Read Online Touched by Lightning [Dreams of You] (Romantic Suspense) by Tina Wainscott - Free Book Online Page A

taste of hopelessness as the hours of the morning slipped by with no sign of Nikki. He roamed all over, stopped for lunch at McDonald’s, then roamed more. Dave hadn’t seen her all day, though he said that wasn’t unusual. Then he asked why Adrian missed the Wednesday Bible class. Adrian wanted to tell him that it wasn’t his soul he was worried about, it was his head. He made up some other excuse instead, finding this necessary lying coming a little easier each time.
    By late afternoon, his feet ached. He’d run into Seamus, who spoke so highly of Mama Jam’s Jamaican beef patties that he bought six for both of them. Seamus wolfed his down within seconds, his dirty fingers shoving them in his mouth. Losing his appetite, Adrian gave Seamus his three as well.
    Now, grumpy and hungry, Adrian wandered over to a makeshift bench, a board perched atop two halves of a green oil drum, and watched a barge cruise into the port of Palm Beach. He rubbed his fingers down his face, letting his body relax for the first time in hours. Within a few minutes a man with a large belly and grizzled gray beard sat down beside him. He nodded at Adrian as he settled onto the bench.
    Adrian felt instantly uncomfortable; not out of fear, but for some reason he didn’t want to delve into at the time. Still, he didn’t get up right away. The strange sense of social obligation seemed terribly out of place.
    “New ‘round here, aren’t you?” the man asked, though he kept watching the incoming barge.
    “Just passing through.”
    The man nodded. “I thought that too, when I first got here. That was ten years ago.”
    Adrian looked at him, a clammy feeling in his stomach. “What happened?”
    “Used to work on a ship. Much bigger than that thing over there.” He pointed to a large, steel ship in the distance. “I was the captain,” he said with a lift of his shoulders. “Captain Charlie. Made a lot of money, had respect.” He looked down at himself with a melancholy smile. “Hard to believe now.”
    Adrian reached in his pocket for his lighter and fired up a cigarette. Charley’s eyes lit up, and with the speed of a ferret, he was holding the gold lighter in his liver-spotted hands.
    “Nice lighter.” Charlie eyed Adrian. “Where did you get something like this?”
    Adrian retrieved it, sliding it in his pocket. Stupid move, Wilde. Nash. Get a Bic. “Friend gave it to me a long time ago.”
    “Oh.” Then Charlie’s eyes widened again as Adrian dropped his cigarette after two drags and stepped on the butt. “No! What are you doing?”
    Despite his rotund appearance, Charlie could move if he had to. Apparently, he did, because within a second he was down on his knees reaching for the cigarette with one hand and holding Adrian’s sneaker with the other. The cigarette was flat, but Charlie tenderly fingered it until it was oval at best.
    “How can you waste a whole cigarette like that?” After patting his pocket, he turned and asked, “Can I have a light off that pretty lighter of yours?”
    Adrian lit the squashed cigarette for him, holding tight to the lighter this time. Another mistake. Bums didn’t waste cigarettes or liquor, not for any reason. He’d have to save his lighting up for private moments, and leave the gold lighter at home.
    “So, what happened? When you were the respected captain?”
    “I made a stupid mistake. Got drunk one night and rammed the ship onto some shoals. They fired me but good. My wife divorced me in shame, and I left town.” He shrugged, taking a deep drag off the cigarette. “Not much work for drunk sailors these days.”
    “Maybe you should get off the booze,” Adrian said, not feeling much pity for the man now.
    Charlie turned to him, his watery gray eyes stern. “I haven’t had a drink in ten years, since that night. All it takes is one mistake in that industry, and you’re gone. I tried everything I could, but I couldn’t make ends meet. Now I have nothing. But I try. Once, I had