Shroud of Fog: (A Cape Trouble Romantic Suspense Novel) (27 page)

He nodded.  Bruises and swelling and all, she was beautiful
to him.  His gaze drank in that porcelain fine skin and her green eyes with
enough gold to make him think of sunshine through leafy branches.

“He might not have been able to grab me if it weren’t for
the fog.”  Her eyes were slightly unfocused as she pursued her thought.  “I had
to drive really slow, and suddenly he was just there, in front of me.  If it
had been clear, I’d have seen him blocking the road and used my phone, or done
a U-turn and gone back, or something.”

“He’d been waiting his chance for a while.”  Daniel’s jaw
clenched.  “We assume he’s responsible for the call that held Slawinski up at
the facility.”

“Oh.  I wondered why he wasn’t there.”

He told her what happened and she nodded.

“The thing is, once I was able to break away from him and
run, the fog was my salvation.  It was frightening not being able to see ahead
or behind, but I knew he couldn’t see me either.”

Daniel didn’t know what to say.  What she was looking for. 
Maybe she was only processing.

She gave herself a little shake.  “And then you were there,
right when I needed you.”

“Because you screamed.”

Her expression was grave as her eyes searched his.  “I
thought I was alone.”

So much could have gone wrong that would have left her truly
alone.  The awareness was going to torture him for a long time.

“Sophie.”  He let her go and saw her surprise.  “This has
been really fast.  I didn’t know you...what?  Two weeks ago?”

“It doesn’t seem possible,” she whispered.

For a man who’d never laid himself on the line like this,
never been sure he
wanted
to, this wasn’t easy to say.  He drew in a
deep breath and said it fast.  “I’m in love with you.”

Her eyes filled with tears, then she launched herself at him
again.  His arms closed automatically around her.

“I’m hoping you’ll give me a chance,” he said roughly. 
“I’ve promised them two years here, but I can drive over to see you on my days
off, and then look for a new job.”  Something else that was hard to say.  “If
you want me, Sophie.”

She lifted a tear-drenched face to him.  “This isn’t just
because of today?  Because you felt responsible for keeping me safe and because
you were afraid for me?”

With his thumbs he gently rubbed the tears from below her
eyes, then kissed more away.  “No.  God.  It’s been coming on since I set eyes
on you.  I wanted to make a move on you, but I didn’t dare.  You were going to
be in town too long.  I knew even then that I’d go down for the count if we
were involved for more than a weekend.”

She sniffled and finally retreated to mop her face and blow
her nose.  Now her good eye was a little puffy, too, and her nose was pink.  He
waited, discovering there were different kinds of fear.

“Why didn’t you want to get involved?”

Until her, Daniel couldn’t remember the last time he’d
talked about his feelings.  He moved his shoulders in discomfort, but made
himself say what he’d figured out long ago.  “It was losing Dad the way I did. 
Maybe I was at a vulnerable age.  I don’t know.  Or it might have been Mom,
mourning him as if she intended to spend the rest of her life alone because he
was gone.  Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have an unhappy childhood, but…”  He
hesitated.

“You decided the risk of loss was too high.”

He grimaced.  “Yeah.  Love hurt.  That’s what I grew up
believing.”

“Do you still think that?”

Man.  He wanted to be pacing instead of sitting here with
her gaze slicing deep to the unprotected places inside him.

“I know it can,” he said carefully.  “I had another lesson
in that today.”  He looked a challenge at her.  “You can’t tell me you haven’t
felt the same.”

“Yes.”  Her eyes filled with sorrow.  “I…I think my parents’
marriage wasn’t very good before Mom died.  I suppose…well, that I’ve been
running scared, too.”  She winced.  “Don’t ever let me say that again.”

He caught her hands in his.  “Say what?”

“He told me to run.  He wanted me to run.”

“God, Sophie.”  His fingers tightened and he felt how
slender her hands were.  How fragile, compared to his.  Her personality
sometimes let him forget how fine-boned she was, how much smaller and more
vulnerable.

“The thing is,” her eyes met his, “I felt the same about you
as soon as we met.  Only I told myself I didn’t want to get involved with
anyone who had ties to Cape Trouble.  Both because it wasn’t practical, and
because…”  She paused.

“Your memories of Cape Trouble were too painful.”

“Yes.”  Fresh tears welled in her eyes, making the
greeny-gold shimmer.  “I fell in love with you, too.  And…and if you mean it…”

He groaned and snatched her back into his arms, wanting to
kiss her but instead pressing his mouth to her forehead.  “I mean it.  I’ll do
anything I have to do to be with you.”

Her lips touched his cheek awkwardly, but his heart cramped
in his chest.  The sensation was unexpectedly painful and yet pleasurable,
too.  He’d let himself see only the part of love that hurt, he realized at that
moment.  But there was the good side, too.  The possibility of a lifetime spent
with one person, these astonishing emotions only enriched by the years and by
small troubles, shared decisions, passion and quiet times.  All an adventure
for someone like him who’d grown up essentially alone.

“I love you,” he whispered.

And she whispered back, “I love you.  Oh, Daniel.  I wish…”

Shit.  His own cheeks were wet now.  He used his shirtsleeve
to wipe them.  “You wish?”

“I wasn’t such a mess!” she wailed.  “I want you!”

He began to laugh, all the tension wrought by the day
leaving him, his body flooded by joy.

“We have all the time in the world,” he said, and believed.

*****

“You know what’s at stake here,” the auctioneer told the
crowd of elegantly dressed people seated at round tables in a ballroom at Portland’s
Governor Hotel.  Having worked with him before, Sophie had requested him from
the auction company.  Along with being silver-haired, he was silver-tongued,
and had had the crowd mesmerized from the beginning of the live auction as he
prowled with his microphone, a spotlight following him.

Elias Burton’s painting of the dunes and ocean had sold for
an astonishing twenty-seven thousand dollars, for example, after the auctioneer
had introduced the artist, who had attended with his mother, then cajoled three
competing bidders, playing them against each other.

Sophie already knew the silent auction had gone well.  Once
dinner was served and the live auction part of the evening began, volunteers
had quietly begun packing the already-sold items back into bubble wrap and
boxes to be picked up at the end.  Express pay runners were even now delivering
envelopes to bidders at their table, letting them know which items they’d won
and giving them any gift certificates they’d purchased.

She sat at a table in the back so that she was available to
cashiers or volunteers if there were problems.  Naomi had excused herself from
attending, but Hannah sat at the same table, as did Elaine Terwilliger and
several other auction committee members.

Beside Sophie was Daniel, relaxed and handsome in a black
suit, blue shirt and charcoal and blue striped tie.  They were between dinner
courses right now.  When the auctioneer began the fund-a-need – the
straight-out begging for monetary donations – Daniel had taken her hand beneath
the table.

She held on tight as she heard people giving beyond her
wildest dreams.  A couple pointed out to her as wealthy philanthropists
especially interested in environmental causes started it out with a donation of
fifty thousand dollars.  Several people gave at the twenty-five thousand dollar
level.  Dazzled, she watched the bid cards raise when the auctioneer suggested
ten thousand.

Her lips moved and she realized Daniel had leaned toward
her.

“What?” he murmured.

She squeezed his hand.  “I wish Doreen could be here.”

“Yeah.”  He kissed her cheek then nuzzled just a little. 
“Maybe she knows.”

Her smile trembled.  “Maybe.”

It was awful to think the publicity centering around a
serial killer and his victims had helped contribute to the success of the evening,
but she knew it had.  She tried to convince herself that something had come of
those deaths but knew the reward wasn’t worth the cost.

She’d had regular nightmares after that day.  They were
getting further apart now.  She had recovered faster than she’d expected, and
she knew it was entirely thanks to Daniel.  Sleeping in the security of his
embrace made all the difference.  Being able to talk to him.  Having him
gradually open up to her, talking haltingly at times, but talking – about his
childhood, his secret grief, the self-anger that had plagued him, the
understanding he’d recently come to about where his strengths lay.

She was beginning to understand herself a lot better, too. 
Having someone listen without judgment, hold you when you needed it, laugh at
you when you needed that, was an amazing experience.

More and more, they could relax and just have fun.

She had really hated packing up and leaving Cape Trouble at
the end of June, when she had promised to be back at work.  She’d had to leave
the job of making sure all the auction items made it to the venue auction day
to other volunteers.  Mostly, she’d had to leave Daniel.

The day she drove over from the coast, when she let herself
into her townhouse she had felt the strangest sense of disorientation.  How
could it be only a month since she’d left?  Nothing here had changed – but she
had.

And she missed Daniel desperately.  He hadn’t been able to
leave Cape Trouble over the Fourth of July weekend, one of those holidays, he
had told her with a grimace, that cops everywhere dreaded, and she’d been
desperately trying to catch up with work.  They talked on the phone nightly,
for an hour or more, but not being able to see him, touch him, wake up next to
him, felt unbearable.  The relief she felt when he’d arrived in Portland
yesterday had staggered her.

Sophie didn’t know how Daniel felt about it, but the idea of
doing this for a year seemed unendurable to her.

At least there’d been no major hitches where the auction was
concerned.

Marie Billington had let her know that, acting for the
monster whose name she shared, she would honor the agreement he had made with
Doreen.  If Sophie, Hanna, Naomi, Elaine and all the others could raise the
money to match the amount that would be given by the nature protection group,
Misty Beach would be saved for posterity.  The cabins would be razed, but the
lodge would be restored as an interpretive center.  And everyone had agreed
that Doreen Stedmann’s name would go on the sign at the entrance off the
highway.

Daniel had stayed in the loop as the investigation
continued, and he kept her informed.  The FBI agent in charge had let him know
they had potential identities of a dozen or more additional victims.  Benjamin
Billington was truly a monster, and she might be the only woman he ever
abducted who had escaped.

Unless, in a way, her mother could be said to have.  She at
least hadn’t been hunted down like an animal and raped.  Her death was quick.

Sophie’s father had been silent for a long time after she
told him what happened to her mom, and what they now knew about her death.

Finally he had surprised her by saying, “You know I never
believed she killed herself.  I should have raised hell.  Insisted on a serious
investigation.  I told myself she was dead and I couldn’t bring her back, so
what did it matter?  You were so traumatized, and I didn’t want you questioned
any more.”  His voice was quietly angry.  “I was wrong.  I feel responsible for
letting him go on to kill more women. To come so damn close to hurting and killing
you.”

She tried to convince him that he wasn’t, but didn’t think
she’d succeeded.  She was left with the unsettling realization that she hadn’t
known her father as well as she’d thought she did.

She frequently let herself be grateful for Doreen, who’d given
her what she needed.

Doreen, whose night this was.

*****

It was nearly midnight before Daniel and Sophie were free to
leave the hotel.  During the short drive home to her place, Daniel kept an eye
on her.  He knew what an emotional experience tonight had been for her.  Right
now, she was exhausted, dazed and exhilarated.  And, damn, he knew how hard
she’d worked to make the evening happen.

“I can’t believe how much we made,” she murmured, for what
had to be the third or fourth time, as he parked in her covered slot behind the
row of townhouses.

Daniel grinned.  “You rock.”

“We do.  All of us.  Remember, I didn’t bring in any of the
items, or make arrangements with the venue, or find the artist, or…”

“You did enough.”

“I wish…”

She didn’t finish her sentence until they’d unloaded the
important stuff from the back of his Honda Pilot, which they’d taken tonight
because they could haul so much more in it than in her Prius.  The ‘important
stuff’ tonight included money and credit card slips – one hell of a lot of
money.

Daniel had almost forgotten that she’d started to say
something, but once they’d set everything down and he’d stripped off his tie,
Sophie said, “Naomi should have been here.”

He looked at her in surprise.  He’d assumed she was thinking
of Doreen again.  “Not happening,” he said bluntly.  “Your friend Naomi is
hiding from someone or something.  There was never any chance she’d show her
face at an event with this many people present.”

“You really believe that?”

“I know that.”  He shed his suit coat.  “I just hope it’s
not the law she’s running from.”