Page 2 of I Dream of Danger (Ghost Ops #2)

She looked up at him, hungry for the sight of him. How she’d dreamed of him over these past years! Her dreams had been so vivid, often unsettling. She’d seen him shooting, jumping out of planes, fighting.

She’d seen him with other women. That had been so hard because her dreams had the bite of reality. She’d seen him naked, making love to women, harsh and demanding, impossibly sexy.

The Nick standing next to her looked just as he had in her dreams—hard, tough, fully a man. Dark eyes that gave nothing away, close-cropped dark hair, broad shoulders, lean muscles. A formidable man in every way, even though the last time she’d seen him he’d been just on the verge of manhood.

“He was…sick?” Nick’s voice was hesitant.

“Yes,” she replied, looking down at the raw gash in the frozen earth. “For a long time.”

Since you left , she thought to herself. He was never the same, and then he started his fast decline.

“I’m sorry.” The deep voice was low, as if murmuring for her ears alone, though there was no one else on the cemetery grounds.

There had been about thirty people at the funeral itself, but they left immediately, as soon as the service was over.

Everyone had jobs, places to be, things to do.

Nobody stayed for the interment. They’d paid their respects to the man her father had been and left.

Her father had been dead to the town long before his body left this earth.

She nodded, throat tight.

“It’s cold. You should have worn something warmer.”

Elle huffed out a breath that would have been laughter in other circumstances. The cloud of steam rose quickly and dissipated into the frigid air. Yes, she should have worn something warmer. Of course.

“Yes,” she murmured. “I, ahm, I forgot.”

Why were they talking about coats? It seemed so surreal.

“Where’s your car?” Nick asked, in his rough voice. “You should get home. You’re freezing.”

Elle looked back up at him in panic. He was leaving already? That couldn’t be!

Her throat tightened even more. He couldn’t leave, he couldn’t. He couldn’t be that cruel.

The words tumbled out without her thinking. “I don’t have a car. The undertakers were supposed to give me a ride home.” Nolan Cruise, the DA, had driven her to the edge of the cemetery and dropped her off, apologizing for not being able to stay.

She looked around, but they’d gone. The cemetery was utterly deserted. Obviously, the two men had thought she already had a ride home. With Nick.

Oh God. The first time she saw him in five years and she needed to beg a ride home from him. She straightened, pulled her lightweight jacket around her tightly, trying to wrap her dignity around her too.

“That’s okay. I—” Her mind whirred uselessly.

Saying she’d walk would be ridiculous. Nick knew perfectly well how far home was.

At least a two-hour walk. She was trying to invent someone who could plausibly give her a ride home when he took her elbow in a firm grip and started walking toward the exit. “Let’s go.”

Elle scrambled to keep up. Nick, always tall, had grown another couple of inches. His long legs ate up the grassy terrain. In a few minutes they were outside the gates of the cemetery, walking under the arched stone sign with Requiescat in Pacem engraved on the front.

Yes, indeed. Rest in peace, Daddy .

His last years had not been peaceful as his mind went. They had been dark and despairing as he felt himself slip day by day. Even after his mind had gone, she’d sensed the lingering despair.

He’s gone to a better place , the few people who’d come to the funeral had said. The old truism was right. Wherever he was now, it couldn’t be worse than the life he had left behind.

She and Nick were walking along an empty driveway which was always full of cars on Memorial Day and was mainly empty the other 364 days a year. Nick pulled out a remote, and a big, black expensive-looking car lit up and the doors unlocked with a whomp .

“Nice car,” she ventured. There was so much to be said, but his face was so forbidding, so remote, she could only make the blandest of comments.

“Rental,” he said tersely, and held open the passenger side door for her.

A thousand questions jostled in her head, but she simply sat, holding her jacket tightly around her while he got into the driver’s seat and took off. A minute later, warm air was washing over her, and the trembling she hadn’t noticed eased off.

He knew exactly where to go, of course.

He might have forgotten her, he might have forgotten her father, but he wouldn’t have forgotten where they had all lived together.

That was another thing about Nick. His amazing sense of direction.

The last few years, before he ran off, whenever they went on an outing together, her father counted on Nick to guide them.

And, the last two years, after he got his learner’s license, to drive them all where they needed to go.

The Judge had probably started dementing already, though there were no signs of it then. He had been, as always, ramrod straight, iron-gray hair brushed back, always elegant and collected. The opposite of the shambles of a man she’d buried.

It helped to think of Daddy and not concentrate on Nick, driving with careless expertise. He’d always been superb behind the wheel, right from the start. The instructor had told Daddy that he hadn’t had to teach Nick anything. It was as if he’d been born knowing how to drive.

Elle stared straight ahead, doing her best not to take peeks at Nick. It was almost impossible. He was like a black hole, pulling in gravity toward him. Impossible to ignore, yet impossible to look at directly.

A thousand words were on the tip of her tongue. How are you how have you been where do you live now do you like it there… empty words really. Because what she wanted to know, she couldn’t say.

Why did you leave us? Why did you leave me?

The unspoken words choked her. She was afraid to open her mouth because they would come tumbling out. She had no filter, no defense mechanism. Plus, she’d lived alone so long with a father who could neither understand her nor respond to her, she’d grown used to saying exactly what she thought.

She wasn’t even fit company any more.

But something should be said. They hadn’t seen each other in five years. Five years, seven months, and two days. Each minute of which she’d missed him. Even in her sleep.

She concentrated on practicing the words. If she said them slowly, one at a time, surely nothing else would escape her mouth. How have you been ?

How. Have. You. Been?

There, she could say that. Four simple words. And he’d answer and she’d try really, really hard not to push. She could do this. She could?—

“We’re here,” Nick said, and swerved so that the vehicle was parked outside the garage.

She hadn’t even noticed that they’d made it home.

She swallowed. The garage had been left open.

Her mistake. She’d rushed in to get slippers for Daddy’s last visit to the hospital, and in her haste hadn’t closed it.

There were no cars. Daddy had always kept a Cadillac and a Toyota but both had been sold two years ago.

She took the bus to the few places she had to go.

Nick didn’t bother putting the rental inside the garage.

He wasn’t staying.

Elle swallowed the pain and turned when he opened the passenger door. He held out a big hand. She didn’t need help. But…this might be her only, her last chance to touch him.

She put her hand in his and in a second, he guided her down to the gravel, dropped her hand, then held it out again, palm up.

She looked at it blankly, then up at him. He wanted to hold her hand?

“Keys,” he said tersely.

Oh.

Numb with cold and pain, she opened her purse and gave him the door keys. She didn’t have to rummage. Her purse held a now-empty wallet, an ancient cellphone with very few minutes left, an old lipstick, and the keys.

In a moment, Nick had the door open and was standing there, waiting for her.

He watched her walk the few short steps to the porch and up to the portico. Lucky thing he wasn’t looking around.

The grounds had always been a showpiece.

When Nick disappeared, Rodrigo was still coming twice a week to take care of the extensive gardens.

The drive had been flanked by seasonal flowers in large terracotta vases.

The vases and flowers were long gone. There were no flowers anywhere and the hedges had long since lost their shape.

Elle had received three official notices of ‘abandonment’ in the past six months.

Nick didn’t seem to notice, thank God.

Inside the house, though, it was worse than outside.

The house had always been immaculate. Ever since her mother had died, when she was five, the house had been ruled by a benevolent tyrant, Mrs. Gooding, who kept it polished and fragrant with the help of a maid several times a week.

Mrs. Gooding was long gone, as was the maid.

Elle had done her best, but the house was big, and the last months of her father’s life had required round the clock care from her. She napped when she could, exhausted, and did the best she could to keep a bare minimum of cleanliness.

Her father had taken ill during the night, and they’d rushed to the hospital, where she’d kept vigil by his side for four days and four nights. Then the funeral.

The house was a mess. A freezing cold mess, because she hadn’t turned the heat on, knowing she’d be away all day.

This time Nick noticed.

He stopped inside the foyer and she stopped with him.

His neck bent back as he looked up at the ceiling of the two-story atrium.

Once there had been a magnificent Murano chandelier with fifty bulbs, that had blazed as brightly as the sun.

Now there was simply a low-wattage light bulb hanging naked from a cord.