by Angela White
2
Cesar and his Slavers were indeed headed toward southern Wyoming, where survivors had been heard calling for help, attracting his attention instead. These refugees read the American Pledge of Allegiance and sang the anthems over the radio. Cesar couldn’t wait to show them who this new America belonged to.
Chapter Twenty Five
March 11th, 2012
Pitcairn Island
1
Kendle winced at a brilliant bolt of white lightning forking across the cloudy sky, her stomach churning as the storm roared down on them.
“Nice night for a ride. Come on!" Luke shouted over the thunder, grinning, and Kendle moved faster, fighting the stiff wind and driving rain. She pulled the cabin door shut and shouldered the backpack while she ran for the idling bike.
The storm had been growing all day. When Luke had said to pack a bag, that they were going to higher ground, she hadn’t argued, despite not wanting to be soaked and get a chill from a midnight ride. She would face anything that kept her off that merciless ocean. She threw her leg over and grabbed hold of his belt buckle.
The bike jerked forward, throwing her back, and Luke grabbed for her blindly. He snagged her jacket and pulled her back on behind him. He found her hand, wrapped it around his hips, and she buried her head against his strong back, heart skipping in her chest. The angry sky above them lit up again, lightning flashing wildly, and Luke wanted to comfort her when she jumped, but already had his hands full keeping the Yamaha moving steadily on the muddy path.
Kendle knew to mold her body to his so their matched movements would help him keep them balanced. She held on tight, feeling his muscles flexing, controlling, his heartbeat comforting against her ear, and these things were a relief in spite of the fear. All in all, she’d much rather take her chances on land, with Luke. There wasn’t a road or any lights that signaled other people, the island natives miles apart, and she closed her eyes when the path they were on narrowed suddenly by more than half.
Soon they were under the protective canopy of a thick forest of tall, leafy trees. Sheltered from the worst of the weather pounding on the thick vegetation far above them, he took a moment to check on her. “You okay?”
She pushed closer against his back, not looking, as lightning flashed again.
“Be there in half an hour.”
She nodded, miserable physically, but emotionally, she felt only unbelievable gratitude that someone else was in charge of this crisis.
They moved through the thick, black jungle at a steady pace for what seemed like hours to Kendle. Muddy, unseen, leafy plants and vines slapped at them from the dense darkness around their speck of a headlight, and the rain began to beat on them again when Luke turned onto an extremely narrow path that veered out of the trees and down a steep hill.
The fast-moving bike hit the bottom, and Kendle clung to him as they shot upward, very close to tipping over. They evened out onto a rocky path that led gradually up a tall hill dotted with heavily-swaying banyan trees. Rain pelting their faces, wind stealing her breath in little, painful gusts each time he rounded a curve, Kendle held on tight, and waited for it to be over.
Blindingly vivid lightning flashed overhead abruptly, moving toward them at thousands of miles per hour, and their ears were filled with a roaring thunder as it slammed into the ground, exploding in a ball of vivid red and white light.
Ccrraaacckkk!
There was no way to avoid the flaming, bushy tree that crashed to the ground across their path, and the bike tire hit the thick log at full speed, flipping them into the air.
Arm still deadlocked around his waist, Kendle screamed, and then the breath was knocked out of her as they hit the mud and slid toward the edge of the steep hill.
Kendle sucked in air to scream again, hands clawing for purchase as she felt herself start to go over, and the small breath shot out in another piercing shout as she started to fall.
Luke snagged her slick wrist, pulling it out of its socket for a second of awful pain, before hauling her up and into his arms. “You all right, Darlin?”
She buried her head against his chest and Luke held her close as he got to his feet. Moving back to the muddy path that he had no trouble seeing in the dark, Luke had a brief, horribly real flash of trying to carry each villager out of ground zero and shook it away. Now was not the time.
The rain fell harder, washing away some of the mud on their hands and faces, and Luke didn’t stop to look at the bike, but carried her to a dark hillside before setting her gently on her feet.
“Hang on a minute, little girl, and we’ll be inside.”
Kendle saw nothing that resembled a shelter, and her eyes widened when he pulled aside a large patch of grass like it was a carpet, revealing a wide, steel door set into the earth.
Realizing carpet was right, she watched him twist the combination lock into place. When he disappeared inside, she followed with only a little hesitation. She had that unnerving sense of wrongness as she went in, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been previously and she guessed that was one of the few wounds that might heal completely with enough time. She had been back on land for a little over three weeks, but a lot of the horror was still there, lurking just under the surface of her polite smiles and casual words.
The storm’s sounds were muffled by the dirt, and when a light flared in the darkness, then brightened, allowing her to look around, Kendle was glad to know they wouldn’t be laid up short.
Luke lit the lamps hanging in each corner of the 8’ x 10’ x 30’ room, and Kendle stared in approval. Everything they needed was here. The walls were concrete, the floors, ceiling, chairs, and small table all made of plain yellow wood - as were the long rows of shelves running the length of the back wall, and everywhere she looked, there were supplies. Serious survival supplies.
Lamps, batteries, weapons, a gas stove hooked to a grill, lots of dusty boxes marked ‘fragile, handle with care’. It was all neatly arranged, and there were personal touches here that were missing from the bare walls of his small cabin, like the pictures of a jungle, behind American soldiers holding rifles up and grinning.
Were these the men he had served with in ‘Nam? LJ hadn’t said he’d been there, hadn’t even told her that he was a soldier, but she knew. He was way too tight-lipped and organized to be anything but military, and she’d figured the place by his age. He had told her he would be sixty-one on the sixth of July, but she was pretty sure that back in the day, Luke had been a badass. The young man in those pictures certainly looked the part.
“This is amazing. You built it yourself?”
Luke unfolded a blue tarp behind the open door as she got a towel out of the backpack to wipe her face. “Dug it, mostly. Frank helped when I started putting in the walls and ceiling. We’re only three miles from the cabin, but we’re almost a hundred feet higher. Even a rogue wave won’t reach here.”
He ducked back out into the storm, and Kendle forced herself to wait, hating the awful loneliness that swept over her every time Luke was out of sight. She could follow. He'd made it clear he liked having her around. He hadn’t even wanted to tell her that the doctor had a room in town if she felt uncomfortable staying with him. She got the sense that he was lonely too, and his full days backed that up. It spoke of someone wanting to be too tired to think or even dream when he went to bed, and that, she understood completely.
Kendle covered her face with her wet sleeve as she sneezed. Wrist aching, swelling a little, she looked around for a place to change. Seeing nothing private enough, she settled for peeling off her drenched shoes and socks and hanging her dripping jacket over a chair. Shivering as she listened to the rumble of the storm, the castaway waited nervously for her host to come back.
Luke rolled the wrecked, but fixable bike inside and leaned it against the wall so that the mud would drip onto the tarp. His very male eyes quickly looked away from Kendle’s see-through shirt and slacks. He got a coil of rope and a blanket from a shelf, aware of how
her gray eyes lingered on him while he attached the rope to the ceiling near the bunk beds.
He threw a long blanket over it to duplicate the area he had made for her back at the cabin when she’d said she preferred to stay with him, if he didn’t mind. “I’ll make some coffee while you change,” he offered, going to the tarp to take off his muddy boots.
Kendle smiled gratefully, moving behind the blanket. She couldn’t wait to be warm and dry again. Being wet reminded her too much of her nightmare on the ocean.
Luke tossed his soaked, mud-streaked coat over the other chair and couldn’t stop his eyes from wandering to the slender shadow on the wall as he wiped his face and got the water heating on the stove. He was decades older than her, with blood on his hands that he could never atone for, but he couldn’t deny the want. He’d been alone for a long time, and she was beautiful, young, brave… he’d found his eyes watching her for signs of interest.
She had told him that her career had kept her busy, that there was no husband or even a boyfriend to mourn, and he had been able to read nothing else. She was nice, friendly to him, good company, but very careful and closed-off. She’d clearly been through hell, had a fortress around her heart, and Luke had decided he wouldn’t even try to breach those walls without at least knowing whether she saw him as an eligible man or just an old man.
“How long did all this take?” she asked from behind the blanket, and Luke forced his eyes away from her alluring shadow, thinking she had to be the strongest female he’d ever met. Even the resourceful island women would still be in tears over that close call, and she sounded like nothing had happened.
“Over four years.” He got the cups out, wiping the dust from them, ears listening to her movements.
“Anyone else know it’s here?”
“Probably. Everyone out here has a hole-up. It’s the way you do things on Pitcairn.”
“How long have you lived alone out here?” It was one of the first personal questions she’d asked, and his reluctance to answer was clear when he finally did.
“All my life it seems like sometimes.”
Kendle tossed her dripping sweater over the rope, hiding her underclothes beneath her slacks, and her eyes found his, locked.
Luke felt his lungs tighten. Her vivid red skin was a sharp, sexy contrast to the simple white dress that outlined a perfect young body, and for an instant, Luke considered just asking her outright to be his woman. Common sense returned quickly, with guilt on its heels.
He turned away, missing her look of relief. Those were choices she definitely wasn’t ready to make yet. She was weak, vulnerable, still dealing with the grief of losing her sister. Men and sex were the last things on her mind…right?
“How long do you think we’ll be here?”
“Day or two probably. We’ll be able to see the beach come dawn. If the crabs and sandpipers are out, I’ll know for sure it’s okay. Likely, I overreacted."
Kendle smiled, pulling dry, white anklets over slender feet. “I’m okay with it.”
Luke ducked behind the blanket while Kendle wandered the far ends of the long room, impressed. She and her parents had each had an area in their homes, but his was the King of all shelters - medical supplies, survival books, a long box with a picture of a thermal tent on the side, and a generator in the back corner. All these things said Luke was a realistic, reliable person - but the creature comforts, like the cigars, the chocolate bars and music, said life with him wouldn’t be cruel either, and it pleased her.
Life with him? Kendle asked herself sharply, hearing the clink of pants with a belt still in them hitting the wooden floor. Are you conceding your real life for this? Not even planning a single, foolish attempt to get back?
She shook her head. No. Going back on the water was unthinkable. Unless a plane came, she was here to stay. With Luke? Kendle wasn’t sure yet, wasn’t sure how much she could give him. There were younger, more arrogant men here. She’d met them and been asked out by a couple, but had said no, even letting one think she and Luke already had something going on, so he would take the hint and leave her alone.
She felt safe with Luke, knew instinctively he was her own kind, and while she knew people who’d started relationships with less, she didn’t think she was ready for all the complications that always came up. She owed him a great deal, and he was definitely one of the good guys, but his eyes said he’d done terrible things in the past, and she often wondered if his solitary life here was a self-imposed penance for it. He was closed-off, giving few details about his life, and she wasn’t sure yet how close she wanted to be to him.
There was a choice coming, though. She saw it in his heated blue eyes when he thought she wasn’t looking, felt it when shared a meal over flickering candlelight, and while it flattered her, she didn’t encourage him or lead him on. Luke was a full-grown man who could easily take what he wanted if provoked, and that was nothing to play with when you were almost alone together on a deserted island paradise.
“Where did you get all this stuff?” she asked, needing to fill the silence as he stepped from behind the blanket. His big, scarred hands were tucking in his plaid shirt around lean hips, and Kendle quickly looked away, thinking he really was in great shape for being sixty.
“Plane used to come. Some from crashes and what the tide brought in. Little from people leaving, not wanting to take it back to the mainland with them.” He paused, looking at her with dark eyes lined by the coming of old age. “Some from my time in the service.”
Kendle nodded, recognizing the first information he’d offered about his past. She stopped herself from asking anything, knowing he expected it, but didn't really want to give it. Instead, she sat down, still shivering a little.
Luke took a long suede jacket from a wall peg and draped it over her shoulders, not letting his restless fingers make contact with her skin.
She pulled it close, smiling her thanks and noticing the light smell of whiskey before he moved back. Luke had been a complete gentleman the entire time they'd been together. Weak most of the time, she felt guilty, wanting to help with the chores, but the doctor had told him to make sure she took it easy, and he did. He cooked and cleaned, did the laundry, and sometimes, let her dry dishes or set the table.
As a result, she was starting to regain the weight she’d lost and was feeling better every day. Even the tears at night were coming less frequently. It had been almost a week now since her last nightmare, and she was grateful to him for everything.
"Enough to give your body? When a man’s been alone as long as he has, that’s a powerful thing to be used."
No. Her virginity was worth more to her than just the payment of a debt or a bond to keep from being alone.
The storm outside their den grew stronger, and Luke turned on the CD player, surprising her with Aerosmith’s greatest hits, then left her alone, knowing she needed time to heal. She reminded him of how bad off he’d been when he first came here.
He too, had been on the edge of death, on the line of putting his gun in his mouth, but this simple life had healed him enough to go on, and it would her as well, in time. He’d had Frank and she would have him. It would be enough to keep either of them from ending it when the nightmares got bad.
2
Hours later, Kendle jerked awake in the warm darkness, eyes flying to the shadow of the man standing over her. Her eyes locked with his, seeing the terror that would probably never be spoken of. Being here, around the mementoes of his past, had hurt him.
Responding to his desperate need, she slowly pulled back the blanket, inviting him in. They’d passed many nights in each other’s arms, usually when he couldn’t stand the sound of her sobs anymore.
Luke curled away from her, embarrassed, and Kendle molded herself to his back. Feeling his rapid heartbeat, his quick rasps for air, had her holding him tighter, lending her comfort. Laying there, listening to his struggle, she thought that maybe together, they might teach each other to live with all that had happ
ened, and go on despite the scars they would always carry.
Earlier, she’d been sure she wasn’t ready to handle any type of a relationship right now, but the feel of his pain made her accept that she was already in one. She cared for Luke, wanted him to find a measure of peace with whatever demons were tormenting him…and he wanted the same for her. It wasn’t a traditional relationship, but there was something about it that was comforting.
Luke’s body shuddered as his control gave a little, and Kendle comforted him as best she could, not quite daring to tug him into her full embrace. Physical contact, she definitely wasn’t ready for yet, but being alone…away from Luke, just wasn’t an option anymore.
Chapter Twenty Six
Bad weather sensors and alarms on buoys out in the Atlantic Ocean were storing data on a system of unparalleled size, but the warnings went unheeded, those operating the stations long gone; their dark halls abandoned.
Most water front areas had emptied out right after the War. Storm surges, tidal waves, and horrible flooding forced the tourists and vacationers to go, but there were still people surviving along the coast. They were the longtime residents who had stayed for Hurricane Camille in ’69 and again for Andrew in ’92. These were the die-hard survivors who abandoned their homes for nothing…and now, they were leaving.
The ocean was telling them there was a monster on the way, though it was over two months before the season officially started. Some of these residents held hopes of returning, but most suspected there would be little to come back to. They had seen the signs and understood.