Loreth White - Safe Passage

Marshall was still basking, gloating, shareholders patting him on his back for her hard work. Now it looked as though he had set his sights on U.S. contracts. He had even bigger fish to fry. More shareholders to woo. Damn him.

Skye couldn’t care less if Marshall took credit for her work. It helped keep her out of the media, below the radar. But now he was rushing this project. He was running risks she was uncomfortable with. The margin for error was too great.

And failure would make headlines, place her in the international spotlight. She couldn’t have that. She couldn’t let the last decade go to hell in a handbasket now.

She ran down the stairs, working off her fury with physical motion. It always boiled down to this. One way or another she was always running from her past, the threat of exposure. By God, she wished she could stop running.

By the time she got back to her lab she’d found a measure of outward control. She snapped on her gloves and got back to work, avoiding Charly’s questioning eyes. By the time Skye looked at the clock again it was after five. She flipped the switch on her microscope. “That’s it. I’m done and I’m outta here. I need my beauty sleep tonight.”

Charly got up, gave her a kiss on the cheek. “There’s my girl, clocking out at a decent hour for a change. I’ll be at your place at the crack of dawn with champagne and croissants.”

Skye laughed. “That’s all I need, a loaded maid of honor with croissant crumbs down her cleavage. I’ll be happier if you make sure those adult beetles get packed nicely into those bottles with vermiculite while I’m away.”

“We’re on it. No worries. That first shipment will be gone and released before you get back from your honeymoon.”

“Yeah.” She mumbled to herself as she slipped out of her lab coat. “That’s exactly what worries me.”

Scott washed and rinsed the blue cereal bowl for the third time. The kitchen sink was the best vantage point. From here he could watch the early morning wedding activity next door, and keep an eye on Honey in the yard.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d adopted such a domestic pose. It was in another life. When he was happy. When Leni cooked and he cleaned up and little Kaitlin chattered from her high chair.

Before the “accident.”

The old pain began to pulse at his temple. He pressed two fingers hard against the throb and for the billionth time cursed Rex…himself…the whole bloody world.

The damned wedding next door was bashing on bolted doors to memories. The woman next door had woken the sleeping monster within him, and it thrashed like a caged beast.

Scott slammed the cereal bowl into the drying rack, picked up a glass, rubbed viciously with the dishcloth.

It was nine years ago his wife and baby girl had been blown up in their car. The Plague Doctor’s men had done it. Scott’s family had died because of his job.

Because of him.

Because he hadn’t backed down from hunting one of the world’s most wanted men. He’d helped Rex take down the Plague Doctor in White River just over three years ago. But the global significance of their victory had rung hollow in Scott’s soul. It hadn’t brought his family back. It had done nothing to quell the desire for vengeance that pumped through his veins, or to fill the bitter, aching void in his heart. Nothing to dull the sharp edge of guilt that sliced at him. And seeing Rex so happily reunited with Hannah, the mother of his son… It had burned a hole clean through him.

Rex had saved his family.

Scott hadn’t.

The failure couldn’t be more stark.

And he couldn’t stand to have his face rubbed in the sharp gravel of that reality. So he’d taken one job after another out in the field, in the far wild corners of this earth. Anything to keep him away from a place that had once been home. Anything to keep him from looking in the mirror, facing himself.

Scott’s jaw clenched as he watched a cab pull into the driveway next door. A trim blonde climbed out, paid her fare and trotted up the steps to Skye’s front door. He watched the door open in welcome, Skye’s dark head appear. This morning the doctor wore a soft yellow robe. Cinched at the waist. Bare feet. He saw her laugh, hair falling around her face. The happy bride-to-be.

Scott crushed the glass in the reflexive power that surged through his hands and swore at the sharp pain. That bride-to-be wasn’t going anywhere but the chapel today, of that he was certain. He was wasting time washing dishes, watching her house, thinking of the past.

He glanced down, slightly bemused at the fresh dark blood welling from his hand. He flexed his fingers, testing his injury. The pain in his flesh was nothing compared to the twisted mess in his chest.

He chucked the dishcloth into the sink.

He’d go check out the town, buy some supplies. And when it got closer to wedding time, he’d go wait at the church, see who was arriving. He’d had enough of peeking through drapes. He wrapped a handkerchief roughly around his bleeding hand, grabbed his cane and keys, stepped out onto the porch and whistled for Honey.

To his surprise, the dog bounded instantly to his side. It gave him an unexpected stab of satisfaction. He ruffled the fur on her head. “Come, you silly pooch. We’re going to get some supplies then we’re gonna head on down to the church and watch a wedding.”

Shopping done, Scott and Honey drove to the only chapel in town and pulled into a parking space across the street, under the boughs of an old cherry tree frothy with pale pink blossoms. Scott opened his newspaper, turned to the business pages, took a bite of dried sausage, and began to read. And wait.

A wet splotch of drool hit the far edge of the business section. Then another. He looked slowly up from the newsprint into pleading brown eyes and doggy breath.

“Jeez. Okay, you have the sausage then.”

Honey inhaled the piece whole, tail thumping down on the front seat.

“You didn’t even blink, Honey. Was it worth it?” Scott wedged the business section onto the dashboard, opened a bottle of water. “Okay, Honey, this is your car water.” He held up the bowl they’d just bought at the Haven General Store. “And it goes in your new car bowl. Got it?” Scott sloshed water into the bowl, set it on the floor of the truck. “Careful now, don’t knock it over.”

The darn hound was hard work. He’d gotten used to caring only for his own needs. Hadn’t had to think about making anyone else happy for a long, long time.

Not even a dog.

He watched as Honey lapped up the water. And suddenly he was seeing a black Lab. Merlin—the dog he’d owned when he was eleven. The dog he and his dad used to take on fishing trips. And that made him think of the times he had gone fly-fishing with Leni, before Kaitlin was born.

Scott blinked, rubbed his face. Guilt bit at him. He hadn’t seen his dad or his mum since the funeral. He’d cut everyone out. Everything that made him think of Leni and Kaitlin, of the role he’d played in their deaths. He’d sliced out the very core of who he was.

Scott cleared his throat, retrieved the business section and glanced across at the chapel. He had to focus.

But there was still no action. He turned his attention back to the paper, scanned the headlines.

There was another article on the devastating U.S. beef crisis. And a smaller one about the whitefly epidemic sweeping south. His eyes widened. “Hey, look at this— Kepplar has been contracted to develop a predator bug for this whitefly thing. Our Dr. Van Rijn is in charge of the project.”

Honey burped. Scott looked up, frowned. “You know, Honey, it’s a conspiracy. Rex figures by giving you to me, you’ll make me go fully nuts. Soon I’ll be talking to myself. Then they can happily institutionalize me. Zero guilt for Bellona.”