A Case of Christmas (2 page)

hour.

Chapter One

I
t was pouring rain when Shane got off the Catalina Express.

Good news for the island and bad news for him. He hadn’t brought rain gear. They

were in the middle of a drought, after all, and the decision to spend Christmas on Catalina

had been an impulse.

An impulse he was never going to hear the end of, judging by the way his phone had

been ringing ever since his plane landed at LAX. As he rolled his luggage down the slick

walkway, past the tennis courts and the bronze statue of the sea lion known as Old Ben, it

began to ring again.

Shane swore, yanked his suitcase to a halt, fumbled for his phone. He scowled at the

image of his older brother Shiloh on the wallet-sized screen, and answered with a

forbidding, “Agent Donovan.”

“Don’t try to pull that G-Man act with me,” Shiloh said. “Where the hell are you?”

“Avalon.”

“I thought we all agreed that was a bad idea. I thought we all agreed you would

spend Christmas recuperating at Mom’s.”

“
You
all agreed. I said I was spending Christmas on Catalina. I’m sticking to that

plan.”

“That plan is a no-go,” Shiloh said. “You should be home with your family during

the holidays, not holed up on your own. Does that cabin even have electricity?”

“It’s a beach cottage, and of course it has electricity.”

“The last thing you need is to sit around brooding.”

“I’m not brooding!”

“Well, you should be. This is no way to treat your mother.” Shiloh was sort of joking

and sort of not joking. “Not kidding, Shay. The first Christmas the three of us have all

been home at the same time in how many years, and you decide
this
is the year you have

to celebrate solo?”

Shane watched the breakers roll in and crash against the brown and gray rocks along

the wharf. The spray flew up, glittering like ice crystals against the bleak sky. “I

just…need a little time to myself right now.”

“You live alone,” his brother said without sympathy. “How the hell much
me
time do

you need? This is crazy. You’re just out of the hospital. You should be here letting Mom

and Sydney wait on you hand and foot, which is what they’re dying to do.”

“Syd is about as eager to wait on me hand and foot as you are. Besides, I don’t need

anyone waiting on me. I’m perfectly fine. I just need a couple of days to think things

through.”

“Negatory,” Shiloh said. “Thinking things through is the last thing you want to do

right now, little brother.”

“See, using your brain is not that dangerous when you practice regularly.”

“The comedian of the family. Do they even have a medical facility on that island?”

Shiloh was a Navy SEAL. For him, the entire world was one big rescue operation waiting

to happen.

“Of course. It’s a vacation resort, not a frontier outpost. And even if they didn’t, it’s

only about forty minutes from Los Angeles if I did need a medical facility. Which I don’t.

And won’t.”

“You’ve got fifty-two staples in your gut.”

“No, I don’t. The staples were removed last night. And they weren’t—
anyway
, I

didn’t steal another patient’s clothes and sneak out, you know. The hospital released me.”

“Believing that you were going to be staying with your family, recuperating at

home.”

Annoying because it was probably true. “I’ll be able to rest and relax better here. I

brought a couple of books I’ve been meaning to get to, and there’s plenty of food at the

cottage. I’ll be eating, sleeping, and reading. I won’t be brooding, okay? So can we just

leave it at that?” He spoke so forcefully a pelican threw him a look of reproach and took

flight.

There was a rather loud silence on the other end. Then, “Hey, it’s nothing to be

ashamed of,” Shiloh said, way too solicitously. “This kind of thing happens to a lot of

guys. In your line of work. Probably.”

“Yeah, that’s really funny,” Shane said. “I’m laughing so hard my fifty-two stitches

are about to split open again.”

“Which is why you should get your butt on that ship, sail back to Los Angeles, and

catch the first flight home.”

“Ha ha. Love to Mom and Syd. I’ll talk to you in a couple of days.” Shane

disconnected. That was pretty much the only way to get the last word with either of his

siblings.

He was a little irritated but reluctantly smiling as he continued on his way, the black

suitcase bumping noisily across the wet cement and then over the uneven brick walk. The

rain peppered down. A white Christmas, no. A wet Christmas? It was looking that way.

Hopefully the cottage roof didn’t leak.

Palm trees were strung with Christmas lights, and the shop and cafe windows were

frosted with fake snow. He’d never been to the island this late in the year. During the

summer the island hosted nearly a million tourists, but the year-round population was

more like four thousand. This morning it was startlingly quiet in Avalon; it could have

been any little fishing village along the California coast. Except Catalina’s economy was

nearly one hundred percent tourist-based.

By the time he reached Clarissa Avenue, he was drenched with a combination of rain

and perspiration, and feeling ridiculously weak. So much so that he was almost

rethinking his decision to spend the holiday on his own. That was what seven days in the

hospital did to you.

Or maybe it was what nearly getting killed did to you.

When he saw a lamp was on in the white cottage across the way, his heart skipped a

beat. It was funny how even after two years, the sight of light in those windows still got

to him. Plenty of holiday makers had rented that cottage since Norton, but Shane still

thought of it as Norton’s place.

Which was just… He shook his head, hauled his suitcase up the short walk to his

front door, and hunted for his keys.

The cottage had been built in the 1920s, and though there had been extensive

renovations in the 1990s, those had mostly—and wisely—revolved around the plumbing.

The narrow doors, drafty windows, and slightly rickety second-story deck were all

original.

Wet dripped from the eaves, the occasional cold raindrop finding its way down the

back of his neck. At last Shane had the door open. He dragged his suitcase inside.

The cottage was cold and dark. It smelled stale, damp, unwelcoming. The last time

he’d made it down from San Francisco had been April, eight months ago. He still flew in

as often as he could, still liked diving these waters with their towering kelp forests,

sunken ships, and wrecked planes, but he didn’t have a lot of free time these days. His

side twinged in unpleasant reminder. No matter how clear the water or abundant the

marine life, he wouldn’t have been doing any swimming or diving this trip even if the

weather had been less ominous.

He opened the blinds, left the door open to air out the cottage, and wheeled his

suitcase across the tile floor to the short staircase. He hadn’t brought a lot with him, but

even so, the effort of hauling his suitcase from the pier to Crescent Avenue and then up

Clarissa Avenue had him feeling alarmingly weak. He left the suitcase at the bottom of

the steps and went into the small guest bathroom, pulled up his sweater, and studied the

neat white dressing over his abdomen. The pristine bandage still looked securely

fastened, no blood, no seepage, so…hopefully no damage done.

He dragged his sweater down. The man in the bathroom mirror—close-cropped dark

hair, gray-green eyes—grimaced. It had been a sword two years ago too. Of course that

time he’d merely been suspected of stealing it. No one had actually tried to run him

through.

Tried? It had been more than a try, though not the fatal wound Ephraim Schrader had

hoped to inflict.

Shane was lucky. Lucky to be alive. Lucky not to be out of action permanently. As in

a couple of centimeters lucky, according to the doctors. No wonder he felt like he had a

lot to think about. It wasn’t that he’d lost his nerve, which was probably what Shiloh

thought, but he did feel…well, the truth was he hadn’t felt this let down since that whole

fiasco two years ago.

Which was strange, because a near-death experience ought to have the opposite

effect. And he had been—
was
—grateful and relieved to be alive and in one piece. But

then this weird depression had settled on him. A sense of loss. He didn’t even know why.

There was no reason for it. He had a job he enjoyed—and was going to be able to resume

reasonably soon—a nice home, a vacation cottage, family that loved him, friends that put

up with him.

But more and more he felt like something was wrong. No, like something was

missing.

Maybe—probably—it
was
simply reaction to nearly dying. That would be normal.

Expected. Guys who were shot went through something similar. True, getting stabbed

with an antique rapier did cast a certain shade of absurdity on the proceedings. As in…he

was going to be kidded about unfortunate fencing accidents for the rest of his life,

certainly for the rest of his career. But so what? He could take a joke. In fact, he’d be the

one making a lot of the jokes.

No, he just needed a little time to sort himself out.

Shane headed for the kitchen and opened the pantry cupboard, though he knew what

he’d find. He’d sort of exaggerated to Shiloh how well-stocked the kitchen was. Oh, there

were plenty of canned goods if he didn’t mind living on artichoke hearts, cream of

mushroom soup, and raspberry jelly.

Best thing to do was get his trip to the market over with. He’d stock up the fridge,

maybe buy a bottle of decent booze—there was a liquor store right across from the

market—come back, and have a nice, long nap. Yeah, that sounded good. Especially the

nap part. That was a plan. And if there was one thing Shane liked, it was a well-laid plan.

Bearing in mind that he had to carry everything he bought, Shane initially exercised

restraint at the grocery market. He bought a steak, a couple of potatoes, a bag of

salad…then remembered he also needed essentials like butter, half and half, bread, milk,

eggs, and orange juice. At that point he figured to hell with it, grabbed a couple of bottles

of wine, a box of handcrafted chocolates, a pack of cheap and gaudy “traditional

Christmas crackers,” and an evergreen tree the size of an undernourished houseplant. It

was more—way more—than he was supposed to be carrying, but the thought of two trips

was beyond him.

What he needed was one of the golf carts everyone around here drove—very few

cars were allowed on Catalina—but he wasn’t on the island often enough or long enough

to justify the expense. Plus, in normal circumstances, he preferred walking.

The rain had stopped as he staggered down Crescent Avenue, past the shop windows

decorated with garlands and red bows, then up Clarissa Avenue, past the quaint little

cottages trimmed with Christmas lights, wreaths on every other door—For Rent signs in

the windows of the rest. He was trying to decide if the wet soaking his T-shirt was

perspiration or blood—and not caring much either way so long as he could die on his

own living room floor—when he noticed the vacationer from across the street was now

outside, balancing on a ladder in fact, as he strung red lights along the edge of the cottage

roof.

That seemed pretty industrious for a holiday renter, but some people took their

Christmas very seriously.

Not Shane. Which was to say, he liked the holidays fine, liked his family, and

generally liked spending time with them over coma-inducing feasts, liked presents—even

occasionally liked shopping for them—but he couldn’t think of the last time he’d actually

purchased a Christmas tree (not counting the potted plant currently squashed under his

arm) or mailed a Christmas card. Most years he was too busy to remember to even open

the ones he received.

The guy on the ladder was clean-shaven and had brown hair, neatly cut. He was tall

and muscular—a trim, powerful body—in faded jeans and a plaid flannel shirt. Shane

was in physical distress, but he’d have to be dead not to notice a body that nice. He

stopped panting like someone practicing his obscene phone call routine and tried to

straighten up beneath his load of holiday goodies.

The man on the ladder glanced around, spotted Shane, did a double-take, and nearly

fell.

“Whoa,” Shane called. “Need a hand?” He hoped the answer was no, because

attractive though this guy was, Shane needed to lie down very soon. His side really did

hurt like hell, and he realized that between dragging his suitcase from the dock and