Nate was no gentleman. In fact, he was an asshole. Hadn’t Vane, just yesterday, called Nate on his assholeness after handing out housekeeping assignments?
As Nate watched Sarah’s truck disappear beneath a canopy of trees, he wished he could bring her back and…do what? Kiss her again? Stare into her brown eyes? Act like a lovesick fool?
In his defense, he’d told her to stay off Capel land. That cemetery had seen its share of violence, and it hadn’t been confined to the eighteenth century.
A breeze dried the sweat on his neck. Is that grunting? He hadn’t been joking about the wild boars. They roamed the more remote areas of Capel land and could be seeking prey farther inland.
When nothing charged him, he started the hike to the SUV parked near Pops Montfort’s trailer on the edge of Capel land. While the Montforts didn’t own as much property as the Capels, Pops and his buddy Grady Mercer—another patriarch of the isle—were the current caretakers of the Capel land roads that comprised more than half of the Isle of Grace.
The drone of buzzing insects and chirping birds brought life to this desolate land best known for centuries of tragedy and death. The scent of honeysuckle thickened the air, and the heat-fueled humidity felt…unholy. Nate kicked a rotted log out of the way, slapped a mosquito on his neck, and fought his way through a hedgerow of thistles. Somehow, he’d lost the trail in the boggy ground. He’d love to strip off his coat, but there was no way he’d expose his burned arms to the blood-sucking bugs.
Although it wasn’t even eight a.m., he was hot, sweaty, and tired. He didn’t want to return to town and face Kells with his you’re not supposed to drive concerns. Yeah, his buddies were worried about him. Hell, he was too. But for the moment, he craved the isolation of the woods, the peace of not having to deal with all the bullshit in his life.
He climbed over a split live oak tree eaten by termites and jumped a stream, grateful for his boots. Then he wiped his face with the edge of his T-shirt. Why hadn’t he thought to bring water? Or a machete? Maybe he’d be killed by a boar, and then he wouldn’t have to worry about his deal with Cassio, about Sarah’s safety, about his men’s situation, about lying to Kells, about returning to that prison hospital.
Shit. He hated self-pity, but it was better than thinking about Sarah. Figures he—a man who followed every command ever issued—would fall for a woman who did as she pleased. A woman who smelled like gardenias and stared at him with those beautiful brown eyes.
He was fucked.
Despite his annoyance at her apparent inability to follow orders, his body heated up as he envisioned her wearing nothing but a warm, inviting smile. Sweat dripped down his neck and arms, making the healing skin itch.
He felt for the handkerchief in his back pocket—which he’d given to Sarah—and reached for the medal around his neck that wasn’t there anymore. Sighing, he avoided a prickly branch with thorns that looked like razors. He’d either make it to Pops’s by noon or land in the Black River. But one thing was certain: he’d missed Kells’s staff meeting. And his boss would be pissed.
* * *
Forty minutes later, Nate arrived at Pops’s red barn, situated behind a double-wide trailer. The yard held a variety of classic American cars, mostly from the fifties and sixties. It was hard to tell exact models since the grass reached his knees.
Ratatatat. Ratatatat. Ratatatat.
The sound of rapid gunfire sounded from the other side of the property, where Pops and Grady had a rifle and pistol range. As much as Nate wanted to join the ex-Marines in pounding rounds, his brain felt like it was being crushed by his skull, a sure sign of an oncoming migraine, the kind that led to a seizure. He needed to return to the gym while he could still drive.
Once at his SUV, he found his cell phone in the glove box and reinserted the SIM card. He’d gotten into the habit of taking the SIM card out because he was sick of being tracked by everyone and everything. It didn’t take long for Pete’s texts to appear.
Where the fuck are you!?! Kells is pissed. Call me. ASAP!!!!!!
Then there was Zack’s text. Give me a story and I’ll cover for you.
Nate leaned against the SUV’s door. Why was he so fucking restless? Was it because he was lying to Kells and his men? Was it general anxiety about his future and these damn headaches? Or was he worked up because of Sarah? He took a roll of film from his pocket. He couldn’t lie about what he needed. Not the way his body threw off heat. He wanted to see Sarah again, in a seriously sexy and horizontal way. But he was one breath above being homeless and jobless.
He tossed the film through the open window onto the passenger seat and pressed his forehead to the vehicle’s hot metal. He had no money. No prospects. Had serious problems with migraines, seizures, and his long-term memory. Aaaaaaaaand even though he still had weeks to worry about it, there was the whole prison hospital thing. Yep. He was real prince material.
A raindrop hit his forehead, and he raised his face to the sky. The musty scent of rain hitting the soil burned the inside of his nose. A storm would be a welcome relief to all of this heat and stress.
When his phone rang, he answered on speaker. He couldn’t put off Pete any longer. Nate might be a screwup as a soldier, but he wasn’t a dick. “Hey, brother. I’m on my way—” The words dried in his throat, and he pulled out his gun.
A man stood in front of the SUV in the shadow of a massive oak tree. In dark jeans and with a black hooded sweatshirt hiding his face, he held a nine-mil, barrel pointed down. Yet he didn’t bow.
When had that become a good thing?
“Nate?” Pete asked.
The hooded man’s finger twitched on the Glock’s trigger. From the man’s stance, he was a quick draw.
“What do you want?” Nate asked.
“What?” Pete asked. “Where are you?”
“At Pops—” Nate’s vision splintered.
“Nate!” Pete’s voice crackled over the phone’s speaker. “What’s going on?”
Nate couldn’t speak. The agony in his head had moved in with knives. He fell to his knees. And threw up.
“Shit!” Pete’s voice blasted. “Zack and I are on our way. Don’t fucking move.”
Not a problem considering the IEDs exploding in Nate’s head meant an incoming seizure. Colors burst in front of his eyes, and he shut them to keep all extra light out. He regulated his shallow breaths and, as he faded into black, kept one vision anchored in his mind. A sexy woman with brown eyes framed by long hair. Sarah Munro.
* * *
An hour later, Sarah parked in front of her house in Savannah’s historic district. The rain hadn’t hit the city yet, but clouds hovered on the outskirts. She closed her eyes and stretched her foot. Her ankle ached, and her shoulders felt as if she was holding Atlas’s burden.
Thunder hit, and she opened her eyes to find her father standing on the brick stoop. What is it with men and the hands-on-the-hips thing?
Her father waited, with a scowl marring his face. In jeans, boots, and a red flannel shirt, he looked more like a Cape Cod fisherman than a Georgia retiree. Next to him, in the same stance and wearing jeans, a black T-shirt, and a College of Charleston baseball cap pulled down low over his eyes, was a man she hadn’t seen since her dad retired. Detective Hugh Waring. Her father’s former partner in Boston until an IA investigation ruined both their lives. Six foot with short brown hair and penetrating hazel eyes, he was one of the few men her father still respected, trusted, and remembered.
The moment she shut the car door, her father’s voice boomed, “Where have you been, and what have you been doing?”
She gave him her fakest smile and tried to come up with a story. Although, having been caught in many a lie, her story fizzled. At least the look in his brown eyes was of annoyance, not pain. She reached for his hand.
“Sorry I’m late, Dad. I had a run-in with the pharmacist.” She paused as Hugh took her bag off her shoulder. For some reason she didn’t want to identify, she noted that Hugh wasn’t as tall as Nate. “What are you doing here, Hugh? I thought you were still in New York.”
Hugh kissed her cheek. “Hey, Sarah—”
“Hugh left the NYPD,” said her dad. “Now he’s a detective in Charleston. Homicide. And he’s here to talk to me.”
“Will you stay for the auction tomorrow, Hugh?” she asked, hoping to deflect her dad’s questions. “It’s at the Mansion Hotel on Forsyth in downtown Savannah. It’s for those pirate weapons I authenticated. Seventeenth and eighteenth century.”
“No,” her dad answered instead. “Hugh has to be in Charleston by noon.”
She and Hugh exchanged eye rolls as she limped into the tiled foyer. “Coffee?”
Hugh winked. “Yes, please.”
“Dad, did you have your tea yet?” Almost a year ago she’d found a recipe for an herbal tea in her grandmother’s recipe box that was supposed to help with migraines. Now she made sure her father drank at least two cups a day. Although four would be better.
“No.” Her father shut the front door and frowned at Hugh. “It’s horse piss.”
Ugh. “Dad,” she said, heading into the kitchen. “It’s been helping your headaches and your seizures.” And his memory, but she didn’t want him to worry about that. She wasn’t sure how aware he was of his memory lapses.
“What happened, Sarah?” her father asked. “You’re muddy.”
Hugh followed behind them as if he knew to stay out of the line of fire. He dropped her camera bag on the counter near a package. Her name was on the front with no return address.
“I’m fine.” She took the new pill bottle out of her purse and gave it to her father, hoping he wouldn’t notice her scratched hands. Then she put on water for his tea. “Hugh, have you had a chance to check out that name I gave you a few weeks ago?”
“Nate Walker?” Hugh poured himself a cup of coffee. “I ran a prelim search. You were right about him being ex-military but I don’t have any military contacts anymore.”
“I’ll text you the name of mine.” Her father used a knife to pry open the lid. After swallowing one pill, he said, “Sarah, why are you limping?”
Hugh added, “What happened to your hands?”
Why did her dad and his best friend have to be detectives? Why not dentists?
She gave her father a glass of water and filled a tea ball with her special herbal concoction. “I fell and hurt my ankle.” She then poured herself a cup of coffee. Now all she needed was a shower so she could erase Nate’s sexy scent.
“Hugh.” She added boiling water to the tea ball in her father’s mug. The scent of bacopa leaves and feverfew filled the room. “What are you doing here?”
Hugh drank his coffee before saying, “Have you heard about the heroin?”
“Of course she’s heard,” her dad said. “But she hasn’t answered my question.”
His eyes had that certain hooded gaze that meant he’d reverted to Joe Munro. Chief of police for the fine city of Boston. Retired.
“Might as well tell him, Sarah,” Hugh said.
Heaven save her from bossy men.
She added honey to her father’s cup and checked the steeping. If it was too strong, it could cause vomiting.
“Sarah.”
“Okay.” Sticking to the edges of the truth might get her through this unscathed. “I met a man.”
Hugh took a vibrating cell out of his pocket. “Excuse me, Sarah.”
“You can take it out on the patio,” her dad said. The moment Hugh left the room, her dad continued his interrogation. “This man—how did you meet him?”
She handed him the tea, and he scrunched his nose. He didn’t like it, but he slept so much better when he drank it.
She stirred more sugar into her coffee. “I tripped over a tombstone, and he helped me.”
“Oh.” Her father finished his tea in three large gulps, grimaced, and placed the mug in the sink. “I was worried.”
She hugged him, and he kissed her head before pulling away. Since he was a proud, stubborn ex-cop, these moments were rare. She’d remember every one for both their sakes. It didn’t matter that he’d adopted her after marrying her mother. He was her father, and she’d do everything in her power to protect and care for him.
She picked up her coffee and left the kitchen. “If you’re feeling okay later, we could develop my pictures in your darkroom. I have to send them to the granting agency tonight.” Once she got the film back, of course.
He sent a text on his cell phone and followed her through the family room. “These pictures wouldn’t be a ploy to keep my mind off today’s appointment with the social worker?”
She shook her head. There was no more room in her heart for sadness and worry.
Her dad took her elbow. “Someone left that package for you. It must’ve been delivered last night. Felt like a book.”
“Probably someone wanting me to authenticate something.” Not knowing if he was feeling weak or just wanted to touch her, she led him through the French doors. Since returning to Savannah, she’d taken over the walled garden and his study. He hadn’t said a word about either, which only spoke to his lack of energy.
She stepped onto the flagstone patio lined with pink geraniums and gardenias and sat at the iron table.
“No,” Hugh said. “Tell Mrs. Pinckney I’ll come by this afternoon.”
When Hugh ended the call, her dad asked, “Everything okay?”
“A missing person case.” Hugh glanced at his buzzing phone. “Thanks for the contact info, Joe.”
“Of course,” her father said.
Hugh removed his baseball cap, balancing it on the raised brick edge of the pond. His movements, so efficient and careful, reminded her of that moment in the courtroom when the Boston DA had dropped all charges against Hugh and he’d turned around to mouth a thank-you. Her father had taken the blame to save the younger man’s career.
She gripped the coffee cup, using the heated ceramic to re-center her emotions. So much had happened to them in the past three years between the drug-bust-turned-bloodbath, her dad’s resulting blackouts and seizures, and her own job debacles. That life in Boston didn’t seem real anymore.
After her father sat, Hugh joined them, his foot tapping beneath the table in time to the water fountain. With the worn leather chest holster holding his weapon, he resembled Nate. Except where Nate had been all strength and determination and control, Hugh seemed like a viper waiting to strike.
“Sarah,” her dad said with a smug smile. “Hugh wants my help.”
Hugh nodded, and she appreciated the gesture. Retiring early, under suspicion, from the Boston police force was the hardest thing her dad had ever done, and helping Hugh might get her dad through today’s evaluation. His memory lapses had become so frequent, the neurologist and the social worker had mentioned in-patient therapy.
“Don’t wear him out, Hugh,” she said. “My dad’s cranky even when he’s not tired.”
Hugh laughed, and in his eyes, she saw the truth. He was also here to say goodbye in case the next seizure wiped out her dad’s memory completely. Her vision fogged, and she checked her fish in the pond. The birds treated her koi as snacks.
“Very funny,” her father said. But his rare smile told her he was flattered by both their attention and their worry. “Now. Hugh. What do you need?”
“This heroin is killing us, Joe. It’s been laced with some unidentified compound that causes blackouts and comas.” Hugh reached for the black leather briefcase he’d carried outside. “Luckily, I caught a break in my investigation.”
Her dad leaned forward, his hands clasped, his eyes crystal clear. Sarah didn’t know if it was excitement over being needed or if his pain meds had taken effect. But she loved seeing his eyes flash with intelligence and clarity, and she grabbed his hand.
Her dad squeezed back. “Have you caught any dealers?”
“None. I spoke to Detective Garza here in Savannah, and the SPD hasn’t caught any either.” Hugh found a photo in the briefcase and laid it facedown on the table. “The only clue I have is a dead dealer found yesterday on a Charleston wharf. He’d been shot, and someone cut his palm.”
Her father’s eyes darkened. “That wasn’t on the news.”
“No,” Hugh said. “I made sure it wasn’t.”
Sarah sipped her coffee. “How do you know this dead dealer is connected to this new drug?”
“An informant,” Hugh said. “But it’s still hearsay because I have no evidence.”
The doorbell rang, and she hurried to answer it. But when she opened the door, no one was there. An intense tingling in her arms told her something was wrong. Tourists sauntered by with cameras, a large man walked his tiny dog, and two boys were trying to skateboard on cobblestones.
Then she saw a man near the street corner beneath a magnolia tree. Average height, black T-shirt. She raised a hand to shade her eyes. She raised a hand to shade her eyes and blinked. Cassio wrapped one arm around his waist and bowed.
She ran inside and locked the door. Her heart beat so fast she could only take shallow breaths. Before she could peek out the window to see if he was still there, her phone buzzed on the kitchen counter. When she read the message, she realized the new text came from a blocked ID.
Lady Sarah, thou must cease thy unholy bother to save thy noble father.