Thirty-one

It took an hour. But when Annie finally ended the phone call with her mother, she was feeling considerably better and lucid enough to make a few decisions.

The first was a shower. When she was done, she would begin making preparations to return to the scene of the crime, so to speak.

After bursting into tears and choking through a truncated version of the past few days—and assuring her mother a hundred times that she was physically unharmed and safe—Annie had spent the last half of the conversation talking her mother out of hopping on her stepfather’s private plane to come get her.

Annie loved her stepfather, but his kind of wealth embarrassed her. It embarrassed her mother, too, except—apparently—when it came to her daughter. Annie wasn’t surprised to hear that a private search team had already been mobilized. Her mother agreed to call that off, but stopping her from jumping on the plane was like pulling a meaty bone from a pit bull.

When pointing out the number of wasted and unnecessary carbon emissions from taking a private plane across the ocean didn’t get through to her, Annie had to risk hurting her feelings. She loved her mother and promised to come home soon, but she needed some time on her own, and she wanted to finish what she’d started. She’d come to Scotland to protest exploratory drilling in the Western Hebrides, and she wasn’t going to leave without doing that. She promised no more Lucy Lawless, but she could join the protests and marches that were being planned for the next week.

Besides, she needed to pick up her stuff and talk to the police. There was a stack of twenties—about two hundred dollars—and a ferry timetable on the bureau beside her clothes, presumably for her to do that.

He’d thought of everything.

Annie had kept her comments about “Dan” brief, not telling her mother any of her suspicions, only that he was in hiding and in some kind of trouble. Her mother had as many questions as she had—none of which she could answer. Annie did tell her that she was almost certain that it didn’t involve anything illegal.

Then had come the one question that Annie was still thinking about. “Do you want me to have Steve try to find him, sweetheart?”

Steve was Annie’s stepfather. As she’d told “Dan,” he was a powerful man with lots of connections.

Annie had hesitated, but only for a minute. “No,” she’d told her mother. She’d already held her heart out on a platter once. She wasn’t going to let it be chopped in pieces again. He’d left. She wouldn’t go chasing after him. Besides her pride, she didn’t want to cause him any more problems. She owed him that for helping her.

Annie was putting the finishing touches on her eye makeup—a salvage effort—when the phone rang. Her mother had said she would call back to check on her. Annie wasn’t surprised to hear “that everything had been arranged.”

She groaned. “Oh, Mom, what did you do?”

“Don’t use that exasperated tone with me, missy. If you aren’t going to let me fly out there, I’m going to make sure you are taken care of any way I can. All I did was call the concierge. You have the room paid for as long as you need it, food will be on its way as soon as you are ready, since I know you forget to eat when you are upset, and I’m having money wired to a local bank. The concierge has already agreed to arrange to have it brought to you. There is a plane ticket waiting for you at the airport to Lewis for this afternoon’s flight. It must be a small plane because there weren’t any first-class or business seats. By the time you show up, Steve should have the passport issue taken care of.”

Annie stopped, feeling the tears welling up again. “You are a force of nature, Alice.”

“Thank you.”

Annie hadn’t necessarily meant it as a compliment. But they both knew that.

“You are my only child,” her mother said softly.

Annie sighed. “I know. But first class? Jeez, I would have looked like a bag lady—literally—showing up with all my things in a plastic hotel dry-cleaning bag.” She paused. “I had to leave the new duffel you got me on the ship. I’m sure the police have it in evidence now.”

The reminder of the pink bag brought back unwelcome memories. Painful reminders of “real men” and “girlie” colors. She’d loved how they could disagree and still find ways to tease each other. She’d never had that before.

She still didn’t have it.

“Annie?”

She could hear the worry in her mother’s voice.

“You still there?”

“I’m here,” she assured her quickly and brightly, not wanting to have to talk her off the private plane again. “Thank you, Mom. I appreciate it. Really I do.”

Her mother harrumphed. “You are welcome. Call me when you are leaving. And if you change your mind, I can be there—”

“I know,” she said, cutting her off. A knock on the door startled her. For one foolish heartbeat she thought . . . But then she realized whom she was talking to and sighed. “Your room service is here,” she told her mom.

“I didn’t order room service. I said you would call when you wanted it sent up.”

The foolish heartbeat was back. Stronger this time. Oh God, what if it was . . .

“I’ll call you back,” Annie said, and hung up, not giving her mother time to argue.

She practically ran to the door, heart in her throat, her entire body fluttery and jumpy. Did he reconsider? Had he come back to tell her he’d made a mistake?

She looked through the peephole, and her heart sank. It wasn’t him, although she had no doubt that the man standing there had been sent by him.

Resolved, heart hardened, Annie opened the door.

•   •   •

The LC was going to be pissed. Dean shouldn’t be hanging around, but he couldn’t leave without making sure Annie was taken care of.

He sat on one of the benches along the waterfront, facing toward the harbor while keeping his head turned just enough to watch the entrance to the hotel where the man he’d sent had gone through about thirty minutes ago.

He wasn’t hungry, but every now and then he broke off a piece of a Styrofoam-like bagel to chew on and took a swig of lukewarm coffee to wash it down. He didn’t want anyone to wonder what he was doing. But there were enough people about enjoying the clear morning to not make him too conspicuous.

Still it was a risk. An unnecessary risk, the LC would definitely say, but not to his mind. He needed to do this. He couldn’t just walk away. He had to make sure she was all right. Taken care of. Protected.

Leaving her like that, all naked and trusting and curled in his arms, had been one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do. Especially knowing that she was going to hate him when she woke up. He’d abandoned her just as surely as her father had. He told himself he didn’t have a choice, but that wouldn’t matter to her. He was gone whatever the excuse.

With her too-accurate suspicions of what he did, Dean knew how hard it must have been for her to put her faith in a man like him after what she’d been through. He’d kept his word, but he’d abandoned her all the same.

Because he’d fucked up and not followed orders, because he couldn’t keep his head down and had to get involved, someone else had been hurt. He wouldn’t regret it in Annie’s case—if he hadn’t been there she could have been in real trouble—but he should have had better control. He should have kept their relationship at a distance.

Right. He would have had more luck trying to sell Texans jerseys at a Cowboys game.

He looked at his watch again. Forty minutes. What the fuck was going on in there? He was anxious and doing his best to contain it, but he felt like a time bomb about to explode.

Guilt was not a small part of it.

But what else could he have done? It would never have worked out. He was supposed to be dead and he and his surviving teammates—as well as anyone close to him—could be in danger if the people who’d tried to kill them found out they weren’t all dead.

He could have asked her to wait for him, but that wouldn’t be fair to her. Who knew when this would all be over, and wait for what? Was he ready to leave Nine? The team was the only family he’d ever known.

No, it was better this way. Annie would go back home and forget about him just as he was going to do. It might hurt like a motherfucker now, but it would go away. Eventually.

At least that was what he kept telling himself.

He looked at his watch again—0835 hours. Forty-five minutes.

Fuck it. He’d had enough. He pulled out his phone, intending to call the room, when the door opened and she walked out.

The pain was visceral. It reminded him of the fiery blast in Russia that had blown him back at least ten feet. He would have staggered if he’d been standing.

She was wearing that black dress and sweater again. It looked just as stunning as it had the night they went out to dinner, but this time it made him think of mourning.

Her dark hair was slicked back and twisted into a knot at the back of her head, but the short strands were fighting confinement and a few had broken free to catch the morning sunshine around her head. She was too far away to see her face, but he swore he could see the red rims around the brilliant green.

His gaze was too fixed on Annie to pay more than cursory attention to the uniformed officer that he’d had Kate arrange by her side.

It was also too fixed to notice the woman who’d come up to stand in front of him. “Hey, you’re up early. I hope there weren’t any problems last night?” It took him a moment to recognize the receptionist from check-in. “With your room?” she added helpfully.

“No, it was fine.” He tried to brush her off brusquely, but the girl wasn’t noticing.

He glanced toward Annie. Fuck, the officer was opening the door for her. She was about to get in the car and drive off. Forever. And he felt as if he was watching the best thing that had ever happened to him get away.

The officer said something, and Annie looked up in his direction, which also happened to be Dean’s direction.

Her gaze flickered on the woman and then . . .

Oh fuck. To him.

He was too far away to read her expression, but her body’s reaction said it all. She seemed to gasp and visibly stiffen.

He felt as if he’d slapped her.

What would she do? Would she call out to him? Come running toward him? Would she cry, bang on his chest, and demand to know why he’d made love to her like that and walked out after?

Would she unintentionally blow his cover and give him away to the policeman?

She did none of those things. She turned away as if he weren’t there. Telling him what he already knew: it was over.