Chapter 14
She wasn’t there. Approaching Whaler’s room, seeing in through the opened door before he arrived, he could see part of the man’s body in the bed, but no sign of Dove.
The chair pulled up to the bed was empty.
Blowing right past the officer standing a couple of feet to the right of the door, he burst into the room, his gaze taking in every inch of floorboard around the room, expecting to see her sitting, back up to the wall, eyes closed. He saw nothing but floor. And molding.
No Dove.
Two strides took him back to the door, and a young officer he hadn’t yet met. “Where’s Dove?”
“She left twenty minutes ago, sir. Said she was going next door to meet a friend for coffee and would be back shortly.”
“You let her go? You’re supposed to be guarding her!
” He swallowed as he heard the very clear reprimand in his raised tone.
And then, lowering his voice and checking his attitude, he said, “Her life is in danger.” A serial killer was on the loose and Dove could already be pegged as his next victim.
All the victims were young, and Eli had just said that, so far, they all had long hair.
Dove’s long wavy amber waves were unforgettable…
The officer’s face tensing, he said, “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know. I just came on. I was told to guard the room. I thought that just meant the patient.”
Turning, Mitchell sped off down the hall, hearing the concerned young man’s addition, “She left her cell phone number with me in case anything changed with her father’s condition…”
If there was more, he missed it. Whaler’s was currently the only occupied room in the small unit. No one cared if a Colton on a mission stormed out.
However, he was saved making a further ass of himself when, just outside the unit door, he saw Dove, in that long billowy skirt and crop top, that long fiery hair, walking toward him.
Relief flooded through him washing away the haze of panic that had taken hold. Enough so that he was able to sound at least somewhat like his usual, practical self as he said, “Are you aware that there’s a serial killer on the loose? And that his victims are about your age and all have long hair?”
He clenched his teeth shut the second he heard himself.
Really heard himself. Looking around, he was immensely glad to see that there was no one else around to have heard the information that was not his to leak out.
And took Dove’s arm as he led her to a couple of armchairs set in an alcove.
“I just talked to Eli,” he said softly, slowly, but no less urgently.
“This isn’t information I should be spreading around town.
The ABI will disseminate details as they feel is necessary to best protect the public, but the break-in at Namaste, someone watching your house, it could be him, Dove.
Until we know more, I need you to promise me that you go nowhere alone.
You’ve got police protection here at the hospital.
And I’ll escort you to and from. You’ve already got safe housing.
Everything else we’ll work out on a case by case basis. ”
The deflation, as he reached the end of his litany, almost left him weak. At the very least, strangely unsettled. Like he’d just given everything he had to prevent death and then…faced no immediate danger at all.
Dove was perfectly safe. She’d had coffee. And had returned to her vigil.
“You need to take a breath, Mitchell,” the woman said to him, softly, calmly. More like his usual self than he was currently portraying. “Several of them,” she added.
She was going to argue with him. He knew the wave was coming. And knew that there was no way he could vacillate on the issue. No matter how much inner truth she brought to the table.
But he would give her what he could. Breathing, his or hers, wasn’t a deal-breaker, so he nodded, sat back and prepared to wait for however long it took her to determine he’d completed the task she’d given to him.
A minute passed. At least. Mitchell didn’t much mind. Dove was safe. Where she wanted to be—within yards of getting to her father if need be.
Kirk had proven to be a legitimate asset during his first eight hours on the job.
Wes had reported an above-average day with no issues.
Stuart, the same.
Pretty much covered Mitchell’s responsibilities for a very long Monday. With the night’s duties still ahead.
Duty. One duty that night.
Keeping Dove safe while his family members did their jobs. Okay, two duties. He also had to keep his piece in his pants. Which would be most easily accomplished by forgoing his usual sleeping mode—in the nude—for one that included the pants.
Mental note made.
Not sure how much longer they were going to sit there—and pondering best solutions for dinner given the current circumstances—Mitchell leaned his head back against the wall.
Taking a deep breath, he sighed. Settling in.
“Wow, that took a while.” Dove’s voice, sounding loud to him in the silence, interrupted his reverie.
Straightening, he glanced over at her. “What did?”
“You getting to the point of taking a breath.”
Shaking his head, he frowned. Not in the mood for funny stuff. Even as he knew he had to keep her as agreeable as he could. “I’ve been taking breaths the whole time. One after another. It’s what people do to stay alive.”
“That’s breathing,” she told him, quite congenially, but there was no humor that he could see in her expression. “Taking a breath is more. It’s pulling air in purposefully, more deeply, than normal breathing. It helps the body to relax.”
Mitchell wanted to roll his eyes. To tell her he didn’t need her magical cures. Except that…once again…her words contained a certain practical sense.
“Noted,” he told her. But had to add, “If you’d explained that ten minutes ago, your mission would have been accomplished that much sooner.” Just for future reference—in the event she put him through any more of her life lessons during the time of their acquaintance.
One he’d thought would be miraculously short. He was starting to accept that it could turn out to be much longer than he’d expected.
As in, a regular workload for the time it took to get St. James Boats back on its feet. Whether for Bob to run, or to sell. Either way, Mitchell’s part came first.
He had another, much larger challenge facing him before he moved from the chair.
She might think she’d distracted him with her breathing antics.
But, “I need your promise, Dove. You go nowhere alone, you continue to stay at my place, until this serial killer is found or the police find proof that Fletcher or someone else vandalized Namaste and was watching your place.”
“I promise.”
With a sharp turn of his head, he stared into the eyes facing straight at him. “I mean it,” he said. “No funny business.”
“You mean like saying that an angel was with me so I wasn’t alone? Or flew in my window and carried me out into the night?” She looked so innocent as she spoke.
Mitchell wasn’t sure if she was being facetious, or if she knew what the town thought of her. He feared the latter.
And hated that he’d made her feel that way.
“I meant no making a promise and then finding a way around keeping it.”
She continued to watch him—study him was more like it. Giving him nothing from within herself. “I can’t tell if you’re saying you don’t trust me to keep a promise or just think I’m naive enough to not realize that, under no circumstances, am I to waver from the dictates you laid down.”
When she put it like that…
Mitchell took another deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“I trust you to keep your promise. And I absolutely do not think you’re naive.
” He meant to leave it there. And started talking again anyway.
“But I also know that you’re independent, headstrong and smart enough to find a way to manipulate a situation if you feel a need to go outside the boundaries I’ve set. ”
She smiled then. An expression that started in her eyes seconds before it landed on her mouth.
“You might be right in other, less severe circumstances,” she told him and then her expression turning serious in an instant said, “I know that my best chance at making it through this in as successful a way as possible is with you, Mitchell. The things you’ve already done for me, calling in the best of the best to help when, without you, my father more likely would have died out there before anyone found him.
The safe place to sleep you’re providing…
until this is over, you’re the boss. That’s just the way it is. ”
A deluge of sweet relief hit him, wiped away in the next second when she added, “In terms of the guidelines you set out above, and for the stated purposes.”
The woman just wasn’t going to stop challenging his thinking every step of the way. “Mind expanding on that?” he asked. Not willing to risk another embarrassment by hazarding his own guess.
“Just that,” she told him. “Speaking literally here, Mitchell, keep up.”
Not hating their repartee as much as he’d have liked, he met her gaze full on. “Go on,” he told her. More out of curiosity than anything else.
“I still have autonomy over all of my choices that don’t involve keeping me safe from the bad guys.”
Here it came. The out he’d been expecting from the beginning. “Such as?”