Chain of Title (22 page)

Her head whipped around, finally
meeting his emotion-filled eyes.  “I’ve never compared you to Frank,” she
snapped.

Sean shook his head soberly. 
“I wasn’t talking about him.”  He saw the understanding register, her eyes sweeping
back and forth as she sputtered, but seemed unable to speak.  “
I have
lived long enough to make mistakes—a lot of them.  I’m probably not done making
them.  I need you to be okay with that, Shay.”  He searched her eyes for an
answer.  “I never wanted to be on a pedestal...never belonged on one.”

Shayna released a trembling
breath, covered her face with her hands for a moment before she wrapped her
arms around herself again.  “I’m tired.  Really, really tired.  I’m going to
bed,” she said over her shoulder, as she pivoted and walked away.  “I’m
sleeping in the guest quarters.”

Sean’s stomach lurched, and
he reached out, rounding his hands over her shoulders, gently drawing her back
against him.  “No, Shay don’t.  Please.  Don’t,” he begged in a tender
whisper.  He could feel her body quaking, her head shaking against him as her
silky hair brushed against his face, the sweet scent caressing his senses. 
Then he let her wriggle free, leaving him standing alone in the chill on the
deck.

****

He
sat up, rubbing out the knot on the back of his neck from having slept at an
odd angle.  Pushing up from the cushioned lounger, Sean glanced at his watch in
the moonlight, the clouds having cleared away overnight.  Three-thirty in the
morning.  He couldn’t believe he had slept that long.  He had stayed on the
deck wanting to avoid sleeping in bed without Shayna, and hoping she would reconsider. 
A new wave of anxiety rolled over him as he recalled the events of the last
forty-eight hours.  Then cold, focused anger gripped him with singular clarity—on
one person.

The cleaning crew had found
some bugs on the boat the day before, when they did their sweep.  Someone was listening,
watching him, and probably Shayna, too.  Jerry Kent would do a thorough sweep
of her house during the security system installation and make sure it was clean
before they returned.  He suspected Chastain was digging around in his world. 
The price for doing that would be high.  His jaw ticked at the thought.

Sean brooded over the events
of the past few months.  He had left that life behind a few years ago, but Chastain
unwittingly pulled him back in, had forced his hand and compelled him to call
in favors he had never intended to collect.  He just wanted to get out of this
even, not owing anyone anything.  When he’d gotten out the first time he’d been
fortunate that people owed
him
favors.  He sighed heavily, shaking his
head in aggravation.  This business with Chastain needed to be resolved, the
sooner the better.

Closing up and shutting off
the interior lights in the main salon, Sean stopped at the helm to check the
instrument panel and gages before heading down to the lower deck, dreading the
empty bed he would face there.  As he walked toward the guest room, he checked
to see if Shayna had locked him out.  To his relief, the handle turned and the
door pushed open silently.  He glimpsed her tangled in the sheets, heard her muffled
crying and mumbling softly.  He quietly stepped over to the bed and looked down
at her.  She had clearly had a restless night, had been crying, but was still
asleep.  He carefully untangled her legs and pulled her nightgown down around
her thighs, gritting his teeth and swallowing hard, wishing he could erase the
bruises he saw there.

Then he sat gingerly on the
bed beside her, grounding one hand on the other side of the mattress next to
her, gently stroking her tearstained cheek with the other.  “Shhh,” he
whispered.  She started to calm after a bit, and then her eyes fluttered open. 
Once she adjusted to the dim light, Shayna stared longingly at him and it
caused his heart to skip a beat.  God, how he ached to hold her, touch her,
kiss her—anything.

Then without warning, she sat
upright and squeezed him so tightly in her arms it took his breath away.  He wrapped
her in his arms and breathed in her sweet scent.

“I hate being this way,
feeling this way, but I don’t know what to do about it yet,” she said with a
sniffle.

His heart swelled from her
touch and hurt from the sadness in her voice.  “We’ll figure it out together.  You
just need time.  You can take as much as you need,” he said, soothing her with
his words and caresses.

“I do understand, you know,
why you look at me differently now.  It’s okay.  I know you don’t want me like
before.  Maybe that’ll change, and maybe it won’t.”

He peeled them apart so that
he could see her face.  “What?” he asked, shaking his head incredulously.  “You
think I don’t want you because of what happened?”  He gently cupped her face in
his hands, forcing her to meet his eyes.  “You couldn’t be more wrong, Shay.”

Her eyes moistened.  “I see
it, Sean.  I see it every time you look at me.  It’s different, now.”

A puff of air pushed passed
his lips.  “No, it’s not.  Me wanting you hasn’t changed, Shay.  I want you as
much as I ever have.  What I
don’t
want is to hurt you or make you feel
uncomfortable.  I want to give you whatever time and however much space you
need to feel like
you
again.”

She closed her eyes and
sighed.  “What if I never do?”

“Then we’ll cross that bridge
when we get to it.”  His thumb stroked her temple.  “Let’s just take it one day
at a time, right now.  Okay?”

She nodded in agreement. 
“I’ve changed my mind.  I don’t want to sleep alone.”

An unstoppable smile warmed
his face.  “I don’t, either.”  He stood and quickly stripped down to his trunk
briefs.  Shayna scooted over to make room, lifting the covers and inviting him
in with her.  Sean happily slid in next to her, soaking up the warmth from
where her body had just been.  He pulled her gently against him.  They lay on
their sides almost nose to nose.  His heart began to pick up speed as he watched
her dreamy, yet tentative expression.

Shayna reached out and
caressed his square jaw.  “Kiss me...like before, like nothing ever happened,”
she whispered timidly.

Sean’s heart seized and he
nodded, inching closer.  “Anything you want.  But I won’t do anything you don’t
ask me to do.  All right?” he whispered tenderly.

“Okay.”

He took her hand in his,
kissed the palm, gazing intently into her eyes trying his best to communicate to
her the depth of what he was feeling at that moment.  He would do whatever it
took to make her happy, keep her with him.  She brought him peace.  She stilled
the restlessness.  She made him a better man.  No combination or particular
order of words existed that could ever do justice to the heavy, all-consuming
emotions filling him.  He felt overwhelmed.  He hadn’t expected life to be so
generous, or so forgiving of his past transgressions.

Rolling her gently onto her
back, mindful of how he shifted his weight around her, Sean’s throat tightened
when he saw the trust shimmering again in her eyes.

“Shay, I’m sorry about—”

Her finger pressed against
his lips and she shook her head.  “Don’t.  You were right.  I have been
comparing you to him.  I didn’t mean to, didn’t even realize I was until you
said it.”  She paused.  “It’s
you
I love, Sean...not some version of
Wes.  Don’t ever think otherwise.”

He breathed out sharply in
unexpected relief as her hand skimmed through his hair, tugging his lips closer.

Then his mouth closed on hers,
and he kissed her as if it was the first time, the last time, the only time.

Frank
wiped away the clammy sweat above his trembling lip.  “I said I’d get the
money.”  He did his best to sound confident, hoped he had pulled it off.

The caller snorted through
the phone.  “We’re gonna make sure you do this time, Frankie-boy.  That’s why
we decided to hold on to some
collateral
—just to make sure you stop
jerking us around.”

Frank’s brows pinched
together.  “What are you talking about?”  His voice cracked and the bile began
inching up.

The caller sighed and then
chuckled mockingly.  “Your little girl’s real pretty, Frankie. 
Real
pretty.  Maybe she could work off some of your debt with Hector.  Huh?”

Frank’s blood ran cold and
his hand squeezed tightly over his eyes.  His head started spinning, the
clawing sensation inside his chest cutting sharply in every direction.  How had
things gotten this far?

“Don’t you dare hurt her or I
will fucking kill you with my bare hands!” he yelled into the phone, face
flaming fire engine red, hand slamming down on his desk.

The tormenter clicked his
tongue.  “Tsk, tsk, tsk, careful Frankie-boy.  You’d better calm your ass down
right now.  Do you have shit for brains?  We’re the ones holding all the cards
here asshole.  Get your head on straight.  You know the drill:  no cops,
unmarked bills.  I’ll call soon with the drop point.”

“My daughter had better be
there—
unharmed
,” Frank warned.  A chilling pause that lasted far too
long caused a bead of sweat to race down the side of his twitching face.

“Well now, that all depends
on you, doesn’t it?”  He paused and then warned menacingly, “This is your last
chance before we pay a visit to your ex-wife, Frankie-boy.  Maybe she’s been
smarter with your money than you have.  I bet she’d pay whatever we asked, and
she’d be a lot more fun to deal with too.  I’m looking at pictures of her right
now,” he whistled into the phone and exhaled loudly, “Gotta say, I’m kinda
surprised you kicked that to the curb.  I mean I get it—she’s past her prime
and all, but she’s definitely fuckable.  I’m thinking we should’ve been talking
to her all along,” the caller hissed into the phone before abruptly
disconnecting.

Frank dropped his phone and
collapsed back into his leather office chair.  Visceral, vivid images of Shayna
and Danielle churned around agonizingly in his head, taunting him, their lives
flashing before his eyes.  Then he clutched his stomach and bolted for the adjoining
bathroom in his home office, where he promptly emptied the contents into the
toilet.  Leaning on the sink, he splashed copious amounts of cold water on his
face—anything to wake up from the unforgiving nightmare that had become his
life.  As he slowly leveraged himself up, the old man staring back at him was
no longer familiar—he’d aged and worn decades overnight.

Shuffling back to his chair,
he dropped down and did his best to stem the nearly overwhelming panic
threatening to seize control.  Reaching across his desk, Frank brought the
picture of Shayna to rest in his lap, his thumb stroking her cheek.  If
anything happened to Danielle, Shayna would never forgive him.  He choked back
the tears and devastating emotions.  He would never forgive himself, never be
able to live with himself, if the outcome was anything other than what it had
to be.

****

The
gag was tight.  However, the blindfold allowed for a sliver of space where it
crossed from the bridge of her nose to her cheek.  Danielle could see the tops
of her thighs; feel the plastic cable ties biting at the skin around her ankles
and wrists, where they were bound to the metal chair she was sitting on.  She
wanted to cry, but the paralyzing fear didn’t allow for such trivialities. 

She kept rewinding in her
head what she could have done differently, today.  Not going out for a run
would have been high on the list, or at least not wearing her ear buds with
Pink cranked up on high.  How many times had her mother told her it wasn’t safe
to run distracted? 
Leave the iPod at home, Dani.  You need to be alert when
you’re out alone.  Do it for me.
  Those words haunted and repeated in her
head in a punishing loop.  She had never seen or heard the van.  Brutally
thrown in, pinned, gagged, and blindfolded, her sense of time and space had spun
out of control.  She felt like a clock whose hands now circled wildly in the
wrong direction.

How long had it taken to get
where she was at right now? A half-hour?  An hour?  She shook her head
despairingly.  Where the hell was she?  The heavy scent of grease and gasoline filled
her nostrils; she could see the floor was concrete under the flickering fluorescent
lighting.

She glimpsed her thighs again—her
bare
thighs.  The running shorts felt horrifically insufficient at the
moment, leaving her feeling nearly naked.  Goose bumps lifted all over her
skin.  Danielle dry heaved and did her best to push the abominable pictures out
of her head, choke back the sobs that wanted to break free.

She tried focusing on
Harper.  He called at ten-thirty every night,
every night
, never missed,
and she
always
answered.  Surely, he would think something was wrong
when she didn’t answer tonight.  Maybe not the first time, but by the second or
third time he would begin to worry.  Right?  Then he would call her mom or dad
to see if she was with them, or maybe one of her girlfriends.  Kara.  Yeah, he
would call Kara first, her best friend, and they would both know that it was
highly unusual for her not to pick up his call.  Kara knew that Danielle waited
like a puppy dog for Harper’s calls, dropped whatever she was doing to talk to
him.  When she didn’t answer, they would call her parents and figure out that
she was missing.  The police would get involved and start asking questions.  Maybe
someone had even seen what happened earlier today.  Maybe they had already
reported it.  Her heart began to swell with hope.  Then a door opened and heavy
foot falls trudged toward her.

“Ah,
chica
.  Are you
gonna behave now?  My friend Ricky really didn’t like the kick to his nut sac,”
he said, with a chuckle.  Someone else, presumably Ricky, made a sour grunting
sound.  “Maybe I should let him return the favor,” the man said roughly, placing
his dirty hand on her thigh as he knelt beside her.  Danielle shuddered.  “Are
you gonna behave, chica?”  Danielle nodded.  “Good girl,” he said lustfully,
next to her ear.

His rank breath made her
cringe and he gave her leg a hard squeeze, inching it closer to the hem of her
shorts.  Danielle could see the grime under his stubby, chewed finger nails.

“I think Daddy misses you.  I
think he’ll do anything to get his little girl back.”  A finger slipped under
her shorts and Danielle froze as tears soaked into her blindfold.

“Hey!  What the fuck are you
doing, Ramirez?  That’s not the deal—at least not yet,” a sonorous voice
bellowed out, as heavy footsteps entered the room.

“What the hell does it
matter?  Now or later—who gives a shit?”

“You know who, asshole! 
Hector’s gonna want her for himself.  You know he doesn’t do seconds on
anything
. 
When he’s done with her, you can have what’s left—
if
there’s anything
left.  So back the fuck off now, ass clown.”

Ramirez reluctantly removed
his hand, but not before pressing his finger against her panties and swiping it
up and down her cleft.  “Another time, chica,” he threatened, bathing her in
his rancid breath.  Danielle suddenly started choking, couldn’t catch her
breath from the assault, the gag pushing her tongue back and restricting her
air flow.

“Jesus Christ, Ramirez!”
yelled the man with the booming voice, pushing Ramirez back hard where he
crumpled against the wall.  Danielle felt the gag loosen and then drop away.  Next,
she felt hot breath on her cheek and smelled pungent aftershave next to her. 
“If you make so much as a fucking peep in here, I swear, I’ll let Ramirez do
whatever he wants to shut you up.  Got it, bitch?” he growled, in a tone that
shut down all hope.

In shock, Danielle nodded
numbly, telling herself this had to be a bad dream and that she would wake
soon—before it was too late.

****

The
setting sun was beautiful and the cool autumn breeze skimmed across their skin
as they lounged on the deck of the Tuscan Dream.  Shayna could feel the strong,
steady beat of Sean’s heart against her back as her fingers tangled in
leisurely circles through the back of his hair.  She inhaled and smiled as his
hands smoothed across her abdomen to hold her tighter against him in his strong
arms, his long legs twined around hers.

Sean was right.  This was
exactly what they needed.  Time away from the intrusions of everyday life and
the people hell-bent on keeping them apart.  Unfortunately, they would be back
in the real world soon enough—tomorrow night, in fact.  There had been no more
talk about Frank or Sean’s
friends,
and she had been doing her best to
reconcile what she did know up to this point.  One thing was more certain than
ever.  She was deeply in love with Sean Parker, regardless of the past that he
didn’t want to discuss and she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know about.

His tenderness and the way he
had treated her, loved her, respected her, since what happened with Frank had
opened a part of her heart left dormant long ago.  She wanted to give Sean
everything he was asking, and she hoped she could.  She knew he needed her
unconditional love, without knowing the unsavory parts of his life, and despite
them if the dark truths ever surfaced.  Could she really do that?  Hesitation gnawed
at her, made her feel guilty for the doubts and questions, worried her about
what would happen when they were back in Mt. Pleasant.

The warm breath and soft lips
at her temple distracted her from her wayward thoughts.  “Tell me what you’re
thinking right now,” he whispered, with a grin she felt next to her cheek.

She pushed out a deep sigh
and decided to do exactly what he was asking.  “Don’t hurt Frank,” she said plainly.

His body stiffened
considerably.  She quickly added, “I’m
not
asking for me, Sean, but for
Danielle.  She’s too young to lose her father.  What he did...”  Shayna shook
her head and exhaled wearily, “one thing has nothing to do with the other,
Sean.  Please let it go.  I’ll do whatever you ask, but just let this go. 
Please,” she pleaded softly, turning her head so that they were almost nose-to-nose. 
Sean leaned away and fell back against the seat cushion, his arms now dangling
off the armrests, his expression unreadable.

Shayna lifted her legs to
swivel around, hooking a leg over each of Sean’s and on either side of the lounger,
her bare feet landing on the deck.  He stared out into the amber horizon, not
looking at her.  She couldn’t read him, but could tell that he was failing to
mask the hurt.  Her heart squeezed tight.  “Please don’t be upset.  It’s not
what you think.  You can’t possibly believe that now, Sean.”

His jaw flexed, and his eyes
gradually skipped back to rest on hers.  “Whatever I ask?” he repeated calmly,
without warmth in his tone.  Shayna felt an unexpected chill course through
her.  She swallowed hard and nodded nervously.  His hand glided around her
throat, grasping the nape of her neck, tugging her face closer to his.  “You
know after Danielle gets married, she’s going to live in San Diego, the other
side of the country.”  She nodded.  “Leave with me after that.”

Shayna’s brows pinched
together.  “You mean, like an extended vacation?”

“No.  I mean leave Mt.
Pleasant for good.  I sell my restaurant and the loft.  You sell your house. 
We leave—just like that.”

Shayna suddenly felt winded. 
“Where would we live?”

He shrugged.  “We’ll figure
it out.  Think of it as an adventure.”

His words stunned her.  She
had never really considered leaving Mt. Pleasant.  It had been her home for so
long, the thought alone made her feel a bit dizzy.  “I have legal issues to
work out over my land.  It could take time.”

Sean shook his head.  “No
excuses, Shay.”  He brought a finger up to trace the outline of her face. 
“That’s not all I want.”  He wet his lips and focused his intense green eyes
pointedly on hers.  “Against your better judgment, I want you to marry me.  I
want to prove to you that the third time is the charm.  I want to give you the
happy ending you deserve.  The ending I gave up on a long time ago.”

The remaining air pushed from
her lungs, leaving her speechless.  She didn’t know what shocked her more:  Sean’s
tacit admission that Frank’s days were numbered or that he wanted to marry her. 
The extreme points those opposing ideas found themselves balancing on left her
teetering precariously.

In a gravelly voice, Sean said
impatiently, “Answer me, Shay.”

“Is this really the way you
want this to happen, Sean?  Bargain a marriage for Frank’s life?” she asked
incredulously.

He brought his hands around
to firmly hold her face.  “You should know by now, I’ll take you anyway I can
get you.”

The emotions that raced across
his features made her heart hurt and her stomach churn in a jumble of nerves. 
All of the disparate thoughts colliding in her head at that moment came to a
screeching halt, and time seemed to stand still.  She loved this man, but.... 
But what?  It came down to how much importance she placed on recent events,
recent knowledge about a side of Sean she didn’t know, a side he wasn’t going
to share.