The Unrelenting Tide (Islands of Intrigue: San Juans - Christian Romantic Suspense) (16 page)

The Boat-Sinker Pie was as delicious as the menu proclaimed and Devynne did her best to stay attuned to the man across the table. But suddenly she noticed he stood ready to pull out her chair.

Did he pay the check already
? The waitress had just dropped it off, hadn’t she? Looking down she saw the signed receipt and the fact that he’d left a more-than-generous tip.

Sighing, Devynne rose and followed him out into the parking lot.

Stephan Abernathy stood next to Randy’s truck grinning like a cat with feathers stuck to its lips.

Devynne blinked and stopped still.

The young man nodded to her. “Good evening Mrs. Lang. I hope you don’t mind. But I was inside and noticed you about to leave and I thought I’d say hello.”

She forced her voice to make sound. “H-hello, Stephan. This is my date for the evening, Randy Wiseman. Randy, this is Stephan Abernathy.”

Randy nodded. “Evening.”

“A date?” Stephan clutched at his chest. “You’re breaking my heart here.”

Devynne grabbed Randy’s arm. “We really need to be going, don’t we?”

Tires crunched over the gravel of the parking lot behind them. “Is there something going on here?”

She glanced back. Leaning out the driver’s side window of a squad car was Deputy Donny Sanchez! Relief nearly took out her knees.

Randy glanced back and forth from Stephan to her to the deputy and his gaze turned to granite. “The lady and I were just leaving, Officer Sanchez. Everything’s fine.” He presented his back to Stephan and opened the truck door for her.

Devynne felt bad rushing off, but was too disturbed by the fact that Stephan continued to show up wherever she happened to be to worry about politeness. Rubbing her arms she reminded herself that Carcen had vouched for the boy…

She dropped her head back as she waited for Randy to get around to his side and climb in. Was this night never going to end?

She waited until he’d backed out of their space before she spoke. “Randy if you don’t mind…I just really need to get home, right now.” She glanced over her shoulder at Stephan Abernathy still standing there staring after them, his profile outlined by the parking lot lights behind him. He turned to climb onto a motorbike, strapping a helmet to his head but the cop car pulled in just behind him, lights flashing. Stephan snatched the helmet from his head and threw his hands up in frustration as Deputy Sanchez stepped from the driver’s side of the sedan.

A shudder of relief shook her. Was Sanchez deliberately trying to keep him from following her home? “Randy, please can you just take me home?”

Randy’s smile looked about as far from genuine as the last Louis Vuitton purse she’d bought on eBay. But he did agree and a few moments later she was rushing through the goodbyes on her deck wanting nothing more than to be inside away from prying eyes.

Randy’s countenance softened as he adjusted his glasses. “Thanks for agreeing to dinner. I had a good time. We’ll have to do that movie another time. I’d love for you to see it.”

“Sure. Goodnight, Randy.” She pushed through the door and shut it behind her before he could press her to set a date.

“Have a good time?”

Devynne sucked in a gasp of surprise and spun around, her heart lodging somewhere in the vicinity of her throat. Carcen stood at the garden window, the porch light illuminating the grin on his face. The kitchen lights were off.

“Carcen Lang! What are you doing?”

He shrugged with an innocent grin. “Spying.” He relaxed against the counter.

“Why?”

Strong arms folded across his chest, he cocked his jaw, an impertinent gleam in the spit-fire blue of his eyes. “I was curious to see if he’d kiss you or not. Too bad he didn’t. No question, a woman as beautiful as you should be kissed goodnight.”

Hoping he couldn’t see the blush heating her face and knowing she dared not explore that line of conversation further, she pivoted on her heel and headed across the kitchen. “The mood wasn’t quite right considering Stephan Abernathy was waiting for me by Randy’s truck when we came out of the restaurant.” She flipped on the lights and set her purse on the shelf by the door.

Carcen jolted upright. “You’re kidding me!”

She glowered at him and set about closing all the curtains. “He said he saw us inside the restaurant and just wanted to say hello. Donny Sanchez drove up just as we were driving off and pulled him over or I’m sure he would have followed us all the way here.” Only the garden window at Carcen’s back remained uncovered now and there was nothing she could do about that – it didn’t have curtains, but because of the steep hillside behind the house only someone right on the deck or on the stairs would be able to see through it.

Carcen rubbed one hand over his jaw and studied the floor. A host of emotions crossed his face before he finally said, “I’m sure it was nothing. Like I said I’ve known him for years, but—” he held up one hand to silence the protest she started to voice— “I’ve done some checking to see where Abernathy’s been over the years. And it was good news.”

She held her breath. Good news that meant the kid really was just a kid with a harmless crush? Or something else? “Oh?”

“Turns out he
was
in California for awhile, but you were already in Hawaii by then. And from the timelines we’ve pieced together, he has alibis for all but one of the incidents. I also looked at the footage from the couple of times the studio caught your stalker on tape. As you probably know, both times they caught him he wore a big cowboy hat and sunglasses and the security recordings are pretty fuzzy. But I was able to tell that perp was big – probably 6’2” at least. Stephan’s too short and scrawny to be a match. I really don’t think he’s our guy.”

She sank against the solidity of the counter, now doubly unsure what to make of Stephan’s actions this evening. “That’s good, I guess.”

He shrugged. “Knocks a suspect off our list, anyhow. I keep coming back to Dawson, the problem is I’m running into dead ends where he’s concerned. You sure you’ve never seen him before?”

She felt a little dizzy even as she shook her head. “No, I don’t recall ever seeing him before…. Dead ends?” Her pulse ratcheted up a notch, the garden window suddenly feeling eerily exposing.

“Yeah. I’m having some trouble putting Dawson and you in the same locations – the crazy thing is, we’re one hundred percent positive on his finger prints in those gloves, and Niemeyer found his DNA here in the house too. And you were right, that phrase he taunted you with had never been released to the public. But, if the guy we have is the same man who stalked you in California I’d think we would have found more connections by now. So maybe this recent attack…” he paused and rubbed his brow, “I don’t know. It’s just going to take some more work to fit all the pieces together. I asked Randy to keep careful watch over you tonight. But I didn’t want to ruin your night by telling you ahead of time. Nothing else happened, did it?”

Devynne ran the evening through her mind. “No. Nothing out of the ordinary until Stephan at the end.”

“I’ll talk to Donny and see if he has any more insight. I just want you to be careful until we have more information. I’m also going to talk to Dawson again in the morning. Could be he’s just a copycat.”

She wrapped her arms around herself to ward off a sudden onslaught of goose bumps. Unsure whether to be relieved that the two cases might be totally unrelated, or terrified that she’d somehow managed to attract two stalkers in her short lifetime. She glanced up. “Why would he have written “All my love, forever” on the mirror, then?”

Carcen pressed his lips together. “I looked at the media coverage from your first case in California. That phrase was in several articles. If this is a copycat, and I’m not for sure saying it is, but… he could have read about that.”

“So he knows I’m Shania, then?”

He shook his head. “Not necessarily. There are a lot of variables. He might have just picked you because you look like her—you—Shania.” He gave a helpless gesture with his hand. “Or you could just have been the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time again.”

Devynne threw up her hands. “Carcen that doesn’t make any sense! There’s something you aren’t telling me. What?”

His shoulders slumped and he glanced down, scuffing one foot at an invisible mark on the tiles. After a long span he met her gaze. “This guy could have been hired by your original stalker who is still out there watching.”

She fought back tears. This was all too much. She just wanted her life back. Wanted to lie down in peace and rise up in safety. It had been too many years since she’d had that privilege.

“Hey,” Carcen stepped in front of her, rested his hands on her shoulders, and tipped her chin up with this thumbs. He met her gaze with a serious one of his own. “I’m going to keep you safe. Everything’s going to be okay. You have to let the worry go or it’s going to drive you crazy. Alright? Remember all the days ordained for us were recorded before even one came into being. Worrying isn’t going to add to or take away from that.” He rubbed her shoulders and bent forward, sincerity in his gaze.

The warmth of his hands and the intensity in his blue eyes made her wish she had the right to lean into him. Made her long to feel his arms around her. Feel the caress of his lips against her hair.

Her face heated and she looked down.

She could sense him studying her so she stepped away from his warmth as casually as she could manage. “You’re right. I’ll try. I’ve just lived with the worry so many years that it’s taking…will take…some time.”

He let her go without comment, but his head tilted in thought, and he eyed her with a restrained hunger that made her mouth dry and her knees weak.

“How was Marissa?” She hurried to change the subject hoping he didn’t hear the tremor in her voice.

“Fine. She went to bed with no problems and fell right to sleep.” His lazy mountain-lion stretch drew her gaze down the length of his arms to the broad expanse of his chest.

Where Randy Wiseman had been unable to keep her attention all evening, Carcen, in his taut t-shirt that emphasized every well-defined muscle on his torso, had no such problems. He leaned back against the counter with his legs stretched out in front of him.

She tore her gaze away and crossed the room looking for something, anything, for her hands to do.

Dishes
!

But the sink was empty.

“I did the dishes,” he pointed out helpfully a small smirk playing at the corner of his mouth.

“So I see.” In frustration, she surveyed the rest of the kitchen.

She brushed past him and jerked open the refrigerator door. One plastic container of leftovers followed another as she began to methodically clean and reorganize the interior. “Can you hand me the rag by the sink?” she asked, her head still buried deep in the cold recesses of the Kenmore.

As she felt him come to stand directly behind her, she closed her eyes, appalled, yet full of anticipation.

“Devynne, come here.”

A confrontation was inevitable. She was trapped between him and the fridge so there would be no escape this time. Maybe if she just ignored him, he’d go away. She snagged two more containers and a sticky juice box from the back corner, but he didn’t budge.

“Dev?” Her name was barely audible above the hum of the compressor, but something in his tone compelled her to listen.

Pulses racing in her ears, she stacked the containers and juice on a shelf and stood.

He settled his hands around her waist and turned her to face him, pulling her away from the fridge and pushing the door shut, all in one fluid motion. “You’ve been avoiding me like the plague ever since Sunday afternoon,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.

“I have not.” She refused to meet his penetrating blue gaze and tried hard to ignore the wonderful heat radiating outward from the gentle pressure of his hands.

One arm tucking her close to him, Carcen tipped her chin upward with the knuckle of his first finger.

Against her better judgment she raised her gaze to his.

“Devynne,” he breathed huskily, his thumb gently tracing a circle around her lips, “so-help-me, I didn’t mean to fall in love with you.”

She closed her eyes and swallowed the lump in her throat, her pulse spiking out of control.
God help us. What are we going to do
? “It will never wor—” The feather-light brush of his lips silenced her protest and ignited a hunger inside her that escaped on the breath of a moan.

He pulled back a fraction as though checking for further protest and to Devynne’s chagrin she leaned after him, chasing his departure, hunger unsatiated. He quirked an eyebrow and dropped a quick wink before the silken caress of his lips claimed hers again. And this time there was nothing feather-light about it.

Devynne surrendered her doubts, her hands sliding up his chest to bury themselves in the blond curls at the back of his neck.

One arm still holding her tightly to him, and his other hand entwined in her hair, Carcen deepened the kiss.

Devynne trembled with the surge of adrenaline coursing through her. Her stomach churned with butterflies –a barrage of them all cavorting in a most tantalizing way.

After a long moment, Carcen pulled away, pressing her head to his shoulder and inhaling raggedly.

Leaning her forehead there, Devynne rested her palms against his chest and felt the pounding of his heart. She pulled in a tremulous breath and closed her eyes in despair. Gone were the butterflies. In their place was a huge boulder, sitting heavy in the pit of her stomach. She ached like she’d just been kicked.

“Carcen,” she shook her head against his shoulder.

“Hmmm?” His voice was a deep rumble not unlike a purr. Pressing his cheek to hers, he dropped a quick kiss just behind her ear that sent a tremor racing down her neck. “What is it?”

“This is never going to work.” She felt him stiffen, but he made no protest, nor did he relinquish his hold. “I can’t do this Carcen. Not again.”

“Can’t do what?”

Not wanting to hurt him, she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to decide the easiest way to let him down. “You’re a cop, Carcen. And if anything, you’re more dedicated to your job than Kent ever was, probably because of what happened to him. I can’t take that risk again. Not for me, and especially not for Marissa.” She looked up and met his piercing azure gaze.