Page 48 of Beachcomber Enemy

“We found the bleeding and stopped it. The next few hours will be crucial, then she should have a full recovery. But it’s going to be a slow, precarious process. She’ll need to do the one thing I know she won’t want to do.”

Dane’s smile cracked his face and his heart felt like it had spread wings and flown to his throat. He couldn’t speak for a beat, so he nodded. Then, with Peter at his side, he said, “You want her to do nothing?”

The doctor grinned. “Right. Total and complete bed rest.”

“For how long?”

“Six weeks minimum. Four with good behavior.” Then the doctor added with a serious voice, “Both of you will need to behave.”

Dane gulped. He’d never been a nursemaid, but this was one assignment he was not going to mess up since everything that was right with the world, with his world, depended on it.

“Can I see her?”

Dr. Aoki nodded and said, “Follow me.”

Dane followed the doctor into the nearby post-op room where Shana lay under pristine white sheets on a hospital bed, tubes and wires attached to her. But her mane of newly red hair and her beautiful profile warmed him to his core. He hadn’t realized he’d been so cold. He went to her and touched her arm. Her eyes opened and she turned to look at him. It took a beat while their eyes met in silent communication, where Dane spoke volumes of love poems in his look, laying everything bare, all his love, passion, adoration, and need, the soul-deep need for her to see.

Then she smiled. The soft expression transformed her face from pale and weak so that he could see that flash of passion in her, the love and forgiveness. Most of all, Dane saw the understanding.

He bent to kiss her before the doctor could object, touching his lips to hers, needing to transfer some of his passion and energy to her with the physical contact. Then while the doctor voiced his predictable objection, he stood.

“I’ll be back, love.”

“Dane,” she whispered.

He held his breath waiting to hear what she would say.

“Don’t be long.”

She hadn’t said it. Hadn’t said she loved him too, that she forgave him for everything. But she would. He knew it. Had to believe it. He walked to the door when it was the last thing he wanted to do, but the doctor had insisted on good behavior and he needed to man up.

Before he left the room, he said, “I’ll be back before you wake up again.”

Chapter 17

At the site of his old beach shack, Dane pulled into the crushed shell drive, stopping short of the thirty-foot RV where he now resided. It was cramped and old and every one of his friends—and his new enemy Cap—tried to talk him into staying with them. He was tempted by Acer’s offer to stay with him and Isabella on the Amalfi coast. But for now, he would call this place home.

The construction workers waved at him, but didn’t dare stop working as he got out of his Jeep and walked to the single wooden step that led to the flimsy metal door. Taking a deep breath, he pulled it open and stepped inside with a bouquet of pink beach roses, the same kind he had given Shana the first day they met.

She was there, lying on the couch under a blanket, watching the news in the tiny living area to his right. Sassy stood in the even tinier kitchen to his immediate left, cooking something that smelled good. Probably pie. Even one-handed, Sassy was a relentless pie-maker. She said it was therapeutic.

It was two weeks since Shana’s surgery and Joe was gone. Peter and Acer and Ronnie were gone.

And Cap. He hadn’t spoken to Cap since the arrest. He had no plans to speak to his former friend again until he had to. At his trial.

He went to her in two quick steps and handed her the roses. Watching her laugh with some of that old spark, he leaned forward, never mind that he crushed the roses between them, and gave her a deep fathomless kiss, the kind he swore he would give her every time he saw her from now on, the kind that he would give her as if he’d never see her again.

* * *

She sucked in his lips, reveling in the hot passionate taste of him, his male scent, his strength and most of all felt the love seeping from him, flowing into her, covering everything, even the deepest wounds. The deepest wound was not from the knife. It had been Dane’s betrayal. It had been him leaving her behind at the Governor’s Mansion and then tying her up and locking her in a closet. Even now the memory of the dark closet, the door slamming on her, and Dane’s voice outside, brought a sting of tears to her eyes and a searing across her soul.

But she banished it now as he kissed her, though she bit down on his lip, tasting blood.

He ended the kiss then, sitting up on the edge of her sick-couch, looking down at her with his smirk and knowing eyes. He knew the nip was for punishment, she was sure of it as she watched him swipe a finger across his bottom lip to wipe away the blood.

“I canceled the church today.” She said the words without the heartache she felt. But the look on Dane’s face was heartbroken and her hand automatically went up to caress his face.

“I’m sorry, Dane. As soon as the trial is over we’ll reschedule the wedding.”