Jared rubbed his jaw. "Sadly, it's far more complex and evolved than what you're imagining, sir, but yes. The short answer is that our enemies are capable of seizing human hosts, and by some act of subterfuge we believe they may have done just this with the vice president."
Patrick reached for his water glass, his hand shaking so badly that the liquid sloshed inside of it, nearly spilling. "That puts your enemies just one step away from controlling our missiles."
"Which would be their plan, sir. I'm sure the USAF team explained the attack we diverted at Warren?"
"In vague terms, yes."
"They almost gained control of the silos then, but we were able to shut them down. It seems that in their anger, they reached a bit… higher."
"How can I help?" Patrick asked.
Jared hesitated, glancing cautiously at Kelsey, whose anger seemed much more muted now that she'd heard the facts. "I was hoping you might try to meet with Clarke. See how he seems to you. You've known him for many years—I believe you could tell us if he is changed at all. Different. Not that you're to say anything to him, simply to get recon as to his behavior and frame of mind."
Patrick threw his head back, releasing a deep, rumbling laugh. "In other words, you want me to join forces with you just like my daughter?"
Jared couldn't help smiling in return. "I believe your unique placement could be of great benefit."
Patrick kept smiling. "My daughter told you to do this—right?"
"No, I didn't know anything about it at all, and frankly I'm a little pissed that he didn't warn me." Kelsey wiped a hand across her brow, where a thin sheen of perspiration had broken out.
Once again, Patrick's expression grew somber. "If my friend is gone—and one of these aliens is in his place—will he ever make it back? Back to the surface or however I should think of it? Or is he—"
"I'm sorry, sir. If he's gone, well …" Jared's words trailed off.
Patrick fell silent, then added, "If he's gone, then our world is in serious trouble. That's the real gist of it, right?"
Jared bowed his head significantly. "Now you understand why I decided to ask for your help."
Chapter Seven
"So, cowboy, it's straight up on six o'clock, and that makes about five hours you've been sulking over there in that passenger seat." Shelby shifted, a thin sheen of sweat having formed beneath her thighs that caused them to slide against the leather seat of Jake's truck. She'd volunteered to do the driving because it made the time pass faster on the long journey home.
For hours and hours they'd been rattling across Texas, through oil fields and open range, until she thought the empty terrain would never end. Especially with Jake slumped against the window, not sleeping, but hardly living, either.
She gave his arm a poke. "What? You're not going to talk to me? I know you're awake over there."
"Just watching this lovely scenery go by." He sat up straight in the seat, stretching his arms overhead. "The varied terrain, the unparalleled beauty that is northern Texas."
"You're just acting assy because I wouldn't stop at that bar."
"I wanted Tex-Mex."
"You wanted a beer."
She turned to smile at him, but it wasn't an expression he returned. She figured he was in a funk because he dreaded returning to camp, dreaded the possibility of seeing Hope again, and mostly dreaded having to face the facts of his existence here in this time. After all, he'd pretty much hightailed it away from the compound and hadn't looked back for the past four months. He'd never exactly dealt with the fact that he was marooned in this reality— and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it, either.
She hated seeing the bleakness in his eyes, the thousand-yard stare haunting his eerie green eyes. With a sigh, she watched another mile marker go by; they still had a good ten hours ahead of them until they got back to Jackson, and she felt it her particular duty—she was, after all, a nurse—to cheer Jake up.
Distraction was always a good tactic, so she tried again. "You haven't asked me about being a time walker. I'm sorta surprised. You're pretty direct about things, and all that. I figured you'd have grilled me by now."
He stretched his arm along the bench seat, his fingertips slightly grazing her shoulder, bare except for the halter-top strap that looped about her neck. Swallowing, she wrestled to focus her thoughts, but it was tough when every bit of her awareness had flooded to that soft place on her shoulder where Jake's rough fingertips touched her. She might as well have received a casual caress from a lightning bolt.
"Well," he answered, glancing her way, "I don't actually believe you. So my only curiosity, Shelby, would be why you needed to claim to be a time walker when there's no way in hell that you actually are."
Her rush of desire was instantly replaced with a spark of anger. She tilted her chin upward, kept her eyes on the road, and slipped into formal speech. "Well, lieutenant, lying to a superior officer would certainly land me in the brig. Perhaps you haven't thought through that line of reasoning, at least not thoroughly."
A raspy rumble passed over his lips. "You might be under orders from our commander. In fact, you've already said as much."
"Still couldn't lie to you, sir. That's not who I am."
"So you're a time walker." He slid just a fraction nearer, his long arm slipping closer along that damned bench seat. "The first I've ever met, Tyler. Tell me what it means."
Her whole body warmed at the physical contact with him. She couldn't decide whether this maneuver with his arm was a come-on or if he was simply opening himself physically in order to hear the truth about her gift. Her confusion on that point was more than just a little bit disconcerting; she forced her gaze onto the open ribbon of road that wound ahead of them. "You're a deeply spiritual man, sir," she answered softly. "You know what a time walker is, what it means I am."
"Deeply spiritual?" He gave a scoffing laugh. "Yeah, I worship All, and he's watched my back on plenty of occasions. But I'm not sure he's doing more than mocking me at this point."
Something in his tone frightened her, hearing him speak so caustically about the God they both believed in. "We all lose people, Scott," she murmured.
"Jake." His tone could have cut her very soul to shreds, and she winced.
"Sorry."
Her heart hammered in her chest, partly from fear and partly from emotions she wouldn't dare name. Being with Jake Tierny scared the bejesus out of her on more levels than she could count. He thought he was the only one with a past? Who'd lost someone he loved?
Don't go there, girl.
Oh, he terrified her all right, so much so that her hands had begun to sweat against the steering wheel, and they shook with slight tremors. Maybe if they had sex, then he wouldn't scare her so bad; the playing field would be more even. In fact, it was a whole, whole lot easier to just focus on the thought of them doing it. Until she was blind and senseless and didn't feel anything else: until the aching place in her chest—the one that intensified when she was around him—went away. The place between her legs grew damp against the leather seat, and it took all her soldier's discipline not to reach for his hand and draw it right down to where she ached for him. To let him feel how he affected her.
Jake had been absolutely right. She liked sex and not a little bit. She had an intensely high libido, one that never seemed to find total satisfaction. Only once had she been with someone who'd come close to being her sexual match, and that had ended in heartbreak and disaster. So she'd tried going celibate, hoping it would tame the lust and senseless hunger inside her. It wasn't feminine; hell, it just wasn't right.
Jake's fingers slid along her bare skin, skimming upward toward her neck.
Just screw me, baby. We'll forget everything together.
Abruptly, he withdrew his hand, folding both arms over his chest. "I've read a bit about time walkers in my studies of the scriptures. It's the rarest gift that All bestows.… Frankly, I've always believed it pure myth that someone like you would even e
xist. It's said to be the highest blessing."
The man was talking scripture when she was thinking about the physical. The very, very physical. "More of a curse, really." She meant the words to stay inside her head—honest, she did—but still they slipped past her lips.
Jake threw his head back and laughed. "So that makes two of us who believe the gods have forsaken us."
That one? Well, that one she just wasn't going to touch.
He turned in his seat, fixing her with those gorgeous green eyes of his. "You don't like that?"
"Don't agree with it, that's all."
"Then what did you mean about your gift being a curse? How does time walking work? The scriptures are entirely vague on the matter."
On the radio, a Tim McGraw song came on, and for a minute she just listened. "Live Like You're Dying"—a pretty good motto considering all the death she'd seen.
"I love this song." She reached to turn up the volume, but Jake's massive hand halted her. Their fingertips brushed together, their hands suspended in a strange dance of electricity and need.
In the silence, she could hear his breathing grow heavy, just as hers did. He seemed to be waiting on something from her, asking for something more than plain facts about her gift.
Closing her fingers around his hand—as cautious as she would be with that bear he kept reminding her of—she waited. For a reaction, for him to pull away or lash out, but he remained perfectly still beside her, frozen except for the heavy sound of his huffing breaths.
One of us has to make a move, she thought, cursing herself for being so blinded with lust for the guy who she couldn't think worth crap around—much less control her physical reactions to his unstoppable sensuality. If she'd ever doubted he might be Scott Dillon in another body, well, his barely constrained physical presence was all the proof she'd ever need. Only one other man that she'd met in her life had ever radiated so much hunger and passion without even uttering a word, and that was absolutely Scott Dillon.
"What do you want?" Her question came out breathless, edged with frustration and emotion.
Jake took her hand, anchoring it against his thigh. "I think you know."
"You'd better tell me, just so I'm sure."
"I want to know my future. I want you to be a time walker, Shelby, to walk me." He slid her hand a little bit higher up his thigh. "And tell me if I succeed in killing Jakob Tierny in this timeline."
Jake's hand was practically flung back at him, if such a thing were even possible, as Shelby yanked her own out of his grasp.
"Frak me!" she cursed.
"Frak what?"
She shot a furious glare at him. "Battlestar, baby. Not that I'd expect you to know that." He didn't know what the hell she was talking about but wasn't about to reveal that fact to her. She continued ranting. "Seeing as how you don't know who the Grateful Dead are, or what your own dang tattoos mean, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't know about Battlestar Galactica." She threw both hands in the air, completely releasing the steering wheel, ignoring the fact that the car veered slightly over the line. Good thing Texas was so flat.
"Well, frak you, too, sweetheart." Leaning closer to her, he sidled across the seat and allowed his words to absolutely drip with seductiveness. "I mean, who wouldn't frak you, as hot as you are. You're my very own little Texas tamale."
She stiffened, her full lips quivering slightly with emotion. "This ain't about that."
"Ain't about what?" he mimicked. "That southern accent of yours hits overdrive every time you're emotional or upset or"—he reached for a lock of blonde hair that had come loose from her clip, stroking it between his fingertips suggestively—"turned on. Especially when you're turned on." He watched as deep color infused her face, feeling his own body flush with unstoppable heat.
"I—I thought you wanted to talk about my gift."
Trailing his fingertips across her cheek, he stroked the nape of her neck, watching a pure look of sexual satisfaction pass over her face. It might have been a long time since he'd touched a woman, but some things you just never forgot—not when you'd bedded as many women as he had over the years. With a languid gesture, he ran his fingers along the base of her scalp until her eyes slid halfway shut and she squirmed slightly in the seat.
"I'm gonna have an accident if you don't cut that out."
"Pull over." He invoked his voice of authority, sounding every bit her commanding officer.
She jerked in surprise, leaning forward and out of his grasp. "Not out here—there's nowhere to stop."
"Like I care—do it, Tyler. Now. Pull over this vehicle." He turned in the seat to face her. "That's an order, Medic."
Half a mile down the road, without ever saying a word, Shelby located a dusty pull-off that led to absolutely nowhere. Perhaps a turnaround for cattlemen in the area, it wound a small distance off road and behind a copse of cactus and brush. When he realized the privacy the place would afford, he issued another order: "Park here, Shelby. This is the spot."
Once the car was parked, she turned to him, her clear blue eyes brilliant with emotion. He was tempted to soul-gaze her, to figure out what was really going on behind those gorgeous, long-lashed eyes of hers. But he knew that she'd call him down on that before he'd even get started.
"What do you have in mind, sir?" She folded both arms across her chest—both bare arms because from this angle he mostly saw skin, inches of pale, beautiful skin that had been left exposed by her halter-top and miniskirt.
"Gods, you're a gorgeous woman." He rubbed his jaw, just looking at her, appreciating her pure, unspoiled beauty—possibly for the first time. He'd thought her hot as hell back in the motel, but here with the sun setting behind her, with the heat of emotion showing on her face, he could see her for what she really was: an absolutely breathtaking beauty. From her full, pouty lips to her thick, feathered eyebrows, there wasn't a single aspect of her that wasn't sensuous. Deeply, provocatively sensuous.
"This isn't about me. You wanted something; now, tell me what it is, or I'm pulling right back on that highway."
The directness of her question, the proximity of her utterly feminine body, knocked the breath out of his lungs, terrified him to the very marrow until all he could think was that he had to get away. "Bad idea, this," he grumbled. "Terrible, terrible idea."
Gods, he was suffocating. This woman was choking the life out of him, and he had to break away from her before he did what he most wanted, which was to make love to her, here in the desert without worrying who might drive by or who might see. Wanted to take her lithe little body up underneath his own massive one and brand her with his mark. To bind her to him somehow, in some way that neither time nor death could ever challenge.
Only, he of all people knew that caring for any woman was a danger because death was always a possibility. The one woman he'd ever loved had died, taking his soul with her to the grave; the last thing he needed was to fall hard for Shelby. His heart went wild inside his chest as grief and longing spun together, practically choking him.
He reached for the door handle, fumbling with it awkwardly, but all at once she was on him. Her arm braced between his body and the door.
"Not so fast, sir."
He pressed his palm against the glass, trying to find his breath. "I'm so sorry, Shelby." Damn it, he meant it, too; he never should have come on to her, not so strongly, and not when she'd been charged with the duty of bringing him back to base. This was a mission for her. For him, it was all about the ever-loving strka right between his legs. She deserved someone better than he, with his broken soul and wretched memories. She deserved a man who could truly open his heart.
"Sorry for what?" She purred in his ear and covered his splayed palm with her own. He could feel her energy pulse within his own body; if he'd doubted her giftedness before, all that disbelief faded away as she touched him. He could feel the power radiating all through her—something she'd obviously held back when they'd kissed earlier. "Sorry for what, cowboy?" she repeated, whispering the
word right into his ear.
He pressed his forehead against the glass, keeping his back to her, wishing that he weren't awash in so many bad memories. "Please … just accept my apology and leave it at that."
Mirroring his own earlier gesture, she ran her fingertips along the nape of his neck, and his cock tightened in deep reaction. "I'll time walk you, Jakob." She pressed a languid kiss against his neck, stroking his sensitive skin with the tip of her tongue. "I will give you that, but there's something you have to do for me first." Her fingers, spread atop his on the glass window, trembled. "There's a promise I need, if I'm going to open my gift to you like that."
His head swam with a thousand impulses and desires; she offered him the future, she promised him her body—but what, by the gods, did she want from him in exchange? Everything inside his mind told him to leave, to just get out of the car. "Anything, say the word," he heard himself mutter, silencing the warring voices within his head.
She planted a hot, needy kiss behind his ear, stroking his jaw with her fingertips, coaxing him to finally turn and look at her. "Make love to me, Jakob—"
He cut her off with a growl, sniffing at her face in a frantic effort to scent her, but she pushed at his chest, stopping him. "There's more," she explained.
"Anything." He tugged her against his chest, not letting her keep any physical distance. "I told you anything, woman," he rumbled in her ear.
"All right, then." Her warm hand slid between his thighs, outlining the ridge of his erection with a rough motion. Slowly she raised her eyes until their gazes locked meaningfully. "The promise is that you let me take the lead."
He released a prayer to All, begging for mercy, because he suspected this pretty little medic had just purchased his soul.
Shelby lowered herself onto Jake, who she'd pushed onto his back right there in the front seat of the pickup. With all his stops and starts, she knew damned well that she had to take the lead—and she also knew her heart would be in far less danger this way. She couldn't help smiling at the image of Jake, so aching and ready that he didn't mind having his head mashed up against the door handle. Didn't care that his boots were braced against the driver's side window, or that his uncontainable and massive body was contorted into a ridiculous posture just so she could straddle him.
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