Page 47 of Beachcomber Enemy

“Wait. You’ll need a ride,” she called after him. He heard her rushing up the stairs in her sensible pumps. He knew his way out of the station. He could go out the back door, past Cap’s office, or out the front door through the lobby. He hesitated a beat while Ms. Kimble caught up to him at the top of the stairs.

In the past, there would have been no question that he’d stop by Cap’s office to check in before leaving, but in the old days he wouldn’t have been put in jail by the man for murder. In the end he decided he had no time to deal with Cap right now—maybe he never would again.

So with Ms. Kimble keeping admirable pace, he jogged through the lobby past a few astonished men and women in blue, some of whom clapped, and out the front door.

Luckily Ms. Kimble didn’t mind driving faster than the speed limit as Dane directed her to the hospital, where they pulled up into the emergency bay. It was the quickest way to get inside.

* * *

He jogged the entire way to her room, through the halls and up the stairs because he didn’t want to wait for the elevator. He’d lost Ms. Kimble while she parked the car. Someone shouted at him to stop running. He didn’t even give them a look, cared nothing about breaking the rules today. He needed to get to get to Shana before they took her into surgery. For the second time.

When he found her room, he slowed a fraction of a second then pushed the door open and went inside, knowing he’d find her with nurses or attendants or doctors. He didn’t give a damn.

She was surrounded, lying flat on a gurney and ready to go into the operating room. Dr. Aoki was there and Dane met the doctor’s eyes, pleading his case for a moment without speaking.

“It’s all right. Give him a minute.” The doctor cleared the room.

Dane went to Shana’s side, bent and gave her a kiss on the lips. They were curved in a slight smile and cool and yielding against his own, but he was quick. He lifted his head from hers so he could see her, talk to her, tell her she meant everything in the world to him, that she was more important than his own life. Because it was true.

But before he could get out any of the words bottled up in his heart, she spoke first.

“I thought you’d left me.”

Dane collapsed to his knees at her bedside then and held onto her hand. All the pent-up fear of loss gushed from the hole in his heart. He felt like he was bleeding, willing all his life force to go from him into her.

“No,” he said. It was all he could manage.

“They say there’s internal bleeding,” she whispered. He didn’t want to hear it. “They say I need another surgery.”

Dane pulled himself together, standing. “For the record. I would never leave you.” He felt the weak squeeze of her hand. Wanted to, but refused to squeeze his eyes shut at the sight of her pale face, the bags of IV fluid and blood hanging beside her, the weak dullness of her once vivacious eyes. They would be bright with her liveliness again. He had to believe that. She had to be all right.

“Neither would I.” she rasped, “For the record.”

He wanted to hold her then, kiss every part of her, give her all his life blood, energy, karma, his very heart and soul, if he could. But all he could do was get out of the way of Dr. Aoki and the others when they came back into the room to take her away to surgery.

“Make sure you get her back to me,” he said to Dr. Aoki, putting a menacing hand on his shoulder. The doctor widened his eyes for only a moment, but then instantly recognized Dane for the desperate man that he was.

They wheeled her out of the room. To surgery. To save her life.

Utterly depleted, Dane slept in the waiting room, in spite of the discomfort of the undersize couch. Exhausted when his adrenaline had finally run out, he had no energy or will to keep his eyes open while Shana was in surgery. It was a merciful sleep, if short.

He woke when Joe touched his shoulder. Sitting up, he checked his watch and saw that only a half hour had elapsed. Coming to full awareness, slower than he usually did, he saw Peter standing there with Madeline. After she hugged him, she sat next to him. All his friends and Shana’s arrived one or two at a time to wait with him while the doctors operated on her. The love of his life. His reason for being.

After an hour, he looked around. They were all there. Except Cap.

One of Dane’s friends must have warned Cap not to come. His money was on Joe. Joe was on Dane’s side in thinking Cap had been wrong to arrest him and that was in spite of the fact that Joe was a fellow state law enforcement official. Technically.

Peter was decidedly on the fence, waffling precariously. Sassy had a soft spot for Cap and faith that he knew what he was doing and that all would end well for Dane. Ronnie was on Dane’s team all the way. The kid wished he’d been there to do the shooting himself. In Ronnie’s youthful black-and-white world, he thought it was an unforgivable betrayal by Cap.

Each of them had expressed their opinion about Cap arresting him and the charges against him in one way or another. That had been earlier, when he’d been in jail. Now they all sat or paced, waiting somberly.

Dane stood, waking fully from the exhausted sleep, now aroused by the tension of waiting for news of Shana’s surgery, the full import of it hitting him again with a fresh punch to the gut.

As he paced by the doors to the operating room, he stopped, willing the doctor to emerge.

But he was still surprised when the door swung open and Dr. Aoki finally came out, ripping off his gloves and mask and walking directly up to Dane.

His heart banged against his chest wall, his whole body clenched in anticipation while the doctor, a full foot shorter than him, stuffed the cotton mask into his pocket. He looked up directly into Dane’s eyes and spoke.