Her whole relationship with Dale had been based on a lie, yet she still wanted him.
Afraid if she looked into his eyes he’d see the hunger, she stared straight ahead at the place where the sinew and bone of his shoulder gave way to the hard planes of his chest. The scorpion tattoo, blurred with time, dominated her view.
Only it wasn’t a scorpion.
She reached out a finger and traced the curve of a tail, the pair of wicked hooked claws. “It’s a lobster.”
Dale sucked in a breath when she touched him, and his body went rigid. “Aye. It’s a lobstah.”
And his voice was pure Island.
Startled, she looked up at him. Trapped in the potent blue of his eyes, she didn’t move when he stepped closer, crowding her. Tempting her.
“You want to know who I am, Tansy?” He leaned close so he was almost whispering in her ear. “I’ll tell you who I’m not. I’m not a prep-school boy, and I’m not a gentleman.” She quivered as his words ran across her bare neck and heat coiled in her stomach.
She could turn her head just a fraction, and their lips would touch. She could run and never look back.
In the instant before she made the decision, he made it for her. He stepped away. His muscles were corded with tension and he gripped the banister like a lifeline. “Check the equipment, we leave in ten minutes. And remember, I’m not the Dale Metcalf you thought you knew. The next time I have you up against a wall, I’m not going to back away.”
Though the image churned her stomach into sharp, sizzling knots, Tansy rounded on him as he climbed the stairs. “Don’t even think you’re calling the shots here, Dale. I won’t stand for it. I could have died in that plane crash. Don’t you think that entitles me to know what the hell is going on?”
“No,” he snapped back from the second floor. “I
think it entitles you to a one-way ticket home the second I can arrange it. I knew I shouldn’t have let you come with me.”
“Let me?” Her voice climbed several octaves, though she wasn’t sure why she was fighting the idea. She should want to escape the island. To escape Dale and the insane pull he exerted on her. “Let me? Nobody
let
me do anything, Dale. This is my job, and—”
The slam of the bathroom door cut her off.
“Oooh,” she said, popping the first of the cases open.
“Jerk.”
All her life it had been this way. Her father had shared his wealth freely with his only child—as well as his mistresses—but he’d expected her to marry well and bring her husband into the family business. Her mother had nodded and smiled in public, then gone through his pockets at night, weeping over the matchbooks and hotel receipts.
For all Tansy knew, she still did.
They’d been horrified when Tansy had used part of her trust fund to pay for med school and donated the rest to HFH. She’d met Dale on her first assignment. He’d shoved a field pack at her and said, “Dale Metcalf. Glad to have you here. There are two little girls trapped under a beam in the second house on the right. Don’t slow me down.”
And though she’d later learned—or thought she had—that he came from the same social stratum as her parents, Dale had never coddled her, never expected any less of her than he did from the male doc
tors. At first, it had been a relief. Then an annoyance when she realized it was because he never let anyone past the brittle outer shell of false charm.
Never let anyone inside.
“Well,” she muttered, glancing again at the dark squares of wood on the walls, wondering what story the missing pictures might have told. “I’m inside. Sort of. Now what the hell do I do?”
“Is this a private conversation, or may I intrude?”
Tansy screeched and spun toward the voice, jerking her hands into the attack position she’d been taught before her first overseas assignment.
Go for the eyes and the crotch,
the instructor’s voice shouted in her head.
Use any weapon you can find!
The stranger stumbled back a pace and held his hands up. “Whoa, whoa! Easy there.”
She froze, vibrating with a tension she hadn’t consciously recognized. Then again, her reaction was understandable. Alice had fallen down the rabbit hole, into the ocean, and come out somewhere on an island populated by Dale Metcalf clones. It hadn’t been a banner day up to this point. Considering their next stop was a makeshift clinic where people were dying of a nonfatal disease, she had little hope of it improving.
Especially not with a stranger standing in the kitchen.
She glared at the tall, silver-haired man, and was almost surprised to see that his eyes were brown, not blue. She relaxed a fraction, though she kept her
weight on the balls of her feet as she’d been taught. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
The water cut off upstairs. She raised her voice and called, “Dale? We have company.”
The stranger’s eyes glinted with approval. “Smart of you, though not necessary. I know you’re not alone. I’ve come to give you and Dale a ride to the clinic.” He held out a hand. “I’m Walter Churchill.”
Of all the characters she’d met so far in this not-quite-Wonderland, Churchill was the biggest surprise. Cultured, elegant, and turned out in a charcoal suit and burgundy tie, he would have been right at home in one of the chichi clubs in the Theater District near Boston General. He also acted as though she should know him.
Then again, she probably
would
know him if Dale had told her the truth about his past.
Stifling the flash of resentment, she shook the proffered hand. “Dr. Tansy Whitmore. Pleased to meet you.”
I think.
Then she heard movement on the stairs behind her and Dale’s quiet, level voice. “Churchill.”
She glanced back and her mouth dried to dust when the sight of Dale dressed in jeans and a homespun sweater drove home just how strange a situation she was in. The borrowed denim clung to his long thighs and lean calves, and rode low at his flat waist. He cocked a hip against the stair handrail and fixed the older man with a look. “How did you get in here?”
A parade of emotions passed across Churchill’s face, too quick, too deep for Tansy to read. Finally, he sighed and said, “The kitchen door was open, so I let myself in. I’ve never needed an invitation before.”
Dale flushed and rubbed his unshaven jaw. “Sorry. I’m in a mood. It’s good to see you, Churchill.”
Tansy had thought herself beyond shock. She was wrong. “Dale? You know this man?” That was a foolish question. Of course Dale knew the stranger, it was becoming clear that he knew everyone on the island.
“Yeah.” He glanced down at her. “I promised you an explanation. Well, here’s the short version. I was born here. My parents and my aunt died in a boating accident when I was seventeen, and my uncle Trask took it out on me. Churchill was a friend of my parents. He helped me escape to the mainland and put me through college and med school, for which I am eternally grateful.”
Yet Tansy noticed little warmth on Dale’s face when he scowled down at the older man. She waited a heartbeat. Then another.
Tell me,
she wanted to scream,
tell me more. Let me in!
But the words had never worked before. They weren’t likely to now.
Finally, she turned back to the medical instruments. “Fine. Nice to meet you, Mr. Churchill.” She slapped the cases shut. “Come on. Let’s get over to the clinic.”
Ignoring the men, she grabbed two equipment cases at random and hauled them to the front door.
She paused at the sight of the shiny new black SUV in the driveway.
Someone on this island had money, it appeared.
“Frankie will get the rest of your boxes,” Churchill murmured behind her as the driver’s door opened and an enormous woman in chauffeur’s livery emerged to tower over the vehicle. She didn’t say a word as she brushed past Tansy and picked up the remainder of the equipment cases in a single load.
The word
Amazon
came to mind. So did
bodyguard
.
Who the hell was this Churchill? Tansy shot Dale a look, but he avoided her silent question by bending to shift one of the cases in the trunk. She scowled and ducked into the SUV when Frankie held the door open. The black interior smelled of new leather and money. A lethal-looking Doberman sat in the front, between the seats. It faced the passengers and curled a tan lip when Tansy slid inside.
She would have preferred a white VW Rabbit with plates that read
I’m late.
That, at least, she would have understood. The feeling that she was headed to the worst sort of tea party intensified, as did the nagging fear and her headache, though the cut on her head had scabbed without needing stitches.
As the vehicle bumped back the way they’d come, Churchill spoke as though resuming an interrupted conversation. “This outbreak business is bad, Dale. Bad. The docks are losing money every day we’re closed, and my customers on the mainland are finding other places to buy their lobsters.”
Tansy remembered the name Churchill on the bow of the lobster boat. Though it surprised her that Mickey and Churchill both seemed more concerned with the lobstering than the patients, she supposed the inhabitants of Lobster Island must live—and die—by their catches.
“That’s why I’m here, Walter. The outbreak isn’t typical. There shouldn’t be new cases, or as many fatalities. But I’m curious.” Dale leaned forward to address the man in the front. As he did so, his hard thigh brushed against Tansy’s leg and she moved away, hating the flush of contact. “Why did I hear about this from Mickey? You knew where to find me, and you know I’m a doctor. An outbreak specialist. Why didn’t you call me for help?”
Churchill glanced back. “Because until three people died this morning, I thought it was under control. And because I didn’t want you coming back here.”
Dale cursed. “Because of Trask.”
The older man shook his head. “Because of you, Dale. You don’t belong here. You never did.”
The SUV pulled into the motel parking lot. Anticipation, and perhaps relief, surged through Tansy when she saw an agitated, gesturing crowd gathered around a windowless Jeep. An older woman in wrinkled scrubs dashed out of a motel door and hurried to the crowd.
The scene screamed
medical emergency!
Tansy’s pulse jolted. Medicine. Knowledge. She could do this.
Here, she could be in control.
She had the door open before the vehicle stopped rolling, HFH training kicking in when nothing else made sense. “Come on, Dale. We have work to do!” Feeling naked without her field rucksack, which had gone down with the plane, she sprinted across the parking lot to the growing crowd.
Behind her, Churchill yelled a question and Dale called back, “Yeah. Call the FAA about the crash and call Zachary Cage at Boston General. Tell him I need more field equipment, clothes and another plane. Pronto.”
Intent on the patient, Tansy ignored her partner and pressed through the crowd. When she saw the man at its center, she stopped dead.
Mickey.
She held up a hand to stop Dale, but she was too late to spare him the sight of his cousin cradling a small child to his chest. Tears ran down the lobsterman’s wrinkled, wind-burned cheeks.
“Mick, you have to give Eddie to me
now.
” The older woman in the scrubs— Tansy guessed she was Dr. Hazel—pried at the lobsterman’s fingers. “He’s in respiratory arrest. You have to let me help him breathe.”
Dale made a low sound, almost that of an animal in pain. Hurting for him, hoping it wasn’t too late, Tansy stepped forward. Hands outstretched, she waited until Dale’s cousin focused on her. “Mickey, remember me? I’m Dr. Whitmore. We’re here to help. You need to let us help Eddie now. He needs to be on a respirator.” She refused to admit it might al
ready be too late for the little boy who’d complained of stomach pains not an hour earlier.
She’d missed it. How had she missed it?
The torture in Mickey’s face clawed at her heart. The lobsterman shook his head. “I’ve got to protect him. He’s mine.”
Then Dale nudged her aside. “I’ve got him, Mick. I’ll fix him for you. I promise. Trust me.” He reached for the limp body and Mickey finally handed the boy over.
“He’s sick, Dale. My boy’s sick. You said nobody else would get sick once we stopped lobstering. But my Eddie’s sick.”
“Get him inside Unit 2,” Dr. Hazel ordered, clearing a path through the murmuring crowd. “There’s a respirator in there for him.”
Cradling his precious cargo, Dale jogged to the motel room behind Hazel. Tansy followed in his wake, her brain already churning with lists of diseases that looked like PSP but weren’t. Deadly diseases.
Focused on the child and the need to hurry, she almost missed the small object that dropped from Eddie’s tiny hand. She scooped it up on the run. It was a dark-colored rock, the sort of thing boys picked up as treasures. Thinking he might want it back if, no
when,
he recovered, she shoved it in the pocket of her borrowed jeans.
The door to Unit 1 opened and a dark-haired man poked his head out. As they rushed by, Tansy caught a flash of capped teeth and navy trousers.
“Hey, Hazel,” the man called, seeming oblivious that Dale was giving Eddie mouth-to-mouth as they hurried into Unit 2, “is the mayor well enough to talk yet? I need to get these sales agreements signed, and—”
Tansy slammed the door behind them, cutting him off midsentence.
Big-shot real-estate developer,
Mickey had said. Well, he could go build condos in hell for all she cared. They had a life to save.
“How long has he been down?” Dale snapped as he placed the limp body on the edge of a motel bed.
“Not long. He’d just stopped breathing when you arrived. We should be okay.” Hazel expertly fitted a tube into the boy’s throat and passed Dale the handheld apparatus. “You bag him, I’ll finish setting up the respirator.” She glanced at Tansy. “I’m Hazel Dodd, and I’m very glad you’re here. Walter Churchill asked for help a week ago, but the feds didn’t have anyone to send. Thank God Trask knew who to ask.”
“Mickey contacted me,” Dale said curtly, squeezing the bag in shallow puffs to inflate Eddie’s small lungs just enough but not too much. “Not Trask.”