Devil and the Deep (The Deep Six) (28 page)

Two weeks later…

“Any news on the trawler and the missing mercenaries?” Alex asked Bran as she grabbed a chair and scooted it next to his. “Have the feds found them?”

Bran was sitting at the rickety computer desk pushed into the corner of the ramshackle Wayfarer Island beach house. As usual, all the windows in the house were open to allow the sea breeze to trickle inside. Outside, the sound of voices was joined by the crooning twang of Jimmy Buffet drifting through the speakers of the old battery-powered boom box. Jimmy was singing about being a pirate two hundred years too late, and occasionally someone outside would join in with Jimmy’s lament.

Ahhhh, home
, Alex thought, crunching on a strawberry-flavored Pop-Tart.

“It’s my turn at the laptop,” Bran snarled, protectively hunching his shoulders toward the glowing screen.

She made a face. “I
know
it’s your turn. But I saw you had the CNN website open, and I thought maybe there was something about—”

“They found the trawler scuttled off the coast of Mexico, but Rory Gellman is still missing,” Bran said, scrolling up to the top of the article. The headline read:
Former Army Ranger at Large after Blundering Attempt to Ransom Oil Heiress.

For the last two weeks, the details of what had happened on Garden Key had been the top news stories. Alex was grateful that Wayfarer Island was so remote or there likely would have been
more
reporters camped outside their door looking for exclusive interviews. As it was, after the initial story broke, a single ship had anchored beyond the reef. But every time the reporters tried to load up in a dinghy to reach the beach, one of the Deep Six crew motored into the lagoon, shotgun in hand, and informed them the island was private property and wasn’t very welcoming to trespassers.

After seven days, the reporters had given up and sailed away.

“Gives me the willies knowing he’s still out there,” Alex said, shivering and taking another bite of Pop-Tart. A crumb fell to the floor. Meat, who’d learned to follow her around because she was usually eating and sometimes—
okay, more often than not
—made a mess of it, lunged at the morsel like his life depended on it. Lapping it up, he sat back on his haunches, panting and offering her a doggy grin.

“You’re welcome,” she told him, ruffling his ears and the fat row of wrinkles that made up his neck.

“Those things give him gas, you know,” Bran said, looking at Meat askance like the Pop-Tart had already begun to ferment in the dog’s belly.

“Everything gives him gas,” she corrected, taking another healthy bite and continuing to scratch Meat until she found the spot. The one that made his back leg bicycle like crazy.

“True,” Bran admitted, clearly unmoved by Meat’s hilarious antics.
The man has become a total sourpuss.
“So why don’t you and Sir Stinks-a-Lot scram and let me finish what I was doing. I prefer my air to remain unfouled.”

“I’m not sure that’s a real word,” she informed him while licking at the strawberry icing.

“If it’s not, it should be,” he insisted, shooting her a long-suffering look. “Now beat it. Both of you.”

“So you can write a private email to Maddy?” She wiggled her eyebrows, trying to tease a smile out of him. She wasn’t sure she’d seen one on his face since that awful night. And she missed it. “Do you guys have email sex? If so, how does that work exactly? Sort of like sexting, I assume, but—”

“Alex,” he gritted between clenched teeth, “I’m warning you.”

“Yeah, sure.” She waved him off. “So what else is new?”

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?” he demanded.

“That you’ve been stomping around here barking at everyone for the past two weeks.”

“Have not.”

“Yes, Benji,” she assured him, “you have. So why don’t you just admit you love her, you want her, and you’re miserable without her? Why don’t you go get her and make yourself happy, which, in turn, will make all our lives that much easier?”

He snorted. “That sounded so altruistic.”

“Hey,” she said in affront. “If I don’t look out for number one, who will? And stop avoiding the subject.” She skewered him with a hard look, refusing to let him get off track.
Yeah, I’m on to you.
“Why don’t you go tell Maddy how you feel?”

“It’s more complicated than that.” Instead of the grin she’d hoped to coax, he scowled so hard she was afraid his face might break.

“So you admit you love her!” She pointed a victorious finger at him.

His scowl deepened. She looked for a crack in his face.
Nope. Not yet.

“Look,” she said, “I know you have some sort of damage when it comes to your father.”

He blinked and looked like he was ready to murder someone. The whole thing with him and his dad was a minefield. A tinderbox. An emotional Syria. But somebody needed to jump into the bloody fray and talk some sense into him. Never one to run from conflict, Alex figured that someone might as well be her. Besides, she’d grown to love Bran like a brother, and she hated that he was hurting.

“Don’t worry,” she was quick to tell him. “No one has been telling tales out of school. I don’t know the specifics. And I don’t
have
to know. Because I know
you
.”

His jaw was sawing back and forth, but he didn’t say anything.

Hanging out with Mason too much, obviously
.

She sighed and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “You are a good and decent man, Brando Pallidino. Everything else, all that stuff in your past, it’s just dirt in your eye. Blink it away.”

“You’re awfully young to have all the answers,” he said, tapping his fingers impatiently on the desk.

“What can I say?” She spread her arms wide. Meat followed the movement of the Pop-Tart in her hand like a hawk follows a mouse in the grass. “I am the oracle. All knowledge starts and ends with me.”

He harrumphed.

“And now you’re starting to sound like Mason,” she accused.

She knew her mistake the instant his dark eyes glinted. When he said, “On the subject of Mason,” she groaned. “You still got the hots for him?”

The hots
? Sure. If by hots he meant she couldn’t stop thinking about Mason every hour of every day. Unfortunately, Mason had taken to treating her like the bubonic plague, running in the opposite direction every time she got near him. Which only encouraged her impish side, making her seize every opportunity to seek him out.

“Look,” she said. “The man’s got that whole I-paint-pictures-and-own-a-cute-flatulent-dog thing going for him. It’s like girl porn.”

Bran snorted.

“And on that note,” she told him, “I’m out.” She’d said what she wanted to say, planted the seeds. It was up to Bran to let them grow.

Pushing to a stand, she tossed the last bite of Pop-Tart to Meat. The dog caught it expertly and swallowed it without chewing. A familiar
squeak-squeak
sounded from the rusty hinges on the screen door when she opened it. But before stepping over the threshold, she turned back and imparted one final thought. “You know, in the end it’s the love we withhold that we regret the most.”

When he simply blinked at her, she stepped out onto the porch and let the screen door slam shut behind her.

Now, where is Mason?

It’d been a couple of hours since the last time she’d tortured him…

* * *

“She’s right, you know.”

Bran turned to find LT leaning against the doorway leading to the kitchen, bare-chested, beer in hand, freshly showered after a day spent doing search dives in an effort to locate more artifacts from the
Santa Cristina
. “Who?”

“Alex,” LT said. “She’s right about all of it. About your past bein’ nothin’ but grit in your eye. About the thing we regret bein’ the love we withhold.”

Bran felt a muscle in his cheek twitch. “Does no one on this island believe in privacy?” He pushed back in his chair and glowered at LT. “How long were you standing there listening to our conversation?”

“Long enough to hear you
not
deny lovin’ Maddy.”

What is that I’m feeling?
Impatience? Exasperation? Anger? He couldn’t tell for sure. The only one he could pinpoint with any certainty was heartbreak. The last two weeks had felt like two years.

Maddy had kept up her end of the bargain, going on like nothing had happened between them. Like nothing had
changed
between them. Her emails were just as funny and poignant and openhearted as ever. As alternately light and serious as they’d always been. Funny clips one day and mournful ruminations about her uncle the next. You know, just like always, she was being his…
friend.

Except now it wasn’t enough. Not when he knew what it was to have more. To have
everything
.

“So what if I love her?” he snarled. “It doesn’t change who I am.”

“And who is that?” LT casually took a sip of his beer. His calm only increased Bran’s agitation.

“My father’s son,” he said. “You’ve seen me on the battlefield. You know what I’m like. You’ve seen the thing that lives inside me.”

LT didn’t say anything for a while, simply stood there drinking his damn beer. Then he finally spoke. “See, now, what confounds me is that you think you’re the only one of us who has a dark, vicious side. That you’re the only one of us who gets that look in his eyes when that side takes over. But we
all
have it, man. We all get it. Those dark, vicious sides of us are what kept us alive all those years. The difference between us and you is that we appreciate ours and you’re afraid of yours.”

“I’m not afraid—”

“
Yes
,” LT stressed, “you are. That’s why you always turn it off so quickly. Why, the instant the danger or whatever is over, you flip that switch inside yourself and start in with the jokes. You think you have to beat it back or it’ll take over. But it won’t, Bran. Don’t you know by now you can handle it?”

It sounded so good. It sounded so easy. And he wanted to believe it. “My father couldn’t handle it.”

“Yeah, well, you may be your father’s son. But you are
not
your father.”

“You shoulda seen how jealous I was of that young stud park ranger every time he looked at Maddy,” he snarled, remembering the red in his vision, the violence in his heart. Terrified of both. “When he touched her, I wanted to rip his arms off and beat him with ’em.”

LT snorted. “Join the club, man. When Olivia and I are in Key West and heads turn in her direction, I’m hard-pressed not to go on a murderin’ spree. Feelin’ possessive and protective and damn near nuclear about the woman you love is
natural
. Not actin’ on all those feelings is what separates the men from the monsters. And you, my friend, are a
man
.”

With his whole heart, Bran wanted to believe LT was right. Wanted to believe that what ran in his blood could be controlled by his brain. Wanted to believe that nurture had more to do with the making of him than nature.

Pa Ingalls…The name drifted into his mind from a long-ago memory.

Is it possible?

Possible to be as good a man, as decent a man as Pa Ingalls, the one who’d always made his mother smile? Asking the question, even to himself, opened up the prospect just a crack.

The joy that rushed in, the
yearning
, was almost more than he could bear.

“Now, I know you had some supremely bad shit happen in your past,” LT continued. “But stop bein’ a jackass and lettin’ the past rule your present. You don’t see yourself clearly, but the rest of us do. You’re a
good
man, Bran Pallidino. An honorable man. And a
worthy
man. And we all think Madison Powers would be the luckiest lady on the planet to have you.”

“I’ve said my piece,” LT said, pushing away from the doorjamb and heading in Bran’s direction. “So I’m goin’ outside to make out with my beautiful fiancée behind a palm tree.” He set his beer on the end table beside the sofa. “Don’t drink my beer.”

And with that parting shot, LT left. After the screen door slammed shut, Bran sat in stunned silence.

He felt like the bonds of the past, the
fear
of the past had unraveled in the last few minutes. Just a little bit. And what was left in the place of those lifelong threads was a glimmer of hope, a ray of dreamlike promise that he might have a chance for a future.

With Maddy.

The next day…

Maddy’s mouse icon hovered over the Send button in her email account. For the last five minutes she’d gone back and forth over whether or not she should click it.

“It’s not like you’re askin’ to move in with him,” she muttered to herself. “You’re just askin’ if he’d be okay with you comin’ to visit. You
say
in the email you’ll bring your sleepin’ bag. So, no pressure. And
friends
visit each other, don’t they?”

She sat back against her headboard and fisted her hands in her lap. She’d tried. Lordy, how she’d tried to go back to the way things were before. But things
weren’t
the same as before.
She
wasn’t the same as before and—

Ding-dong!

She jumped at the sound of the doorbell and glanced at the glowing red numbers on her alarm clock.

“What kind of person shows up at someone’s house at seven-thirty in the mornin’?” she grumbled, setting her laptop aside and tossing back the covers. She threw on her favorite robe—it was green and tattered and totally comfy—before stopping to give her reflection in the mirror above her dresser a cursory glance.

Hair? Every which way.

Face? Smudged with the mascara she hadn’t washed off last night.

Breath? She blew into her hand.
Not daisy fresh
.

She padded to the bathroom to give her teeth a quick scrub and contemplated running a comb through her hair and a washcloth over her face. Then she figured,
Anyone comin’ this early in the mornin’ deserves what they get.

Ding-dong!

“I’m comin’!” she yelled, running to the front door. She would bet her sweet bippy it was one of her big, dumb brothers. Either that, or another reporter looking for an exclusive. Either way, she was about to give someone an earful. She tossed open the door at the same time she opened her mouth. The latter snapped shut with a
click
of her teeth when she saw
Bran
standing on her front porch.

“God, woman,” he said in lieu of hello, his deep voice swirling around in her ears and raising goose bumps over the back of her neck. “Would you
stop
getting more beautiful every day?”

Somehow, she managed to answer him around the heart that had jumped into her throat. “Har-har. Very funny. But let me tell you right now, bucko, if you show up at a woman’s house before she’s had her first cup of coffee, this is what you’re in for.” She did her best Vanna White impersonation and gestured dramatically at herself.

What in the devil-lovin’ hell is he doin’ here?

She could think of only one thing. A glimmer of hope ignited in the center of her chest. It grew to a small conflagration when he said, “Since you mention it, I haven’t had
my
first cup of coffee either. You got enough to share?”

If her heart beat any faster, it was liable to hop right out of her mouth and go bouncing across the foyer. Not wanting to see
that
, she kept her lips sealed and held the door wide. And bonus, she used the support to keep herself upright. Her knees had gone weak at first sight of him.
How cliché.
His words, and his possible intent, made them weaker still.
You really are a stereotype when it comes to him, you know?

Yessirree, Bob. She knew.

When he brushed by her, she closed her eyes and breathed him in. Irish Spring soap and Tide laundry detergent and…Bran. The familiar smells tunneled up her nose and made her dizzy, like fine champagne. Like a roller-coaster ride. Like…
love
.

“And, Maddy?”

“Yeah?” She opened her eyes to discover he’d stopped beside her. She had to tilt her chin way back to look into his face, to see his dark eyes and the pirate smile that stretched his lips.

“I wasn’t joking about you getting more beautiful every day.”

Before she could answer that thoroughly devastating statement, he sauntered into her house. She watched his loose-hipped swagger the way you might watch lasagna after having been on a low-carb diet for a year. She was suddenly ravenous. Rabid for a taste. But not of pasta and sauce.
Oh, no.

At the end of the entryway, he looked right and left. Without hesitation, he headed in the direction of her kitchen. Her house was built in the open-concept style, so navigating wasn’t difficult, even for first-timers.

Her hands shook when she closed the front door. Her legs shook too when she turned and followed him into her kitchen. Dressed in jeans and a navy V-necked shirt, he looked very dark against her white cabinets and light-gray countertops. Dark and dangerous and totally delicious.

“Coffee cups?” he asked with a raised brow.

“Cupboard to the right of the stove.” She grabbed one of the bar stools shoved beneath the center island and quickly hopped onboard. Number one, because her knees threatened to give out on her at any moment. And number two, because it took everything in her not to run to him. “The coffeemaker is on a timer so it should be ready. Help yourself.”

Bran opened the cupboard and pulled out her
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
collectors’ mug. He glanced down at it, then looked back into her cupboard where all her collectors’ mugs were arranged neatly on a shelf. She had one commemorating her favorite film of the year for each of the last twenty years.

Shaking his head, he blurted, “God, I love you.”

She fell off the bar stool. Or at least she
would
have, had she not caught the edge of the island in a death grip. All the air left her lungs, and her head felt so light she was surprised it didn’t float right off her shoulders.

He closed his eyes and shook his head. When he opened them again, he set the mug aside and walked to the opposite side of the gray marble countertop. He flattened his wide-palmed hands on the surface and leaned forward.

“It’s true,” he said, his eyes fierce. “I love you, Maddy. And I tried like hell not to. Tried to convince myself that you were better off without a man like me. Tried to tell myself that the risk wasn’t worth the reward. But it was like trying to walk to the horizon. No matter what, I just couldn’t get there.”

The words hung in the air between them like fat balloons. Maddy was afraid to move, afraid to
breathe
. She thought if she did, she might pop those balloons and then she’d be left to wonder if they were ever really real, really
there
to begin with.

She swallowed and licked her lips, racking her brain for something to say.
I love you too
was the obvious answer. But for some reason, maybe because of the anguished look on his face, she reckoned he wasn’t ready to hear it. So she went with “You know, that’s the problem with hearts.”

He cocked his head, dark hair shining in the overhead lights.

“The damn things do what they want.”

For a while neither of them spoke. They just stared at each other. Finally, Maddy couldn’t stand it. He might not be ready to hear her tell him she loved him, but she was beyond ready to say it. “And in case you’re wonderin’, I love you too.”

He sucked in a breath and his expression was so tortured she had to hook her feet around the legs of the bar stool to remain seated.

“I’m terrified,” he admitted.

“Of w-what?” Her voice caught on the magnitude of her feelings.

“That I’ll turn out like him,” he gritted between his teeth. “Maddy, I love you so much, so completely, so
intensely
. Like she loved him. Like he loved her.”

His mother. His father. Their poisonous relationship had tainted his whole life. But what he didn’t understand was that they’d never poisoned
him
. He was bright and unblemished. Brave and strong and self-sacrificing. He was so much more than he gave himself credit for. She saw it. She was determined to make him see it too.

“I love you with all my twisted heart and all my broken soul,” he croaked, and it broke her heart to see big Bran Pallidino on the verge of tears. “And what if that means I’ll—”

Screw it!
With a cry, she jumped up, rounded the island, and threw herself into his arms. He caught her close, buried his face in her neck, and trembled.

“You’re nothin’ like your father,” she swore. “Nothing like your mother, either.” She was so sad, so…
mad
that he’d spent his life trying to make up for something that wasn’t his to make up for, scared of becoming something he would never become. But she was happy too. Happy because—

He loves me! He loves me! He loves me!

Her heart had been crying the refrain since the words first formed in his mouth.

“And we’re goin’ to prove it,” she promised. “Month after month, year after year, you and me. We’re goin’ to prove that blood may be thicker than water, but it isn’t thicker than love.”

He made a strangled sound at the back of his throat. Then his lips were on hers. And just like always, once they started, they couldn’t stop.

* * *

“How goes the search for the
Santa Cristina
?” Maddy asked, feathering her fingers through his chest hair.

They’d spread her robe on the tiles of her kitchen floor and made love. Twice. The first time was fast and hard and desperate. The second time was soft and slow and delicious. Now they were both lazy and sated.

At least for the time being…

Bran knew it wouldn’t take much to get him going again. Everything about Maddy turned him on. He ran his fingers down the supple arch of her back and blew out a breath. “Slowly,” he admitted.

“What does that mean?” she asked, wiggling closer. Such a warm, wiggling, wonderful woman.
His
woman.

He was still trying to wrap his head around the idea. Still terrified that loving her so much would make him become the thing he hated most. But she was sure of him, sure of
them
. And her certainty was proving wonderfully contagious. He was beginning to believe. Beginning to consider the possibility that he could be more, be
better
than he’d ever hoped. And with that belief came a peace that ate away at his fear, little by little, bite by bite. One day, he prayed one day soon, it would be gone from him completely.

“It means we haven’t found anything else that definitively points to the wreck,” he admitted. “There have been some debris and a few pieces of iron that look like they might have been the ties on the ship. But nothing else.”

She pushed up on her elbow and cupped her chin in her hand. Her eyes melted him when she asked, “Are you worried?”

“Nah,” he assured her, dipping his fingers into one of the little dimples above her plump ass. “It’s early yet. And the seabed shifts every day, not to mention what it’s done over the past four hundred years. She’s down there. She’s just gonna make us work for it.”

Maddy pursed her lips. When he saw the top one plump, his dick flexed against his thigh. “The best ones always do.” She winked.

“So I’ve been told.” Round three of lovemaking was just around the corner, and this time he planned to bend her over the kitchen table. He’d love her and watch her flesh pinken in the morning light filtering in through the plantation-style shutters. “Doc thinks we should let Chrissy Szarek bring her customers out for treasure-hunting excursions. He thinks having more fins and tanks in the water will cut down on our search time.”

“Chrissy Szarek?” Maddy lifted a brow.

“She’s this leggy blond who runs a dive shop in Key West,” Bran explained. “She and LT go way back. Their dads were friends or something. Anyway, she thinks people will pay a pretty penny for a chance to spend an afternoon diving for sunken treasure.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Maddy mused. “More eyes in the water coverin’ more ground. But I’m not likin’ the sound of a
leggy blond
hangin’ out with you every day.”

She was jealous. And it was adorable. “I only have eyes for blonds with banging booties,” he assured her, grabbing a substantial handful of her ass.

She narrowed her eyes. “You better make that
a
blond with
a
bangin’ booty.
Singular
.”

“That’s a given.” He grinned. He’d
been
grinning for so long now his face hurt. But he couldn’t stop. He was…happy. In
love
. And it was amazing. And horny-making. That kitchen table seemed to be calling his name. “Anyway, LT isn’t completely sold on the idea. He thinks the divers won’t stick to the grid pattern needed to make sure every inch of the bottom gets searched. It’s tedious work, and he’s afraid they’ll get bored. And then
Wolf
objects to the whole thing because he and Chrissy don’t get along.”

“Wolf doesn’t get along with someone?” Both of her eyebrows reached for her hairline.

“I know,” he agreed. “Weird, right? Wolf gets along with everyone.” Bran had his suspicions about what the problem was, but he kept them to himself.

“Well, since you mention needing more hands on deck…” She let the sentence dangle. In the silence, every cell inside him seemed to strain in her direction, waiting impatiently, hoping beyond hope that he knew where she was going with this.

“Yeah?” Whoa. When had his voice turned into a croaking foghorn?

“I thought maybe I’d come to Wayfarer Island and stay for a bit. Help y’all out.” It was exactly what he’d wanted to hear. Obviously, she couldn’t see that joy had ballooned him to twice his usual size, because she continued to talk fast, as if she thought she might have to convince him.
Silly woman.
“With Mom and Dad gone, there’s no one at work to approve more charity functions and I’m at loose ends.”

Her parents had taken a trip to Europe, determined to get away from the press and the publicity, trying to put the awful events on Garden Key and in the Gulf of Mexico behind them. Maddy could have done the same. But her being her, all brave and stubborn and
wonderful
, she’d stayed to see it through. She’d given a couple of exclusives—he’d read and hung on every word—before shutting the door on the paparazzi who would have tried to sensationalize the story.