Men Made in America Mega-Bundle

by Gayle Wilson, Marie Ferrarella, Jennifer Greene, Annette Broadrick, Judith Arnold, Rita Herron, Anne Stuart, Diana Palmer, Elizabeth Bevarly, Patricia Rosemoor, Emilie Richards

  He took a deep breath, knowing there would be no turning back once he’d begun. This was not the ending he had always envisioned, but it was the hand he’d been dealt, and given the odds, he knew he had no option but to play it out.

  “We need to talk,” Deke shouted, pitching his voice to reach the encampment. The backdrop of the rocks he had hidden in did just what he’d expected, projecting the sound and at the same time distorting his precise location. The echo behind the word “talk” bounced softly among the surrounding boulders.

  The leader turned in his direction, his face reflecting surprise, which was quickly controlled. The thin line of his lips moved fractionally, a satisfaction he didn’t hide.

  “Summers?” he called, but the surety was in his voice as it had been in his smile.

  “Yeah,” Deke acknowledged.

  “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Let them go,” Deke shouted, allowing nothing but confidence to color his own tone.

  “You come in. Then they can go.”

  “Let them go, and I’ll come in. Nobody gets hurt.”

  “My theater of operations, Summers. My rules.”

  “Then all but one. Everybody allowed into the van except one. I walk in as he walks out. Your choice.”

  Again the brief, quickly controlled reaction of the thin lips. “My choice,” he agreed.

  Too easy, Deke thought, feeling a shiver of premonition along his spine. Too easy. He wished he hadn’t suggested the single hostage, but it was the classic solution for the situation. It minimized the danger. One person vulnerable rather than all of them, and if anything went wrong…

  Nothing would go wrong, he vowed. Nothing would screw this up. A simple exchange. As one of Becki’s brothers walked to the van, he’d go in, give himself up. His hands in the air, gun held high where everyone could see it, a clear target. He knew their weapons would be poised to shoot him or at least to shoot the gun out of his hand if he began to lower it. Then when everyone was in the van, he’d throw the weapon to the side, surrendering himself into their control. There had been no discussion about those details. They both knew how the game was played.

  He became aware that the hostages were being led out of the tent. The four boys, blinking in the sudden glare of sunlight, were surprisingly small, moving hesitantly on tanned legs which looked pipe-stem thin, protruding from beneath their cotton shorts. Josh put his hand up, shielding his eyes and one of the guards pushed it down. Bewildered, the child looked up at the man, puzzled by the unexpected hostility.

  The uncles were almost as subdued as the children, as unfamiliar with this situation and as unprepared. The younger brother, the one Deke had met, showed evidence of blows to the face: bruises, some swelling and the skin broken in a couple of places. Apparently he had had to be coerced into making the phone call to his sister.

  Another life touched, marked forever by Deke Summers’s darkness. Like the bewildered fear that was now in the face of the bright, confident little boy who had once lived next door to a man named John Evans. Another lifetime ago.

  There was a brief but serious discussion between the commander and one of the “soldiers,” who appeared to be expressing his feelings passionately. Deke watched the apparent resolution of that, indicated by a slight nod of the commander’s head. He could hear only an indistinguishable murmur of the instructions being given to the hostages. Unexpectedly there was argument from the two brothers. Anger. Deke hadn’t anticipated any resistance from them. The muzzle of a rifle was suddenly against the chest of Becki’s youngest brother, pushing him away from the confrontation with the man in charge.

  Objecting because he had been told to stay behind as the others moved toward the van? Deke wondered. Just do it, damn it, he urged silently, trying to will Mike’s compliance. Whatever the hell you’re told to do. Too late to play hero. Just do what you’re told. Follow orders.

  The situation was escalating, but Deke was still having a hard time making out the words they were saying to each other. And then finally, under the repeated prodding of the muzzle, Mike was forced to turn and move off, walking beside the others. All but one of the group heading to the relative safety of the van. All but one.

  The small dark-haired boy stood uncertainly by the commander. His eyes moved, searching for some explanation from the strange adults who surrounded him as to why he’d been left behind. Deke felt his throat close at the aloneness projected by the solitary figure of the child. This was the choice the commander had made. The single remaining hostage was Josh.

  Deke closed his eyes, fighting the rush of feeling, trying to tamp it down again into the familiar, cold darkness. This had always been the choice. He had known that from the beginning, and somehow, he admitted, it was even fitting that it would be played out this way. At least he would remember exactly what he was dying for.

  Deliberately he turned his blurring vision away from the child who had tried so hard to make some connection with the empty, embittered man he had become. Josh couldn’t know that the connection had always been there, from the very beginning. From the first moment he had looked into those same dark eyes that had haunted his dreams for four years. Like the child she had so desperately wanted. The child he hadn’t been able to give her. His son.

  And with that word, the images of Becki Travers invaded, destroying again with the memory of her sweetness the familiar ghosts. His son. That, too, might have become reality had he not been who and what he was—Deke Summers, with all the blood on his soul that must now, finally, be paid for.

  The others had reached the van. Only Mike was still outside, standing as he had been instructed by the opened door, waiting for the small figure to walk across the clearing and back to the familiar safety of home. A simple journey that was light years beyond the reach of the man who was standing now in the elongated shadows of the surrounding rocks. Also waiting for Josh to begin the journey which would end his.

  The others had moved away so that the two stood alone before the tent. Just the boy and the commander. Almost unconsciously the militia leader put his hand on the raven silk of Josh’s head. At the touch, Josh glanced up again, and then his gaze moved to find whatever the man standing beside him was looking at so intently across the clearing.

  Josh’s recognition was instantaneous, the connection as strong as always. Without his conscious volition, Deke Summers’s hard mouth tilted upward in response to the joyful smile that had lit the small countenance.

  The man beside the child said something. Josh looked up at his captor, and then again, almost regretfully now, at Deke. He took a hesitant step toward the van and knowing that was his signal, Deke began to cross the desolate expanse that separated him from the men who had hunted him so long.

  He walked slowly, head up, his arms held high in the air, right one gripping the handgun he had never intended to use. He didn’t look at the men who were waiting for him, who had been waiting a long time for this day. Instead, the blue eyes watched the child who trudged toward his uncle, small reluctant feet kicking up dust with each step.

  They were about halfway toward their respective goals when the boy, perhaps far enough away from his captors to feel some sense of freedom, turned and began to run toward the tall, blond man who was advancing steadily toward the central tent.

  Deke was aware of every movement. It all was happening in slow motion and yet far too quickly, everything spinning suddenly out of control. The powerful guns beginning to focus on the small figure running in the wrong direction. The armed men reacting with fear, with a need to protect themselves from the unexpected. And that was what Deke was afraid of. Just as before. Frightened men reacting without thought that this was only a child. No threat to them. No threat to anyone.

  Distantly, in the soundless vacuum of horror that had suddenly surrounded him, Deke heard Mike shouting, calling the boy’s name, urging him to complete the proscribed journey to the van, but those pleas were in vain. Josh, perhaps terrified by the resulting c
lamor around him, continued to run toward the man he had chosen, the man who somehow now represented safety and home. But this was not what was supposed to happen, and the guns continued to track.

  Not again, Deke thought. Please God, not again. The child was moving very quickly, but Deke could see all the details, vividly illuminated by his own terror. The spurts of dirt, shooting up and then falling behind the small, scuffed sneakers. Shining black hair flying back from the smooth oval of his face. Dark eyes too wide. Frightened.

  “No,” Deke shouted, not sure to whom the command was addressed. It had no effect on the panicked boy. No effect on what was happening. No more, he prayed again. Please, God, no more.

  Deke threw the gun away, holding his empty hands higher, palms toward the militiamen, fingers spread wide, hoping they would see the gesture and realize that even with the boy beside him, the last remaining hostage, he presented no danger to them. He was the sacrifice, a willing one. Not the child. No more broken and bloodied bodies.

  Josh was almost there, almost to him, and Deke found himself waiting helplessly for the shots. He knew he would see their impact on the fragile body, jerking with the force of the bullets long before he would hear the noise. And he waited still, silhouetted against the backdrop of the red rocks, knowing that any movement from him would surely precipitate the deadly fusillade that would catch the running child between them. He forced himself not to move, hands held high as two small arms wrapped around his thigh. Wrapped and held. A small face pressed sobbing against his leg.

  Deke’s eyes met those of the man who had mercifully not given the order to shoot. The man who had held their lives in his hands and who had chosen not to react to the boy’s unexpected divergence from their agreement.

  “Please,” Deke said simply. He waited a long time. The clearing was absolutely silent except for the muffled crying of the child.

  Finally the man nodded. “Hold your fire,” he ordered.

  There was an infinitesimal relaxation in the tension that had built unbearably since Josh had broken course. Slowly Deke allowed his right hand to move downward, still spread, still open and unthreatening. When it was level with the small head, he cupped it around the back of the child’s skull, feeling the baby-fine hair under the callused roughness of his palm.

  “It’s okay,” he promised softly.

  The clutching fingers released their frantic grip on Deke’s jeans. Eventually, the boy’s face was raised, the tracks of his tears marked poignantly on the ashen, dust-smudged cheeks.

  The smile that touched Deke Summers’s mouth was the same one he had given Becki in the shower. For the first time it was full of welcome for the boy he had held, always, at arms’ length, any affirmation of what he felt for him unallowed. Until today. Today it was all there in his eyes. All the love and acceptance that Josh had once hoped for.

  With the unquestioning forgiveness of childhood, the little boy’s mouth quivered into an answering grin.

  “It’s okay,” Deke said again, moving his hand to ruffle the dark hair. “Everything will be okay.”

  Too young to question the existence of miracles, Josh raised his arms in silent entreaty to the man he had worshiped from afar. Deke’s eyes moved to the silent watcher and again the thin lips tilted in sardonic amusement, but he nodded. Permission granted.

  Deke Summers bent and carefully enclosed the body of the child, lifting him. Josh’s arms tightened around his neck, and his face found, naturally somehow, the protective niche between Deke’s neck and wide, strong shoulder. The blue eyes closed, as Deke fought the urge to squeeze too tightly. To try to hold on to the trusting body of the little boy who wanted to be held. But there was only here. Only now. Too brief.

  “You can’t stay with me, Josh. You have to go with your uncles,” he said finally, explaining the unexplainable. “Your mom’s waiting for you.”

  “Mom?” Josh said, raising his head to authenticate from his hero’s face the accuracy of that surprising information.

  “In town.”

  “And you’ll come later?” Josh asked. His gaze moved back and forth between the blue eyes and the half-healed gash on Deke’s neck, his small, grubby fingers gently touching the cut, worrying.

  “As soon as I can,” Deke said. “But you have to go now. For me, Josh. When I put you down, you have to go straight to your Uncle Mike. No turning back this time. Do you understand?”

  The dark eyes held a moment, sensing something behind the calm instructions. As sensitive as his mother. And just as strong, Deke prayed. “Will you do that for me?”

  Josh nodded, and then the thin arms locked suddenly again around Deke’s neck. The smooth cheek was against the stubbled roughness of the man’s, and then the little boy turned his head, soft lips finding the rigidly held corner of Deke Summers’s mouth.

  Deke bent, forcing his mind away from all the might-have-beens and put the child carefully back on the ground.

  “Go on now,” Deke whispered, and again Josh nodded.

  “You’ll come as soon as you can?”

  “As soon as I can,” Deke said.

  The boy turned away, and Deke straightened to stand upright again. They all watched, still unmoving, as the child crossed the glare of hot sand. When he reached the van, his uncle bent and scooped him up. Mike’s eyes, dark and too reminiscent of his sister’s, met the serenely calm gaze of the man who stood alone at the edge of the clearing. He nodded and saw the small reactive movement at the corners of Summers’s mouth.

  Then as Mike climbed into the passenger seat of the waiting van, Deke began to move forward again, to finally complete the journey he had always known was inevitable.

  THE CARAVAN OF PATROL cars met the van only a few miles out of town. Becki’s shout when she saw the familiar vehicle startled the sheriff, but he reacted far more quickly than she would have expected, given the agonizing slowness she had felt his response to be when he’d first heard her story.

  She jumped out, almost before the car had rolled to a stop and was enfolded again in the arms of her family. She couldn’t stop hugging Josh, and she couldn’t seem to stop crying. Despite her relief that her brothers and the children were safe, the reunion was brief because the thought of finding Deke was now paramount.

  She walked quickly back to the waiting lawmen, her arm still tight around Josh’s shoulders because she couldn’t bear to let him go. Her hurried recitation of Mike’s story sounded garbled even to her own ears. Apparently, however, it was coherent enough, because it was only seconds later that the cars, sirens screaming and lights flashing now that there was no need for caution, roared again down the two-lane road that led to the training camp, followed closely by the van.

  There was no one there. The tents were still standing, but the vehicles had disappeared, as had the disciplined men who had stood such diligent guard over their hostages. The terrain stretched barren and lifeless as far as the eye could see.

  Becki said nothing, hoping, as she watched the deputies’ careful examination of the site. It seemed to take them an eternity, and finally the sheriff returned to where the small, subdued group stood waiting, even the children responding to the return to the camp with unnatural restraint.

  “Ms. Travers, I’m sorry, but it appears we’re too late,” the sheriff said. He pushed the sweat-stained Stetson hat back away from his forehead, his fleshy face perspiring in the desert heat.

  “They have to be close. There hasn’t been enough time for them to get very far. Someone will know where they’ve taken him,” she argued. She wanted them to do something. Anything. Anything besides stand around and look uncomfortable, eyes meeting and then sliding away from the knowledge they believed she wouldn’t understand, didn’t know.

  “With all-terrain vehicles they could have gone anywhere. They’d be able to avoid the roads, and that means there’s a hundred different directions they could go. They could have split up. And there ain’t no way to track them in this kind of country. I can put out an APB, but ev
entually they’re either going to hole up somewhere or change vehicles. If only half of what you’ve told me about their organization is true…” He didn’t complete the opinion, but he didn’t have to. The small shrug of his shoulders was indication enough of what he believed.

  “Get some helicopters,” she ordered, feeling her frustration build with his dispassionate appraisal. “Call the state or the military or somebody. Get some help, damn it. Do something. A man’s life is at stake.”

  “I can request help ’til I’m blue in the face. That don’t mean I’m going to get it in time to do any good.”

  “You won’t know until you ask,” she argued.

  “I intend to ask, but without some kind of idea about their destination—”

  “The locals,” she demanded. “Somebody here knows something. Contact the local minutemen or militia or whatever the hell they call themselves here. Somebody knows where they’ve taken Deke Summers.”

  His eyes met those of his deputy again, and his lips pursed slightly. “You may be right, Ms. Travers, but that don’t mean they’re going to tell us anything.”

  “And the locals weren’t involved in this,” the deputy added.

  “How do you know that?” she asked, dark eyes flashing to his, cold with her sudden suspicion. His gaze shifted away.

  “You’re involved with them,” she accused.

  “No, ma’am. Not in what happened here today, but I know the people that built this camp, and I can tell you that nobody local was involved in what went on out here. This was an operation run by outsiders. They came for just one reason, and I guess you know what that was.”

  “And now they’re gone,” she suggested bitterly, “and that’s it?”

  “Yes, ma’am. They’re gone,” he repeated.

  “And you don’t intend to do anything? You don’t even intend to look for them?” she asked, turning back to the sheriff.

  “I told you I’ll put out an APB. That’s our best shot. We’ll hope somebody will notice something suspicious. But as for roaming through this country looking for a couple of needles in this particular haystack, then no, ma’am, I ain’t. I don’t have the manpower. I’ll inform the state and if they want to mount a search…” Again the sentence drifted, incomplete.