Chapter Forty-Two
Brian
By late morning, the sun was already hot enough to make the sand shimmer. Jade rolled up the towels while I packed the cooler. We fell into our beach preparation routine, moving around each other without needing to talk about it.
She came out of the bedroom in her black bikini, sunglasses pushed up in her hair. I whistled low, and she smirked as she slipped on her sandals.
“Stop staring, weirdo, and grab the sunscreen,” she said.
“I can do both. I’m a multi-tasker.”
The look she gave me said she didn’t really mind.
“How’s your leg feeling today?”
I handed her the SPFs 30 and 50 and replied, “It’s getting better every day.”
“I think by the time we get back, your staples should be ready to come out.”
I cringed at the thought and asked, “Is that going to hurt?”
“It’ll feel like a pinch. You took a bullet, Bri, you’ll be able to handle getting the staples removed in your sleep.”
She adjusted the sunscreen bottles in her arm, tapped my nose, then spun on the ball of her foot as she made her way to the beach bag sitting on the table.
“If we decided to just stay here for, let’s say, another month… you could take them out, right?”
She paused loading the bag and looked over at me with a soft expression.
“Yeah, I could. But there’s no way the hospital will let me have a month off.
They had heartburn over me taking ten more days after the two I was already scheduled off.
” She studied me for a second and continued, “But you should stay and enjoy your summer here. I’m sure Angus isn’t going to let you go back to work for a while.
I can fly home. You should be able to drive your truck short distances around town without any issues. ”
“I’m not staying here without you. That would be no fun at all.” I tossed my phone into the bag. “I guess we’ll settle for a few more days instead of a month.”
She pulled her sunglasses down and adjusted them on her nose. “Better make them count, Sergeant O’.”
“Planning on it,” I told her, and meant every word.
****
Jade
I carried the beach bag and umbrella while Brian lugged the cooler as we walked down the beach path toward the water.
Since I was in front, I scoped out a spot away from everyone but still close to the water and subtly pointed at it. “How about there?”
“Yeah, that works.”
I had just planted the unopened umbrella in the sand and set the bag down when the clicking noise started. At first I thought it was a trick of the breeze in the dune grass. It took a second to realize that all the people with cameras pointed at us weren’t tourists taking pictures of the ocean.
Then they shouted Brian’s name, followed by mine, and peppered us with questions as they came rushing toward us.
“How long have you been together? Were you dating before the shooting happened?”
“Brian, over here!”
“Is it serious?”
“Sergeant O’Shaughnessy, how long have you been dating your nurse?”
“Jade, isn’t it against hospital policy to date a patient?”
“Brian, does the department know you’re romantically involved?”
“Is there a wedding in the works? A baby?”
The voices overlapped, one question crashing over the next until it was just noise—our names, half-formed accusations, flashes going off so fast I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
Brian shifted in front of me like a wall. It didn’t matter—they still had a clear shot.
“Let’s just go,” I said, already scooping up the bag.
He hooked the cooler handle in one hand, yanked the umbrella from the sand with the other and opened it, then held it in front of us like a shield. “Stay close.”
I pressed in at his side as he angled us back up the path, the umbrella blocking most of the lenses. Flashes still slipped through the gaps, voices chased us, but we kept moving until the cottage came into view.
Brian slammed the wooden door shut behind us and locked it. It was the first time we’d closed it since we got there; we’d just been latching the screen door shut at night.
Our little slice of heaven was gone, invaded by the media trying to get a photo of us.
“How do you think they found us?” he asked as he closed the curtain, then moved the side to peek out the window.
“I have no idea.” My hands shook, more from adrenaline than fear, as I opened my phone.
I typed in our names in the search bar, and it didn’t take long to figure out how we’d been discovered. There were pictures of us canoodling at the ice cream shop last night—right before I’d gotten Lainey’s text.
Then came a picture of us ordering breakfast that morning with a headline, “Trouble in paradise already?” It was a shot of when we’d been play-arguing.
Staring at the photos, I murmured, “I feel so violated. Like, I had no idea people were photographing us.” I finally held my phone up for him to look at. “Did you?”
He glanced at the screen, then shook his head in disgust. “Fuck no. If I had, I would’ve smashed their phones or cameras or whatever they were using.”
“Maybe it’s a good thing you didn’t. That would have just caused you more headaches in the end.”
“Some headaches are worth it.”
I let out a long sigh as I plunked down in a chair at the kitchen table. “I guess our vacation is over.”
“I guess so.”
“How are we going to keep them from following us all the way back to South Carolina?”
He raked his fingers through his hair before admitting, “I have no idea, Sunshine.”
Neither of us said anything more as we pondered our predicament. One minute we’d been planning another lazy day at the beach, and the next, everything had changed.