She dropped her wipe and crossed to stand by the window, staring out at the ugly parking lot.
Hazel’s touch on her shoulder was gentle. “He’d never mentioned a woman in his letters before. Not once in fifteen years.”
Tansy closed her eyes, telling herself it meant nothing. “We’re too different. He won’t let me in.”
“He’s just like his uncle, then.”
She turned at the flatness in the older woman’s voice. Hazel fiddled with the respirator, though it needed no adjustment.
And in that moment, Tansy realized she wasn’t alone. For the first time in a long, long while, someone else understood what she was going through. What she was feeling. “Trask mentioned you last night.” She wasn’t sure if the knowledge would help or hurt. “When he was…”
“Drunk,” Hazel finished for her. She frowned. “That was a surprise, as he hasn’t touched a drop in fifteen years. When Dale left, Trask realized what he’d done, what he’d become, and he stopped drinking.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “But he never got past what happened. Maybe it’s the island. Maybe the tragedy. I don’t know. But whatever it was, it left him closed off. Hard. He’ll let me into his
bed, into his life, but only so far.” Her lips thinned. “Sometimes, I hate him for it.”
Sex without deep emotion. Love without its return. Tansy winced, knowing she could so easily fall into Hazel’s role. Her mother’s role.
But would it truly be worse than the loneliness of the past three months?
Wishing she didn’t still care, she said, “Tell me about it. Dale’s parents died?”
“And Trask’s wife. Sue.” There was a complex layer of feeling in Hazel’s voice when she said the other woman’s name. Regret. Compassion.
Resentment.
“What happened to them? Why does Trask think they were—”
A noise from the doorway interrupted her, and Dale’s voice finished the question with a single word.
“Murdered.”
Tansy turned to find him standing just inside the room, filling it with the punch of power that she always felt when he was near. He shook his head. “I don’t know yet.” He gestured out to the parking lot, where Mickey’s jeep sat waiting. “I need to show you something on the airstrip. Then we’ll go to Trask’s house together.”
Together. Though she’d often longed for the word, Tansy’s heart chilled at their destination, and at the dangerous calm on Dale’s face that usually meant he was hiding some deep, unwanted emotion.
Like fear.
She traded glances with Hazel, then nodded. “Of course. Let’s go.” He didn’t touch her as they walked to the jeep, but she noticed he stayed close. Very close.
They bumped along the rutted tracks in a silence broken only by the squeak of worn axles and corroded springs. When they reached the airfield, they drove across the parking lot and turned down the runway itself. A quarter mile from the end, Tansy saw a spray of wiring and insulation, a few bolts and the beginnings of a silver scar in the tarmac. Icy fear sliced through her, along with the memory of those last few moments on the runway.
The scrape extended all the way to the end of the island, where a few broken trees leaned drunkenly against each other.
She shuddered, remembering the feeling of the plane slewing wildly, out of control. Falling…
“What the hell is he doing here?” Dale muttered, snapping her from her memories. He wheeled the jeep in beside Churchill’s familiar black SUV and jumped out, leaving her to climb from the vehicle at her own pace. It was just as well. Seeing the crash site had affected her more than she’d expected. She needed a few moments to brace her wobbly legs before she joined the men, who were standing to the side of the runway, amidst the sawgrass.
She walked over to them and stopped dead when she saw the silver glint on the ground. “Oh, God.”
Coiled snakelike, the airplane cable lay waiting,
frayed at one end where the force of the plane had snapped the trip wire.
But not before it had sheared off the landing gear.
Tansy’s knees gave out and she was barely aware of Dale’s strong arms holding her up, or of the warmth of his body against hers. Here was the final, irrefutable proof. Someone had tried to kill her and Dale. Worse, they’d come back afterwards to coil the cable, yet they hadn’t taken it with them. To her, that spoke of stupidity.
Or worse, arrogance.
Churchill cursed under his breath. “Trask told me about it just now, but seeing it…makes it worse.” He ran a hand through his neatly-trimmed silver hair and glanced at Dale. “And I have bad news.”
What could be worse than this? Tansy thought. Then, realizing she was clinging to Dale like a helpless, hysterical female, she shoved away and stood on her own. But even gripping her hands tightly together couldn’t stop the trembles. She forced her voice level and said, “I want to go home, Dale.” When both men turned toward her, she lifted her chin. “We should return to Boston and regroup. We can come back in a few days with more manpower, and the authorities.” This was beyond the scope of HFH.
Beyond their control.
“There’s a plane coming today to take you home,” Dale said quietly. But before Tansy could challenge him on the “you” part of the statement, Churchill shook his head.
“That’s the bad news, I’m afraid. No plane.” When Dale spun and snarled, the older man spread his soft-looking hands. “The storm—which is now officially Hurricane Harriet—is moving faster than they originally thought it would. She’s headed straight up the coast, and we’ll feel the first wind and waves later today.” He grimaced. “Sorry. No plane until after the storm passes. Until then…”
Tansy closed her eyes and let the knowledge rattle through her. When Dale touched her shoulder, she didn’t move away.
He voiced her thoughts aloud. “Until then, we’re trapped on an island with an uncontained outbreak, minimal safe food and water, and someone trying to kill us.”
When Tansy opened her eyes, she saw a look of determination cross Churchill’s face. “You’ll be safe with me, Dale. We can batten down the mansion and ride out the storm together.” When Dale hesitated, Churchill stuck out his hand. “You can trust me. Have I ever let you down before?”
After a long moment, Dale shook on it. “No, Churchill. You’ve never let me down before.”
Tansy hoped like hell he wouldn’t start now.
Chapter Seven
When they reached Trask’s house on the outskirts of town, Dale parked the jeep and glanced over at Tansy’s grim expression. The sight of the wire had scared her. Hell, it had unnerved him, too. Even before they’d reached the island, someone had decided to kill them.
Even so, this silent Tansy worried him. He was used to seeing her fight, not withdraw.
After a moment, he cleared his throat. “Churchill is right. We can hide in the mansion until the weather clears and backup arrives. You’ll be safe there, I promise.”
Her breath hissed out suddenly, and she turned on him, eyes alight with frustration. “Maybe I’ll be safe, but what about the patients, Dale?” Her chin jutted out in a familiar, stubborn expression. “What about your parents?”
Oddly enough, the expected anger didn’t soothe him—it ticked him off. Hadn’t she figured out yet that she was in
danger?
His temper spiked, and
where before he’d been able to counter her hot temper with cold control, now Dale felt his command slip. His voice rose. “This isn’t about the patients or my parents, Tansy. This is about keeping you alive. Or had you forgotten that someone has tried to kill you? Twice?”
Tansy fired back, “This
is
about the patients, Dale. We can’t help them if we’re hiding in Churchill’s house. And it sure as hell
is
about your parents, unless there’s another reason someone would want you dead.”
“Those are my problems, not yours.” She was right, but Dale didn’t want her anywhere near the questions he’d been asking himself. What had happened that night fifteen years ago on the
Curly Sue
? Why hadn’t any of the bodies washed up with the wreckage? And why had his parents and his aunt gone out on the boat when they said they were going for a walk?
They were old questions. Unanswered questions.
She sighed and the corners of her mouth turned down. “The patients are my problem because I’m an HFH doctor, Dale. You can’t take that away from me.” She glanced over at him. “And as for the other, I’m making it my problem because I loved you, once. You can’t take that away from me, either.”
Loved.
Past tense. And though she had never said the word to him before, Dale had known it was there.
And now he knew it was gone. Funny, he would’ve expected to feel relieved that she was ready to give up on them. Instead, he felt hollow.
He glanced over and saw the shadows in her eyes. Her bravado was a thin mask covering the worry. He wished he could pull her across the vehicle, into his arms, and never let her go. But the time for that, like her love, was past. So he scowled at the gathering clouds instead.
“Let’s see what Trask has to say,” he finally said, unclipping his seat belt and opening the door. “I’ve kept him waiting long enough.”
Dale took Tansy’s hand to help her over the threshold, or maybe to steady himself. He cursed when he saw the same old ratty red sofa, faded now to pink. His eyes glanced over the same afghan, made by his mother’s mother, and the same cabbage rose tea service, brought home by his great-grandfather after World War I.
“Nothing’s changed,” he grumbled softly. “Why hasn’t anything changed?”
The air still smelled of citrus from the bitter orange soap the lobstermen used to cut the smell of their work. But the odor of cinnamon and cloves, which his young mind had always associated with Aunt Sue, was gone. In its absence, the air felt stale.
“Do you want to see this or not?” Trask’s gruff voice boomed from the kitchen, and Dale clenched his jaw against the memory of other shouts. Other fights.
She wouldn’t have gone out at night, I know it!
he’d yelled, full of grief, fury and a teenager’s blind sense of justice. Trask had shouted back,
Leave me alone, boy, and stop with the nonsense. They’re gone. Get used to it!
Now, Dale walked toward the kitchen, stopping at the door and remembering how his uncle had followed the words by throwing a half-empty bottle of cheap beer. The bottle had shattered against the wall and a shard had cut deeply into his shoulder.
He’d hidden the scar with that damned tattoo and regretted the impulse for a long time after.
Trask sat at the kitchen table. Dale could picture him sitting there before, hair more yellow than white, sharing a beer with his mirror image, his younger brother, Thomas. Because the memory stung, and because Trask himself had taught Dale that emotions were weak and useless, he set his jaw and forced himself into the room. “What do you want to show us, Trask? And make it quick. We have patients to see.”
He felt Tansy behind him and was grateful for her presence. There was no future for them, but she was here
now.
And it helped, though he wished it didn’t.
“This,” Trask said. “I wanted to show you this.” He tipped out a coffee tin which had once held household pin money. Now it yielded nothing more than a few colored stones, a pretty seashell and a gold ring.
Trask’s blunt fingertips plucked the ring from the table and held it up. Red and white light glinted from the facets of two gems, and Dale’s throat closed. “Oh, God.”
“What is it?” Tansy touched his hand and he forced himself not to reach for her. Caring was a weakness. He couldn’t be weak. Not now.
Not ever.
He cleared his throat and found the words. “It’s my mother’s engagement ring.”
“Aye.” Trask, too, seemed to have trouble speaking in his normal rasp. “And from the moment my brother Thomas gave it to her, I never saw her without it. Not in the twenty years they were married. Not even once.” He offered the ring to Dale. “Here, boy. It’s yours.”
Numbly, Dale reached for the ring, remembering how it had sat on his mother’s left hand, nestled beside a matching wedding band. “Dad started saving for it on his fourteenth birthday. Even then, he knew they’d be married.” The ring felt strange in his hand. Cold. Detached. He cleared his throat. “Where did you find it? On the southern claw beach?”
He winced. To think that his mother’s body had washed up on shore and he hadn’t known about it made Dale feel even worse.
“No.” Trask shook his head. “Young Eddie found it last week.” He paused. “Inland.”
Dale snapped, “Impossible. She was lost at sea.”
She had to have been lost at sea. If she hadn’t been, then he’d failed her. He’d failed his father, and his aunt, by not staying on the island to look for them. To discover what had happened to them.
When Tansy touched his arm, Dale shook her off, pressed the heels of his hands against his temples and ground out,
“They were all lost at sea.”
“You once believed otherwise.” Trask’s eyes were shadowed with age and regret, but they didn’t waver. “What do you believe now?”
What did he believe now? Dale almost laughed.
He believed in the power of medicine and the strength of loneliness. He believed in rights and responsibility, and in the shadowed shell of Tansy’s eyelids when she used to sleep beside him.
Once, he had believed in himself. But no longer. He’d made too many mistakes, chosen wrong too many times. He’d believed Trask a hopeless drunk, but the others claimed it was a one-time thing. He’d believed he was right to chase Tansy away, knowing he didn’t deserve her, knowing she wouldn’t want him if she knew where he’d come from.
He’d believed…
Finally, he shook his head. “God. I don’t know what to believe anymore.” This time, when Tansy touched his hand he didn’t shake her off. Instead, he laced his fingers between hers and hung on, drawing a measure of comfort from the contact.
She was right. He had to know what had happened to his parents.
Trask’s eyes flashed. “Good. Then we’re getting somewhere.” He gestured to the same old chairs that still sat around the same old kitchen table. “Sit.”