Fierce Wanderer (2 page)

“You have to get treated for that.”

“You offered to help me, didn’t you?”

His eyes got wide, making the dilated pupils look even larger. “Well, yeah, but—”

“But nothing. Then help me. Take me to a friend’s house, anything. No hospitals.”

He cocked his head. “They’re coming back. We’ve got three minutes. Who are they and what did you do to them?”

What could she tell him? She opened her mouth, ready to spew whatever lie popped into her head first, but he said, “Forget it, there’s no time. We have to hustle.”

The world tilted, then righted itself as he pulled her up to a standing position. “You okay?” he asked.

Yeah. I think so.
Did she say that aloud, or just think it?

“You’re in shock,” he said. His voice sounded like it was underwater. “I’m going to take you to my family’s place. Just…try to stay with me, okay?”

She nodded. “No hospitals. No hospitals.” If she kept repeating it, she was bound to say it out loud at some point, right? He had to know.

“I got it,” he said. “My brother Jude was an EMT. He can fix you up.”

It was like she’d won the lottery. A guy this hot, and he had a brother, too?

The sound of an approaching engine filled her ears.

“Shit, they’re back, come on.” He picked her up and ran with her to his truck. He shoved her across the bench seat.

There was something she was forgetting. “My bag,” she screamed. “Get my bag!”

He swore, dashed across the street, grabbed her duffel, and raced back to the truck.

“This bag better be worth it,” he growled, and they peeled out with a screech.

The man’s voice was loud as he shouted at someone. He wasn’t shouting at her, she didn’t think.

“Dammit Jude, get home now. I need your help!”

Hera wanted to let him know everything was okay. He didn’t need to shout. “It’s okay,” she said. “Shhhh.”

He sent her a look, and it was panicked. His eyes were funny again, like the pupils were too big. Maybe he used meth, too, like everyone else did in Winston.

“Your eyes are weird,” she breathed. “Who’re you shouting at?”

He picked up his phone that was sitting between them on the bench seat. “My brother.”

“The EMT?”

“That’s the one. How’s your arm?”

“Hurts.” It was burning, and she was trying to do the pain visualization exercises, the ones her mom taught her when she’d gotten the occasional migraine. Imagine a balloon, then blow it up in your mind, breathing out the pain. Tie the balloon closed, and let it float away. Repeat as necessary. The sky in her imagination was going to be completely filled with giant pain balloons at this rate.

“We’re almost there,” he said. “Here’s the turnoff. Hold on—the road’s bumpy until we reach the ranch.”

Bumpy was an understatement. Hera felt like her teeth were rattling out of her head. The pain in her arm was too great. She let herself pass out.

Chapter Four

He still didn’t know her name. The good news was, he’d lost the red truck a few turns after they left the highway, even though he’d had to go out of their way to do it. Lead shooters to his house? No way.

She must have pissed off the wrong people. Now he understood why she was so afraid.

She half-reclined against the bench seat because there hadn’t been time to buckle her in. Now her neck was bent at what looked like an uncomfortable angle, but her face was mostly smooth with sleep. Her dark eyebrows scrunched a little—she had to be in a lot of pain. Blake had never been shot before, not as a human anyway, and not with anything worse than his brother’s BB gun when he was a cat.

He drove up the rise of the bumpy road until he reached the paved driveway of his family’s ranch house. Jude would be pissed he’d brought a human here without warning them all, but it wasn’t his fault Jude hadn’t answered his phone. The closest decent hospital was in Reno, and it was just too far away. He pulled up to the gate, leaped out of his truck to unlock it, then pulled into the driveway.

Home. He’d been roaming for a week, aimless, bored. He didn’t know what to do anymore. It felt like there was no purpose to anything. Hunting, fighting, fucking, an endless loop of meaningless interactions.

Well, now he had a purpose. A possibly crazy, dangerous purpose, but a purpose just the same.

At the house, he pulled the woman from the truck, cradling her in his arms. He grabbed her duffel, too. Maverick held the door open—he must’ve heard Blake pull up.

“Who’s this?” Mav asked.

“I don’t know,” Blake said.

Maverick frowned and ran a hand through the spikes of his dark brown hair. “She’s bleeding. Did you tell Jude—”

“Yes, dammit, I told Jude. In a voicemail.”

“He’ll be pissed.” Maverick stepped aside. “Put her in your room. I don’t want her blood smelling up the couch.”

Blake shook his head. “Shut up, Mav,” but he took the woman to his bedroom. “A little help?” he called down the stairs.

Maverick loped up with a cat’s grace. “What?”

“Can you grab some towels, and the first aid kit?”

Maverick grumbled. Blake could hear him the whole time, rummaging around in the bathroom down the hall. “I’ll bet my Boba Fett action figure this human causes all kinds of trouble.”

“Shut up, Mav.” Blake laid her out on his bed. He almost never brought women here—his brothers insisted on some code of keeping humans as far away as possible, so most of his hook-ups happened somewhere else. A motel, the woman’s apartment. In a tent under the stars… He didn’t like how right it felt to see her in here. Her dark hair fanned across his pillow. He slipped off her sandals, trying to make her more comfortable.

Who was she, though? She didn’t have a purse, just the duffel. He eased the zipper open and looked inside. Underwear. He grinned. She wore the sexy stuff, bikinis that covered her ass but had lace cut-outs or sheer fabric. Damn. What was he doing again? Oh yeah, a wallet. ID. He felt papers, so he pulled them out. The photos were spilling out of the file folder, so he glanced through. Pictures of a man handing a package to someone else. More pictures of the same man, passing over an envelope. A payoff? Some kind of exchange? All of the photos included the same man, taking and receiving things from various people, some of them gaunt, with the stretched skin appearance he associated with meth addicts. Drug deals?

He shoved the folder back into her bag and felt around for a wallet or purse. There. He flipped open the wallet, and her face grinned up at him from her driver’s license. She was Hera Watterson, a twenty-four-year-old organ donor, from Winston, California. Terrible photo. He wondered if she was vain, if she tried to hide it from people.

The front door didn’t slam, but Blake could feel the change of air pressure when it opened and closed again. Jude was back.

Chapter Five

When Hera woke, her arm was bandaged. The man who’d rescued her, the one who drove the white truck, was pacing at one end of the room. A man sat next to her, putting away the medical supplies. His hair was light brown, and he wore an angry expression. He had a similar, confident look about him to the guy who’d brought her here, but instead of making her want to draw closer to him, she wanted to shrink away.

“Drink that,” he said gruffly, gesturing to a glass of water.

Great bedside manner. She reached over with her good arm and brought the water to her lips. She hadn’t even realized how thirsty she was.

“You didn’t lose too much blood, Blake did a good tourniquet. There’s some ibuprofen for the pain.”

“Nah, I’m good,” she said. “That stuff makes me nauseous.”

The man shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He stood up with the first aid kit and walked out of the room.

“So you’re Blake?” she said to the other guy.

“Yeah, and you’re Hera.”

Her eyes went wide with fear. “How do you know my name?”

“Relax,” he said, “I looked for your wallet. I was wondering if there was someone I should call.”

“You didn’t call anyone, did you?”

“No. Do you want to tell me what kind of trouble you’re in?”

He looked trustworthy, and she felt safe here, but she shook her head. “Not really. I just want to get to Reno.”

“How does your arm feel?”

She tried to move it, and winced.

“Do you want me to get Jude? He can find some other meds for you.”

“No, I think Mr. Bedside Manner has done enough.”

He laughed softly.

“Wait, that sounded ungrateful, huh?” she said. “I really appreciate everything. Really. Do you know where the nearest car rental place is?”

Could she trust that, though? Didn’t they ask for identification when you rented a car? What if Tobin was monitoring rental agencies? He’d know, by now, that her Mustang was toast.

“There aren’t any around here,” Blake said. “Closest place is probably in Reno.”

It was almost funny, except it was so sad. “I need to be in Reno.”

He clapped his hands together. “I can take you there.”

“No, you’ve done so much. I can find another way…”

“Really? Can you?”

His tone was so cocky, so self-assured. Exactly the kind of guy she hated being around. She made her voice go frosty. “I’ll figure something out.”

“Look, I can get you to Reno.”

“Don’t you have a job or something?”

“Nothing that can’t wait.”

If he wanted her dead, he’d already have done it. He wasn’t going to kill her—he’d saved her. And she was out of options.

“I can’t pay you,” she said. “I only have a little bit of cash, and I might need it for food.”

“I was going there anyway. You’re like a hitchhiker.”

She looked at him, sensing a lie. “Going there anyway?”

“Yeah,” he said. “A wounded hitchhiker.” His brown eyes were wide open, earnest.

“I’ll let you take me there. And when this is over, I’m taking you out to your favorite restaurant.”

He held out his hand to shake on the deal, and she took it in her own. His palm was warm and dry, with a strange pattern of calluses. Maybe she’d ask him about them on the drive.

Chapter Six

Blake went down the stairs first, with Hera following him. “I’m going to Reno,” he announced to Mav and Jude, who were splayed out in front of the television.

“You just got home,” Mav said.

Blake winced. Of course Mav would ruin his fragile subterfuge. “No, I had plans,
remember
?”

“Nope,” Mav and Jude said in unison, without looking away from the screen.

Assholes. Blake turned to look at Hera, who was shaking her head. She didn’t seem scared or uncomfortable, though, just amused. Maybe a little annoyed because of the lie.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said.

All of a sudden, Mav and Jude cocked their heads. Blake heard it, too—a truck on the gravel driveway before it reached the pavement.

“Gate,” Jude said. “Mav, go.”

Mav raced out the front door. Blake checked Hera’s reaction. Had Mav moved too fast? Would she notice that something was different about them?

Her eyebrows were scrunched. “Did I miss something? I didn’t hear anything.”

“I didn’t either,” Blake lied.

He led her to the couch, the whole time looking at Jude. He wanted to know if he should go out with Mav in case there was trouble. Going out with Mav was usually his job, but now he had this human to babysit, so shouldn’t Jude go instead?

Jude kept his eyes on the television, but Blake could tell he was listening for whatever was outside. Maybe the guys in the red truck had tracked them down. Would they have bolt cutters to get through the gate? They hadn’t heard anything from Mav.

Blake couldn’t take it anymore. “I’ll be right back,” he said to Hera. “Wait here.”

The afternoon sun warmed the blacktop drive. He could feel the heat through his tennis shoes. As he went over the rise, he saw Mav, bent over at the waist, heaving.

“Mav?” he called. “Mav!”

“I’m fine,” Mav said between gagging. “It’s just the smell.”

Blake stopped and looked at the gate, where Mav was waving. Some kind of animal entrails had been strung along the bars of the fence, woven around it like a strand of Christmas tree lights. The breeze changed, and a hot gust of it wafted at Blake’s nostrils.

“Shit,” he said, holding in a gag of his own.

“Yeah, ripe. They must’ve saved it for three or four days.”

“You think it was the Strickets?” Blake asked.

“Probably. Let’s go tell Jude.”

Hera came over the rise before they could reach it. He’d told her to stay put. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

She arched an eyebrow. “Coming to see whatever’s keeping you—oh.”

Her nose lifted in disgust when she saw the entrails decorating the gate. Then she started backing away toward the house, smelling like fear.

“This isn’t you,” he reassured her. “It’s not because of you. It’s an old ranching family that doesn’t like us.”

He wanted to pull her close and reassure her with his arms, rub his face against her hair. It surprised him.
Calm down, Blake. It’s just a woman
. Just a woman, he thought. This woman couldn’t be just a woman. She seemed…special. He rubbed his hair back from his forehead, not quite believing his mind. Sure, he was attracted to her. But he’d been attracted to other women, and none of them seemed to matter as much as this one did.

She still looked afraid. “They know where I am,” she whispered.

“They can’t,” he said. “I lost them on the drive over.”

She shook her head like she didn’t believe him.

“Look, we’ll drive into Findley and talk to the Strickets. You’ll see. They just play these pranks to piss us off.”

“Why?”

“They don’t like my family.”

“Some kind of feud?” she asked. “Which are you, the Hatfields or the McCoys?”

He shook his head. “It’s not like that. We never do anything to them. They just…hate us.”

She looked doubtful, and he wanted to brush the anxious pout off her lips with his thumb. She was getting to him, and he didn’t need a complication.

“Look, we’ll go talk to them. Find out if it was really them who pranked us. Then we can sleep easily tonight.”