at the whim of the water, too. And it controlled her, sweeping her up in its force, causing her to drift farther and farther away, out of the cove.
To the dangerous waters of the open sea. All alone.
As if she could read his mind, Skye shivered, then rubbed at her bare arms with her palms.
He had to clear his throat to speak. “Are you all right?”
“I’m cold.” She glanced at her nearly untouched meal. “I think I’ll dash out and get a sweater from my place.”
“Let me do it,” he offered. He needed air, space, a fresh breeze to blow that damn dream from his mind and this nauseating anxiety from his belly.
“You’re sure?”
He was already holding out his hand for her keys. Then he slipped away from the table, his fingertips skimming her shoulder but not touching as he passed. The walk did him good. His breath came easier. When he reached her house, the scent of her on the sweater he grabbed from a hook by the door didn’t send him into that cardiac-arrest level agony again.
Still, he lingered on the beach in front of her place for a few minutes, stalling his return to Captain Crow’s. Christ, he thought, rubbing his palm over his chest, which still held a residual ache. He really didn’t want a replay of that pain.
What he needed was some detachment. Why the hell was he finding that so hard? His line of work required it, but now when he could use a little cushion of emotional separation, it eluded him.
Fucking nautical knots. All of them were at work it seemed, the Bowline on a Bight, the Icicle Hitch, the Rat-Tail Stopper, each woven into one elaborate tangle of Big Trouble. He rubbed his chest again, then held out his hand, staring at the empty palm.
That was it! There was the source of his problem. He’d been walking around for weeks, his hands empty of his cameras. Since making those images of Skye, he’d left the devices untouched, packed away in their cases. What had he been thinking? Hadn’t he told Rex how important they were?
“It’s like armor...it’s a layer between me and what I see.”
No. 9 was only another mile down the beach. Gage jogged the distance, anxious to have the solid heft of a camera’s body between his fingers. Then he could adjust the focal length between himself and the world around him. No matter how close the subject, he could change the focus to make it appear farther away.
As he approached the house from the beachside, he slowed. Puzzled, he noted the elf-sized door that led to the crawl space beneath the raised deck was open. And stranger yet, the automatic landscape lights that usually lit the perimeter of the house hadn’t come on, though it was full dark.
The caterers? The wedding planner? That must be it. Someone had arrived with equipment necessary for the next day’s event. Strolling closer, he placed his hand on the elf door. “Hello?” he called out, bending to peer inside.
A blow to the back of his head staggered him. He lurched around, still gripping the door to stay upright. Two figures wavered in his line of sight. One in a ski mask, another in a baseball cap and bandanna.
Gage blinked, nothing making sense. He put a hand to his throbbing head and saw Bandanna lift a heavy flashlight. Its light blinded Gage and before he could think or move, its metal body slammed against his temple. His legs crumpled and he fell to his knees on the sand.
A voice sounded from far, far away. “Put him under there.”
Under? No, hell, no. Gage worked to marshal his thoughts and control his body. He felt hands on him and he pushed them away and kicked out with his legs. He wasn’t going under anywhere. No more under!
But his limbs refused to cooperate. Inside his head he was screaming around the fracturing pain, yet he still found himself being rolled and pushed toward that dark space beneath the deck. Eyes half-open, he heard the men grunt and curse as they struggled to maneuver his deadweight and he was grimly happy it was hard on them. One of the bastards, the one in the ski mask, was breathing harder than the other, and with an oath, he stripped off the disguise.
As they shoved Gage into the black hole in front of him, rolling him once again, he tried holding on to the image of the man’s face. He