Heather Graham - Hurricane Bay

“Dane isn’t a drunk, Kelsey,” Cindy said.

“Sorry, then,” Kelsey said. She made a point of yawning. “You know what, guys? I haven’t had much sleep since I got back. Maybe you want to move your little party over to Cindy’s half of the place.”

“Maybe, but not yet,” Dane said. He walked to the counter where she was sitting and set his beer bottle down. She tensed, and for a moment he thought she was going to jump up and try to escape.

But that would mean having to touch him because the way he was standing, at her side, hands on the counter, she would have to push past him to get by.

“So now you want to talk,” she said.

“I’d have been happy to talk earlier—if you hadn’t come on as such a bitch,” he said.

She blinked, and he could hear her teeth clench. “You were drunk, and I was worried. And Nate had just told me that you and Sheila were…that you and Sheila had a big argument the last time he’d seen her, and that she’d told him afterward she was going out to your place. He said you weren’t very nice to her.”

She wasn’t apologizing. She was still accusing him. And she sure as hell wasn’t about to thank him for coming around when she might have been in trouble at Latham’s. Of course, as far as any of them had ever known, Latham was just like a cockroach. Nasty as all hell, and germ-carrying, certainly, but not physically dangerous.

He inhaled a long breath before replying to Kelsey.

“Kelsey, I’m glad that your life is going so great that you feel you can judge everyone else. Although I’m curious as to how you got to be such a good judge of a man’s level of alcohol consumption.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I know you’ve been lying as low as pond scum, Dane, because Sheila told me.”

“She did, did she? Kelsey, you need to listen to me. You haven’t been around, and you don’t know anything about anyone here anymore. What you’ve got is a bunch of hearsay and assumptions. Maybe you don’t like what you think I’ve become, and maybe there’s even some truth to it. But what you’re doing here is dangerous. What do you think you are suddenly? Some kind of a crusader? Leave it alone. Quit running around accusing everyone of doing something to Sheila. You’re going to get yourself into trouble.”

Kelsey stared at him, eyes cool and hostile. “Dane, you didn’t want to talk to me this afternoon, and now you’re suddenly here telling me to keep my nose out of things. This is ridiculous. Apparently I’m the only one who’s really concerned about Sheila. And since I am concerned, my nose is going to be everywhere until I know where she is. And I know you were seeing her.”

“You’re not listening to me. You’re going off half-cocked and making a lot of assumptions. You know I was seeing Sheila because Nate told you so. Sheila hung around the Sea Shanty. So do I. So do Nate and Cindy—Cindy because she keeps up with old friends, Nate because he owns the place. And guess what? Lots of other people around here go there on a regular basis. It’s the in place for the natives. Sheila saw dozens of people at the Sea Shanty. Big deal. But Andy Latham doesn’t go there anymore, because Nate barred him. He got to be a little too obnoxious with some of the women customers. That’s why Cindy called me when she knew you were going to go over and start throwing accusations at Latham.”

Kelsey’s eyes instantly shot toward Cindy with recrimination. Cindy flushed but shrugged, still feeling she had done the right thing.

Kelsey took a sip of her beer. “Latham is a horrible man. We all know it. He’s a filthy, mean bastard—but that’s all. He’s scuzzy, not dangerous.”

“How the hell do you know he isn’t dangerous?” Dane demanded, wishing he weren’t feeling his own temper soar. Kelsey knew he was right; she just wasn’t about to admit it.

“He’s been around for years,” she said, waving a hand as if dismissing his words. “I used to go to that house when I was a kid. So did you, so did Cindy. He yelled, he was rude, and he created an environment no kid should have grown up in, but he never hurt anyone.”

“Really? And here I thought you were Sheila’s great friend. He sure as hell hurt her.”

He had her on that one, and she had the grace to flush. “When he was angry, he beat her a few times with a belt. He’d be arrested for child abuse now, but back then…parents used to spank their children.”

“Strange. Mine never beat me with a belt. And neither did yours. Or Cindy’s.”

“Okay, he’s a horrible man!”

“Listen to what you’re saying. He beat her with a belt.”

“When our folks were in school, the deans used to walk around with big paddles.”

He shook his head, growing angrier, fighting his rising temper and trying to tell himself that Kelsey wasn’t his concern. If she wanted to be a stubborn idiot, there was nothing he could do.

But she was his concern.

He had to keep her from acting like a stubborn idiot. She would understand that—if only he could tell her the truth about Sheila.

But that was one thing he couldn’t do. Kelsey would have his ass in jail so fast his head would spin. And then…

Then there would be nothing he could do.

“Don’t go out there again,” he said, forcing his jaw to unclench and allow him to form words. His voice came out ragged and rough.

Her eyes narrowed further still, and she replied with cool, “who the hell are you to tell me what to do?” dignity.

“Look, Dane, no one around here is really paying any attention to me. Don’t you understand yet? Someone needs to be concerned. No one else is. Therefore, in my opinion, I have to be.”

“It’s not that we’re not concerned,” Cindy murmured.

They both ignored her. Dane spoke firmly. “Don’t go out to Latham’s again.”

“Dammit, Dane!” she said, losing her composure at last, her eyes sizzling, her fingers tightening on her beer bottle. “Don’t come on to me like the gestapo. You’re not my father,” she said.

He caught her eyes then, held them hard. “Let’s hope not,” he said.

She flushed slightly. Her gaze fell from his, and she studied the quiche she’d been pushing around her plate, the grip she had on her beer bottle becoming white-knuckled.

“Kelsey, I’m not trying to come on like anything or act like a father. It simply isn’t a good idea to visit a man like that alone. Okay, maybe I am sounding like the gestapo. But he’s not just mean and nasty, he’s damned scary. Pay attention to me. Don’t go near him again. Please.” He would try anything. It was imperative that she understand Latham was dangerous.

She looked up at him, then looked down again quickly, silent for a moment.

“Kelsey, listen to him. He’s right,” Cindy suddenly pleaded.

Kelsey threw up her hands, almost knocking over her beer bottle, barely catching it. “Okay, look, both of you, I’m sorry. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have gone out there, and I won’t go visiting Latham alone again. Actually I wasn’t planning on visiting him again anyway. It’s not like it was a social call. But the trust funds mean that there’s a connection between Latham and Sheila. I was just hoping that maybe she had said something to him. I want to believe with all my heart that Sheila is just being rude and careless, forgetting all about me. I’d love for someone to tell me she’s on vacation in Switzerland with a wine baron. But I just don’t believe it. And asking Andy Latham if he had seen her, if he knew where she was, seemed like an intelligent move to make. She may hate him, but whether she likes it or not, they’re connected through her mother’s will.”

“He’d be the last person Sheila would go to,” Cindy murmured.