by Liz Johnson
Grabbing for the car keys that she’d thrown on the counter the night before, Kenzie dashed out the front door. The bright sun made her eyes burn as she glanced around the little clearing. It looked so much more menacing in the black of night. But the sunlight gave it a serenity that Kenzie had never felt in any other place.
She was tempted to turn around and go back into the house. Myles couldn’t hurt her now, not in his current condition, and maybe she could get her questions answered. But injured or not, Myles could still be dangerous. And there was obviously something not right with Lenora. How could she not respond to an abducted woman begging for help?
“He’s a terrible man. I know he is,” she told herself. But somewhere in the pit of her stomach she questioned her own statement. How could such a dreadful man put himself in the path of a mountain lion to save her?
Shaking off the questions that bombarded her mind, Kenzie hurried to her car. She shot a glance at the corner of the cabin. Lenora was still around back. No time like the present to hit the road. Kenzie slipped behind the wheel of her car, shoved the key into the ignition and turned it.
Click.
She tried again and again. Same response from her car. None.
“No,” she huffed to her dashboard, blowing at an annoying strand of hair falling into her face. She had to get back to Mac, to safety. How could her car not be working?
“God, I just want to go home. To get back to Mac and Nana. Please send Mac for me.”
The passenger-side window was cracked open just enough that Kenzie could hear Lenora breaking twigs and crunching leaves as she walked around the house. It was hard to tell if the woman was dangerous or maybe just senile. Not sure of how the old woman would react to Kenzie’s failed escape plan, Kenzie briefly considered making another run for it. But one hurried step told her she wouldn’t be able to make it far. Every ounce of her ached, so she put aside that thought and hobbled back toward the house, spinning around the main room, looking for something to do to appear busy and resigning herself to staying there until Mac arrived for her.
The tiny first-aid kit Lenora had found in a kitchen cabinet the night before caught her eye. It had been less than adequate for mending Myles’s wounds, but if she used it, maybe Lenora wouldn’t suspect her ill-fated escape attempt. She couldn’t be sure how much leeway Lenora or Myles would give her. Maybe they were both a little crazy.
Or worse, they could both be telling the truth. If Myles really was an FBI agent, she couldn’t leave. She couldn’t leave without knowing.
And if he really had kidnapped her in order to protect her, then she couldn’t very well let him bleed to death or end up with an infection in the wound he got saving her.
She closed her eyes as she perched on the edge of the bed, and slowly tried to think through everything she knew to this point. Myles had kidnapped her, but he hadn’t hurt her. When he subdued her in the car, his grip was firm, but not damaging. That toy knife he’d had had done little but snag her sweater. Somehow he’d managed to get into her car. Where had he gotten the key? And then there was Lenora. A man who so obviously loved his grandmother couldn’t be all bad.
And of course there was Myles, getting in front of her and fighting a mountain lion to protect her. It just couldn’t be ignored.
But did that equal to Myles being an FBI agent?
That was a question more easily asked than answered.
For now it would have to remain unanswered. The gauze covering Myles’s wound was turning a very deep shade of pink. At the very least, he deserved some care, so she got back to the task at hand.
The first-aid kit was pretty sparse. A couple strips of gauze, medical scissors, which Kenzie only once considered using as a weapon to escape the night before, hydrogen peroxide that apparently burned when she poured it onto his wound—if his delirious screams were to be believed. A few alcohol pads. Sorely lacking, but all that they had to work with.
Kenzie gently lifted the gauze wrapping on his leg. Blood oozed as the gauze stuck to the crust around the gash. Her stomach lurched at the sight. Had she cleaned it well enough the night before?
Unsure, she dabbed at it with another alcohol pad.
Myles moaned loudly, and she snatched her hand away from him so fast that she nearly fell off the bed. After a moment, his breathing returned to normal, his shoulders rising and falling in a steady rhythm, and the wrinkle between his eyes smoothed.
When she finished cleaning and redressing the wound, she immediately went to the kitchen in search of plates and silverware, finally ready to soothe the growling monster in her stomach. Searching the cabinets wouldn’t take long, as there were only four of them.
She gave a little squeak of surprise when the first cabinet held a large, unhappy spider. If spiders hiss, this one certainly hissed at her. She could not be 100 percent certain where its eyes were, but it seemed to glare into her face, twitching one leg at a time as if waiting to pounce on her.
Grabbing one of two books in the cabinet, she reached back to take a swing at the spider, but suddenly noticed the soft leather binding with beautiful golden-edged pages. The edges were worn and the front cover curled up slightly, as though it was thoroughly used. And there on the front cover above the embossed name Myles Joshua Borden were the words Holy Bible.
Gently setting the book on the counter, she picked up the other book, what appeared to be an old journal, and swiped at the offending bug. She smashed the spider once. Then again for good measure.
Lord, thank You for leaving something handy for me to use—something other than Your Word—to kill the spider. She picked up the Bible and hugged it to her pounding heart, her eyes glued to the crumpled mass of tangled legs on the bottom shelf of the cabinet. After a quick poke with her pinky, she confirmed that the spider was indeed deceased. Then her mind wandered to the precious book in her hands.
“What are you doing with a Bible?” Kenzie asked the sleeping figure behind her with barely a glance over her right shoulder.
“Same thing most people do with a Bible.”
The sudden hammering of her heart had nothing to do with the gravelly quality of Myles’s voice. “You scared me!” she stormed, marching toward his bed.
Holding up his hands in surrender, as if to ward off her attack in his sprawled position, Myles choked back what sounded suspiciously like laughter. “Not my fault. You asked me a question. It would be rude not to answer.”
“Well, you should have told me you were awake! I…I…I would have…”
“You would have what, Ms. Thorn?”
She opened her mouth to respond, then snapped it closed when nothing came to mind.
“You would have offered to dish me up some of Grams’s eggs?” On cue, his stomach growled almost as loudly as hers had a few minutes before. “That would be fantastic.”
“I should let you starve,” she grumbled, her eyebrows pulling into her most serious face, the one she used on misbehaving inmates. But before she let him slip in another retort, she spun on her toe and stalked the ten feet back into the kitchen.
It was then that she realized that she still held Myles Borden’s Bible to her chest. Setting it gently on the counter, she began moving through the cupboards, looking for anything that would serve as a plate or bowl.
After opening all four cabinets, she finally located two tin plates covered with dust. She quickly rinsed and dried them with the single dish towel hanging over the oven handle. She dished up a serving of eggs for each of them, then turned back toward Myles.
Myles’s piercing blue eyes focused on her from across the room as she moved toward him. He looked relaxed, leaning on the pillow against the headboard, covered with a ratty blanket to keep the chill away. She handed him a plate, and he immediately began shoveling the fluffy, dill-flavored eggs into his mouth.
When the silence grew too heavy, Kenzie asked, “So what is someone like you doing with a Bible? And who’s Myles Borden?”
“Someone like me?”
But the laughter in Myles’s eyes sapped her of any embarrassment, igniting her ire instead.
“Yes. Someone like you. You know. A kidnapper and felon.”
A new emotion flickered across his face—could it be shame? Regret? Fear?—but his tone was light when he said, “Like I said before. I do the same as a lot of others. I read it. I study it.”
“Oh.” Suddenly at a loss for words, she quickly took another bite of her breakfast. “Sorry I used your book to smash a spider.”
He laughed out loud. Suddenly a coughing fit seized him as tears rolled down his cheeks. Gasping for breath, he laughed again, “If it makes you feel any better, that’s not my journal or my Bible, and I think that my grandpa would be proud to have his journal used in the noble elimination of his sworn enemy.”
At Myles’s use of the overly dramatic phrase, Kenzie couldn’t hold back a small chuckle of her own. “Happy to help.”
Nothing made much sense at this point. Myles appeared less and less like any inmate she’d ever met. But the FBI thing seemed too far-fetched. A gentle tug on her heart forced her to evaluate her doubts. If he could just prove himself to be her protector—did she need more proof than his saving her from the mountain lion?—then he could help her get back to Mac. Get back to safety.
When his grandma’s famous dill pickle eggs reached his empty stomach, Myles sighed contentedly. The ache from not eating for more than a day slowly eased, as he shoved bite after bite into his mouth as fast has his semirecumbent position allowed. His swollen, throbbing leg would not permit him to sit up completely, and leaning on his left elbow left him in an awkward position.
He and Kenzie ate in relative silence; the only sounds filling the cabin were those of spoons clanking on the edge of tin camping plates. Every now and then he could hear Grams outside the cabin, making trips from the shed in the back to the front door, piling firewood.
He and Kenzie both finished their meals in record time, and she immediately grabbed the single dish from his hand and scurried over to the kitchen sink. She stood at the sink with her back to him, giving him free rein to make sure she had not been injured by the mountain lion when he collapsed.
Her slender figure seemed unharmed, save for the bright red marks on her cheeks and neck from the tree branches. His complexion likely showed similar signs. The purple sweater that had looked so pristine in her classroom was now ruined, and her black skirt looked matted with what must be blood.
His blood.
Thank You, God, that I was the one injured and not—
“Why is your grandfather’s Bible in this cabin?”
Her question interrupted his thoughts. But it was a welcome intrusion. If she was talking to him about trivial things, then she might be warming up to him. Even if she kept her back turned.
“This was his cabin. He passed it down to my father, who gave it to me a few years ago. The Bible stays with the cabin, so that when I come here to get away from it all, I always have it handy.”
“What nefarious acts are you trying to get away from? Crime a little too taxing these days?” Suddenly her shoulders stiffened and she clamped both of her hands over her mouth, a becoming pink blush creeping up the back of her neck. She peeked over her shoulder and for a moment looked like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
If he hadn’t been confined to the bed, he might have been tempted to pull her into a hug and kiss the top of her head like he had done the first time his cousin’s four-year-old daughter pulled the cookie jar stunt.
Of course that would be completely unprofessional. Something he’d never do. He didn’t really want to do it anyway. She was just an assignment.
“I’m sorry. That was rude.” Her voice shook slightly, evidently repentant.
Always…well, usually…the sweet lady. “It’s okay. Like I told you before, I wasn’t in prison because of any ‘nefarious acts.’ I was there to protect you.”
“But then why were you in the GED class?”
He cracked a smile. “Where else in the prison could I go to get so close to you?”
“Oh.” She seemed to hold back more questions and turned to wipe the dishes.
If he could say one thing for her, she was industrious. She had had no problem serving them a meal, and she easily located the dishes and cleaned them. Judging from the bandage on his leg, she and Grams had found the first-aid kit without a problem. Although a black smudge marred her jawbone—certainly a souvenir of a face wash based on a clouded reflection in the bathroom mirror—the rest of her face looked clean.
The only real wonder was that she had yet to discover the clothing in the three-drawer, roughly hewn dresser beside the bed, and the cash stashed in the Bible. Oh, and the fact that at his request, Grams had disconnected her car battery the night before. He guessed she had done it sometime after they had brought him back to the cabin and Kenzie fell asleep. He couldn’t have her running off before he got her to safety.
“I think there are some clothes that might fit you in the drawer over here. Did you not see them?”
“I saw them. I thought they might be your wife’s things.”
“Wife?” If he had been drinking water, it would have sprayed all over his bed.
“I saw the wedding bands, too.”
Heaving a deep breath, Myles said, “Not mine.”
“No?” she stole another glance at him over her shoulder. “But you said this was your cabin.”
“It is, but the rings aren’t mine. Definitely not. Grams’s and Grandpa’s. When he died about a year ago, my dad gave me his ring, and Grams gave me hers. She said she’d like to see me give it to a lady someday. It always just felt like this was the place to keep them.”
After a long pause, “And the clothes?”
“Grams.”
She paused a moment, as if searching for something to say.
“Oh.”
“Grams’s things may be a little big on you, and she doesn’t wash the ones she leaves here very often, but I’m sure they’re better than what you have on.”
She looked down at her tattered attire and nodded in acceptance. “Thanks. I think I’ll try them.”
Myles tried to stifle a jaw-cracking yawn as Kenzie disappeared into the bathroom, her arms loaded with jeans and flannel shirts that belonged to the most important woman in his life. Could it be a coincidence, then, that Kenzie would be wearing them now?
Eyes drooping heavily, he almost fell asleep before Kenzie’s return. When she did walk through the doorway, he laughed out loud. The long-sleeve, plaid flannel shirt swallowed her whole. Briskly rolling up the sleeves that completely covered her hands and tying the hem at her narrow waist, she made the outfit look almost attractive. He’d never been an advocate of women in flannel.
Until today.
Another loud yawn caught him off guard, and he sighed loudly.
“Are you okay?” Immediately she sat on the edge of his bed, gently resting her hand against his forehead. “You don’t have a fever, thankfully. Maybe it won’t get infected.”
Eyes still drooping shut, he managed to mumble, “Thanks for getting me back here and fixing me up.”
“I couldn’t just leave you out there after what you said…about the FBI…and after what you did…after you…” The silence seemed to grow as she swallowed thickly. Her gray eyes glistened, reflecting the light from the window.
Another yawn as he reached to pat her arm. “I’m so tired.”
“You lost a lot of blood.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
She swallowed audibly again. “I know you’re not really in the FBI, but…but—” Her eyes pleaded with him to prove her wrong, to reveal himself completely as her protector. But then she swallowed and tried a different tactic. “You saved my life. Why?”
He couldn’t hold back the smile that tugged at the corner of his lips even as sleep beckoned to him. “We’re safe here for now. If I wanted you dead, I’d have let you walk back into that prison.”
SIX
What could he possibly mean? He fell into a deep sleep before she could ask him. He needed the rest, but she needed answers.
If I wanted you dead, I’d have let you walk back into that prison.
Pacing from wall to wall, ragged wooden beam to wooden beam, she marched as though she would never stop. Her mind’s eye lurched from scene to scene. From seeing Myles’s shape in her rearview mirror to the black night illuminated only by the headlights of the car she drove, from the feel of the knife stabbing her side to his face inches from hers, invading her personal space. From the terror of the midnight forest to Myles’s bloody, broken body lying limp on the ground.
They were pieces of a puzzle.
But they didn’t fit together. None of it made sense. Why would he kidnap her only to save her life? And what could he possibly mean by saying she would die if she went back into the prison? Could the FBI really be the answer?
She couldn’t wait any longer! She had to know the truth. She needed proof.
Stomping over to Myles’s bed, she looked down into his face and shook his sleeping shoulder. “Myles. Myles, wake up. I need to talk to you.”
He grunted, still half-asleep, then opened one eye and squinted it at her. As soon as he focused on her face, both of his eyes popped open, and he was instantly awake. “What’s wrong? Is someone else here? Where’s Grams?”
Kenzie’s hand flipped a lock of hair over her shoulder. “She brought in more wood for the fire hours ago. You were still sleeping, so she took her car to get some groceries and more bandages for your leg. She should be back soon. But don’t change the subject. Tell me what’s going on!”