private. His emotions. His fears.
His past.
She rallied quickly. “We may not be in a relationship, but as far as HFH is concerned, we’re still partners. That gives me some say.”
“We’re not partners anymore. I quit.” Damn, he hadn’t wanted it to come to this. But he couldn’t keep Tansy in a relationship based on a lie, and he’d been surprised to discover that he didn’t want to stay at Boston General without her.
“No, you’re not quitting. I won’t have it.” She turned to Cage. “Reassign me to another HFH hospital and a different partner.” Her voice was steady, but Dale saw through to the hurt beneath, and his chest ached.
“Shut up, both of you,” Cage snapped, banging his half-empty bottle on the table. He waited until they subsided. “Okay. Here’s the deal. I’m not accepting Metcalf’s resignation or Tansy’s request. But I am fed up with two of my best people ghosting around Boston General because they’re letting personal problems interfere with their work.” When they protested, he cut them off. “Just listen. Dale is leaving tomorrow to investigate a PSP outbreak off Maine. Tansy, you’re going with him. Take the small plane, you can leave in the morning.”
Tansy’s startled, “But—” was drowned out by Dale’s bellow of, “No way in hell!”
It was panic, pure and simple, that cranked his volume. He didn’t want her anywhere near Lobster Island. He didn’t want her to see where he’d come from. Who he was.
Diamonds and purple rocks didn’t mix.
“You’re going to the island together,” Cage said in a steely, unforgiving tone, “or I’ll fire both of you with prejudice.”
Tansy gasped at the threat and Dale scowled. He was resigned to leaving HFH, but he couldn’t get Tansy fired. The patients needed her. The group couldn’t lose her. Damn.
Cage’s expression softened. “Go to Lobster Island. Remember how to work together. You’re the best team I’ve got, and it’d be a shame to let that go to waste.”
“And if I still want to be reassigned after it’s over?” she asked quietly, not looking at Dale.
“Then I’ll reassign you.” Cage sighed and stood. “But I hope it won’t come to that. HFH needs you both. Together. Do we have a deal?”
His exit left a hollow gap in the conversation.
“Fine,” Tansy said after a moment. She stared at one of the empty strippers’ cages rather than at Dale. “E-mail me a list of equipment you want loaded on the plane. I’ll meet you at the hangar tomorrow afternoon.”
They’d had the same conversation a hundred times before, in a dozen different countries, but there was no sense of impending adventure now. There was only a sense of impending doom.
Tansy on Lobster Island. It was the last thing Dale wanted, but if he didn’t agree, she could lose her job. And really, what did it matter if she found out about his past?
She already hated him.
On that thought, he drained the last of his beer and felt none of the alcohol’s punch. “I don’t want you with me.”
She jerked her chin down. “Yeah, you’ve made that clear. Don’t worry, the feeling is mutual. Too bad we don’t get a vote.”
She slipped from the booth and marched out on Cage’s heels, leaving an aching hole in Dale’s gut. “Damn.” He pressed the empty beer bottle to the center of his forehead, wishing he’d chartered a plane and gone on his own. He hadn’t been back to the island in fifteen years, since his parents were lost at sea and he’d run away from his Uncle Trask’s brutal grief. He didn’t want to go back now. And he certainly didn’t want to bring Tansy with him.
Scowling, he reread Mickey’s message. Six people were sick. Three had already died from respiratory failure, though the disease shouldn’t be fatal. And although she was one of the best investigators in the business, Dale wished he could leave Tansy safe on the mainland.
Because people were dying on Lobster Island. Again.
HEADPHONES CLAMPED OVER her ears, Tansy slapped the throttle open and braced herself as the little prop plane surged down the runway, eager to be on its way. She’d gotten her pilot’s license when she first joined HFH, nearly three years earlier. God, she loved to fly.
But not today. Today, the man brooding in the copilot’s seat kept her from enjoying the sky. Arms folded across his broad chest, Dale made no move to touch the second set of controls. He merely sat there, sullen and angry.
Well, the hell with him. The breakup hadn’t been her idea. She’d wanted to work on their relationship. He’d bailed.
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and tried to ignore the way the afternoon sunlight gilded his white-blond hair and accentuated his pale skin, which never tanned, even when they’d spent a month in the Serengeti. Long-legged and powerfully built, he had the hard body of a laborer and the graceful hands of a surgeon. His very presence filled the small cockpit, almost suffocating Tansy with the memories she’d tried so hard to avoid.
Both fair and blue-eyed, fit and wellborn, she and Dale resembled each other on the surface. But underneath, they were polar opposites, and those differences had been the problem. He wouldn’t let her into his guarded, private corners, and she hadn’t wanted to settle for less.
She glanced over again, and their eyes met. Heat flared in her midsection. After almost three months, she still woke up reaching for him, and despised herself for it. She was no better than her mother.
When they reached the shallow cruising altitude that would take them to a lobster-shaped speck off the Maine coast, she slid the headphones off one ear and broke the silence. “Want to tell me why we’re investigating a tiny outbreak of PSP?”
Paralytic shellfish poisoning was a serious, though rarely fatal, condition that was usually handled on the local level. From what little Cage had told her, there was no reason for HFH intervention. But she knew Dale well enough to realize he wasn’t going to volunteer any information. He was too committed to his bad mood.
After a long moment he sighed and uncrossed his arms. “It doesn’t look like typical shellfish poisoning. The reactions are too severe, and there hasn’t been a red tide in the area. Besides, the islanders fish for lobsters, not mollusks.”
“And lobsters, being scavengers, don’t usually absorb enough of the toxin to be a problem.” Tansy nodded, glad he had at least answered her. Though it hurt to sit near him and know there was no hope for their relationship, she would be okay if she focused on the job. Always the job. Her work had gotten her through the last three months. It would get her through the next few days.
Besides, they usually got along fine when they were in the field. It was his behavior in Boston that had driven her crazy. When they were at home base, he withdrew, became unavailable. Toward the end, she’d wondered whether he had another woman in the city.
Know your man inside and out, and you’ll never be surprised, baby. Her mother’s words came to her across the years, along with the memory of sitting in the car while Eva Whitmore cruised their ritzy neighborhood in search of her husband’s vehicle.
Feeling
