Karen Harper - More Than Words - Stories of Strength - Close Call / Built to Last / Find the Way

She could feel the first twinges of a headache. “Some crazy fairy with a sick sense of humor must have whacked me with her magic fairy wand to make me want to date you.”

“Honey, we haven’t just dated—”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Best night of your life.”

He was kidding, but she knew what had happened that night. Brendan O’Malley, stud of studs, had gone too far. He’d been tender and sexy and intimate in a way that had scared the hell out of him. Now he was backpedaling. Pretending it was her chasing him and it was all a game.

“O’Malley—Brendan—”

“I’m losing the connection. I’m up here somewhere in moose country. Quit worrying, okay? I’ll call you when I get back.”

“I might never make it out of this damn apartment of yours. I’ll need a compass to navigate through all your stuff.”

But he wasn’t making up the bad connection, and his cell phone suddenly blanked out altogether, leaving Jess standing there in his bedroom, his phone dead in her hand.

She cradled it with more force than was necessary.

Bravado. That was all this was about.

O’Malley was shaken by yesterday’s close call. He and his partner had entered a seedy hotel to question a possible witness in a murder, only to have the guy throw down his backpack, turn and run. An ancient .38 fell out of the backpack, hit the floor and went off.

The bullet just barely grazed O’Malley’s forehead.

It could have killed him. It could have killed anyone in the vicinity.

O’Malley was treated on the scene. He wasn’t admitted or even transported to the hospital. As he’d said, he was fine.

Physically.

It was his third close call that year. The sheer randomness of this latest one had gotten to him. He wasn’t a target. The witness wasn’t a suspect in the murder, wasn’t trying to kill him or anyone else, said he had the .38 for his own protection—never mind that he was now charged with carrying a concealed weapon, possession of a weapon in violation of his probation, and assault with a deadly weapon.

Over dinner with Jess last night, after he’d been debriefed, Brendan had admitted he didn’t think he’d get this one out of his mind that easily. He kept seeing the gun fall out of the backpack. He kept feeling himself yell, “Gun!” and jump back, an act that had saved his life. The heat of the bullet, the reaction of his partner, the paramedics—he remembered everything, and it played like a movie in his head, over and over.

“In the blink of an eye,” he said, “that would have been all she wrote on the life of Brendan O’Malley.”

He’d wanted to be alone that night.

When Jess called to check on him in the morning, he blamed his moroseness the evening before on the shrinks and too much wine and said he was heading off on his own for the weekend.

She’d talked to a few people, who all agreed it might not be a good idea for him to be alone right now. He needed his support network. Family and friends. Time to process what was, after all, a scary incident, no matter that it had a happy ending.

Not that Detective O’Malley would listen to her or anyone else.

Jess wandered back out to the dining room and flipped through the brochures and guidebooks on Nova Scotia. She’d never been to the Canadian Maritime Provinces—she’d only been to Canada a few times, including the usual high-school French-class trip to Montreal in Quebec.

The brochures were inviting. The pictures of the rocky coastline, the ocean, cliffs, beaches, kayakers, fishing boats, harbors, quaint inns and restaurants. The Lighthouse Route. Cape Breton Island. The Evangeline Trail.

So many possibilities.

How would she ever find him?

No one had shot at her lately, but Jess could feel the effects of her months of nonstop work. She’d just finished a major trial and could afford to take a few days off. She knew better than to get in too deep with O’Malley, but she had to admit she’d fantasized about going somewhere with him. She kept telling herself that she was well aware he wasn’t the type for long-term commitments—she had her eyes wide-open. She didn’t mind if they just had some fun together.

He’d mentioned getting out of town together for a few days. Casually, not with anything specific in mind, but it at least suggested that the only reason he hadn’t invited her to go with him to Nova Scotia was the shooting. It had only been a day. He wouldn’t want to inflict himself on her.

She noticed that he’d circled a bed-and-breakfast listed on a Web site printout.

The Wild Raspberry B and B.

Cute. Cheeky, even. Jess smiled to herself and, before she could talk herself out of it, dialed the Wild Raspberry’s number.

A woman answered.

Jess reminded herself she was a prosecutor accustomed to delicate situations. For the most part, it was best to come to the point. “Hello—a friend of mine has a reservation with you this weekend. Brendan O’Malley.”

“Right. He’s not due to arrive until tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” Jess said, hanging up.

Of course.

He was in moose country. That meant he’d gone farther north than Portland, Maine, and wasn’t taking the ferry to Nova Scotia from there. He must have decided to drive up to Mount Desert Island and catch the ferry out of Bar Harbor. He had to be booked on one of the ferries, since it would take forever for him to drive all the way up through Maine and New Brunswick.

Jess dug some more on the dining-room table and found a printout of the ferry schedule from Bar Harbor to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.

Bingo.

If she hurried, she could make the overnight ferry from Portland, about two hours north of Boston, and maybe even beat O’Malley to the Wild Raspberry.

After he checked into a small, tidy motel in Bar Harbor on Maine’s Mount Desert Island, Brendan O’Malley walked over to the cheapest-looking restaurant he could find and ordered fried shrimp and beer. There was fresh raspberry pie on the dessert menu, but he passed. Once he got to Nova Scotia, he’d be staying at a place with a name like Wild Raspberry, so he figured he’d have another chance.

He touched the bandage on the left side of his forehead, just above his eyebrow.

Man. Talk about luck.

The graze didn’t hurt at all. He could take the bandage off anytime. He figured he’d let it fall off in the shower.

His brother Mike had arrived at the scene. “Brendan—damn. You are one lucky cop. How many of your nine lives have you used up now?”

“Eleven.”

Gallows humor, but Mike understood. He’d had his share of brushes with death in his work. They both counted on their training, their experience, the people who backed them up—they didn’t want to count on luck.

Luck was unpredictable. Fickle.

And it could run out.

Brendan shook off any hint of encroaching self-pity and paid for his dinner. He’d have to walk all the way to Nova Scotia to burn off the fried shrimp, but he settled for an evening stroll along Bar Harbor’s pretty streets, not overly crowded with summer tourists. He had a reservation on the morning Cat ferry, which shortened the normal six-hour trip from Bar Harbor across the Gulf of Maine to less than three hours.

Marianne Wells, the owner of the Wild Raspberry, had assured him he’d have peace and quiet at her B and B. She only had three guest rooms. One was free, one was occupied by a hiker, and then there was the room she’d reserved for him.

O’Malley had debated pitching a tent somewhere on the coast for a few days, but Jess would have regarded that as total nut behavior under the circumstances and hunted him down for sure—or, more likely, sent someone after him. There wasn’t much that could pry her away from her job as a county prosecutor. She was a worse workaholic than he was.