“Not unless you wanted me to grab that half pack of cigarettes.”
“Shit.”
We’d been walking through the outback for fifteen minutes or so. The cars had evidently taken us to some far-flung gas station off the main road, and Justin and I were out in the middle of nowhere. The sun blazed down from above, the heat positively oppressive. Suddenly very thirsty, I reached into the bag and twisted the cap from the bottle of water.
“Whoa,” said Justin. “We need to ration what we have. Who knows when we’re gonna find more water, you know?”
“So, I’m not supposed to drink the water? Isn’t that what it’s for?”
“It’s for when you actually need it, not when you’re feeling a little parched.”
“How will I know when I actually need it?”
“You’ll know,” he said. “First stage, your mouth will feel like it’s full of sand. Then you’ll get the worst damn headache of your life. Then you’ll feel like you’re about to keel over.”
“Sounds lovely.”
“You got any of those symptoms now?”
“My mouth’s a little dry, I guess.”
“Then you’re not dehydrated. Put the water away.”
Taking one last look at the bottle of water, I dropped it back into the bag with a sigh. After another twenty minutes or so of walking, my legs felt so cramped I could barely support my weight.
“I need to sit down somewhere,” I said. “I don’t know how much longer I can even walk.”
“No time for that,” he said. “The kidnappers are going to be looking for us. Not to mention we’re not going to get where we’re headed by taking breaks.”
Pain shot up my legs; each step felt like torture.
“I—ow—I can barely walk.”
“It’s the adrenaline,” said Justin, his eyes fixed forward. “You need to keep walking. Your body will be getting back to normal before too long.”
I realized that whining wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Grinning and bearing it, I kept on.
“And where is it that we’re headed toward, exactly?” I asked, looking around and seeing nothing but flat rusty earth.
“Back to Longbridge,” he said. “Closest thing to civilization we’re going to find.”
“Are you serious?” I asked. “We’d been driving for over an hour? And you want to walk all the way back?”
Justin looked away and shook his head.
“You know what makes trekking through one of the most inhospitable places in the world even more of a pleasant experience? Someone complaining every step of the way.”
“‘Complaining?” I asked, taking on an indignant tone. “You nearly got me killed, and now you’re going to call me a complainer? Hell, maybe there’s no ‘nearly’ about it. Maybe we’ll both expire out here in this heat.”
“Listen,” he said. “You’re right—I dragged you into something that you didn’t need to be a part of. You were just some girl in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s a bullshit situation, and I’m sorry.”
“Are you really apologizing?” I asked, more than a little surprised. “I thought it was going to take more nagging to pry that out of you.”
“Whatever gets you focused on the task at hand,” he said.
I didn’t want to push my luck.
“I just want to know how the hell they knew that I was in town,” he said. “As far as anyone else was concerned, I’d be in Alice Springs for the next few days.”
“Maybe someone spotted you?” I suggested. “Those locals at that little dive were kind of sketchy.”
“Possibly,” he said. “I should’ve kept a lower goddam profile—that’s for sure.”
We trudged along. Sure enough, my legs loosened up, and I found my stride. The sun was punishing, however, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to take much more of the heat.
Before I could spend too much more time considering the matter, however, Justin stopped in his tracks.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“You still thirsty?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Come on, then.”
The thought of a sip of cool water driving me absolutely crazy, I was ready to follow Justin anywhere. He picked up his pace, soon arriving at a thick-trunked tree unlike anything else growing in the area.
“Eucalyptus,” he said, stopping in front of the leafy plant. “Normally, you only find these in New South Wales, but it looks like a few have managed to make their way up here.”
“Didn’t you say it was poisonous?”
“Not if we just drink from the tree roots. Hold on.”
Justin squatted down and pulled out his multi-tool, flicking out the knife. With a quick stab, he jammed the blade into the root, water seeping out as soon the tip pierced the skin.
“Holy shit!” I said, shocked to see how much water came out of the roots. “That’s good to drink?”
“As good as it’s going to get out here. Drink up.”
I dropped to my knees right next to him and scooped up the water in my hands. My eyes rolled into the back of my head as soon as the liquid touched my lips.
“Careful there, thirsty girl,” he said. “Drink too much and you’ll make your stomach hurt.”
“Oh, my God. I don’t even care,” I said before going back in for more water. “I’m so thirsty I can barely stand it.”
The water had a bit of a strange tinge to it, but it tasted like liquid ambrosia to me. It dripped over the cracks in my lips and down my chin as I scooped handful after handful of it into my mouth. Once I’d had my fill, I sat back against the rough trunk of the tree, taking in the cool of the shade.
Justin squatted down and drank. He was much more measured about it, slowly bringing the water to his mouth, swallowing it, and then taking a moment to let it sink into his stomach before coming back for more.
“We need to put this in something,” I said. “Take some of it with us.”
Justin shook his head.
“Root water doesn’t keep,” he said. “We just have to drink what we can before moving on.”
Justin took one more scoop of water before sitting next to me against the tree trunk. We sat in silence for a time. A low wind picked up for a moment, and I closed my eyes to appreciate it, a small smile forming on my lips as I felt my sweat cool.
“So,” I said, feeling quenched for the first time in hours. “You were a SEAL?”
“Yep,” he said. “Served for nine years.”
“And now you’re…spending your time in backwater Australian towns?”
“No,” he said. “Escorting a client, like I said.’”
“And now these thugs think that I’m the girl you’re escorting?”
“That’s right,” he said. “Didn’t really think about it, but you do really look like her. Same features, similar sense of style.”
“That mean you screwed her too?” I asked with a smirk.
He let out a laugh.
“Nah,” he said. “I like to keep things professional with my clients, but that doesn’t mean they’re not throwing themselves at me constantly.”
“And who is this girl?” I asked.
“A filthy rich heiress from Sydney. When I took the job, I thought she was being paranoid in wanting protection for her trip to Alice Springs. But I guess she was in more danger than I thought.”
“Who do you think these criminals are?” I asked.
“Just low-level mooks,” he said. “Probably working for some Sydney crime syndicate.”
“You think they’ll come for us?”
“Hard to say,” he said. “Likely, they’ll be checking the roads since we took the car. If we keep off the roads for a while, then they might figure we wandered off into the desert.”
“Which is what we did,” I said.
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Then the plan is we make it back to Longbridge?”
“That’s right,” he said. “Once
we’re there we can plan our next move.”
A tinge of fear took hold of me.
“How are we going to make it all the way back there?” I asked, looking around and seeing nothing but endless stretches of identical desert. “Not like there are any signs to lead us the way or something.”
“I did my homework,” said Justin. “Studied a few maps of the area between Alice Springs and Longbridge. It all looks like a wasteland to you, but there are more than a few landmarks we can use to keep track of the way.”
I felt a little better at this, and Justin’s calm demeanor really helped; as panicked as I was, he seemed to have an easy control over the whole situation. I surmised that this wasn’t the first life-or-death situation like this that he’d been in before.
“I don’t know how you do it,” I said. “If it were just me, I’d be wandering around aimlessly before keeling over in the sand.”
Justin glanced over at me for a quick second.
“Then let me give you a little survival training 101,” he said, slipping into a professional tone of voice. “First rule of deserts, in this case, is that you want to travel when it’s dark out. You wouldn’t think so, but it can get cold as hell out here—not uncommon to freeze to death in the middle of a desert. So, that makes it the best time to move. If this gang’s on our tail, however, we might not have the luxury of choosing when to travel. We’ll be taking cover once we reach our next stop.”
“Second rule of deserts?” I asked.
“Use the sun to navigate. Sets in the west, rises in the east. So, if you and I get separated, just remember that Longbridge is in that direction, and the road is to the west of us. Keep walking in that direction, and you’ll eventually get to it.”
“If the desert doesn’t kill me first.”
“And that’s rule three of survival situations,” he said, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Keep a positive attitude. As soon as you start thinking you’re doomed, that’s when it’s bound to happen. And a defeatist on a lost team can tank morale.”
I thought back to my complaining and felt silly.
“And then…rule four?”
“Rule four of survival situations is ‘don’t get in them.’”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, letting out a grim chuckle.
“So,” I continued, feeling ready to move on. “What’s the next step?”
“If my maps are accurate, there’s a small valley a little up the way. Should be a good place to take cover for the night.”
He stood up and looked off into the distance.
“You ready?” he said, his voice steady and confident.
“Yep,” I said. “Let’s do this.”
Chapter 9
Delaney
“You know,” said Justin, “you’re tougher than you look.”
I stopped in my tracks, convinced that I’d misheard him. Justin kept on walking, his gaze fixed straight ahead.
“Did you just say what I think you said?” I asked.
“Sure did. Why—that a surprise to you?”
“Being told I’m tough by an ex-SEAL is a bit of a surprise, yes.”
“I didn’t say you were tough. I said that you’re tougher than you look.”
“Now I don’t know whether to feel complimented or insulted.”
Justin chuckled.
“Complimented,” he said.
I started walking again, picking up my pace to catch up with Justin, the dry sand crunching under my feet. The sun had begun to dip into the sky to the west, the left side of my face warm and hot.
“It’s strange that you’d say that,” I said. “Because I feel like I’m being the biggest baby of all time.”
“You’re not the first civvy I’ve been in a situation like this with,” he said. “And you’re holding up pretty well, considering the circumstances.”
“What,” I said, “you sleep with another girl and wind up in the desert with her?”
“Nope,” he said, grinning. “You’re a first for that. But I did end up stranded with some Hungarian steel baron’s kid.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked. “Tell me about it.”
“Kid was a punk—I could tell that from the jump. The kind of wannabe tough guy that only the insanely wealthy could spawn. Tattoos up and down his arms, leather jacket, a sneer on his face twenty-four seven—about as bad as you’d think.”
“Sounds like a real pleasure,” I said.
“You have no idea. Kid and I were down in Miami, and I was getting paid big bucks to be his babysitter while he club-hopped, putting line after line of coke into his nose and throwing money at anything in a short dress that came within ass-slapping distance.
“Anyway, the next day, kid gets it into his head that he wants to fly over to the other side of the state—visit some friends. He had a helicopter, and I knew how to fly, so I figured sure. About halfway through the trip, I find out the hard way that some thugs from a local gang he’d gotten into trouble with sabotaged the chopper. We go down in the middle of the Everglades, and I just barely manage to get the bird on the ground without killing the both of us.”
Justin shook his head at the memory.
“Kid puts on his tough guy act at first, fronting like it was all some big inconvenience. But about two hours into it, once the humidity started making him sweat through his designer clothes, the veneer got stripped away, and he started acting more and more like the little brat that he was deep down. And when we saw our first gator, I was pretty sure the kid made in his skinny jeans.”
I let out a laugh.
“Long story short,” Justin went on, “he alternated between complaining and crying and being convinced we were done for the entire way. Part of me wanted to knock his ass out and risk just carrying him back. By the time we finally arrived at the little town in the middle of the state we were heading toward, the kid was a blubbering mess, begging on the phone for his daddy to come to pick him up.”
A smirk appeared on Justin’s face. He used his shirt to mop the sweat off his brow.
“So,” he finished. “In comparison, you’re doing pretty damn good.”
“Good to know that I can one-up some rich brat.”
“And take a look at that,” said Justin, pointing forward.
Up ahead, the endless expanse of the desert was broken up by the up-and-down of a black mountain range in the distance. In front of the range was a low valley, shaded and curving.
“That’s where we’re headed?” I asked.
“Sure is,” he said. “Shouldn’t be more than a half-hour to get there. Let’s move.”
I nodded, and we were off. Justin’s story had actually made me feel better. I never would’ve thought that I’d be the type to do well in a situation like this, but knowing that, at the very least, I wasn’t making an already difficult situation even worse was something of a relief.
After more trekking, we arrived at the entrance to the valley. The sun was even lower now, the sky a brilliant orange and cream on the horizon, shifting into a dramatic purple above. Directly overhead the stars twinkled, thousands of them scattered out like shimmering jewels. And sure enough, the oppressive heat of the day had begun to shift to a bitter cold.
“Now what?” I asked, running my hands over my arms in an effort to warm myself up.
“Now we find some shelter and start a fire.”
“From scratch?” I asked.
“Yep. And we better get a move on. I need to get it lit before the sun goes down.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“Yeah. I’ll start on the fire pit, and you’re going to need to find me some tinder and some kindling.”
“I don’t know what either of those things are,” I said.
“‘Tinder is the easy-to-light stuff that’s going to be the start of the fire. Think scrub, tiny twigs, bits of brush—anything that you could imagine burning up easily with a match. And the kindling is going to be what gets the fire really going. That�
�ll be bigger twigs, but nothing too huge. Got it?”
“I think so,” I said.
“Then let’s hurry—we don’t have any sunlight to waste.”
I scrambled around the area, picking up whatever looked like what Justin needed. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as Justin dug a small pit and surrounded it with fist-sized stones. Once I’d gathered enough material, I hurried back to him and showed him what I’d found.
“Perfect,” he said, taking all the goods from my hands.
I watched as he carefully arrayed the soft, easily burnable material on the bottom, topping it with the larger twigs.
“Now what?” I asked. “You going to rub some sticks together or something?”
“Not needed,” he said. “Watch this.”
He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small pair of glasses.
“Those yours?” I asked, with a smile. “Nerd.”
“Hey, you get to thirty-five and see how your eyes hold up,” he said, matching my expression.
Another wave of cold ran through my body. I hoped this would work.
He then positioned the glasses in such a way to catch the last traces of the day’s sun, focusing it into a tight point of light on the tuft of kindling. Holding it in place for a moment, the point glowed for a moment before bursting into a small flame.
“Nice!” I said, watching the fire spread through the kindling before moving onto the twigs.
I squatted down, holding my hands in front of the fire.
“Now,” he said. “Once this thing gets going, we use these bigger sticks here as fuel. Should keep us going through the night.”
“Thank you,” I said. “You’re a damn lifesaver.”
But as the warmth spread through my body, chasing away the last traces of bitter cold, my stomach began to growl.
“Damn,” I said, shaking my head. “Body just wants one thing after another.”
“Makes you realize how tough this survival thing is when you’re away from the comforts of civilization,” he said.
He stood up and looked off into the distance.
“Bet I can get a roo for dinner,” he said.
“You mean, like a kangaroo?”
“Exactly that,” he said. “Stay put. I’ll be back in a little bit.”
Hot Pursuit - A Marooned with the SEAL Romance Page 6
