Desert Guardian

by Duvall, Karen

  "Stop crying, okay?" he had said, dropping the gift box in her lap. "You don't need that stupid old Tommy Lombardi anyway."

  Between sobs, she had said, "What do you know about broken hearts, huh? You're just a kid."

  The insult hadn't fazed him. They'd been trading them since he was two. "We can have our own prom, right here in the tree house."

  She blinked up at him, aware that her face was streaked with running mascara and smudges of kohl eyeliner. "Our own prom? Are you nuts?"

  He pulled a transistor radio from the back pocket of his jeans. "We got music, see?" He tugged a liter bottle of cherry soda from a plastic shopping bag. "And punch."

  He switched on the radio, tuning it to her favorite station. The Righteous Brothers' re-release of Unchained Melody was playing. Jake held his hand out to her. "Wanna dance?"

  "Wait," she said, and plucked the tiny box from her lap. "I haven't opened this yet." She pulled the ribbon loose and lifted the box's top. Nestled on a square of cotton was a sparkling cluster of purple rhinestones set within a ring of silver. Tommy all but forgotten now, Kelly gasped as she lifted the pendant from its cotton nest. "Jake, where did you get this?" She scowled at him. "You didn't steal it, did you?"

  "Nah. I bought it at the drugstore with my allowance." Looking sheepish, he added, "I got it for fifty percent off 'cause one of the stones is missing."

  "You spent all your money?"

  He shook his head. "I got plenty left. Here, let me put it on you."

  He slipped the necklace around her neck, clasping the chain in back. "Like it?"

  Her eyes tingled with the threat of tears but not from sadness this time. "It's beautiful, Jake. Thank you."

  His cherubic face beamed with pride as he gazed at the glistening piece of jewelry. "Wanna dance now?"

  "Sure. Why not." Kelly knelt in front of him so that he was a couple of inches taller than her. She placed her hands on his shoulders, and he settled his small, pudgy fingers at her waist. As they rocked back and forth in time with the music, she told him, "Jake, this is the best prom I could ever have."

  The strains of Unchained Melody filled her mind as her dream morphed into something else. Suddenly, it was Sam she danced with. Together they swayed in time with the music as the vast desert surrounded them and the rising sun glowed orange over the horizon. The heat of Sam's body so intimately close to hers made desire pool like lava in her belly. His large hands curved around her ribcage, his thumbs gently massaging the swell of her breasts. She tilted her head back to gaze into his eyes and—

  An eerie sense of being watched tugged her completely from sleep. She opened her eyes to a young Hispanic woman staring down at her. Kelly cried out in surprise.

  She heard Sam's fast footsteps thud in her direction. "What's happened? What's wrong?"

  Kelly shot up from the couch, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The woman who'd been watching her sleep stood calmly by the couch, her dark eyes never leaving Kelly. No older than twenty, she wore a plain pink T-shirt over denim shorts, her black hair tied in two long pigtails that hung down either side of her neck. She didn't say a word, just held on to a tiny, silver whistle that dangled from a chain around her neck. Kelly widened her eyes when she saw the thick, ropey scar across the woman's throat.

  "Who's that?" Kelly asked Sam, her voice hoarse from sleep. "She scared me half to death."

  He smiled and patted the young woman's shoulder. "This is Consuela Martinez. She's my housekeeper, but today isn't her usual day to work." He looked at Consuela and asked, "Is everything okay at home?"

  Consuela nodded and disappeared into the kitchen. Kelly heard cupboards opening, then the clanking of metal pans.

  "Doesn't she speak English?" Kelly asked.

  He shook his head. "She understands English, but she can't speak. Her vocal chords were cut a year ago."

  Kelly absently touched her own throat and winced. "How did it happen?"

  He sat on the couch and motioned for her to sit beside him. He glanced over his shoulder toward the kitchen then said quietly, "When two of her teenage brothers tried to kidnap her from the cult she belonged to, she refused to leave. Her screams got the attention of the cult guards, who tried to run her brothers off. But the boys pulled guns on them."

  Trigger-happy kids. "Was anyone shot?"

  "When the guards slipped Consuela a knife, the brothers dropped their guns because they were afraid she'd hurt herself. And they were right. She used it to slit her own throat."

  Her stomach lurched. "Oh, my God. Why would she do such a thing?"

  "It was a cult rule. If anyone tried to kidnap her, she'd been ordered to take her own life."

  Kelly had no idea cult influence could have that much power. "I'm amazed she didn't bleed to death."

  "She almost did, but the knife missed her carotid. Her brothers got her to a hospital in time, but her vocal chords couldn't be saved. She's been a mute ever since."

  "What cult was this?"

  "Star Mother."

  Kelly's breath caught. Jake was still with those people. Thinking of him faced with such a choice made her sick to her stomach. Would he cut his own throat just because some sick zealots told him to?

  Sam stood and headed for the kitchen.

  "Wait a minute, Sam." She stood and pulled him away from the doorway so Consuela couldn't hear. "Why do I get the feeling there's more to this story than you've told me?"

  He nodded, not meeting Kelly's eyes. "It's nothing I'm proud of, believe me. Consuela's family had asked for my help getting her out of there, and when I refused because of my past affiliation with the cult, they took matters into their own hands." And he'd forever feel guilty because of it. Legal complications were always on the horizon for someone like him. Cult lawyers used first amendment rights against intervention specialists who encouraged cultists on behalf of their families to leave their groups, but for Sam it was worse than that. Because he'd once been a member of Star Mother, and an unhappy one at that, he’d been accused of hostile retaliation. His intentions had been challenged. "Her family should have hired the other intervention specialist I'd referred them to, but they didn't. I couldn't go back to the Star Mother cult, Kelly. I hadn't been back since..."

  "Since what?"

  He swallowed and said, "Last night was the first time I'd returned in over five years."

  "So what made you go back then and not before?"

  He ran a hand through his hair, feeling frustrated with his own secrets. He was still dealing with his guilt over his mother's death and was nowhere near ready to discuss it, not with anyone. But he'd tell Kelly as much as he felt comfortable saying if it helped her grasp the danger her brother was in. Sam needed to protect her, which meant keeping her here in the cabin. He hadn't been able to save his mother, he hadn't been there to save Consuela, and he'd be damned if Kelly and her brother would join his list of casualties. He wouldn't fail this time. No freaking way.

  "Sam?" The concern in her eyes brought him up short.

  "Sorry, I was thinking." He let out a breath. "I need closure, plain and simple. Confronting your demons is often the best way to conquer them. After five years, it's time for me to get over it." He'd harbored his rage and disgust long enough.

  She smiled, showing him her dimples. "You're a complicated guy, you know that?"

  He shrugged. "Through my work with recovering ex-cultists, I'm finally getting to know myself. I can't say I'm too crazy about what I've discovered."

  She sighed. "I envy you. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever learn who I am."

  He studied the smooth lines of her narrow jaw, the sensual curve of her chin, and realized he also wanted to know who she was.

  Consuela emerged from the kitchen with a carton of eggs. She held it out to them.

  "Three, please, Consuela," Sam told her, relieved by the interruption. They'd been delving into territory that was way too personal for comfort. "How many eggs do you want, Kelly?"

  "One is fine, thank y
ou." Her expression changed, looking disconcerted as she returned to her seat on the couch. She stared fixedly out the living room's large picture window at a bright blue sky dotted with puffs of cloud.

  Sam joined her. "What's on your mind?"

  "I was just wondering why you have Consuela working for you if you feel responsible for what she did to herself."

  "It was her idea, not mine. I'm counseling her, or at least trying to. It's not easy counseling someone who can't speak, but we manage. Her learning sign language has really helped." He slumped back on the couch. "The only way she would agree to counseling is if I let her work for me for free."

  Kelly nodded, and her expression switched from concern to interest. "So, Mr. Arrow, do you counsel anyone else?"

  "When I'm not working part-time as a personal trainer at the local fitness center, I counsel the people I rescue, but no one else."

  "So you're not a practicing psychologist because..."

  When she didn't finish her sentence, he felt aggravated by her curiosity. His practice was none of her business. "You sure are pushy, you know that?"

  She grinned. "So I've been told."

  At least she was honest. Raising an eyebrow, he stood and stalked down the hall toward the bathroom. "Excuse me while I take a quick shower before breakfast."

  "Hey, we were having a conversation here," she shouted after him. "You were about to tell me why you don't have one of those stuffy offices in the city and charge your patients a hundred and fifty dollars an hour."

  For Pete's sake, give it a rest, he thought, and answered her by slamming the bathroom door behind him.

  ****

  A long, shrill whistle sounded from inside the kitchen. Kelly first thought it was the whistle of a teakettle, but when Sam flung open the bathroom door and came racing down the hall, her heart flew into her throat.

  She dashed after him into the kitchen, where Consuela continued to sound her alarm, her entire body rigid while her face turned the color of a ripe plumb.

  Sam plucked the whistle from her mouth. "What's going on?"

  Eyes bulging, Consuela pointed a shaky finger at the open-lidded picnic basket on the floor of a utility room leading into the kitchen. Something slithered out of the basket and plopped onto the floor. A rattlesnake.

  Chapter Four

  As Kelly watched the snake writhe across the kitchen floor, revulsion climbed up from the pit of her stomach to lodge in her chest, making it hard to breathe. Her pulse roared in her ears, and it took Herculean strength not to scream.

  Sam must have sensed her rising panic because he glared at her. "Hysterics is the last thing we need right now."

  She clenched her jaw and backed up to the kitchen table before climbing onto a chair. Every nerve in her body quivered with restrained terror. She swallowed dryly and asked, "Aren't you going to kill it?"

  "Hell no." Sam nudged Consuela out of the kitchen, his gaze glued to the rattling snake that coiled in preparation to strike. "It's frightened. No need to scare it more than it already is."

  He carefully reached his arm into the utility room and hauled out a long-handled rake. "Easy, buddy," he told the snake while aiming the business end of the rake at the reptile's head. The snake reared back, tongue jutting from its mouth in quick stabs at the air. Sam continued to approach it slowly, his body slightly crouched, eyes steady. Kelly only now noticed he was shirtless, which made sense considering he'd been about to hop in the shower. The muscles on his tan back rippled, his biceps as tight as the coiled snake. He reminded her of a jungle cat measuring its prey.

  Sweat trickled from Kelly's hairline and slid down her temples, though she wasn't even hot. Well, not that kind of hot. She was mesmerized by the blazing intent in his eyes, and she almost envied the snake. Would Sam ever look at her that way?

  As the reptile sprung to strike, so did Sam, the rake hooking the rattler around the neck and pinning it to the floor. Its tail whipped back and forth, five feet of slithering snake that slapped the linoleum and thumped against the wall.

  "Kelly, grab the basket and bring it here. Make sure the lid's open."

  "No way. I'm not going near that thing. I hate snakes." Especially the kind that rattled.

  "Too bad. I can't keep holding it down like this, so just do it!"

  She edged along the wall toward the utility room.

  "What's taking you so long?"

  "Keep your pants on!" She could do this. Just take deep, calming breaths. The dangerous end of the snake was restrained, so she had nothing to worry about. The reptile's tail suddenly whipped across her foot and she retreated back to the chair.

  "For Pete's sake! I can't believe you're this squeamish over one little snake."

  Oh, yeah? She was no sissy, regardless of what her father said. Kelly swallowed and hopped down from the chair. She held her breath and scurried along the wall, trying desperately to ignore the snake's rattling tail that just slapped against her thigh. Her heart beat triple-time as she begged her critter-phobia to give her a few more minutes of sanity because she was this close to losing it.

  When she reached the utility room, Sam said, "Good. Now scoot the basket closer to me so I can get the snake inside."

  A quick jab of her foot sent the basket flying across the floor, past Sam and the snake. It hit the far wall and toppled onto its side.

  "Nice going," he said with exaggerated sarcasm, his gray eyes a few shades darker. "Let's try that again."

  She leapt over the snake's whipping tail, grabbed the basket, and dropped it upright beside Sam. She kicked the lid open with her foot. Her rising nausea matched her rising panic. "Happy now?"

  "Ecstatic." Sam behaved as if he'd handled snakes all his life. Like an expert, he gripped the snake by the head, pinching it hard behind the jaw. Its tail whipped around with such force that he seemed to have trouble getting it in the basket. Once it was inside, he slammed the lid closed and snapped the latch into place. The snake's tail continued to rattle.

  "That wasn't so hard, was it?" he asked her, snide humor in his eyes.

  "Not if you're a regular on Wild Kingdom."

  She glanced over at Consuela, who stood crying silently in the kitchen doorway.

  "Oh, honey, it's okay now." Kelly wrapped an arm around the woman's shoulders and drew her close. "The snake's gone."

  "That's not what's upsetting her." Sam gave Consuela a worried look and gestured for Kelly to come to him. He whispered, "We shouldn't talk about this in front of her. Consuela is still recovering and doesn't need anything that would add to her PTSD." He held a letter-sized sheet of paper in his hand. "She recognized the Star Mother cult's letterhead when it fell out of the basket."

  "Star Mother is responsible for this?" Kelly asked.

  He nodded. "It says: 'Allow Kelly to reunite with her brother and all will be forgiven.' Von's signature is at the bottom."

  "Who the hell is Von?"

  "Valya's husband. They're co-leaders of the cult."

  A husband and wife team. How romantic. The name Valya sounded familiar, but she couldn't place the face. She must have heard the woman's name mentioned during her brief stay at Star Mother's camp. Still, she wondered why she hadn't been introduced. "How do you think the snake got inside the cabin?"

  They both looked at Consuela, who pantomimed her discovery of the basket. Sam interpreted her sign language. "She went outside to get some wood for the fireplace and found the picnic basket on the back step. It had an envelope taped to it with my name on it, so thinking it was a gift, she brought it inside. Is that how it happened, Consuela?"

  She nodded, her pencil-thin eyebrows tilted in an expression of helplessness. She hugged herself and shuddered.

  Kelly caught sight of a brightly colored card sitting on the kitchen counter. She recognized the logo of Jake's favorite computer game and a rash of goosebumps layered her arms and legs. She picked up the card. It was a collector's card with a picture of the game's main character, a lizard man called Gecko. "Sam, do you
play Cosmic Crisis?"

  "No. Isn't that a computer game?"

  "Jake's favorite." She held up the card. "If this isn't yours, where did it come from?"

  Consuela held up the empty envelope, pointing to indicate that's where the card had come from.

  "Oh, my God, Sam," Kelly said, feeling dizzy with excitement. "Jake left me a sign to let me know he's okay. Maybe this is his way of saying he wants to come home."

  Sam looked dubious. "Either that or he's part of whatever scheme Von's cooked up."

  "Jake isn't like that," she insisted. "He'd never do anything to hurt me or anyone else. I know it. I know him. He probably snuck that card in the envelope when no one was looking."

  Sam scratched his chin, his forehead creased in concentration. "In any case, someone had to have dropped off the basket and the envelope after we arrived last night."

  "But how could they?" she asked. "You were outside standing watch the whole time."

  "If they came through the woods in back, I wouldn't have seen or heard them. That's Cody's territory and I count on him to alert me if—" Sam's eyes widened, and he rushed out the back door with Kelly fast on his heels.

  His running legs ate up the fifty feet of ground that lay between him and the gray-furred animal partially hidden in a patch of tall grass. The coyote wasn't moving.

  Sam dropped to his knees. "No!" He leaned over to rest his ear against Cody's chest.

  Kelly knelt beside him, a surge of compassion making her eyes fill. Cody was Sam's friend, his companion. And now his beloved pet was dead because of her being here. She gently rubbed Sam's bare back, feeling an overwhelming desire to hold him close. "Sam, this is my fault. I'm so sorry...."

  Sam lifted his head. "He's still breathing, but he's out cold." A scrap of red meat lay a couple of feet from the unconscious coyote. Sam let out a relieved breath. "He's been drugged."

  "So he'll be all right?"

  He carefully lifted the animal in his arms. "I need to get him to the vet to get his stomach pumped. You better come with me."