by Alice Sharpe
“A real kiss,” she said. “I have a feeling...oh, just humor me.”
His hand fell from her cheek to her shoulder then to her waist. She stepped closer and raised her face to gaze at him. She couldn’t get over the feeling she’d looked at him like this a thousand times. As he lowered his head and claimed her mouth, she melted against his chest, her arms wrapping around his neck. There was a humming sexuality in him, a lustiness that shook her down to her soul. He lifted her briefly off her feet, her arms wrapped around his neck, his kiss deep and long, scorching her with its fire. When he set her down, she stepped back to collect her breath. His hands followed her retreat and she caught and clasped them in hers. If he touched her again, she wasn’t sure what she would do.
“We’ve kissed before,” she said.
“Do you remember?”
“No. But you’re not denying it, either.”
“No, I’m not denying it,” he said.
Their heads began to drift together again. She wanted another kiss and maybe a whole lot more. Nothing else mattered. Right as his succulent lips touched hers, a car rounded the curve in the road and headlights flooded over them. Her heart went from drumming with anticipation to thundering in her ears as it kicked into stampede mode. But the car passed by them, not even slowing down, and she could see in its wake that it was a small compact, an unlikely choice for three large men.
The episode threw Chelsea back into the present. Apparently it had the same effect on Adam.
“We need to get back to camp,” he said, staring into her eyes. “If Holton’s guys are coming after us, we need to be ready.” He kissed her forehead again and took her hand. “Come on.”
Chapter Eight
“Looks like no one killed us in our sleep,” Chelsea said the next morning when they both awoke to find they’d nodded off.
Adam smiled, but secretly grimaced. He’d meant to stay awake all night so Chelsea could rest... Well, as she had just pointed out, they were still alive and kicking.
As she had the night before, she insisted he lift his shirt so she could check out the wound. “It seems to be healing nicely,” she announced, running her hands over his bare skin. “It doesn’t feel feverish.”
Maybe his skin didn’t feel feverish but if she kept touching him that way, there would be blazing heat and she’d be both the cause and the solution. He found himself staring at her tempting and delicious lips, which were puffed out a little as she concentrated. Last night’s kiss flared in his mind and he inched closer to her right as she lowered his shirt.
“I predict you’re going to be fine in a day or two,” she said.
He just stared at her. His mind was not on his wound.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she said, and excused herself to walk to the restrooms. He took a few deep breaths and made it as far as the picnic table, where he could watch her progress and make sure no one was interested in her activities except him. The fact his attention was focused solely on the way her hips moved as she walked was just a sidetracking fact of life.
“Snap out of it,” he chastised himself.
The uneasy feeling that had been eating at him since the day before returned. Where were the thugs? If he’d been determined to follow someone, he’d have waited near the on-ramp to the only highway leading out of town. Had they been lurking there and just hadn’t recognized him behind the wheel of the truck? It was possible. They had changed cars and he’d been wearing Doc’s old hat.
It was a chilly morning made chillier by the fact that this was the last day for an unknown length of time that he would see Chelsea. The kiss last night had opened the doorway for him to explain the true scope of their relationship. Soon. With her brother to support her, Adam would tell her about their baby. She had to know and he had to be the one to tell her. After that he’d leave to draw danger away from her and then once he had resettled, he’d get word to her and it would be up to her what she did next.
The whole thing was fraught with multiple opportunities for disaster, but at least she wouldn’t be alone. Bill would know how to reconnect her to her parents and then when her memory came back—well, that’s when the true decision making would start.
That was the plan, anyway.
He looked up to see her approaching and his heart did the clichéd thumping in his chest. “I’m starving,” she announced as she stopped a few feet in front of him.
“Is there anything to eat in the icebox?” he asked.
“Not really. How about we go to a real live restaurant?”
“Why not?” he said.
Breaking camp consisted of putting more water in the radiator and climbing into the cab. Fifteen miles later, they came across a dusty little town named Fiddlestick with a one-stop convenience store/gas station/post office/restaurant all housed in a single rambling building.
The inside was bustling with what appeared to be regulars. No one looked suspicious, although almost all conversations paused as the two of them walked through the door.
“Looks like you order at the counter,” Chelsea said. “I still have a little bit of the money that you gave me. I’ll get breakfast.”
“I’ll have the usual,” he said, and then smiled at her expression. “Yes, we’ve eaten together before and, yes, often enough that somewhere in your pretty head you know what I like. Order me black coffee and a bacon-and-egg breakfast sandwich. You always order an everything bagel with light cream cheese.”
“Always?”
“In my experience, yes. I guess we each have our habits. I’ll go scout out a table.”
Breakfast was delivered fast, and was hot and tasty. As they sat at a small table, surrounded by babbling strangers and laughter, the air full of delicious smells, Adam felt whisked back to the months in Frisco. Chelsea loved eating out and with her, he’d discovered the joy of being alone, together, in a crowd to the point that this interlude struck him as not just ordinary, but extraordinary. He suddenly wanted that carefree life back with a vengeance. He cautioned himself not to get complacent. No matter how tired he was of running, he couldn’t stop, because Holton wouldn’t.
Filled up and ready to tackle the next several hours of driving, they got back in the truck and headed south.
After months in San Francisco’s foggy, cool climate and then weeks underneath trees, the open skies of the desert aroused a host of fond memories for Adam. Even the colors were familiar: sage-green foliage, earth a dozen shades of tan, distant purplish mountains, faded blue skies.
But the driving soon became monotonous. With no air-conditioning, they rolled down their windows so air could blow through the cab, billowing their clothes, rustling their hair.
“This road just keeps going on and on and on,” Chelsea eventually said. She’d propped her feet against the dashboard and extended one arm through the open window. Her head rested against the seat while windblown strands of loose dark hair flew across her cheeks. She looked absolutely wonderful. The monotony he’d been feeling fled at the sight of her blue eyes trained on his face.
Another hour passed before he finally spotted a sign that read Dry Gulch 2 Miles.
“Here’s where we fill the tank and turn right,” he announced as he pulled into the town’s sole gas station.
After a quick stop, they drove off and it rejuvenated both of them to be off the main highway for the simple reason that this road wasn’t as flat and straight. Eventually they rolled up to a stop sign, where another road crossed. This had to be four corners. He turned right and Chelsea ticked off the different steps Adam had jotted on some scrap paper. They made all of Bill’s twists and turns until they found themselves approaching a barn with a giant painting of a beer bottle on the side.
“Eleven more miles,” Chelsea said.
“And then what?”
“A gulch, a fence, then Bill’s property. Follow the road until you hi
t a slight rise covered with mesquite trees. From there we can see his place.” She looked up from the paper. “Or so it says here. I’ll believe it when I see it.”
The road, which had been steadily deteriorating, began to show signs of more frequent use as No Trespassing and Private Property signs expressing various levels of threats and or elses began to show up nailed to fence posts and random trees. There was a lot of barbed wire present as well, and a gate that had been pushed aside and left open for what appeared, judging from the sandy earth currently blocking its path, to have been a season or two.
“Give me a crash course in my brother,” Chelsea said as they passed a sign warning the federal government that the land was protected by patriots.
“He’s a little on the aggressive side of privacy,” Adam said diplomatically. “He believes in the rights of citizens to bear arms and protect themselves against any and all contingencies that threaten their sovereignty. In other words, he and his wife, Jan, take care of themselves and brook no interference. And they distrust the government.”
“I see. So, how do you two get along?”
“I’ve never actually met him.”
“What? I thought you knew him. I thought he knew you!”
“You and I have only known each other a few months,” he explained. “We were going to go visit him...we just never got around to it.”
She turned a puzzled expression in his direction. “Since when do casual friends travel hours and hours to visit each other’s families?”
He started to stammer something and she waved him off. “I know, you’ll tell me later.”
“You and Bill,” he added, hastening to move the conversation along, “have your political differences, but as far as I could tell, you adopted a live-and-let-live policy toward each other. And you should know that he didn’t hesitate offering to give you sanctuary and protection.”
“That’s nice. How long will you stay before you leave?”
He glanced at the dashboard clock. It was early afternoon. “Until you’re comfortable with your brother and his wife. Then I’d better go.”
“Okay,” she said, her voice noncommittal, as though she wasn’t sure if she resented him leaving or couldn’t wait to be out from under his wing. He guessed it was a little of both.
They finally found a scattered copse of mesquite trees topping a small hill. Adam stopped the truck and got out. His first order of business was to fill the radiator with water, then he joined Chelsea under the meager shade of the trees to peruse the compound down below.
He counted three barns, a double-wide trailer, what looked like a cinderblock outbuilding and a covered shelter surrounding a pasture that housed two goats, two cows and a horse who lurked under the shade of the only tree. Chickens roamed about in another pen and half a dozen vehicles of various configurations were scattered throughout. A small garden grew close to the house. A covered well sat next to that, complete with a hand pump and a trough. A static windmill crowned the bucolic scene.
“You’re right. They are the self-sufficient type,” Chelsea said.
“Well, they are out in the middle of nowhere,” Adam agreed. “I bet their nearest neighbor is literally miles away.”
At that moment, a man wearing dark jeans and a white shirt walked out of the double wide, looked up the hill and waved an arm, as if gesturing them to come on down.
“Is that him? Is that Bill?”
All Adam could tell from that distance was that he was blond and big, which matched the picture of Bill he’d seen in Chelsea’s parents’ home. “I believe so,” he said.
Adam waved back at the man. As Chelsea turned to retrace her steps to the truck, she called over her shoulder, “It’s time to meet the family. You coming?”
He glanced once again at the double-wide, but Bill had apparently gone back inside, probably to alert his wife that their visitors were here. He turned to the truck to find that Chelsea already sat in the passenger seat, a smiling, hopeful expression on her face.
It hit him hard—her only reality was the loss of identity, including her family, her background and relationships. He’d done nothing but drag her miles away from a crash he’d admitted she never would have been in if it hadn’t been for him. She’d be crazy to not want to reconnect with real people who could prove who they were.
That trailer and the people inside it represented the future to her and until her memory came back, he made up little more than forty-eight hours of her past. It was time to get this over with.
* * *
CHELSEA PUSHED ASIDE the sadness that the thought of Adam leaving her behind created—there was no point in dwelling on it—and instead concentrated on finally getting some answers, both from her brother and from Adam. What she might learn about herself was scary but she was ready for just about anything.
They pulled up right beside a short flight of stairs that led into the aproned trailer. It was apparently the back door to the place, but as it was open, it seemed the place to start. Adam parked alongside a truck that looked even older than theirs. It sported a gun rack in the back window, complete with two rifles. A prominent bumper sticker dominated by a pair of puckered red lips read Kiss My Arsenal.
She waited for Adam to join her and preceded him up the stairs. She kept expecting her brother and his wife to emerge from the trailer, but something must have demanded their attention. She and Adam walked inside and then paused. They were standing in the kitchen. A narrow doorway occupied the left wall. Adam called out, “Bill? Jan?”
They heard a sound coming through the doorway that led to the rest of the home, but no accompanying voices. Chelsea walked toward the inner door and moved into a darkish combined dining-living area. Closed drapes explained the gloom. The only light came from a skylight in the ceiling, and strapped into a chair situated under that beam of light sat a bound-and-gagged man. Behind him, piled high, were several cartons of weapons.
Adam immediately drew his handgun and turned on his heels. Where was the guy who’d signaled at them? Chelsea hurried to the man’s side. He was a large guy with dark blond hair and a very bushy, curly beard. He wore faded denim overalls and a yellow T-shirt.
“Start with the gag,” Adam urged as he joined her. “We have to know what’s going on.”
She loosened the man’s gag and pulled it from his mouth. “They’ve taken Jan,” he blurted out. “Did you see her outside?”
“Are you Bill?” Chelsea asked.
“Oh, gosh, yeah, sis, I’m your brother and Jan is my wife. Did you see her?”
“No,” Chelsea told him. “You don’t know where she is?”
“They won’t tell me. They only kept me alive in case they needed bait. God knows what they’ve done to her.”
“Who are they?” Adam demanded as he brought out a pocketknife and began slicing through knots. His voice sounded like he dreaded the reply.
“I figure they’re those Feds you told me about. Man, you must have really pissed them off.”
“Not Feds,” Adam said. “But you don’t know them at all?”
“Never seen them before.”
“Did they say who they were working for?”
“No.”
“How many of them are there?”
“Three. One’s got a bad arm, though. Mean SOB.”
Adam swore as he and Chelsea exchanged looks.
“How did they find us?” she whispered.
Adam shook his head.
Bill looked contrite as he met Adam’s gaze. “I know you asked me not to tell anyone you were coming here, but I’ve got to admit I called Mom and Dad and I suspect they told the rest of the family. I had to let them know Chelsea was okay.”
“When did these guys show up?”
“Late last night. One took Jan away while the other two tied me up and then they took turns guarding me and waiting for yo
u two to get here. They kept talking about how to make it look like a bunch of weapons exploded, like they wanted it to look like some kind of ingrown mishap that turned into a death trap, and not cold-blooded murder. Those boxes behind me are full of weapons. No ammunition, though.”
“We saw a big, blond man outside,” Chelsea said. Glancing up at Adam, she added, “He must have been the driver in the alley.” She untied the last knot on Bill’s wrists but jerked when the sound of hammering on the kitchen door sounded through the metal structure.
Adam had now cut through the bindings on Bill’s ankles and the shaken man stood up. Hours in restraints had taken their toll and he almost tumbled over. Chelsea caught him as Adam ran into the kitchen to check out the noise. Chelsea scurried to the door next to a small fireplace.
“Don’t open that,” Bill said.
“Why not?”
“Because they rigged it to explode if it opens from the inside.”
“The kitchen door has been nailed shut from the outside,” Adam said as he strode back into the dining area. He gestured at the front door. “What about that one?”
“Can’t use it,” Chelsea said. She looked at her brother. “Is there another one?”
“In the bedroom,” Bill said, pointing behind him. “But I heard banging back there, too. There’s another way—unless they found it.” He took a few unsteady steps, found his legs and dashed down the short hall, with Adam and Chelsea close behind.
Adam found the door Bill mentioned and tried to open it, but Bill was tugging on the big bed that occupied the middle of the room. “You guys help me push this thing against the wall,” he muttered. As Chelsea gripped a bedpost, they heard breaking glass. A second later an explosion caused the whole structure to shake and a second after that, smoke made its way to their noses.
Chelsea darted back to the living room. The opaque window set into the front door was now just shards of glass, broken by the bomb they’d thrown into the trailer. She started coughing as flames raced up the drapes. For a second, she couldn’t look away from the fire.
