Page 3 of Let It Snow

“No trouble.”

“Why did he send you?” Shana asked in a gentle voice compared to his own scraping croak.

The man didn’t speak immediately, but studied Dane, taking some sort of measure. Dane knew the old man would find nothing but the petrified hunk of life turned to rock that he now was.

“He said this time you were in trouble.”

Dane scoffed and sounded like an old man. His soul was old—ancient—if that counted.

“Tell him he’s too late. Finish your drink and be on your way before the snow gets too deep.”

It hurt Dane to speak so callously but he had a need to be mean, to vent the meanness and he couldn’t afford to vent on Shana, didn’t want to go that low. Mr. Padre made a perfect target of himself. A stranger asking for trouble. Or asking about trouble, at least. Now he’d found it. He could go home.

The padre surprised him, not by taking a long steady sip of the hot drink, although that was unusual enough considering it probably scalded him, but because when he finished and placed his mug on the scratched table, he stood.

The old man was prepared to leave as Dane had requested.

Cap stood too. Dane shifted his gaze to Cap. Knew he was going to lambaste him. The padre knew it too and put a hand up to stop him.

“No problem. Mr. Blaise is right. I have no business here. I can’t help a man if he doesn’t want help.”

“How about if you stay and help me. Until after Christmas.” Shana spoke from her seat and avoided Dane’s eyes, or so it seemed to him.

The padre unbottled a special sunshine smile then.

“Come with me,” he said.

Dane stared at her and she faced him. A bubble of fear floated from his gut to his chest and squeezed so that he couldn’t breathe. Fury fueled his heart. Any sign of his former numb state flew away in a ghostly wisp leaving him cold, immobile, and filled with fierce, loathsome fear. But he showed none of this. Old training saved him from showing that fear. Ever.

Something about this strange man and his proposition snapped Shana’s resolve, or maybe it gave her a different resolve. She dared look at Dane, allowed herself to really see him. Or tried to. He looked like a shadow, an empty vessel. The rock of granite that once held his vitality looked hollow.

And then he didn’t. Hell, she still couldn’t figure him out much less help him.

She faced the old man and stood.

“I’ll go with you. Let me pack a bag.”

Cap stood, “What the hell? It’s Christmas tomorrow. It’s snowing—”

“If you hurry, you’ll catch the last ferry of the day.” Dane spoke as if he knew, as if he’d just hung up from talking to the MV Steamship Authority in Vineyard Haven.

The whip of his words, steadfast and conversational and unfeeling, brought tears up. She squeezed them back, willed the hurt to lash back. Damn him.

She said nothing, but headed for the short hall to her room intending to throw on a coat and pack everything she owned into her bag.

The padre stalled her. “You are doing the right thing,” he called after her.

She wanted to shout at him, “How the hell do you know?” His advice should have comforted her, reassured her, but since this stranger knew less than nothing, she felt unsure and stumbled internally even as she stormed to her room, shoving past Dane.

She slammed her bedroom door behind her. Touching him, even if it was a quick shove, had been a mistake. His flesh had been real and warm and solid and so like the real Dane it tugged her into misery. Swiping at tears, she pulled her one large duffel bag from the back of the closet where it had gathered dust and emptied the bureau drawers into it. There was a framed photo on her dresser top of her and Dane. Sassy had taken it and given it to her. It was taken at Anatoly Ivanov’s granddaughter’s wedding when they’d been working security and were all dressed up. Before the shooting had begun. They’d been smiling.

Without stopping to analyze or question or waiver, she snatched the photo and stuffed it in her bag then zipped it up and slung it over one shoulder and slung the bag holding her Century Arms CZ 82 over the other. She looked around and sighed. She’d miss the beach shack and its arsenal of weapons. And maybe even its owner.

When she opened the door Cap stood in the hall on the other side of the threshold. He looked worried and caring and irritated—like stormy weather dressed as harmless snowflakes, cold and wonderful and heartwarming all at once.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he whispered.

“You’re the one who brought the padre here—”