side of the deck.

  Dane watched Rob walk away, wondering how fourteen years of marriage could end just like that. How could months of—What? Long-distance flirting?—end just like that?

  DANE PILOTED THE boat out to sea, stewing over the way Lacy had ended their night. She hadn’t wanted him to walk her to her room, and as he watched the elevator doors close, with Lacy on one side and him on the other, he felt as if his heart had been cut in two. Now, as they raced out into the open sea, anger crept in. Why hadn’t I anticipated her panic attack? Why did I tell her about those other women? And why the heck didn’t I go see her?

  “Excuse me, Dane?”

  Dane spun around. Tim had tied a bandana around his head, reining in his blond hair, which stuck out below and hung down to his collar. He had a broad chest and a thin waist, and his bulbous biceps rivaled Dane’s, though he was a good ten years younger. “Yeah?”

  “It’s just, uh, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but Rob’s out there puking his guts up and I’m, uh, wondering if you wanted to go check him out. I can take over here.”

  “Freaking perfect,” Dane said.

  Tim took over, and Dane found Rob leaning over the rail. Hugh stood a few feet away with his arms crossed, shaking his head.

  “You okay?” Dane asked.

  “Yeah,” Rob said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were sick? You could have stayed back onshore. I’ve got Hugh and Tim. We can afford to miss a day, too, Rob.” Dane reached for a towel and handed it to his friend.

  “I’m fine.” Rob took the towel and walked away.

  Hugh sidled up to Dane and whispered, “Hangover.”

  “No way. Rob would never
be so careless.” Or fall off the wagon. Rob was a recovered alcoholic, fifteen years sober. Dane had shared that information with Treat and his father, and now he wondered if the Braden hotline had fed Hugh that intel, too. Dane looked back at Rob, who was leaning over the opposite railing. He shook his head, not wanting to believe it. He pulled Rob away from Hugh. “Something else you want to tell me?”

  Rob grimaced. “No.”

  “Rob, we can’t do this with you in this condition. I can’t believe this, Rob. Why didn’t you come to me?” Dane pushed aside his thoughts of Lacy long enough to really focus on Rob.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just having an off morning,” Rob said.

  “Off enough that we should cancel the run?” He narrowed his eyes, but Rob met his stare and held it.

  “No.”

  THEY’D BEEN CHUMMING the water and fishing for sharks for two hours. Dane watched Rob like a hawk, and he seemed to have pulled himself together. Maybe it was just an off morning.

  “Fin!” Hugh yelled.

  “Man, Hugh, why don’t you call in the cavalry?” Rob snapped.

  “It’s about time,” Dane said. Between Lacy and Rob, his patience had worn thin.

  Dane and Hugh stood beside each other, arms crossed, watching the water expectantly.

  Rob grumbled beneath his breath, “Come on, you beast. Take it.”

  The shark circled, then disappeared, and a few minutes later it reappeared.

  “Son of a gun. Take the bait,” Rob growled.

  “Does it usually take this long?” Hugh and Dane stripped off their shirts. Their muscles already glistened with sweat.

  “Yeah, this is nothing. Sometimes Rob and I are out here for four or five hours and we come up empty-handed. It’s the nature of the beast,” Dane said.

  “Blasted beast,” Rob said.

  The more Rob grumbled, the more it rode Dane’s nerves. Ever since Hugh had mentioned a hangover, he’d been watching Rob, and after seeing his bloodshot eyes, Dane wasn’t so sure Hugh was wrong.

  “They’re so close. Look at that big one. When will they take the hook?” Hugh asked.

  Rob leaned against the rail. “When they’re good and ready,” he snapped.

  “He’s having a hard time,” Dane said to Hugh.

  “Hey, whatever. I’m just glad I get to be here. I looked for you last night. I thought you left the resort early,” Hugh said.

  Dane gritted his teeth. The last thing he wanted to talk about was the previous evening. He was trying to keep his mind off of the fact that Lacy was ignoring his calls.

  “Where’d you go?” Hugh asked. “I saw Lacy in the hall at the resort.”

  “You did? At midnight?” What the…?

  “Yeah. I asked her where you were, and she said she thought you turned in early but that you might be with someone else.” Hugh shrugged. “I figured something went down between you two.”

  “With someone else? Who does she think I—” The clicker on the fishing reel ticked repeatedly as the line was drawn out, catching Dane’s attention. “Bite. We’ve got a bite.”

  Rob jumped to his feet and helped Dane strap the harness around his waist and legs. Dane scanned Rob’s face. Whether it was the adrenaline rush that came along with tagging or the fresh sea air, Rob looked much clearer than he had moments before. The color had returned to his cheeks. They were done in seconds. Then Dane strapped himself into the fighting chair, or what Dane jokingly called the death chair. The death chair was constructed of wood and metal and secured to the boat deck. It had a foot plate that Dane used to further gain control while he reeled in the shark. The chair rotated with the movement of the fish, and Dane’s legs strained against the pressure.

  “You sure that’s safe?” Hugh asked.

  “It better be.” Dane pulled back on the line until it was tight, then yanked three or four times—hard.

  “Let him run with it,” Rob said.

  Dane was used to this part of the game. He could tell by the feel of the pull that this would be about a two-hour ordeal of wrestling to maintain control while tiring out the shark and finally bringing it in for tagging. He readied himself for a long, hot afternoon. Good. It’ll keep me from thinking about Lacy.

  An hour and a half later, the veins in Dane’s arms and legs strained against his skin. His hands were locked to the reel and rod, his biceps bulging. Sweat drenched his forehead as he wrestled the rod and brought the eight-foot great white toward the boat.

  “Rob!” Where is he? “Holy… Tim, grab the tail line. Hugh, where the heck is Rob?”

  “I’ll get him. He was in the head,” Hugh said.

  Dane kept his eyes trained on the shark. “What?” No one goes to the head when a shark is on the line. He couldn’t whine about it now. He had a shark to tag. “This is the hardest part, Tim. Grab the tailer.”

  Tim picked up the long metal tool by the handle and scanned the flexible cable and strong line. Dane watched him run his hand quickly along the line and follow the loop back on the cable to the handle, checking the security of the D-shaped flexible loop. “Got it,” Tim said.

  Dane unhooked himself from the seat, working to keep the shark close to the boat. “Rob!”

  “Right here,” Rob said. His lids were heavy, and his cheeks were once again flushed.

  “You okay to do this?” Dane asked.

  “Heck, yeah.” Rob carried the hand tools for tagging the shark.

  Dane grabbed Rob’s arm. “Dude. No risks. If you’re not up to this, do not touch the shark.”

  Rob pulled his arm from Dane’s grasp. “I got this. We’re gonna have a good run.”

  “What can I do?” Hugh asked.

  Dane watched Rob out of the corner of his eye. He recognized Rob’s reaction to the shot of adrenaline that Dane knew all too well when a shark was finally within their grasp. Rob moved more confidently, and Dane wondered if—and hoped that—Hugh had been wrong after all. “Tim’s going to hook his tail, and I’ve got the head. While Rob’s securing the tag to the dorsal fin, you hold on to the fin too and hold him as still as you can,” Dane said.

  “What about that thing I read about…tonic immobility?” Hugh asked.

  “You read about that?” Dane asked. Dane could hardly believe his brother had read up on what he did for a living. Tonic immobility was a technique used by several taggers—by flipping the shark upside down, they put the shark into a natural state of paralysis, or a trancelike state, for fifteen minutes, after which time the shark would right itself and swim away, unharmed.

  “My life is more than racing and women,” Hugh said.

  “I never would have guessed,” Dane said with a wink. “We use tonic immobility occasionally, but it’s not our go-to measure.” The shark fought and lashed from side to side, arching to one side and then the other. Tim struggled with getting the tailer on the shark.

  Impressed with Hugh’s knowledge, and trusting his strength and intelligence, Dane hollered to him, “Hugh, help him?”

  “Got it.” As if he’d been catching sharks forever, Hugh timed the action perfectly and secured the loop over the shark’s tail on the first try. He pulled back, and the cable slid down and tightened around the shark’s tail. “Ha-ha!” Hugh yelled. “That’s a Braden for you.”

  Rob went to work tagging the shark. He positioned the hand tool on the dorsal fin and injected the one-inch tether, attaching the tag.

  “Usually we like to get blood work, approximate weight, length, girth, but today we’re just tagging,” Dane explained to Hugh as he huffed and puffed, wrestling with the line to keep the shark reeled in close. “I hate to not get this sucker’s length and girth.”

  Rob looked at him and smiled. “I got this.”

  “What?” Hugh asked, looking from Rob to Dane.

  “Your brother wants to jump in and get a good feel for this monster’s girth,” Rob said.

  “You wanna jump in?” Hugh asked.

  Dane looked past hi
s adrenaline and really studied Rob’s face. “Man, you don’t look too good.”

  Rob finished tagging the shark and wiped his eyes. “Go, will you?” he snapped.

  “You look sick. Let’s skip this one,” Dane said.

  “I’m fine,” Rob said. “You going to do this or what? We got about seven minutes. Tops.” They always kept their tagging and tests to less than fifteen minutes for the safety of the shark. “Enough of this. Get your butt in there. I’m fine. I told you—I was tired, but I’m fine now,” Rob said.

  “Tired doesn’t equate to safe,” Dane said.

  Rob scoffed, stripped his shirt off, and jumped off the boat a foot from the shark’s tail.

  “For the love of… Hold that sucker tight, Hugh. Tim, gimme the tailer.” Idiot Rob. What the heck are you doing? Dane’s heart slammed against his chest as he searched the water for his friend while gripping the tailer with all his might. He knew Rob would swim under the shark and use his arms to estimate the shark’s girth, but the water was too murky to see him.

  Rob popped up beside the shark. “Got it.” He had a grin on his face as he swam to the side of the boat. Just as he started to climb into the boat, the shark flailed, and Rob lost his balance and sank back into the water.

  “Crap. Tim, get him in the boat!” Dane hollered.

  Rob swam over, and Tim helped him into the boat. Dane began the process of freeing the shark from the line and the tailer.

  “What was that? Rule number one: Never do anything unanticipated. What the hell, Rob? What was that crap?” Dane yelled.

  Rob sat with his elbows on his knees, wiping the water from a cocky grin. “A girth of about five feet.”

  “You son of a…” Dane said.

  THEY PULLED INTO the slip around four in the afternoon and docked the boat. While Dane was pleased that they’d tagged a shark, he was livid. He watched Rob step off the boat and run the crook of his elbow down his face. For the first time in ten years, his faith in Rob faltered.