Aftershock (15 page)

Lauren felt dizzy as she rose to her feet. She’d hardly slept
since the earthquake, and hadn’t eaten much today. Penny must be starving.
Breast-feeding mothers needed lots of extra calories. Using a plastic spoon,
Lauren served her some peanut butter and jam. Then she opened a can of corn and
headed out to share it with the others.

Despite his questionable appearance, Owen had become a strong
asset to their group. You really couldn’t judge a book by its cover.

That included Garrett. She’d felt safe with him from the start,
but maybe she’d been reacting to surface qualities, like size and strength.
There was more to him, though. He’d worked tirelessly to save people, and
protected her from Mickey.

He was a good person.

She’d thought the same of Michael, of course. The difference
was that her ex hadn’t been so forthcoming about his flaws. He’d lied to her and
sneaked around behind her back. When caught, he’d refused to own up to his
mistakes.

Garrett might have some skeletons in his closet, but she didn’t
think he was a liar. All the details he’d shared with her sounded true. He could
have kept quiet about the bar fight, or claimed he was single. Instead, he’d
been real with her, and she respected that. Her instincts told her she could
trust him with her life.

Just not her heart.

* * *

G
ARRETT
WOKE
UP
about an
hour after he’d drifted off.

Lauren had left the tent. Owen was sitting there, his forearms
resting on bent knees. “Here,” he said, giving him a can of soda.

Garrett straightened and drank about half the contents, easing
his parched throat. He forced himself to pass the rest back to Owen. It might be
the last few ounces of liquid they had. “How’s Penny?”

“Good,” he said, his lips quirking into a smile. “It’s a
boy.”

“Really? Hot damn. I wish we had some cigars.”

Owen laughed.

“Lauren got back in time?”

“No.”

“Get the fuck out. You delivered the baby?”

“Yep.”

“What was it like?”

“Scary,” he said, deliberating. “I don’t think I ever want to
have sex again.”

Garrett took one look at his traumatized expression, and they
both burst out laughing. The stress from the past few days must have caught up
with them. “You might change your mind about that,” he said, wiping the tears
from his eyes.

“Maybe,” Owen replied with a grin.

Lauren ducked her head into the triage tent, glancing back and
forth between them. “What’s so funny?”

They sobered instantly.

“Nothing,” Garrett said, clearing his throat.

Lauren sat down to share a can of corn. Taking one spoonful for
herself, she passed it around. Cadence stirred beside Don. She climbed out from
under the blanket and accepted a few bites. Although Garrett wanted a pork chop
and mashed potatoes, the corn tasted pretty damned sweet. He could have finished
several cans on his own.

“Penny’s baby was born,” Lauren told Cadence. “It’s a boy.”

“Can I see him?” she asked.

“I think so. Maybe you can keep them company.”

Excited by the prospect, she kissed her grandpa’s slack cheek
and prepared to leave.

“I’ll take good care of him,” Lauren promised.

Garrett needed to coordinate some details with Owen. He
escorted Cady back to the RV and told her to lock the door. He wouldn’t have
minded seeing the baby, but he was dirty and he didn’t want to invade Penny’s
privacy. The inside of the RV felt like a sacred space now, for women and
children only.

Owen walked toward the semi with him, looking pleased with
himself. As if he was a proud papa, not just a delivery boy.

They lingered in the shadows to talk.

“What’s the plan?” Owen asked.

Garrett updated him on Jeb’s threat, and told him about
Lauren’s CPR dummy. “We can use it as a decoy. Flush them out.”

“I don’t know if I want to bring them over here,” Owen
said.

“We can defend ourselves better on this turf.”

“Yeah, but there’s more to lose.”

Garrett conceded his point. He didn’t want anyone to get hurt
in the crossfire, either. They had a newborn baby among them, in addition to two
critical patients. Protecting the others was a top priority.

“Maybe we should do what we talked about earlier,” Owen
said.

“Slit their throats?”

He moistened his lips. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” Garrett said, his voice laced with sarcasm. “I’ll hide
and wait while
you
sneak up on them this time. We’ll
see how it goes.”

Owen frowned at the suggestion.

“You don’t like that idea?”

“Fuck you,” he said, scowling. “I don’t have any experience
killing people.”

Garrett wished he could say the same.

“By the way, I saved your ass back there.”

“What?”

“I threw a rock at Jeb.”

“Why?”

“Because he was going to shoot you.”

“And instead he shot Don,” Garrett said, his temper rising.
“You should have just run.”

“Is that what you’d have done?”

Cursing, he raked a hand through his hair. His fingertips
brushed the sore spot where he’d hit his head yesterday. He touched it absently.
No, he wouldn’t have left a fallen comrade behind. It was Garrett’s fault Don
had been injured, not Owen’s.

“Jeb and Mickey created an easily defensible space by clearing
the debris on their side of the cavern,” Garrett said. “Now that we’ve tried and
failed to raid their camp, it will be even more difficult to catch them
unguarded. Drawing them out is the only way.”

Owen fell silent, mulling it over.

“Unless you want to climb the wall, and keep trying to break
through. They might not shoot at you.”

“No,” he said. “If they attack while I’m climbing, I won’t be
able to help you defend the women.”

Garrett liked the way Owen thought things through. Some men
followed orders blindly. Others refused to be led. The best Marines used their
brains
and
their ears. They listened to reason, but
formed their own decisions.

Owen’s protective feelings toward Penny were another advantage.
Garrett suspected he’d walk through fire for her.

“Where’s the dummy?” Owen asked, resigned.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A
LTHOUGH
THE
DUMMY
WAS
CLOSER
to Jeb’s camp
than their own, they didn’t have to steal it from right under his nose.

Garrett ducked behind a smashed car that lay between their
enemies and the remains of the ambulance. A pile of concrete rubble provided
another barrier, but it wasn’t a safeguard. Don’s blood made a dark stain on the
ground next to him, proving they were within Jeb’s shooting range.

There was no sound or movement coming from the north corner.
Garrett held his breath, listening for a second before giving Owen the go
signal. His partner stole into the back of the ambulance with the fluid ease of
a practiced thief.

Fortunately, the task was completed without incident. Owen
found the dummy and returned to Garrett’s side in seconds.

They sneaked back to their camp, Owen carrying the torso under
one arm. Garrett followed at a close distance. The smell of decomposition clung
to his clothes, reminding him of what he’d done to escape Jeb earlier. Even
after they slipped behind the RV, home free, his heart hammered in his chest,
broadcasting fear in heavy beats.

“This bastard is heavy,” Owen complained, letting the dummy
flop on the ground. It wasn’t a good likeness, as far as Garrett was concerned.
His decoy was pale, slack faced and adolescent looking.

Owen glanced from the dummy to Garrett, his expression
doubtful. “We’ll have to dirty him up.”

Garrett was more worried about the rest of the body. If the
limbs appeared limp and useless, it would be a dead giveaway.

They got to work, because without a realistic decoy, the rest
of the plan couldn’t be implemented. Coveralls, gardening gloves and a pair of
rubber boots provided the disguise. Owen found two sets of panty hose in the
supplies. He stuffed both with insulation material while Garrett cut pieces of
wire to create bendable knees and elbows.

“He needs to be bigger,” Owen decided, adding more fiberglass
to mimic Garrett’s heavy muscle mass.

When the body was large enough, they dressed him in the
coveralls. Garrett placed the remaining bits of wire inside the gloves for
fingers. Owen smeared grease on the rubber face. With the cracked helmet on, and
some safety glasses, the dummy didn’t look half-bad. He wouldn’t fool anyone at
five feet, but at fifty, he could double for Garrett.

“Watch out,” Owen said, smirking. “Lauren might like this guy
better.”

Garrett wasn’t amused by the joke.

“Speaking of Lauren—”

“Let’s not.”

“All I’m saying is, you should hit that.”

He gave Owen a warning glare. “Shut the fuck up.”

Undaunted, Owen removed a condom from his pocket and passed it
to him. “Just in case.”

“Where did you get this?”

“In the RV. There’s a stack of
Hustler
s under the bed, too.”

Garrett stashed the square package, his neck heating.

“Are you short time?”

He didn’t bother to answer. The amount of time he had left was
irrelevant. “Even if she’d let me, I wouldn’t do it.”

“She’d let you.”

He shook his head in denial. Lauren was brainy and beautiful
and way out of his league. The only thing he could offer was a bit of brawn. In
the outside world, where physical strength was less important, he wouldn’t have
stood a chance with her.

“You’re not interested?” Owen asked.

“Please,” he scoffed. He was so interested, it hurt. But he
needed to focus on getting out of here alive, not getting into Lauren’s pants.
“This is a life-or-death situation. I have more important things to worry
about.”

Owen dropped the subject, but he didn’t appear intimidated.
Garrett was used to people listening when he told them to shut up. A few years
ago, he’d have scared this kid shitless. Maybe he’d lost his edge.

“What about after we escape?” Owen asked.

“What about it?”

“Are you going to run?”

“Hell, no,” he said, scowling.

“Why not?”

“Because that would be stupid.”

“Mexico is close.”

“Don’t even think about it,” he warned. “You’ll get caught, and
end up doing more time.”

They left the decoy behind the semi and examined their
supplies. Garrett had learned quite a lot about improvised explosive devices
from Iraqi insurgents. They’d collected some household chemicals and
construction materials from the vehicles. Bomb-making was dangerous, and the
fumes could be fatal, so they had to be careful.

“Jeb will want to get close enough to take a shot at me,”
Garrett said. “We’ll attack before they realize it’s a trick.”

Owen nodded. “What do you want to hit them with first?”

“I can put muriatic acid with a few other things in a plastic
bottle. It will explode on impact and emit toxic gas. If I throw it behind them,
they won’t be able to retreat.”

“Cool,” he said, his eyes lighting up. “Let’s make a bunch of
those.”

“One or two will have to suffice, because the chemical
components are volatile. But we can throw other stuff.”

“There’s plenty of gasoline,” he noted.

“We need some kind of trap, too.”

Owen toed a bucket of tar. “I could pour this on the ground and
add bits of broken glass to the mixture. It would be hell to fall into.”

Garrett grinned at the idea. “Perfect.”

For the next hour, they discussed strategies and methods of
attack. Placement of the tar pits was essential. They planned to use trip wires
and grease to ensure stumbling. After both enemies were down, cut by glass and
choking on acid fumes, Garrett would come in with the business end of his
crowbar. As soon as they were subdued or unconscious, Owen could approach with a
length of rope and tie them up.

Once they’d decided on a plan, Owen worked on the tar pits
while Garrett set the trip wires and created a few other nasty surprises for
their opponents. The gasoline cocktails and acid bombs would have to wait until
the last minute. He borrowed Sam’s watch, setting the alarm for the wee hours of
the morning.

At midnight, they decided to take a break. Lauren had been
sitting up with Don and she needed rest. If he didn’t stop moving, neither would
she. While Owen went to visit Penny, Garrett ducked his head inside the triage
tent.

Don looked better. Some color had returned to his cheeks, and
he appeared to be resting comfortably. Cadence had come back to sit with him.
She’d spent most of the evening helping Penny with the baby.

“Hey,” Garrett said softly. “How’s he doing?”

“I gave him some morphine,” Lauren said, worry and fatigue
lining her face. “He should be okay for a few hours.”

“I want to sleep here,” Cadence said.

Lauren glanced up at Garrett, who shook his head. “You have to
go back to the RV.”

Tears filled her eyes. “I miss my mom.”

“Oh, honey,” Lauren said, giving her a hug. “I know you do. You
can stay with me in the back of the semi. It might be quieter.”

With reluctance, Cadence followed her to the Kenworth. They set
her up in the cab with her doll and a blanket. “Will you sing to me?”

“Sure,” Lauren said. “What song?”

“‘Silent Night.’”

A crease formed between Lauren’s brows, as if she was trying to
remember the words. Then she began to sing in a hushed tone. Her voice was
scratchy, from thirst or fatigue, and she sang off-key. Garrett sat in the
driver’s seat and listened, soaking up the sound. Like the flowers among the
rubble, he found a stark beauty in it.

After a few minutes, Cadence fell asleep.

Lauren moved to the passenger seat across from him, curling up
with a blanket. Garrett didn’t have one, which was fine. He wasn’t planning to
drift off.

“Do you think Penny is safe with Owen?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“I told him I’d kill him if he touched her.”

Owen wasn’t afraid to joke around with him, but Garrett didn’t
think he would push his luck with Penny. Besides, he’d just seen her give birth.
That experience was bound to put a damper on any sexual thoughts he’d been
entertaining. He also seemed at least as protective of her as he was
infatuated.

Lauren tucked her hands under her cheek and closed her eyes.
They didn’t talk about tomorrow.

“That was nice,” he said. “What you did for Cady.”

“Singing?”

“Yes.”

“I have a terrible voice.”

“I like it.”

“You’re delusional.”

Garrett agreed that he was. Sentimental, also. It had been
years since he’d heard a woman sing in person. Her voice was husky and sexy and
endearingly sweet. The sound gave him goose bumps.

Everything about her appealed to him.

He forced his gaze away, staring into the black space out the
window. She needed sleep, and he didn’t want to keep her awake. He tried not to
think about the other things he’d been missing from women. But Lauren was only
two feet away from him, and he couldn’t forget the kiss they’d shared, or the
feel of her body underneath his.

Even after donating two pints of blood, he had enough left over
to rush to his groin. He listened to her soft breathing and surrendered to
depravity, imagining all the ways he’d like to pleasure her.

It was going to be a long night.

* * *

L
AUREN
COULDN
’
T
SLEEP
.

She was anxious about Garrett’s violent plans for Jeb, and
Don’s questionable recovery. Her tongue felt thick and her throat was dry. She
was hungry. She wanted to be distracted from this awful reality, even for just a
few moments.

Garrett’s head was turned away, but she could tell he was
awake. She studied the outline of his body in the dim light.

His jaw tensed, as if he felt her eyes on him.

“I’d kill for a shower,” she murmured, moistening her lips.
“And a tall glass of iced tea. Fish tacos. Coconut cake.”

“Fish tacos?”

“You’ve never had them?”

“No.”

“You’re not from around here,” she surmised. “Where were you
born?”

“Nebraska. I didn’t come to California until I joined the
military.”

“What food do you miss?”

“It’s hard to pick,” he said. “Anything home cooked. My mom
made ham and scalloped potatoes every Christmas. I guess that was my
favorite.”

“You haven’t gone back to visit?”

“Not for a long time.”

She went quiet, pondering the sad situation. Her mother drove
her crazy, but they continued to see each other on a regular basis. She couldn’t
imagine severing their relationship. In the event they were rescued, she hoped
to mend the rift between them.

Lauren knew from a young age that she didn’t want to turn out
like her mother. Hillary had been a small-town beauty queen and a superficial
trophy wife. Despite her flaws, she was a caring, clever woman and a doting
parent.

Their most recent argument had been over Lauren’s breakup with
Michael. Her mother had never warmed up to him. She’d warned Lauren that he was
self-absorbed, which was true. When it didn’t work out, her mother had seemed
pleased. At the time, Lauren had resented her for being unsupportive.

“You saved Don’s life today,” he said. “It was amazing.”

She shrugged off the compliment, her cheeks heating.

“Have you done blood transfusions out of your ambulance
before?”

“No. Never.”

“How did you know what to do?”

“I earned my nursing degree while working as a paramedic. Last
year I did an internship in the emergency room, and assisted on several
transfusions.”

“You’re a nurse?”

“Well, no. I have my license, but I haven’t looked for a
position yet.”

“Why not?”

She shifted in the passenger seat, reluctant to go into detail.
“I like working as a paramedic, for one thing. And my ex-boyfriend is a resident
at the closest hospital. I couldn’t avoid him if I applied there.”

“A resident?”

“A doctor in training.”

His brows rose. “Ah.”

She suspected that he felt inferior, as if he couldn’t compete
with an educated professional. Lauren didn’t care about money or prestige,
however. Her father had enjoyed both, along with a beautiful family, but it
hadn’t been enough for him. She wanted a man who could count his blessings and
feel satisfied, not a rich playboy.

“Did you meet on the job?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Why did you split?”

“I think we moved too fast. We’d only been seeing each other
for a few months before we got engaged. Everything was fine...until we set a
date for the wedding. Then we argued more, and he started acting strange. He was
avoiding my calls, working late. I caught him having lunch with one of the
pretty new interns.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. He claimed there was nothing romantic between them, but
I knew it was only a matter of time.”

“How?”

“I watched them together for a few minutes before he saw me. He
looked at her like she was the only woman in the room. If he was committed to
me, she couldn’t have caught his eye. And—he’s in Bermuda with her right
now.”

Garrett examined her face, as if searching for the reason
Michael had thrown her over. Lauren didn’t think it had anything to do with
physical beauty, but she was vain enough to wish she’d washed recently.

“Are you still in love with him?” he asked.

“No,” she said, relieved.

“Good. He sounds like a jerk.”

She smiled, shaking her head. “Actually, he’s a great guy. He
volunteered for Doctors Without Borders. Everyone thinks he’s amazing.”

Garrett made a skeptical noise.

“I’ve always wondered why people fall out of love. Does it
happen by accident, or because you didn’t try hard enough? Is it a cumulative
process, or can a single action ruin the whole thing?”