The Damaged Heroes Collection [Box Set #1: The Damaged Heroes Collection] (BookStrand Publishing Mainstream)

by James, Sandy

  “Susan!” His voice barely rose above the eerie voices and the sound of the wind. His hand was there, just out of her reach. She stretched out her arm, trying to grasp him, needing to grasp him. “Take my hand, babe!”

  Suddenly Harry was there, standing between them. “It’s time.” He grabbed both of their hands, smiled, and then slapped their palms to the rock.

  The heat racing up her arm and through her body made Susan wonder if this was what it felt like when someone got struck by lightning. The voices had gone, and the light quickly dimmed as the world shrank like it would close in around her until she was crushed. There was no one but her in the inky darkness, shaking with the force of the energy ripping through her from where her hand still touched the smooth, hot surface of the stone. A pinpoint of light appeared in the distance, growing larger as she seemed to fly toward it. Just before she reached the safety it represented, the sensations became too much.

  Chapter 2

  His head took a long time clearing.

  James sat up, fighting the ensuing dizziness. The sun nearly blinded him. Shading his eyes with his hand, he made himself take a good look around while he wondered where in the hell he’d landed.

  He was sitting in the middle of a field with grass that would probably reach between his ankles and his knees had he been standing. To the right stood a woods thick with pines, and to his left rose a mountain range. Although the tallest peaks were at a great distance, the foothills lay close enough he could probably walk there if given enough time and daylight.

  James hadn’t felt so out of it in years, not since a bender or two from his college days. Why was he lying there in the middle of some tall grass, nursing a headache and feeling thick enough he couldn’t remember the last thing he’d done?

  A groan drew his attention. Amazingly, his wife lay in the grass a few feet away looking as woozy as he felt.

  Susan never drank. In fact, she berated anyone who drank in her presence. James understood why. She’d lost two students to car accidents caused by drunk drivers. It was another reason he’d stopped drinking, even socially. He hated to see her that upset. No, she couldn’t be drunk. So how had she ended up here with him, sleeping off some binge in the middle of some field? If that’s what they were doing…

  No other explanation came to mind, especially since his memory of the recent past seemed to be nothing but a void.

  His wife sat up, blinking and frowning. Mimicking the way he protected his eyes from the sunlight, Susan scanned the area then finally let her gaze settle on him.

  James gave her a goofy half wave before realizing how ridiculous he probably looked.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  He shrugged.

  “What happened?”

  “Haven’t a clue.”

  “You don’t remember anything?” Her voice held a note of irritation, probably at the fact he didn’t have any solid answers for her.

  “Nope.”

  With a shake of her head, she went back to looking around. He knew exactly what that meant. He’d seen that expression of hers far too many times. She’d already dismissed him as not helpful and was trying to figure out what to do on her own. God forbid the woman ever ask for help. An island unto herself. His already frayed temper rose in response.

  “I’ve gotta get us out of this mess.” Susan stood on trembling legs, then brushed the clinging pieces of dried grass off the backside of her expensive jeans.

  How absurd. Here they were, heaven knew where, and she was taking charge, not even asking for his opinion or for his help. As usual. “You don’t even know where we are.”

  “Neither do you,” she snapped.

  Now she was going to pick a fight. Also as usual. James reined in his irritation, hoping they could avoid a confrontation. Right now they had bigger problems than the sorry state of their marriage—like figuring out where in the hell they were and how they’d gotten there. “Look, let’s play nice. What’s the last thing you remember?” Taking a few steps away, she never even bothered to answer him. “Susan?” Nada. “Susan!”

  She turned to show him her back as she stared at the foothills. He counted to ten, not wanting to blow up at being dismissed like a child. Damn, but he was sick of her thinking she was the only adult in the relationship and treating him like one of her students. He didn’t even make it to five. “Susan!”

  “What?” She whirled to face him.

  “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  Susan drew her lips into a tight line. “I think I was at school with my students.” Her whole forehead scrunched in concentration. “No, not at school, but definitely with my students.”

  The fog in James’s mind started to clear. “The museum. We were at the museum.”

  His wife’s eyes flew wide. “Yes!” Then panic settled on her features. “Oh, my God! John! Where’s John? What happened to our son? What are we doing here? Where are we? What are we gonna do? How can we get back?”

  James had only heard that much fear in her voice once before. When she was in labor with Lynne, the doctor worried about a sharp drop in their daughter’s heart rate. Right before they’d wheeled Susan into the operating room, the nurse said the umbilical cord might be wrapped around the baby’s neck. As Susan was being prepped for the C-section, she’d peppered the doctor and nurses with questions faster than any of them could possibly answer. James understood—the questions hid her fear and made her feel she had some control over a situation where she really had none. She was still rattling off questions now. No doubt about it, Susan was terrified.

  Hell, so am I.

  Moving to stand in front of her, James pulled his wife into his arms. She was trembling. “It’s okay, Suz. We’ll figure this out.”

  “How?” she asked as she relaxed against him.

  Despite the situation, he smiled because Susan actually leaned into him, letting him comfort her for once. James wished he had some answers to give her. “I don’t know, but we’ll figure this out.”

  She nodded against his shoulder, just like the old days before she’d decided she was the stronger person in the marriage. Allowing himself to simply enjoy her yielding control, even for this brief moment, it took him a second to realize he’d heard something. A steady beat, growing louder with each passing moment. Susan raised her head to stare at him. She obviously heard it too. “A horse?” he asked.

  Susan nodded. “Getting closer.”

  They both turned to see a man riding an impressive brown horse heading their direction. Little bits of grass and dirt flew from the animal’s hooves as it raced toward them at full gallop. All James could do was watch, fascinated by the rider.

  A cowboy. No other word could describe the man. No, not a man. A teenager. Probably not much older than John. He was dressed in a long-sleeved shirt, a leather vest, and denim pants that reminded James of the unwashed Levi’s he’d grown up wearing—the ones so stiff a person could stand them up like pieces of cardboard. Boots with real spurs. Brown kerchief around his neck. A lasso tied to the back of the saddle. He reined the horse to a skidding stop.

  James’s attention was focused on the sidearm. A Colt .45—just like his father kept in a glass case in his study with the rest of his firearms collection. Not that James had ever touched it. No, his father wouldn’t have allowed that. James had spent more time than he cared to remember staring at the thing, wondering why his father valued all of his stuff more than he ever valued his only son. That gun had always made James jealous since it got a hell of a lot more attention than he ever did.

  The young man pushed the front of his vest aside and rested his hand on his thigh close to the holstered weapon. A subtle threat if ever James saw one. Instinctively, he pushed Susan behind him. He could feel her slender hands clench the back of his polo shirt.

  “You folks got no business out here,” the teen scolded. “Best be movin’ on.”

  Gun or no gun, James refused to act the coward in front of a kid the same age as hi
s son. Still, he didn’t want the guy to think he and Susan were threats, either. “We’d be glad to move on. We just don’t know where here is or where exactly you’d like us to go.”

  “Stop pullin’ my leg, mister. It’s plenty long enough.”

  “I’m not kidding. We don’t know where we are.”

  The young man’s gaze swept James from head to toe as if judging his worth. Then the cowboy took his hand away from his thigh and rested it on the saddle horn. “You really don’t know where you are?”

  Susan’s face popped out from behind James, although she still had a death grip on his shirt. She shook her head.

  “You folks wandered onto the Circle M.”

  “Excuse me?” James had to resist the urge to scratch his head in confusion.

  The young man pushed back the brim of his hat with his knuckle, a motion so familiar to James from the westerns he’d watched, it sent an eerie chill up his spine. “The Circle M. You folks are on the Circle M.”

  Suppressing a frustrated sigh, James tried a different tack. “I’m James Williams.” He inclined his head toward his wife. They bumped noggins because she’d rested her chin on his shoulder. “This is Susan. We’re kinda lost. Any chance you can clear up this mystery?”

  The cowboy stared at her as if he hadn’t heard the question. James tried again. “We’re lost. Can you help us?”

  “Lady, what in the thunder happened to your hair?”

  Susan gasped then splayed one of her hands through her spiky cut. “What’s wrong with my hair?”

  James always thought she was prettiest when that brown hair of hers got ruffled enough it defied gravity, like right after they’d made love—kind of like it was doing at that moment. She probably didn’t know a few blades of grass clung to some of the locks.

  The cowboy shook his head and chuckled. “Nothin’…if you wanna look like a man.” He frowned at James. “You let her wear pants?”

  How was he supposed to answer that? James shrugged.

  Moving around to stand next to him, Susan narrowed her eyes at the kid. James cleared his throat, hoping to distract the guy from gawking at his wife. “Can we get back to the fact we’re lost?”

  The cowboy looked as confused as James felt. “Did’ya just fall off a wagon and hit your head or were you out drinkin’ the hard stuff?”

  “We don’t drink,” Susan said in that stern teacher voice of hers.

  James reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Let’s just say…we lost our way. What’s the Circle M?”

  “My ranch.”

  “You own a ranch?” Susan asked.

  “No, ma’am. I work a ranch. The Circle M. Daniel Miller’s the owner. I’m Hank Johnson.” He jerked the leather glove from his right hand and extended it to James. “Pleased to meet ya.”

  James shook the cowboy’s hand. “We’d be grateful if you’d help us out. Where’s the closest city?”

  “River Bend’s ’bout three miles south. I best be gettin’ back to work, and you folks need to be movin’ on.” Hank pulled his glove back on and flexed his fingers.

  “We’d be glad to. Can you point us south? If I knew the time, I’d just use the sun.”

  Reaching into his vest, Hank pulled out a gold pocket watch. Flipping open the cover, he checked the time. “Nearly four now. I imagine by the time you make River Bend, it’ll be near suppertime.” Slipping the watch back in his pocket, he inclined his head toward the open field. “Head that way. You’ll hit a road in ’bout half a mile. Go left and keep walkin’—River Bend’ll pop up ’fore you know it.”

  Turning the horse, Hank gave it a prod with his spurs and rode away. James swallowed hard, still not believing a single thing his eyes could see.

  I’m in some John Wayne version of The Twilight Zone. Do-do-do-do. Do-do-do-do.

  “James?” He turned to face Susan. She stared at him, wide eyed and clearly terrified. “What’s happening? Where are we?” Her voice was barely a whisper. “Where’s our son?”

  A nervous breakdown was a luxury he couldn’t afford, as inviting as that sounded. Susan needed him. “I’m not sure. The best thing we can do is head toward the city.”

  “Do you think we’ve been gassed?”

  “Gassed?”

  “You know, by terrorists or something. Maybe we’re having a drug-induced psychosis.” She snapped her fingers. “That’s it. That’s what’s going on. We’ve been drugged by some terrorist attack on the museum.” A nod reaffirmed her ridiculous opinion.

  “And we’re having the same hallucinations?” He snorted a laugh before he could help himself. Her eyes narrowed in response.

  “How do I know you’re even here?” She reached out and pinched his upper arm.

  “Stop that!” James swatted her hand and rubbed his sore spot. “It’s a nice theory, but there’s something else going on here.”

  “What? What else could be going on here? Oh, God, you don’t think that rock is why we’re here?” A shuddering sigh escaped her lips, then she shook her head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  James reached over and took her hand in his. “I don’t believe a word about that stupid destiny rock. Look, let’s just go. Let’s walk to this River Bend and see what we find. Maybe we can figure this out.” He tugged her to stand in front of him. Susan stared at his chest for a long moment before she raised her gaze to meet his. What he saw there amazed him.

  The woman he had fallen in love with was staring back at him—the woman who used to make him happy, who used to trust him, who used to want their marriage to be give and take—not the Susan who brushed aside his attentions and acted like her husband was her child. Her eyes now told him she trusted him to make the decision on what they did next. He kissed her forehead. “We’re heading to River Bend.”

  Chapter 3

  Once she saw River Bend, Susan finally figured it all out. They were in one of those tourist traps like Dodge City. The town was a step back to the past. No pavement on the dusty streets. Sidewalks made of wood. One and two-story buildings with distorted, dirty windows. Wooden water troughs. Horses tied to hitching posts.

  Horses? Yes, those were real horses. And real troughs. And real hitching posts. This place really pulled out all the stops, authentic down to the disgusting smell of the manure. This whole situation was nothing short of surreal. One minute they’d been at a museum, and the next, they’d landed in some historical amusement park. A damned good one at that.

  Trying to focus on anything that could help her discover where they were, and not even wanting to waste more time speculating on how they got there, Susan searched for signs. With the exception of words sloppily painted on the whitewashed buildings, there were no advertisements. No signs showing the way to restrooms, printed in both English and Spanish. No arrows with red crosses pointing out the first aid stations. No directions to the overpriced gift shop or places to buy corn dogs and snow cones.

  Then Susan realized what was bothering her most about the whole situation.

  No tourists.

  The people she could see were dressed in period costume. They ambled down the walkway or ducked into the buildings, appearing as if they were going about their lives. The men wore sturdy pants, either with suspenders or leather belts. Lots of vests and boots, but not a baseball cap or tennis shoe in sight. The women wore drab skirts that brushed the ground as they walked. Gray. Blue. Black. Long-sleeved shirts of the same dull colors or dingy white with button-up bodices. Some even wore corsets, judging from their tiny waists and pinched expressions. Honest-to-God bonnets covered long hair that was either gathered into braids, stuffed into buns, or brushing against shoulders.

  Susan self-consciously ran her fingers through her spiky, short hair. A “guy” cut, her mother always said. Nothing feminine about it, but it suited the tomboy in Susan’s personality. She tried to shake off those stupid, nagging feelings of inferiority and concentrate on her surroundings. “This is wrong. All wrong.”

  James n
odded, an unusual occurrence because he rarely offered a simple agreement with her on anything lately. He preferred smart-ass comments and biting sarcasm. “We just need to find a phone,” he said.

  “Yeah, but…I don’t know who to call.”

  “911.”

  She snorted a laugh. “Hello? 911? My husband and I are lost somewhere in a Kevin Costner movie. Can you help us?”

  “Oh?” Blue eyes leveled a condescending stare. “And you’d call…?”

  “Home,” Susan replied with a decisive nod. “I wanna know our kids are okay. Then I’ll figure out where we are.”

  James was amazed she didn’t follow the comments with the word “duh” and make an L with her thumb and index finger against her forehead. God, he was sick of her thinking she knew everything, more than sick of her treating him like he was stupid. “We need to find out where we are and what’s going on here,” he finally said. “Maybe it was terrorists.”

  When she rolled her eyes, he pursed his lips in irritation, biting back the contemptuous words wanting to spill from his mouth.

  “We went over this before,” she said. “Can’t be terrorists. We still have limbs attached, and I don’t remember an explosion.” Then Susan did something she rarely did—she seemed to consider his opinion. That lasted all of about three seconds. “No. Not terrorists.”

  With a sigh, James folded his arms over his chest. “It was fine when it was your theory.” He knew he was being petty, but what he wouldn’t give for her to turn to him and ask for his help—to truly want his help

  She wasn’t even listening to him now because she’d turned and started to walk up the wooden sidewalk. Of course, she would expect him to follow like some obedient puppy. Even worse, he always would, simply out of force of habit. “We need to find security,” she called over her shoulder. “Maybe they’ll have a cell phone or something.”