Sara Greene showed the snapshot to the landscaper preparing
to mow the strip of grass between the back of the Sea Breeze
Hotel and the beach. He examined the image of
fourteen-year-old David Taylor then shook his head.
"Sorry, haven't seen him."
The same words she'd heard all morning—which meant she
repeated herself as well when she handed the guy a business
card.
"If you do see him, please give me a call."
Sara took a few steps down the wooden walkway over the sand
before stopping, closing her eyes and lifting her face
toward the bright Florida sky. It was as if the kid had gone
poof and disappeared. She chose to think he was just really
good at hiding because she didn't want to consider that he
might have gotten himself into a dangerous or deadly situation.
One more long, deep breath of sea air was all she allowed
herself before she opened her eyes and stared at the
thatch-roofed beach bar beyond the ridge of dunes. She
doubted David Taylor had been hanging out at the Beach Bum,
but she was determined to check every possibility. Maybe one
of the staff had spotted him elsewhere.
Only an older couple sat at the front edge of the open-sided
bar, sipping what looked like lemonade as they watched the
waves. After all, it was too early in the day to bring out
the hard stuff. But from the sound of rattling bottles from
behind the long wooden bar, someone was already at work.
"Hello?"
The hidden person clanked bottles a couple more times before
he popped up from behind the bar like a jack-in-the-box
clown. She recognized the tanned, lightly stubbled, handsome
face of Adam Canfield, but she was used to it being on the
customer side of the bar.
The bright smile, the one he used in his endless flirting
with anyone with boobs, dimmed somewhat when he noticed it
was her facing him.
"Hello, Detective." Adam shoved his hands in the
back pockets of his khaki shorts. "Little early for a
drink, isn't it?"
For the briefest moment, she missed him not flirting with
her like he had the first time they'd met. He was the kind
of man who could make a thrill zing along a woman's skin
with a sexy look in those green eyes and thinly veiled
suggestions. But he'd made it clear that her being a cop was
a buzz-kill for him.
That was fine with her since she wasn't the least bit
interested in a guy who went through life one or two steps
above being a bum.
She pushed aside the temptation to fantasize and took a
couple steps closer. "I'm still on duty."
"Zac's not here." He tossed an empty cardboard case
in the trash can. "Please tell me someone hasn't cooked
up some more bogus crap about him."
"This isn't about Mr. Parker, but nice
conclusion-jumping." Zac Parker, owner of the Beach Bum,
had been a potential suspect in a recent arson until the
state arson investigator determined he was being set up.
Then she ended up marrying him.
Adam raised a dark eyebrow at her snarky comment. She didn't
acknowledge it, instead handed him the photo of David
Taylor. "Have you seen this boy?"
While he looked at the snapshot of David in a school
hallway, Suz Thackery came out of the storeroom behind him,
her red hair piled atop her head in a loose twist, and
glanced at the photo around his shoulder. To keep from
looking at Adam, Sara focused on Suz.
Par for the course, they both shook their heads.
"He in some kind of trouble?" Suz asked.
"Ran away from home. Considering he's only fourteen,
we're doing all we can to find him."
Adam looked at the photo again. "What's he running away
from?"
Sara stared at him, at his sexy stubble and sandy brown,
slightly messy hair—and wished she could look at him
without noticing those attributes. Despite their mutual, if
unvoiced, agreement that dating each other was not on the
agenda, she couldn't help the way her pulse picked up every
time she saw him around town.
She jerked herself back to the real world. "You're the
first person to ask me that. Most people just assume since
he's a runaway he must be a punk."
He shrugged. "And sometimes it's not the kid who needs a
good kick in the ass."
Sara agreed, knowing runaway cases weren't always as simple
as a kid acting out against parents. Still, she hadn't found
any evidence contrary to David's father's assertion that
that's exactly what his son was doing. She couldn't exactly
say she liked the guy, but no evidence was no evidence.
"Even so, he doesn't need to be out on his own. It's too
dangerous."
"Could be." Adam's gaze met hers. "But a boy
that age can take care of himself better than a lot of
people think he can."
Sara wondered why he'd say such a thing, but it wasn't her
business or relevant to her investigation. She took two more
cards from her pocket and gave them to Adam and Suz.
"Nevertheless, I'd like a call if you hear or see
anything that might help me find him."
Even though Adam nodded and slipped the card into his shorts
pocket, she wasn't entirely convinced he would call her. She
bit the inside of her jaw to remind herself she was being
stupid to want to talk to him again, about anything.
A scream pierced the air behind Sara. She spun and scanned
the beach for the source. A clump of people stood at the
edge of the pier looking down at the water.
Adam cursed behind her. "A kid just went over the side."
Sara kicked off her shoes and unstrapped her gun at the same
time. When she plopped it atop the bar, Adam was already
running toward the side of the building. She met Suz's eyes.
"Keep this."
She raced after Adam, who was almost halfway to the pier.
The concession shed where he normally worked was a blur as
she ran past it. Adam didn't pause as he reached the end of
the pier and catapulted over the railing into the water
below. She yelled for the bystanders to get out of the way
before she followed him.
The water closed over her head, murkier than it looked from
the pier. She glanced around before pushing up to the
surface to fill her lungs. Adam popped up near her and
searched the area around him.
"See him?" she asked.
"No." And then he dived under again. She wasn't
about to let a kid drown so she did the same.
She held her breath and spotted the child just as Adam
wrapped his arms around the little boy. Sara followed them
to the surface then swam alongside Adam toward the shore. As
soon as they hit sand, she started CPR. The hysterical
crying of some woman, probably the child's mother, barely
filtered through the thundering of Sara's pulse against her
eardrums.
After a couple of repetitions of CPR, the child coughed and
began spitting up the water he'd swallowed. Sara helped him
sit up. His mother swooped in and clasped him to her as Sara
heard someone say an ambulance had been called.
She sat back and pushed the wet strands of her hair back
from her forehead. Her heart had just begun to slow when she
spotted Adam across from her. Rivulets of water ran down his
bare chest, lightly sprinkled with hair, causing her heart
rate to accelerate again. She'd seen him pull his shirt over
his head and toss it onto the sand as they'd raced for the pier.
Now, with the danger over, her attention was drawn to what
the shirt had hidden.
Good grief, what was wrong with her? Postadrena-line
craziness? She forced herself to shift her gaze up to his
face and noticed he looked pale, shaken.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
He kept staring at the kid for a couple more seconds then
seemed to shake himself out of a trance. "Yeah,
fine." He refocused on her—first her face, then
lower. That's when she realized that her shirt was sticking
to her like a second skin, the wet, white fabric revealing
her bra underneath.
She didn't totally believe his assertion that he was fine,
but she let it drop. After all, it wasn't every day you
almost witnessed someone die.
"You did a good job," she said.
"You, too."
They sat on the sand until they heard the ambulance siren
arrive in the parking lot beyond the dunes. Then Sara helped
the mother and crying child stand. Once the paramedics had
ushered the pair to the ambulance, Sara and Adam had to face
all the questions posed by the police officer who'd
responded. Then those of the reporter from the local paper
who'd arrived about two seconds later. Adam looked as if
he'd rather skydive with a parachute made of lead, and all
Sara wanted to do was go home and take a shower in water
that didn't smell like fish.
"Sure you don't want that drink?" Adam asked.
"Alas, still on duty."
Plus, she doubted Adam Canfield was on the drink menu.
Adamtook a long drink of lemonade, wishing it was something
stronger, as he watched Detective Sara Greene walk toward
the dunes. She'd strapped her sidearm back on, the only
thing she wore that wasn't dripping wet. Why did women go
into dangerous professions like law enforcement? Why did
they deliberately put themselves in the line of fire? Why
couldn't they understand that it was useless to be a
do-gooder out to solve the world's ills when the world had
too many ills to solve?
He shook his head. Not his problem. Sure, she was pretty and
built very nicely if the wet shirt had been any indication,
but there were way too many babes walking the sands of
Horizon Beach for him to even think about pursuing a woman
who was his complete opposite. He didn't need to have a
Ph.D. to know she didn't think highly of the code he lived
by—to be as carefree as possible and screw responsibility.
Heck, even helping out at the bar where he was normally a
patron was a stretch. But Zac, his best friend here in his
adopted hometown, had asked him to lend a hand while he and
his new wife, Randi, were on their honeymoon. He couldn't
wait for them to come home so he could go back to his
regular job—running the pier concession just enough to
pay his bills.
Even after Sara disappeared from view, he couldn't get the
sight of her dark hair and eyes out of his head. Suz
Thackery, who was the head cheese at the Beach Bum in Zac's
absence, nudged him out of the way.
"Stop drooling on yourself. It's bad for business."
He jerked his gaze away from the crossover point on the
dunes and tossed a towel at Suz. "I wasn't drooling.
Just wondering about that missing kid."
"Uh-huh." Suz gave him a disbelieving look. "I
give it less than twenty-four hours before you make up some
excuse to call her."
He shook his head. "She's way too serious for me."
But he knew if Sara Greene were a secretary or mail carrier
or worked in an ice cream parlor, he might look at her
differently.
Suz moved to the opposite end of the bar to refill the older
couple's lemonades and open three beers for some college-age
guys who'd come in from boogie boarding. Adam dug around in
the storage room until he found the extra clothes Zac kept
in the back in case he got alcohol spilled on him during a
shift. He exchanged his wet shorts for a dry pair, but no
way was he wearing a pair of his friend's underwear.
When a delivery arrived, he spent several minutes lugging
crates of beer and stacking them in the storeroom. After
placing the last case in cold storage, he sank onto it to
cool off. As soon as he sat, he imagined bringing Sara
Greene back here to this cool, dark spot and kissing her.
He ran his hand over his hair and cursed. He must have hit
his head on the pier. Plenty of women were interested in him
without him daydreaming about one who wasn't. He didn't go
looking for brainless women, just ones who were casual and
laid-back. He'd deliberately kept things easy and
noncommittal with women since he'd moved to Horizon Beach.
After serving a dozen years in the army and being shipped to
one hot, sandy, inhospitable place after another, he
deserved a carefree life. One filled with the ocean, fishing
the days away and bikini-clad babes as far as the eye could see.
Nothing that would require him to think or remember. Or care
for someone.
He shot to his feet and resisted the urge to punch one of
the cases of liquor surrounding him. The nightmare was only
supposed to attack him when he was sleeping, when his guard
was down. But the memory of the Humvee shooting toward the
sky was burned into his gray matter.
He reminded himself once again that a do-gooder like Sara
was off-limits. He'd been down that bomb-riddled road before
and had almost not lived to tell about it.
Sometimes he wished he hadn't.
The aftereffects of the near drowning plus the frustration
at not finding any clues to David Taylor's whereabouts
occupied so much of Sara's mind that she forgot to stop at
the Coffee Cottage on the way back to the station after
going home to change. Faced with having to drink the barely
liquid coffee Keith Hutchens had made, she detoured toward
the soda machine and bought a can of caffeine-laden Coke
instead.
As she entered the bull-pen area of the station, she passed
Keith just as he was headed out on patrol. "There's
still coffee." He nodded toward the break room.