The Love Shack (22 page)

The room was light enough now that he could see the flush on her face. “I...” She subsided. “But...” She subsided again, then sent him a truculent glance from under lowered brows.

Point made.
He relaxed back on the chair cushions. Crisis passed.

Then she opened her mouth again. “How come Griffin doesn’t know about this?”

Gage froze. “I...”

“Why wasn’t he the one you had the kidnappers contact? Or why didn’t your Afghani colleague call your twin? Isn’t the protocol to leave information on where you’re going and when you’re expected back and what to do if you don’t return?”

The nuts and bolts were jumping around again in his mental hopper. He pushed the heel of his hand against his forehead, trying to keep them still. “I couldn’t... I don’t...”

“Oh, my God,” Skye said, sounding shocked. Her hand crept toward her throat. “You ignore the protocol.”

Once again, he couldn’t lie. “I do,” he agreed, sighing. “You know what happened when Charlie was taken. You know the position that put Mara in. So I’m protecting Griffin, my folks, all of them. I don’t want my family to ever blame themselves like she does now.”

Skye was staring at him. “So...so it’s acceptable to you that you’ll go off and they won’t be alerted that you’re in danger and need help? Gage, you could die and they might never know it.”

“Skye—”

“I...” She swallowed, but her voice remained tight. “
I
might never know it.”

His chest took each word like a blow. “Honey,” he said softly, aching from his heart outward. “That’s not something to think about.”

Her voice rose. “Of course it’s something to think about.”

“Skye.” Gage got to his feet, approaching with the single idea of offering comfort. To both of them.

She scrambled back on the mattress, her face pale. “Stay away from me.”

He halted, staring at her. “What?”

“I want you to go.” Her palms went up, warding him off.

“Skye,” he chided, holding out his arms. “Come here, baby.”

“Don’t ‘come here, baby,’ me.” She leaped off the bed.

“Just take it easy,” he suggested.

With a furious sound, she turned, drew his keys out of her pocket and threw them at him.

“Shit!” Only a last-minute knee tuck saved him from a blow of sharp metal to precious jewels. “What’s gotten into you?”

Instead of an answer, she sent him a fulminating look, then slammed into the bathroom. He heard the click of locks on both sets of doors.

The whole house seemed to pulse with her temper. Well, he was mad, too, Goddamn it. Hadn’t he tried to protect her, protect everyone from this? “I told you,” he yelled through the door. “I said you’d wish you never knew.”

She yelled back, “I don’t want to know you.”

Seething, he shot eye daggers through the wood. He had the distinct sense she was doing the same from the other side. Damn it.
Goddamn it!
Where the hell had sweet, shy, reserved Skye Alexander gone?

Feeling put upon and more than a little put out that the siren of the cove was suddenly showing her true—cruel—colors, Gage stalked out of her place. Maybe Beach House No. 9 would have the magic to let him forget any of this had ever happened.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

T
EAGUE
DIDN
’
T
KNOW
WHAT
to do with himself now that he’d lost his best friend. Work was there, of course, but when he wasn’t at the station, he felt rootless. He’d inherited a small, craftsman-style house built in the 1930s from his paternal grandparents. The garage had been converted into a woodshop of sorts, and he’d put his grandfather’s tools to good use from the day he’d moved in.

Teague was handy.

Efficient, too, because after a year of occupancy, the paint was tight inside and out, the woodwork refinished, the kitchen and baths updated. The yards, front and back, were also well tended. Lawns had been mowed, shrubbery trimmed, even the birdbath was clean and held fresh water.

That left him with nothing to do but brood.

There’s all your big talk about wanting kids, wanting a family, but then you go and fall for someone who’s already taken...because it means you risk nothing.

On the second morning of life without Polly, he was driven to seek company. Not until he knocked on a familiar door did he realize he’d chosen to visit the only man he knew more miserable than himself.

Without a word, Gary White pushed open the screen door.

“Dad,” Teague acknowledged, then followed his silent and stiff-spined father into the kitchen.

The newspaper was open on the table, and a thick, utilitarian mug sat beside it, filled with black coffee. The older man poured a second one for his son, and Teague took it, even though he knew the caffeinated stuff his father made was caustic. “Thanks,” he said, cupping his palms around the heated white ceramic as he leaned against the countertop.

Gary returned to his chair and continued perusing the sports section of the paper.

Teague ran his gaze around the room that hadn’t changed since the day his mother had walked out when he was fifteen years old. The curtains over the sink had been a jaunty yellow when his mother had run them up on her sewing machine, but they’d gone grayish now, and hung with the limpness of surrender flags.

An old rotary phone, installed on the wall beside the refrigerator, still had a sticker with lines printed on it for emergency numbers. In his mother’s handwriting there was the listing for the pediatrician’s office, the poison control center, her parents’ home phone—that hadn’t been relevant in the decade since their deaths.

“Whatcha been doing to keep busy, Dad?” Teague ventured. His father had retired from the fire department with a full pension. Still in good health, he could have sought a second career or traveled or taken up square dancing.

His father turned the page of his paper. “I’m in the middle of replacing the valves and floats in all the toilets.”

The house had two and a half baths. The man would probably stretch out the task for the entire week. Teague sipped at the terrible coffee and wondered why the hell he’d hied himself here.

“Did you look at that brochure I left the last time I visited?” It was for an Alaskan fishing excursion company. Teague had suggested the two of them might take a week and do one together.

Getting out of town sounded even more attractive now. “Silver salmon and rainbow trout in September and October.” They might be a little late on booking, but hell, he was willing to pay a premium price for the vacation. Arranging time off work was less of a problem. Firefighters were always willing to switch shifts.

And God knew his dad never had anything pressing on his schedule.

He cast a glance at the older man. “I’m serious. If you had a computer, right now we could—”

“I don’t need a computer.”

Teague sighed. His father didn’t need or want anything that hadn’t been in this house fifteen years ago—except the one person who’d packed her bags and walked away from it.

Janet White had never explained to Teague why she’d left her marriage. About abandoning him—well, that had come with the justification that a son belonged with his father. Truthfully, nothing much had changed upon her absence. He and his father had learned to do laundry and put together meals, but the silence around the dinner table had been the same.

His father had forever been of the mind that what happened on the job stayed on the job. Naturally taciturn, he hadn’t sought other topics of conversation that might engage his wife and son. Teague had moved outward, seeking friends and activities to fill the void, but he supposed his mother could only crave the companionship her emotionally unavailable husband was powerless to provide.

Teague swigged down more of the dark brew, his gaze resting on his father. There were threads of silver in his hair, but he’d lost none of the brawn in his shoulders and arms. His belly was as flat as ever. At fifty-seven, he could pass for years younger.

“You know, Dad, you look pretty good for an old geezer.” He said it with a smile, hoping to tease one out of his father. “Have you thought about sending out some feelers to friends or looking into a dating service? Bet you could find a lady to share your golden years.”

Gary White’s brown eyes shot up to his, their shocked expression telling everything the man wouldn’t—he was still hung up on his ex-wife.

Shit.
“Never mind,” Teague muttered. “Let’s start with salmon. What do you say to a week away next month?”

His father immediately shook his head. “I could never be gone that long.”

“Why?”

“You never know if...” The older man made a vague gesture.

Exasperated, Teague set his coffee on the counter. “Dad, she’s never coming home,” he said, and heard the echo of other, similar-sounding words.
“Teague, you’re never going to have her.”

His father’s gaze dropped back to the baseball box scores. “That’s private,” he mumbled.

As everything was private, Teague thought, his jaw hardening. Work, worry, stress, feelings. It had become a habit in this house. A habit of the two men in this kitchen.

Everything uncomfortable, everything honest, every raw, stripped-to-the bone emotion put up on a high shelf. Out of reach. Unattainable, like the women he and his father had set their sights on.

“Because it means you risk nothing.”

Jesus.

What’s wrong with me?
Teague thought, now as frustrated with himself as with his dad.
Why the fuck did I come here?

Because you’re in danger of becoming just like the man at the table,
his common sense answered.
A stunted, closed-off human being.

That truth was only darker and more bitter than the coffee he dashed into the sink before striding out of the house and into the too-bright sunshine. It struck the top of his head like a smite from God.

Only one person, one relationship, Teague realized, could save him. And getting her back would mean reaching high and then laying everything he had at her feet.

* * *

B
EHIND
THE
WHEEL
OF
HIS
truck, traveling the narrow road that ran along the bluffs above Crescent Cove, Teague finally found Polly. Seated on a fat-tired, single-speed cruiser bicycle, she pedaled along the crumbling edge of asphalt, as yet unaware of the vehicle tracking her progress.

Her hair gleamed bright in the sunlight. He frowned a little, thinking she should be wearing a helmet. One was available; it sat in the wire basket mounted above the rear tire. There was a sheaf of daisies resting there, too, white-and-yellow heads nodding with each bump in the road.

She’d probably run the roses he’d brought her through the garbage disposal.

The thought made him grind his back teeth for a moment, but then he forced his jaw to relax. The situation was dicey enough without getting overwrought. He and Polly needed to have a quiet, rational conversation.

They could manage that, he was sure of it. Before everything started going wonky this month, they’d always been of an easygoing, like-minded temperament.

Taking a deep breath, he goosed the gas. The truck eased forward, and he kept it at a slow pace. When he came abreast of her, he rolled down the passenger window.

She glanced over; then her eyes went wide. The bike’s front tire wobbled.

“Watch out!” he cautioned. To the right of the road, the earth fell away to brush-covered hillside and she was dangerously close to going over it. He braked, watching her wrangle the handlebars.

The bicycle straightened out. Polly continued pedaling. Riding faster away from him.

Frowning, he gave a little more gas. “Hey!” he called through the open window as he caught up to her again. “I’ve been looking for you. I thought we could talk.”

“You thought wrong. I told you to stay away.” Then she lifted her cute fanny off the bicycle seat and started pumping, moving with surprising speed.

A burst of irritation heated his blood. His fingers tightened on the steering wheel, even as he told himself to chill.
Calm down. Keep your cool. We’re going to have a quiet, rational conversation.

Surely two people who had been friends as long as they could manage that.

Keeping hold of his patience, he pushed down on the gas pedal again. She was really moving now, the muscles in her slim legs flexing below a pair of blue jean cutoffs. Their golden length distracted him a little, and he didn’t realize that the road had narrowed. As he approached her again, his side-view mirror came too close to her shoulder, and he jerked the wheel to avoid it brushing her.

The truck jolted left, her startled blue gaze followed suit and in that moment when her attention wandered from the road, she dropped off it.

Between one blink and the next, Polly had disappeared.

Teague’s heart slammed into his tonsils. He was out of the truck before his brain even engaged. “Polly!” he yelled, panicking.
“Polly!”

At the edge of the road, he looked down, scanning the dirt and scrubby chaparral bushes. At the sight of a scrap of bright color, he launched himself in its direction, sliding on the silty orange dirt. It was a running shoe.

Polly’s
shoe.

He squeezed it between his fingers, mimicking the painful clutch of his heart.
God, oh, God.
“Polly!”

A dozen feet to his left, something started rustling in a dense-leaved, dusty-green shrub. Either it was a maddened animal or his woman was alive.

“Are you hurt?” he yelled, scrambling and slipping across the uneven terrain.

A blond head poked out between two prickly branches. “I’m pissed,” said the wild-haired, angry-eyed creature glaring his way. “
What
were you thinking?”

Relief tasted like cool water to his parched throat. She was alive, thank God. Alive and unhurt enough to hiss and spit. “Is anything broken?” he asked.

She ignored the hand he held out and managed to step free of the chaparral. Other than a few scratches on her legs and arms, she looked okay.

But the thin red lines spiked his temper. “Where’s your helmet, damn it?”

Pausing in brushing the dust off her backside, she glanced over at him. “With the bike, about six feet farther down the hill.”

He pretended he wasn’t seeing red. His point was to woo her, after all. “I mean, why aren’t you wearing it?”

“I didn’t know I was going to encounter the trucker from hell. Now go down there and get Skye’s bicycle, would you? If it’s damaged, it’s all your fault.”

Muttering under his breath, Teague handed over her missing shoe, then slipped and slid around more bushes until he came across a metal frame and fat tires. All looked intact, with the exception of the bunch of daisies, their stems now mangled. With vicious satisfaction, he threw them farther down the hill, then shouldered the bike and trudged back toward the road.

Polly was standing beside his truck. The instant he set the bike down, she tried to wrest it from his grasp. He held on. “What are you doing?”

“I’m getting on my way,” she said, still tugging.

Without another word, he swung it from her hands, lifting it over her head to set it in the bed of his truck. Then, letting his temper get the better of him, he crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at her with
Take that
in his gaze.

She stared back, her blue eyes glinting fire like the sunlight catching in the Pacific Ocean over her shoulder. A breeze blew across them, ruffling their hair, but doing nothing to cool the mood that shimmered in the air.

Another tense moment passed, and then she turned smartly on the heel of the shoe that he’d found in the dirt—that goddamn shoe, it still had the power to turn his pulse erratic—and took off down the road. Stunned that she’d walk away from him, he watched her in silence a moment, then leaped forward to grab her by the elbow.

She whirled around, glaring again. “What’s gotten into you?”

“I...I...” Teague tried to slow the swirling tangle of feelings that were spinning, Tasmanian Devil–style, in his gut. He reminded himself of the relaxed conversation he wanted. He recalled she’d been his best friend for years. They’d always been levelheaded, even-keeled companions.

But then he thought of her hot tears, her confession—
“I’ve loved you for years”
—her command for him to go away and leave her alone. And words just burst from his mouth.

“I’m fucking furious with you,”
he said.

Yelled maybe, because they both staggered back. Teague struggled to restrain his revving heartbeat and gain control again. God, he’d never been this mad at a woman in his life. He charmed; he didn’t shout.

For a moment, he reconsidered what he was doing. The desperate man he’d become in the past few days without Polly wasn’t a comfortable fit. His skin and bones didn’t seem big enough to hold all that he was feeling inside. All that he was feeling for her.

But if he succumbed to the habits of a lifetime, by diminishing those feelings or by putting them at a distance, then he’d turn into his father. Drying up, one long, lonely day at a time. Never getting what he truly wanted. Who he wanted, despite the risk.