The Perfect Outsider

by Loreth Anne White

  “You betcha,” Jesse said with an easy grin.

  June pulled off, found parking and turned off the ignition. She sat silent awhile, gathering herself, her heart hammering.

  Jesse said, “Marlboro?”

  “Just came to me.” Then she snapped, “We should have worked this out in more detail. We should have had a surname ready.” She turned in the seat to face him. “So, does being here jog your memory—do you recall anything?”

  “Not a damn thing,” he said. “I’ve never been to this place in my life. I’m sure of it. Nothing at all feels familiar about it.”

  “But you came here sporting a D tattoo,” she said, exasperation creeping into her voice. “You knew about this place, about Samuel.”

  “Let’s go eat and dance, June,” he said quietly. “Then tomorrow morning we go to the caves, early.”

  She inhaled deeply, staring at him. Then nodded. “Thank you.”

  * * *

  “Samuel, that was an excellent seminar,” June said, putting her cob of corn down onto her paper plate as Samuel Grayson approached her and Jesse’s table. They were eating under the colored lights that had been strung up near the dancing area where the band cranked out a feisty country tune.

  Samuel’s eyes, however, were fixed solely on Jesse, and June knew he had to be wondering if Jesse was the mystery man from the woods.

  Jesse got to his feet and warmly held out his hand. “Jesse Marlboro—pleased to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much about you from June.”

  Samuel shook Jesse’s hand firmly and smiled. “Samuel Grayson.”

  “This is a great event,” Jesse said, hooking his thumbs into his belt. Inwardly June smiled.

  “It’s a celebration of being the best town we can be,” Samuel said. “And it’s a nod to the approaching end of summer, hence the berry desserts, the corn on the cob, the burgers.”

  “Please, take a seat.” Jesse gestured to the table, his demeanor assertive, confident, but warm. June was amazed. He was totally engaging, friendly, yet always alpha, and so very far removed from an image of an injured man in the dark woods that she began to believe he was actually going to pull this off.

  “Don’t mind if I do, but just for a few,” Samuel said, swinging his leg over the picnic bench and seating himself. He gave his trademark Pierce Brosnan–style smile, his twinkling green sociopath’s eyes belying whatever was going on in his mind.

  “June has been telling me about your seminars and explaining the philosophy behind Cold Plains, and when I hit a rough patch workwise, and she mentioned Hannah was looking for a hand on the ranch, I thought it would be perfect to try and start fresh.” He threw June a glance then smiled conspiratorially at Samuel. “And then there’s June.”

  She felt her cheeks flush in spite of the situation.

  “Mayor Kittridge tells me that you two used to date.”

  So he’d already spread the word about the stranger’s imminent arrival.

  “Off and on,” she said. “Before Jesse found work on the rig.”

  “Oh, really, which rig?”

  “Off the coast of Nigeria,” Jesse said quickly. “I know, it was far, foreign, but I—I needed cash.” He snorted. “And there were no casinos out there. I thought I’d be able to square some savings away.” He placed his hand over June’s. “Then the job fizzled—labor unrest, political upheaval. Nigeria is not an easy place to do business. I went on a bit of a downer.” He inhaled, squaring his shoulders. “But hey, now I’m here. And there are no casinos.”

  Samuel was watching him closely. Then he smiled, cautiously, thought June, like a shark.

  “Sounds like you’ll be a very good match for our community, Jesse.” He stood up, holding out his hand again. “And a good match for June. Pleased to have met you, Jesse. Hope to see you at my next seminar.”

  “You betcha.”

  They sat in silence watching Samuel stride over to the next table, doing his rounds.

  The band had switched to a slow, sad tune. Couples were swaying quietly to the music, holding each other close. The air was warm.

  “Christ,” muttered Jesse. “That’s the second time I’ve used ‘you betcha’ tonight.” He repositioned his hat, scrubbed his brow. “Like some cowpoke.”

  “Nigeria?” she asked.

  Then they both laughed.

  “Hey,” June said, giving him a mock punch, “I think you pulled that off great.”

  “And you look beautiful tonight, you know that?”

  “Jesse,” she warned.

  “Just stating a fact. Come, dance with me.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I—”

  He got up, took her hand. “Samuel’s watching,” he murmured. “It’s a very good idea.”

  * * *

  Swaying to the music with June in his arms couldn’t have felt more right to Jesse. Her curves fitted perfectly against his body, and her hair smelled of lavender. He liked the way it felt against his cheeks. He enjoyed the sensation of her breasts pressing firmly against his torso, the way she moved against him.

  He glanced down and saw that her eyes were closed. Heat speared to his groin.

  “Would be nice to have a beer,” he murmured against her hair.

  “I’m afraid you’re looking at a choice between a $25 bottle of water. Or a $25 bottle of water. There’s no overt consumption of alcohol in Cold Plains.”

  “So the food at the festival is free, but the water is not?”

  “It never is, even though it comes straight from a creek. Samuel’s people bottle it for him without being paid. He sells it back to them and pockets one hundred percent of the profits.”

  “You’re kidding me?”

  “’Fraid not.”

  Jesse whistled softly. “It’s like a freaking Stepford town. Reminds me of that movie The Truman Show. You feel like someone is watching you from a control tower.”

  “You are being watched,” she said quietly, nestling against his arm as she moved. Jesse stirred, his jeans going tight.

  “Samuel is the control tower. That was good, by the way, what you said about hitting a rough patch and the gambling. He’s going to home right in on it, perceive it as your weakness.”

  The music changed, another slow tune.

  June pulled back. She looked tired.

  “I think we can make an exit now,” she said. “We still need to drive back to Hannah’s ranch and then hike in to the cave house.”

  * * *

  Eager, who’d been sleeping in the truck, thumped his tail with excitement to see them. But as June was about to climb up into the driver’s seat, Jesse placed his hand on her arm.

  “Let me drive,” he said. “You look beat.”

  She hesitated, then handed him her keys. “Gee, thanks.”

  “Beat but still beautiful.”

  “Flattery will get you everywhere,” she said as she climbed into the passenger seat. She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but she was beyond exhaustion now. She gave him directions to Hannah’s ranch, and as they drove, she felt herself nodding in and out of sleep.

  “He’s powerful, got big charisma,” Jesse said as he wheeled the truck onto the dirt road that led to Hannah’s house. “I can see why Samuel has pull over people.”

  “But seeing Samuel doesn’t bring anything back? You still have no idea why you wanted to come here, why his name was familiar to you?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Not a goddamn thing. I don’t know any of those people from a bar of soap.”

  “Maybe it’ll come still.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  * * *

  About half an hour after introducing Hannah to Jesse, he and June were hiking up the trail into the mountains again, small headlamps lighting their way through the darkness. Before they headed out of cell-tower range, June once again tried to contact Agent Hawk Bledsoe but the call went straight to voice mail, which said he’d be back day after tomorrow.

  The cave tunnel was dar
k, spooky. Jesse had only vague recollections of coming through here with June the first time. She was brave, he decided as he felt a bat flutter past his face. Braver than any woman he’d known.

  He stilled in the darkness. How many women had he known?

  Another image came to him. Making love to a slight, dark-haired woman with fiery blue eyes; a raw, shocking sadness ripped through him. Then there was nothing, just a feeling of depression and the now sickly familiar chill of guilt. Jesse was relieved to finally exit the tunnel, but the cold, dark sense of guilt lingered with him.

  He paused outside the door of the cave house. June was right. He couldn’t do this to her, to himself—or to whoever might be waiting somewhere in this world for him to come home. He had to know who that dark-haired woman was before he could even think of touching June again.

  “You can take one of the spare rooms,” June said as they entered the hallway.

  He nodded as she closed and locked the front door behind him.

  He watched while she went to her own room and he heard the door snick shut. A hollowness filled his heart.

  Chapter 8

  By the time June, Jesse and Eager reached the base of the boulder slope, the morning sun was hot, the east-facing black rocks absorbing heat and radiating it back at them like an oven.

  Eager was panting hard, his black coat soaking up heat, too. June stopped to give him water while Jesse scanned the horizon, hand shading his eyes. From this vantage point he could see for miles.

  He carried a loaded shotgun in his hand and his Beretta in the holster at his hip—June had returned it to him. She carried her own weapon.

  Once Eager was watered, June panned the rock wall above them with her binoculars, considering search strategy.

  “We need to get up to that ridge on top of the boulder face,” she said, pointing.

  “Why?”

  “The heat rising from these rocks is causing upward air currents. If there is human scent in the caves, it will rise with the currents to that ridge. I need to work Eager across the currents. If he picks something up, he can zero down onto the scent cone.”

  Tension rippled softly through Jesse as he squinted up at the boulder face. He tried to imagine a kidnapper with a baby up there in one of the dark holes, and he wondered how long an infant could possibly survive. An image sliced through his brain again—a baby screaming, and the dark-haired woman yelling for help. The same woman he’d slept with.

  Flames crackled suddenly through his mind, devouring the image, and he felt searing heat. Jesse shook himself. The heat was from the rocks, the sun. But it unsettled him. He had to find out what those haunting images meant, or he would not be able to go forward. Seemed he couldn’t go back, either. He was trapped in a web of present.

  “Okay,” he said quietly. “We go up, but we go around that way.” He pointed to a talus slope to the left of the giant boulder wall.

  “The ground inclines less sharply over there, and we won’t be visible to anyone who might be hiding in one of the caves above. You go first,” he said, eyeing caves, unable to shake an eerie sensation of being watched. “I’ve got your back.” He clicked the safety off the shotgun.

  June began to clamber up the shale slope, small stones skittering out from under her boots. Eager bounded easily ahead of her, unleashing his own shower of tiny rocks. Jesse waited until there was a bit of distance between June and the small avalanche of shale she and her dog were creating.

  And as he waited, he watched June climb.

  Her red hair hung in a neat braid down the middle of her back. She was wearing a lightweight khaki shirt, rugged cargo pants and hiking boots with gaiters. Her SAR pack, he knew, contained a first-aid kit, water and other survival essentials. She carried her radio in a vest pouch at her front for easy access.

  The sun made her hair shine and exertion made her skin gleam, and she climbed with athletic grace. He suddenly wondered what she was like in bed. The idea made him hard.

  Abruptly, she raised her hand, pointed. With her other hand she was restraining Eager by his harness. The dog’s tail was wagging and his vision was totally focused on something he’d detected in the rocks to their right.

  Jesse scrambled quickly up the shale behind her.

  “What is it?” he whispered when he reached her side.

  “Eager scented something,” she said very quietly as she pointed. “It has to be something in that cave over there.”

  “Good boy,” she whispered, hooking a leash into Eager’s harness. “Leave it for now.

  “I don’t want to let him go,” she explained to Jesse. “It could be dangerous for him if the kidnapper is holed up in there.”

  “There’s no way for us to approach at all without being seen,” he said softly.

  They watched quietly, in silence, trying to detect movement. The sun bore down on them. Jesse could hear the soft sound of bees somewhere, the sharp cry of a bird up high, Eager’s panting.

  June’s gaze went to the bird of prey circling high above them. There was a second bird wheeling on air currents even higher.

  “Not a good sign,” she whispered. “Those birds are often the first indication a search has turned into a recovery mission. Once when—” She froze suddenly and then gripped Jesse’s arm.

  “Did you hear that?” she whispered

  Jesse angled his head. “What?”

  Then suddenly he caught the sound—a mewl. His heart slammed into his rib cage. Baby!

  Crying.

  Oh, Jesus. He lunged blindly forward, images slamming into him. He could hear the fire coming. Crackling. Roaring. The baby’s screams growing louder and louder and louder in his head. His baby. Going to die! Got to save him!

  Jesse scrambled wildly across the boulders toward the cave, toward the sound, toward his son. Perspiration drenched his shirt, trickled down his brow. Small stones clattered loudly down the slope.

  “Jesse!” June hissed. “Stop! What…in hell are you doing!”

  She began to clamber after him, panic lacing through her. It was as though some switch had triggered in him, and he’d gone stark, raving mad. She reached him as he struggled to ascend a large slab of rock to the cave above, and she grabbed his ankle.

  “Jesse!’ Her heart was racing.

  He spun around, eyes wild. He was wire-tense, muscles amped, sweat soaking his T-shirt, gleaming on his face. He looked totally unfocused, dazed.

  “What’s going on, Jesse? Talk to me.”

  His hand went to his brow. His eyes seemed to come back into focus. Then shock rippled through his features as he realized what he’d just done.

  “Come down here,” she said softly. “Come under this overhang before someone tries to fire on us or throw rocks from above.”

  He allowed himself to slide down and he slumped back against the rock under the slab he’d been trying to mount. He was breathing hard.

  “What happened, Jesse?” she whispered, gathering Eager to her side, thinking they might have put themselves in a real bad spot. If they tried to move now, they’d be sitting ducks. At the same time, June could still hear the baby crying above them somewhere. Tension coiled through her stomach.

  Rafe’s son?

  And someone had to be with the infant—it could not have survived up here by itself. A mix of urgency, thrill, fear, cocktailed through her.

  “I thought I was…in another time, another place,” Jesse was saying. He raked his hand through his hair, which was damp with perspiration.

  June offered him water, and he drank deeply. Head injuries were strange things, she thought as she watched him. Perhaps she should take him to the hospital in Little Gulch.

  “I thought it was another baby,” he said finally, his voice hoarse.

  “Whose baby, Jesse?”

  His features twisted with some inner anguish. “I…” His gaze met her eyes square, held for a moment.

  “I don’t know.”

  She held his gaze, wondering if it was a lie. And some
thing slipped inside her chest.

  “I thought there was fire.”

  “What happened in the fire?”

  He shook his head, pain in his eyes. “I don’t know.”

  “Jesse—” But she stilled at the sound of a male voice coming from above them.

  “Hello! Who’s there?”

  They both froze.

  “Can anyone hear me?”

  “Go that way, Jesse,” she whispered, pointing to the far side of the overhang. “I’ll create a distraction by stepping out from under the overhang on the opposite side. You keep me covered from the rocks on the far side.”

  He inhaled, collecting himself, and nodded.

  “Eager, you park here. Park, boy.” Her dog sat, his body tense as he watched her intently with his trusting brown eyes.

  June tossed a rock out from under the overhang. It clattered loudly, starting a diversion. Jesse began to move.

  She called out loudly, “I’m coming out. I’m unarmed.”

  June stepped out from under the rock overhang. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jesse with his gun ready. He nodded.

  June edged out into full view, hands to her side, palms open.

  A man stood on a rock slab above her, tousled dark hair blowing in the hot breeze. He was slender, young. Pale face. No weapon in his hands.

  His T-shirt was stained with dirt.

  “My name is June Farrow,” she called up to him. In her peripheral vision, June saw Jesse creeping higher up the side of the ridge. He placed shotgun stock to shoulder, drawing a bead on the young man.

  “I thought I heard a baby crying,” she called.

  “Where’s the guy you were with? I saw two of you coming up.”

  “He’s still under the ledge below me,” June lied. “He twisted his ankle when he tried to climb too fast. He’s resting it.”

  “I know you,” the young man said. “You’re from Cold Plains. You’re the K9 search-and-rescue handler. I recognize your red hair and the dog. Where’s the dog now?”

  “With my friend.”

  She racked her brain. He was vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place him.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Tyler.”

  “Tyler who?”