an invasion of privacy when he went still.
Frowning, she craned her neck to get a look at what had garnered his sudden interest. She hoped to God she hadn’t left about any scraps on which she’d doodled ridiculous junior-high-style sentiments like Skye + Gage 4 Ever.
“How well do you know him?” he said.
“Who?”
“Dagwood.” Gage flipped the rectangle of paper in his hand toward her. It was a photo taken at a semiformal event sponsored by a business association. She’d been Dalton’s date and they’d been snapped by the professional who’d taken everyone’s picture on their way inside.
“You know what his name really is,” she said, frowning a little. “I don’t know why you pretend you don’t.”
“Because he looks like a Dagwood,” Gage said. “How well do you know him?”
Drying her hands on a dish towel, she gave him a wary glance. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
“Could he have been the guy who tied you up?”
Shocked by the question, Skye stared at him. “No!”
“Think, honey, don’t just react. Could it have been him or maybe some pervy buddy of his?”
“No.” Agitated, she ran her hands through her hair, then tucked them in the pockets of her shorts. “I don’t know why you’d suggest such a thing.”
“Because I’d like to solve the mystery.”
“You think I wouldn’t? But the police believe it’s a random event. There weren’t any similar crimes in the area before, haven’t been any since, and the men walked out of the house with just the cash from my wallet—which wasn’t much. So there’s no incentive for them even to return.”
Unless the creepy one, him, came back to fulfill the sexual threat he’d promised.
Just like that, memory attacked. She could feel the awful prick of the knife across her chest. How her naked flesh felt only more vulnerable surrounded by shredded clothes. The blindfold’s pressure on her eyes. A stranger’s hoarse, disgusting voice. I’ll come back one day and finish what I started.
The contents of her stomach revolted, and she felt herself go clammy. “Oh, God,” she muttered, then rushed for the bathroom.
Gage was on her heels. She slammed the door in his face and took great gulps of air, trying to calm the pitching and tossing seas in her belly.
“Honey, are you all right?” His concern came through the paneled wood.
“I’m fine.” Her fingers clutched the porcelain rim of the sink as the sense of certain upchuck slowly faded.
“What can I do?”
She splashed cold water on her face, took a few more deep breaths, then pulled on the knob to face him. “You could not bring up that night again, okay?” Her palm pressed to her belly as if it could contain another bout of panic. The afternoon with Mara had definitely unsettled her, she decided.
“It wasn’t Dalton,” she told Gage. “It wasn’t anyone I know. I’m sure of it.”
“Okay, okay.” He grimaced. “I’m a little off today. Sorry.”
The afternoon with Mara—and thinking of Charlie—had unsettled Gage, too. “All right.”
He rubbed his knuckles against the top of her head, a fond noogie that made him even more forgivable. “C’mon, let’s go outside for some fresh air.”
On the porch of her house sat two wide-bottomed, thick-cushioned chairs. He took one, but when she tried to take the other, he snagged her arm and pulled her into his lap. His strength surrounded her, and she let herself relax against him for a moment, his warmth and the rhythmic sound of the surf dispelling the last of her queasiness.
Still sleeping alone tonight, she reminded herself.
“Are you going to see him again?” Gage said in her ear.
She turned her head so they were nose to nose, astonished that he’d ask. “You mean Dalton?”
“When I’m gone, are you going to start dating him again?”
It wasn’t any of Gage’s business. As he said, he was leaving. But she was too tired to point out either of those things and settled back on his shoulder. “No.”
He sifted his fingers through her hair. “So...what did he want the other day when he was over?”
“To make clear I understood he was dumping me.”
Gage’s movements stilled. “I thought you’d already broken up with him.”
She shrugged. “He conveniently forgot that part, I guess.”
“What a Dagwood,” Gage said, his tone disgusted.
Skye laughed.
They sat together in silence, the whispering hiss of water on sand the only sound besides some faint music floating down the beach from Captain Crow’s. The stars were bright in the dark velvet of the sky and she could make out the haze of the Milky Way.