21. Chapter 21
21
Chapter 21
Blue
Before Blue and Sean had gone to the police station, Sean had taken Winnie and Rosa home to their husbands. He’d invited Virginia to tag along to pick up Harry, which had made Blue’s heart melt. He’d also popped in on Dad’s apartment and shop. Dad hadn’t been in either location, and worry was starting to eat at Blue’s inside. But it wasn’t the only thing eating at her. Her guilt over leaving Sean all those years ago and the problems she brought to his door today could burn through solid steel.
She’d gotten him in this mess, and yet, he took it in stride.
Sean was still the good-natured, caretaker he’d always been. He had plenty going on in his own world, yet he’d taken time from his concerns to help two little old ladies get home, and Blue look for her dad.
And that hadn’t been the last of it. As soon as they’d gotten Don out of jail, Sean had made another detour to take Harry and Virginia home as well. He’d always been sweet when she’d known him, but after ten years, all of which he’d spent in the service, he was still just as sweet as ever.
They were headed back to Bob’s Underwater Salvage with Don and Harry in the backseat, squabbling. Sean held her hand over the console, rubbing his callused thumb over the back of her hand, and sending warm tingles up her spine. It was only now as he’d made this small gesture, that she noticed the large scar on the back of his hand. She looked him over, noting another scar on the forearm of his left arm. What other scars did he have? Were they all skin deep like these? Or did they run deeper?
She’d missed so much.
They reached Bob’s Underwater Salvage and hopped out of his Jeep. He released her hand only long enough that they could get out and meet at the hood of the car again. The rain was torrential, and the four of them were soaked through by the time they ran the ten yards from the parking lot to the warehouse.
The rain ping, ping, pinged off the roof like it was hailstones, and wind wheezed and whistled around the building.
Nancy, Polly, and the two guys who had been with Sean when he’d pulled her out of the ocean were upstairs in Sean’s loft playing a game of Go Fish on the small table in the kitchen.
“They did it,” Nancy said as she smiled at Don and Walt. “They got you out.”
Polly’s tight posture eased, and she smiled. “What a relief.”
Don puffed out his chest. “Sean didn’t use legalese, but Rosa would have been proud.”
“No, he used bribery.” Sean chuckled, and that made Don chuckle too.
Don was proud of Sean. And for good reason. Sean was a good man. Always had been, always would be. And yet, somehow, Blue’d gone from him to a guy like Jonah. Why? Because she was afraid of getting hurt. Hurt by somebody who could actually hurt her like Sean.
Don and Walt explained what happened to their friends as Sean pulled clean, warm clothes out of the closet for each of them. He handed her a pair of large sweats and a big T-shirt and sweatshirt that were so soft, she wanted to snuggle into them this minute, and then he nudged her toward the bathroom. “We have a couple other bathrooms here, so if you wanna take a shower in there, feel free,” Sean said as he slowly shut the door.
She reached for the hem of her shirt and he paused, his hazel eyes growing comically wide. She paused, lifting an eyebrow. “What?” Sean asked with all innocence, pointing to the door. “This door just stopped all on its own.”
Laughing, she pushed the door shut on him though she didn’t bother to lock it. She didn’t need to. Not with Sean. He’d flirt and tease but he’d never cross that line. She leaned against the door. How had she ever felt like Jonah was safe? He was the exact opposite—even turning a blind eye when his buddies tried to grab her butt. She shook her head at her own foolishness.
Blue took one look at herself in the bathroom mirror, makeup smudged, hair a rat’s nest, wedding dress . . . well, she couldn’t see it under the sweater she wore, but she’d be surprised if it wasn’t ruined, and decided to take him up on his offer for a shower.
The warm washed over her like a warm blanket, and the clean laundry-scented soap went a long way to ease her sore muscles and her growing fear over her dad. It didn’t make sense that Dad would just disappear like this. Of course, he’d been mad about the wedding, but he’d always been there for her when she’d needed him. The one person who had. She’d expected him to show up at the wedding regardless of how he felt about it. With careful fingers, Blue removed the gauze from her leg and inspected the wound. The skin was bruised, and she had a gash about two inches long that was red and raw and starting to bleed again, but it wasn’t that bad. It definitely wouldn’t need stitches, though it did sting like a son of a gun.
She got out of the shower, re-wrapped her leg with gauze from the cabinet, and dressed in Sean’s five-sizes-too-big-for-her clothes that felt like the softest of fleece blankets. She had to roll the sweats at the waist and the ankles and tie the shirt in a knot at the back. Slipping into the big flannel button-up, she breathed in deep the smell of clean laundry mixed with ocean air, a smell that was quintessentially Sean. She could curl up in his clothing and sleep so deep right now.
Hanging her dress over the shower rod, Blue examined it. By some miracle, it wasn’t completely ruined. She hadn’t bled on it or torn it. She was sure the salt water hadn’t done the lace any good, but perhaps it could be salvaged.
While that revelation gave her hope, another thought kicked up her nerves. It was time she and Sean talked.
She’d seen the look on Sean’s face when he found out she was in the witness protection program. He’d been hurt. Hurt that even all those years ago, she hadn’t told him about it. And knowing Sean, he was probably beating himself up that he hadn’t been there for her; to protect her.
By the time she stepped out of the bathroom, Jonah’s phone safely stashed in her sweatpants, the group had split up. Polly had gotten comfortable in a recliner with a blanket and a paperback romance novel that Blue would be willing to bet she pulled from that huge orange bag of hers along with the can of nuts that she snacked from.
Don and Walt sat at the table with Sean’s friends, both in new threads, playing what looked like Texas hold’em.
Sean was nowhere to be seen.
“He’s downstairs,” Don said, barely looking in Blue’s direction, though, Blue had the distinct impression that he was just trying to play it cool.
“Thanks, Don.” She stopped and pressed a kiss to his white hair.
He grinned up at her and then shooed her off. “No peeking at my cards.”
She lifted both her hands. “I would never!” She mouthed to Walt: fold.
“I fold.” Walt threw down his hand.
Don and Bluebell laughed as he scooped up chips. He’d had a high card of five. But neither of them would tell Walt that.
Blue found Sean chatting with Nancy in his office. Nancy sat at Sean’s desk looking over some paperwork, and Sean stood behind her as she pointed things out to him.
“How many of these hydraulic handheld saws do you have?” Nancy asked.
Sean rubbed the back of his head. “Three?” he said with a sheepish smile.
“And how about the Self-Priming Trash Pumps?”
“Probably two more than we need,” Sean said.
Nancy gave a firm nod. “That’s exactly my point. If you reduce spend on tools that you don’t need, you can increase spend on marketing. You have a lucrative business here; you could be bringing in much more than what you’re currently bringing in.”
“Can you see any other areas where we could reduce costs?” Sean asked.
Nancy leaned back in Sean’s chair and smiled up at him. “How much time do you have?”
Sean laughed out loud, a belly laugh that Blue hadn’t heard from him in years and that she’d desperately missed—it brought a smile to her face. “For you, Nancy, I’ve got all the time in the world.”
Blue leaned against the door frame, making it creak. Sean and Nancy glanced her way.
Blue made eye contact with Sean and could feel his gaze boring into her soul. He’d always had a way of doing that to her. Seeing more than she wanted him to.
Nancy cleared her throat and stood up. “We’ll have a look at your books another time,” she said. “I forgot I just need to . . . borrow . . . a book from Polly or something.” The woman was about as subtle as Don.
She hustled off.
Sean’s gaze drifted from the top of Blue’s head down to her feet and back again. She expected him to grin at just how huge the clothes were on her, but instead, he swallowed. Hard. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.
Feeling self-conscious, she glanced down at the clothes, her bare toes poking out. “They’re a little big.”
Sean put his hand to his heart and let out a deep breath. “You’d look good in a wet towel.” Pink rushed to his cheeks, that even Blue could see in the dim light, and he fell into the chair Nancy had just vacated.
Blue came closer, glancing at his desk. In the middle of it was a little device with a wire on one end and what looked like a small bulb on the other. She pointed to it. “What’s that?”
Sean picked it up. “The tracking device Jonah put on my boat. The boys found it while we were bailing Gramps out of jail.”
Blue took it from his outstretched palm and rolled it over in her hand. “Doesn’t look like much.”
Sean shrugged. “It’s a low-end model, but that baby can still track up to one hundred miles. And it’s easy to set up.” He opened his phone, went to an app, and showed it to her. A green dot sat in the middle of the screen next to a longitude and latitude. “Probably cost them five bucks.”
“Is that it?” Blue asked.
He nodded.
“So much for personal security.” She handed it to him, but he shook his head.
“Keep it,” he said.
Maybe she would. Maybe she’d confront Jonah with it when he was arrested and hand it over to the cops. Maybe that’s what Sean wanted . . . or more likely, he wanted to give her the choice to throw it out or use it against the man she’d been about to marry. Part of her just wished he’d press charges, but he wouldn’t as long as Blue was in the middle of it all. And completely the opposite of Jonah who’d had Sean’s grandpa thrown in jail.
A heavy silence fell around them, so she filled it by walking over to the sofa and sitting down. A spring popped up into her behind, and she wiggled to try and find a more comfortable spot, clutching the device in her hand.
Sean let out another bark of laughter, making laughter lines appear around his eyes. Everything else about him seemed more or less the same, but those lines were new. He pointed to the side of the couch. “Ryker’s favorite spot is just a little to your left.”
She scooted and, sure enough, found a spot that was mostly spring-less.
They glanced at one another again, and both started to speak. “I—.”
“Do you—.”
“You go ahead,” Blue said.
“No, you.”
She just needed to get it out. The sooner the better. “I wanted to tell you about my secret. The whole time we were together, I wanted to tell you.”
He leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and waited.
“But we had a strict policy about telling anyone.” She turned the tracking device over and over in her fingers, then shoved it in her pocket. “If anyone finds out, we have to leave and as much as I wanted to tell you, I didn’t want to leave you more.”
“You’re leaving now?”
She nodded.
“We’re good at keeping secrets,” Sean leaned back in his chair, a show of confidence. “Me and the guys. We keep them every day.”
It suddenly occurred to her that the Rey Del Mar was probably one of those secrets, though she wouldn’t want to guess just how big of a secret it was. “I know, but it’s not just you. It’s Jonah. He knows and he’ll tell. He probably already has. If not for the hurricane, my dad and I would already be out of here.”
Sean gritted his teeth and looked down. “Can you tell me what it is you’re running from?”
Her eyes welled with tears. “No.” She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to put him in any more danger than he already was just being near her.
She’d merely made friends with Ian from the carnival when she was a teen, and Dom had been ordered to kill the guy. Of course, she hadn’t let Dominic do it, but she’d had to go on the run because she’d taken a stand against them.
She loved Sean. He wasn’t her friend. Sean could never be just a friend. She knew that now. And she couldn’t stomach the idea of what would happen to him when The Outfit found out about him. And they would, if she stayed. At some point, The Outfit would find her, and anyone in the way would be taken care of.
“So, this is how the conversation would’ve gone,” Sean said, staring at his hands.
She wiped a tear from her eye. “What conversation?”
“All those years ago, when I went into the service and you stopped taking my calls.” He scrubbed a hand through his dark hair. “I always wondered what our conversation would be like if we had talked all those years ago.”
Blue sniffled. “I stopped taking your calls because I was mad at you for joining the Navy without talking to me first.”
“I know.” He still hadn’t looked up from his hands. “I only did that because it killed me to see you shying away from your dreams. I knew you were hiding from something, but I thought it was . . . I don’t know what I thought it was. But I didn’t want to stand in your way. I thought if I joined the service, you’d be able to go to that school in Paris for design without feeling like you were leaving me behind. It never occurred to me you’d just stop talking to me.”
She stared at him wide-eyed. Dad wasn’t the only person who’d do anything for her. Blue waited for the shock of that revelation, but it never came. Sean would do anything for her. But she was going to run again and turn his life upside down again . Leaving Sean and his friends to deal with this big mess with the Rey Del Mar that she’d created. Because that’s what she did. Ruin things. Hurricane Bluebell blowing through your life.
She could give him this much at least. “A week after you went into Boot Camp, Marshall Stroup heard a rumor that The Outfit had feelers out in every major city from New York to Florida. He made us move. After our fight, I thought you’d just stopped calling me, and then a week later, we moved.”
Sean scooted forward in his seat. “I was trying to give you space, and then I started boot camp and I couldn’t call for a while, but then I called you every day for months.”
More tears fell loose. “I didn’t know. Stroup took our phones—made us start from scratch.”
Letting out a big sigh, Sean leaned back. “Where’d you go?”
“Paris,” she said. He’d given her that, and she wanted him to know. “I went to that design school.”
A small smile split Sean’s face, and he nodded. “I guess we’re right back where we started.”
She wiped at the tears flowing in a steady stream down her face. “Yeah. I guess so.”
He got up and came over to the couch, taking a seat on the spot with the spring, and wrapped his arms around her. “Everything’s going to work out, Blue. In the end, it’ll all work out.”
She buried her face in his chest, desperately willing his words to come true, and let him rock her to sleep.