Page 70 of Secrets in Calusa Cove

“The burns,” she said. “That’s how Ken died?”

“No.” Dawson squeezed his eyes closed. “They couldn’t break us, so they tried a new tactic. They took Fletcher and Ken in another room, and they… they…” He blinked. Could he even say it?

“What did they do?”

Dawson sucked in a deep breath and swiped at his cheeks, his fingers wet with tears he hadn’t been aware he’d shed. “They slit Ken’s throat in front of Fletcher.”

Audra gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth. Her teal eyes grew wide with a combination of fear, anguish, and rage.

Dawson wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight to his chest, stroking her long, lush hair.

She wept softly.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save him. That I didn’t make a different?—”

“No. You don’t have anything to apologize for.” She jerked from his embrace and glared. “You did what you were trained to do, and don’t you dare go and tell me any one of those men would’ve made a different decision because we both know they all would’ve made the same one. Hindsight is perfect vision.”

Running his finger across her cheek, he gazed into her eyes, searching for a reason not to allow his heart to beat with hers, but he couldn’t find a single one. “It’s hard when Baily and Julie often look at us like we might as well have taken that blade to?—”

She touched a finger to his lips. “I don’t know Ken’s wife, so I won’t say a word about her. But Baily doesn’t blame you for Ken’s death. She might say she does, but she blames Fletcher for taking him from Calusa Cove. For giving him something other than the marina, and then there’s the fact she still loves him, even if she won’t admit it.”

“He’s been madly in love with her for as long as I’ve known him. We followed him back here, partly to honor Ken and keep him alive in our hearts, but also because Fletcher’s a miserable man without Baily. We can only hope she comes to her senses soon.”

Audra laughed. “She’s almost as stubborn as I am.”

“No one is as stubborn as you.” He kissed her sweet lips and then pulled away.

“That’s true.” She bit down on her fingernail, something he’d never seen her do before. Ever. She always screamed confidence, even when it came out in anger.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, but I feel like there’s something I should’ve told you about Ken. Or something I’ve been wondering about Ken.”

“To be honest, we’ve all been wondering a lot about Ken, and it’s not good.” Dawson gripped the steering wheel with both hands, bracing himself for whatever betrayal was coming his way. “I’m listening.”

“Ken worked for Paul for about a year right before he decided to join the Navy,” she said softly.

“I know.” Dawson nodded, releasing the tension in his hands but not his heart. He hated secrets. Had she held back important information? Was that going to be her betrayal?

God, he hoped not. He prayed this was the thing that had haunted Ken, and she was just now seeing it.

“I have no idea what happened. I just know that he and Benson got into a fight—a public fight. Ken lost his shit and punched Benson. Ken never went back to work, and we stopped eating at Massey’s. He wouldn’t talk to me about it. He swore it had nothing to do with me, which I didn’t believe, but now, I’m not so sure. Maybe he was telling the truth, and it had to do with something entirely different because that’s when Ken decided college would never happen. Not that he had the money, but he had the opportunity—through Paul. Instead, he joined the Navy.”

Dawson let out a long sigh of relief, grateful there was no deep hidden secret. He adored Audra more than he wanted to admit, but there it was, and he could no longer deny it. He turned. “That’s not quite the way Ken told that story, and Fletcher tried pushing him a couple of times to tell him what really happened—why the sudden switch—because Fletcher said it happened literally overnight. He even tried to get Baily involved.” Dawson glanced toward the stars as if they might have some answers. “Only, that caused more issues between those two. Hayes, Keaton, and I would walk away, and we all stopped asking.”

“Maybe Ken knew something. I just don’t understand why he wouldn’t say anything to someone.”

“That’s the million-dollar question.” The boat tapped land, and Dawson nudged it forward a little.

Audra hopped to her feet.

He watched in awe as she jumped off the boat. Not that he expected her to wait for him to give her a hand. She wasn’t the kind of woman who waited around for someone to help. If she could do something, she did it. If she didn’t know if she could, she tried it, and if she failed, she learned from it and forged on.

Just the kind of woman he’d always wanted. And that was dangerous.

That kind of woman always ended up breaking his heart, and he worried that when this was over, he’d be watching her walk right out of his life.

CHAPTER14

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