Bullard's Best Page 3

  She smiled and shook her head. “How about we forget about dates down the road. We’ve had plenty of time to get to know each other. So how about you have dinner on the yacht with me tonight? Let’s just be crazy and call it a date. We’re alone for the next two days, after all.”

  He looked at her, and a slow smile formed and spread across his face. “If you’re asking me out,” he teased, “I accept.”

  “Well, I guess that’s one way to get a date with you.” She laughed, happy he said yes without too much hesitation. “So will you come and stay on the yacht with me?”

  “I wasn’t really planning on it.” He frowned.

  “I think you should. That way we can have some wine and just relax. We can really get to know each other a little more.”

  “I’d like that a lot,” he replied warmly.

  She gave him a gentle smile. “Me too.” And, with that, they took one last look at their lush surroundings and explored a little more.

  Calling it a date made him feel awkward. Just calling it dinner made him relax a bit. Was he stuck in a rut? Probably. And an older man stuck in his ways was hard to prod along. He almost laughed out loud at that thought. Dave had never been a flirt. He was much too serious for that. But he was as honest and as honorable as the day was long. Maybe too honorable when it came to his late wife. So he was at a disadvantage here. He wasn’t nearly as “in touch” with his feelings as Katie was.

  Granted, as a male, he was told to tamp down his feelings, unless they were rage and anger. Not so much about tears and empathy. The military had furthered that mind-set too. Yet he knew, for all he had been through, the training and the tough personal years, he had retained his humanity. He was proud of that.

  Still, he wasn’t sure quite what to say or how to react to Katie and her honesty, but everything that they’d gone over so far matched what he already knew. She was a very independent and capable woman, and he liked an awful lot about her and enjoyed her company very much.

  The fact that she was stunning and his type was something else in her favor. He noted a little flare of residual guilt about his wife, but, after all these years, the deaths of his wife and daughter had become a memory in the background that he refused to pull out anymore. He preferred to remember their lives and how special it had all been for the time they had shared. Was he ready to move forward? With Katie, most definitely.

  Smiling, he added, “Well, I’d say, I’ll bring the wine, but, in this case, I think you probably have something better.”

  “I definitely do. I can’t believe you were even planning on staying here on the island, even in Leia’s cabin.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve got my backpack. That’s all I really need, and, hey, if it was good enough for Bullard …”

  “Well, you’re a better man than I am,” she stated. “There’s not much in the way of running water and plumbing here, and the yacht offers that and much more.”

  “It does, indeed, and I’ll gratefully accept your offer.”

  “In that case”—she smiled broadly—“why don’t we head back there now?”

  “Sounds good.” And he led the way back to Leia’s place, crossing over the same natural bridge again.

  Katie glanced behind her. “Don’t look now, but we’re being watched.”

  “I felt it too. The trick is whether we’ll have company who faces us or if it’s just somebody being curious.”

  “It doesn’t feel curious to me.” She shook her head. “There is an ugliness to it.”

  Dave moved forward, careful of what he thought of as his bum leg, which really meant the prosthetic, wondering if she actually knew about it, yet thinking that she must, after all the many years they had spent working together. “Go ahead in front of me,” he said, “just in case.”

  She looked at him in surprise, and he just shook his head and tucked her up in front, so that his body blocked hers. Once on the other side, she moved quickly toward Leia’s hut and the accompanying beach. “We can’t let anything mess up this special day for Bullard and Leia and however many others who are participating.” She turned to ask him, “When are the guys coming?”

  “In two days,” he replied.

  “Could they come sooner?” she asked nervously. “At least a couple of them? It seems like maybe we should get some things squared away before the whole group gets here. Certainly before Leia arrives.”

  “Yeah, I’ll take care of doing just that. Pulling out his phone, Dave quickly sent off some text messages.

  Fallon replied first, with a phone call. “Hey, Dave. Sounds like we need to check out things there and make sure nothing’s going on.”

  “Well, definitely something is going on. I just don’t know if it’s ugly or not.”

  “Can you do a full search today?”

  “Yeah. I’ll send Katie back to the yacht. We were just assessing what we needed to do for the wedding, and we’ve had company watching us. I didn’t see them, but I’m sure of it.”

  “Right,” Fallon noted. “I’ll see what I can do about moving up the timetable, for at least some of us anyway. I’ll get back to you when I figure it out. Stay safe until then.”

  Glad to have reinforcements on the way, Dave slipped his phone in his pocket. “Come on, Katie. Let’s get you back to the yacht, and then I’ll return to the island to do a full reconnaissance.”

  She frowned at him.

  “It’ll be fine.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “This is what we do.”

  Just then a shot rang out. They both reacted quickly, dashing a short distance, and diving to the ground at the water’s edge. He managed to get her up into the transport boat, then down on the floorboards. Crouching outside of the boat, he pushed off and jumped inside. Firing up the motor, they were out of handgun range within seconds.

  Chapter 3

  Katie stared at Dave, as they both remained low in the boat, waiting as it quickly pulled away from the shore. “Oh my God,” she breathed. “They fired at us, didn’t they?”

  “Yeah, but that was no warning shot.” His face was grim, as he pulled out his phone and sent Fallon a message.

  As they continued to putt along, she asked, “Shouldn’t we be at the yacht by now?”

  “We’re not going there,” he explained. “I want to check out the coastline.”

  She stared at him in shock. “But, in the yacht, we can get away.”

  “We’re out of danger and getting away just fine right now,” he stated. “What I don’t want to do is lead them to the yacht, so they know for sure that that’s where we are. Obviously they’ll know we could be there, but, if they don’t see us heading that way, they may not attack it.”

  “Attack?” she repeated faintly.

  “Yeah.” He shook his head. “But I can’t guarantee either way.”

  “I don’t like talking about attacks.” Her phone rang just then, with a text message. She pulled it out. “It’s the captain on the yacht, asking what we’re doing.”

  “Tell him what happened. He knows the drill.”

  She quickly sent a message, as best as she could, asking if he saw a shooter. He did not and included a warning to stay safe, saying he’d have the engines running, just in case. “He’s warming up the engines, getting ready for a getaway—or to come pick us up, if requested.”

  “Good enough.” Dave peered over the edge of the boat as he directed it around to the far side of the island. “I don’t see anybody along here.”

  She frowned. “The village is on the other side though, right?”

  “It is. This is the deeper area by the cliffs. On the other side they have a beach, so it’s easier to bring boats in and out.”

  “Right. So, Leia’s got a little bit of beach there, but mostly it’s deeper water. I hadn’t considered that.”

  “The rocks just drop way down,” he noted. “Better for big boats, worse for smaller boats.”

  She smiled at that. “So, better for us if we wanted to bring the yacht closer.”
>
  “I was just wondering about that. Part of what I could do is check to see if we could anchor the yacht somewhere close by. Obviously it wouldn’t be close enough to run a gangplank or anything,” he said, “but, if we’ll be building a dock anyway, it could help.”

  “Well, you won’t go out very far with a dock.”

  “Yes, but, if it’s really deep here, we could do a floating dock at the end,” he suggested. “It’s just part and parcel of the logistics we have to take into account because, if we’ll be coming here on a regular basis, it will need the same security and accessibility as every other place we go.”

  “It’s hard for me to imagine, but you guys all function as such a big machine.”

  “We do, indeed. And that’s a good thing.”

  “If you say so. Do you think it’s safe to sit up now?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t,” he said cheerfully. “We don’t know what other kind of firepower they may have.”

  She groaned. “So, once you’ve checked out this section, then what?”

  “I’m coming up around the side where I expect to see the island open up more to the beach area.” He shifted, and she watched as he rose up ever-so-slightly and adjusted his position. He sat on the bottom of the boat, reaching up to steer, but he could see over the rail.

  Following his example, she shifted too. “It’s so beautiful. How can there be such danger here?”

  “I think it must still be connected to Leia somehow.”

  “So, do you think that whoever it was who exposed her location to her kidnapper is the one causing the trouble?”

  “I’m sure he thinks that us being here is a problem,” he stated. “Imagine if you’d done something like that. Wouldn’t you be looking over your shoulder to see if the people you sold the information to were coming back to clean up their loose ends or if the person you betrayed was coming back, seeking revenge?”

  “Or, as in this case, we’re coming back because we love the area but now are fully aware that somebody sold information about us.”

  “Which means, in many ways, that we should suspect everybody,” Dave murmured. “When you’re talking about an environment like this, secluded as it is, in an area where money is hard to come by, you have to expect that people could be talked into doing an awful lot for some cash.”

  “It still sucks,” she muttered.

  “More than you will hopefully ever realize.” But then he smiled. “Don’t worry. It’ll all be good.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “You’ll have to fix all this in the next two days, before I’ll be doing any wedding catering.”

  “We will,” he replied cheerfully. “Not to worry.”

  She groaned. “Says you.”

  “Is Sam the captain on the yacht?”

  “Yes, it’s Sam. How—”

  “Text him to contact Bullard and to let him know what’s up.”

  “Okay.” Soon her phone kept buzzing back and forth, as she messaged Sam. Then Dave’s phone buzzed. “Oh, so they’ve switched to talking to you now.”

  “Yeah.” He groaned. “It’s definitely part of the deal, but a little inconvenient to text while steering a boat from the floorboards.”

  “If it keeps me out of the middle of it, I’m happy. I don’t really need to be involved in this part.”

  He looked at her. “Why not? You make a killer quiche.”

  She stared at him and started to laugh. “Oh my God. If that was supposed to be funny, that’s really sick humor.”

  “Hey, anything to lighten the atmosphere.”

  “We could have been killed,” she whispered.

  “We could have, yes,” he stated matter-of-factly. “Believe me. That’s pissing me off more than you can imagine.”

  “Yeah, I guess you didn’t travel all this way in order to get shot to death.”

  “It’s not about me. It’s you. I feel terrible and never intended for a moment to put you in danger. I just didn’t expect any real threat remained here.”

  Her heart warmed at the thought. “It’s very nice that you worry about me,” she said. “And I have to admit that I wasn’t expecting any danger. I’ve been looking at this as a paid vacation. Plenty of work to do, of course, but a fabulous setting. I just assumed, when the threats against Bullard and Leia got resolved, all the trouble was over with, and it would all be good.”

  “After we got Leia back from the kidnappers, we had a team come here and collect her personal belongings, her ID, clothes, things they thought she may need or want,” he told Katie. “But I don’t really know what the end result of that was. I didn’t ask if they had any harsh words with any locals or if anybody tried to stop them while they were here.”

  “Surely they wouldn’t be so foolish as to do that, would they?”

  “You’d hope not,” he replied, “but people will be people.”

  “Isn’t that the truth.”

  *

  Dave really hadn’t expected any danger here and was pissed at himself that he hadn’t done a more thorough security check of the island when he had first arrived. But then again, he had done a cursory check and hadn’t found anybody on Leia’s land or any signs that he could see of vandalism. But he’d then gone to the village and been seen there, so the word would have gotten out that he was around. Was his presence causing a problem for someone? He frowned at that, wondering whether the old woman was behind it or if she was in danger herself.

  Something like that would make Leia very unhappy. She had grown quite close to certain people on the island. She’d helped deliver several babies, had set a few broken bones, and had looked after several children with fevers. In all cases receiving food as payment, and she did regular doctor visits for other food supplies. At the same time, Dave had to consider that some people resented her. He hated for that to be the case, but not everybody held outsiders in high esteem. But none of this gave him any reassurance that something wasn’t going on locally. That gunshot had been all too real. He pulled up along one of the village piers and tied up.

  Reaching out a hand, he said, “Come on. We’ll go talk to the medicine woman.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “Why?”

  “To see if she knows what’s going on.”

  “What if she’s the one behind it?” Katie asked bluntly. “Maybe she was jealous of Leia’s healing skills.”

  “That’s possible. In which case, we need to go check it out.”

  “That’s a little disturbing though,” Katie said.

  “It’s all disturbing.”

  “You don’t really think of guns in paradise.”

  “Sorry, but we’ll have to now.”

  As they walked forward, several people stopped and stared. He had a smile on his face, and he made sure he was holding her hand.

  “Your grip is a little tight,” she noted. “Are you thinking that I’ll run away or that somebody will try and snatch me?”

  “Leia was kidnapped from here, so it’s a little hard for me not to worry.”

  She squeezed his fingers gently, continuing, “I’m fine, and I do know some self-defense. You know that Bullard requires it of anyone working with you all.”

  “I know,” he muttered. “But that gun wouldn’t have given a shit who had self-defense training or not. The bullet was intended to take us out permanently.”

  Chapter 4

  No point in arguing with Dave because, of course, he was right. Katie did tighten her grip on his fingers as they walked through the village. She had a smile on her face, but she didn’t know how to react when no one smiled back. Were these people not used to seeing strangers, not used to seeing tourists, or just naturally suspicious?

  “I wonder if this is how they initially treated Leia,” she murmured.

  “She was here long enough to get past their defenses and to actually became a friend to many of them,” he quietly answered. “We are strangers at the moment.”

  “I guess,” she said. “It would be
easier if Leia were here, wouldn’t it?”

  “Without a doubt,” he murmured. “Not to worry. We’re not here to hurt them.”

  “Do they know that though?” she asked. “It doesn’t really feel like it.”

  “Maybe not, but, at the same time,” he added, “they’ll see us over and over again, so they’ll have to get used to it.”

  They walked up to the old woman’s space, she had a small hut on lower stilts than many others. Katie looked at it. “I just can’t imagine what it’d be like to live here year-round.”

  The old woman cackled from behind a post, and then she leaned over and stared at them. She looked at Dave and smiled. “You’re back again.”

  “I am”—he grimaced—“and the reason is not as nice as before.”

  She stared at him, with that all-knowing gaze, hitting Katie oddly. The medicine woman then studied Katie and back to Dave. “You two are as meant to be.”

  He shook his head at her. “I don’t know what that means.”

  She smiled and looked at Katie. “You do.”

  She flushed. “I’m not sure that I do.”

  The old woman smiled again. “You do, but you’re not there yet.”

  Not sure what she was talking about but afraid to ask for more details, Katie just ignored that possible romantic subject. “Somebody tried to kill us.”

  The old woman’s eyes widened and went almost sightless; they turned nearly black. Then she slowly nodded. “And still the influences affect us.”

  “We were wondering if anybody here …” Dave’s voice trailed off helplessly because he didn’t want to insult her by asking if anybody here would have shot at them. That is exactly what his words would do, but he needed to know, nonetheless.

  “Maybe.”

  Her answer was a surprise. He stared at her. “Maybe?” he asked cautiously.

  Katie squeezed his fingers. “Maybe what she meant”—she crouched in front of the woman—“is that money isn’t evil here. They see much in the outside world, when they go to the mainland, and they want more.”