I know I said you can sell it if you want to, but I really hope you don’t. Because then I’ll have nowhere to live . . .
My lungs scream for air as I spin on the spot. I can’t see through the tears that are springing into my eyes, can’t breathe through the blockage in my throat. Everything is a haze of yellow and blue. Except for one thing.
Danny.
“No.” My muscles disintegrate, and I fall to my knees on the sand, battling with my logic and prayers. He’s a mirage. I’m missing him so much, my mind is playing tricks on me. Yet the distant form of a man grows as he strolls casually down the shoreline, his hands in the pockets of his shorts, his chest and feet bare.
And then he’s perfectly clear and perfectly here.
My head lifts as he nears until he’s towering over me. His face is straight as he pulls his shades off. His skin tan. His black hair is longer than usual, his eyes bluer. More alive. At peace. His body sharper. My eyes land on a dressing just shy of his collarbone. A bullet wound.
He lowers to his haunches before me and reaches for my cheek, softly stroking away the trails of tears. “You remind me of someone I used to know,” he whispers, smiling mildly.
I break down, covering my face with my hands and sobbing into them. He’s not real. He can’t be real. I’m dreaming, or maybe even having a nightmare. I sniffle and peek through my fingers. He’s still there.
Astonishment.
Then anger.
I dive to my feet, knocking him to his ass. And I stare down at him as he looks up at me. “You bastard,” I choke, diving onto him, finding his lips, kissing him, relishing the familiar feel, the smell of him, everything. My hands and mouth are in a frenzy, getting as much of him as I can, my mind telling me that he’s going to turn to dust at any minute. That I’ll wake up.
“I’m here,” he murmurs into my mouth, rolling us so he has me trapped beneath him in the sand. Pulling back, he brushes my hair from my face and studies me for a few, quiet moments. He kisses me, a kiss like nothing I’ve had before. It’s so deep, so intense. So us. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “So sorry.”
“How?” I ask, my mind a mass of questions. I saw him in the water. I heard the FBI agent. I saw Brad when he got back from identifying his body.
“I would never have been left to get on with my life with you, Rose. There would always be someone vying for my blood. As I hung off the side of that boat, as I looked at you, I knew what I had to do.”
I shake my head, feeling like it could explode. Explode with happiness. With relief. “So you played dead.”
“No, I held my breath for fucking ever and swam for my fucking life,” he replies, full of sarcasm.
Good God, I’ve been through hell. Cried a thousand tears and more. Ached, hurt, and ached some more. “You could have told me, Danny.”
“You had to be seen to grieve.”
“But Brad . . .”
“He knows I’m alive, Rose.”
He needs to tell me how he pulled this off. “Tell me how.”
He smiles at my wonder. “After I made it to the shore, I switched clothes with one of the dead and loaded him onto one of my skis. Rode out a way and dumped the body. Then I tracked down Spittle. Made him a few promises.”
“Promises?”
“I was keeping hold of a few pictures.” He shrugs. I don’t need to ask what kind of pictures. “Spittle led the search and found the body. Paid Brad a visit, as you know.” He reaches for my face, stroking my cheek, his touch full of apologies. “Poor fucker looked like he’d seen a ghost when he walked into the morgue and found me waiting for him.”
I’m amazed. Speechless. The two bottles of Scotch Brad sank when he got back make sense for more reasons than one now. “And Esther?”
“She knows. But to everyone else, I’m dead.” He stares down at me, thoughtful. “And it was all so fucking easy, Rose. All of it easy, except one thing.”
“What?”