IslandAffair

over. He said I didn’t need the distraction.” He shook his head, his
aguish evident. “God, Rob. I didn’t even know you were hurt.”
    Rob watched the emotion play across John’s face. “That
bastard!”
    “I know.” He looked down at himself ruefully. “Now I wish
I’d hit him harder, or repeatedly.”
    Robin felt his own temper begin to stir again as he thought
about how much heartache the bodyguard had caused him. He gritted his teeth. “I
wish you had too.”
    “I am sorrier than you can ever know. Please, tell me it’s
not too late.”
    He looked into the John’s eyes and wanted to say that no, it
wasn’t too late but then he thought again of having to face his family and
friends and hesitated. As though sensing his indecision, John reached out his
hand, not touching, just waiting. Robin looked at the other man as he stood
dripping on the tiles, eyes full of his heart. He reached out and squeezed
John’s hand before releasing it to open the door.
    “Come on. You can take me home.”

Chapter Six
     
    John winced as he climbed out of his rented SUV and the cold
evening air chilled the wet clothes sticking to him. Goose bumps rose on his
arms and he shivered. He spent far too much time in swimming pools
involuntarily around Robin.
    Barretts Cross was every bit as small as Robin had told him
and as he’d followed Rob’s directions through the streets to his apartment
above the café, John began to understand why Robin opted to stay in the closet.
It was one of those “everyone knows everybody else and their business” kind of
places. The main street looked like it was the hub of life and in the
five-minute drive from the swimming pool to here, they had passed three
churches. There were a handful of tables in the window of the café and the
people who sat at them watched with avid curiosity as Robin led the way to his
door.
    John took his bag from the trunk of the car and tried to
ignore his bedraggled state as the other man led him inside. His lover had
changed so much and it terrified John to see just how badly injured he must
have been. Robin could have died. Dan said he had recovered but it looked to
John as though it was still an ongoing process. He looked at the livid scars on
Rob’s head and his heart swooped toward his feet. The golden touch of the sun
from Paradise had long faded and Rob’s skin held the pallor of recent illness.
Dark shadows lay under his eyes and he was too thin. The other scrapes and
bruises visible on his arms and legs made John frown. Robin had confessed that
he was clumsy. Had his head injury somehow made it worse? It made his heart
hurt to think so.
    They climbed up the short flight of stairs and through a
door into a small living room. It was bright and homey with cream walls and a
battered brown leather sofa and chairs on a colorful rug. Robin gestured at one
of the doors in the opposite wall.
    “Bathroom’s through there. Would you like a drink?”
    “Some water or juice would be great, thanks.”
    John took his bag into the white- and pale-green-tiled room
and dried off and changed quickly. When he came back into the living area,
Robin was still rustling around in the kitchen. He took a seat on the sofa and
in a few minutes Robin returned with two glasses of ice water and sat at the
other end. John tried not to be discouraged by the amount of space he left between
them but at least he hadn’t sat in one of the armchairs. He hated this
awkwardness between them.
    “So, they found him guilty?” Robin asked eventually.
    John looked up from his study of his hands. “Yes, but he had
a massive stroke before the jury reached a verdict.”
    “I saw that on the news. Does this mean you’re safe now?”
Robin looked at him, a hint of worry on his face. “I mean, it looks as if
you’ve lost your shadows.”
    “They seem to think so. Armstrong’s network dissolved when
it became obvious the man wasn’t going to recover. It couldn’t hold up against
the arrests that had been made and the loss of its leader. If he had made it to
the end of the trial that might not have been the case…there was talk of
witness protection.”
    Rob gasped softly. They both knew if that had happened
they’d certainly never have seen each other again.
    “I would have refused it. If I had known. God, so many
things would have been different if I’d known.”
    Robin smiled sadly. “Dan has a lot to answer for.”
    “Aye, he does.” John felt the anger at all the agent