Deep Woods
Page 14
“It felt like I’d found my place,” said Cal. “The guys you serve with, they get to be like family. I guess jarheads aren’t much more imaginative than schoolkids because they called me Bigfoot, too. But...it was okay, coming from them.”
I nodded silently. I understood.
“I did four years, then applied for the Marine Raiders. They taught me a whole bunch of stuff.”
He said it like it was nothing, but my eyes were bugging out. He was Special Forces?!
“Got sent around the world, helping out here and there,” he said. “I was in for eleven years, all told.”
“You miss it?” I asked.
He didn’t answer for a while and I realized he was thinking about it. Either he hadn’t thought about it, all these years, or he hadn’t let himself.
“Yeah,” he said at last. “Yeah, I miss it.”
And then he just went quiet.
I waited. Nothing.
“What happened then?” I asked, keeping my voice light.
Silence. I sat up in the bath, staring at the sheet, wishing I could see him. “Cal?”
I strained my ears. I could hear his breathing, ragged with pain. Just as I was about to say something, he spoke. “I’m going to go check on the animals before we turn in.” His heavy footsteps, clumping across the wood floor, then the door opening and banging shut.
Something had happened after he left the Raiders, something that had led him to isolate himself out here. Something he couldn’t talk about. I sat there in the cooling water, arms around my knees, my chest tight with worry. In two days, I’d be gone. And whatever demons Cal had in his head, he’d be left alone with them forever.
36
Ralavich
I STOOD on the mansion’s balcony, looking out at the view as the sun went down. To the left, lights were gradually coming on, pinpricks of white and orange that joined up to form towns, with crawling caterpillars of car lights inching between them. To the right, there was...nothing. Just the blackness of the woods.
Bethany was in there, somewhere.
It had been two days since some cops had seen her in Marten Valley. They’d questioned the locals and someone had recognized the man she was with: some big, bearded loser who lived out in the woods—no one was sure exactly where. And—I felt the anger start to boil inside me, thick and dark as bubbling tar—Bethany was presumably spreading her legs for him, in return for living in his hovel.
She’d regret it. They both would.
Cairns had pointed out that the woods covered hundreds of square miles: we could search forever and never find them. His plan was to wait them out, catch them when they next came to Marten Valley.
But I’d had enough. The mansion was a pleasant enough place to spend time: I could run my business from here easily enough, they’d brought in a case of vodka, the good stuff, and there were plenty of girls to fuck. But I wanted her. And I wasn’t going to wait any longer. I’d kept my best attack dog on a chain for over two weeks. It was time to let him loose.
I summoned Alik. “We’re taking matters into our own hands.” I pointed to the woods. “Go out there and find her.”
Alik gave a long sigh of relief and a big, honest grin spread across his face. There’s something about soldiers, especially Special Forces soldiers. They can’t be idle. They need a mission or they get restless, even depressed. “My pleasure,” said Alik with feeling. As he turned to leave, he said, “Things may need to get...messy.”
“Do whatever you need to,” I told him. “Let’s show these idiots how we deal with problems in Russia.”
37
Cal
THE NEXT MORNING, I woke early and lay there on the floor looking at her in the bed. She was on her side, turned to face the wall, but even through the blankets, the glorious hourglass shape of her made me stare.
Today was her last full day at the cabin. Tomorrow morning, I’d take her to Jacques, and then she’d be gone. I wanted to spend every moment with her but at the same time, I couldn’t be around her. The feelings I’d been crushing down inside me for weeks were just too strong, now. Every second I was in her presence, that pull drew me in until I couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything except what it demanded. Tell her how I feel. Ask her to stay. Put my hands on her waist, pull her to me, and kiss her.
And then what? What would happen, if I gave in? I couldn’t get close to her. Not without coming clean about what I’d done. And if I did that, and she looked at me in horror….
I rolled over, jumped to my feet, and grabbed some clothes. Within a minute, I had my rifle and my backpack. I’d spend the day hunting. That would keep me safely away from her.
Rufus lifted his head from his spot curled up next to Bethany. I told him to stay and he looked offended, but put his head back down.
Outside, I saw black storm clouds piling up on the horizon. Dammit. I’d have to make sure I was back before that hit. But it looked like it was a way off: I could still be out for most of the day.
Normally, hunting calms me. There’s something about being in nature that gives me peace: that’s why I came to the woods. But now, it didn’t seem to be working. I kept going, moving further and further from the cabin but I still had this sense of unease, like something was missing.
Her. It was her. For years, I’d sought solitude. But I’d gotten used to having her around and now, it wasn’t the same without her. Tomorrow, she’d be gone forever. The woods would never feel the same again.
I pushed on, determined to prove my heart wrong. If I went deep enough, found a spot lonely enough, maybe I could get that peace back. But all that happened was that I missed her more. Goddammit!
Then the first heavy drop of rain hit my cheek. I looked up to see clouds rolling overhead, dark mountains that flickered with lightning. They’d moved a lot faster than I’d thought and I was much further from home than I’d planned.
The wind started to rise, setting trees rocking and bending, whistling between the trunks. Shit. This was going to be a bad one. A dangerous one. Bethany hadn’t been through anything like this, not out here in the wilds. And because I’d been selfishly trying to protect my own feelings, I’d left her all alone.
I started to run. And prayed I’d be in time.
38
Bethany
“Ready?” I asked Rufus. He gave an ear-splitting woof and leaped around like an eighty-pound puppy. “Go!”
I hurled the ball. It bounced off the ground, bounced off a tree, flew over my head, and arced down towards the undergrowth. Rufus ran one way, skidded to a stop, and bolted back the other way, almost knocking me off my feet as he passed, then leaped and caught the ball just before it hit the ground. He trotted back to me and dropped it at my feet, then nudged it with his nose: again, again!
I’d picked up the ball while we were in Marten Valley and I was hoping it would last for a good while after I was gone, something for Rufus to remember me by. Just the thought of that made my chest ache. Tomorrow, I’d be off to Canada. A new start, no more looking over my shoulder for the club...but I’d be on my own. And I couldn’t forget about the other women Ralavich had abducted. Maybe, once I was across the border, I could find someone in the Candian authorities who’d listen. But what if I couldn’t? What if they said it was a US problem and that the FBI should handle it? Then the club would have plenty of warning and would just shut down for a few months until the investigation was over. They might even kill the women at the mansion, just to cover their tracks.
I had to go, or I was putting Cal and Rufus at risk. But it felt like I was running away.
Rufus suddenly sat bolt upright and barked at the sky. A breeze was ruffling his coat and a few big drops of rain plopped into the dirt. I looked up to see huge black clouds covering the sky. I hadn’t noticed it getting darker but now, as the clouds covered the sun completely, it was like night had come early.
I wasn’t too worried. I was in a forest, so I’d be sheltered, right? How bad could it
be?
But then there was an eerie, rising howl from the trees. I knew the sound, that wail you get when the wind whistles around a tree, like a reed vibrating in a flute. But I’d never heard the wind filtered through ten thousand trees, before, or felt the way it broke apart into a million separate currents, only to recombine and blast you from every direction at once. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and Rufus nudged me with his head. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s get inside.”
We were halfway to the door when I remembered Betsy and Hank. Both were outside grazing. Crap! I hurried to where I’d left them and tried to get Betsy moving towards the barn, but she was unsettled by the wind and wasn’t feeling cooperative, edging to the side instead of going forward. Then the rain started, not so much drops as a constant, hissing stream that plastered my hair to my face and turned the ground to sticky mud. And the whole time, I was looking around me frantically, thinking where’s Hank? The goat was nowhere to be seen.
It took me a good ten minutes of battling and pleading with Betsy before I got her safely into her stall in the barn. By then, my shirt and jeans were soaked and I was shivering from the brutal gusts of wind that seemed to cut straight through my wet clothes. The wind had risen to an ear-splitting screech and lightning flashed overhead. Rufus, who’d stayed loyally pressed to my side the whole time, was shivering, his coat sopping wet and heavy.
I’d seen plenty of big storms in Seattle, but I’d always been safely sheltered inside, watching the lightning while cradling a mug of coffee. Being out here in the wilderness was very different. The temperature had dropped and the wind was so cold, that my head throbbed. One second, a gust was trying to punch its way down my throat, the next, it changed direction and I could barely breathe. It was terrifying, and getting worse.
I raced back to where I’d last seen Hank, but as I rounded the corner of the cabin, a gust took me right off my feet and I went full-length in the mud. I lay there stunned for a moment, the cold ground sapping my body’s heat.
Rufus licked my cheek, worried. I hauled myself to my feet, one whole side of my body coated in glutinous, gray-brown mud, and started searching through the trees for Hank. But it was almost completely dark, now, and he could be in any one of the patches of thick shadow. Worse, the wind was picking up anything that wasn’t bolted down and sending it scuttering along the ground. A watering can bounced past me and hit a tree. Then a branch as thick as my arm was bounced along the ground, spinning and twisting, and I had to dodge out of its way. If something like that hit Hank, he could be killed. Or he could run off into the woods, terrified, and we might never find him. I ran back and forth, venturing further and further from the cabin, Rufus nervously trotting at my side. “Hank!” I hollered. Nothing.
There was a crack that could have been the world snapping in two, and I was thrown to the ground. The air smelled like the photocopier at the call center and all I could see was red: throbbing, violent scarlet with a purple-white blob searing through the middle. It took a while for me to realize that I’d screwed my eyes shut and I tentatively inched them open, but the after-image the flash had left was so bright, it took me a few moments of blinking before I could see again.
Lightning had struck a tall pine right in front of me, splitting it halfway down and turning the top into a raging orange plume too fierce for the rain to put out. Burning branches started to creak and thump to the ground. Rufus gave a whine of fear. I have to get him out of here. But I couldn’t leave Hank...
And then, in the flickering light of the fire, I saw two big, scared eyes peeking out from the middle of a bush.
I raced over there, stumbling on legs that had gone numb and shaky. I didn’t have any time for niceties: the tree was cracking and leaning, the wind finishing what the lighting had started, and we were close enough that I could feel the fire’s heat on my face. I reached in, scooped Hank into my arms and staggered away with him, Rufus running alongside me. Embers were falling all around me and the icy rain hadn’t let up: I could feel myself being singed and soaked simultaneously, water pouring down my face and making it difficult to see. But I kept my eyes on the silhouette of the barn up ahead and kept putting one foot in front of the other. Just as we arrived, there was a groan and then the sound of snapping wood, and the pine that had been struck toppled to the ground.
I got Hank into his stall and shut the barn doors tight, then ran for the cabin, staggering as the gusts caught me. I was almost there when a branch came sailing through the air and punched end-on into one of the windows, shattering the glass and leaving the branch wedged in the hole. The shutters! I have to close the shutters! I ran around heaving them closed but they were made of thick, heavy wood, and the wind was trying to tear them out of my hands. Twice, I nearly had my fingers broken when I lost my grip and a shutter slammed back against the wall. Rufus barked and butted up against me, trying to nudge me towards the door and safety. “I know!” I told him. “One more!”
I heard the whistle of something rushing towards me a split second before it hit. I started to turn away, which may have saved my life. A branch slammed into my arm just above the elbow, making the whole limb light up with pain. I fell sideways, the pain bad enough to make me nauseous. I tried to get to my feet but every movement of my arm made me freeze and grind my teeth as a new wave of agony flashed through me. The wind was howling, now, blasting past my face so fast I couldn’t breathe. I tried again to get up but slipped in the mud and fell back on my ass, jolting my arm again. I cursed, hot tears filling my eyes.
And then suddenly, an arm was slipping under my legs and another under my back and I was being lifted into the air and tipped to rest against a broad, plaid-shirted chest. The final shutter was slammed closed and then we were running, with Rufus a dripping missile next to us. We barreled through the door and then we were in the luxuriously warm, dry air of the cabin.
He set me gently down on the edge of the bed. I blinked through my tears and then I was looking up into cornflower-blue eyes, frightened and angry and gorgeous.
39
Cal
I STARED DOWN AT HER, my heart pounding against my ribs. I’d run all the way home, dodging loose branches and a few times nearly being blown off my feet by gusts coming across a clearing. But when I’d seen her, outside in all the chaos, when she should have been safe in some apartment in the city, that’s when I’d gotten really frightened. Then I’d seen her arm, hanging limply by her side, and my chest ached with guilt. I’d failed to protect her.
“What happened to your arm?” I didn’t mean for it to sound so angry, but I was mad at her for being outside, mad at the men in the club who’d put her in this situation, mad at myself for not being here.
“Branch hit it,” she said through chattering teeth. The cold was starting to hit her, now. The cabin was warm but her thick plaid shirt and jeans were soaked through with rain and mud and they were leeching all the heat from her body. “B—Betsy and Hank are in the barn. A w—window broke.”
She’d run around out there in the middle of a storm saving the damn animals. Did she know how brave she was? I looked over my shoulder at the branch that was sticking through a window. “I’ll nail a tarp over it. We need to get your clothes off.” I grabbed a blanket from the bed and hung it over the stove to warm. Then I started popping buttons on her shirt without really thinking about what I was doing. It was only when I was halfway down and looking at her soaked, translucent t-shirt and her bra-clad breasts beneath that it sunk in that I was undressing her. I felt my face heat, but we didn’t have a choice: she couldn’t do it herself with one good arm.
I kept popping buttons. Her breasts pushed forward through the open shirt, almost brushing my chest. I helped her gently pull the shirt over her shoulders and off her arms, wincing along with her as we worked it past the place that hurt. I reached down and popped the button on her jeans, and now it was impossible not to feel like I was undressing her, scrambling to get her out of her clothes so that I could—
She tried to struggle out of the t-shirt but she was shaking too much and it turned into a wet tangle around her shoulders. I helped her pull it free. God, her skin was icy, the smooth paleness going goosebumped. Every nerve in my body was screaming at me to warm her up the way I wanted to: pull her to my chest and run my hands all over her—
She looked up at me, her eyes huge.
I forced the urge back...just. For her own sake, I had to keep her away from me and I was so nearly there: she’d be gone, tomorrow. I grabbed the warm blanket from the stove and wrapped it around her like a poncho. “Your bra and panties, too,” I told her.
She fumbled beneath the blanket for a few moments. She didn’t always have a hand free to hold the two sides of the blanket together and I kept getting glimpses: a pale breast swinging, a pink nipple, crinkled with cold, a curl of soft hair—I forced my eyes to her feet until I saw her bra and panties hit the floor. “Now give me a look at that arm,” I ordered. I figured if I was terse and gruff, maybe I could cover up how I was aching for her.
But to show me the arm, she had to twist the blanket around until the gap was at her side and then stick her arm through. And even with the blanket clamped together at the waist, I still couldn’t help but see her whole side-boob. And then below her waist, her entire leg was exposed, like some Hollywood starlet on the red carpet, and my eyes just kept climbing upward, right up to that bare patch of hip that reminded me she wasn’t wearing panties—