Wild Blue Under

by Judi Fennell

  And now, with Livingston outside somewhere doing more reconnaissance, they made a dash through a fast food drive-through. Rod actually liked this fish sandwich better, and they made sure to get a double order of fries before heading back down the road to somewhere, with Val rubbing eyes that were tired from all the driving, the emotions, and the now-possible impossibilities of the day, while Rod kept his eyes peeled for any sign of Livingston.

  The seagull made it easy—by landing on the hood of the car with a splat! too reminiscent of JR’s little “gifts” earlier not to scare the daylights out of her and bring her to full wakefulness.

  “Crap!” Val swerved the Sentra, collecting a few honks from other drivers, all the while thanking God and Nissan she didn’t hydroplane into anyone.

  Rod rolled down his window and Livingston hopped in, wiping the water from his brow with his wing.

  “Sorry about that. This weather’s dicey.” He ruffled some of the rain onto them and took the french-fry container from Rod’s fingers as he hopped into the backseat.

  “Okay, here’s the plan,” he said, with a fry hanging from the side of his mouth like a cigarette. “There’s some sort of backup ahead, but that’s not as important as the airport beyond it being all tricked out with self-important crows. The few blue jays and starlings in their ranks have been relegated to monitoring the parking lots, but the crows have commandeered the runways and turkey vultures have staked out the control tower. So that option’s out. Luckily, though, I recruited a chickadee with a James Bond complex who’s agreed to scout out the airport beyond that, which will keep me in the car and instill a false sense of security that we’re continuing on our way.”

  “So we keep driving.” Rod’s voice, scratchy and hoarse after so much talking, slid over her like a blanket.

  Especially that timbre, low and warm, as it’d been last night when he’d murmured something unintelligible in her ear. It had resonated through her bones and nerves and every cell in between while he’d kissed her senseless.

  Well, maybe not too senseless since she remembered it well enough. Too well, actually.

  “For as long as possible,” Livingston continued, oblivious to the reawakening of her senses. “The farther east we get without incident, the better off for us. I’m concerned that if we stop, he’ll have a chance to come up with more recruits and do major damage.”

  Val put her blinker on to go around the pickup in front of her. She hoped drivers behind her could see through this mess. God, she was tired. She’d driven at warp speed for hours this morning, then dodged raindrops all afternoon. She was sick to death of showers. The only one she wanted was hot and followed immediately by a pillow.

  “Oh, and guess what I found out?” The gull went to work on the second pack of fries. “A pair of sparrows in the building next to Valerie’s thwarted an attack on us.”

  “Sparrows?” With the way the guy in the SUV who passed her was driving, Val didn’t dare risk turning around, so she angled the rearview mirror toward Livingston.

  “Yeah. Apparently gossip can get through where military orders can’t. Go figure.” Livingston stood on the backseat, rifling his bill through his feathers. “Can you pass a napkin back, please?”

  Rod handed him one. “What attack?”

  “Thanks.” Livingston swiped the napkin beneath a wing. “Anyway, those chicks conned two cowbirds out of a bag of industrial-strength carpet tacks. I’m assuming the cowbirds planned to sprinkle them on the road, but here’s the best part. Not only did the sparrows replace the tacks with harmless objects, but they also convinced the cuckoos that the closest ocean is to the north. The north!”

  Livingston’s laugh was close to an annoying screech, but in this case, Val let it slide.

  “What idiots,” he went on, still laughing. “Thwarted by sparrows! Remind me to give those chicks a commendation when we get back. They earned it.”

  “Where’d they get the tacks?” Val asked, angling the mirror to keep the headlights behind her out of her eyes.

  Livingston switched the napkin to the other wing. “Knowing how little effort cowbirds put into anything, namely raising their own offspring, I’d say they probably flew into a hardware store, but that would give them too much credit for figuring out how to do it and get out. JR probably had some industrious avian deliver them to the birdbrains.”

  “But how did the sparrows get the tacks away from them?” Even with the talking seagull and mercenary albatross, Val was having a hard time processing all of this. Well, maybe not as hard a time as she would have had, say, oh, last week, but still. It was as if there was a whole other world right under humans’ noses that no one could see.

  “That’s the funniest part.” Livingston slapped his feathers against the backseat. “The sparrows used the oldest trick in the book.”

  She didn’t even want to contemplate what that meant.

  “Flirting. Those boys must have been hard up. I mean, sparrows are cute and all, but so enchanting that you fail to do your job?” The seagull tsk-tsked. “Dodos. It’s good to know JR’s training methods aren’t foolproof.”

  “Yes, it is good to know that,” said Rod, “but only if we can counter it. We need to outwit him, Livingston. We need to find another airport, one that he won’t expect us to go to.”

  “I know, Rod, and now’s the perfect time. He’s not expecting it, the weather is good cover, and there aren’t enough birds left in the area to stop us. I was going to suggest getting off this road anyway to go around the backup that I’d bet my tail feathers he’s had a feather in.”

  “There’s only one problem, Livingston.” Rod nodded at Valerie. “Valerie. We need to stop soon. She’s tired.”

  “What? I’m not a problem. I’ve done my share of the work.” More actually, since neither of them would be here if not for her. “Besides, this doesn’t look to be a hot spot of motels.”

  “Valerie, you’re exhausted. You can’t keep going.”

  “I can if it means getting away from JR.”

  “Great!” Livingston stuck his beak between them. “Then it’s settled. Take the next turnoff, and we’ll try to outsmart the buzzard. Get in the right lane.”

  Val squinted through the windshield, trying to decide which of the six taillights in front of her were the real two and which four were reflections—and not enjoy the warm, fuzzy feeling of having Rod care for her comfort, while Livingston sat over her shoulder and directed her onto the off-ramp.

  Rod kept staring out the window. At what, she couldn’t imagine. It was black as pitch despite the car lights glowing on the rainy road.

  Was he worried she’d see something in his suggestion that didn’t exist? Was he worried that he’d kissed her and been kind to her—and she’d want more?

  If the guy was a prince—and, seriously, with the seagulls and whatnot, the prince part of this whole equation was the least difficult to believe—he was probably used to women flinging themselves at him.

  But she wouldn’t.

  She was going back to the store, and that wouldn’t leave a lot of time for jaunts through his country in between his royal duties.

  Still, it had been nice to lean on him, just for those few moments. For that short period of time, the loneliness had disappeared. She’d felt connected to someone else, something she hadn’t felt or been since Mom died.

  But this connection had been different. Oh, not the man-woman dynamic, though they definitely had that between them. No, this was human to human. Personal. For her, anyway—but she wasn’t going to take it at anything more than face value.

  He had a job to do and now, finally, after all her searching, all those years of looking for something, somewhere to belong, so did she. Still, she would miss him when this was all over.

  “Have you heard a word I’ve said, Valerie?” Livingston tap-danced on her shoulder, the fried potato breath acti
ng like smelling salts, banishing her fatigue in an instant.

  “Hmm? What?”

  “I said, the airport is—oh no! Watch out!” The bird dove for cover beneath Rod’s seat.

  “Watch what?” Val followed Livingston’s backseat flight, then saw Rod stiffen.

  Her eyes flew to the windshield, peering through the pouring rain.

  A pair of round objects sat in the middle of the lane.

  Val jumped on the brakes. The tires locked, jerking the car forward, the high-pitched, rubber-on-brake-pad squeal protesting such treatment.

  But braking did nothing.

  The objects loomed before them.

  And the car kept sliding straight at them.

  Chapter 23

  Val wrenched the wheel. What were those things? She couldn’t hit them. Not now. Not at this speed. That would kill them all.

  In slow motion, she watched her hands spin the wheel to the left, her left foot releasing the clutch as her right pumped the brake, each movement a conscious, singular action.

  But nothing kept the car from careening toward the whatever-they-were.

  Then suddenly, everything clicked in her mind and she was back at regular speed, the image of hay bales searing into her brain as the car broadsided one, Rod’s side taking the hardest impact.

  Tires squealed around them as the few cars behind them reacted. The jerk who’d passed her slammed on his brakes, bouncing off a minivan into the back end of her car with a nasty crunch and slamming them into the hay again.

  Rod’s head cracked against the doorframe, then he slumped onto her.

  “Livingston!” She looked around, trying to peer through the rain to see if any other cars were headed toward them. She reached around Rod’s face, feeling a sticky trickle of blood seep from his forehead. “Oh, my God. Rod’s been hurt! We have to get out of here!” She jerked on the door handle, but they were penned in. She’d have to smash the windshield.

  “Don’t get out of the car. Just get it moving!” Livingston squawked from the back.

  He was right. She had to get them out of there before other cars smashed into the pileup and something exploded.

  She nudged Rod back into his seat and felt for the stick shift, her feet working the pedals. After a few grinding revs of the engine, the car jerked forward, a rattling sound coming from the tire well as the car screeched its way slowly from the jumble of vehicles.

  “Go around,” Livingston said by her ear, his wings fanning the back of her neck as he tried to grip the slope of her headrest.

  “On what? The median?”

  “Unless you want to wait for JR to come after us with more ammo, yes.”

  Good point. Plus, the car was damaged anyway; the median couldn’t do much worse.

  Besides, she had to get Rod to a hospital. Oh, God, the blood. What if he had a concussion? Internal injuries?

  The car bounced over the lip of the road, the tires sinking into the wet grass. Hell. Watch them get stuck in the mud.

  That wasn’t going to happen. As she gunned the gas, the tires sped out, spewing grass and mud all around them, but with the passenger side tires still on the asphalt, the car crept forward.

  The steering column protested as she turned the wheel to the right, trying to keep at least one tire on the road. After more squelching and tire spinning, the car gave a final whip around the hay bale and Val straightened them onto the road.

  “We need to find a hospital. Can you look for one?”

  “A hospital?” Livingston fluttered through the seats onto Rod’s leg. “I don’t think so. You need to get him to the first motel we find.”

  “Motel? Are you out of your mind? He’s been injured. He’s not responsive. We need a doctor.”

  “Valerie, listen to me.” Livingston pointed at her with one black-tipped wing feather. “He cannot see one of your doctors. They’d do more damage than help. Right now, we need to get him someplace where we can tend to his injuries.”

  One of the wipers was bent at a seventy-degree angle and dragged across the windshield with a thud, thud, thud. “I’m not a doctor. Are you?”

  “No. But I do have basic first-aid skills, and I know his people. More importantly, he’s got what he needs right now in his pocket.”

  The steering had been knocked out of alignment, so Val had to turn the wheel off-center to the left to keep going straight. The damn rain made it that much tougher to see the lines.

  “In his pocket?” She forgot to hold the wheel in position and almost ran off the road. She made the adjustment in time. “What are you talking about? All he has in his pocket is a wad of cash and a diamond. They aren’t exactly first-aid material, Livingston, but hospitals can do wonders with both.”

  “Just look for a building, Valerie. We don’t have time to argue. Every second counts.”

  “That’s why we need a hospital.”

  Livingston sighed. “We don’t want an international incident over this. Trust me. It’s my job to protect him. I know what I’m doing. Get us to a motel, and he’ll be fine by morning.”

  Val didn’t believe him, but then, things she would never have believed had happened today, and she didn’t want to even consider that international incident thing. “You better be right.”

  “I am. I’ll stake my life on it. And his.”

  Livingston poked at Rod’s arms and legs, looking for breaks, while she tried to discern whether the blurry lights in the distance were from a tractor-trailer or a motel. Luckily, after a few miles, some of the lights turned out to be a motel.

  Val turned in, slamming the car into park next to a dented maroon pickup, and rushed into the lobby in her half-soaked clothing. She threw the last of her cash at the kid on duty since she wasn’t about to go rooting around in Rod’s pockets for his stash. She didn’t have much money since she hadn’t exactly planned for this journey, so they were stuck with one room, and she’d have to make the best of it. Not that it’d matter, since the guy was unconscious.

  Right. That.

  She grabbed the key and an extra set of thin white towels before heading back to the car.

  Rod groaned when she slammed the door.

  “Is he awake?”

  Livingston shook his head, his brow furrowed. “No. But he’s been mumbling, so that’s a good sign.”

  “Really? Mumbling is good?”

  “Better than deathly silent.”

  True. She put the car in gear and squinted through the windshield, trying to find Room 5.

  She pulled into the parking spot in front of the tarnished, brass room number and ran to the faded green door, the rain soaking the rest of her as she opened their room.

  Musty, stale air greeted her, but at least the double beds were made. She tugged the chain beneath the beaded 1960s lampshade on the nightstand, pulled the sheets down on the bed closest to the door, the smell of bleach attesting to some semblance of hygiene, then ran back out to maneuver Rod from the car.

  Livingston had somehow finagled the door open and was using his beak to undo Rod’s seat belt by the time she returned.

  Leaning against the headrest, Rod blocked the dim glow of the car light as she tried to figure out the best way to get him out of the car. God, he was so big. And so unconscious. How the hell was she going to do this?

  She draped his arm over her shoulder. Blood matted his black hair to his forehead, a trickle drying along his jaw. She slid one of his legs to the pavement, gasping when she found blood there as well. “Livingston, his leg.”

  “I know. Let’s get him inside. We’ll tend to him there.”

  “But what if something’s broken?”

  “Trust me, Valerie. No one can heal him better than what he’s got with him. Now, come on. I’ll grab the back of his shorts once you’ve got him out. We’ll get him inside together.”

 
; Right. A two-pound seagull and her measly one-twenty were going to move a six-foot-something guy.

  The other option was to go ask the teenaged clerk at the registration desk. Yeah. He looked like he’d weigh all of a hundred pounds soaking wet.

  She slid Rod’s other leg to the pavement, lifting his other arm over her shoulder. “Livingston, give me a hand here. I’m going to turn around and hoist him onto my back. That’s probably the only way this is going to work. Help me keep his hands around my neck.”

  With some ducking and spinning and holding of Rod’s limp arms, Val managed to get herself into position, wincing when the broken window handle on the door sliced across her calf.

  Oh, yay. They had matching injuries…

  She bent over at the waist, pulling Rod’s elbows over her shoulders. Rain poured down her face, a river channeling down her neck and between her breasts, following a straight line through her shorts, down her legs, and right into her shoes.

  “You ready back there? Have enough clearance?”

  “Don’t worry about me.” Livingston’s words were garbled, which Val took to mean he had Rod’s waistband in his bill.

  Good thing Rod wasn’t going to feel this when Livingston pulled upward.

  “On three. Ready?” She double-checked her grip. “One… two… three!” She huffed, anchoring Rod’s arms to her chest as she hefted him out of his seat and onto her back.

  Livingston’s wings flapped like a buzz saw behind her. Bent over, she took a tentative (squishy) step. Rod’s weight shifted with her. So far, so good.

  She took another step, and he moved with her. Then another. And another.

  Slowly, they headed toward the door. She had to keep readjusting her grasp as the rain slicked her hold on his arms, but at last they made it into the room. Val slid Rod onto the bed, positioning his legs and arms as much onto it as she could, while Livingston made trips out to the car to grab their bags.

  “I tried closing the doors, but I don’t have the strength,” the bird said as he dragged her duffel over the threshold, his chest heaving, wings drooping from his shoulders.