Sheltering Dunes (11 page)

Allie thought about the endless nights after Ash left, of the women she’d dated, trying to forget, and then, discovering she couldn’t forget, the weeks when no one touched her. She hadn’t even wanted to come by her own hand, because the orgasm was a lonely mockery of what she really wanted. The single bright memory in all those weeks was Flynn. “I don’t ever want to be without you again.”

“I’m so sorry, baby,” Ash murmured.

“No, you don’t have to be. That’s behind us now.”

“But you still remember, I can tell.”

“I remember being without you.” Allie cupped herself, desire making her swell, making her ache. The wanting was all the sweeter for knowing Ash was hers. “I have you now. I’m not letting you go. You’re mine.”

“Completely.”

“That’s all that matters.”

“Close your eyes and let me hold you while you sleep, baby,” Ash said.

“I love you. See you soon.”

“I love you too.”

Allie ended the call and closed her eyes. Ash was everywhere, in her heart and her soul, and she would be there the next day, and the day after that. That certainty was everything she needed.

*

Flynn rolled over and watched the moon track across the sky through her bedroom window. She’d left it open even though the breeze bordered on cold so she could hear the foghorn toll from the lighthouse on Long Point. The smell of the sea reminded her of how insignificant she was in the vast ocean of time, smaller than a speck of sand on the shores of an endless universe. She would crumble under the weight of her own inconsequentiality if she didn’t have some way to contribute to that wonder.

Almost three a.m. Mica was probably asleep. Or perhaps she was lying awake watching the same moon move across the cloud-strewn sky, wondering, like Flynn, how the night might have been if Flynn had accepted Mica’s invitation and gone upstairs with her. Flynn hadn’t anticipated the invitation, even though Mica radiated loneliness. Flynn recognized the shadows in Mica’s eyes and the sadness Mica tried to hide. Mica was too strong and too stubborn to admit it, but some things were impossible to hide. Flynn recognized a soul on the run.

Flynn laced her fingers behind her head and watched the shadows flicker on her ceiling. Mica. What ghosts haunted her? What demons chased her? And why shouldn’t two people help each other through the night when they shared the same pain?

“Reese,” Tory murmured sleepily, “where are you going?”

“To get the baby.” Reese leaned down and kissed Tory. “Go back to sleep.”

“What time is it?”

“About five.”

Tory pushed up in bed. “You’re dressed for work. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just thought I’d go get her. You know she’s always up early, and so is my mother.”

Tory shifted over and patted the bed next to her. “Sit down for a minute.”

Reese sat. She knew what was coming, and like most times, she’d have no answer. Before Tory could ask, she said, “Nothing’s wrong. Really. I just couldn’t sleep.”

“Were you having nightmares?”

Reese took Tory’s hand, threaded her fingers through Tory’s, and kissed Tory’s knuckles. The dreams of running through the desert at night, heart pounding and ears ringing, the sky overhead alight with fireworks that might’ve been beautiful if they hadn’t been so deadly, didn’t really count as nightmares, did they? How could something she’d lived through really be a nightmare and not just a memory? “No. I’m fine.”

“I have no doubt of that.” Tory rubbed her thumb over the top of Reese’s hand. “But you don’t usually leave while I’m sleeping. I don’t like waking up and finding you gone.”

Reese fished the piece of paper from the breast pocket of her uniform shirt and held it up between two fingers. “I already had the note written to put on my pillow where you’d see it. And besides, I was coming back and Reggie and I were going to make breakfast. Really, I just wanted you to sleep longer.” Reese hitched the sheet down until she’d exposed a few inches of bare skin below Tory’s sleep shirt and kissed her stomach. “After all, you’ve got a job to do and you need your rest.”

Tory laughed. “I don’t think there’s anything I can do to make things happen any faster at this point, including sleep.”

“Excited?”

Tory’s eyes sparkled. “I am. I want this.”

“I know. So do I.” Reese didn’t feel the slightest uncertainty when she said it. She
did
want another baby. She just didn’t want Tory endangered.

“Will it help if I tell you everything’s going to be all right?”

“Baby,” Reese murmured. “It always helps.”

“Well, if you’re up and breakfast is in the offing, I might as well get up too.” Tory pushed the sheet the rest of the way off. “I’ll make coffee and feed Jed while you collect our offspring.”

“Deal.” Reese got up, found Tory’s robe, and handed it to her. “You know, part of the reason I like being a cop in the town where I live is I feel like I can keep you safe by keeping everyone else safe. Does that make sense?”

“Of course it does. Especially for you. You were raised to protect and serve.” Tory wrapped her arms around Reese’s shoulders and pressed against her, the robe on the bed, forgotten. “I love you for that. And I love you because you’re getting up at the crack of dawn to get our daughter and bring her home. I love you because tonight, when I’m tired and wondering if I’m making any kind of difference at all, I’ll be able to look at you and Reggie and know that I am. That I matter because I’m in your life.”

Reese held Tory tightly against her chest and rubbed her cheek in Tory’s hair. “You don’t just matter. You’re everything.”

“Like you are for me.” Tory kissed her jaw. “Go on now, Sheriff. Important duty calls.”

*

Even after picking up Reggie, fixing pancakes with Reggie’s help, and giving her a bath to repair the damage, Reese still got to the department before seven. Other than the night deputy handling phones, the place was empty. She pushed through the swinging gate that separated the small seating area just inside the door from the rest of the room where the desks for the patrol officers were located. She poured herself a cup of coffee and walked into her office, a small cubicle with big windows tucked into the back of the main room. She had a half hour or so before roll call to review the reports from the night shift. While not quite the off-season, the early fall was less busy in town than the summer. The stack of reports was half the size it would have been during the height of the tourist season. All the same, there’d been plenty of activity—several traffic accidents, a handful of brawls, a lost child thankfully recovered within a few minutes, and the random domestic disturbance. She didn’t see anything from Allie, and she hadn’t expected to. She’d given Allie an order to call her if she suspected any kind of trouble, and Allie wouldn’t disobey. If anything had happened in the unofficial surveillance Allie had been running on the girl with the questionable identity, Allie would’ve called her.

Someone tapped on her open office door and she glanced up. She expected to see Gladys, the dispatcher who seconded as a secretary, civilian liaison, and just about anything else they needed in the department by way of support staff. Allie Tremont, in uniform, waited in the doorway instead.

“Come on in,” Reese said.

“Morning, Sheriff.” Allie carried a chipped white porcelain mug with steam rising from the top. She had circles under her normally vibrant deep brown eyes. This morning, their luster was dulled with fatigue.

“Long night?” Reese asked.

“No, not really.” Allie dosed her coffee liberally with Splenda and tossed the paper pack into the trash. “I got in about one or so, but I couldn’t sleep. Ash is out of town—” She colored. “Sorry. Not relevant.”

“That’s okay. I don’t sleep very well when Tory’s away either.”

Allie’s eyes widened. “Uh yeah.”

Reese guessed Allie’s surprise was because she didn’t usually talk about anything personal while on the job, especially not with younger officers who were barely more than rookies. Then again, Allie wasn’t a rookie any longer. Allie had taken a bullet just a few weeks before and had handled it like a veteran. She’d trust Allie at her back any day.

“I guess you get used to it,” Allie finally said. “Coming home to an empty place, I mean.”

“I don’t know,” Reese said. “I haven’t.”

Allie shot her a look of appreciation. “I don’t think I will either. And she travels a lot.”

Reese nodded and sipped her coffee. “I take it nothing turned up last night on your surveillance.”

Bri Parker appeared in the doorway. “What surveillance?”

“What is this, a party?” Reese asked. “Why are you both early?”

“No reason.” Bri looked sharp and alert, her khaki uniform pressed within an inch of its life, razor-sharp creases in her pants and shirtsleeves. Her boots were black mirrors. Her thick black hair was trimmed just at her collar in the back and shorter along the sides. Even though Bri was in her early twenties, Reese thought she might’ve grown another inch or so in the last year. She had to be close to six feet now and starting to fill out a little bit. She’d always been lanky, but now she was beginning to muscle up.

“Sorry,” Bri said, shooting Allie a penetrating look. “I thought I heard something about surveillance.”

“It’s nothing,” Allie said.

Bri’s brows drew down and she glanced from Reese to Allie. Her jaw tightened. “Okay.” She spun on her heel and disappeared into the squad room.

Allie sighed. “Any reason I can’t brief her?”

“None that I can see.” Reese smiled. “In fact, I’d recommend it. Catch me up later if anything turns up on the girl.”

“Yes ma’am.” Allie jogged between the desks and plunked her butt down on Bri’s desk. “Do you always have to be such a horse’s ass?”

Bri shuffled papers on her desk, not looking up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You damn well do. You’re upset because you think something happened that you don’t know about. And you’re probably jealous that I was talking to Reese—”

“Whoa, whoa,” Bri protested. “I’m not jealous of Reese.”

“Me then?”

Bri grinned and quickly smothered it. “Jesus, no. I haven’t lusted after you for…a long time.”

“I’m broken-hearted.”

“You’re full of it too.” Bri glanced toward Reese’s office, but she’d closed the door. “So what’s going on? If you were doing surveillance, it must be something good.”

“Maybe, I don’t know.” Allie told Bri about her suspicions about Mica, and her phone call to Reese. “There’s nothing solid at this point. So you didn’t miss anything.”

“I don’t know, Al. I’d go with your gut. You need some help running down the computer traces?”

“No, but thanks. At the rate they’re coming in, I’m not going to get overwhelmed.”

“So you want to swing through town, see what’s cooking? We got a few minutes before roll call.”

“I guess you’ll be riding with Carter again,” Allie said quietly.

“Now who’s jealous?”

“You wish.” Allie grabbed her uniform hat and settled it over her brow. “Come on. Let’s see what’s shakin’.”

Flynn ran along the harbor’s edge, skirting along the crescent shoreline that extended from Long Point through the center of town to the East End. The tide was on its way out, and the moist sand left in its wake was dark and firm beneath her feet. Her footsteps filled with water almost as soon as she made them, obliterating her path within a few seconds, as if she had never been there at all.

The still air smelled of seaweed and brine. The sun blazed brightly but the intense heat of summer was tempered by the first breath of fall. Beneath a crystal-blue sky dotted with billowing white clouds, the harbor glinted like a steel-gray mirror. Higher up the beach, early risers walked barefoot, carrying their shoes in one hand and coffee cups in the other; gulls circled and swooped, looking for scraps; and dog owners tossed balls and sticks out into the water where sleek canine heads broke the surface like schools of porpoises in pursuit. The day was as beautiful as any she’d ever seen. As she ran, the shroud of a sleepless night fell away and she breathed deeply, the excitement of a new day, ripe with possibility, buoying her. Mornings were her favorite time—when the defeats and disappointments of the day before had been distanced by the dark, and dawn promised another chance.

Slowing, she checked the big black clock with gold hands on the tower at Town Hall. Seven fifteen. She angled up the beach, sinking into the soft dry sand with every step. The muscles in her calves ached pleasantly, and a light sheen of sweat coated her bare arms and the triangle of skin where the vee of her T-shirt exposed her chest. When she reached the street, she thumped her running shoes against the edge of the wooden sidewalk to shake loose the clumps of moist sand, giving herself another few seconds to change her mind. When she couldn’t delay without examining exactly why she was hesitating, she strode down Commercial toward the West End where Mica worked. She’d been thinking about seeing Mica again ever since she’d left her standing outside her rooming house earlier in the week. When she’d gotten up that morning, she’d told herself she was going for a run, but in the back of her mind, her destination had always been the Shoreline.