Desert Guardian

by Duvall, Karen

  He pulled into the dirt driveway and parked the Jeep in front of the cabin. He checked on Kelly one more time. She hadn't moved. Her honey-colored skin seemed to glow in the soft light that shone from the deck's pole lamp. If he leaned down and brushed his lips across her cheek, would she taste as sweet as the honey color that coated her skin? He sensed something special about this woman with a fiery spirit that rivaled his own. Right now he felt content just to look at her, relieved that she was here with him and no longer a hostage of the cult. Aching to get closer, he ran the backs of his fingers lightly over her gleaming mane of chestnut hair.

  Her eyes popped open, and he yanked his hand back. She shot him a startled look before sitting up.

  "We're home," he said, nodding at the small cabin that appeared slightly sinister in the dim light from the lamp. "My home, anyway. Are you awake enough to stand?"

  She craned her neck from side to side, as if working out the kinks. Eyes narrowed, she gave him a quick once-over. "I'm fine. I thought you were dropping me off at my father's hotel."

  "Tomorrow. Consider tonight a free stay at a cozy cabin in the woods on behalf of your new bodyguard."

  "Bodyguard? And who are you guarding me from?"

  "Star Mother cult assassins, just in case they come looking for you."

  She seemed to think this over before nodding. "Fine. I'm too tired to argue with you. Did I snore?"

  "Like a drunken lumberjack."

  She curled her lip at him and climbed from the Jeep. Placing both hands on her hips, she arched her back and stretched from side to side. Raising her arms as she stood on her toes, her shorts hiked up to reveal shapely thighs and a hint of booty that peeked a half-inch below the hem. He enjoyed the view.

  It was a peaceful night, without even a breeze to rustle the lofty pine branches that bowed gracefully over the cabin's roof. Sam was usually calmed by the silence that surrounded his mountain home, but tonight it unnerved him. The altercation on the highway had put him on edge. "We'll go back for your rental car tomorrow. Where did you leave it?"

  "Truck stop," she said, quick and choppy, as if afraid a complete sentence would be a conversation. "They wouldn't let me drive it to the campsite."

  Sam nodded. He'd figured as much. They wanted her stranded without a way to escape. He reached in the backseat to grab her pack, and Cody hopped out at the same time. Seeing the animal brought a surprised yelp from Kelly.

  "Sorry," she said. "I forgot it was back there. It startled me."

  "He's a he, not an it." Sam watched the coyote disappear into the forest. "And his name's Cody."

  "Sorry," she said again, allowing some distance to collect between them before following him up the steps to the front door.

  When the door opened from the inside, Sam instinctively reached for his hunting knife. He unsheathed and brandished it at a startled, gray-haired man, who emitted a yelp that sounded very much like Kelly's.

  She groaned. "Damn it, Dad. What the hell are you doing here?"

  Still looking surprised, Frank Bancroft said, "I'm here to take you and your brother home. Didn't Mr. Reed tell you?"

  "Yeah, he told me." She glared at her father, chin raised and arms crossed over her chest. "Jake hasn't been at the camp for two days. We're going back for him tomorrow."

  Frank grinned, his horse-like teeth practically glowing in the lamplight. He stood half a head taller than Kelly, his pot-bellied torso balanced on a pair of spindly legs. His khaki slacks were belted just below his rib cage, causing the hem to rise a few inches above flood level. "I'm glad you're safe. And I'm sure Jake will be with us soon, thanks to Mr. Reed."

  Kelly rolled her eyes and gripped Sam's jacket more firmly around her shoulders. "Can we go inside now? It's freezing out here."

  Sam regarded Frank with an expression of suspicion, his jaw clenched. "How'd you get in my house?"

  "Your housekeeper let me in before she left."

  Sam continued to stare at the man, his eyes hot, his face set like concrete. "I don't like trespassers, Mr. Bancroft."

  "I meant no harm," her father said, though his tone was tinted with disdain.

  "Can we just go inside? Please?"

  Frank followed Kelly and Sam through the doorway. "Your housekeeper doesn't talk much."

  "Consuela doesn't talk at all." Sam stalked into the kitchen and flipped on a light. "Coffee?"

  "I'd love some," Kelly said, and plopped down on a plump couch heaped with Indian blankets. She caught a hint of the same pine scent that clung to the jacket she'd borrowed, plus the faint odor of furniture polish, evidence of his housekeeper's recent visit.

  She peered around the small, rustic room with walls like stacked logs. A moss-rock fireplace nestled in the center of one wall, and a modest fire crackled and sputtered in its depths. She leaned forward and fanned out her hands to bathe them in the fire's warmth. "You made yourself right at home, didn't you, Dad?"

  Frank glanced at Sam and held up his hands. "Wasn't me. Your housekeeper made the fire before she left."

  Sam nodded, his expression stony. "I didn't expect you to be here. I told you I'd call your hotel as soon as Kelly and her brother were safe."

  "I couldn't wait," Frank said, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "Kelly, I have plane tickets for you and your brother with an open departure date. So whenever the two of you are ready—"

  She jumped to her feet and began to pace, her brisk footsteps beating the hardwood floor like angry hammers. Who the hell was this man and what had he done with her father? He'd never given a damn about Jake before. Or about her, for that matter. She tossed her dad an angry glare.

  "Honey, please calm down. I can explain—"

  She shot another look at her father, and that shut him up. "Not once in my entire life have you called me honey. What's going on?"

  Frank cast an uncertain look in Sam's direction. "A man can change, can't he?" he asked, his voice gruff and more like the man she knew.

  She crammed her hands in the pocket of Sam's jacket, searching unsuccessfully for a cigarette. Though she'd quit five years ago, smoking had been her automatic response to family stress. Addressing Sam, she said, "Remember the cop telling us about the brownies he bought at one of the cult's bake sales? An innocent-sounding front, wasn't it?" She pointed a finger at her father. "He's a walking bake sale. Sugar coating the rottenness underneath."

  "Kelly!" her father said with surprise and anger in his voice. If he got mad enough, he just might hit her. She wondered what Sam would do if he did.

  She laughed. "Who are you trying to kid, old man? Less than a year ago, you kicked your own son out of the house just for exploring who he was."

  A look of disgust crawled over Frank's face. "I won't allow that kind of behavior in my home."

  Sam cocked his head, looking wary and prepared. "What behavior?"

  "My father caught Jake holding hands with another boy." She glared at her father. "Whether or not it meant anything is beside the point, Dad. Jake is your son, and you turned your back on him. He hadn't even finished high school, and you threw him out along with all his clothes, his comic books, his computer, everything. You changed the locks so he couldn't get back in the house." She heaved a breath, her chest aching as her heart broke all over again. "And I wasn't there to stop you."

  Her father stared, eyes wounded. "I'm sorry for what I did. I want Jake to know how sorry I am, that I forgive—"

  "He didn't do anything wrong," she yelled, her throat burning from the sudden burst of raw emotion. Her entire body shook, and she started pacing again. "We're too late, Dad. Jake found another family to replace us, one he thinks can give him everything we can't. But all they'll give him is death."

  Her father's red eyes were angry but also sad. And so what? How many times had she cried after being humiliated by her father, beaten by him, scared so badly from being locked in a closet that she wet herself? All her life he had made her feel like a worthless stain on the carpet he couldn't clean up. And i
t had been the same for Jake, if not worse. She used to think Jake was better off with Star Mother than with his own family.

  Frank eased himself to the couch, his weathered face pale, the bags under his eyes drooping to reveal the glaring red of his lower eyelids. His jaw went rigid as he worked at restraining his rage. She recognized his struggle, having seen it countless times in the past when he tried to hide it from other people. Her father needed to lash out and couldn't.

  "I'm a stubborn old man, Kelly," he finally said, his voice shaking. "I regret the horrible things I did to you kids, but I thought I was making you tough, preparing you for the cruel world outside our home—"

  "Let me clue you in, Dad. The world isn't half as cruel as you were."

  He nodded, his scowl pulling his face into a fist. "I can accept that. You're probably right. But honey—"

  She shot him a dangerous look.

  He cleared his throat and started again. "When you told me about the letter Jake sent you, how he wrote about a suicide plan and a spaceship that would fly him off to some planet on the other side of the universe, you gave me a shot of reality. Losing you or Jake would be the death of me. I mean that. If anything happened to either of you..." He looked down at his hands and went suddenly quiet.

  Kelly's eyebrows bunched in bewilderment. She'd never before seen this side of her father. How was she supposed to react? She looked to Sam for guidance, but he was no longer in the room. A breakfast bar separated the living room from the kitchen, and she spotted him at one of the counters, spooning teaspoons of instant coffee into three mugs. She heard the whistle of a teakettle.

  She sat at the opposite end of the couch from her father. Her heart tripped over itself as she battled feelings she'd never before associated with the man. Her throat ached as confused tears stung the backs of her eyes. She couldn't forgive him, but she would listen to him. Seeing him like this, she could honestly say she didn't recognize this man. The man sitting beside her wasn't her father.

  She reached out as if to touch him then curled her hand into a fist and dropped it in her lap.

  "Coffee's done." Expressionless, Sam handed Frank one of the steaming mugs. He offered another to Kelly.

  She regarded him with a skeptical eye. Was Mr. Macho a sensitive-new-age guy? Or was he only pacifying his clients for business reasons?

  Her father straightened, blew on his steaming mug, then took a cautious sip. "Thank you, Mr. Reed, but it's late, and I should get back to my hotel." Setting down his barely touched mug of coffee, he stood and tossed the plane tickets on the coffee table.

  Kelly sat in stunned silence. She no longer felt angry, but neither did her heart swell with affection for the man she'd despised her entire life. She peered up at her father, eyes squinted against the headache her outburst had caused.

  He stepped forward, raising his arms for a hug, but she shrank away from him. He nodded. "All right, then."

  Once her father left, Sam returned to the kitchen doorway and leaned against the jamb. His eyes softened with sympathy. "Quite a family you got there."

  "You're telling me," she said on the tail end of a sigh. "I'd like to say I feel sorry for my dad, but I don't."

  "I'm not familiar with your family's history, but from what you've told me, it sounds like you and your brother suffered a fair amount of abuse while growing up. You're still healing." He arched a quizzical brow while sipping from his mug. "You said before that Jake's joining Star Mother was your fault. Seems to me your dad had more to do with it than you did."

  "I never should have moved out and left Jake alone." She studied the surface of her coffee, as if the brew would show her a different reality, one where Jake was safe at home with his computer games and his comic books. She shook her head. "I thought that since Jake was a senior in high school, it was time for me to stop mothering him and let him be his own man. I had a new job teaching phys ed at a local high school, and to be honest, I wanted to start living my own life. I figured without me around, the two of them might do some male bonding, you know? Go to ball games, fishing trips, guy stuff. Boy, was I ever wrong." She gulped the hot coffee, burning her tongue. "It was selfish of me to leave. I should have been there for him. If I had, my brother never would have left like he did."

  Sam came up behind her and settled a warm hand on her shoulder. "You don't know that."

  She savored the heat of his touch, the soothing cadence of his voice. "Yeah, I do. But you know what makes me feel even worse?"

  "What's that?"

  "When I finally got my first letter from him telling me he was okay, that he'd joined a wonderful new family called Star Mother, I felt happy for him. I thought he'd found a perfect solution. But now..." Her throat started aching again, her chest tight with grief. She angled her head back to gaze up at Sam. "I'm sorry to drag you through my family's dirty laundry. It's not your problem."

  "Don't worry about it." He patted her shoulder and moved to stand in front of her. "It's good to air out your problems now and then." His eyes clouded in thought, like airing his thoughts might be something he craved himself but never had the luxury. If he opened up to her, he could tell her anything he wanted. Anything.

  He clapped his hands together. "Hey, you must be as exhausted as I am. I don't have a guest room, but you're free to use my bed."

  Heat rushed to her cheeks. "Not with you in it, I hope."

  He coughed. "Of course not. I'll sleep on the couch."

  "The bed it is." She stretched and yawned before asking, "So when do we leave tomorrow?"

  He tilted his head, his grin sardonic. "I've been thinking about that. It's probably not a good idea for you to come with me. After what happened on the highway a few hours ago, I think it's safer if you stay here."

  She must have heard him wrong. "We had a deal. I'm coming with you."

  He rubbed his chin and stared at the floor. "Sorry, but I work alone."

  "You mean you usually work alone. Not this time. Jake is my brother, and I'm responsible for him. Besides, he won't listen to anyone but me—"

  "No." Sam stood rigid, shoulders tense. His face went completely blank, so Kelly couldn't tell if he was angry, annoyed, or what. Kind of spooky, as if in an instant he had wiped every emotion from his mind. No matter. She could be just as stubborn.

  "Look, Mr. Macho Arrow," she said, stepping up close and tapping the middle of his chest with her forefinger. "I'll pay half your fee now and the other half when Jake is safe, but only on the condition that I come with you."

  "No."

  What an infuriating man. "Fine. I'll find someone else to help me. Or better yet, I'll do it myself." She yanked her backpack off the floor behind the couch and headed for the door.

  "Jacket."

  She turned to face him. "What?"

  "I'd like my jacket back, if you don't mind."

  She dropped the pack and shrugged out of the jacket, mumbling to herself, "Rude, insensitive jerk." She threw it at him.

  One corner of his mouth turned up in a lopsided grin. "If you're planning to hitch a ride, it's a half-mile walk to the main road, which doesn't get much traffic. Especially not at two in the morning."

  He had a point. "Mind giving me a lift to a motel?"

  He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. "Tomorrow. I've done my work for today. Think you can survive my presence until then?"

  "Fine. But I'll sleep on the couch." The sneaky bastard. He knew she wasn't going anywhere tonight. He'd have his way, but it was only temporary. She shuffled over to the cushy sofa with all the inviting blankets. She'd had enough sparring for one night and didn't feel right about taking the man's bed now that she was mad at him. Sam Reed was a stubborn, arrogant ass. So why did her heart flutter when she thought about his bed?

  "Suit yourself, but the bed is still up for grabs," he said, and headed for the front door. "I'll be out on the porch if you need me."

  "What will you do out there?"

  "Stand watch,
" he said as he opened the door. "Somebody tried to kill us. It's not safe. If you stay inside, you will be. Call me if you need anything. Goodnight."

  Her heart made another little flip inside her chest. "'Night."

  ****

  As Kelly floated between sleep and wakefulness, her mind spun within a kaleidoscope of childhood memories. Jake's plump, ten-year-old face loomed before her, his freckles like spatters of chocolate from one of the hot fudge sundaes he loved so much. Eyes as blue as hers gazed at her sadly, but with affection. He held up a tiny, white box tied with sapphire ribbon. "This is for you," he said in his squeaky, little boy's voice. "I hope it makes you feel better."

  She remembered that night. She’d been sixteen and crying her eyes out over Tommy Lombardi, the boy who had stood her up the night of her junior prom. She had spent her entire allowance on the secondhand gown she'd found at a thrift store, the poofy, pink chenille making her look like a giant ball of cotton candy. She had even curled her hair with borrowed hot rollers from Mrs. Coolidge across the street.

  But Tommy Lombardi never showed.

  She’d found out later that he'd taken his ex-girlfriend to the prom instead.

  Jake had watched Kelly prepare for her big date. The dress, curlers, and make-up were sissy stuff to him, but he understood how important it was that she look nice for Tommy, who Jake had thought was just a big jerk. Turned out he was right.

  So when the clock struck seven, then eight, then nine, and still no Tommy, she'd been fairly certain he wasn't going to show up. Not wanting her father to witness her rejection and then tease her about it, she had crept out from her room and fled to their backyard tree house for a good cry.

  It hadn't taken Jake long to find her sitting on the pink chenille cloud of her ruined dress, her curled hair a tangled mess of bobby pins and clip-on ribbons, while blubbering her way through an entire box of tissues.