Manhunt in the Wild West

by Jessica Andersen

  So he focused on driving, aiming for the airport, where the dozens of interchangeable chain hotels would offer them a decent shot at anonymity for a few hours at the very least.

  “Pull in here,” Chelsea said as they passed a rest stop.

  “We don’t need gas.”

  “No, but we do need cash.” She lifted her purse. “I’m assuming we’re not going to want to use my credit cards.” Her eyes went sad, no doubt at the thought of her PD friends finding the downed officers and assuming the worst.

  “Damn,” Fax said, annoyed at himself. He should’ve pulled in at the first ATM they passed. Now anyone checking her account records would know what highway they’d jumped on.

  Which went to show he wasn’t functioning at top capacity. In fact, he thought as he pulled off the highway into the rest stop, he was working at about half-speed and falling.

  Still, he was coherent enough to grab her wrist before she could climb out of the truck, and push the first-aid kit in her direction. “Wipe the blood off your hands, and see what you can do about your clothes.”

  She paled but did as he ordered, cleaning herself up as best she could before she headed into the food court to use the ATM. While he waited, Fax leaned back and closed his eyes, keeping his ears tuned for any hint of trouble.

  At least that’s what he’d intended to do. Instead, he dozed.

  Chelsea’s voice roused him from his stupor. “Slide over. I’m driving.”

  He shifted over, not arguing because he didn’t particularly want to win. There had been no sign of the dark SUV since it’d gone off the road, and nobody else appeared to be following them. They’d ditched the cruiser, and his gut told him it’d be a while before the switch was noticed.

  They should be okay for a few hours at least, he figured as his eyes flickered closed and the dizziness took over.

  It was the last thought he had for a while.

  The next thing he knew, Chelsea was shaking him awake, saying, “Wake up, Fax. There’s no way I can carry you. You’re going to have to walk.”

  “I’m up.” Actually, he was surprised he’d slept. Usually he could go for days on end with no rest and not feel it until he gave himself permission to let down his vigilance. Whatever Muhammad had given him, it’d packed a heck of a delayed punch.

  “Come on,” Chelsea said, tugging at him. “Let’s get you inside.”

  They were in a parking lot, he saw, and noted the airplane logos on several nearby signs. “We’re at the airport?” He frowned at her because he didn’t think he’d said anything about going to an airport hotel, although that had been his plan.

  “It was the best I could think of,” she said, her voice going faintly defensive. “I switched out the truck’s license plates with ones I pulled off a minivan about twenty miles from here, and registered our room under my grandmother’s maiden name, figuring anyone looking for us wouldn’t go that far back.”

  “I wasn’t complaining. You did okay,” he said grudgingly. He was still mad at her for leaking information, still not sure how that was going to affect things between them going forward, but at the same time he could see how it’d happened. She wasn’t a trained operative, didn’t live by the same rules he did.

  He could understand why she’d done what she’d done, though that didn’t make it the right call. Not by a long shot.

  Groaning under his breath as his body echoed with pain, he dropped down from the stolen truck, careful not to lock it before he shut the door. “Let’s get ourselves a room.” He wasn’t listening to any discussion of one versus two rooms. He didn’t give a damn about modesty, and they needed to watch each other’s backs.

  She didn’t argue. Instead, she flashed a key card and nodded to a nearby window. “First floor, halfway between two exits. That’s our window. If we have to go through it, we’re practically on top of the truck.”

  “Okay, now you’re scaring me.”

  “Most of it’s just common sense.”

  “Fair enough.” But he didn’t move, just gave her a long up-and-down look. She’d changed in the few days they’d known each other. She was bloody and battered, as she’d been in the cave that first day, but instead of being immobilized by terror, now she was functioning. More importantly, she was thinking. “You made a hell of a mistake, talking to your friend like that,” he said, “but you’ve got good instincts. And I don’t say that lightly.”

  She looked away. “I read lots of spy books.”

  “It’s more than that, and you know it.”

  “I’m a wimp,” she said softly. “I’ve been terrified this whole time. And my surveillance team…” Her eyes filled with tears and she crossed her arms over herself, shivering a little.

  Although he knew they should get inside, out of sight, something compelled him to say, “All of this is al-Jihad’s fault, first and foremost. Nothing gives him the right to do what he does.”

  She glanced at him and their eyes locked. He saw her searching his face for something, and wondered what she saw, what she was looking for.

  “I wanted to join the FBI right out of college,” she said, seemingly out of nowhere.

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I told you. I’m a wimp.” She turned away and headed for the hotel door, apparently not willing to discuss it any further.

  As Fax followed her in, she wondered how long she’d been telling herself that and why.

  The hotel room was little more than a big square with two queen-size beds, an entertainment center and a small desk. Standard, unprepossessing and safe enough for the moment as far as Fax was concerned.

  He locked and chained the door and made a beeline for the nearest bed, only to be pulled up short when Chelsea grabbed him and all but force-marched him into the bathroom.

  “Sit.” She propelled him in the direction of the toilet. “I’ll get the first-aid kit.”

  He did as he was told, mostly because once she flipped the harsh fluorescent lights on, he could see exactly how bad his wrists looked, all gouged and swollen and so dirty they were practically a standing invite for an infection.

  Staring at them without really feeling the pain, he said, “I’ve had worse.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” she said, coming back into the bathroom with the small plastic box she’d retrieved from the dead cops’ cruiser. “But I’m a doctor. No way I’m letting you stay like this.”

  Perhaps, but he suspected that it was more nervous energy that kept her going as she cleaned and bandaged the cuts at his wrists. That same nervous energy rode her as she checked the bump at the back of his head and tended to the cuts on his ankles, which weren’t as bad as he’d feared.

  She was moving fast, talking fast, and he didn’t blame her. She’d had a terrible, wretched day full of fear and blood, danger and guilt, and she had to be feeling like it’d all catch up to her if she slowed down, even for a second.

  He should know. Been there, done that. He could’ve told her that running didn’t help, though. The memories always caught up in the end.

  At the same time, he knew that wasn’t what she wanted or needed to hear just now, so he let her keep going, let her check his head a second and third time, get him an aspirin, draw him a glass of tap water. She needed to be doing, he knew, and maybe a piece of him needed to be done for, just for a few minutes.

  He hadn’t been fussed over in a long, long time.

  When she was done, when she finally ran out of frenetic energy and just sort of stalled, standing there in the bathroom, staring at the bloodstains on her sleeves, he reached out and took her hand.

  It was shaking.

  “Come here.” He tugged and she all but collapsed, practically going to her knees on the tile. He caught her on the way down, feeling the pull of bandages as he gathered her against him, her body cradled between his knees, her head against his chest. “Hold on to me for a few minutes.”

  She sobbed a broken word—his name, maybe—and clung.

  Then, as he’d
figured she would, Chelsea burst into tears.

  CHELSEA HADN’T MEANT to lose it, had been trying not to, but the moment he touched her, the moment she leaned into his warm, solid bulk and felt his arms come around her, all bets were off.

  She’d been trying to be brave when she wasn’t really. She was a wimp who’d gone into pathology because she couldn’t deal with life-or-death situations, a poser who read about adventures and imagined herself in them, but had avoided the offers of real-life adventure that’d come her way. She’d complained about her boring, normal life sometimes, but when she came right down to it, boring was better than dangerous.

  “I don’t want this,” she said into Fax’s chest, her sobs giving way to shuddering breaths. “I thought I did, but I don’t. I want to wake up and realize this was all a dream. I want my old life back.”

  He said nothing, simply held her, and his silence was as eloquent as a shout, one that said, There’s no going back.

  She’d broken the law, broken her friends’ trust, and his. And al-Jihad wanted her dead.

  “What do we do now?” she said, her voice cracking on the misery of it all.

  “We rest,” he said, ever practical. “We’re safe enough here for the moment, and neither of us is at our best. So let’s rest for a few hours, and then we’ll see where we’re at.”

  She nodded, but didn’t speak, and when he rose, it was the most natural thing in the world for her to rise with him, still tangled around him.

  They moved into the main room together, and there was no discussion of the second bed. Instead, they lay down together, wrapped in one another, still fully clothed. He kicked off his shoes, then used his toes to shove hers off her feet. Pulling the hotel-issue coverlet over them both, he urged her into the hollow formed by the curve of his body, and his weight on the mattress. “Get some sleep. We’ll overthink the rest later.”

  She’d slept so little the past three nights that it was easier to comply than to argue, and besides, she didn’t really want to argue. She might not want to be in the situation she was in, but that didn’t change the fact that she wanted to be near Fax. She wanted to touch him, taste him, curl up with him, be with him.

  There would be no future with a man like him, but foolish though it might make her, she wanted whatever the present would allow. So she cuddled up against him and laid her sore cheek against his chest. They pressed together, fitting so perfectly it made her heart ache.

  The contact warmed her when she’d been so cold for too long, made her feel safe when she knew she was vulnerable. She wanted to touch him, to run her hands along his body, but she knew he was right that they needed to rest, so she let herself sink into the warmth, knowing she would be cold again all too soon come morning.

  She slept, warm and secure, surfacing a few hours later, opening her eyes briefly when Fax left the bed and headed for the bathroom.

  “Do I need to get up?” she asked when he returned, her voice drowsy.

  “Not yet,” he answered. “Go back to sleep.”

  The mattress dipped beneath his weight, rolling her into him. His body heat surrounded her, cocooning her in the illusion of safety. On one level, she knew she should wake up, that they needed to talk about what was happening, and what they should do next. But on another level she had no desire to do anything but sleep a little longer, put off reality for a few more hours.

  So she slept.

  She was awakened some time later by a sound. Through the blinded window she could see that day had gone to dark outside, making it nearly pitch inside the room. Tensing, she strained to identify the noise that had roused her.

  It hadn’t been a footstep or bump in the night, she realized as her mind supplied the memory. It’d been Fax’s voice.

  “What’s wrong?” he said from very close beside her, having apparently awakened when she did.

  “You were talking in your sleep.”

  She waited for him to deny it. Instead, after a long pause, he said simply, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

  Which meant he knew what he’d said, or at least what he’d been dreaming about. She wasn’t sure whether that made it better or worse, considering that the word she’d heard had been another woman’s name. Abby.

  She didn’t have any right to feel hurt. But that didn’t stop the emotion from coming.

  “Who is she?” she asked, not really sure she wanted to know. She’d assumed all along that a man like him was alone in the world, that there was nobody waiting for his mission to end. The way he’d talked about his mother and brothers had only reinforced that impression, as had her suspicion that he and Jane had been lovers at some point.

  But none of those people had been named Abby, and he hadn’t spoken of them with the intensity he’d used just now, when he’d called her name.

  He was silent for so long she didn’t think he was going to answer. Then, finally, he exhaled a long, sighing breath and said, “She was my wife. She miscarried and bled out five years ago next month.”

  “Oh.” That was all Chelsea could muster at first—a single syllable that didn’t begin to cover her horror, both at having asked the question and having opened an obviously unhealed wound. She could hear the pain in his voice, feel the tension in his body. “I’m sorry,” she said finally, though that seemed pitifully inadequate.

  “I left the PD and went undercover with Jane’s team six months later,” he said as though that explained everything, which she supposed it did.

  “You must have loved her very much,” she said, empathy warring with jealousy.

  Instead of answering, he leaned away from her and snapped on one of the bedside lamps, casting the two of them in warm yellow light. He stayed there at the edge of the mattress, propped up on one elbow, looking down at her with something unfathomable in his cool eyes. “Not exactly.”

  The doctor in her noted that he looked less tired than before, his eyes sharper, his color better. The woman in her, though, focused on his words. “You didn’t love her?”

  She wasn’t sure which would be better, to hear that he’d loved and lost his wife or that he hadn’t loved her, yet had married her and they’d started a family. And no matter how much Chelsea tried to tell herself this was none of her business, her heart said otherwise.

  “I loved her,” Fax said. “She was my high-school sweetheart. We stayed in touch while I was in the military, and got married once my service was up. I came home and joined the local PD. I worshipped the damn ground she walked on…Unfortunately, she didn’t feel the same. Or maybe she did, once, but it didn’t last.” He paused, grimacing. “The baby wasn’t mine. She didn’t even tell me she was pregnant, which begs the question of whether she’d planned on abortion or figured I wasn’t going to be part of her future plans.”

  “Oh,” Chelsea said, taken aback. She’d assumed he was cold and hard because that was what his profession demanded. Now, she could only assume that his natural reserve had other layers to it, layers that made him even less available than she’d thought.

  He nodded as though she’d asked the question aloud. “Yeah. Let’s just say I’m not lining up to try the happily-ever-after thing again.” Something flashed at the back of his eyes and he added, “In case you were wondering.”

  “I wasn’t,” she said faintly, lying to herself as much as him. “You woke me up talking about her. That was all.”

  There was a great deal more and they both knew it, but instead of hashing it out, they just stayed there, staring at each other as the small circle of yellow lamplight and the night beyond cast a layer of intimacy over the scene.

  Heat kindled in her belly, so much hotter than the comforting warmth of before, a greedy fire that made her want to reach out and drag him close. She wanted to sink her fingers in his hair, in his clothes, wanted to breathe him in, inhale him whole until they were bound to one another, for the duration of the night.

  There was no future for them, she knew, even less hope of it than before, now that she knew
his work wasn’t the only reason he held himself aloof. But if she’d learned anything from the events of the past few days, it was that things could change in the blink of an eye. They could both be dead tomorrow.

  Given that, there was nothing she’d rather do than rise up on her hands and knees and cross to him on the wide mattress, watch his eyes fix on her, and see the heat flare within them.

  When she did exactly that, he brought his hands up to her shoulders as if in protest. But he didn’t pull her close, didn’t push her away.

  “Chelsea,” he said, voice rasping. “Be sure this is what you want.”

  “I’m sure enough,” she said, which was the honest truth. She wasn’t positive of anything anymore, but she knew if they didn’t take this moment, this chance, she would regret it for the rest of her life. Now was not the time to be a wuss.

  He held her away for a long moment, until she was starting to worry that her “almost” wasn’t enough, that he didn’t want her enough to take the chance.

  Then, when she was just about ready to draw back and stammer an apology, his fingers tightened on her shoulders and he drew her close, sliding her up his body where he lay partway propped against the headrest of the motel bed.

  He held her there for a few seconds, his breath whispering against her lips, his eyes searching hers for—what? She didn’t know the answer, wasn’t even sure of the question. But somehow he found the reply he’d been seeking, because he whispered her name, making the two syllables sound as dear as they ever had in her entire life. “Chelsea.”

  Then he framed her face in his hands and crushed his lips to hers, and there was no more talking, no more discussion. There was only the heat they made together and the perfection that might not be forever, but was exactly what both of them needed just then.

  Chapter Eight

  For all the times Fax had told himself to keep his hands off Chelsea, that she deserved a man who could give her all the stability and safe adventures she deserved, when it came down to it, he was the cold, greedy bastard Abby had called him in the single fight that had marked the end of their marriage and had brought on the miscarriage that had killed her.