In This Together

by Kara Lennox

  He hadn’t allowed Elena to retrieve her jacket, he realized. She’d taken it off and draped it over the side of the tub at some point.

  Several camping spots came to mind, isolated places where you didn’t have to register or reserve a space. A friend of Eric’s had a hunting lease they’d used once, a few years ago. If they were lucky, they wouldn’t run into anyone else. Elena wasn’t likely to try to run away, not in her bare feet. The heels she’d been carrying when he’d kidnapped her were probably still in the truck, but she couldn’t get far in those, either.

  That was good. He hadn’t wanted to tie her up. When he went to trial for this crime—and he would—he wanted Elena to testify that he’d shown some concern for her welfare. Photos of bruises and rope burns would make for damning evidence in court.

  It took him more than an hour and a half to get to the hunting lease, north of Lake Conroe. He’d left the freeway long ago, following a series of increasingly smaller roads. At one point he’d pulled over and waited, scanning the horizon behind him for the telltale plume of dust rising from the road signaling the passage of a vehicle. But he wasn’t being followed. For the time being, he was safe.

  He hoped he remembered the turnoff. The sun was going down; in the dark, he’d never find it.

  Wait, there was the dead tree, a black skeleton against sky the color of faded blue ink. Another five minutes and he’d have missed it in the dark.

  He swung the truck onto the narrow dirt road. Though he’d slowed to five miles an hour, the bumps and ruts challenged the old vehicle’s suspension. He shuddered to think of how uncomfortable Elena must be. What if one of his tools rolled into her and injured her?

  If he had stopped to consider the consequences of his actions, he wouldn’t be in this mess right now and neither would Elena. He’d thought he had mastered his troublesome impulsive streak years ago, but apparently he’d only temporarily stifled it.

  It seemed he bumped along the dirt road for hours, but it was only a few minutes before the road widened to a turnaround spot. He was now on the hunting lease, and all appeared quiet—no signs of a campfire or recent tire tracks. He opened the window and stuck his head out to look up. The tree canopy was still pretty thick even though it was full-on autumn. No one would spot his truck from a helicopter. He couldn’t smell any campfire smoke in the air.

  He parked just off the road. Later he could camouflage the truck with some brush, but he doubted anyone would come along. Right now he needed to rescue Elena.

  With the wrench-missile still firmly in his memory, he stood to the side as he opened the cargo cover and peeked in. She lay there placidly, staring up at him.

  “It’s about time. I was almost asphyxiated in there from the exhaust fumes.”

  Oh, hell, he hadn’t even thought about that. As slow as he’d been driving, the exhaust fumes wouldn’t dissipate in the wind as they did at normal speeds.

  “Lucky for you I didn’t,” she continued as she sat up. “Or you could share a cell with your brother.” She looked around. “Where are we?”

  “Where we won’t be found. Please, please don’t try to run. We’re miles from civilization, and I’d catch you anyway. So save us both the aggravation.”

  He opened the tailgate, and she swung her legs out and stood. She’d found her shoes and put them on, he noticed, wondering if she’d been readying herself to sprint for freedom. If she tried to run out here in those heels, she’d break an ankle.

  “Are we camping out?”

  “Yup.”

  She sighed. “I really screwed myself over by stealing your phone. I could have spent the night in that nice bathroom, where at least I had a flush toilet. Now instead I get to relive scenes from Friday the 13th.”

  “Sorry about that, princess.” He grabbed his flashlight from the glove box and rummaged around in his truck for anything that might be useful in the woods. He loaded up his backpack with a few additional food items he’d found, a small tarp, matches, a hatchet—

  “What’s that for?” she asked with some alarm. She stood quite close to him, watching his every move, apparently.

  “Firewood.”

  “Oh. Isn’t it risky, building a fire? What if someone sees it?”

  “It’s gonna be a small fire. And if I hear any helicopters, I’ll douse it before they see it.” It was a risk; she was right. But very slight. Even if an air search was mounted, they couldn’t investigate every campfire they saw.

  He just couldn’t see camping without the small comfort of a fire. It was un-American.

  He grabbed his sleeping bag and gave it to Elena to carry. “Let’s go.”

  “I can’t hike through the woods in heels. It’s ridiculous.”

  She was right again, damn it. He set down the backpack. “Let me see your shoes.”

  “Why?” she asked suspiciously. “You aren’t going to throw them away, are you? Because these are my favorite shoes. Do you know how hard it is to find a comfortable pair of heels?” But she took off one shoe and handed it to him.

  He snapped off the heel and handed it back. “There. Flats.”

  Fortunately, he couldn’t see the expression on her face. It had grown too dark. But he could feel the anger radiating from her.

  “You are going to pay for that.”

  “I’ll probably be in prison for twenty years. What can you do that’s worse?”

  “Castrate you.” But she gave him the other shoe, and he made his alterations and handed it back. She put them back on without further comment.

  Travis led the way into the woods, walking slowly, beating aside the brush with his work boots so Elena’s legs wouldn’t get scratched. At least the weather wasn’t horrible. Camping in August in south Texas could be brutal—you spent the whole night sweating and swatting mosquitos. But autumn was downright pleasant.

  “How far do we have to go?”

  “’Til I find the right spot.”

  Every few steps Travis paused and scanned around him with the flashlight. About the tenth time, he spotted the platform, a rudimentary wooden structure you could at least spread your sleeping bag on, keeping it off the damp ground. And the ground was damp. It had rained quite a bit in the last couple of weeks.

  “Thank God,” Elena groused when he announced they were stopping. “How did you even know this was here?”

  “My brother and I camped here before, on a hunting trip.”

  “What did you hunt?”

  “Deer. Supposedly.”

  She gasped softly. “You killed deer?”

  He laughed. “We never even saw a deer. That hunting trip was just an excuse for a bunch of men to hang out without their wives, exercise bad hygiene, drink gallons of beer in the evenings and do the male-bonding thing. I was relieved I didn’t have to kill Bambi’s mother.”

  Travis set the flashlight down and pulled the tarp out of the backpack, spreading it on the platform. Elena had already sat down on a corner of the platform. He took the sleeping bag from her and opened it, shook it out and spread it over the tarp.

  “Your bed, princess.”

  “My bed?”

  “Well, yeah. You didn’t expect me to take the only sleeping bag for myself, did you?”

  “Where are you going to sleep?”

  “I’ll manage.” Truth was, he wouldn’t sleep. He hadn’t been sleeping well lately in general as he worried about how to help Eric. He’d like to blame the lack of sleep for his lapse in judgment, but that really wasn’t much of an excuse.

  “Is there going to be dinner?”

  “Well, let’s see...” He opened the backpack again and extracted the canned goods one by one. “Baked beans, chili con carne, carrots and...pumpkin pie filling.”

  “You set the bar pretty high with that lasagna, you know.”

 
“Yeah.” He sighed. “That’d be good.”

  “Baked beans. I can eat those cold.”

  “But you don’t have to. I’ll build a fire and we can heat this stuff right in the can. Weren’t you ever a Girl Scout?”

  “No. The places I grew up didn’t have Girl Scouts.”

  Her voice had taken on an edge, and he decided not to pursue that line of conversation for now, though he was curious about her background. She’d said she was Cuban. Had she actually come from Cuba? Or was she of Cuban heritage but born here? Did people come here from Cuba anymore? He knew that at one time many Cubans had fled their homeland and entered the U.S. illegally and then were given asylum.

  He made quick work of building a fire. Despite recent rain, there was plenty of dry wood to be found. He couldn’t find any stones the right size to place around the fire, but he cleared enough space so nothing close by would catch. He used his pocketknife to slit the can labels and remove them, and the knife’s can opener to open the chili and the beans.

  The beans were ready first, steaming and burbling. He set the beans on a large, flat rock in front of Elena. “Ladies first. Be careful—the can is really hot.” He pulled his pocketknife out and extracted the spoon, but he hesitated before handing it to Elena. “Please don’t get ideas about stabbing me. It would make me grumpy.”

  “Duly noted. What else does that knife do? Does it have a parachute? Maybe a bicycle?”

  “It has all kinds of things—a screwdriver, a saw, a nail file—”

  “Well, that’s useful.”

  “Scissors, tweezers, toothpick, corkscrew—”

  “If only we had a bottle of wine.”

  “I could go for a six-pack myself.” Of course she was a wine drinker. Judith had tried to get him to drink wine, but after hours of instruction, he still couldn’t tell a fine Bordeaux from a cheap Merlot.

  Elena held out her hand.

  Reluctantly, he handed her the knife. If she went for the blade, he could get to her before she could fold it out, but he really didn’t want to go there.

  She gave him a knowing look. “You’re never going to let go of that wrench episode, are you?”

  “Not until the scar heals.”

  He enjoyed the playful conversation way more than he should have. It was almost as if they were on a first date...flirting. With each snippet she revealed about herself, his admiration for her grew. How many women in her position would have the smarts and the gumption to fight back the way she had?

  He suddenly fervently wished he had met her at some other point in his life, instead of this desperate moment. When was the last time he’d flirted with a woman? Had to be Judith. That women had soured him on the entire fair sex. Before her, he had loved women. Couldn’t get enough of them. After his spectacularly short and bad marriage, he had only interacted with women long enough to get them into bed, satisfying an occasional urge to feel human again.

  Had he ever even known what it felt like to simply enjoy the company of a woman, to appreciate her beauty, her wit and those feminine ways that were so different from his own, so yin to his yang? He’d spent his youth staying alive, keeping his brother on track. Then there was the army, prison, his business...and Judith. Nothing about his ex-wife had been simple. Every encounter with her had been fraught with the stress of trying to meet her expectations.

  His heart ached unexpectedly with what could never be—not with Elena and probably not with anyone. By the time he got out of prison, he’d be an old man, and Elena would be married to someone else with a houseful of children, even grandchildren.

  “Do you ever want to get married?” he asked impulsively.

  She looked at him curiously, her face a work of art in the flickering light of the fire. But she answered. “I hope I will someday. I have memories of when I was little, having these big family get-togethers with my older brothers and my parents, grandparents, ten or twenty cousins. Here, we have very close friends that we treat as family. So family is very important to me. My parents would be so happy if I gave them a dozen grandbabies. But I wouldn’t get married just to have babies.”

  “You’re holding out for love, huh?”

  “It makes sense, right?” She spooned up some of the beans and blew on them. “Who wants to spend fifty or sixty years with someone they don’t love?”

  “The problem with marrying for love is feelings change.”

  “You sound as if you speak from experience.” She took a bite of the beans, chewed, swallowed and nodded toward the can. “These aren’t too bad.”

  He supposed he had let a note of bitterness creep into his voice. He’d thought he was over being angry about the Judith thing, but maybe this reminder about all he didn’t have—would never have—had stirred up some old, buried feelings. Ridiculous, really.

  “I married for love. Felt like love, anyway, at first. But she thought I was someone else—or that she could make me into someone different, someone better. I guess I was a pretty hard case, because she gave up, moved on to greener pastures. I kept trying to make her happy, and, meanwhile, she was lining up her next project.”

  “I’m sorry. I guess it must be hard to believe in love after an experience like that. But I’ve seen real love, lasting love, so I know it’s out there. My parents have been married more than forty years, and my mother’s eyes still light up whenever my father walks into the room. He still gives her flowers for no reason, just because.”

  Travis must have looked skeptical, because she added, “What about your brother? I know it ended tragically, but didn’t he love his wife?”

  “He did, and I used to think she loved him, until I realized she was cheating.”

  “Oh. Right. You mentioned that.” She returned her attention to the baked beans.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in true love and happy endings; it was just that such perfect pairings were exceedingly rare. Certainly didn’t happen for his mother. His father hadn’t even stuck around long enough to see Eric born.

  The temperature was dropping. The chili was steaming now, so he used a folded T-shirt from his car as a pot holder, took the can off the fire and set it on the flat rock.

  Elena offered the spoon to him. It seemed oddly intimate, sharing one spoon. But he could see she hadn’t eaten much.

  “I’ll wait until you’re done.”

  “No, really. I’ve had enough.”

  He accepted the spoon and then dug into the chili. It wasn’t too bad. “This stuff reminds me of childhood. You know, that chili they served in school cafeterias?” The school lunch programs had provided Eric and him at least one good meal a day.... Sometimes the only meal they got.

  “I wouldn’t know. I always brought my lunch.”

  She’d probably had a lunchbox with some Disney princess on it. He smiled at the thought. “Want to try it?”

  “Sure. Might as well broaden my horizons.”

  When he presented her with the can of chili, like a waiter at a four-star restaurant presenting a sirloin steak, she took the spoon and helped herself to a hefty bite.

  “So, you never eat canned food?” Though Travis knew how to cook, these days he seldom bothered with anything more elaborate than a can of soup or tuna fish.

  “Daniel doesn’t allow canned food in his house. Everything is made fresh. And my mother cooks everything from scratch.”

  “Something about being out in the woods makes even canned stuff taste better. When you’re hiking or canoeing, a peanut butter sandwich can be ecstasy.”

  She was staring at him. He turned away from her self-consciously.

  “You’re very handsome when you smile. You should do it more often.”

  “Don’t have much to smile about lately. You about done with that?”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot for a moment that I’m hogging
the only spoon.” She handed the utensil back to him. Now that her hunger was satisfied, she might have more incentive to threaten him with the knife, so he was relieved she didn’t try anything.

  Elena surrendered her spot next to the rock, and Travis took it over. The ground was still warm where her bottom had rested, and he enjoyed the sensation, the secondhand contact with such an attractive part of her body.

  Wow, he was obviously hard up.

  He finished up the chili and the beans and set the cans aside. There was no trash bag, but he would carry the trash out when they left. Just because he was a desperate felon was no reason to litter.

  “You want dessert? The canned pumpkin might be tasty. Or I have some granola bars.”

  “No, thanks. I’m full. I have to, um, use the bathroom.”

  He’d been dreading this moment. Once out of his sight, she could run. It might seem the smart thing to do, from her angle. But they were a long way from help. She might find her way to the road in the dark, but he would catch up to her if she did that. And if she went deeper into the woods she might elude him, but she risked wandering all night and becoming hopelessly lost. With no jacket, no proper shoes and no water, she could come to harm.

  But what else could he do? He wasn’t going to stand over her while she peed behind a bush. The situation would be humiliating for both of them, and her friendly, cooperative mood would come to an abrupt end.

  “Don’t go far.”

  “Can I take the flashlight?”

  “Nope.”

  “Great. You better hope a snake doesn’t get me.”

  “Snakes are hibernating this time of year.”

  With a backward malevolent glance at him, she stalked off into the darkness. Travis took a couple of bites of the pumpkin, but it had a chemical aftertaste—too many preservatives, or maybe it simply tasted of the can. He listened to the sounds of the woods at night. It was peaceful here, just him and Elena and the crickets.

  And the coyotes. A long, mournful cry drifted on the night breeze—a coyote seeking its mate. Soon another cry joined the first, then a third. They weren’t too far off; maybe a mile.