Chapter 10
It was late in the day when they got back to the beach shack and they had a lot of logistics to take care of in a short time. Dane felt the tension in the usual places, between his shoulder blades, his right knee, and his jaw. His chest. It felt tight and hollow at the same time.
He let the screen door slap closed behind him and stepped into the kitchen. Shana was ahead of him and opening the freezer door.
“Put a hold on the tequila. You need to set up a video call with the feds.”
She turned and gave him a look measured to make him feel small. “Is it okay with you if I get something to eat?”
He felt like an idiot. “You just had pie.”
“I’m having ice cream for dessert.”
This was not a good sign. Shana only resorted to ice cream when he resorted to icing his shoulder.
“Should we wait for Acer and Cap for the conference call?” She walked to the dining table where the computer was set up and fired it up, tapping keys with admirable proficiency. Dane watched and took a swig of his bottled water. It would have to do for now.
“I’ll call Cap. Acer is on his way. Get the feds on the line.” He didn’t say, “Let’s get it over with,” but he didn’t need to.
Shana looked up from the screen at him. “I’ll handle it. You don’t need to be on the call.”
“Like hell.”
“I can handle this.”
“That’s not the problem—and you know it.”
“Do I?”
“You’re a superstar, Shana. Stop fishing for compliments. This is about the feds’ fixation with reserving me for their scapegoat. I need to give them their fix.” He smiled. It didn’t sound so bad when he put it that way.
When Shana smiled at him then, all his pain faded, the tension in his muscles and the ache in his soul.
He felt the ripple of excitement beginning in his gut and rising to his heart to make it thump extra hard, extra fast. Her green eyes sparkled at him as if he was telling him with her look that he was the bravest, strongest, smartest man in the world.
He felt like the most exciting man. Or maybe he was the most excited.
He stood behind her and bent to watch over her shoulder, taking in her scent and feeling the heat of her body warm him, soften him. It was bad. It was dangerous. He didn’t move.
“One more tap and we’re on the screen.” She turned her face up to his. Her eyes glittered, her lips trembled, but she said in a soft voice, “You’ll need to back off.”
The sting would have been no greater if she’d slapped him in the face. He stood.
“Don’t play games with me, girlie.”
“You think this is easy for me?” She looked earnest, but the moon-like glitter in her eyes had turned to a glare. Their eyes stayed locked for a tense tick of the clock. Then two.
Then the screen door squealed open and banged closed and Acer came into the shack.
He schooled himself back into the granite monolith who withstood all assaults, especially assaults to the heart.
“Hit the key,” he said.
She did.
“You calling the feds?” Acer took a seat at her side. Dane stood back and watched as the office of the FBI SAC came into view, filled with no less than six agents seated around a conference table and staring at them with their game faces on.
“Good evening, Shana.” Special Agent Derek Smith beamed a smile. Dane scowled but the man gave him no notice.
“Let’s cut to the chase,” Croft said. “What’s the status?”
“The plan is in place,” Shana said. “Everyone is lined up and cooperating. Ryan Murphy and Anatoly Ivanov have agreed to bait the trap and we have confirmation that Xavier and Cannelloni are buying in.”
Dane cleared his throat. He saw Acer cover his mouth and say something under his breath.
“We have an indication that they’re buying into revenge. We’re working on confirming more details, but we’re still expecting a strike at the church Friday night.”
“What about Lara Bennett, the bride?” Mark Richards asked.
“I’ll be playing the role of the bride.”
“I suggest we have an FBI agent play the role,” Smith said. “Someone who looks more like Lara and someone who Xavier and Cannelloni have never seen.”
Special Agent Smith was now Dane’s very special FBI man. He’d be buying the man a drink one day soon.
SAC Evans agreed, but Trevor Croft and his two Homeland Security friends frowned at the notion.
“No way,” Croft said. “If it’s not Shana George, we’ll get someone from Homeland Security in there.”
“It will be me. I have the confidence of Ivanov, I know the lay of the land, and I’m a trained operative.
I also know Lara Bennett and have already had her wedding gown altered to fit me.
I’m playing the bride.” Shana spoke with the calm finality of a schoolmarm ready to slap the next naysayer with a wood ruler across their knuckles. No one spoke for a beat.
“You’re sure they won’t know your face?” Evans asked.
“Not until it’s far too late.” She held her back straight—like she’d stuck that wooden ruler in her shirt.
Dane said, “I agree.”
She turned and looked at him. Everyone on the computer screen looked at him now as if they hadn’t realized he was there.
“Shana is best for the part. As for Lara, she’s been safely stowed with her daughter at an undisclosed location.”
They went over a few more details of the plan, deciding when and where the agents would come onto the island, the roles they would play, and where they would be for the rehearsal dinner and for the wedding.
Dane stood back and watched Shana handle it all. When she shut the computer down and pushed back her chair he took a deep breath.
She stood and turned.
“Why did you go along with me playing Lara? You had a perfect chance to pull me from the assignment with the feds pushing for it.”
“It was strategic. We couldn’t let either of the agencies get a leg up on the other—which they would have if they had one of their people come in.”
She nodded and moved to walk around him into the kitchen. He caught her arm.
“You believe me?”
“No. I think it’s because you didn’t want some outsider in our operation—someone who might take over, who you couldn’t give orders to.”
“There’s that too.” He didn’t tell her that he hated the idea with every fiber of his being and that if she weren’t his partner, a professional who could handle herself, and that he knew she’d probably walk out on him, he would have stuck to his guns and insisted she couldn’t play the role.
But he couldn’t say any of that right now.
Not in a crowd and not in the middle of the operation.
“Anyone else want a shot?” she asked.
“Make mine a double,” Acer said. “I have work to do. I’ll go crazy staring at the screen and listening to the audio if I don’t have a shot of tequila to take the edge off.”
Dane shook his head. He needed to keep his head, every last ounce of his resolve, to keep from breaking his truce with Shana. But he followed her into the kitchen and stood near her because that’s what he could allow himself.
“I noticed your FBI boyfriend didn’t like you playing the target.”
She laughed.
“I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
“Once again, I know. And yet you were very funny.”
She startled when Acer scraped back his chair and stood.
“I’m taking this operation into the office. I need to concentrate on this surveillance audio—such as it is. They’re fond of pizza and sushi takeout. So fond that they ordered sushi on their pizza.” Acer picked up his equipment and left the room.
“Now see what you did?” Dane said. “You disturbed the children.”
She kept a straight face. It was easy. “You’re not as funny when you’re trying to be.”
He reached a hand out as he moved toward her. She batted it away even while her heart raced and her gut did one of those butterfly tumbles. He raised a brow and showed one damn knowing dimple.
If her phone hadn’t sounded then, she might have slapped him. She had to do something and had been inclined to touch his damn face. Instead, she snatched her phone from the counter where she’d left it, inconveniently. She had to brush past Dane to get to it. He didn’t move.
Picking up the phone, she recognized the number. Special Agent Derek Smith. Shit. Hoping Dane hadn’t noticed her millisecond of hesitation, Shana answered the phone, pulling on a cool air of professionalism.
“Shana George here.”
Cap banged the door open then so she barely heard Derek’s greeting, but a quick glance at Dane told her he knew who it was. Dane smirked at her.
“Who’s on the phone?” Cap said.
“FBI,” Dane said. “Special Agent Smitten.”
Shana covered the phone but not quick enough. Derek swore.
“What the hell are you doing, Shana? You shouldn’t be posing as Lara Bennett and I can’t believe your partner is going along with it.”
“Is this an official call or are you expressing your personal—”
“Damn it, it’s personal.” Derek fell silent and Shana knew she had to say something. Dane and Cap watched her with varying degrees of interest showing on their faces. Dane’s face mocked her and Cap’s was curious.
“I appreciate your concern… Derek,” she said, sliding Dane a smirk of her own. “But we both know I’m a trained professional.”
“It’s not that—we both know Xavier and Cannelloni have you made and if they manage to snatch you, they’ll leverage you for all you’re worth.” He took a breath and lowered his voice. “I don’t know what my office’s official position would be in a circumstance like that since you’re not one of ours.”
“I understand.”
“And we have information that Max the Ax might take a perverse pleasure at getting revenge against your partner.”
That bit of news stopped her breathing for a moment and she looked at Dane. Damn the man. He hadn’t given her his history with Max. She stiffened her body as if readying herself for an assault. Then dared to ask.
“What do you have?”
“Nothing solid. But if he’s hell bent on revenge—and you all believe he is—”
“I get the picture.” She turned away from Dane and Cap.
“What are you going to do about it?”
“I’m going to do my job, Derek.” She chewed her lip and softened. “I appreciate the heads-up. I owe you one.” She meant it. He ended the call after a reluctant return to his professional role. Shana tossed the phone back onto the kitchen counter and turned to Dane.
“You have some explaining to do.”
In the vernacular of one of his favorite childhood characters—which one he couldn’t remember at the moment—the jig was up. Reinforcing his granite facade, he stalled.
“About what?”
“Damn you.” It wasn’t the fact that she fisted her hands and looked poised to punch him, but the quiet disappointment in her voice pierced the granite shell right to the core of his surprisingly alive heart. He felt the bloodletting as if it were real.
“What the hell? Cap said.
“Our intrepid legend has a history with Max the Ax that he forgot to mention.” Her voice bit into him and chewed his guts into slimy pieces.
“Oh that,” said Cap.
“You knew?” Shana didn’t hide her anger, let it boil over now, let it take over the hurt like a good trooper.
“No,” said Cap. “But I knew damn well if Dane knew who Max the Ax was without being told, then the odds were they’d tangled. And we both know damn well when Dane tangles with someone and lives to talk about it, whoever is on the other end is going to have a grudge.”
Dane said nothing on his own behalf. He damn well wasn’t about to give Shana any of the details of his tangling with Max the Ax. No need to let her know he had a chilling familiarity with how Max got his nickname.
She turned to him now expecting him to finally say something for himself.
He shrugged. “No different than my history with a dozen men like him.” He lied. He hoped to hell she didn’t see it. She was getting too good at reading his mind.
“You’re lying.”
He shrugged again. “So what? What does it matter, Shana?”
“It means you’re in danger of being the target as much as anyone else on this operation.”
“As long as we have bait, it doesn’t matter who the bait is.”
“Like hell. All our efforts have been aimed at the assumption that I’ll be the bait, but if he goes after you instead—”
“He won’t. Not this time. I told you. I’m too hot—too high value and too much trouble. For now.”
“You’re a damned—”
“Wonderful partner?” He put on his evil grin.
“Whatever. I’m still playing my part. And you can go to hell.” She left the room and a second later Dane held in his flinch when her bedroom door slammed.
“Then you’d better play it well, girlie.” And there it was. Underneath everything, he was scared to death that he would lose her; that he wouldn’t be able to save her.
Dane brushed past Cap on his way out the back door.
He needed a long gulp of sea air. His gut churned with worry about Shana.
The full-fledged horror of the scenario of her being snatched, dressed in a wedding gown, by Max and Sal’s henchmen exploded in his head in Technicolor detail that had his gut churning.
He walked across the patio and took a few steps onto the expanse of lawn that led down to the harbor before he stopped.
“It’s her job, man,” Cap said. He’d followed Dane outside to where Dane stood watching the lights twinkling on the harbor. “The one you invited her to do. She’s your partner, not your girl.”
Dane hated that Cap was right. He couldn’t see a way out of it. Not one that wasn’t filled with a world of hurt. Either way.