On the Edge

by Heather Graham, Carla Neggers

  His vivid blue eyes could be so kind and tender—she’d seen them that way. But they weren’t that way now. They were calculating, questioning, alert, making her wonder again what all Carine had told him.

  “My sister said I was here?”

  “Not in as many words. I had to get Ty to fill in the gaps.”

  Antonia almost choked. “He’s not in Cambridge with her—”

  “He’s in Florida. He says Gus’ll kill him the minute he sets foot back in New England.”

  It was only a slight exaggeration. Antonia sighed. “I don’t get it. Gus wanted to kill him for asking Carine to marry him—now he wants to kill him for not marrying her.”

  Hank managed a half smile, without letting up on his intensity. “Don’t try to make sense of it.”

  She waved a hand and picked the last of the cobweb off her arm. “I stopped trying to make sense of anything to do with Tyler North a long time ago. Why were you whistling ‘Heigh Ho’?”

  “I didn’t want to sneak up on a woman alone on an island.”

  “Good thinking.” She resisted an urge to glance back at her knife stabbed into the sand behind the rosebush. “I suppose a bad guy could whistle a cheerful tune to put me off guard—”

  “I’m not a bad guy.”

  His words were so direct, so unexpected, Antonia had to catch her breath. Despite her efforts not to, she thought of the instant messages, the whispers in the garage, the curtains billowing in the breeze. Maybe no one was stalking her. Maybe she was overreacting to a few odd coincidences because of Hank. Because she was falling for a retired air force officer, a national hero, a Massachusetts Callahan, a likely United States senator—a man who’d lost a wife and a child, who’d lived a lifetime before she’d even met him. Hank Callahan could easily overwhelm the life she’d carefully built for herself day by day, year by year.

  And none of that even took into account his longstanding friendship with the man who’d broken her sister’s heart.

  How could she let herself fall in love with him? It made no sense, and Antonia prided herself on being sensible when it came to matters of her own heart.

  Maybe there was no “let” about it. She remembered the moment she’d walked into Carine’s cabin last November and saw him standing there, felt the instant attraction, the sparks flying—all of it, every cliché there was.

  Hank moved closer to her, until they were almost touching. He’d grown up on Cape Cod and had been around the ocean all his life—yet he’d chosen to become a pilot. A rescue helicopter pilot.

  He eyed her again, studying her. She’d always suspected he had a keen ability to read people. He touched a finger to her hair and caught the last of the cobweb. “Tyler said I should bring you a toe tag in case you refuse to leave.”

  “He thinks he’s funny, doesn’t he?”

  “He was serious. He said if you dug in your heels—”

  “Why would he think I’d dig in my heels?”

  “I wonder.”

  She didn’t pursue that one. “Well, I don’t intend to stay out here if a hurricane watch goes up, never mind a warning.”

  “But you’re tempted, aren’t you?” His expression lost all its humor and gentleness. “What’s in Boston that would tempt you to ride out a hurricane on a barrier island instead of going back?”

  It was a close call, she realized. Crazy, because a barrier island was no place to be during a hurricane. “We’re not under a watch yet. I still have time.”

  As if to disprove her point, a strong gust of wind rolled over the top of the cottage and rattled the windows. “You don’t do brinksmanship with a hurricane,” he said.

  “Hank, I trust myself to make good decisions. You should trust me, too.” But Antonia curbed her sudden feeling of defensiveness. “Did Carine tell you I don’t know anything about hurricanes?”

  “More or less.”

  “More than less, I’ll bet. Look, Hank, I can see you’re concerned about me, but don’t be. I’ve been a little preoccupied lately—I just wanted to come down and clear some things off my deck.”

  “You don’t have a phone, do you?”

  He wasn’t backing off. She could see now that she’d miscalculated when she hadn’t told him what she was up to. She shook her head. “No phone. There’s no cellular service, either.” She smiled suddenly. “I have emergency flares.”

  “Flares.” He smiled back at her, his grim mood easing somewhat. “You’re something, Dr. Winter. Most people would stay at an inn to clear their decks, not sit in an old cottage out here all alone.”

  “I love it out here.” But she didn’t belabor the point, because if he’d dragged her whereabouts out of Carine, she didn’t stand a chance herself if he decided to press her about what all she wasn’t telling him. “Did you come alone?”

  “Yes, ma’am. All by myself.”

  His comment struck Antonia as deliberately intimate, and she felt a rush of heat and awareness so fierce she had to turn away. “At least you didn’t come by helicopter. You’re not getting me up in one of those things.”

  But he was good with both helicopters and boats—and she was good with neither. In many respects, she had more in common with Tyler North than she did with Hank Callahan. She and Tyler had grown up together in northern New Hampshire, and as a pararescueman, he was a highly skilled paramedic. But he was impossible. If Gus didn’t skewer him for what he’d done to Carine, Antonia thought, she might.

  But if she wasn’t careful herself with the air force type she had in her own life, she’d end up like her younger sister, nursing a broken heart. Maybe there’d been something in the air that night in Carine’s cabin, and they’d both been gripped by forces beyond their control, doomed to fall in love with the wrong men.

  Antonia gave herself a mental shake. She was getting way ahead of herself. She and Hank had been out to dinner together, the theater, a couple of movies, a pathetic baseball game—and they’d landed up in bed once, memorably, a few weeks ago.

  But no one was tinkling wedding bells in the background. Hank had lost a family once. Antonia could see it wasn’t easy for him to get beyond just having a nice time with a woman, moving to something deeper.

  Which was just as well, because “deeper” meant “more complicated,” and right now, Antonia thought, her life was complicated enough. Was that why she’d lied to him, withheld from him? To put him at arm’s length?

  “I have a boat anchored on the other side of the island.” His tone was matter of fact, but he wasn’t relaxed. “It’s out of the worst of the wind. We can leave in the morning.”

  The morning. It was, she thought, a very small cottage. One bed, a lumpy couch. Antonia pushed a flood of unbidden images to the back of her mind. “It’ll get into the papers,” she said. “Senate candidate Hank Callahan rescues doctor from island ahead of hurricane.”

  “Hate being rescued, don’t you?”

  “I hate having put myself in the position of needing to be rescued. I don’t mind that you’re here. It’s nice you came after me.”

  But his eyes narrowed on her, his hard gaze lingering on her face until she had to turn away. “You’re on edge, Antonia.” His tone was soft, but there was no mistaking his intensity. “Why?”

  “A Category 3 hurricane bearing down on me, maybe?”

  “That’s not it,” he said with certainty.

  She stepped past him, her arm brushing against his arm, adding to her sense of agitation. How could she think? A stalker, a hurricane, Hank Callahan. She glanced back at him as she headed up the steps to the back door, a warm gust of wind rolling over the top of the small cottage. “What would you do if I change my mind and refuse to leave in the morning, even if a watch goes up?”

  He mounted the step behind her and smiled. “Do likewise.”

  “You mean you’d stay?”

  He grinned at her, with no warning. “Gives you a little shiver of excitement, doesn’t it? You, me, a storm, a one-room cottage—”

  �
��Don’t you have staff and security people who’d worry?”

  “So? You have people who worry. It hasn’t stopped you.”

  “I’m not going to win this argument, am I? Luckily I don’t have to.” She returned his grin and faked a half-swoon. “I’m willing to be rescued.”

  5

  Robert set up camp behind the tallest dune on the Nantucket Sound side of Shelter Island. He felt intrepid. He dropped his pack in the sand and tufts of grass—he didn’t know his beach vegetation—and crouched down, pulling up his pants leg.

  “Shit!”

  Ticks. A million of them on his legs and ankles.

  The bitch doctor’s fault.

  He was maybe fifty yards from her cottage, but she had no idea he was there. He was sure of it. He’d arrived about an hour before Superman Hank showed up on the island. Pissed Robert off, totally. He’d known Callahan would find her but thought, given his good fortune with Babs, that he’d get a better jump on him. Maybe work it out so the wannabe senator could find his new girlfriend dead.

  Breathing hard, Robert used his fingernails to pick tiny deer ticks off his lower legs. He didn’t have tweezers. Dr. Bitch probably had a medical kit in the cottage with her, but she wouldn’t help him. She was such a phony.

  One of the ticks had a good hold on him. He drew blood digging it out.

  These weren’t the big wood ticks, he thought—dog ticks some people called them. These were the tiny deer ticks that carried Lyme disease. It could be treated with antibiotics, but damned if he wanted to get it. Some of the little bastards were barely the size of ground pepper. He’d picked them up tramping through the poison ivy and brush, chasing the wannabe senator across the island. Being brighter than most people, Robert knew if he’d stuck to the path, Callahan would nail him. No point in that. A left hook from Mr. Air Force, and he’d be toast.

  He had to think. Be proactive. He could put up with a few ticks, take his chances with Lyme disease.

  “Keep your eyes on the prize,” he said aloud, still panting and wheezing from exertion.

  He supposed he could have shot Callahan and been done with him. Robert wasn’t surprised the would-be senator had found his way to his bitch’s island refuge. It was getting there so fast that bugged the hell out of him. Now he had to scramble, deal with two people instead of one.

  He sniffled, digging at another tick. “You’re making adjustments, asshole. You’re not scrambling.”

  Right.

  The guy, Callahan, was a stud. Robert had followed him once, seen him in the papers and on TV a lot, plus with the bitch doctor. The two of them. What a pair. The handsome hero senate candidate, the beautiful blue-eyed doctor. Robert was nothing to them. Like one of these ticks that had to be removed, squeezed dead and tossed. But not ignored—nobody ignored deer ticks anymore now that they carried Lyme disease.

  A light rain that seemed to come out of nowhere washed some of the sand and blood off his legs, but when he moved, more sand stuck. He was covered in it. He felt like one of those little hermit crabs digging its way out of the wet sand at low tide. He didn’t know whether it was low tide or high tide now, just that the ocean was out there, rolling, getting scary on the other side of his dune. He wondered if Hurricane Hope was kicking up the surf or if this was normal.

  If Hope hit, he’d be swept away out here behind his dune. Drown in the storm surge. Get hit by flying debris.

  Callahan’s boat was anchored in shallow water on the other side of the island. Robert had come over by water taxi, telling the guy this big lie about meeting a friend and kayaking out before the hurricane had a chance to move in. It hadn’t occurred to him until the taxi boat bounced back over the waves that now he was stranded out here, too. The only way off the fucking island was Callahan’s boat and the bitch doctor’s kayak, which Robert had spotted in the brush. Something to consider in his future planning.

  He’d swiped the kayak paddle. That was thinking ahead. Antonia Winter wasn’t going anywhere unless Robert wanted her to.

  Granny used to tell him that even as smart as he was, she was afraid he didn’t think like regular people. He used to think she was just a sweet old stick in the mud with no imagination, no sense of adventure, but nowadays, sometimes, he wondered if she’d been on to something after all. Here he was, stranded, on an island—a goddamn wildlife refuge—a hurricane on the way, deticking himself, risking his life—and for what? A little payback. A little justice in this world. That’s what.

  It made him sick, thinking about himself in pain, with the bloody foot, hoping Antonia—Sweet Antonia, he used to call her—would give him some kind of hint that she was interested in him. He’d fantasized that she’d seize the opportunity he’d provided for her and let down her guard, open up to him, show her feelings. Instead, she’d made him feel like a goddamn loser. A twelve-year-old with a crush. Some jerk-off who didn’t have a clue, thinking he had a chance with a woman like her.

  After she’d called the cops on him, she’d probably gone out with Hank Callahan.

  Robert sank back against the dune, getting more sand on him. Justice. Revenge. She couldn’t get away with what she’d done to him. It wasn’t right. She’d betrayed him, humiliated him, and she had to suffer. She wasn’t the woman he’d thought she was. He’d believed in her, and where had it gotten him? Out here behind a goddamn dune.

  Whatever he ended up doing to her, he wanted her to know it was him. No more anonymity. He wanted to hear her beg, see her fear, and know he’d caused it.

  “Amen.” He opened his eyes against the rain, letting it wash onto his upturned face. “Amen!”

  He smelled like salt and sweat and dead fish. He dug his camouflage rain poncho out of his wet pack and wrestled himself into it. It had one of those floppy hoods that wasn’t worth a damn. It blew right off his head. He tried tying it on, but the stretchy tie snapped and the end hit him on the finger—it hurt like hell, made him want to kill someone.

  It wasn’t much of a campsite. No tent. No little stove or firewood. He hadn’t even packed a sleeping bag. He’d brought food, but not that much. Some crackers, apples, cheese, all bagged up in plastic. A twelve-pack of water.

  He wasn’t riding out a hurricane behind a goddamn dune, not with a cottage just up the path. It must have survived dozens of similar storms, decades of crappy weather. If Hurricane Hope chugged north and reached Shelter Island before Robert could take care of business, he’d be in the last structure on this little island. No question about it. He did, after all, have a gun.

  A spider crawled up his leg, as if the bitch doctor herself had sent it out to torment him. He yanked it off and tossed it into a puddle forming in the sand behind his dune. He crawled to his feet and looked over the dune, out at the churning water. He’d never understood the appeal of the beach, the ocean, Cape Cod. It was just sand and water to him. This place was supposed to be a bird refuge, but he hadn’t seen that many birds. Maybe they were all clearing out for the hurricane. Maybe they knew it would hit. Never mind the meteorologists and the storm-tracking planes—just follow the birds.

  He checked his gun. It was a .38 Smith & Wesson. Basic. But he wondered if he could get by without it. If he played his cards right, Hope would keep Mr. Callahan and Dr. Winter on the island with him, and he could blame their deaths on the storm.

  Kill two birds with one stone.

  Have his cake and eat it, too.

  Robert smiled. “Yeah. I like it.”

  6

  He and Carine were right, Hank thought. Something was up with Antonia. And whatever it was, it wasn’t good. He checked out her cottage, similar to countless old-fashioned cottages he’d been in since he was a kid. It was tiny, cozy, with inexpensive furnishings that were functional and at least as old as he was. A lumpy old couch. A heap of musty-smelling quilts, mismatched chairs and dishes, mason jars filled with matchbooks, tacks and rubber bands, soggy decks of cards and the ubiquitous Scrabble game. The bathroom was prosaic, to say the least. He noticed
the stack of threadbare towels.

  The bed was behind a curtain, the sheets clean and white.

  Hank didn’t let himself linger gazing at the damn bed.

  Antonia said that Babs Winslow was ninety-seven, and when she was gone, this place would be, too. That was the deal. She had a life-lease on the cottage, but the land under it was a National Wildlife Refuge. As, they all believed, it should be. Shelter Island and nearby Monomoy Island were uniquely located as stopovers for migrating birds, their spits of sand at the elbow of Cape Cod well-suited as home to dozens of species of rare and endangered birds. And time and time again, storms had rearranged what passed for land along this exposed stretch of the Cape—they would again. It wasn’t the best spot for the trophy houses that surely would have doomed Babs Winslow’s cottage long before now. Development pressures, the skyrocketing prices of beachfront land, were tough to resist.

  But he could see why Antonia liked to come here to think, relax. It was about the perfect escape from a busy urban emergency room, not that getting away from work, hiding out to write this journal article she was supposedly writing, explained why she was here now. They certainly didn’t explain her mood. She was a dedicated physician and hadn’t taken a break in months, but she’d been on the island for several days—why still the drawn look? Why still the edginess that he’d noticed at dinner in Boston?

  He motioned to the laptop computer on the rickety table. “How’s the article coming?”