Home For A Hero

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He motioned vaguely to the room they were in. “I’ll be in here.”

If he was going to sleep on the couch, the room he’d offered her had to be his. “I really will be just fine on the couch,” she said. “There’s no reason for you to give up your bed.”

He sighed. “Take it.”

She almost flinched at the abruptness of his command, but decided not to fight it. “Okay, okay,” she said. “Thanks.” She looked around for a clock, but the only one she could see had stopped at either midnight or noon. “I lost my watch during the swim. What time is it?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, probably around ten.”

“How about a television or a radio?”

“No TV. Oh, there’s a television, but there’s no signal. And there’s probably a radio, but I’m not sure where you’d find it.”

No TV, no radio. “When I get back to the mainland, I’ll send you a nice TV-radio-clock combination as a thank-you gift.”

“I don’t have any use for them,” he said.

“Everyone needs—”

“The sun comes up. The sun goes down. No need for a watch. The world does what the world does, whether I know about it or not.”

“Then a nice box of chocolates it is.” Lord, the man was exasperating!

With that, she left him and went to the guest room, closing the door behind her. She washed up quickly, especially her tender feet, before getting ready to slide into bed. Suddenly she realized she had only her clothes to sleep in. She slipped off her jeans, then had second thoughts about sleeping in her shirt. She had to wear it tomorrow and it was already worse for wear.

Maybe there was a T-shirt around she could wear. She looked about, ready to go and ask Luke if she could borrow something to wear, but stopped. A door slammed deep in the house, then there was no sound at all. She waited, but heard nothing. He must have gone outside again for some reason. She could wait for Luke to come back or just try to find a T-shirt on her own. She was bone-weary from everything that had happened to her and decided just to sleep in her bra and panties.

She climbed into the bed, turned off the side light, then snuggled down in the smooth sheets. She lay back, staring up at the shadows over her and marveled that she’d started her day alone in a hotel room, then alone at the agency. She’d never dreamed that she’d more or less be a castaway, washed up on Luke’s beach. Now she was in his bed. Life never ceased to amaze her at its twists and turns.

If Graham had been with her he would’ve asked her if she’d planned on falling into the sound and getting rescued on the land she so desperately wanted to have access to. She would’ve laughed and told him that was his way of doing things. He hadn’t been a man who saw limits on what he could do. If it meant protecting something or someone, or finding the truth, all rules were off. But she’d never been that bold. Or maybe that crazy. Was that was why she’d been so attracted to Graham at first?

She was startled to realize that the memories of her husband were coming softly now, slipping into her mind. She remembered falling in love with Graham. They’d met when Graham had been hired as a guest lecturer on marine studies at the university in San Diego where she’d been working as a department assistant. She’d heard his lecture and later had approached him. They had coffee, talked some more and before she knew it, they’d become good friends.

Then the love had come, sneaking up on her. At the thought of how she’d loved him, her stomach clenched, and she rolled onto her side, the sensations as familiar to her as the sense of loss that never seemed to leave her since Graham’s death. At the beginning she had tried to fight the emotions, hoping to make them go away. But they’d never stopped completely, and after a time, she’d given up. She’d learned to let the feelings come and leave on their own.

But for the first time, the aching loss of her husband was dissolving almost as soon as it began. She shifted and felt for the slim gold band on her finger, rubbing the smooth metal the way she had for so long. But rather than looking for comfort, she was almost scared to think things were changing.

If the pain went away, did that mean she’d forget Graham? She wasn’t sure that was a deal she wanted to make, exchanging the pain for forgetfulness. She didn’t ever want not to remember Graham. But the pain was easing and that sense of loss she’d lived with for two years was less defined. She suddenly found herself having to concentrate to conjure up Graham’s image.

She wanted to remember the way his gray eyes had narrowed with intense interest on everything from his charts and maps to the way a soft-serve ice cream swirled in its cone. To remember his rusty hair that was always too long and mussed from him constantly running his hands over it when he was deep in thought. His long fingers rapping on the desktop when he spoke on the phone. He hated the business end of his career in marine biology. He loved spending time on the water, the discoveries he’d make, and he’d loved her.

But it had been for such a short time—barely seven months. One minute he’d been telling her that he’d been invited on a lecture tour in Europe, and they could take a side trip to visit a preservation park on the African shore. The next moment he’d keeled over. There’d been no warning, no clues of the aneurysm. He was gone before she could even reach for him. She’d held on to him until they’d forced her to let him go.

Now, when she thought about him, his image blurred and was undefined as if a mist were falling between them. She couldn’t see the details and started to panic. As she pushed herself up in the bed, a loud knocking on the bedroom door startled her. “Y-yes?” she managed to say around a tightness in her throat.

“Sorry, I need to get a few things,” Luke said through the wooden barrier.

“Oh, sure, of course,” she called. “Just a minute.” She got out of bed, turned on the side light, grabbed her shirt and pulled it on, then pushed her legs into her jeans. As she zipped them, she padded barefoot to the door.

She stood to one side to let Luke in. “Just be a minute,” he murmured as he made his way to the dresser. He opened a middle drawer, took out some socks and then reached to the far side of the large dresser and picked up something that looked like a sleeping bag. When he turned, she saw that his chambray shirt was open and untucked. She caught a glimpse of a strong, smooth chest and a flat stomach before her eyes jerked up to his face. She felt herself blush, and was embarrassed by where her thoughts had started to go.

Her stomach flipped, but for an entirely different reason this time. How could she be looking at this stranger with anything but polite interest, especially right now? She clasped her hands together in front of her, feeling the cool metal of her ring.

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” he said, flicking his eyes over her jeans and shirt.

“I wasn’t sleeping,” she said, keeping her eyes determinedly on his face.

“Well, then, good night.” He pulled the door shut behind him.

She hurried to undress and got back into bed before turning off the light and pulling the blankets over her. She took several deep breaths, blocking out what had just happened, then finally closed her eyes. She just wanted to sleep—she was bone-tired—but couldn’t.

The minute she shut her eyes, she could see Luke on the shore, a blurred figure in the fog and night. Then the man who had just left the room, his feet bare, his shirt undone, his chest naked, took his place. She tried to push the image away, but found she couldn’t. She missed feeling warmth at her back, arms around her.

Suddenly she heard a thud from another part of the house, then silence.

She rolled on her side, thinking about Luke’s isolation, and she realized she was just as isolated, only not on an island but in a crowded world.

Closing her eyes more tightly, Shay told herself she was safe and warm here. She wasn’t in the water—or worse. Finally she let herself fall into the coming sleep, past dreams that flitted in and out of her consciousness but made little sense.

“No! Don’t!”

Shay was jarred from a deep sleep by muffled screams. At least she thought that was what had awakened her. “No, stop! Dammit, stop!”

Chapter Four

Shay sat up in the darkness and listened. It sounded as if Luke was yelling at someone. His voice was muffled by the door, but loud enough for her to understand most of the words. “I can’t do it again!”

Was he talking to the owner? Had Maurice Evans come to the house somehow? Or was it friend of Luke’s? Were they having an argument?

The words were lower, unintelligible now, but the tone was the same—stressed, almost panicked. She hesitated, then got out of bed into the cold air of the room. She grabbed her clothes and got them on as she crossed to the door. Opening it a crack, she almost jumped back when Luke screamed, “Not again! Not again! I won’t!” The words vibrated through the house.

“No!”

She heard raw, pained fear in the single word and she opened the door farther to look out into the hallway. Right then, a door slammed—hard. She stepped out onto the cold marble floor and slowly walked in the direction of the voices that were quieter now.

She entered the great room, the voice low, almost a sob now. “Please, no, please.” She glanced around quickly, but couldn’t see anyone. A low light was on by the couch, but Luke was nowhere in sight. As far as she could tell, no other person was there. She heard a muffled cry, then another.

She almost retreated back to the bedroom to lock the door, but another sob pulled her forward. It was guttural and filled with agony. She felt the deep chill in the room at the same moment she saw one of the back doors was open. She walked silently toward it, listening, but the voices had stopped. The bedroll was tangled on the floor in front of the doors, and just as she was about to step over it to look outside, she stopped. Something moved to her right, and she looked into shadows alongside the doors and saw Luke. He was hunched over, his head on his knees, his image blurred in the faint light. He was shaking. Shay hesitated, then moved closer, crouching down next to him. “Luke? Luke?” she said softly.

He exhaled, then lifted his face to her. His hand flew out, capturing her wrist. It startled her, but she stayed where she was. “You,” he breathed hoarsely, as if shocked that it was her talking to him and not someone else.