Moondance Beach Read Free Page A

infinitely patient. Guilt lay coiled in silence, ready to strike the instant his eyes closed, or his guard dropped, or his breath deepened . . . and just like that, an explosion would crack open the sky, flaming debris would fly, and the jeep would pin him to the ground as his friends screamed in agony. There he would stay, facedown in grit, blood pooling in his mouth while he flailed, nails bleeding as he tried to get free, useless, trapped by the weight of his failure, unable to free himself until it was too late.
    By the time Duncan had reached them, they were dead. He’d failed them all. He had promised to have their backs and he had lied.
    He woke with a start, his throat raw and his hair wet with sweat. He scanned the overly bright room, and it took him a moment to piece it together. He wasn’t on board the MH-60 headed to the field hospital. He wasn’t on the C-17 taking him from Afghanistan to Germany. He wasn’t in the recovery room at Landstuhl or the rehab floor at Walter Reed. The light that hit his eyes also spilled over fancy upholstered furniture, an attached marble bathroom, fresh flowers on the fireplace mantel, a dining nook, expensive linens, and a huge painting of . . .
that damn mermaid.
    Duncan groaned, propping himself against the fancy tufted headboard. He willed his pulse to slow. A quick check of his cell phone revealed it was almost seven thirty—hence the nightmare. He had fallen back asleep for at least two hours, which he should never do. Morning nightmares tended to be the most vicious.
    Duncan looked down at himself. His legs and arms trembled with weakness and fear. His T-shirt was soaked through with perspiration. He couldn’t let anyone see him like this and knew he had to pull himself together. After a few moments, he slowly draped his legs over the side of the king-sized bed.
    His eyes automatically flashed to the painting again. She called to him from above the mantel. Like a well-sexed woman waiting for her lover to return to bed, she lay stretched out on her stomach, cheek resting on folded arms, making sure he noticed her. All that wild dark hair floating in a halo around her head. Those sleepy eyes.That sexy dip of the small of her back before it curved into her—
mermaid tail
.
    “Oh, for God’s sake, Flynn,” he mumbled to himself. He steadied his feet on the shiny wood floor and was about to push himself to a stand when he froze.
    Duncan snatched the large feather from the nightstand and twirled the stiff vane between his fingers, examining his mother’s latest gift. The tail feather was that of an adult osprey, this particular specimen measuring about ten inches long and two inches at its widest, dominated by alternating black and white stripes. Duncan stroked his fingers upward along the downy softness. He’d seen many of these through the years, dropped on Bayberry Island beaches or snagged in the dune grass by winds. But this particular feather was obviously a product of one of the tourist shops on Main Street. Its natural beauty was accessorized with a strand of elaborately knotted black and white string dotted with multicolored glass beads, which trailed from the vane like the tail of a kite.
    It was pretty enough, he supposed, but his mother shouldn’t have spent her money on something like this. Duncan sighed, figuring he’d get around to putting it on the bookshelf, along with the rest of the week’s haul—a shellacked starfish, a necklace made of tiny shells and stones, and chunks of sea glass in blues and greens.
    Duncan stood. Slowly. Carefully. He focused on the even distribution of his weight and took the thirteen steps required to reach the head, intentionally keeping his eyes away from the painting. With unwavering concentration and one deliberate movement after the next, he managed to shower, shave, and throw on a clean pairof shorts and a T-shirt. He refused to dwell on the fact that it took forty minutes of precise concentration to perform