Page 3 of Beachcomber Enemy

“They’re not after me. They’re after you.”

She sounded certain and he couldn’t argue with her logic.

Glancing around the fence, Dane saw that Vendi’s truck was the only one still parked at the station. He waved Shana on and ran up the stairs. Taking another quick look through the window of the door, he saw that the public office was unmanned. He rapped on the door.

“He’ll never hear you,” she said. She pulled her phone from a zipped waterproof compartment in her running shorts and tapped it on.

When it lit up, he checked his surprise.

Dane always made a point of appearing to remain cool, whether he was or not. So far his cool had held up often enough to keep him alive.

“That’s a throwaway phone, right?”

“Of course.” She gave him a half frown.

He watched her tap in Vendi’s number while seawater dripped from her hair down her arms.

“You have Vendi’s number memorized?” His cool was gone. He found it next to impossible to control his irritable, irrational jealousy where Shana was concerned, no matter how unreasonable he knew it was.

Putting the phone to her ear, she smiled at him with an aren’t-you-cute-to-be-jealous look. Irritability slid toward a hotter, almost angry end of the spectrum on his meter until he heard Vendi on the other end of her line. Dane snatched the phone from her.

“Vendi, this is Blaise. We’re at your front door. Unofficially. Let us in, but don’t raise any alarms.” He clicked off.

Shana shook her head, but a faint smile still tilted one side of her kissable mouth. He noticed goose bumps on the wet skin of her arms and would have embraced her to share his heat—he always had heat to spare when he was in her vicinity—but Vendi pulled the door open and they slipped inside.

He hadn’t turned on the lights and said nothing as he led them through the office and downstairs.

A ping sounded on Shana’s phone.

“What the hell is going on with you two? The explosion—”

Dane pushed Shana inside and nodded at Vendi.

“The beach shack is gone.”

“I knew it had something to do with you. Damn,” Vendi said. He turned and went down the stairs to their right, into the dark, leaving him with Shana in the small entryway.

Shana held her phone and tapped it to check the message. Dane didn’t like that she’d gotten a message. A foreboding crept up his spine and took root in his chest, tightening it, as he watched her read the message.

Pale fear drained the remaining color from her face.

“What does it say?” Dane grabbed the phone to see for himself, the thumping in his tight chest too insistent to allow him to wait for her answer.

The text said: Boom!

Followed by picture of a cartoon explosion.

Followed by another cartoon that he didn’t understand and yet it chilled his blood.

His eyes bored into hers as he took hold of her shoulder.

“Shana? Explain this.”

* * *

His voice sounded calm, but it was weighted with expectation.

She didn’t remember the last time she’d been this shocked—outside of exposure to Dane’s charms.