Manna From Heaven

by Karen Robards

  "So all we have to do is survive for, what, another eight hours?" Charlie's tone made it clear that she thought it was an impossible task.

  He lifted the wrist that was manacled to hers, and checked his watch. The faintly luminous blue glow as he pushed a button drew her eyes.

  "No more than five or so. It's three seventeen."

  "Piece of cake." The sarcasm was unmistakable.

  He chuckled. "You're still alive, aren't you? I mean to keep us both that way. Trust me."

  Charlie sighed. Under the circumstances, what choice did she have?

  "Okay, I trust you. So what do we do now?"

  9

  WALK WAS THE ANSWER TO THAT, it seemed. Walk until Charlie had lost all sense of time and direction, until she was staggering like Frankenstein's monster through the tangled growth that covered the forest floor, until she wished her poor abused feet were once again numb as they were bruised and pricked and stubbed by countless rocks and sticks and brambles and who knew what else underfoot. Walk up a slope that was growing ever steeper. Walk until she was gasping with every breath she took, until the muscles in her legs ached, until she was ready to collapse with exhaustion. The only good thing she could say about all that walking was that it was probably keeping her from freezing to death. The temperature was in the forties, the wind was strong enough to intermittently shower them with dislodged pine needles, and the water weighing down her wet clothes seemed to have turned into about two tons of icy slush. "Do you have any idea where we're going?"

  "Maybe." He didn't even glance back, just strode relentlessly on. He was in his stocking feet, too, his boots hawing been lost to the river just as hers had been, but if his feet were being systematically tortured he gave no sign of it. His fingers were entwined with hers and the warmth of his hand was appreciated, but that hold she could have broken. It was the unbreakable link of the thrice-cursed handcuffs that kept her on her feet. That, and the knowledge that Woz and Denton and who knew how many others were fanned out behind them, pulling out all the stops to find and kill them before they could make it to safety.

  "Is it a secret?" There was an edge to her voice when he didn't elaborate.

  "Are you always this sarcastic, or am I just getting lucky tonight?"

  "Look, pal, I'm scared out of my mind and soaking wet and freezing to death and hurting in places I didn't even know I had and I lost my brand-new, five hundred dollar ostrich-skin boots in the river, which means I'm tramping around here next door to barefoot and my feet are being cut to ribbons and the whole thing is basically all your fault, so if I were you I wouldn't mess with me."

  "I figured that sooner or later you'd get around to blaming all this on me." The long-suffering-male tone of his reply made her long to bop him in the back of the head. Lucky for him she didn't have the energy.

  "If the shoe fits..."

  "You're the one with no better sense than to go driving into a deserted area all by your lonesome in the middle of the night."

  "Well, you're the one who parachuted out of an airplane and crashed into the roof of my car and made me wreck and..."

  "That was Skeeter," he interrupted mildly.

  "Oh, that's right," she said with bite. "You just mistook me for poor Laura, and dragged me into a fouled-up drug bust I'd much rather not know anything about, and nearly got me murdered, and..."

  "I'm also the one who saved your life. Who towed your fanny all the way across that river, hmm?"

  "Who made me jump into it in the first place? And anyway, I saved your life first. Remember the snake?"

  "Oh, yeah, I remember it. Does screaming and wrecking a car because a snake is crawling up your leg count as saving somebody's life, do you think?"

  "You're alive, aren't you?"

  "So are you. So I'd say we're even."

  "Well, I wouldn't. And I'm tired of walking. My feet hurt, and I need to rest."

  Having come to an overturned tree, Charlie plopped down upon it without further ado. She was tired and cross and frightened and freezing times about a thousand each, and all she wanted to do was go home.

  Fat chance.

  The handcuffs worked both ways, she discovered. He was forced to stop walking when she sat. He backtracked, and Sadie was abruptly plopped into her lap. He'd been carrying the little dog, because Charlie needed all her energy to walk and he feared, despite Charlie's assurances to the contrary, that Sadie might go running off and somehow give them away. Fed up with his attitude toward her and her dog, Charlie cuddled Sadie close. In a burst of mutual feminine pique, they both glared up at the man who towered over them.

  "Damn it. . . ." He broke off, snapped his teeth together, and ran his hand through his hair. "Charlie, look: There's a cabin around here close. Just over the top of this ridge, I think. When we get there, you can rest. If we're really lucky, there might even be a telephone. We can call for help."

  Charlie's eyes widened as she took that in. A fresh little bud of hope surfaced inside her like the earliest crocus nosing up against a still-thick layer of crusty snow. Cabin, rest, phone—it all sounded amazingly good—in fact, too good to be true.

  "How do you know?" she asked suspiciously. It was probably just a ploy to get her on her feet again, and make her keep walking. She was beginning to know how he operated.

  "Because I had this whole area scoped out as soon as I found out they meant to use it as a drop zone. Aerial photos, maps, the whole works. Sometimes knowing the lay of the land can mean the difference between life and death."

  That was so obviously true in this case that Charlie didn't reply. Instead she rallied her uncooperative body enough to stand up. The lure of a cabin was irresistible.

  "Lead on," she said.

  "Attagirl."

  He scooped Sadie up, his hand closed around hers again, and he was off, once again pulling her through the dark woods at a killer pace while she hobbled along in his wake as best she could. If there was pursuit, she could neither see nor hear it The darkness was breached by no more than an occasional glowing pair of eyes, and the only sounds besides the ones they made were the wind rustling through the treetops and the cries of nocturnal animals.

  Just when Charlie thought she could not take another step, there it was in front of them, just as Jake had promised: a cabin, foursquare and solid, nestled at the foot of a trio of tall pines. It was small, dark, and deserted-looking, about the size, perhaps, of a one-story detached garage, with a dirt road or track approaching it from the north and ending right in front of where they stood. As eager as a starving man suddenly presented with a feast, Charlie was all for rushing right inside. Jake, curse him, had to circle the place twice, staying well back in the trees, studying it from every angle.

  "I'm dying here," Charlie finally protested through chattering teeth when he seemed ready to begin the circuit yet again.

  "Not if I can help it." His hand gripped hers more tightly, and he glanced down at her, then relented. "All right. Come on."

  To her relief, he headed straight toward the front, and only, door. Two wooden steps led onto a narrow covered porch. The door, which seemed to be made of wood with a glass insert, was in the center. He passed Sadie over, then, while Charlie waited, jiggling with impatience, he knocked softly, then tried the knob. When that didn't work, he turned, and without a word drove his elbow through the lowest of the six glass panes. The sound of shattering glass made Charlie jump. By the time she recovered, he had already thrust his hand through the hole he had made, and was unlocking the door.

  "Watch the glass," he said, opening it and heading inside.

  "Isn't this called breaking and entering? What if there's a burglar alarm?" she asked nervously, not having previously considered this aspect of it. Shivering, wet clothes squelching with every step, stepping carefully because the last thing her poor feet needed was to be cut by broken glass, she followed him inside.

  "We couldn't get so lucky."

  Good point. The idea of a convoy of police cars converging
on the cabin was enough to make her heart go pitter-patter. But it wasn't going to happen, of course. Frowning, she put Sadie on the floor. The little dog stayed close at her heels.

  "Is there a phone?" Charlie asked, straightening.

  "How can I tell? It's darker than hell. But I don't think so. In case you didn't notice, there weren't any utility lines around outside." He had stopped just a few feet inside the door, and seemed to be working on getting his bearings in the nearly pitch dark. Charlie was, perforce, right behind him.

  A feint musty smell enveloped her, and it was even darker inside than out, but at least the cabin was warmer than the woods. Now that she was out of the wind, Charlie realized just how strongly it had been blowing. She shivered, then found she couldn't stop. If she didn't already have hypothermia, it would be a miracle. Never in her life could she remember being so cold. What she wanted more than anything else on earth— except to go home—was a hot bath and dry clothes.

  "I don't think there's any electricity either." Her hand had been groping the rounded log surface of the wall beside the door, instinctively searching for a light switch, but she found nothing.

  "I'm not surprised. I think whoever owns this must use it as kind of a hunting camp. I doubt if there's even running water, or any heat except maybe a woodstove."

  "Can we ... ?" At the alluring image this brought to mind, she momentarily perked up.

  "Nope. Smoke."

  "Right." She drooped, wrapping her free arm around herself in a futile attempt to seek warmth. Since her arm was as wet and cold as the rest of her, it didn't help.

  Jake closed the door, and started hauling her about the cabin after him as he subjected the premises to a search with the aid of the luminous blue dial of his wristwatch. It was no more than a single room, perhaps twelve by fourteen feet, lacking even a bathroom and furnished with what seemed to be the barest of necessities. Stumbling blindly in his wake, Charlie finally stubbed her toe on a metal furniture leg, cried out, and decided to call a halt right there. Feeling for the cause of her pain, she discovered a bed, and sank down on the corner of it, already anticipating the jerk on her wrist as he was forced to stop. She could sense rather than see his frown as he turned.

  "That's it," she said, narrowing her eyes at him although she was aware that it was too dark for him to see her expression. "I'm not moving another inch. I stubbed my toe, and I'm putting you on notice right now that you owe me a pair of five hundred dollar, black, ostrich-skin cowboy boots."

  "You want to blame me? Fine." His impatience was obvious in his tone.

  Ignoring his looming presence, no longer caring one whit if he didn't like what she was doing, she pulled the thin trouser sock from her damaged foot and massaged her throbbing toe. Jake loomed for a second or two longer, then apparently abandoned all thought of intimidating her into motion and moved toward the head of the bed. He stopped before he had quite reached the end of his tether but far enough away to cause her arm to hang in the air. Ignoring this indignity, Charlie heard the sound of a drawer being opened. Not that she cared. Her toe really hurt.

  "Bingo," he said.

  A sudden brightness made her blink. Startled, Charlie glanced around. Jake had found a flashlight, and was aiming its beam at the floor. By its light, she could see several things: cheap gray-flecked linoleum rendered even more unappealing by Jake's muddy footprints smeared across it, his big feet in their black socks, and part of the metal bedframe, box spring and thin ticking-stripe mattress of the bare bed on which she sat.

  "Oh, goody." If her response was unenthused, it was because she felt unenthused. She'd gotten excited when he said bingo, expecting some really momentous discovery such as a working telephone, and in that context a flashlight just didn't cut it. Looking at it disparagingly, she bethought herself of something and felt a renewed upsurge of fear. "Won't they see the light?"

  "It's not bright enough. Anyway, the windows all have blinds." He had already moved on to a chest beside the bed. Charlie gave a long-suffering sigh as her arm was stretched in a different direction, and pulled the sock from her other foot. This one tingled and throbbed too, and ached as if deeply bruised when she rubbed it.

  "Hey, look at this."

  Something landed on the bed behind her. Charlie glanced around. After the flashlight, she didn't expect much. Jake was already walking toward her, and the flashlight played over his find: a pair of oversize brown plaid bermuda shorts, some ratty-looking gray sweatpants, a faded green flannel shirt big enough to serve as a tent, and a moth-eaten blue blanket.

  "Feel like slipping into something more comfortable?"

  Her upsurge of enthusiasm suddenly fell flat.

  "You're forgetting the handcuffs," she said. Showing her dry clothes when she couldn't get them on was rather like strewing seed just outside a hungry bird's cage: cruel.

  "No, I'm not. How could I?" He crouched in front of her, placing the flashlight on the floor so that the beam provided just enough illumination to allow them to see each other and the small circle of their immediate surroundings. With a flicker of surprise, Charlie watched him pull a screwdriver and a hammer from the pocket of his soaked black coat.

  "They were in the drawer with the flashlight," he said in answer to her look. "There are more tools, too, but these are what we need. Get down here on the floor, and let's see if I can get these handcuffs off."

  The thought was so alluring that, for the first time in quite a while, Charlie moved with alacrity. She slid off the bed onto her knees. Sadie, who'd been sitting at her feet, sidled under the bed, where she lay down, propping her muzzle on her paws and watching the proceedings with apparent interest. Jake paid no attention to their audience as he positioned Charlie's hand flat on the linoleum, then maneuvered the screwdriver until the business end was wedged into the place where the chain was linked with the cuff.

  "Don't move now."

  Before Charlie had quite worked out the implications of that, he brought the hammer down on the head of the screwdriver with enough force to jar her bones all the way from her wrist to her teeth—and split the link cleanly in two. She snatched her newly freed hand out of harm's way, shook it in an attempt to get rid of the tingly feeling that ricocheted back down from her teeth to the ends of her fingers, and stared at him with real approval.

  "Jake," she said, impressed. "You're a god."

  "Well, I like to think so," he replied with becoming modesty, then grinned and stood up, stretching his arms wide. She stood up, too, and immediately shrugged out of her soaked suede jacket. It landed on the floor with a wet-sounding plop. Getting rid of it felt wonderful. She had not realized how heavy it was until her shoulders were suddenly free of the burden.

  Jake had stopped stretching and was frowning at her.

  "You're as blue as a Smurf."

  'Yes, well, freezing to death does seem to have that effect on people, I've heard."

  Paradoxically, the tartness of her voice seemed to ease his concern.

  "Here, get those wet clothes off and put these on." He reached behind her, picked up the shirt and sweats, and thrust them at her.

  Charlie took them with fingers that felt clumsy because they were still so cold, then hesitated, glancing up at him. What was left was slim pickings. "What about you?"

  "I'll make do with the shorts and blanket. That way, if we end up hitchhiking, it won't be any trouble for me to stick out a leg." He smiled then, a funny, charming smile, with his mouth turning up crookedly and his eyes crinkling. It occurred to Charlie with some force that he was one hot, sexy guy. "Don't argue. Strip."

  She frowned. "Turn around."

  Dazzling as the idea of dry clothes was, she was not stripping with him just standing there watching. Especially not after the unsettling little epiphany she'd just had.

  There was the way he was looking at her, too. His gaze was moving over her with an arrested expression as if he were really seeing her for the first time. Glancing down at herself, she realized that her black T-
shirt with the Sugar Babes legend was wet through, and clung to the firm globes of her breasts like a second skin. Her nipples were hardened and puckered from the cold, and thrust boldly through the stretchy cotton and the flimsy nylon bra that covered them. His gaze lingered on her breasts for a moment, she noticed, then slid swiftly down over her slim waist, narrow hips, and long, slender legs.

  Charlie's eyes widened and her mouth went dry as it occurred to her that her partner in extreme survival was checking her out.

  When his gaze lifted seconds later and their eyes met, the expression in his made her heart skip a beat. Raw sexual heat flared out at her before he abruptly turned his back.

  "So strip already," he said in a tone that was faintly grim. "And hurry up. Under the circumstances it's not smart to spend too much time in one place."

  1O

  “WANT TO EXPLAIN SUGAR BABES?"

  It was the first thing he'd said to her in the minute or so that had passed since he'd started undressing. During that time, he had shed his coat and shirt—it was a pullover sweatshirt, Charlie had discovered, watching with fascination as he tugged it over his head—and he was currently in the process of unbuckling his belt. The question was directed at her without his ever looking around. Charlie was so mesmerized by the striptease taking place in front of her that it took her a couple of seconds to realize that he was talking about the writing on her T-shirt.