by Kate Morris
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Stop it. Let’s go back,” she says and tries to pull her hands free.
“We’re not going back. Why?”
“I don’t want to do this,” she pleads, tearing up. “You’re making me very mad right now.”
Whatever is bothering her, this thing between them, needs to come out. Simon is sure of it. There is something that is weighing her down so hard that now he has to know.
“Doesn’t matter,” he says more firmly. “I’m not taking no for an answer. Tell me.”
“No.”
“Now.”
“Shut up.”
“Not going to,” he returns and sighs but not with impatience. “Spill it. Tell me.” He has to say it three more times between her responses of ‘no.’ Then she puts an end to it by interrupting his prompts with impatience and anger spitting from her.
“Fine!” she finally blares. “I didn’t think you wanted me because I was used goods. Ok? There!”
Simon is too stunned to answer for a moment. He’s not sure what she means exactly. Then it clicks. “What?” he whispers hoarsely.
“What do you mean ‘what’?”
“You thought I didn’t want you because you were raped?”
Sam gives an exasperated sigh. “No, not like that. Just that I wasn’t…I don’t know…pure or whatever. We both know what happened to me. One time you said something that made me think you were disgusted by me because of it.”
“What?” he nearly shouts. “When?”
“I don’t remember. It was just the impression I got.”
Simon tips his head back to stare at the gray sky. “How in the world…? I’m sorry if I ever said anything even close to that. I would never think… Sam…”
When words fail him, Simon takes a moment to look down upon her head, because she’s staring at her feet. This is so frustrating. How could she think something so crazy?
“Just let me go, Simon.”
“Sam…” he whispers. She won’t look at him. Instead, she just shakes her head without making eye contact. “Sam…”
He tugs her hands and holds onto her because he knows she’s going to run the second she gets free. Then Simon leans down, way down and pushes his face into her hair. It isn’t enough. He has to fix this. He doesn’t know how. He doesn’t have enough experience talking to people to repair this thing between them. Then he remembers what Cory told him.
Without letting go of her hands, Simon nudges through the thick hair resting against her neck and presses a kiss there. She shivers against his lips. That must be a good thing. Feeling more confident than he should, Simon kisses her again there. Then he moves his mouth to the spot behind her earlobe. It gets an even better response. She actually squeezes his hands with her own between them. He trails down along her delicate jawline with more kisses, gentle and the kind that don’t come with expectations.
“You,” he whispers against her jaw, “are the most pure, delicate angel on this entire earth, Samantha Patterson.”
With the slightest pressure from his lips, he is able to push her chin, tipping her head back. She sucks in a deep breath, so Simon presses his mouth against the base of her neck exposed to the cold air.
“Don’t think for one second that I’ve ever thought of you in any other way. You are so tender and gentle and sweet and kind.”
He pushes into the collar of her jacket and kisses closer to her collarbone.
“You are everything that is good,” he says, kissing again. “And pure.” Simon darts his tongue out and licks the pulse point at the base of her neck before saying, “And innocent.”
He moves his mouth to the side of her own, which she keeps closed.
“And mine,” he states boldly, taking a high risk chance of being slapped. Just for good measure and his own self-preservation, he doesn’t release her hands. But he does press his mouth against hers. She refuses to respond at first. Simon deepens the kiss and slides his tongue between her lips. Sam gasps against his lips, which sends a deep shiver through him straight to his center. Then, like an angel just landed in this field, she moves her lips. His own mouth curves into the barest hint of a smile as he continues to assault her soft lips. Even defeating their toughest enemy never gave him this sense of triumph. He feels like he could conquer the world.
Without releasing her, Simon takes her hands and wraps them around her own back. He holds onto them and pulls her into him. She can’t get free, but he’s not sure if she wants to anymore. Either way, he likes this way of holding her. She can’t push him away. She also can’t slap him.
Simon pulls back for a nanosecond and looks down at her. Sam’s eyelids flutter open. He sees it. It’s there, that passion they share, the passion they’ve always shared. He slowly, very slowly untangles their fingers, pressing hers flat, palm out against her back. Then he allows his hands to roam down over her bottom, something he dreams about most nights. Her breath hitches in her chest.
“The most impure thing about you, Samantha Patterson, are my thoughts about you,” he says and captures her mouth again with a passion this time that may flame out of control very quickly. Simon doesn’t care. She apparently doesn’t either because her hands are suddenly on the front of him, roving over his chest. He groans against her mouth and picks her clean off the ground. If he doesn’t stop in a second, he won’t be able to.
A crack, clear and loud in the winter air startles them both. Simon breaks their kiss immediately and places her gently on her feet.
“What was that?” she asks in a whisper.
In an instant, all thoughts of their kiss are placed on hold. Simon answers, “Gunshot. I think it was a gunshot.”
“Me, too,” she says with fear.
Simon whips the radio off his belt and says into it, “Old McDonald, anyone out here with us?”
He waits a moment while simultaneously taking Sam’s hand and leading her into the cover of the trees behind the horses. She doesn’t pull away or shrink back from him.
When he doesn’t get an answer, Simon repeats the message, “Home base, anyone there?”
“Um, yeah. I’m here, brother,” Cory returns almost immediately. “We’re double-checking. What’s the situation out there?”
“Not sure,” he says into the radio. “Gunshots. Probably less than a mile from us.”
“Check it out,” his friend says. “I’ll meet you.”
“Try not to shoot us. We both know you suck.”
Cory’s laughter comes through the radio followed by, “Roger that, no shooting the friends.”
“You should head back,” he tells Sam next, looking down at her.
“Not a chance.”
Simon sighs hard and nods, knowing that arguing is going to be pointless. It might not be a good idea anyway. Someone could be on the path back to the farm. Then he says, “Fine, just stay close.”
He follows her to the mare and gives her a leg up. Then he mounts Harry again, who now seems anxious and antsy. He prances in place, but this time it feels different. The animal beneath him has sensed something is wrong, too.
Chapter Twelve
Cory
“We’ve got trouble,” he says to his brother who is working in the equipment shed on the tractor. Winter time is when they do repairs and maintain the farm equipment and vehicles and as much as they can on buildings. There is no such thing as downtime on a farm, he’s learned.
His brother’s head jerks up from the open hood of the tractor, “What’s going on?”
A second later, John walks casually over from whatever he was working on at the other end of the building. He is wiping his greasy hands on a rag. “The prisoner?”
“No, sir,” Cory tells him. “The Professor just called in. He and Sam heard gunshots up on the ridge somewhere.”
His brother’s eyes dart to John, and they immediately jump into action. John literally runs out of the barn as Kelly tosses the wrench back into the toolbox beside him. Then
he jogs beside Cory toward the horse barn.
“I’ll take the ATV,” he says and splits off in another direction.
Cory’s stallion is in the riding arena separating him from the mares. He easily catches him and leads the beast to the horse barn where he has him under tack in three minutes flat. The horse knows something is going on because his eyes are wild and he prances as if doing dressage. Cory swings into the saddle without the stirrup and spins him in a tight circle so that he can face the house.
“I’m going!” he shouts and gets a wave from Derek, who is standing near the back porch talking to John. Damn Dog is right on the horse’s feet and barks twice to let him know she’s down for the fight.
His horse’s hooves thunder on the ground. It’s been relatively dry this week other than the snow the other day. But it has already melted, and the temperature has dropped, so the ground is hard. He hopes he doesn’t take a spill from Jett because falling off on hard, frozen ground is way worse than soft.
On his hip, the radio chatter is almost constant now. John says, “I’m taking the car. I’ll circle out on the road and head northwest.”
His brother relays, “I’m halfway to the ridge. Professor, what’s your position?”
“We’re about a hundred yards northwest of the top pasture,” he answers.
“Gotcha’,” Kelly says.
“Give me a few, and I’ll be there, too,” Cory tells them.
“Roger,” his brother answers.
His concern for his wife and daughter bubbles to the surface, so Cory presses the button on his radio again, “Derek, get Paige.”
“Already doing it, brother,” his friend answers.
He breathes a sigh of relief and pushes the stallion even harder up a steep hill. The animal doesn’t even pant. He’s ready for this. He’s always ready. Cory keeps him in top shape, runs and exercises him a lot. He could’ve been a twelfth-century war horse. He knows something is afoot. Cory can feel a tenseness in his broad back and an extra tightening of his shoulder muscles. He’s quite sure the horse can feel the same thing from him.
When they break through the forest and into the top meadow, Cory slows him and murmurs, “Easy, boy. Easy.”
He tightens his hold on the reins and follows the path Simon and Sam just took, which is easy to see because they’d cut a straight line across the pasture, smashing down the dead grasses and weeds as they went. He gives the horse his head again, and they fly across the open meadow in lightning speed. He leads him over a fallen log in the path as they enter the forest again, and Jett easily jumps it. The ground in front of him shows him evidence of Simon and Sam coming through here by the fresh prints from their horses.
“We’re near the big boulder, Cor,” Simon’s voice comes over the radio.
“Roger,” he answers, knowing exactly where he means. There’s a huge rock, rounded and smooth from a hundred years of weathering marking a natural overhang of earth and slate rock. He’d gone out there many times to get away and think. It’s about a mile from the farm. He and Huntley had even carved their names into the old rock.
Within a few minutes, Cory has found them. They are waiting with their horses and are dismounted.
“What’s going on?” he asks and looks around him with edgy nerves. The horse knows it and prances once. “Easy.”
Sam immediately tells him, “We were…well, we stopped to fetch my hat when it fell off, and we heard gunshots.”
“You sure?” he asks Simon, knowing he has a lot more experience with long-range shooting than any of them.
“Oh, yes. It was gunshots. First, it was just the one. Then we heard three more. Then nothing. Probably a pistol, .38.”
Kelly pulls up on the ATV from a newly formed path they’ve been working on clearing for the past year. It was a lot of work but helps in times like this. Now they have a point of entry and exit from all four directions on their property. If anyone is within the farm’s boundaries, then they’ve climbed over fences or barriers to get there. Unless they came in up here. The sheer length of the perimeter makes it challenging to fence this part in completely. They build more every summer, but this past season was spent hunting assholes.
“Which direction?” Kelly asks.
Simon points to their north. “We think from there. I was just waiting for you.”
“Good call,” Kelly praises. “I’m gonna circle back. See if I missed anything. Cor, you and Simon head north. I’ll flank and meet you up there.”
“What about me?” Sam asks with her tiny voice. It makes Cory a little antsy having her out here with them, but it’s too late to take her back.
“Stay close, little sister,” he warns and swings his mount back onto the path they normally take. “Be vigilant. Watch for tracks, blood, anything that looks disturbed.”
“Got it,” Sam answers.
There are probably a thousand or more acres of woods ahead of them until they would meet up with John on the road. At Jett’s hooves is Damn Dog, and she is more than ready. She even whines once before they move forward.
“Go, girl,” he says with urgency, which sends her into a quick, tight spin before she takes off at a sprint ahead of them.
Cory starts at a slow trot, although his horse would like to run. He keeps his reins short, Jett’s head bent down toward his chest in order to control him. They’ve been in this situation many times together, and the animal knows what to expect.
Without talking or making too much noise, they move together in a row until it opens up enough to ride side by side here and there.
His radio crackles on his hip. A second later, John says, “I’ve got fresh truck tracks up here.”
“Nothing yet on our end,” Simon answers him.
“Roger,” John states. “I’ll wait for you.”
Cory can only imagine that John is frustrated. He is a man of action, not waiting around. He picks up the pace, gives the horse his head just a bit. Suddenly, Damn Dog somewhere ahead of them begins barking, so Cory bumps his right heel into Jett’s side, and the horse begins cantering. Simon and Sam follow right behind until they come to the source of the dog’s barking. He spots her quickly enough at the base of a hill. Cory swings a leg over the stallion’s head and tosses the reins to Samantha.
“Wait here, Sam,” he orders and jogs down a short ravine toward the dog, who is pawing at the ground and barking loudly.
Simon is right behind him and calls out, “What is it?”
“Not sure yet.”
Cory is able to get his dog to calm down, and she resorts to whining and pawing at the ground.
“Easy, girl,” he states and steps carefully around the thick underbrush and bushes near a full maple tree.
Simon has turned his back to him and is guarding the surrounding area as he stalks closer. His dog stays right with him until she finds it necessary to rush ahead of him to their left. And that’s when Cory sees it. The human corpse covered in branches as if the murderer attempted to hide the body. The legs are still showing, though. Whoever did this, did whatever this is, didn’t do a very good job of hiding the evidence. If it just happened, they took off in a rush.
“Simon!” he yells to his friend, who joins him a few seconds later.
“What… oh,” he says when his eyes lock onto the body. “Whoa.”
Cory squats and removes the two bigger branches concealing the body and rolls the person onto their back. She has been shot multiple times and is clearly dead. Simon takes her pulse, even though Cory could tell him not to bother. He doesn’t. Simon is a doctor and probably feels obligated to make sure.
“Shit,” he says as he looks at the woman lying there, her sightless eyes staring up at the cloud cover above the treetops.
“Oh my God!” Simon blurts and covers his mouth. “Damn.”
“What?”
Simon pauses a moment as if he can’t find words. “I know her. That’s…that’s a girl from Robert’s compound. She brought us stuff. She ran errands for the gener
al and the doctors. What the hell was her name? Sara…Sally…I can’t remember. She’s the sister of another girl there named Sofia! What’s her name? Isabella! That’s it. That was her name. I remember. She came in when her sister wasn’t working and brought stuff. She was nice.”
“She’s from Knox?”
“Yes, she worked there. She worked with us in the medical center, too. She and her sister look a lot alike. I actually thought it was Sofia when I first saw her lying there. Sofia’s taller, though. And has blonde hair, not brown.”
“What the fuck is she doing down here?”
“I don’t know. Visiting people? Dr. Avery said Sofia’s sister, this girl, was in a sex slave camp in Nashville, but I don’t know much else about her. Just that their family was killed and the sister ended up there.”
Cory thinks about this for a second before asking, “The one we broke up?”
Simon gives a one-shouldered shrug, “Not sure. I can only assume. That was my first thought, too.”
“Wonder where the sister is? Is she at the fort now? Does she even know her sister left it? What the fuck, man? Why is she here so close to the farm?”
He shrugs again, “I don’t know. I never got to talk to her. Just the few times she brought us papers or samples. She was really shy. The sister, too. Sofia has a scar on her neck that made me think something bad happened to her.”
“You don’t know where any of her family is? If they’re around here? Maybe in our town?”
“I don’t know. Dr. Avery acted like the sister and her were all that was left in their family. It was weird, though.”
“What was?”
Simon frowns and says, “I don’t know how to explain it. Sofia just acted like she knew me, the way that she looked at me.”
“Like you knew her?”
He shrugs again. “Kind of. Like she was familiar with me.”
“And you’d never met her before?”
Simon shakes his head. “No, she didn’t look familiar. I kind of wrote it off to maybe I treated her at the clinic in our town once or something.”
“Maybe it was the sister you treated,” Cory states, trying to sort this all out. “I mean, we did take in a lot of those women from that camp and so did other communities. Chances are if we absorbed both sisters into our town, you’ve treated one or both of them.”
