by Siara Brandt
Two days passed. Sidra had finally come to the point where she had decided to come right out and ask Law if he would consider staying with them on a permanent basis. But this was not going to be her chance. As she turned to the window, what she saw outside made her draw in a quick breath. Maybe it wasn’t the last thing she might have expected. But it was close to the worst thing.
As for Law, he had tried to stay away as much as possible from the house, but he was drawn back irresistibly time and time again. He had a hundred excuses, it seemed, to be coming back here. But deep down, he knew they were only excuses. He came to see Sidra. Plain and simple.
He had just stepped up on the back step when he heard her sharp intake of breath. She was staring out the window like she’d just seen a ghost. What in hell had she just seen out there?
Sidra stared at Webb for a few heart-stopping moments before she asked, “What are you doing here?”
“It should be obvious what I’m doing here. I came for you.”
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
Watching from the kitchen behind her, Law saw Sidra gripping the doorframe with white knuckles.
“So you did make it here, after all,” he heard the man outside say. “I have to say, I didn’t think you had it in you.”
There was a brief silence. And then the man was talking again. “So why don’t we have that talk we were supposed to have before you ran off?”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Sidra replied.
“You’re still mad at me,” Law heard.
“I’m not mad.”
“Then what are you?”
Happy to be home, Sidra was thinking. Happy to see my mother and my sister. But Webb was trying to ruin all that.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” Webb asked. “I see you’re hesitating. Aren’t you glad to see me?”
Before Sidra could answer his question, she turned her face and saw Law standing behind her.
“Everything all right?” Law asked as he stepped closer to her.
“Everything’s fine,” Webb said tightly when he saw Law appear beside Sidra.
“I thought I heard arguing,” Law said in a voice that was almost pleasant.
“What Sidra and I talk about is none of your business,” Webb all but snarled.
Law’s mouth curved into a faint smile, but the smile, Sidra noted, didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re wrong there. What affects Sidra affects me.”
Sidra looked sharply up at Law who had moved even closer to her side. On the surface, he seemed completely at ease but Sidra knew him too well. There was something entirely different going on under the surface.
Webb’s sandy eyebrows came together as he looked from one to the other. His gaze narrowed as it settled almost belligerently on Law. “Who the hell are you?”
“This,” Sidra said softly. “Is Law.” She seemed about to say something else, but after a lingering glance up at the man beside her, she remained silent.
“Well, Law,” Webb began in a nasty tone. “What are you, some kind of soldier? I guess in this world you can pretend to be whatever you want to be.”
“You probably figured that out a long time ago,” Law had said it calmly enough but his words were clearly baiting.
Webb ground his teeth together so tightly that he didn’t seem to be able to get a reply out. His eyes were gleaming with a light that Sidra had never seen in them before.
“Sidra wants to stay here with her family,” Law informed the other man.
“It’s not safe here,” Webb shot back. “This is nowhere near safe.”
“We’ll make it safe,” Law said calmly. “We’ve already decided. Together.”
Sidra’s eyes had widened slightly. She didn’t dare look at Law again, but she was aware of him looking down at her.
Webb seemed stunned. “Is that true?” he asked.
Sidra wavered for a moment, then she merely nodded. She ventured a quick glance at Law, who met her gaze with a faint smile and a look in his eyes that seemed to convey a subtle message meant only for her. “So,” he drawled, looking back at Webb. “I guess it’s no secret now.”
What was no secret? Sidra wondered. But she didn’t have to wonder for long. Because Law did something that had her world suddenly reeling. He closed his hand over hers where it lay by her side. And then, as if they had a will of their own, her fingers automatically twined with his.
As his hands curled slowly around the porch railing, Webb Courtland stood there looking down at his hands as if he was envisioning something else trapped between his crushing fingers. He still couldn’t believe that he had come all this way just to learn that Sidra had chosen another man over him. What had it been? A couple of weeks? And she had moved on that quickly?
He clenched his teeth tightly together as he recalled the way that they had held hands. And the way that they had looked at each other. She had never looked at him that way. Never. In the whole time he had known her, she had barely tolerated him touching her in any way.
The only answer was that the deceitful bitch had been pretending all this time. Playing with his affections. Making him look like a fool. For what? For protection? For food?
Until she thought she had found someone better.
Jealousy burned straight down to the core of him. Jealousy that needed to have a resolution.
Ayden Cadby stepped up to the rail beside him. “Hey, Webb,” he began quietly. “There’s nothing you can do about it now.”
There was something dark and seething in Webb Courtland’s eyes when he finally looked up. “Like hell there isn’t.”
Chapter 13
His deteriorating brain had latched onto the brighter spots in the darkness. He thought he heard music. Something discordant, yet throbbing. It almost matched his frantic heartbeat. He looked around. There was nothing there. The sound was gone, too. But he worried . . . He worried . . .
Paranoia was a bitch, but Galton Clune couldn’t seem to be able to help himself. There were so many threats out there from so many directions. He wasn’t sure, but suspected that he had been hallucinating again. He shook his head to clear it, determined to remain in control.
His head was throbbing. He belched up something sour, and had to make an effort to keep himself from vomiting again. His mouth felt dry. He was thirsty as hell. Did they even have any water left to drink? Was she even capable of doing anything to help out?
He thought he heard the music again. But it turned out to be footsteps. He looked at the porch and saw the door opening.
At first he was scared, but then Letha came outside. Right off, she asked, “What’s wrong with you?
“What’s wrong?” she repeated when he didn’t answer.
“What do you mean?
“Didn’t you hear me talking to you just now?”
He hadn’t heard anyone talking.
“What were you doing?” She had seen him through the window, sitting on the ground with his elbows resting on his knees, staring up at the sky above him like he’d never seen stars before.
She held back an impatient sigh. This was hardly the time for star-gazing. She had expected something very different and things were just getting worse. Galton spent more time away from her than with her. This time he had returned long after dark, with no explanation whatsoever of where he had been. She wasn’t at all sure that he wouldn’t abandon her one day. She wasn’t sure at all. Not if he was going out of his way to avoid her now. She had seen him make plenty of cold-blooded decisions in the past. The same as she had done.
“Where have you been?”
“Foraging,” he muttered. “You said you were hungry.”
“I didn’t even know if- when you were coming back. I didn’t know if something had happened to you.”
It had. Some kind of seizure again, but he didn’t tell her that. He didn’t even answer her. He just stared at her like he was trying to remember who she was.
He reached inside his shirt and tossed a sack i
n her direction. “Food,” he grunted. “Hope that will keep you for a while.”
She started to say something, but he waved it away with an abrupt, impatient sweep of his hand. Then he tossed a piece of wood on the small fire he had just lit. The low flames soon licked the new wood.
“Are you sure that’s safe?” she asked, nervously glancing toward the timber. “Having a fire, I mean.”
“Maybe it’s not so safe,” he conceded. “But I still want the fire.”
The silence deepened between them. She gave him a startled glance when he stood up. She was even more alarmed when he looked around at the woods like he could hear something out there.
“What is it?” she asked, half standing herself.
“Don’t you hear them?”
“Hear what? Deads?”
“Yeah. They keep singing out there.”
“What do you want, Webb?”
Sidra was losing patience with him. He couldn’t take no for an answer.
“You know what I want. I want you to come back with me.”
“I already told you I’m not going to do that.”
“Do you even know what I went through to find you?”
“Probably the same things I went through. But I didn’t ask you to do that.”
Webb suddenly switched gears. “Where did you meet him?”
“Law?”
“Of course Law.”
“We just – ran into each other. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him,” she couldn’t help adding perversely.
Again, Webb was remembering the way that the man had held her hand. Like he had that right. And she had let him. She had held his hand, too. It enraged him to no end.
Sidra was tired and she wanted to put an end to this, so she said, “Do you really think that I would go back to you? That I would pretend that nothing had happened between you and Renata?”
“Is that what this is all about? You’re mad at me so you’re doing this to get back at me, to make me jealous.”
“I’m not even going to answer that question.”
“Is he fucking you?”
The sudden query was so unexpected and so vulgar that Sidra couldn’t suppress a shocked gasp. “That,” she finally managed. “Really isn’t any of your business.”
Of course, when she didn’t deny it, Webb assumed the worst.
“After everything I did for you, this is how you repay me?” he rasped as if he was in the grip of some powerful emotion.
“I don’t have to repay you, Webb, because I don’t owe you anything.”
He looked like he couldn’t believe she had just said that, like he was livid with anger, and he was about to say something else. But he didn’t say another word because her mother and sister had just come into the room.
Law wrapped his hands around the bars of the brass headboard and stared up at the darkness above him. There was a knock on the door. Whoever it was didn’t wait for him to invite them in. The door opened and Sidra came into the room.
“What do you want, Sidra?” he asked almost wearily.
She walked right over to the bed and stared down at him. “I want to know what you were thinking.”
“I wasn’t thinking.”
“You were thinking something.”
“Just how to get that idiot off your back,” he finally answered her.
She hadn’t said anything about it yet, but Law knew that claiming her as his territory couldn’t have gone over very well. She didn’t like being a possession. Here it comes, he thought as he dropped his head back on the pillow.
“What are you planning on doing?” she wanted to know.
“About what?”
She pressed her hand against her forehead for a moment, as if she were dealing with a difficult child.
“Do I have to spell it out for you? I want to know if you are going to disappear without a word one day. Will I have to spend the rest of my days wondering what happened to you? Will I have to wonder whether you’re out there all alone, or hurt or whether you’re lying in some unmarked grave. Or- Or- ”
She couldn’t even say the worst possibilities.
But she had to talk about such things. Because she couldn’t talk about the way they had held hands. Or about the look in his eyes when he had stood there looking down at her as if . . . as if . . .
She let out a long, frustrated sigh. “What were you thinking?” she whispered again as if it was her own burning question and had nothing at all to do with his answer.
In one fluid motion, he swung his long legs over the side of the bed and stood up very close to her.
“I was thinking of putting the bastard in his place. I can see the way he looks at you. He still thinks he owns you. So I thought if we pretended . . . ”
“Pretended what?” she asked, helpless before him.
“Pretended that we- ”
“What?” The word was no more than a whisper, but there was deep emotion behind it. Maybe helpless vulnerability.
“What do you want me to say, Sidra?” His own voice had lowered to a deep, husky whisper. And this time there was no mistaking it. Something changed in his eyes as he looked down at her.
“You want me to put it into words?” he went on, his voice lowering even more intimately. “I thought that he might back off if he thought that we- You did want him to back off, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“If he thought that we were lovers,” he finished softly. “That he’d quit pestering you.”
Her eyes closed.
Lovers.
“You think we were believable?” he asked.
“We must have been somewhat- convincing,” she said. “But did he even notice? He was very angry.”
“Oh, he noticed all right. But I think maybe he needs more convincing.”
She opened her eyes and looked up. Lost in his dark gaze. So lost.
“Do you think that’s do-able?” he wanted to know in a so sexy, hushed voice.
“We might have to . . . practice a little, to make sure that we’re- convincing enough,” she said as her hands crept up to his shoulders. “That means you can’t leave. Not yet. I don’t want you to leave, Law.”
He rested his forehead against hers for a long moment, and sighed as if he’d waited to hear those words for a very long time.
“It took you long enough to say that,” he whispered. Then he pulled her against his hard, hungry body as his mouth captured hers in a kiss that was very, very convincing.
Letha threw off her blanket, worrying again that Galton had deserted her. He had been gone for many hours and she was so tired staying awake waiting for him, jumping at every noise out in the darkness. As she sat up, she saw that the moon was still up and that it’s stark, colorless light was shining on the barren fields in the distance.
She should not have let him talk her into coming out here. There was nothing here for them. Nothing. Tomorrow she would ask him to take her back. By now she knew that he was sick and that he was getting worse. That scared her. Who knew what he had and if it was contagious. And if he died- What would she do then?
She had no way of knowing what time it was, but she thought that it was almost morning. It was eerily still outside after the winds had mourned like a banshee through the cracks of the small shed all night long. How could he leave her alone like this? Didn’t he know how afraid and lonely she had been?
She decided to open the door and look to see if Galton was outside. Maybe he was out there standing guard. Maybe she was worrying for nothing. But as soon as she took a step forward, she backed away from the door. She had heard a sound outside. A scratching, clawing sound. It couldn’t be Galton.
For a long time she stood there listening. Galton had left a gun with her. She wasn’t a very good shot, but at least she knew how to use the weapon. She picked the gun up and held it out before her. All her attention was focused on the door. She was leaning forward, straining to hear any sounds. Her heart was pounding. Her breaths were qu
ick and shallow.
The clawing sound had stopped, but after a while, footsteps came shuffling out of the darkness. Slow footsteps. Dragging footsteps. They came closer till it seemed they were right outside the door.
She started violently when something thudded hard against the wall. Not against the door itself, but against the wall beside it. Then something did hit the door and the boards shook. A long, drawn-out silence followed, after which she realized that something was pressing against the door.
Letha held the gun in both hands. When it sagged slightly, she raised it up again and pointed it straight at the door. Her heart was pounding even harder in her chest. It seemed she could not get enough air into her body. Terror felt like a tight knot coiled inside her. It grew as the door latch rattled. The door opened slowly, swinging inward.
She almost cried out with relief when she saw that it was Galton. But while his presence did initially calm her fears, that quickly changed. He was a sinister shadow as he stood there motionless on the threshold. When he lifted his head, his ashen face was hideous in the wan moonlight.
His mouth opened. It seemed black, cavernous, like he was about to scream at her. But he remained silent except for a slight cackling sound. His head tilted grotesquely to one side. The next sound he made was barely audible at first. And then his keening howl echoed against the walls of the small shed. It echoed in her ears.
Letha squeezed the trigger. Once. Twice. Three times. Until the gun was empty.
But Galton came on, heading straight for her. She threw the empty gun at him. When he was just a few feet away from her, he lunged across the room, reaching for her with claw-like hands and dragging her down to the ground with him.
Chapter 14
“There’s no way of knowing for sure,” Law said.