“Yeah no kidding,” I scoffed, but he didn’t notice.
I recognized the look in his eyes. He was in man-on-a-mission mode. “Where would I have put the key?” he muttered under his breath as he crossed to the nearest counter. “Ah-ha!” He snatched a set from a hook on the wall and jingled them as he turned.
“Uh…” I pointed out the rear flat tire before he got too excited.
He frowned and dropped to his knees to inspect it. “It doesn’t look punctured or anything,” he observed, and swept his gaze around the shed. “I have a pump around here somewhere.”
“It looks like you have a variety of everything in here. You know, there are reality shows for people like you. There’s also places you could get help for your...uh, problem. ”
He squinted at me. “I’m prepared.”
“Yeah.” I surveyed the weapons cache. “To fight an army. Or take on the Zombie Apocalypse single-handedly.”
I knew I was getting bitchy, but come on, I was hungry. There was no way that motorcycle would make it out of the shed, let alone down the mountain to civilization and food. I wanted to tell him to stop wasting time playing with the worthless piece of junk, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t hear that as the friendly inspiration I would intend it to be.
At least he picked up on the hint that I wanted nothing to do with motorcycles and weapons. He sighed, crossing to me. “Alright, come on.”
Back in the cabin, he rummaged through the drawers in the kitchen and produced a notepad and a small mini-golf pencil. He handed them to me with instructions to jot down things that we would need to stay there for a few more days.
“What are you going to be doing?” I asked when he turned to leave.
He paused in the doorway. “Getting our ride into town ready. Unless you’d rather walk?”
He darted outside without waiting for a response. Not that I had one. I wasn’t about to tell him he was wasting his time. If there was one thing I had learned about Nathan the past few days, it was to never, ever challenge him. I decided to let him figure out on his own that even he had limits. Then I would stand back and enjoy witnessing the fallout.
Even more enticing than watching Nathan fail at something was the idea of food, and I had a shopping list to make.
The cabinets were mostly empty. There were a few plates, and cups, and some silver ware, but no food, aside from a few packets of hot chocolate and a bottle of creamer that was cemented into one hard lump. Food topped the list. I added shampoo, soap, and toilet paper. There was no washer, and I wondered how we would wash our dirty clothes. Maybe we would just buy new? I wrote down laundry detergent or new clothes with a question mark. I would have to ask Nathan about that one.
Satisfied with my list, I headed outside to see if he had given up yet. Half way to the shed, I heard an engine roar to life and quickened my pace. I found him inside, straddling a completely different motorcycle, with fully inflated tires and a polished tailpipe.
I leaned against the wall, secretly impressed, and observed Nathan’s excitement. Boys and their toys, I thought, my grin widening. It was nice to see him acting his age for once. Odd, but nice. And, well, he looked mighty fine on a motorcycle.
I waved when he spotted me over his shoulder. With visible reluctance, he killed the engine.
“You did it,” I said cheerily. “Now we go shopping?”
“Not quite.” He grimaced as he stepped off the bike. “You have one more job to do first.”
* * *
Crawling into a hole in the ground under the shed had not been on the short list of jobs I had considered. Yet that was where I found myself.
I was going to kill him when I got out of there.
“You see it?” he called from behind me.
“Yeah.” I grunted as I pulled myself forward on my elbows. I yelped when a cobweb tickled my nose, and swatted at it. If a spider crawled on me, God help me, I would lose it.
“Let me know when you got it,” Nathan instructed.
I cursed him under my breath as I inched forward. Reaching my arm out, I gripped the satchel with my fingertips, and wiggled it closer to get a better hold on it.
“I got it. Get me the hell out of here!”
Per my orders, his hands had been on my ankles the entire time. Now, his grip tightened and he pulled. For a brief moment, I thought I would be stuck, and die buried under the shed in a cold cobweb-infested tunnel. Then I saw daylight. I pushed myself up and hurled the bag at him.
“Thanks.” He opened the satchel and peered in.
I grunted as I surveyed the now ruined clothes I was wearing. “Next time don’t bury your emergency money stash in a groundhog den. How did you get it down there anyway?”
“I didn’t.”
The look I gave him portrayed the no shit in my head loud and clear. He was too big to fit in there, which was why he made me do it. Obviously, someone small had put it in there for him. If we didn’t need the money to get food and clean clothes, I would have told him to bite me when he asked me to do it. Not that he had given me a choice in the matter.
Now, with a scowl on my face, I brushed at my mud-caked, spider-ridden hair. “Probably should have had me do that before I showered last night. Now, I need another one.”
He looked me over for the first time since I emerged, and finally saw how dirty I had gotten. He bit on his lip and, if I weren’t mistaken, I’d swear it was to hold back a laugh.
When I looked in the mirror, I saw why. If it weren’t so gross and I wasn’t so pissed off, I would have found it funny too. My face was streaked in varying shades of brown and I couldn’t even tell my hair was blonde from all the mud in it. Worse, I pulled a cobweb out of it. I jumped in the shower as fast as I could, not waiting to see if any spiders crawled out next.
I was far too hungry to linger, and finished once I had the mud scrubbed off. Again, I had forgotten to bring clean clothes with me. Wrinkling my nose at the muddy mess on the floor, I wrapped a towel around me and cracked the door open. With the coast clear, I darted to the chest beside the bed. Keeping one eye out for Nathan, I rummaged through the clothes, looking for something suitable to wear in public.
I had about given up on finding anything small enough that I wouldn’t look like a bum when I reached the very bottom and glimpsed something girly. With a smile growing on my face, I uncovered two petite blouses and a pair of jeans that looked close to my size. They were vintage, cute, and just my style.
After reassuring that Nathan was nowhere in sight, I slipped the jeans on. They were a near perfect fit. I pulled on a striped pink and brown long sleeved blouse because it was the girlier of the two, and that was exactly what I needed after the past few days.
I ran to the bathroom to hang up the towel and stopped in front of the mirror to mess with my hair. Without a dryer, I was forced to pull my hair back in a loose ponytail again. Still, for the first time in days I looked and felt like a girl again. Not even the hideous scar could wipe the smile off my face as I rushed outside.
Nathan was admiring the motorcycle, glanced up, and did a double take.
“I found a stash of girl clothes,” I beamed as I tugged on the hem of the shirt, peering down at it. My smile only faltered when I looked up and saw Nathan’s face.
He stood frozen, staring at me, his face ashen, eyes wide and haunted.
My cheeks burned. Was it the clothes? Did they belong to someone he knew? Of course. This was the Kala’s cabin. They must have belonged to someone he knew. Far too late, I realized I probably should have asked him first.
I was about to say something when he cleared his throat, pulled himself together, and all traces of anything weird having happened vanished. If I hadn’t seen the brief look on his face, I would have never known. But I had, and it was going to bug me.
“That’s good,” he said, handing me my backpack, the picture perfect example of indifference. “Now we won’t stand out so much.” He straddled the motorcycle, strapped on a helmet, glanced b
ack at me, and nodded at the backpack. “You’re going to have to wear that.”
I hesitated, torn between asking him what had happened and pretending that I hadn’t noticed. He handed a second helmet to me. This one was smaller; a girl’s helmet. I decided to let it go, slung the bag over my shoulders, and put the helmet on.
Nathan moved my hands out of the way and tightened the straps for me like he was on autopilot. That was when I knew. He had a girlfriend—and I was wearing her helmet and her clothes.
“You ever ride before?” Nathan asked.
I shook my head, the helmet weighing down on my neck.
He didn’t look surprised. “Sit close to me, put your arms around my waist, and hold on tight.” He held the motorcycle steady as I climbed on behind him and instructed me where to put my feet. “The most important thing,” he said over his shoulder, “don’t freak out. I know what I’m doing.”
“Okay.”
“And lean when we go around turns,” he added. “Lean with me, actually. Just plaster yourself to my back and move when I move.”
“Okay. Just don’t go too fast.”
I couldn’t see his face thanks to the helmet, but I imagined a skeptical expression was hiding underneath. I wasn’t optimistic when he kicked the stand and we took off.
CHAPTER 12
It took ten terrifying minutes on bumpy dirt roads to get off the mountain and another ten to wind our way into the nearest town. I spotted its name on a sign as we approached. Elizabethton, Tennessee. I had been there once, and knew it was about an hour from Boone by car. It was a small town, but larger than Boone, and close enough that I probably needed to be careful about being seen.
It was Wednesday, the fourth day I would have been considered missing. For all we knew, my face was plastered on milk cartons and televisions all over the country.
Our first stop was to fill the gas tank on the motorcycle. Nathan picked up a local newspaper and we scanned it for any mention of me, Gran, or Alec. We found nothing. Nathan took that as a good sign.
I didn’t know how to take it. I wasn’t really missing, but what if I were? No one cared. No one was looking for me. It was like faking your death to see how many people would show up at your funeral, and no one did.
My mood lifted when Nathan suggested we stop by the diner across the street to eat before we went shopping. After parking, he pulled his baseball cap out of the backpack and placed it on my head.
I held back my protests as he stuffed my ponytail underneath it and tucked a chunk of stray hair behind my ear. When he stepped back to admire his work, I put on a face of indifference, pretended that his touch hadn’t just about stalled my heart. His eyes, when they lowered to meet mine, sent it into overdrive.
Fortunately, he looked away quickly and missed my gasp for air. “There,” he said, sounding satisfied. “If your face is all over the news, hopefully no one will recognize you. Keep your head down. Don’t make eye contact.”
Dee’s Café was a quaint country restaurant that boasted the best buttermilk biscuits in the south. No more than a dozen tables were squeezed into the small room and, at this hour on a weekday, all but two were empty. A bar surrounded the service area and open kitchen, where four retirees sat on stools, enjoying their coffees.
Aside from the bubbly red headed middle-aged waitress, who called Nathan sweetie and me honey and told us to call her Pam in one breath, no one noticed when we entered. We ordered two coffees, two orange juices, and an assortment of pancakes, eggs, bacon, country ham, potatoes, and of course, we had to try the famous biscuits.
Nathan’s eyes were twinkling when I glanced up after devouring a plate of pancakes. “Want some more?” he asked.
I suspected he was making fun of me, but I didn’t care, and moved on to the bacon. Then the biscuits. They really were the best I had ever eaten. It didn’t take long to clean my plate, and I sat back with a satisfied sigh.
Nathan looked up from his scrambled eggs. “I was wondering when you were going to come up for air.”
I suppressed a laugh and eyed his plate pointedly. “I’ll dig into what’s left of yours too if you’re not careful.”
He made a noise that might have been a laugh, but sounded like a snort, and shoveled one last bite into his mouth. He leaned back and looked at me triumphantly. A smile was close to breaking out on his face, but not quite. He was good at the almost-smiles.
On cue, our waitress appeared out of nowhere. “Can I get you anything else?”
Nathan’s eyes slanted from her to me. He hooked an eyebrow.
“None for me,” I said.
“No, thank you,” Nathan added.
She set the check on the table with a wink and said, “Please come again.” Innocent enough, but I know I didn’t imagine her eyes lingering on Nathan a beat longer than necessary before she walked away. It seemed I wasn’t the only one who found him attractive, which was kind of gross, considering she was probably old enough to be his mother.
He was digging the money out of his pocket and didn’t notice. After taking a final sip of coffee, he slid out of the booth and took the check and money to the register, where a second younger waitress greeted him. I was slammed by a pang of jealousy as I watched them chat casually while she rang him up.
What in the hell brought that on?
It took only a moment of reflection to realize the answer. He was nice to total strangers, while I got bossed around, talked down to, and teased. Though improved from that first night, he still treated me worse than a stranger—like I was a nuisance to him, like I was the last person he wanted to be stuck helping...and I hadn’t even asked for his help.
I was scowling at him by the time he returned. Again, he didn’t notice.
He told me that the second super-friendly waitress, named Roxy, had given him directions to a discount store where we could get everything—clothes, supplies, and food—all at once. It was only three blocks away, and we were there in no time.
Nathan said he usually hand washed his clothes in the sink, so we picked up a travel pack of detergent. We both still picked up some additional outfits. I made sure to get a few cold-weather appropriate shirts and added a pack of granny panties to the cart when Nathan wasn’t looking. I was desperate for clean underwear, but drew the line at washing them in the sink in front of him.
We got some quick and easy meals that could be prepared with only a microwave—mostly canned soups, individual raviolis and macaroni and cheese. We weren’t able to get much since we had to fit everything in the backpack. Nathan said that if we had to stay more than a few days, we would come back for more. I was glad he didn’t think we would have to hide out long. He still had to check in with his base to see what they knew, but he was optimistic when we returned to Dee’s an hour later to use their payphone.
It was in the corner near the restrooms, mostly out of view from the other patrons. Nathan got through and asked for a person named Travis. While he waited, I took the opportunity to use the restroom. When I returned a few minutes later, he was deep in conversation, his voice low.
“No, I haven’t figured that out yet.” He looked up as I sat on a nearby stool. His eyes stayed on me as he nodded along with whatever was being said on the other end. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “I’ll call in a few days.”
He hung up and cast me a sideways glance.
“Well?” I asked.
He stared at the phone without answering. Finally, he fed it a few coins and hit a string of numbers. I heard the soft ringing through the receiver as he waited…and waited.
The tension that radiated off him took on a life of its own, hung over me like a storm cloud waiting to burst wide open. He hadn’t asked for privacy, but I felt like an intruder, and looked out the window, pretending to be enthralled with the traffic on the road as a machine voice came on the line and prompted him to leave a message.
A muscle in his cheek twitched as he hung up without a word. He didn’t look at me as he stormed outside,
and I had to hurry to catch up to him.
“Nathan, what’s going on?”
“They didn’t know anything.” He put on his helmet and helped me with mine. “They’re going to look into a few things. I’ll check back with them later this week.”
I wanted to ask him who the second call had been to, but I held my tongue. Whatever that call had been about, it had him irate, and if I had learned anything about him the past few days, it was to steer clear of him when his nostrils were flared.
* * *
He spent most of the afternoon in the shed while I washed our dirty clothes in the sink and tidied up the cabin. I wasn’t proving my domestication so much as I was trying to keep busy, to keep my mind from wandering.
It didn’t work. I obsessed and worried over what was bothering Nathan all afternoon, and ultimately concluded that it must be girlfriend related. Who else, other than a romantic interest, could tick someone off like this? But, then...
Well, there was a chance his anger was directed at me. The other times he had come around, he left quickly afterwards. This time, he has been with me for several days now. We have had no communication with anyone since he’d tossed our cell phones. His girlfriend would have no knowledge of where he was or what had happened to him. Was he worried about her for some reason, and couldn’t do anything about it because he was stuck here with me?
For that matter, why was he with me if he didn’t want to be? It wasn’t like I was making him stay here, to help me, like some captive. If anything, I was the prisoner. He had practically kidnapped me for crying out loud. If anyone should be angry, it was me.
So now, after hours of stewing, I found myself glaring at him from across the counter where we both stood, eating bowls of ravioli in silence. Either he didn’t care that I loathed him, or he was truly oblivious, and I highly doubted the latter. His indifference further infuriated me and, when I finished and dropped my bowl in the sink, I snapped.
“What in the hell is wrong with you?”
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