“Five. I let you sleep in. Horses are loaded and ready to go.”
He smelled coffee. Best coffee he’d ever smelled. “You got something against the sun?”
“I want to be well into the city before the traffic gets really bad.”
He sighed. He wasn’t going to be the one to hold her up. “Let me do my business and I’ll be out in a sec.” He grabbed for his crutch and pushed himself up.
“Okay,” she said, her voice sunny. “I’ll come back to get you into your shirt.” She turned at the door. “Don’t take pills on an empty stomach. I got breakfast and some coffee in the truck.”
Wasn’t she just a busy little bee? He resolved that he was not going to need her help with his boot. Or his shirt.
He was wrong about the shirt. When she returned he was struggling to pull it over his bad shoulder.
“Let me,” she said. She looked serious now, her cheeriness evaporated. This close he could see the bruise on her cheekbone even in the dim light from the candle. It made his stomach clench. He could choke Elroy. She pulled his shirt over his shoulder, and damned if her knuckles didn’t brush his back even as her thumb touched his chest. Not again. Thank God he’d managed to put on his jeans. Sweatpants didn’t hide an erection for shit. She took his good hand and helped him find the sleeve. Jesus.
She was biting her lip and frowning. Did it take that much concentration to put on a shirt?
“I can button it.”
“Sure, if I want to leave at nine a.m.” She pulled it together over his chest and buttoned it briskly, making him harder with each touch. Then she reached for the sling he’d laid on the table and buckled him into it. She finished by slinging his leather jacket over his shoulders. “Not ready for GQ,” she said, stepping away from him, her voice a little shaky. “But you’ll do.”
Tris didn’t trust himself to speak. He just nodded and grabbed the little kit that had his shaving gear and his meds in it.
She took the chair out from under Elroy’s door, slapped a note on a nail in one of the cupboard doors saying she’d left breakfast and lunch in the refrigerator for him and there were TV dinners in the freezer. “Your stuff is already in the back of the truck.” She headed to the door. Tris grabbed his crutch and hobbled after her.
*****
Maggie backed the trailer around to where she could pull slowly onto the dirt track that led out to the road, watching her rearview mirror to make sure she didn’t hit the lean-to. The engine of the F350 purred. She liked this truck.
She sneaked a look at Tris. He’d been really pale when she woke him, with circles under his eyes. Hadn’t slept well in spite of the Vicodin. And he seemed tense, his straight black brows drawn together. His leg was stretched out and she’d propped it up a little on her backpack, but she couldn’t get it raised as high as it should be. Maybe later he could put it up on the dash again. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Fine.”
He was lying. Boy, the man not only couldn’t admit weakness, he just plain wasn’t talkative. Just as well. With the way his baritone growl throbbed through her body, it was almost as bad as buttoning his shirt. And that was just icing on the cake of seeing his bare torso, all muscled and tattooed and scarred, this morning as he got out of bed.
What the hell was wrong with her? She’d seen lots of men stripped to the waist. Lots. At the rodeo. At mustang roundups. Washing their trucks. Lots of half-naked men. She’d hardly looked twice. Well, twice maybe, when they couldn’t see. But they had never affected her like this. She felt out of control. She pulled out onto the road that would lead into Austin, easing the truck up to forty-five or so. She could feel the weight of the horses shift in the trailer as they rebalanced themselves to the slow acceleration.
“Ready for some coffee?”
He nodded. “Could be.”
“I set a thermos down by your feet. And a paper bag of breakfast.”
He leaned forward and fished around until he came up with the big silver cylinder. He unscrewed the top. It was the old-fashioned kind with two nested cups. “Can I pour you some?”
“Yeah. Didn’t bring cream or sugar.”
“Black’s fine. Smells good.” As a matter of fact, it smelled better than any coffee had in her entire life. He poured her a steaming cup and set it in the makeshift cup holder between the bucket seats. “You were right. Somebody cared about this truck,” she said, just to take her mind off how the muscles in his forearm flexed as he moved to pour his own cup.
“I could tell in the lot,” he said. “This truck had good years. Just needed an owner again.”
“It did look kinda sad.” She smiled. Trucks weren’t really sad, of course. “Not surprising. Sold to that awful used car dealer.”
“It was sad because its owner died. Sleazeball told me.”
She’d been joking. He wasn’t. He talked as though the truck were a living thing. No sarcasm, no irony. Maybe for him it was alive. She remembered his affinity for her windmill pump. This guy was more fascinating by the minute. “Well, it’s got a good owner now.”
“Good driver, more like. You can handle a trailer.”
She chuckled. “Done some trailering in my time.” They pulled into Austin, hit the main highway, and she turned west. Jake’s was just turning on the lights. She looked over at Tris and saw that furrow between his brows deepen. “So when did you take the pain pills last night?”
“Not sure.”
“I left that clock there for nothin’?”
He ducked his head in disgust. “One-ish.”
“Then you’re due. Can you eat a sandwich for breakfast?”
“Food at this hour?”
“No food, no Vicodin,” she threatened. “Man up. Eat before dawn.”
He looked half-surprised, half-offended. Then he chuffed a laugh. “When you put it that way.…” He grabbed the wrinkled grocery sack and began to burrow.
“There’s a couple of cheese and some peanut butter and jelly.”
He gave her a look of disbelief.
“I like peanut butter for breakfast, okay? It’s good protein.” A teensy bit defensive.
He peered at the sandwiches and unwrapped one. “I cede the peanut butter to you.”
Cede? What kind of a word was that? Not a biker-guy word, that was for sure. She took half the sandwich, keeping her eyes on the road. It rolled out before her headlights, the white line tantalizing with possibilities. This road could go anywhere. Peanut butter sandwiches and coffee on a long drive. Made her feel free, like she could leave anything behind. She was going to treasure that feeling as long as she could.
She was roused from her satisfied reverie by a choking sound. Tris was hunched over his sandwich. He gasped in a breath, then held his ribs. Uh-oh.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I forgot to tell you about the horseradish. I, uh, like horseradish and mayonnaise on my cheese sandwiches. Are you okay?”
“Just fine,” he said hoarsely. “Wakes a man up.”
She couldn’t help but grin. “Cleans out your sinuses too.”
“Sinuses?” But there was a little upturn to his mouth. “Oh, you mean those bleeding membranes in my throat and nose?” His eyes were watering.
“I must’ve got carried away.”
“Don’t worry about it.” His breathing was getting a little steadier. “My mother says strong tastes make you know you’re alive.”
That was the first time he’d ever mentioned a member of his family other than the Prince of Wales. “So … you’re alive.”
He looked at her with the strangest expression. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess I am.”
*****
Jason’s cell tweeted against his hip and his heart skipped a beat.
Just Prentice, he told himself, calling to say he still hadn’t seen the truck. The way Jason figured, Prentice already missed them if they headed straight to LA. Or they were still at the girl’s house. Jason knew which alternative he wanted to believe.
He was just tired, aft
er hours of driving up and down the asphalt road through the middle of nowhere and a stiff and cold few hours sleeping in the rental car. He flipped open the cell. No number registered, but the Clan’s numbers never did.
“Tell me they’re toast,” he barked to Prentice.
“I very much doubt that,” the old voice whispered.
Shit. Chills hit him. Is that what people meant when they said their blood ran cold? He could think of nothing to say to her. He pulled the rental off to the side of the road.
“How did you lose him?”
How did she know Tremaine wasn’t dead? But there was no use trying to lie to her. Leave things out, maybe, but not lie. “Girl picked him up from the hospital.”
“A girl? Sister?” The wheeze sharpened.
“No such luck. Then we would have had two.” Like he was anywhere near getting them. But she didn’t have to know that. “It appears to be a girl he met in a diner right before the crash.” Leaving out, for instance, that it was also the girl who hauled him into the ER after the crash. “She may be taking him to LA.”
“Interesting.” The old whisper was flat. “Seems sudden to have struck up such a friendship. Could it be...?”
He waited to be sure she wasn’t going to finish the sentence. He knew what she meant though. Unusual attractions in someone with the gene could mean they’d found the matching DNA. Not likely in this case. “Not his type. She’s just a hick rodeo rider who sells livestock on the side. From what I got off the gossip rags, he specializes in trashy blond Hollywood types.”
“Then she may be even more dangerous.” A long pause which sounded thoughtful. “And where are they, exactly?”
This was what he couldn’t avoid. “W-well, either at the girl’s place, so Tremaine can rest up, or, or on their way to LA. But don’t worry,” he hastened to add. “Prentice is stationed at the California line. They won’t get past him.”
“Prentice hasn’t seen the truck.”
So she’d called Prentice. She always knew more than she let on. “Then I’m in position to get them.”
“Jason.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He was having a hard time breathing.
“Are you properly motivated to accomplish this task?”
He took two ragged breaths. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I would hate to think you weren’t.”
“You can count on me.” He didn’t like the catch in his voice. Don’t display weakness. Don’t give her an opening, he said to himself.
“I wonder. My patience is limited. And I want the girl, too.”
The line went dead.
He stared at the cell. I can run, he said to himself.
But it was a lie. She’d find him. She’d get the whole Clan after him until she found him. She was relentless.
And then she’d make his nightmares come true. Again.
He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut, feeling fifteen again, desperate enough to do anything to avoid the inevitable. It had taken him years to paper over that desperation with bravado. And he’d proved he wasn’t fifteen anymore every day of his life since he’d gotten free.
But he wasn’t free. The old woman had found him. At first she’d seemed like a Godsend. She understood what happened when he met Selah, no matter how frightened he was of what he was becoming. She made him feel like he belonged. The Clan became his family. But belonging turned out to have a price. The old woman could take him back to that horrible time he’d tried so hard to escape in the blink of an eye. So there was no question of failure. He had to get Tremaine and that damned girl.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tris shook himself out of the dream about the last time he saw his family just at the point where Tammy’s face crumpled into tears in his rearview mirror. You’re an asshole as well as a disappointment. He checked his hands in the morning light for signs of grease. Yep. There it was. It stained him like a brand. He was heading back into that familiar hell. This whole trip was beginning to feel like a death row prisoner’s last walk.
“You okay?”
Maggie. He took a breath and let it out. The calm she exuded seemed to chase away the shadows of dream-twisted memories. “Yeah,” he said, half-surprised. “Where are we?”
“Just coming up to the California state line. Can’t be too far now.”
The last batch of Vicodin had let him get some rest. “Thanks for letting me sleep.” That was thoughtful of her. “You want to put your music back on?”
“Nah. Bet you’re not a country music fan.”
“I like it okay. It’s kinda the new rock and roll. And I like rock and roll.”
She glanced over at him, skeptical. Like he was saying he liked it just to be nice.
“True.” He crossed his heart. “New country anyway. That seems to be what you like.” He reached for the radio and twiddled the dial. All he got was static.
“Think we’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“And this truck doesn’t get Sirius.”
“This seems like a very serious truck.”
He barked a laugh. “Not that kind of serious.”
Her quizzical look turned embarrassed. “Oh, that satellite radio thing.”
“Got four or five different country stations. New country, classic, bluegrass, the whole nine yards.” That’s what he’d get her as a thank-you for taking him to LA. Only because it wasn’t right to get her a dog in her situation. Yeah. Sirius radio for her truck. She’d be surprised. Maybe she’d even blush with pleasure.
“Guess this old truck is behind the times.” She cleared her throat. “I just like ’em … solid feeling. Steady.”
Tris blinked. He got the feeling she wasn’t just talking about trucks. Or maybe she was talking about trucks because it never occurred to her that men could be solid for her. Steady.
So that was what you had to be in order to be good for her. He stifled a cough. Or maybe a choking sound. Well, he was the opposite of that. Drifter. Had a hundred women in his life. Didn’t care about one of them. Well, his sisters and his mother. But not the girls he fucked. Hell, he wasn’t romantic at all. And you had to be romantic to believe you could be steady and solid for one woman all your life and never leave her.
He jerked his thoughts back to trucks. “Yeah. This truck is that.” He listened to the hum of the motor. It sounded … satisfied. It would be good to feel that way. Man like him never felt satisfied. He cleared his throat. “I think it likes hauling your horses.”
She chuckled. “Bunch of work. Can’t like that.”
“No,” he said, surprised at the thoughts spinning through his head. “It’s … it’s like a sheepdog. Or a quarter horse. They need a job to be happy.”
She was looking at him from the corner of her eye like he was a loon.
A lump formed in his throat. He had to make her understand this for some reason. “No, really. It’s satisfied that it can fulfill its purpose. Just listen to the motor. Can’t you feel it?”
She didn’t roll her eyes. He’d give her that. She set her mouth though.
“Listen?” He didn’t like how plaintive he sounded. “Uh, just don’t close your eyes.”
She snorted a laugh and that broke the mood of her disapproval. “Oh, okay.” She took a deep breath and sighed it out.
Her eyes got that soft look she’d had in the corral with those thundering mustangs. Calm cascaded over the cab of the truck. Shit. What was that about? She’d had that look on the drive to the ER in Reno too. And he’d felt the calm then, in spite of how broken he was.…
A long silence ensued. Tris couldn’t seem to help the feeling that shushed through his body. It wasn’t quite arousal, but it was … like being attuned to something. Yeah. That was it. Like he felt with a motor he was working on. He was feeling the truck’s motor with Maggie, through her. His mind skittered in excitement and was brought back to calm.
Weirdest shit he’d ever felt.
She gasped in a little breath, breaking the spell. “I felt it,”
she said, surprised. “I felt what you feel.” She glanced over to him, puzzled. “It isn’t like feeling an animal’s mood … exactly.”
Tris blinked rapidly. No one else he knew could hear the mood of an engine, not even José, and José was a genius with engines. “But …” he croaked. “But kind of?”
“Yeah,” she said in a meditative tone. “Kind of. I can feel it’s satisfied to be in tune, knowing it’s strong enough to pull the load. Like harmony or something. Funny.”
Funny wasn’t the half of it. Tris was stunned. This girl understood. And maybe he got a glimpse of how she felt with horses. Not that different. Now that had interesting possibilities....
They came around a curve and right into a billow of black smoke.
Maggie leaned in, peering through the windshield. “What the hell is that?”
The world looked like it might after the apocalypse. The acrid smell of burning rubber filled the cab. Tris felt Maggie tap the brakes. The visibility was nil. She probably couldn’t brake harder without putting the horses on their knees.
Suddenly they were through the smoke.
Off to the side of the road was a pickup, totally engulfed in flame. The fire made an evil flapping sound. Tris pulled his eyes away from the slumped charcoal statues just visible in the cab. A couple of black and whites from the California side were pulled up behind it, lights blinking. Tris heard the siren of a fire rig or an ambulance screaming up behind them. A patrolman got out of his car.
Tris’s eyes were drawn to the still figure of a very tall man standing on a little rise behind the burning truck. He showed no emotion, just stared. That seemed odd. Several people watched the blaze, even though there was nothing to be done. But their faces were transfigured by horror, or fear, or some kind of intense emotion. A woman buried her head in her man’s shoulder. A guy was wiping his eyes. But this character just stood there, absolutely still.
“Should I stop?” Maggie worried. Tris jerked his attention back to her face. He didn’t think she’d seen the figures in the truck.
“No,” he said. “Nothing we can do. Nothing that ambulance can do either.” Whoever was in there was dead. Beyond even shrieking and writhing in pain. Not a good way to go.
01 Do You Believe in Magic - The Children of Merlin Page 12
