Julie Garwood - Slow Burn

By one o'clock in the morning she was pulling back the sheets and slipping into her bed next to Dylan. He was already sound asleep. She'd taken a long, soothing shower. Exhausted now, she was certain she'd be out the second her head hit the pillow.

She had to tug her pillow out from under him first. She'd just gotten comfortable when the trembling started. Within seconds she was violently shaking. She couldn't figure out what was wrong. The bed shuddered. If it had been on rollers, they would have been scooting all over the bedroom.

He came awake with a start. Lifting up, he squinted at her and dragged her toward him.

Kate curled up against him, her head tucked under his chin. His body was warm and comforting.

"Sorry I woke you," she said. "I can't stop shaking. I'm not cold."

He rubbed her back. "The day is finally catching up with you," he said. "You've been operating on adrenaline and fear."

A minute passed, and then she whispered, "Are you ever afraid?"

"Yes, I am." Dylan thought about Kate inside the house with a bomb and a cold-blooded killer. He'd been damned scared then.

"Dylan?"

"Yes, Pickle."

She heard him yawn. "I was thinking…"

"That can't be good."

"I trusted him." Her voice quivered. "I had to trust him. I had to believe what he told me…"

He tried to ease her mind. "Why wouldn't you trust Nate? The son of a bitch was a cop. You should have been able to trust him."

"No, not Nate," she said. "The Florist. I had to trust him."

Dylan propped himself up on one elbow and leaned over her, waiting for her to continue.

"I followed the instructions of a man who admitted to me that he likes to blow things up… oh, dear heaven…"

She put her hand over her eyes. The enormity of what she had been through was finally sinking in.

"You didn't have a choice. Isn't that what you told me? You had to trust him."

She wasn't quite ready to be reasonable. "Yes, I remember telling everyone I didn't have a choice. You know what I didn't tell them about The Florist?"

He pulled her hand away from her face. "What's that?"

"I felt a little sorry for him," she said. "Am I crazy?"

He kissed her forehead. "Yeah, maybe a little."

She thought about the basket of flowers and how terrified she'd been when she'd cut the blue wire. That thought jumped to another, and she suddenly was furious with Dylan.

He was trying to kiss her. She pushed him away. "You ran into that house knowing there was a bomb that could explode any second. You could have been killed! Why did you do such a stupid thing?"

"You were inside. That's why."

Her eyes welled up. "The bomb squad was there. You should have-"

"You were inside," he repeated firmly.

She shook her head. "You take stupid chances."

"I've heard that criticism before-from you, as a matter of fact."

He tried once again to capture her mouth with his own, but she evaded him. "When did I ever…"

He sighed. "In the hospital in Boston after my surgery… maybe the day after. I woke up and saw you. It felt good, knowing you were there, but I couldn't figure out why. You were always such a pain in the-"

"I was not."

"Every time you came to Nathan's Bay, you did something to annoy me."

She could hear the smile in his voice. "Give me an example."

"If you got to the phone, and it was for me, you came up with the most outrageous stories."

"No, I didn't," she said defensively.

"You told Janey Callahan I'd enlisted in the French Foreign Legion."

"Well, maybe one time, but if she was stupid enough to believe that, then you shouldn't have been dating her in the first place."

"I lost a lot of girlfriends because of you." He kissed her ear-lobe. "But the worst thing you did…"

"Yes?"

"You ignored me. Drove me crazy." He let out an exaggerated yawn. "Think you'll be able to sleep after?"

"After what?" He didn't need to explain. His body was already covering hers.

Dylan walked into Chief Drummond's office at ten o'clock the following morning. The chief was eager to talk to him.

"Shut the door and take a seat," Drummond said. "I want to hear all about it. Did Hallinger have any inkling you knew?"

Dylan placed the gun and badge on the desk. "No, he didn't," he said. Then he sat down and told him how it had all gone down. When he was finished, he said, "I never would have figured it out in time if you hadn't helped. I didn't want to go to Savannah PD on little more than a gut feeling, especially since he'd worked for them."

Drummond nodded. "When you asked me if you could run something by me, and you told me about that peculiar remark Hallinger made…"

"That he heard Kate turned the money down," Dylan finished.

"That's right. You were already suspicious. You just resisted the notion. All I did was help out a little. After forty years in law enforcement, I've learned a thing or two, and one of those things is how to get information fast. It didn't take too many calls for me to get a buddy to check phone records and credit card receipts that put Nate Hallinger and Vanessa MacKenna in the same place at the same time. Looks like they had a nice little rendezvous in Cancun about six months ago."

Dylan continued. "Finding out Vanessa was sleeping with Nate. That pretty much put the nail in the coffin."

"What about Jackman?" Drummond asked.

"They had to let him go."

"Lack of evidence, huh?"

Dylan nodded.

"Crying shame," Drummond said.

They talked about the case a few more minutes, and then Drummond changed the subject.

"I'm going to be retiring soon," he said as he stretched his arms up and clasped his hands behind his head.

"Yes, I heard."

"I'll stay in the area, of course. It's too pretty here to leave."

Dylan agreed. "You don't have to worry about traffic," he said. "That's something I appreciate. Boston's another story."

"You like to fish?"

"Yes," he said.

"Great fishing around here. Do you ever think about leaving law enforcement?"

"No."

"Good. We need men like you. What about a change of pace? We don't have many homicides or bombs going off here. Kate's going to be the talk of the town for years to come. She's quite a pistol, isn't she?"

"Yes, she is."

"Like I was saying, I'm going to retire. I could probably hold on another six months. What do you think? Will that give you enough time?" //br// Dylan was gone.

Kate was just waking up when she heard the front door shut. She bolted upright in bed. She heard a car start and was instantly furious. How could he leave without so much as a "see you later"?

"Oh, I don't think so," she muttered.

She kicked off the sheet and jumped out of bed ready to run after him and give him a piece of her mind because he hadn't bothered to say good-bye. Fortunately, she came to her senses before she left the bedroom. Good Lord, she was stark naked. Wouldn't that be a memory to cherish? A crazed, shrieking, and naked ex-lover chasing him down the street.

He probably left her a note, she decided, but she wasn't in any hurry to read it. It would just break her heart. She took her time getting dressed and finally went downstairs. She walked past his garment bag, stopped, and turned back. Now she felt like an idiot. He hadn't left for Boston after all.

But he would leave today. He was all packed and ready to go, wasn't he? A note in the kitchen confirmed it. He'd written the flight number and time on a piece of paper. The airline's phone number was written above it.

"You knew this was coming," she told herself.

She sighed. Yes, she'd known, but that didn't make it any easier. How was she going to say good-bye to him? She was a wreck just thinking about it. It would be mortifying if she cried. Don't let me cry, she prayed. Plenty of time for that after he's gone.