Chapter 8
“Do I need to stay or can I give you my statement by phone?” Dane didn’t mention that he’d be phoning from a private jet halfway to Bermuda if all went well. Where the hell was Acer?
“Why?”
“Why not?”
Shana said, “It’s Valentine’s Day, Cap.”
Cap gave her a soft look and nodded. “If you put it that way. I think I can fill in most of the story anyway, having been a close witness.”
Dane slapped him on the back. Shana reached up and touched Dane’s face, wiping what he assumed to be blood from his lip.
“You need to get cleaned up.”
He noticed that she hadn’t said anything about seeing a doctor or going to a hospital.
“Anything you say, honeybunch.” He disappeared down the short hall to the men’s room before she realized her mistake. He glanced back to see the police still taking statements from Dirk and Billy and shrugged.
Dirk would be a fool to pursue her any further now. Dane trusted Shana to put an end to any ambitions the fool might have remaining.
*****
Shana almost didn’t believe that Dirk could be so shameless as to rush over to her the minute Dane left the room.
“Are you all right? What kind of sick shit has that bastard Dane gotten you into?”
“You can go now, Dirk.”
“I don’t think he’s right for you, Shana. You’re making a mistake. We haven’t had a chance to be alone, to really talk.”
Billy grabbed his arm. She was mixed up about her darling brother right now. On the one hand, he’d brought Dirk here knowing full well that she was marrying Dane. On the other hand, he’d jumped in to help Dane—not that he’d needed it—while his sniveling coward of a friend hid under a table.
“I don’t give a shit how far you came. I don’t want anything to do with you.
” She didn’t bother saying especially after your display of chicken-hearted cowardice in the face of danger and a threat to my safety.
He was so not her type of man. In fact, she had no idea what the hell kind of woman would want him. Someone desperate. Not her.
He blinked, but he stepped forward. Apparently, the chickens hit wasn’t afraid of her. But that was a grave miscalculation on his part. When he reached out and grabbed her arm—maybe he only touched it—she reacted the way she’d been trained to react.
Shana swung around and with her other hand she punched him square in the eye, knocking him backwards. He let go of her arm.
“Don’t touch me. You have no right. You have no right to have any expectations from me. I’d say you have a lot of nerve, but I’ve already seen how little nerve you really have.”
It was a shock to her, even after the events of the night, to see Dirk turn pink, to see him shrivel back away from her.
“Let’s go, Dirk.” Billy took his arm and didn’t let go this time. He flashed an apologetic smile at Shana before he dragged his friend from the place.
Cap slipped his radio com back into its holster and came to her. He put an arm around her.
*****
Dane walked into the bar from the back hall at the same time Acer walked through the front door.
“It’s about damn time.” He smiled in spite of his annoyance and met Acer at the bar where Tom was serving drinks now that the cops were gone. All except Cap.
Most importantly, Dirk and Billy were gone.
“What’s with the cop car outside?” Acer asked. “and when did they decide to redecorate this place?” Acer waved his arm around the disheveled barroom.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“You’re lucky I got here at all—but I made my deadline.” He lifted his wrist to check his watch. “It’s ten minutes before midnight. I should have waited outside nine more minutes.”
“Quinn’s on his way to jail. No thanks to you.”
“You’re welcome. I delivered my private jet for your romantic getaway, didn’t I?” Acer winked at Shana, who leapt forward to give him a hug.
Cap turned to Dane.
“You’re leaving town?”
“For a few nights. You’re not going to make something of it, are you?”
“Not when you put it that way. You’re welcome.”
Shana turned to Cap and gave him a hug too.
“I know. You’re doing it for Shana, not me.”
“She deserves it,” Acer said. He didn’t finish the thought, didn’t say why. Didn’t state the obvious reason. Because she’d agreed to marry Dane the Demon and deserved whatever romantic perks she could get because they’d be as rare as the Hope Diamond.
“You guys are funny,” Shana said, stepping back from Cap.
She came into Dane’s arms then and gave him that adoring look that never failed to make his chest tighten.
He’d found that the border between joy and pain was a very delicate and lethally sharp knife’s edge.
He found himself balanced there now and didn’t want to breathe or move, wanted to stay there forever.