Page 3 of I Dream of Danger
“Here.” Nick handed over two bills. Her eyes widened when she saw Benjamin Franklin’s face twice. “Thanks for your help.”
The cap came off again, both men thanked him, nodded to her and walked off.
Elle stared at the ground, breathing through her pain. Nick had left many years ago, and for all those years, not a day, not a minute had gone by in which she hadn’t missed him so fiercely she thought she might explode from it.
All this time she’d yearned for Nick.
And here he was. At her lowest point.
“He loved you very much,” she said, looking at the ground.
“I know,” he said quietly.
His voice, already deep as a boy, had become deeper, rougher. The voice of a man.
He was a man. He’d been mature beyond his years when he’d come into their life, a runaway her father found in their backyard one winter evening. He was lying in the snow with a broken, badly-infected wrist, dying, so emaciated her father was able to pick him up and carry him in his arms to the car to take him to the hospital.
From that moment on, Nick Ross belonged to them.
Until he left them, inexplicably, another cold winter night.
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.”
