“Cal,” said Jacques warmly. His accent was smooth as caramel and impossible to place, as if all the rough edges had been melted away by hard bargaining and hard liquor in a hundred different ports around the world. “Haven’t seen you in a while.” He turned to look at me and gave a roguish grin. “I see you finally found someone to warm your bed.”
I swallowed and flushed.
“It’s not like that,” said Cal.
“Oh really?” asked Jacques. I felt his gaze sweep down my body. But it didn’t feel cold and ugly, like when the men at the mansion did it. It felt flirty and flattering and there was something about Jacques, despite him being more than twice my age. I felt myself flush again. I saw Cal’s whole body stiffen in response and the woman on Jacques’ knee narrowed her eyes at me: if she was a cat, her ears would have gone back. I quickly looked at the floor.
“She needs help,” said Cal. “She needs to get into Canada. And she needs a Canadian identity. I figure you can do that.”
Jacques considered. “As it happens, I do know someone who’s good with passports. She’s retired, but she owes me a favor.” He stroked his beard and looked at me. “I can get you to the border and make sure you get through. I even have an apartment you can use, while you get settled. Call it twenty thousand, all in.”
Cal brought out the lockbox. “We have almost nineteen.”
Jacques gave him a reproachful look. “Then you can almost have a passport.”
“C’mon, Jacques, you know I’m good for the rest.” He glanced at me. “She needs this.” His voice was tight with emotion in a way I couldn’t have imagined when I first met him.
Jacques’ heard it, too. His salt and pepper brows came together in a frown and he sat back in his chair, suddenly serious. “You better tell me exactly what we’re dealing with, here.”
And so I told him. I told him about the club and the mansion, about Ralavich and the attorney general and the senators. His face grew darker and darker, his mouth going tight. When I’d finished, he downed the bourbon and slammed the glass down on a side table. “Bastards,” he spat. The woman on his knee had changed her expression too: she’d softened, watching me with almost motherly concern. I decided I liked these two.
“You can have your new identity,” he told me. “And I’ll drive you up to Vancouver myself. Be back here at noon in three days’ time. Sweetpea, take the lady upstairs and get some photos, will you? I need to talk to Cal.”
The woman nodded and rose. She slipped a protective arm around me and led me upstairs, Rufus following behind us.
32
Cal
JACQUES ROSE and poured himself another bourbon, then looked questioningly at a second glass. I shook my head.
He sipped. “Senators. The goddamn attorney general.” He shook his head. “I’m too old for this crap.” He spread his arms wide. “I should have handed this all off to my son, by now.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Well, then what would I do?” He sighed. “Cal, on account of you being one of the last few honest men in the world, I’m going to make you an offer. But you’ve got to promise not to tell anyone. I don’t want people to think I’m going soft.”
“What’s the offer?” I asked, suspicious.
“Since I’m getting one person into Canada,” said Jacques. “I think I might just be able to stretch to two sets of papers, for the same price.”
I looked him right in the eye. “Told you, it’s not like that. I’m just...looking after her.”
“You’re a hell of a marksman, Cal, but you’re a terrible liar.” He sat back in his chair. “Don’t forget, I know you. I remember when you first showed up here, wanting me to haul that damn stove down the river. You weren’t much of a talker then, but I’ve watched you get worse each year. Last time I saw you, you barely said two words. Then today, you show up with her and suddenly you’re talking again. You got fire in your belly. You look at her and I see your face light up.” He leaned forward. “A man’s not meant to be alone, Cal. Go with her.”
Dammit. I lowered my eyes to the floor. “She’s better off without me,” I said. I could feel his eyes on me, watchful and sad. “But I’ll take that bourbon now.”
He poured it silently and put it in my hand. I knocked it back and let the burn of it wash the pain away. For a while. Three days. Three days and then I’ll never see her again.
“Thanks for the drink,” I told him. Then I handed him the lockbox and headed upstairs.
Bethany was standing in front of a wall, where a sheet of gray fabric had been pinned as a background. The woman in the silk robe was just lowering a digital camera. “All done. See you in three days.”
We climbed back onto the raft. Rufus decided he’d swim, this time, and doggy-paddled alongside. As we hauled the raft along, Bethany asked, “What did Jacques want?”
“Nothing,” I told her. “Nothing at all.”
33
Bethany
IT WAS THE first day after meeting Jacques and I was deep in the woods with Cal. That morning, he’d told me that he wanted to teach me to hunt. It caught me off guard. I was only going to be there a few more days and Cal brought home all the food we needed without breaking a sweat, and even if I did learn, I wasn’t going to be anywhere near as good as him anytime soon. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
First, I watched how he did it. He’d sight a target, way off in the distance, and circle a little so that he was in its path. Then he’d go stock still, becoming one with the forest. He was like a rock, unmoving, unblinking, barely breathing. And then a crack and the target fell to the ground as if he’d reached out with an invisible hand, and Rufus ran off to collect it. I shook my head in wonder. “You’re amazing,” I muttered.
He shook his head and shrugged. “I started young.”
Then it was my turn. He handed me the rifle and showed me the basics. I handled it like a live snake, terrified I was going to drop it and blow my head off. But he stood behind me, his warm body pressed against my back and his big hands covering mine, and helped me load and cock it, bring it to my shoulder and sight on a paper target he’d pinned to a tree. And when it was time to pull the trigger and I just couldn’t, too scared of the explosion, he whispered in my ear that it was okay, that I could do it. He was a good teacher, gentle and patient. He should be out here doing this with a son or a daughter.
I fired. The rifle kicked and boomed and I stumbled back, shell-shocked. I didn’t think I’d hit anything but he showed me the ragged hole that had been punched in the corner of the paper target. I fingered the shredded edges and thought I did that. I shot something.
After ten shots into paper, he led me further into the woods. He took my hand in his and walked with me, teaching me step by step how he moved. I’d already learned to be quiet, but he wanted me to be silent.
When I could do that, he stood me in the middle of a clearing, brought out a neckerchief and tied it over my eyes. I swallowed. I’d read enough books that being blindfolded, with him standing so close, triggered a million filthy fantasies. My whole body seemed to throb, my skin suddenly alive and aching to be touched. Down, girl!
“You hunt with your ears as much as your eyes,” he told me. “Now listen.”
And once I’d gotten myself under control, I listened. Really listened. And after a few minutes, I started to hear things I hadn’t, before. There was the background sound of the woods: the wind rustling the leaves, the creak of branches. But layered on top of that was a second layer, one made up of movement. I could hear birds flapping as they haggled over the best perches, mice scampering through the grass, twigs being brushed aside by rabbits and deer. I looked around at the darkness, following my ears, entranced.
Gentle hands slipped the blindfold off and I looked up into blue eyes. He looked questioningly at me. Understand?
I nodded.
What I didn’t understand was why he was doing all this. Was he trying to fill the time until I left, so we didn’
t have to think about it too much?
An hour later, as we crept silently through the undergrowth with Rufus slinking along next to us, he held up his hand: Stop. He pointed and I caught my breath. A deer, grazing peacefully, completely unaware of us.
He nodded to me and my heart sank. I raised the rifle and took off the safety. Sighted on the center of the deer’s body….
I lowered the rifle and looked at the ground. “I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t.” I felt stupid. We’d eaten venison plenty of times. Where had I thought it came from?
He put his hands on my shoulders and gently turned me to face him, then used one big hand to raise my chin to look at him. “It’s okay.” He didn’t sound patronizing, or like he thought it was cute. He sounded sincere. But I still looked up at him doubtfully. He must think I’m so weak.
He jerked his head to the side. “Come look at something.” He led me over to a tree and took a little bag from his pocket. Then he tipped some of the contents of the bag into his palm and held it out. Acorns?!
He went still, and I went still next to him. After a moment, there was movement in the tree as something scampered from branch to branch. Then a little furry head peeked around the trunk. Two quick jumps and a scurry, and it was hanging from a branch just above us, regarding us with shining, suspicious eyes. A squirrel.
Cal stayed completely still. The squirrel looked at him, looked at me, then suddenly leaped, so quickly it seemed to vanish and reappear on Cal’s shoulder. It jumped down his arm and onto his wrist, grabbed an acorn and sat there eating it, the forest so quiet we could hear its little teeth nibbling. I watched, amazed, until it had finished. Then it grabbed a second acorn for later, sprang back to the tree, and was gone.
“People say they’re vermin,” said Cal. “They’re what people learn to shoot when they start out. But I never could bring myself to shoot ‘em.” He turned to me. “You don’t want to shoot animals, don’t shoot animals. C’mon, let’s try the paper target again.”
I was still getting over the insane cuteness of this big, hulking guy feeding squirrels. I blinked and frowned. “What’s the point, if I can’t shoot animals?”
He looked at me, determined and powerfully protective. “Just because,” he said.
And realization hit. This wasn’t about hunting for food, or filling the time until I left. He wanted me to be able to look after myself once he wasn’t there to do it. In case the men from the club caught up with me, on the journey or even when I got to Canada.
If it came to it, he wanted me to be able to shoot them.
34
Cal
THAT EVENING, I sat brooding. Bethany was outside, milking Betsy and Ha—
Milking the cow and the goat, dammit.
I had plenty of stuff to be doing: there was wood to be chopped, grain to be milled, and the hinge on the chicken coop door needing fixing. But I just couldn’t seem to get going.
The day after tomorrow, she’d be gone.
I knew I was making the right decision. It was better for her, better for everyone. That’s what I kept telling myself.
But I knew she was hurting, just like I was hurting. I wanted to do something nice for her. And there’s only so much you can do, in a backwoods cabin. It wasn’t like I could go buy her a box of cupcakes.
Maybe there was something I could do, though. While she was busy in the barn, I hauled it out from behind the cabin and wrestled it through the door. Then I got some big pots of water boiling on the stove and filled buckets from the well. By the time she came back in, it was ready.
“Figured you might want a bath,” I mumbled, looking at the floor. “Sorry: I don’t have any stuff to make bubbles.”
She stared at the big, cowboy-style metal tub. A smile spread across her face and something inside me lifted and tugged so hard I had to look away. So I didn’t get any warning when she ran over and threw her arms around me. “Thank you!” she said, her breath little hot gusts against my pecs. “Thank you!”
I swallowed and grunted. Her breasts were pillowed against my chest and when I breathed in, I could smell the sweet, feminine scent of her. I could feel my cock swelling in my pants and any second, she was going to feel it, too. I nodded and backed away. “I’ll be outside.”
I opened the door...and stopped. Heavy gray rain was just starting to fall. I shrugged. “I’ll be okay.”
“No. Don’t be silly. Stay here,” said Bethany.
I turned around and caught her eye. She looked at the tub, then down at her clothes. The tension in the room rose a little more.
“One second,” said Bethany in a strangled voice. She pulled the sheet off the bed, then got a ball of string, climbed up on a chair and tied it to a rafter. In a few moments, she had the sheet dangling like a curtain from the rafters, forming a screen between me and the tub. “There.”
I sat down by the stove to wait. It was quiet in the cabin and from behind the sheet, I could hear the sound of shirt buttons popping through holes. Then the soft whump as it fell to the floor. Next, her t-shirt. Then the heavier sound of her jeans. Her bra, her panties, they were so light that I had to strain to hear them. One. Two.
She was naked.
The soft padding of her feet across the floorboards and then—
What I hadn’t counted on was, the lantern was behind her and my end of the cabin was dark. So as she stepped in front of the light, it threw her shadow onto the sheet. I could see every gorgeous curve of her body in silhouette: her lush hips, her rounded ass, the sway and bounce of her breasts.
“It’s too quiet,” Bethany said. “Talk about something.”
I couldn’t answer for a second. I was watching her lower herself into the tub, her back slightly arched, breasts upthrust, bracing herself for the shock of the hot water. “Ah—Ahhh,” she breathed. I felt myself redden like a damn teenager, but I couldn’t look away. “Like what?” I muttered.
“Anything,” said Bethany. I heard her scoop up water and slosh it over her upper body, and imagined her breasts, glossy and shining. “How’d you join the Marines?”
I sat bolt upright in my chair, the leg squeaking. How did she—
“I saw your tattoo,” she said softly.
I rubbed at my upper arm through my shirt. She didn’t miss a thing. “My dad was a Marine,” I said at last. “I wanted to serve, just like he had. And I was living in the city, then, and I hated it. Figured that the Marines would suit me better than sitting in some office: at least it’d be outdoors. Signed up as soon as I was old enough.”
“I’d like to hear about it,” she said tentatively. “If you want to tell me.”
I nearly said no. Better to keep everything before I came to the woods off-limits. Venturing into the past risked unleashing the memories and I wasn’t sure I could deal with them, right now, not when the countdown to her leaving was tearing away at me.
But Bethany was easy to talk to. I liked talking to her. And this might be the last chance we really had to talk.
And the Marines...that was a good time in my life. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to visit it, just this once. I could stop before everything went wrong.
I leaned forward in my chair and began to speak.
35
Bethany
“The first day of boot camp, I’m wondering if I’ve made a mistake,” said Cal. ”We’re in these big, concrete buildings, and it’s almost as bad as high school: all the other recruits are into video games and cars and I’m this big, shambling teenager from the country.”
I wrapped my arms around my knees, wishing I was wrapping them around Cal: I could imagine the big, awkward, teenage him and I just wanted to give him a hug.
Cal’s voice lightened. “But then training starts. And on day one, the drill instructor yells that we’re going to do a ten-mile hike. And I thought: this, I can do.”
I smiled, imagining Cal effortlessly pounding through the miles.
“Then they put us on the rifle range. The instructor lies me down on
the ground, hands me a rifle, tells me to shoot at the target. So I line it up, squeeze off a shot. Right through the middle. The instructor says beginner’s luck and tells me to try another. So I fire again, but this time no hole appears. I shoot again. No hole. Instructor says, what the hell happened, you aren’t even hitting the target anymore? And I say, Sir! I think I am, Sir!”
“And the instructor gives me this frown...and then he takes a pair of binoculars and looks down at the end of the range and tells me to take one more shot, and I do. And he stands up...lowers the binoculars...and calls for the whole range to stop. Then he walks down to the end of the range, gets the target, and brings it back. And he pokes his pinky finger through the one hole that’s there, the one that’s gotten just a shade bigger each time I hit it, and he says where the hell did you learn to shoot like that, son? And I say Sir! Shooting dinner, sir!”
I could hear him smiling at the memory and I grinned, too.
“I finished my training. Got sent out to Iraq, Afghanistan. Seemed like I was suited to it: I could move quietly, I was a good shot.” I heard his shirt rustle as he shrugged those big shoulders. “Got promoted. They gave me some medals.”
He sounded almost embarrassed about it. I shook my head in wonder: he was so modest! I’d seen how silently he crept through the forest, how effortlessly he hunted his prey. He must have been an amazing soldier. “Did you enjoy it?”
His voice changed, taking on a tone I hadn’t heard before. He sounded wistful. “I loved it. Loved….” He trailed off, searching for the right word.
“Serving?” I offered.
“Protecting people,” he said at last.
I nodded to myself. I’d seen that fierce, protective instinct in action. It was who he was.
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