I popped up from where I’d been pillowing my head on his chest. “I’d never do that without telling you, Caleb. I swear. Or without making arrangements about the shop, or without taking Scott’s wedding under consideration. Did Scott . . .” Of course it had been Scott who put that ridiculous idea in his head. Who else? “That idiot!”
“I should’ve known better,” Caleb said wryly
“Was it the scope?” I asked, after I’d calmed. “I dreamed of you, and in the dream, I saw you take it away.”
He nodded. “I felt power stirring inside the pieces. At the time, though, I was still thinking there must be a gun. I wasted days until finally I found a way to use the Bausch & Lomb. I surely do wish you’d been able to talk to me in that dream, sweetheart. Things have been a little wearing lately. I think you’d probably better give me the scoop on this business here before I mess things up good.”
The fact of the matter is, nothing could deter him from hearing every detail of my time in this place or from swearing vengeance on the man who’d cut me. Almost as bad was explaining to him that his priorities were misplaced.
“Hmm,” he said, putting a finger under my chin and tilting my head back so he could watch my face. “By reading between the lines, I’m given to understand this particular problem already has a permanent solution.”
My chin moved against his finger as I dipped my head and mumbled, “Yes.”
“Your new friend help you out?” I think he knew better, even as he asked.
I had the most sickening lurch in the pit of my stomach, wondering if he ever had inner doubts about a woman who could take another human being’s life. He was almost a physician, for heaven’s sake. His job was to save lives. But he’d been a soldier, too, and knew what it took to survive.
Anyway, I couldn’t lie. “No need. I can take care of myself, Caleb. You should know that.”
He moved under me, but only to draw me closer. His hand left my face, and ran down my back instead. I shivered with the pleasure of his touch.
I never forgot that he’d once been a soldier. He’d learned his trade on the battlefields of Afghanistan and become a medic to help counteract a part of the pain he found there. And he’d known from the get-go that I was a warrior, too, and not one to stand idle while being made into a victim. Or one to stand aside and watch injustice done to anyone else for that matter.
The funny thing is, in my own time, I’d never been forced into an act of violence, or been made to defend myself or my honor. Although the media constantly yammered about the dangers surrounding us, I’d never been threatened. Or not, at least, until Teagun Dill showed up and brought me into the future.
“Dimmer,” I said to the lights. “Dimmer, dimmer,” until the room was dark. “We should rest. Sleep if we can.”
Together, we stared into the blackest corners of the room. Into a darkness that lasted all of five minutes.
“Brighter,” Caleb said. “Brighter.” The lights notched up, until his face became more than a shadowy ghost mask. His finger touched my pulse. “Sleep? I don’t think so, sugar. Your heart’s going like trip hammer. How you going to sleep with that? I can think of other things to do that might quiet it down a notch.”
I don’t know as my heart ever slowed down, but one thing I can say. We tried everything he could think of.
CHAPTER 20
“Deane Digital Dio...what?” Caleb almost choked on his amusement. Daybreak was a vague lightening of the eastern sky before he remembered to ask about this idiotic bit of storytelling.
“Diorama.” I felt like a fool, trying to explain to him.
“What the hell is a diorama? Or is there any such thing?”
Feeling a tad grumpy in these wee hours of the morning, I scowled at him. “I don’t know. The stupid word seemed familiar in a context that made sense at the time. I was a little petrified right at that moment, okay? I said the first thing that came into my head. Anyway, why worry? If you’ve never heard of a diorama, it’s a cinch none of these people have.”
“Honey, I’m not worried. You are. I think it’s funny.”
In truth, he didn’t look worried. And, if his eyes were heavy, the cause probably stemmed more from a few precious hours of lovemaking than from tossing and turning, unable to sleep. I imagine I looked quite similar.
Maybe I was fretting, but those esoteric words had nothing to do with my mental state. That silly story had served a purpose. Time to let it drop, please.
I had the lights racked up on high, though not quite at mega-blast like yesterday. Petra had let me know this room had no surveillance equipment installed. It was the only room on the main floor free of such devices. Therein lay the reason she’d taken the gamble of assigning me this room. That, and the fact the safe, whose main door opened from Petra’s living quarters on the other side, also had access from this side. I hadn’t known about the dearth of surveillance yesterday which is why I’d taken all the precautions Teagun had told me about. Now I did know and I was still taking precautions.
What did lay heavy on my mind was that Caleb had no weapons. And no uniform which laid heavy on his.
“I don’t know, Boothenay. I’ve been on three of these escapades with you and two of those times I was a soldier. Feels kind of naked wearing civvies.”
“You should be more concerned with procuring a gun to protect yourself with than with the lack of a measly uniform jacket. Look at me. I always get stuck with someone’s cast-offs.”
“Sugar,” he said smoothly, “I am looking at you. And looking and looking.”
Believe it or not, I blushed. “Will you be serious?”
“I am serious. You’re worth looking at. Don’t you fret. When I need one, I’ll find a weapon. Guaranteed.”
He turned down both the Guardian and the LadySmith when I tried to force one or the other on him. Didn’t want to leave me short of protection, he said.
Bloody hell! He simply didn’t want to believe the type of people we were dealing with existed. That was the problem. I knew them, however. Teagun knew and Petra for damn sure knew. And because she did, I couldn’t think she’d begrudge Caleb the Defender if I took the scattergun from the hidey-hole and gave it to him
I reached under the desk, found the proper knot in the grain of wood, and drummed my fingers in the memorized cadence. The door popped open sweet as blackbirds in a pie.
“Now that’s interesting,” Caleb said, coming over to watch the activity.
I barely hesitated. Petra had the Beretta, her favorite gun according to Teagun. The dirty towel had concealed the pistol perfectly when I delivered it to her at the desk.
And the Glock. Mission accomplished there, too, with the Glock stuck in behind the loose stone at the waterfall edge in a place where Teagun knew to look. The only tough part in hiding that one had been when Duncan roughed me up. Oh, yeah. And when the stuff rolled out of my purse. I’d been positive one of them—most likely Adainette, knowing my luck—would see those things and have questions. I think she did see them, but if so, they hadn’t roused her curiosity to any great heights.
Praying I was doing the right thing, I drew out the Defender and handed it to Caleb.
“Take this.” It was an order, not a request.
A one-sided grin crooked his mouth and he held out his hand. “All right, all right, sweetheart, give me the damn gun. Anything to keep you from breaking out in a tizzy.”
If he’d only regard things in a more serious light, we’d both be happier. The discovery of a pocket fixed to the inside of his duster, of a perfect size to accommodate the shotgun, should have warned him.
PETRA DILL WAS STILL CHAINED to the desk when Caleb and I emerged from our room. Literally, I mean. Earlier she had been free to do her work, with only the manacle around her wrist to remind her of captivity. Now the fetter had a thin, two-foot chain running through the locking bar, and she was tethered to a staple driven deep into the counter. She must have been irked beyond tolerance, for as we watched,
she yanked fiercely at the chain until I feared she might break her fine-boned wrist in two.
Framing a face slack with weariness and tension, white-blond hair hung lank to her shoulders. But her eyes. Oh, her eyes were alive, alert, and ready. She waited, watching for her son to burst through those open front doors like the Lone Ranger and win back their home.
I couldn’t help thinking she would have been more comfortable about that scenario if Diego hadn’t still been alert at the doors, if a man did not still patrol the parking lot, and if Duncan, barely visible beyond the post railing, hadn’t been prowling the upper hallway. I guarantee, I’d have felt better. And where, pray tell, had Adainette gone to ground? Her absence made me as nervous as her presence.
The outlaws must surely suspect the game was up. Whether because of the fire, or because of Caleb and me, or because one of them— Adainette, probably—could feel the expectant tension in the air, I wasn’t prepared to say.
Petra and I weren’t going to be able to speak of anything that mattered. She was busy with a lobby full of travelers clamoring to check in. As soon as Caleb and I neared the desk, Kirsten popped out of a tiny back room quick as a genie out of a lamp. She stuck with Petra like a Siamese twin, probably under orders to allow the captive woman no private speech with anyone, especially me. I wondered at the outlaw woman’s lack of perspicacity. Couldn’t she feel the tension vibrating through Petra Dill’s body? The tension was as invisible as electricity through a live wire, but under the right circumstances, just as lethal. Kirsten seemed oblivious.
“Breakfast is served in center court,” she said, before Petra could open her mouth. “Get in line.” It was an order.
She must have been taking lessons from Adainette Plover, I observed. She sounded so much like her.
Giving Caleb the once-over, Kirsten eyed him as though considering him for an appetizer at a banquet meal. He watched her in return, his expression blank. When he wears that face I can relax, because I know he’s on his guard. Still, I found her rudeness more than I could stomach, especially taken in conjunction with her predatory moves on my man. This was one crime I absolutely could not tolerate.
I pushed in front of Caleb, smiling with my lips peeled back as though to expose fangs. I could feel how ugly I must look. She stiffened, her coarse skin going a darker tone of angry red.
“What if I’m not hungry? Is there any law that says I have to eat?” The words came out sounding very mild, in spite of my quick temper. I came down hard on the word “law,” stressing the shades of meaning in the word. The emphasis wasn’t lost upon her.
“Could be your last chance,” she said. “For a good meal, I mean. Eat, then get out.”
“We’ll leave when we’re ready,” I challenged, chafing for an argument.
I glanced quickly at Petra. She was frowning, as if she didn’t quite understand and found the blazing antagonism sprung up between Kirsten and me suspect. Her chin dipped once, which I believed was a signal for us to do as Kirsten said for now.
Caleb’s hands came down on my shoulders, turning me away from the woman. “Come on, Boothenay. You may not be hungry, but I am. I sure could use a cup of that coffee I smell.”
Caught in the center, it seemed as if I had no choice but to give in. “Coffee?” I snorted. “Ersatz coffee. You’re lucky to get a smell. I’m warning you, don’t expect taste along with it.”
“Ah, sugar. There you go, busting my balloon again.” He took my arm, leading me toward the buffet table set up in the center of the huge lobby. He was getting awfully wise in the way he moved around me. He made sure my right hand, my gun hand, had freedom of movement.
I allowed that it was just as well to leave the desk to Petra. A number of guests were coming in, looking for a room for the day or paying for their breakfasts. Let the crowd clear out. Most of the diners were truckers who probably ate their meal inside, then slept in their rigs until night. They’d all be out of here soon.
The road, visible through the open doors, had already nearly emptied of traffic. In the east, the sky was turning a pearly, pinky white. Daybreak. Teagun had said he’d come at daybreak.
“But any coffee is better than no coffee, right?” I said, catching up with the ends of our conversation. I let myself be led, grousing all the way, to wait our turn in the line. “I expect a cup of that coffee will go down without actually poisoning anybody.”
“What’s going on, Boothenay?” Caleb bent to speak in my ear, not neglecting to plant a tiny kiss on my earlobe as he did so. That man has no problem with turning me on right in plain sight of everyone, even when I know it’s a cover-up, and even when we’re standing in the middle of a queue.
“Look outside. Daylight. Teagun will be here soon. I want to be where I can see him coming.”
“What happens when he does get here? How’s it going to be? Is he going to come in quiet or will he come in shooting?”
I mulled over what I knew of Teagun, trying to determine which way he’d jump. Absently, I selected a muffin, a spoonful of scrambled eggs—at least, I thought they were scrambled eggs—a container of orange juice, and a mug of the artificial coffee from the buffet. One part of me noted the offering was less than munificent, a sure sign that food either wasn’t as plentiful in the 22nd century, or that people had finally gotten smart enough not to stuff themselves.
“I don’t know what he’ll do,” I told Caleb at last, finding a place at a recently vacated table. I made sure there was a clear view of the front entrance. “So far, he’s taken care to plan every move. Look at the way he came back in time and got me. It was a clearly choreographed production.
“Only, the poor guy. I don’t think he quite bargained on me. Or that not everyone would perform according to his plan. He said he’d have preferred to work with a man, that he thought gunsmiths were men.
“But he’s down to the wire now. He knows if he doesn’t save his mom first try, she’ll never make it out in one piece. The Dills will lose everything, including their lives.” I happened to glance at him then, a move that distracted my attention from the tasteless scrambled eggs. “Oh! You hadn’t looked at things in quite that way, had you? But this isn’t a stage. These are real, living, breathing people. This is their life and they’re the reason we’re here.”
“I know that. Although I guess it hasn’t quite sunk in yet,” Caleb admitted. “I kind of lost sight of the stakes in this game. Busy thinking of the magic, I guess, and the screwy circumstances that get us involved.”
Game? He’d think differently, I knew, if it were his ankle throbbing and swelling until double its ordinary size or his jaw embellished with a glued-together knife cut. Or if he’d been the one kidnapped who had to spend the last three nights with a stranger. Or if he understood all too clearly, he was the one who’d never get home using his own meager resources. Oh, yeah. He’d remember the stakes then. And the reality of this life.
Caleb had a good grasp of the mechanical aspects of the magic. Getting there and getting back. He related well to the people he found in the other times. Too well. Memory of his budding affair with Irene Prafke in September of 1918 flitted through my mind.
The one thing he hadn’t dealt with was the emotion, the very thing that fueled a magic powerful enough to last through the ages. That found a way to find resolution—using us.
Well, he’d learn, one of these days. Provided he lived long enough.
“So,” I said finally, “your guess is as good as mine on which way Teagun is going to jump. I don’t know him well enough to judge. I just wish whatever he does, he’d do it soon. I’m beginning to feel like I have ants in my pants.”
He laughed, as I’d meant for him to do.
The dining room cleared finally, except for Caleb and me lingering over our bad coffee. The line at the desk dwindled. Petra wilted, growing more and more haggard as I watched, until she looked middle- aged and more. Diego patrolled restlessly at the door. The others seemed to have gone to ground.
Now
, I was thinking, wishfully projecting my request to Teagun. He should hit them now. What the hell was he waiting for?
THIS BEING a self-service kind of place, Caleb picked up our empty plates and cups when we finished eating and, unable to dawdle any longer, took them over to be disposed of in the recycling bin. It wasn’t far; only a few steps. I watched, enthralled with his easy grace, and the way he winked when he caught me looking.
I was still smiling when the touch of cold steel clamped over my wrist. A shriek ripped from my throat as I leapt to my feet. “Son of a bitch!” I had a sense of Caleb spinning, dropping the tray, reaching under his coat.
“Boothenay,” he yelled. The sawed-off Winchester Defender appeared in his hand as though magically impelled, but there was nothing he could do. Shoot the outlaw, and he’d shoot me, too.
I have fast reactions. Pure terror poured adrenaline into my system and made them faster. My arm jerked wildly under the pressure being exerted on it. Not away from the outlaw—Kirsten’s old boyfriend—but at him, my closed fist clubbing at the side of a skull hard as the basalt boulders outside the Crossroad Hotel. My arm went numb all the way to my elbow.
He bobbed aside, his hand losing purchase on my wrist, but as Idrew back for another try, he caught me again, wrenching my arm up and back with intentional cruelty. This time as he pressed on the manacle, the bolt slid home, catching a large chunk of my flesh in the latch. My skin was pierced. Warm blood seeped around the edges of the bolt. A series of faint shocks coursed through me. The steel bracelet emitted a sizzle and set up a mirage-like halo pulsing erratically around my wrist.
Momentarily paralyzed, I slumped back down into the chair. As though my bones had melted, I had no strength, no will. I was barely able to blink my eyelids. My wrist quit bleeding, cauterized by the manacle’s electronic fire.
Images crowded before my unfocused eyes. Terrified, the few remaining customers emptied the dining room like water tossed all at once from a bucket.
There was Kirsten, peering from the doorway of the little locker room behind the desk, then, as she saw Caleb’s shotgun, jumping back inside. She was punching frantically at a tiny black keypad as the door slammed shut behind her.
Crossroad (The Gunsmith Book 3) Page 23