by Gayle Wilson
If so, why the hell had he come back into her life?
Nothing of what he’d said had rung completely true, she thought again as she turned off the two-lane onto the road that led into town. That was one of the conclusions she’d come to during those sleepless hours last night. There was more to this reappearance than Griff’s warning.
There was nothing on the road ahead of her, but despite its emptiness she didn’t pick up speed. Unconscious now of the fact that she was going to be late in opening the office for the first time in three years, she went over again in her mind all the things Rafe had said last night. And the way he’d looked as he’d said them.
It wasn’t that she didn’t think he was telling the truth, she reaffirmed, slowing for the first of the three stoplights that regulated traffic on Main Street. It was that he wasn’t telling the whole truth.
There was something she wasn’t getting about this, just as she had always known there was something she hadn’t gotten about his disappearance six years ago. Something about both that didn’t quite add up with what she knew about Rafe Sinclair.
She slowed, pulling into the familiar parking space in front of the office. It wasn’t marked Reserved, but it might as well have been. No one in town would have thought about parking in her spot or Darrell’s.
She glanced at her watch again. It was nine-twenty, the office wasn’t open, and the world hadn’t come to an end. She needed to remember that the next time she got so damned anal.
She picked up her purse and the papers she’d taken home with her last night. Not that they had gotten read.
Of course, there was no hurry about that, either. That was part of the charm of living here. This compulsion to get things done on some kind of schedule was all hers.
She opened the door, stepping out into the heat that would become more oppressive as the day wore on. It was going to be a scorcher, as they said down here. A good day for staying inside by the air conditioner, she decided, skilled by now at evaluating the potential heat index.
It would also be a good day for finding enough work to keep her mind occupied with something besides the events of last evening. Or, rather, she amended, the nonevents of last evening.
She slammed the car door, pressing the auto-lock button on her key. At that exact instant a blast of heat and sound roiled upward from the heart of the law office, tearing it apart.
The resulting shock wave threw her backward. Her head and shoulders slammed against the pavement with enough force that for a moment she could neither breathe nor think. And then the debris of the building she should have been inside at least twenty minutes ago began to rain down around her.
Chapter Three
Rafe awakened, as he had a thousand times, to the sound of the explosion. His body jerked upright in bed, his heart trying to beat its way out from under the sweat-drenched skin of his chest. He opened his mouth, attempting to draw air into lungs compressed by the force of the blast.
It’s just a dream. Plain vanilla, garden-variety nightmare.
He had had enough of those, God knew, that he should be able to tell the difference. As horrific as they were, they were a million times better than the other.
Finally, shaking all over, he managed to take a breath. It seemed he could smell the smoke. He could almost taste it on the cotton dryness of his tongue.
Just another dream, he reassured himself.
He opened his eyes, slitting them against the painful stab of sunshine pouring through the crack he’d inadvertently left between the halves of the motel’s plastic-backed drapes when he’d closed them last night. He ran his tongue around parched lips as his heart rate began to slow.
As soon as the frantic pulse of blood through the veins in his ears eased, another sound replaced it. Distant at first and indistinct, within seconds an identification of what he was hearing roared into his consciousness. Siren.
He listened, again not breathing. Sometimes he couldn’t tell, but he would have staked his life that what he was hearing now was real. A real siren, and therefore… Real smoke?
He tore at the sheet, frantically trying to free his legs from its tangling hold. He staggered a little when his feet touched the floor, but that was only reaction to the flood of adrenaline coursing into his bloodstream.
When he reached the window, he lifted his arm, intending to sweep the curtain aside so that he could see out. He couldn’t force his hand to grasp the material. It was as if the muscles were literally paralyzed.
Cop chasing a speeder, he told himself. Or an ambulance carrying some poor bastard with a heart attack to the hospital. Whatever is outside these windows, it won’t be what was there before.
Sweat beaded his forehead as he willed his fingers to close over the fabric of the drapes, jerking them to the side. Light flooded the room, forcing him to close his eyes. When he opened them, the pillar of oily black smoke was all he could see. All his mind could grasp.
Smoke. Fire. Explosion.
It hadn’t been a dream. The evidence of its stark reality was right before him.
Except he had long ago learned not to trust “reality.” Not his. Not about something like this.
He closed his eyes, deliberately holding them shut as tightly as he could for a few seconds before he opened them again. Nothing had changed. The column of smoke still obscured the sky, and that first lonely siren had now been joined by a chorus of others.
He lowered his gaze, examining the rest of the scene revealed by the opened curtain. Parking lot. Cars, most of them recent models. A motel sign.
One he recognized from having glanced at it last night when he’d checked in. Reassured by that recognition, he lifted his eyes again.
The smoke seemed to be billowing upward from behind the row of buildings across the street. Which meant that the fire was at least a block away, he decided, feeling the adrenaline rush begin to ease. Maybe two. No more than that.
Of course, in Magnolia Grove two blocks was practically across town. Almost—
With the realization, his heart rate, which had almost returned to normal, accelerated like a trip hammer. He ran across the room, scrambling through the sheet he’d thrown aside, trying to locate his jeans.
He dragged them on, hopping awkwardly on one foot and then the other. He pushed his feet into his shoes, not bothering to find his socks. On the way to the door, he grabbed the shirt he’d worn yesterday off the chair where he’d thrown it down on his way to bed.
As soon as he stepped outside, a wall of heat hit him, almost forcing him back. His first response, emotional rather than intellectual, was that it was from the fire. Just like before.
It took a few seconds to realize that what he was feeling was simply a typical Mississippi-in-August heat. The air, however, was thick and acrid with smoke. Just as it had been in his dream.
Or maybe this time there hadn’t been a dream. Maybe what had awakened him had been a real explosion, one that had started this fire. And if so…
He was already running toward the source of the smoke, and he wasn’t the only one. People were rushing out of the surrounding buildings, heading toward the wail of the sirens and the black cloud that seemed to fill the sky.
Despite his lack of familiarity with the town’s landmarks, his usually unerring sense of direction led him straight to his destination. As he neared it, he knew with a wave of terror that he hadn’t been wrong.
The office where Elizabeth worked was on this street. The same street from where that ominous pillar of smoke was rising.
As he rounded the corner, he made a quick visual assessment. Despite the widespread effects of the blast, there was no doubt in his mind that the structure on fire was the law office of Connell and Anderson.
And with a renewed sense of panic he realized he had no idea what time it was. No idea what time Elizabeth normally arrived at work.
Then his searching eyes found her. She was standing, talking to a fireman or paramedic. There was no blood on her clothing, but even
from here he could tell her face was completely without color, the scattering of freckles stark against the milk-white skin.
Still, she was standing. Talking. Not bleeding. Apparently unharmed. His knees almost gave way with the force of his relief.
He closed his eyes in an unspoken prayer of thanks. It was a mistake, but by the time he was aware of that, it was too late to do anything about it. Images began to unwind, like the flickering frames of an old newsreel, against the blackness behind his lids.
They weren’t from any newsreel, of course. And they were all in color. The vivid, shocking brightness of freshly spilled blood. The grotesque black of skin that has been charred, peeling off the arm of a woman whose mouth was open, silently imploring him to help her.
At that moment someone running down the street careened into him. The force of collision was enough to turn him, causing him to stumble against the side of a building.
The impact of his fall or the roughness of the brick as his cheek scraped against it was enough to tear him out of the flashback. He opened his eyes, seeing in front of him the scene he had been watching before it began.
Elizabeth was still in the center of his vision. Mouth moving, she was pointing toward the line of cars parked in front of the burning building. They were close enough to the fire that the paint on their hoods was starting to blister. Just like—
He jerked his mind from that comparison, concentrating instead on Elizabeth. Not the woman in the embassy, he told himself doggedly. This was not the same situation. Nothing about it was the same.
He started to run again, feeling as if he were moving through quicksand. The distance between them seemed vast and immeasurable, but he never took his eyes off his goal. Never allowed himself to think about anything other than reaching it. Reaching her.
He knew the exact second when she became aware of him. She had been talking to another of the firemen, but when her eyes locked with his, her mouth stopped moving, remaining open as if frozen in midsentence.
At her sudden silence the two men standing beside her turned to stare at him as well. One of them moved between him and Elizabeth, the gesture obviously protective.
Rafe’s response was nothing short of murderous. Get the hell out of my way, you son of a bitch. He didn’t say that. He had no breath, and his mouth was too dry to form the words.
Elizabeth moved from behind the fireman, quickly taking the last few steps that would close the distance between them. There could have been nothing more natural than to take her in his arms. He had wanted to do that last night, despite everything he understood about how unwise it would be for both of them. That wasn’t what stopped him now.
There was less than two feet between them when their forward motion ground to a halt. She was again looking up at him, her head slightly raised because of the difference in their heights.
A cone of silence descended around him, blocking out the noises of the sirens, the pressure hoses, the shouts from the firemen fighting the blaze. All he could hear was his own breathing, harsh and panting from the exertion of his run.
Terrifyingly, the smell of the fire was all around him. The heat of it.
Elizabeth didn’t say a word, widened eyes searching his face. He couldn’t imagine what he looked like. Deranged, perhaps. Maybe even dangerous. Enough like a lunatic to cause the fireman to edge closer again.
She lifted her hand. For an instant he thought she intended to touch his face, but instead she pressed the tips of her fingers, trembling as they had been last night, against the center of his heaving chest.
“Rafe?”
God, he wanted to touch her. Just to take her hand as he had last night.
He didn’t, of course, because he was afraid that if he gripped her arm, her skin would slip off muscle and bone to lie in his hand as it had before.
That wasn’t here. Not Elizabeth. Not now.
“What the hell happened?” he managed to rasp.
She shook her head, her eyes never leaving his face. “I don’t know. It just…blew up. They think maybe there was a gas leak.”
He laughed, the sound a breath, devoid of amusement. “They’d be wrong.”
Her eyes changed, understanding of what he meant invading them as he watched.
“You think…” The sentence trailed. Once more she shook her head, the gesture small, denying. Her mouth worked and then she tried again. “You can’t possibly believe—”
“Come on,” he ordered.
He didn’t touch her, although by now the few words they’d exchanged had reoriented him. He knew where he was. And there was no doubt in his mind who she was.
Still, he didn’t dare put his hands on her. Not yet. No matter how much he wanted to.
“Come where?”
“Away from here.”
“I have to talk to the chief. There are questions that have to be—”
“Screw the questions. They’ll figure it out. They don’t need you to do that.”
“Rafe,” she protested.
She’d been out of this business too long. Her instincts were to respond to something like this in a rational way. Despite the time that had passed, his were not. His were all of the get-the-hell-out-of-Dodge variety.
The authorities could sort through cause-and-effect to their bureaucratic heart’s content. Meanwhile, he’d have her safe somewhere a thousand miles from here. Somewhere this time where that frigging terrorist bastard could never find her.
“Ms. Anderson?”
Elizabeth turned, removing her fingers from his chest. It was as if his connection to the present had been unplugged. He felt the familiar disconnect start and fought it, concentrating fiercely on maintaining contact with her and what was happening.
Her mouth was moving, but for a few seconds he couldn’t make sense of the words. He concentrated on doing that, forcing his mind to remain focused on the here and now.
It was a struggle, given the stimuli provided by the sights and sounds around them. He couldn’t afford to think about those. Not about the heat of the fire or the smells of it or the sounds of the sirens.
He forced himself to think only about Elizabeth’s mouth until eventually the words she was saying to the man he’d identified as Magnolia Grove’s fire chief began to form a pattern. To make sense.
“…a friend of mine from out of town. He was naturally concerned for me.”
Because I’m the only one who knows what the hell is going on here.
“We just need to ask you a few more questions, ma’am. Then Tommy thinks you ought to ride on in to the hospital and get checked out. You could have a concussion.”
“I’m fine.”
“You can’t be too careful with a head injury.”
Head injury. She had a head injury?
Cautiously, Rafe allowed his gaze to leave Elizabeth’s mouth, focusing on her head. Her hair was full of ash, but there were no bruises visible under the strands that fell forward over her forehead.
“You hit your head?” he demanded, his voice more normal.
She turned her attention to him, drawing the chief’s there, too. “The blast knocked me flat on my back. I think I hit it on the pavement. I remember looking up at the smoke. Then things were just falling out of the sky…”
As explanations went, it was fairly disjointed. Reassuringly normal.
She’d been the one at the center of the firestorm this time. She was bound to be affected, emotionally if not physically. And there was always the possibility that there was some injury. A lot of head stuff didn’t show up until it was too late.
“How far’s the hospital?” he asked.
The chief answered, his eyes still evaluating him. “Thirty miles or so. Mostly interstate.”
“Okay,” he said.
“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” Elizabeth protested.
Maybe it would be better just to put her in his car and take her somewhere. Anywhere. Any emergency room would do. After all, he couldn’t see any sign that sh
e was concussed.
That meant zilch with a head injury. He’d seen men walking around one minute and keel over the next from the pressure of internal bleeding. Or go to sleep, believing they were perfectly fine, and never wake up.
It wasn’t a chance he was willing to take. Not with Elizabeth.
“You need a scan,” he said. “That way—”
“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” she said, raking her hair back with characteristic impatience. “Don’t you think I’d know if I were injured?”
“No,” he said. The word was unequivocal, as was the demand in its tone.
Her mouth tightened, but she didn’t argue. She turned back to the chief instead. “What else do you need to know?”
The fireman’s eyes met Rafe’s, holding on them briefly before he answered.
“Nothing we can’t get later,” he said. “The fire marshal will need to examine the scene after we get the blaze controlled and things cool down. That’ll take a couple of days. We can always get back to you if we have other questions then. You go on now and get that scan. Smartest thing you can do.”
“Come on,” Rafe said again.
It would have been easier to take her elbow and physically insist she get into the waiting ambulance, and it should have been okay by now to do that. He didn’t risk it. Not with the sounds and the smells associated with the fire still going on in the background.
He had successfully locked them out of his consciousness, but there was no guarantee that something wouldn’t happen that he wasn’t prepared for. Something that might trigger another flashback. That also was not a risk he was willing to take.
He debated asking the driver to wait until he could get his car so he could follow the ambulance. That way they could leave from the hospital without coming back here.
There were a couple of problems with that. He wasn’t willing to leave Elizabeth alone even for the time it would take for him to run back to the motel. And he doubted she’d be willing to leave town with only the clothes on her back. Especially if they were telling her that the explosion had been the result of a gas leak. Especially if she believed them.
