Chapter 7
When Shana came out of the bedroom and walked back into the kitchen, she felt the change in mood emanating from Dane. It hit her like a hypnotist snapping her out of a trance. The tryst was over. Almost like it never happened. At least not according to him.
All the warmth was gone. The tension of pent-up emotion was back. His edge was in place. She felt the chains of self-preserving restraint around her where his embrace had been. They were back to the rule.
It was her own fault, goddamn it. She should have never broken that rule.
Never succumbed to the magnetic animal charisma of Dane the legend.
He was like the ultimate forbidden apple, beautiful and tempting, and filled with rotten worms. And she was too foolish and eager to play Eve in Dane’s special garden.
Acer handed her a cup of coffee. It was black. She took it and let it scald her mouth. She deserved the reminder of what happened when one played with fire. Or hot coffee. Or Dane the damn legend.
The knock at the back door and the boisterous holler from the kid were a too-welcome distraction. If the poor kid had felt like an outsider or unwanted appendage to their group before, then their sudden all-encompassing attention to him must have been mind-boggling. They pounced.
Shana took the bag of groceries fresh from his ma’s cupboard and started arranging bowls and pans to set up shop as the cook.
“Everyone out of the kitchen while I’m cooking. We’re all having scrambled eggs and bacon. No special orders. Take it or leave it.”
“I’ll make the toast,” the kid volunteered with a big grin.
She nodded okay. She could use him as a shield between her and Dane until she got her bearings back and erected her impenetrable wall of …
of something to protect her. So far she’d found no armor that worked.
Now his gaze in her direction was indifferent.
No approval of her cooking. No admiration of the clothes she put on or the makeup she wore or the special attention to her hair. What a fool she was.
Shana cracked the first egg like it was made of granite and the satisfying crunch and mess of yolk, spilled and ruined, satisfied her a tiny bit. The kid looked at her. She silenced him with a mean scowl. He took a step back, grabbed the bag of bread and moved to the peninsula with the toaster.
Dane sat with Acer hunched together at the dining room table, sipping coffee and plotting the steps to hunt down Sebastian Whitaker.
Dane said, “We’ll need to find the sniper—finding him first is a priority and I don’t think Whitaker will have a clue where he is.”
Acer nodded and said, “I’m ninety-eight percent certain the sniper is Wallace White—the one whose profile I found yesterday and we have a last known.”
“He’s on the move now,” Dane said. “He’s probably here since we’ll assume he knows everyone in the unit, including me, and my whereabouts. Hell, if he found you, he’d have no trouble finding me. I’ve never hidden my whereabouts even if I haven’t advertised it.”
“No, you’ve created a fortress instead. On an island. Effective in some ways—like a spider web.” Acer smiled.
Shana splattered her eggs in the pan and didn’t care about the mess.
She felt like she’d been taken back in time to the 1950s and all that was missing were the string of pearls around her neck, Lassie and Timmy.
She looked at the kid toasting his toast. Or maybe the only thing missing was the dog and the pearls.
She wished she had a dog right now. She’d sic her on Dane.
But she wasn’t from back then and she wasn’t going to be relegated to the sidelines in the kitchen—even if she had been the one to relegate herself—while the men folk talked shop.
She said loud enough to interrupt whatever they were going to say next and in an autocratic tone, “I think we should split up. I’ll talk to Fiona Whitaker—”
“No,” both Dane and Acer said at once.
She turned from the stovetop, spatula in one hand and the other on her hip, and stepped toward the dining room threshold, skirting around the kitchen peninsula that separated the two rooms. She kept her face scowl free and calm, and let icy resentment freeze her next words.
“You two are forgetting. I’m on the books. I don’t take my orders from you.” She pinged her stare from one set of eyes to the other. Dane looked impassive with a hint of wariness. Acer looked taken aback and was possibly reassessing his position on her role.
She focused on Dane and stared him down.
This was no easy feat since the man was a master at staring like no one she’d ever met.
Of course. Thus the legend. Not that the legend was about staring, but one couldn’t become legendary without being a master of just about everything there was.
Not in this business where the minute you encountered someone better than you at something, you risked losing—your life.
Dane also happened to be a master at disarming an opponent. Physically or verbally or mentally. He got to work right now on her.
“I understand your point. We can talk to David about it. See what he thinks. Although he did put me in charge of the details of the operation.”
“That was before—” She waved her hand in all directions, realizing she encompassed the direction of the bedroom and feeling like everything in her mind would now be marked as Before and After she—they—broke the rule.
“I know. But I have a good reason for wanting to stick together on this.” He paused. Shana was at attention. Every molecule of her came to life like she’d been plugged into a magical energy source. She was lit-up and vibrating and pulsing everywhere. She hated herself at that moment.
“Well?” She firmed up her scowl, even if he wasn’t fooled by it. Maybe she’d impress Acer and the kid at least.
“I want to,” he said.
She licked her lips and was treated to a moment of raw emotion from Dane the emotionless. He was so full of passion and so passionless at the same time. But this was an unguarded moment. She knew it was purposeful and calculated, but that didn’t take away from the genuineness.
Thus, she found herself in this unholy predicament of staying with the wrong guy for all the wrong reasons in a purgatory of denial and temptation.
“Why?”
“You know why. We’re good together—we’re partners. There are too many unknowns once we go off island. Cap can keep an eye on Acer.”
“That’s crazy. The sniper could be down the street waiting to pounce.”
“He can’t pounce unless we give him a shot. You do realize I have bullet-resistant glass-clad polycarbonate in the windows?”
“The windows won’t stop a high-powered Heckler & Koch.”
“Won’t have to,” Acer spoke up. “We’ve already discussed it. I’ll set up shop in the basement and monitor the perimeter from there and keep the communications open. This guy—if he’s the one—isn’t sophisticated enough to cut off communications. Not the kind I have set up. So we’re good.”
“We’ll be taking a look around the area before we leave the island. The kid can ask around about the guy. We’ll give him a picture. He can keep his eyes peeled and maybe find out where Wally’s staying.”
“Cool, man.” The kid’s voice cracked. He bounced on the balls of his feet like a jack-in-the-box clown bouncing on a spring.
“Great—you’ll get him killed.”
“No—he’s only going to ask people he knows and can absolutely trust. And the cover is going to be that the guy is his hero.”
“Sounds like you’ve been doing a lot of planning behind my back.” She was impressed and petulant and did not like being left out.
Dane smiled at her. “You wanted to cook.”
She threw the spatula at him, then she realized based on the acrid smell in the air that she might have needed that spatula because the bacon and eggs were done. She hurried back to the stove and tossed the bacon and eggs into a bowl in one heap.
Shana ordered the kid to bring plates and utensils and marched back to the dining room with the bowl of food. She figured it would be a long time before anyone let her cook again.
The four of them were seated at the table, serving themselves food with about the amount of enthusiasm Shana had expected—none.
It was seven a.m. and Shana wondered when Cap would get there to save them all from the tension, the testiness and the overcooked food.
A moment later, a knock sounded at the back door followed by a friendly shout of hello. Cap walked in.
He looked good and she jumped from her chair as if she were in a hurry to stop the grin from fading from his face as he read the room. He was in full dress uniform plus a sling, and he approached with caution, taking his Statie hat from his head.
“Dressed for the occasion?” Dane said.
She met him before he got past the threshold and gave him a genuine hug of affection and desperation as if he was, once again, her life raft in the sea of Dane fueled tumult.
“Smells like bacon. Well done. Shana, you cooked?” Cap said with a smile in his voice. She chuckled into his chest and he gave her a one-armed hug, holding his sling out of the way.
He must have felt her reluctance to let go as if she were a big baby.
She was being a big baby. He whispered, “It’s okay,” into her hair and she pushed herself away.
That was all the consolation she would allow herself.
She needed to toughen up. If Dane wasn’t good for anything else, he would be good to make her tougher than she already was.
Like the most wily alligator in the swamp.
Cap didn’t make anymore of it. He was more intent on Dane and Acer. She separated herself and got him a plate and fork.
“Who do we have here?” Cap asked, nodding in the direction of the kid.
Dane explained while Cap exchanged an old comrade-in-arms hug with Acer and took a seat. She gave Cap his plate and fork and a cup of coffee. That was the last domestic chore she would do for the day. She sat and forced herself to eat the overcooked bacon and eggs.
The bacon was okay.