Run, Hide

by Carol Ericson

  “Maybe I can pick up some clothes.” Jenna tugged her jacket around her body. The couple of times she’d packed up and moved, she’d had time to get ready. Her helter-skelter dash from her house in Lovett Peak had been the first time she’d had to put her emergency evacuation plan into action. It had worked pretty well, too, although Zendaris’s men may have been able to stop her if it hadn’t been for Cade and his muscle...car.

  Cade swung open the door, and Jenna nudged Gavin in front of her into the packed restaurant. She scanned the room for suspicious-looking people, although she didn’t figure they’d be men in suits and dark glasses. Zendaris hadn’t gotten to his position in the world by surrounding himself with stupid people.

  But everyone made mistakes.

  Cade hung his arm around her shoulders and whispered in her ear. “Relax.”

  “Table for three?” A waitress gripping a pot of steaming coffee paused by the door, cocking her head at Cade.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The woman tilted her chin toward a booth by the window. “You can take that table when the busboy clears it.”

  Gavin tugged on Jenna’s hand and motioned her down to his level. She ducked and touched her nose to his. “What do you need?”

  “I need to go potty.”

  “Right. First things first.” She turned to Cade. “I’m going to take Gavin to the restroom.”

  “I should probably wash my hands, too. Do you want me to take him to the men’s room?”

  Jenna ignored Gavin’s hopeful look. Even at his age, he resented being dragged to the women’s restroom all the time. “Uh, he still needs a little help.”

  “And who’s more qualified to help him with guy stuff?” He took Gavin’s other hand, gave one tug and Gavin dropped her hand as if a she had a trick buzzer in it.

  Gavin galloped beside this stranger he’d met only yesterday, under less-than-ideal circumstances, and Jenna followed them to the restrooms with a lump in her throat.

  Bracing her hands on the vanity, she hunched over the sink, taking stock of her reflection. Her hair stuck out at odd angles, and she had a smudge of dirt on one cheek. How long had that been there?

  Leave it to a man to miss the important things and dwell on stuff like blowing up helicopters and locating getaway cars.

  She cranked on the faucet and scrubbed her hands. Holding her hair back with one hand, she splashed warm water on her face with the other, rubbing at the spot on her cheek.

  If she put any makeup on at this point, she’d be sending all the wrong signals to Cade. And what kinds of signals did she want to send him? How long would they be on the run together?

  She pawed through her purse and pulled out a tube of lipstick. She swiped the dark pink color across her lips and smacked them twice.

  She could handle whatever he threw her way.

  Entering the dining room, she spotted Cade and Gavin already sitting at the booth—on the same side of the table. They had their noses buried in their menus, two dark heads bent side by side.

  She slid into the booth across from them. “What looks good?”

  Gavin slapped the plastic menu on the table and jabbed his finger at a picture of pancakes with dollops of whipped cream on them in the shape of a happy face. “Pancakes.”

  “Really?” She wrinkled her nose. “Since when do we eat whipped cream for breakfast?”

  Cade raised his menu to cover his face. “Don’t look at me. I’m having a breakfast burrito. Your mom knows best, Gavin.”

  Gavin’s lower lip trembled and Jenna felt as if she’d just shot down the Easter bunny. Who was she to nix whipped cream after what she’d just put her son through?

  She blew a kiss to Gavin. “Are you getting those with chocolate chips?”

  He nodded and bounced in his seat.

  Cade peered at her over the top of his menu. “When you go all out, you go all out.”

  “Hey, if you can’t have whipped cream when you’re on the...road, when can you have whipped cream?”

  The waitress came back and plopped a coloring book and crayons on the table in front of Gavin and took their order.

  Jenna wrapped her hands around her coffee cup and inhaled the rich aroma from the steam curling up to her nose. “One sip of this and I might feel halfway human again.”

  Cade downed his orange juice in a couple of gulps and shoved the small glass to the edge of the table. “You did an amazing job back there in Lovett Peak. I was too late, and you handled yourself well.”

  “I’m not sure what would’ve happened if you hadn’t come along in that car. They’d put the word out that I had something to do with—” she glanced at Gavin, his tongue lodged in the corner of his mouth as he scribbled red across the page “—Marti. D-do you think I’m wanted or whatever?”

  “For questioning, maybe. The police have no evidence.”

  “She was in my house. I left in a hurry. And they can plant evidence. You should know that.”

  “I do.” He ran his thumb along the ridge of her knuckles. “I’m just sorry you do.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I had to learn fast, and it’s kept us alive.”

  “And happy? What about happiness?”

  She jutted out her chin. Did he think she needed him to be happy? That she’d fall apart the minute he left?

  “Every time I look at Gavin I’m happy. It’s a different sort of life, but it’s our life.”

  “I can see that.” He tapped Gavin on the head. “He’s a great kid—friendly, happy, fearless.”

  “Ah, it’s that fearless part you like, isn’t it? A chip off the old block?”

  Cade grinned and scratched the sexy stubble on his chin. “With any luck at all, he’ll be an engineer or an accountant. I’d like that, too.”

  “Maybe he will do a one-eighty. People do that, don’t they? Choose the opposite path of a parent.”

  The grin melted from Cade’s face, and now his stubble gave him a menacing look. “I guess I didn’t. Followed in my old man’s footsteps to a T.”

  Jenna’s hand jerked and her coffee sloshed over the rim, splashing her fingers. “What are you talking about? You and your father are complete opposites. You’re responsible and honorable. He wasn’t.”

  Cade gazed over her shoulder, his dark eyes clouding over like the sky outside the window. “My father left his family, and so did I.”

  His words twisted a knife in her gut. Is that what he believed?

  Shame washed across her body like a heat wave. Why shouldn’t he believe that? She’d been flinging the accusations of abandonment at him ever since she’d jumped in his hot rod.

  “It’s different.” She dragged the tip of her spoon through the coffee puddling in her saucer. “You didn’t have a choice. You left for our own safety.”

  “He didn’t have a choice, either.” His lips twisted.

  “Your father was a criminal, Cade. He left you, your brother and your mother because the Feds were closing in on him.”

  “Like I said, he didn’t have a choice.”

  The waitress interrupted them with a clatter of plates, and Gavin looked up from his coloring to squeal over the whipped cream face on his chocolate chip pancakes. Jenna might have to pay by enduring hyperactive behavior from him until he crashed, but the look on his wide-eyed face was worth it.

  Had to grab pleasure where you could find it.

  Gavin poked Cade in the shoulder. “Look, look.”

  “I see.” Cade suspended one long finger above a dollop of cream. “Can I have some?”

  Gavin pointed to the smallest dab of whipped cream. “You can have that one.”

  “Thanks.” Cade dipped the tip of his finger into the white puff and sucked it into his mouth. “Yum.”

  Gavin attacked his stack of pancakes as if he hadn’t eaten in days, and Cade sliced into his burrito with equal gusto.

  Jenna watched them, her fork suspended over her omelet. Even though he hadn’t started life with his father, Gavin shared so many
characteristics with Cade—the tilt of his head, the quick smile, the way they both had her wrapped around their fingers.

  She sniffed and plunged her fork into her eggs. She’d have to keep her head on straight with these two, but no more blaming Cade for the way fate had played out in their marriage. Their separation had hurt her and she’d wanted to retaliate against Cade, force him to feel her pain. But that wasn’t necessary.

  He didn’t need her to leash him to his pain. He felt it all on his own with no prompting from her. He felt it on a deep, visceral level that she’d never contemplated.

  Cade had never wanted to be like his father, and now he felt as if he’d made the same mistakes as the man who had left his family when Cade was just ten years old.

  She’d have to do better. They’d all suffered, and somehow they’d find a way out—together.

  She did a fair amount of justice to her own breakfast and pushed her plate to the center of the table. “You said you had a plan. Care to share it with me?”

  “Sure.” Cade picked up a crayon and colored inside the lines of a balloon on the paper. “There’s a Prospero outpost in Arizona. It serves to monitor people crossing the U.S.–Mexican border, keeping an eye out for known terrorists.”

  Jenna cleared her throat. “A-are we going to get some help there?”

  “They can help you and Gavin.”

  Her muscles tensed. “Me and Gavin?”

  “They can settle you in a safe location.”

  Jenna gripped Cade’s wrist and leaned in close, gritting her teeth. “No.”

  Chapter Seven

  Jenna’s nails dug into his wrist, but Cade didn’t flinch. He expected resistance, anger even, from Jenna. But he had to be strong enough to think with his brain, not his heart.

  She cupped her hand around her mouth to shield her words from Gavin. “You are not dumping us off at some outpost. Even the name is offensive. Outpost. Out of your life. Out of your mind.”

  He twisted his wrist from her grasp and smothered both of her hands with his. “That’s not possible. You and Gavin are on my mind twenty-four seven.”

  “What are they going to do with us? Stick us in some kind of witness protection program?”

  “That’s pretty much what you’ve been in, anyway, Jenna. New town, different identity, Prospero watching over you. Me watching over you. Only this time it will be official and professional and safer than anything you could do on your own.”

  “It’s no way to live, Cade. It’s no way for Gavin to live.”

  The quaver in her voice just about did him in. Squeezing her hands, he said, “It’s not going to be forever.”

  “How close are you to catching Zendaris?”

  His eye twitched, and she withdrew her hands from his. “Exactly.”

  “He’s going to find out sooner or later that I don’t have those plans and once he does, he’ll back off.”

  “Why would he do that? He’s had a vendetta against you for three years. Even if he finds out you don’t have the plans, that doesn’t wipe out his other grievance. He was after me before you took the plans, and he’ll be after me after he finds out you don’t have them.”

  “You missed one.” Cade leaned over Gavin’s coloring masterpiece and pointed to a flower. When Gavin turned his attention to picking out a crayon for the blank flower, Cade hunched forward, his nose almost touching Jenna’s. “Let’s just get you safe and settled.”

  Jenna took a deep breath, held it for a moment and then released it through parted lips. “Okay. We’ll go to this outpost. I—I’m not blaming you, Cade. It is what it is.”

  He managed to prevent his jaw from hitting the table, but he couldn’t control his eyebrows, which jumped up to his hairline. Since when was she not blaming him? He’d take it for now.

  “Then let’s do a little shopping while we’re here, at least pick up a few changes of underwear and a couple of shirts. I need to let them know we’re on the way, anyway.”

  “Underwear.” Gavin giggled and finished off the flower with an orange flourish.

  Cade paid the bill with cash. In fact, he and Jenna had enough cash between them to open their own bank. She’d handled things well on her own, but he didn’t want her to be on her own anymore.

  They wandered around the town, which happened to be a hub of sorts for tourists heading to Vegas or the Grand Canyon or Utah’s National Parks, and picked up some clothes, toiletries and snacks for the drive.

  On the road out of town, the flea market loomed ahead of them, a colorful mishmash of goods and humanity. Cade pulled into the dirt parking lot next to the booths. “Do you think we can find a car seat for Gavin here?”

  “I think so. Looks like a giant yard sale, and people are always looking to sell baby items.”

  They mingled with the people shuffling past the stalls and the wares displayed on blankets. The smell of popcorn and cotton candy wafted through the cold air.

  Jenna pinched the sleeve of his jacket. “Baby stuff.”

  They veered toward a vendor with toys arrayed on a table and tiny clothes hanging from a line. Cade fingered a blue one-piece outfit. Had Gavin ever been this small?

  “How much for the car seats?” Jenna had ducked between the clothing and nudged one of two car seats with the toe of her boot.

  A smile cracked the vendor’s weathered face. “For the little boy? Twenty-five for the blue one and forty for the gray one.”

  “I’ll give you thirty for the gray one.” Jenna pinched a twenty and a ten in her fingers and held out the money to the old woman.

  “Thirty-five.”

  “You’re not supposed to sell used car seats.” She thrust the cash at the woman, who snatched it and tucked it into her pocket.

  Jenna had become one tough customer. That flighty girl he’d met in Coronado had morphed into a responsible, no-nonsense woman.

  Cade hooked the straps of the car seat around his arm and it bumped his leg as they meandered back through the flea market.

  The smell of the sugar from the cotton candy must’ve intoxicated Gavin because he started yanking on Jenna’s hand and whining for candy.

  “Gavin, you are not getting any candy.” She rolled her eyes at Cade and whispered, “I think he wants cotton candy and that’s a double no.”

  Then he stopped the whining and started skipping and chanting. “Please, Mommy. Please, Mommy. Please, Mommy.”

  “Would the little one like some homemade cornbread with honey?” A small, gray-haired Native American woman smiled and nodded toward Gavin.

  Jenna stopped. “Oh, I suppose so.”

  Cade chuckled in her ear. “It’s better than cotton candy.”

  “You’re the child’s mother?”

  “Yes.” Jenna peered more closely at the old woman’s cloudy, unfocused eyes and realized she was blind. “I don’t want to trouble you.”

  “Little ones need something sweet now and then.” The old woman turned her head to the side. “Patrick.”

  A young man stepped from the recesses of the booth, holding a paper plate with a square of cornbread drizzled with honey in the center. “Just one?”

  “I think that’s enough for us to share. How much?”

  Cade stepped forward and took the plate from Patrick. He sawed off a small piece of the cornbread, stabbed it with the plastic fork and fed it to Gavin.

  The woman waved her gnarled hands. “Take it, but I’d like to read your cards.”

  Jenna stumbled back against Cade. “Read my cards?”

  The woman slid a stack of cards from the folds of her dress and rapped it against the table. The cards did not come from a regular playing deck. They were composed of some hard substance, and as the woman spread them on the table Jenna saw shapes and figures carved into the cards.

  The old woman ran her fingertips along the ridges and grooves of the shapes. She must’ve had this set of cards created exclusively for her.

  “Are those tarot cards?”

  She caressed th
e cards with knotted fingers. “Some call them tarot cards. We call it an oracle deck.”

  Jenna glanced over her shoulder at Cade and Gavin stuffing cornbread into their mouths, and Cade shrugged.

  She slipped into the chair opposite the fortune-teller. “Can you tell my future with that deck?”

  “I see—” she drew a hand across her milky eyes

  “—many things.”

  Who was she to deny the old woman a chance to practice her art? Jenna folded her hands on the table and took a deep breath. “What do I have to do?”

  “Nothing at all.” The woman’s hushed tones caused the hair on the back of Jenna’s neck to quiver.

  The woman closed her sightless eyes and fanned the cards in front of her in an array of suns and moons and animals.

  Jenna found herself holding her breath as the woman read the cards with her fingertips. She slid them around the table, discarding some and arranging the others in the pattern of a cross.

  When she had the oracle cards where she wanted them, she traced the shapes of each one with her fingers. When she finished stroking the final card, she swept them up and stacked them with their discarded mates.

  “Well? What did you see?”

  The woman’s eyes flew open and Jenna flinched at the pale opaque film that seemed to float over both orbs. The seer grabbed Jenna’s hand in a clawlike grip.

  “You live a life of danger.”

  Jenna stiffened and she felt Cade move in behind her and slip a hand on her shoulder.

  “Someone covets what you have.”

  Jenna reached out, curling her fingers around Gavin’s wrist.

  “This person poses the greatest threat to your happiness. Defeat this person, and you shall walk in sunshine.”

  Jenna’s heart hammered in her chest and she hunched forward, staring into the old woman’s eyes. “What else? What else did you see?”

  “Where is this person? Where can we find him?” Cade’s hand tightened on her shoulder.

  The young man, Patrick, stepped out from the shadows again and held up his hands. “Reading the oracle deck tires my grandmother. She can’t tell you any more.”

  Despite the chill in the air, a warm flush crept up Jenna’s neck. Her voice had risen and she’d been almost nose-to-nose with the woman. She slumped back in her seat as Gavin patted her leg and Cade ran a hand over her hair.