by Rowe, Julie
“Give me your phone, and I’ll enter the address for the courier.”
He did, and she put in the information into his contacts.
“Drive safe,” Smoke said. “You get stopped by the cops, you tell them to call me.”
Tommy got in his jeep and drove away.
Kini was standing close. Close enough that if Smoke reached out he could put his arm around her shoulders and pull her to him.
Resisting the urge to touch her, he asked, “Next?”
Kini turned to him then had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze, but she didn’t back away.
She took in a breath and opened her mouth.
“Smoke, Kini?” his grandmother called to them from the front door of the house. “You’d better come in and see this.” She retreated inside.
Smoke followed Kini into the living room where his grandfather was watching the TV.
“…received a video from an unknown source claiming to be from a group called Free America From Oppression. In the video the FAFO threatens to use biological weapons to achieve its goal to force state and federal authorities to scrap the national health care plan. They have this message for state and federal law enforcement: We will not be cowed into silence or inaction. The government’s attempt to manipulate and control the free marketplace and personal liberty is as insidious as a virus. It is criminal and must be stopped. This is the only warning you will get. Continue to interfere and you will learn the true meaning of the word plague.”
Domestic terrorists.
Holy fuck.
Kini’s cell phone began to ring. As she reached for it, Smoke’s rang, too.
He pulled it out of a pocket and accepted the call. “Smoke.”
“River. We’ve got a problem.”
“Free America From Oppression?”
“You saw the news report?”
“Yeah. Idiots.”
“Idiots who are fucked in at least two different ways.”
Smoke grunted his agreement. “You think they’re here in Small Blind?”
“Don’t know, man, but we’re not taking any chances. Did Kini get those samples?”
“They’re on their way. My cousin Tommy is driving into Las Vegas and dropping them off at the courier.”
“Good. The powers that be here are chomping at the bit to get their hands on them.”
“We’re not seeing an obvious pattern to the infection,” Smoke told him.
“So no way to know how the sick came in contact with the virus?”
“No, but before anyone even suspected the hantavirus, there was a rumor going around town that Kini and the CDC had deliberately gotten people sick. Three people have died in the past couple of weeks. Another person died today.”
“We need to know if this is hantavirus or some other pathogen.”
“I might tangle with local law enforcement.”
“I’ll see if I can keep you out of jail. It would help if you didn’t kill anyone.”
“No promises.” Smoke hung up.
Kini had hung up a few seconds before him and looked at him. “No promises?”
Smoke shrugged. “Not to kill anyone.”
Chapter Eleven
Smoke was serious—Kini could see it in his set jaw and determined eyes. See it in the half step he took toward her, his body angled to cover hers, to protect her.
If he had to, he’d kill.
He’d kill because he’d done it before.
Oh, hell, no. No one was committing murder on her account. “That’s a promise you need to make to me,” she said in a low tone and surprised herself with how angry she sounded.
She had every right to be pissed. The man was making decisions without consulting her.
His shoulders stiff, he glanced away and said something to his grandfather in a language she wasn’t familiar with. His grandfather nodded and went outside through the back door.
There was only one reason to use a language one person in a group of people didn’t understand in front of them—he didn’t want her to know what he said.
A hot wave of anger and embarrassment swept over her. He could have just asked her to step out of the room. She turned to do just that.
Smoke pinned her in place with one look. An expression that contained both fierce suspicion and purpose. “Five minutes.”
He could say a novel’s worth of words with one or two, but he’d already decided to shut her out of one conversation. She’d run out of patience in an attempt to read between the lines in this one.
Time to write her own story and let him figure it out. She took a step away from him. “Okay.”
He examined her face. His frown intensified. “Stay here.”
She was just going to leave the room, not the house. “Okay.”
He didn’t move.
Now he was just being insulting.
“Where am I going to go?” she said. “I’ve been ordered to stick with you.”
“Ordered?” His shoulders stiffened even more.
That bothered him? She crossed her arms over her chest. “Ordered.”
He paused another second. His gaze searched her face then, finally, he followed his grandfather outside.
Kini turned to his grandmother. “What did I miss?”
“He might not say much, our Smoke,” she replied. “But he takes his responsibilities seriously.”
“I’m his responsibility.”
It was a statement, not a question, but his grandmother still answered. “Yes.”
A responsibility. There was a definition she had never wanted attached to herself. A burden. All part of the job.
Despite the fact that her boss had ordered her to stay with Smoke, ordered her to work with him and rely on his military training to identify threats, she wanted to rebel. The last man with a military background she’d trusted had broken that trust so completely, there had been nothing left of it by the time that man was gone.
Smoke’s grandmother studied her. “He will do whatever he has to to protect you.” She sounded like she was trying to be reassuring.
She wasn’t.
Smoke walked back into the house. He looked at her, his grandmother, then her again.
“Are you ready to go?” Kini asked him.
He waited a second, staring at her, before saying, “Yes.”
His habit of attempting to read her soul was pissing her off. She turned on her heel and headed for the front door.
He followed close enough to heat her back.
She opened the front door just as a small truck raced up way over the speed limit. It slid to an abrupt stop right next to her car, spraying dirt and dust into the air.
“What…?” she began.
Smoke slid in front of her, forcing her back a couple of steps.
A man with dark hair and sunglasses in the back of the truck leaned over with a crow bar in his hand and smashed her car’s front passenger window.
“Hey!” She took a step forward, intending to confront the assholes in the truck, but Smoke blocked the way with his body.
Something flashed bright.
The interior of her car exploded, making her duck.
The smell of burning plastic and metal soured the air.
She blinked, straightened up, and looked past Smoke. Her car was on fire.
Her car was on fire.
Flames shot out of the driver’s side and front passenger side windows, building and growing with each passing second.
Smoke’s body shielded her from the rising heat. She needed to get around him, try to salvage her collection kit from the vehicle. His palm connected with her chest and shoved her back.
She stumbled backward through the doorway just as the windshield shattered and one of the tires popped. Smoke turned, picked her up like she was a piece of furniture, and moved her farther into the house so fast she didn’t recall how exactly he got her inside.
Off-balanced and with too much momentum, she tripped, rolled, and ended up on her back.
A larger explosion shattered the front window and shook the house. She threw her arms up in front of her face just as a shower of glass shards rained on her. Pain bloomed in multiple places on her arms and neck.
A shadow blocked the flickering light of the fire outside. She pulled her arms away to see who was there. Smoke’s blue eyes seemed to glow. “Kini? Kini!”
He didn’t even give her a chance to respond before grabbing her by the shoulders and yelling at her again. “Kini!”
She thrust her face toward his and bellowed, “I’m okay.”
He bared his teeth and snarled, “You’re bleeding.”
Blood beaded on his forehead and began to trickle down the side of his face. “So are you.”
He growled at her, growled and said, “Stay here.”
This, again?
“Where am I going to go?” she said, again.
He snarled at her one last time then charged down a hallway she assumed led to bedrooms. When he came out, he carried a scary-looking rifle, the kind she’d seen on the news in the hands of military soldiers. He had the butt in the hollow of his shoulder and the muzzle raised for a target man-high.
He paused at the doorway, scanned the area outside, then went out in a smooth motion that would allow him to shoot and hit a target even while moving.
Smoke’s grandmother came over to her. “Kini, let’s get you up and into the kitchen.” She extended a hand and Kini took it, allowing the older woman to give her the leverage she needed to stand.
Smoke’s grandfather appeared, also carrying a weapon, but this one was a simple hunting rifle. He followed Smoke outside.
“The people who bombed my car are gone,” Kini said to Smoke’s grandmother as they went into the kitchen. Why did her voice sound so…odd? Confused, unfocused, dazed.
“Where there’s one enemy, there are probably more.” It sounded like a proverb. Smoke’s grandmother pulled a tall stool out. “Sit.”
Kini sat and waited while the older woman opened a door that led into a pantry. She came out with a large first-aid kit. Kini glanced down and noticed for the first time all the blood on her arms. Whoa. It looked a lot worse than she expected since the pain was…manageable.
“I’ll get to those,” Smoke’s grandmother said. “You have a few cuts on your neck I want to check first.”
Kini brushed her neck with the tips of her fingers and they came away wet with blood. “They don’t even hurt.” She gave Smoke’s grandmother a wobbly, wry smile. “Adrenaline is a great thing.”
The older woman snorted. “Enjoy it while you can.” She examined Kini’s neck a little closer. “Be right back.”
The sound of sirens got closer and closer. Police, fire, and ambulance if she wasn’t mistaken. And she was covered in blood. Lovely. There wasn’t time for all the red tape this was going to generate.
Her car had been blown up. She had a few extra supplies for collecting samples in her personal luggage, but not enough for what she needed. God damn it.
Smoke came into the room with the ferocity of a storm. When he caught sight of her on the stool he stopped cold and stared.
Fury pulled his lips back from his teeth.
With that deadly looking military rifle in his hands and blood all down one side of his face, he should have been a threat.
He should have scared the shit out of her.
He should have been in control of his emotions. He’d had years of discipline drilled into him from his time in the military, but this was not a man in control.
He’d taken one look at her, cut up and bloody, and lost it.
All that fury was for her.
Her.
The room spun and narrowed to Smoke’s flame blue eyes. Darkness encroached, hunting her consciousness, but his gaze, hot and bright, became her beacon, leading her to safety.
To him.
Desire awoke a different kind of fire inside her, one that licked its way over her skin, momentarily erasing pain and leaving her breathless and dizzy.
Anyone else looking at him would see a madman. The police would probably throw him in jail if they saw him, certain he was a man on a killing spree.
They were partners with orders to look after each other. He’d done his job; now it was her turn to look after him.
She sighed and managed a small smile. “So…” she said, letting the word hang for a moment. “What are the chances the rental company will let me have another car?”
She watched him as her words sank in. His face relaxed first, then his stance, and finally he answered, “Zero.”
“Yeah, that’s what I think, too.”
Outside, the sirens were loud and steady. A whole lot of people in uniforms were about to descend on them.
Male voices, raised and stressed, filtered into the kitchen from outside.
Smoke sighed, went to the refrigerator, opened it, then stuck his weapon inside and closed the door.
Two more steps took him to where she sat on the stool. He examined her face, neck, and arms.
“I haven’t seen the damage,” she said. “Does it look like I’ll need stitches?”
He considered her question for a second or two too long. “No.”
Had he just lied to her?
Booted feet thundered toward them.
“Here come the clowns,” Smoke said in the same inflectionless tone he’d used since coming into the kitchen.
She had to convert her laughter into a snort as two police officers came boiling into the room.
The officers had their gun hands on their weapons. Those weapons were still in their holsters, but they both looked twitchy enough to draw at any provocation.
“Sir, put your hands up,” one of the officers said to Smoke.
“What for?” Kini asked, frowning at them. “He was with me when the guys in the truck destroyed my car.”
Smoke, however, raised his hands and looked at the officers. The cops spread out, staring at him, examining him.
“How did you get injured?” one of them asked Smoke.
“Shielding me from the explosion,” Kini said, disbelief coloring her tone.
“Ma’am, there was a report of a man matching his description with a semi-automatic rifle threatening people.”
Kini rolled her eyes. “What about the guys in the truck that threw some kind of explosive into my rental car and blew it up? Are you looking for them, too?”
“Ma’am—” the same man began, his voice now devoid of patience.
“Check my ID,” she interrupted. “It’s in my purse, which is in the living room, I think.”
They hesitated.
“It might answer a few questions for you.”
One of them left and returned with her purse. He rummaged through it, pulled out her wallet, and opened it. His eyebrows rose. “You work for the CDC?”
“We both do.”
That knowledge did not reassure them.
Pain came roaring back as her stomach clenched. What the fuck was going on?
“As you can see, we’re not going anywhere at the moment,” she said, frustration making her voice sound harsher than was polite. “Why don’t you call this mess in and see what the sheriff wants you to do?” And give all of them a chance to calm down.
They thought about that for a few seconds then nodded and called for the paramedics to come inside the kitchen.
It took the medic checking her over several minutes to clean all the blood off her face, neck, and arms.
“A couple of these lacerations could use a stitch or two,” he said, looking at her neck and right arm.
She looked at what she could see without a mirror. “Could you close them with butterfly bandages?”
The medic looked at her. “Nurse?”
“Yep.”
“Are your shots up to date?”
“Yep.”
“I’d still like you to see the ER doc.”
She shook her head. “Not today.” She leaned around the medic to check o
ut Smoke. “How are you doing?”
“He’s got fewer lacerations,” his medic said. “But one of them really does need stitches.”
“Smoke?” she asked.
“No.”
“How long is it?”
No one answered her. Her medic smirked. So did the one cleaning up Smoke.
“The laceration,” she said with a shake of her head. “Not his dick.”
Chapter Twelve
The two paramedics chuckled but didn’t stop working on cleaning and patching up Kini’s and his wounds. The tension in the room did drop several notches, though.
Shouts from outside ricocheted into the kitchen—a male voice, raised with a sharp edge. A voice he knew.
“Shit, it’s Deputy Blackwater,” one medic said.
“Doesn’t sound happy,” the other put in.
Smoke checked their faces. No trace of mirth now. Both men appeared completely absorbed in their work as a man in a deputy’s uniform walked into the kitchen.
“Someone tell me what the fuck is going on,” he demanded, then he caught sight of Smoke and grinned.
Smoke’s grandmother opened her mouth, but Blackwater saw her and apologized before she could complain. “Sorry, ma’am.”
Kini started talking. “Some assholes took a crowbar to my rental car, busted in a window, threw in a Molotov cocktail, and destroyed the vehicle,” she said in a tone that was so even, Smoke knew better than to trust it. “I hope you catch those guys because, otherwise, my insurance premium is going to go through the roof.”
Blackwater glared at her. “Lady, I advise you to stay away from him.” He angled a thumb at Smoke. “Women who get mixed up with him have a tendency to die.”
A threat to her and a taunt to him all rolled up in one and delivered in front of witnesses. What the fuck was Blackwater thinking?
“What are you talking about? This is my coworker Lyle Smoke,” she said, glancing at him.
“Coworker?” Blackwater asked with a sarcastic laugh. “They let women into the Special Forces now?”
“Discharged,” Grandfather said, coming into the room, rifle in hand. “One week ago.”
Blackwater’s hand strayed toward his weapon.
Grandfather put his rifle on the counter. “I got the first half of the license plate number off that truck.”
