Sheltering Dunes Read online

  Synopsis

  The lives of two women and the community that shelters them shatter in a single night of violence.

  Ex-gang member Mica Butler is running from a past that just may kill her if she’s ever caught. Paramedic and ordained priest Flynn Edwards struggles to recover her faith in herself and find absolution for her greatest failure. Sheriff Reese Conlon fights to embrace the joy of new life while a dark threat bears down on her partner, Doctor Tory King.

  In one explosive night, the destinies of all involved change forever as a man with nothing to lose threatens to take anyone in his path with him to the grave.

  Seventh in the award-winning Provincetown Tales

  Sheltering Dunes

  Brought to you by

  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

  By Radclyffe

  Romances

  Innocent Hearts

  Promising Hearts

  Love’s Melody Lost

  Love’s Tender Warriors

  Tomorrow’s Promise

  Love’s Masquerade

  shadowland

  Passion’s Bright Fury

  Fated Love

  Turn Back Time

  When Dreams Tremble

  The Lonely Hearts Club

  Night Call

  Secrets in the Stone

  Desire by Starlight

  Honor Series

  Above All, Honor

  Honor Bound

  Love & Honor

  Honor Guards

  Honor Reclaimed

  Honor Under Siege

  Word of Honor

  Justice Series

  A Matter of Trust (prequel)

  Shield of Justice

  In Pursuit of Justice

  Justice in the Shadows

  Justice Served

  Justice For All

  The Provincetown Tales

  Safe Harbor

  Beyond the Breakwater

  Distant Shores, Silent Thunder

  Storms of Change

  Winds of Fortune

  Returning Tides

  Sheltering Dunes

  First Responders Novels

  Trauma Alert

  Firestorm

  Short Fiction

  Collected Stories by Radclyffe

  Erotic Interludes: Change of Pace

  Radical Encounters

  Edited by Radclyffe

  Best Lesbian Romance 2009-2011

  Stacia Seaman and Radclyffe, eds.:

  Erotic Interludes 2: Stolen Moments

  Erotic Interludes 3: Lessons in Love

  Erotic Interludes 4: Extreme Passions

  Erotic Interludes 5: Road Games

  Romantic Interludes 1: Discovery

  Romantic Interludes 2: Secrets

  Breathless: Tales of Celebration

  By L.L. Raand

  Midnight Hunters

  The Midnight Hunt

  Blood Hunt

  Sheltering Dunes

  © 2011 By Radclyffe. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-60282-609-0

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: November 2011

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editors: Ruth Sternglantz and Stacia Seaman

  Production Design: Stacia Seaman

  Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])

  Acknowledgments

  Safe Harbor (the first in the Provincetown Tales) was one of the first books I wrote, and at the time, my intention was to write about a place I loved and populate it with characters I admired. I hoped to tell a love story filled with passion and healing. I wasn’t thinking about archetypes, or the hero’s journey, or any literary convention. I was thinking about what made a hero, and words like honor, valor, bravery, dedication, and sacrifice came to mind. I like to write lesbian heroes, because heroism is a daily part of queer life, whether we are serving our country and our fellow human beings, or living our lives, day by day, as honestly as we can, even as we demand our right to do so. Reese Conlon turned out to be an archetypal hero—the warrior chief whose attributes have not changed in centuries. She is not without weakness, or fear, or uncertainty, and she finds her strength as heroes often do, in a woman as strong as her.

  When I wrote Sheltering Dunes (book seven), I wrote a different kind of hero than in many of my books. I usually write women of action because I believe women need to see themselves portrayed as being in charge, being leaders, being fearless, being capable and competent— because we are all those things. And of course, we are far more. In this book I had the opportunity to write a spiritual warrior, and Flynn Edwards has been one of my most satisfying characters to explore and develop. Like so many others in this series, Flynn came to Provincetown to leave her past behind and to search for her future. I hope you enjoy her journey and the unlikely love she finds, along with the return visits of other characters from the Provincetown and Justice series. Thank you all for continuing on the journey.

  I’d like to thank my assistant, Sandy Lowe, for research support and the many ways she finds to free me to write; author Nell Stark for being an enthusiastic reader and a sensitive critic; Ruth Sternglantz for her tremendous job of editing this and all my novels; Stacia Seaman, who always brings a fresh eye and impeccable knowledge to the final edits; and my first readers Connie, Eva, Jenny, and Paula for support during the most difficult stage of all, the first draft.

  And to Lee, who has weathered every storm, literally and figuratively, and still provides unwavering support—Amo te.

  Radclyffe, 2011

  To Lee

  My shelter in a storm

  Chapter One

  Provincetown, MA

  She couldn’t be late on the third morning of a new job, not when the job was the only thing standing between her and everything she’d escaped. Pedaling the borrowed bicycle as fast as she could down the center of Commercial Street, weaving around parked delivery vans, early-morning coffee seekers, and dog walkers, she sped toward the restaurant at the far west end of town. Despite the chill coming off the harbor at six fifteen in the morning, sweat trickled down the center of her chest, dampening the pale blue tank top in a small circle directly between her breasts. Wisps of hair escaped the tie she’d carelessly wrapped around the thick waves at the back of her neck in her haste to leave the small, nearly airless room in the sprawling rooming house across the street from the harbor. One strand caught in the corner of her mouth, and she jerked her head, trying to dislodge it in the wind. Her heart beat a staccato rhythm against her rib cage. She couldn’t lose this job. She had nowhere else to go. Here, she was safe, or as safe as she might ever be.

  She glanced down at the thrift-shop watch, the hands moving far too quickly beneath the scratched crystal. Five minutes. She would make it just in time. Relief flooded through her like a tender word, unexpected and rare. She rocketed into the intersection of Standish and Commercial at the foot of MacMillan Wharf. A white van with black letters appeared like an apparition rising in a dream. She had one heart-stopping second to jerk the handlebars and swerve around the front grille, the screech of brakes and t
he blare of a horn piercing the early-morning stillness. The impact startled her more than anything else, and then she was airborne. The cool, damp air smelled of salt and seaweed, so different from the pungent odors of trash and broken dreams on the streets of the barrio.

  *

  “Hey, Flynn,” Dave called across the squad room, “are you going to play or not?”

  Flynn closed her book, keeping her finger between the pages to hold her place, considering her answer. She’d been avoiding thinking about the Columbus Day weekend touch football fund-raiser for a week and a half. She ought to play. The game was a town tradition, the proceeds went to a number of community outreach programs, and she couldn’t avoid seeing Allie in social situations forever. Other than brief encounters on the job, she hadn’t seen Allie since the day Allie had been shot and Flynn had told Ash Walker that Allie needed her. Allie had needed Ash, not Flynn. No matter how much Flynn had wanted to be the one standing by Allie’s bedside, had wanted to be the one Allie needed, she hadn’t been Allie’s choice. She’d never been Allie’s choice. Allie had always been in love with Ash, and it hadn’t taken Flynn more than seeing them together once to figure that out. So she’d walked away and Allie and Ash had worked out their issues, just like she’d known they would. She’d pretty much worked out her own too. She wasn’t in love with Allie, not exactly. She might have been, if they’d seen each other a few more times. If they’d slept together, but they hadn’t. Not quite. The spark had been there, the possibility had been there, but the timing had been wrong.

  Flynn almost laughed. Timing seemed to be everything with her, and she had yet to get it right. She kept almost falling in love, only to discover she’d been too late or too love-struck to see there were problems, time after time. When she’d come here, changing the entire direction of her life, she’d hoped the pattern of her life would change as well. As if that were in her control. She knew it wasn’t. Even if she hadn’t believed that a greater plan, a greater power, was at work, she couldn’t alter the road her life was destined to follow any more than she already had. She was done running. This was home and she was staying.

  “I’ll be there,” Flynn called, because she couldn’t change the facts. Not about Allie, not about herself, not about where she’d been or where she was going.

  “Good.” Dave tossed the damp rag he had used to polish the medic unit into a bucket. “I’ve seen you run and we need a fast cor—”

  An alarm blared—the computerized dispatch system signaling a callout. Flynn dropped the book into the gear bag she carried everywhere when on duty, jumped up, and jogged into the vehicle bay. Dave was already climbing behind the wheel as she grabbed a radio. She dove into the passenger seat, stashed her bag on the floor, and buckled in as Dave roared out onto Shank Painter Road. He liked to drive, and she didn’t mind riding shotgun. She slid the electronic tablet from the slot on the dash and pulled up the stats on the call. The details came up on her screen, relayed from the officer in the field to the emergency dispatcher who had entered the data into the system.

  She read them out. “Standish and Commercial. Vehicle versus bicycle. Two injured. Police on scene.”

  “I still think the town oughtta close Commercial to vehicular traffic during the season,” Dave muttered, swinging onto Bradford. “It’s amazing we don’t get more of these.”

  They were two minutes away, and Flynn quickly logged in the details on her tablet. “The next few weeks are going to be crazy, what with Women’s Week coming up and then Fantasia right after that. Hopefully this isn’t just the first of many.”

  Dave pulled in next to several police cruisers angled haphazardly across the four-way intersection, light bars strobing and radios squawking. Onlookers crowded the sidewalks and uniformed officers directed them back. One officer was taking a statement from the driver of a white catering van stalled in the center of the intersection, and two more flanked a person lying on the ground. Even from a distance, Allie was easily recognizable as one of the officers with the injured individual—her ebony hair, gathered in a twist at the back of her neck, and her statuesque body were impossible to miss.

  “I’ll check the pedestrian,” Flynn said. “You clear the driver.”

  “Got it.”

  Flynn jumped down from the cab, unlocked the side compartment on the medic unit, and pulled out the red field-trauma kit. As she jogged over to the scene, Allie looked up, and the beauty of her dark soulful eyes was like a kick in the chest. Painful and exhilarating. Allie smiled and said hi with a hint of Southern drawl, and Flynn smiled back. No point in avoiding the truth. Allie was Allie, gorgeous and sexy without ever trying. Fate had made another decision for her, bringing her face-to-face with Allie’s irresistible charm. Why fight it? Better just to let another piece of the past go, even if another part of her heart went with it.

  “Hi, Allie.” Flynn deposited her kit on the ground and squatted next to the victim, a young woman, who lay motionless on her back in the street. The woman, in jeans and a blue tank top, appeared to be in her early twenties, dark-haired, Hispanic maybe, with nutmeg skin, bold dark brows, a strong nose, and a wide, full-lipped mouth. Right now, her lips were pale and her coal-dark eyes unfocused and stunned. Flynn reached for her BP cuff and glanced at Allie. “What do we have?”

  “She was on a bicycle,” Allie said, “and she and the van over there met up in the middle of the intersection. According to the driver, he clipped the rear of the bike and she went over the handlebars. She was conscious when we arrived and moving all fours, but she’s disoriented.”

  While Allie talked, Flynn wrapped the cuff around the young woman’s right bicep, noting a tattoo of a heart with a knife thrust through it high up on her deltoid. She leaned over so the girl could see her face. “Hi. I’m Flynn, a paramedic. Can you tell me your name?”

  The girl didn’t answer.

  Dave knelt down across from Flynn and smoothly slid a cervical collar around the young woman’s neck, securing it with the Velcro tab. “Driver’s okay. Shook up. How we doing over here?”

  “Ninety over sixty,” Flynn said as the digital readout on the blood pressure cuff settled. “Confused, but no apparent loss of consciousness.” She tried again. “Hey, can you tell me your name? Do you remember what happened?”

  The young woman muttered, “Mi—Mica. I’m Mica.” She struggled, twisting from side to side, trying to get up. “I have to get to work. I’m going to be late.”

  “Don’t try to move.” Flynn rested her fingertips lightly against the girl’s shoulder. Just that little bit of pressure was enough to keep her down. She set her stethoscope onto the bare skin of Mica’s chest above the scooped neck of her tank top and listened to her heart and lungs. Everything sounded good, and she tossed the stethoscope back into her box. When she looked down, the girl’s dark eyes were focused on her, clear but wary. “Can you tell me where you hurt?”

  “Nowhere. I’m fine. I have to go.” Mica looked past the blonde with the concerned gaze and gentle hands to the circle of uniformed officers surrounding her. A swell of panic flooded her throat. She couldn’t afford to be hurt—she had no insurance and almost no money. Worse, she couldn’t afford to be noticed, not by anyone, but especially not by the police. She needed to go to work. If she missed work, she could lose her job. Her boss hadn’t wanted to hire anyone so late in the season, but she’d promised to stay all winter and work for partial wages if she had to. She needed the job. She needed to stay anonymous, unknown, unnoticed. She tried to pull the blood pressure cuff off her arm. “Please. I’m fine. I have to go.”

  “Whoa, take it easy.” The paramedic—Flynn?—had a deep voice, calm but commanding. “You need to be checked out. We’re going to transport you to the hospital in Hyannis.”

  “No!” The panic turned to terror. She’d worked so hard to disappear—she couldn’t surface in the system now. “No! I’m fine. I don’t want medical treatment.”

  “You’ve got a bump on your head,” Flynn said, “a
nd a scrape on your shoulder that need evaluation.”

  “I’m not going to any hospital.” Details were coming back to her now—the wild bike ride, the white van in the intersection. The time. The time. She tried to turn her head to see what had happened to her landlady’s bike. God, hopefully it wasn’t trashed. She didn’t have the money to replace it. “What time is it?”

  Flynn frowned. “A little after six thirty.”

  “Dios, I have to go. I’m going to lose my job.”

  “You’ve been in an accident. It’s not your fault. You’re not going to lose your job because of it.”

  Anger replaced the terror. “You don’t know that. You don’t know anything about me.” Mica pushed herself up. Her head swirled, and she swallowed back a wave of nausea. “You can’t take me anywhere if I refuse.”

  “You’re right,” Flynn said, still sounding calm, still patient. “We can’t. But you need to be examined.” Her handsome face tightened in concentration. “How about if we take you to the local clinic. If the docs say you don’t need to go to the hospital, we won’t go.”

  “I can’t,” Mica exploded. “I’ll lose my job.”

  “Okay, okay,” Flynn said, gently squeezing Mica’s arm. “How about this—tell me where you work. I’ll call them myself and explain what happened. Will you come with us if I talk to your boss and make sure you’re not going to lose your job?”

  The other paramedic cleared his throat as if he was trying to interrupt or get Flynn’s attention, but she ignored him, her eyes steady on Mica’s. Something about the way she spoke, the way she looked, made Mica almost believe her, even though she knew better. People in authority said what they wanted you to believe and then did whatever they pleased. She knew better than to trust her. “Why should you care?”