Covet fa-1

by J. R. Ward

  The dog appeared a moment later, peeking out from behind a stack of felled trees that were due for removal. The thing was the size of a small terrier and had a coat that looked like mottled steel wool. One ear was flopped over and it had some kind of scar on its muzzle.

  Jim lowered his Coke bottle as the two of them locked stares.

  Damn animal was frightened and using the grizzled stumps as cover because they were far, far larger than he was, but he was also starved: Going by the way that little black nose was sniffing the breeze, clearly the smell of the turkey was calling him.

  The dog took a tentative step out. And then another. And another.

  It walked with a limp.

  Jim reached to the side slowly, putting his hand on the sandwich. Popping off the top of the roll, he pushed aside the languid lettuce and the Styrofoam tomato, and picked up a slice of turkey.

  Leaning down, he extended the meat. “Don't taste like much, but it won't kill you. Promise.”

  The dog circled, closing in with that gimpy front paw, the spring wind lifting its wiry coat and showing sharp ribs. The thing had its head extended as far as the neck would allow, and its back legs were trembling as if they were ready to leap into a retreat at any second. Hunger, however, pushed it to go where it didn't want to be.

  Jim stayed still and let the animal inch closer to him.

  “Come on, son,” Jim said roughly. “You need this.”

  Up close, the dog looked exhausted, and when it took the turkey it was with a swift snap and a back-away. Jim got another piece ready, and this time the animal came more quickly and didn't move away so fast. The third piece was accepted with a delicate mouth, as if the animal's innate nature were not what its experiences had turned it into.

  Jim fed the thing the roll, too. “That's it.”

  The dog planted its butt in front of Jim, curling into a sit and tilting its head to one side. There were smart eyes on the thing. Smart, old, tired eyes. “I'm not a dog person.”

  Evidently, the dog didn't understand English. In a leap that was surprisingly graceful, it propelled itself up into Jim's lap.

  “What the…” Jim lifted his arms out of the way and stared down. “Jesus, you don't weigh much.”

  Duh. Probably hadn't eaten in days.

  Jim put a tentative hand on its back. Christ. All he felt was bones.

  The whistle blown meant lunch was over, so Jim gave the dog one stroke before putting it back on the ground. “Sorry…like I said, not a dog person.”

  He grabbed his tool belt out of the cab and strapped it back on as he walked away. The look over his shoulder was a bad idea.

  Shit, the dog was under the truck, behind the back tire, and those old eyes were on Jim.

  “I don't do pets,” Jim called out as he went off.

  The purring sound of a car approaching rolled across the job site, and when the men who were lined up on the lip of the house looked over, their expressions fell into a collective fuck-me—which meant Jim didn't have to pull another over-the-shoulder to know exactly who it was.

  The general contractor/owner/pain in the ass was here again.

  Son of a bitch showed up at all different times of the day, like he didn't want to set a schedule the crew could depend on so his spot inspections would be more accurate. And it so didn't take a genius to figure out what he was looking for: lax workers, sloppy construction, mistakes, theft. Made you feel like you were dishonest and lazy even if you weren't, and for a lot of the guys that was an insult they were willing to let pass only because they were always paid on time on Friday.

  Jim stepped up his pace as the BMW M6 pulled up right next to him. He didn't look at the car or the driver: He always stayed out of the guy's way, not because he had anything to apologize for in terms of performance, but because he was a grunt, pure and simple: When the general came to inspect the troops, the chain of command mandated that the asshole was Chuck the foreman's problem, not Jim's.

  Thank you, Jesus.

  Jim hopped up onto the flooring, and headed back over to where he'd been working. Eddie, ever ready to pitch in, followed and so did Adrian. “Holy…shit.”

  “Okay…wow.”

  “Madre de Dios…”

  The comments bubbling up from the workers made Jim glance back.

  Oh, hell, no…talk about your fuck-me-and-a-halfs: A stunningly beautiful brunette was stepping out of the car with the grace of a flag unfurling in a calm breeze.

  Jim squeezed his eyes shut. And saw her in the cab of his truck, stretched out with her perfect breasts bare to his mouth.

  “Now, that is a helluva woman,” one of the workers said.

  Man, there were times in life when disappearing was a great idea. Not because you were a pussy, but because you really didn't need the hassle of dealing. This was one of them. And then some.

  “Well, shit, Jim…” Adrian dragged a hand through his thick hair. “That's…”

  Yeah, he knew. “Got nothing to do with me. Eddie—you ready with that board?”

  As Jim went to turn away, the brunette looked up and their eyes met. Her lovely face flickered with recognition, just as her man walked over to her and wrapped his arm around her waist.

  Jim took a step back without looking where he was going.

  It happened in an instant. Faster than the strike of a match. Quicker than a gasp.

  The heel of Jim's boot landed on a piece of two-by-four that was lying across an extension cord and gravity took hold of his body, sweeping him off balance. As he fell, he split the cord from its joining with another, and sent the live end popping free and flipping into one of the puddles.

  Jim hit the flooring in a loose sprawl of limbs…which ordinarily would have just left him with some bruises on his ass and his shoulders.

  But his bare hand landed in the water.

  The electrical shock blared up his arm and slammed directly into his heart. As his spine jacked for the sky and his teeth locked together, his eyes flew wide and his hearing shorted out, the world receding until all he knew was the wild, consuming pain in his body.

  The last image he had was of Eddie's long braid swinging wide as the guy lunged forward to help.

  Vin didn't see the guy fall. But he heard the hard landing of a big body and then the scramble of boots and the shouted curses as people ran over from all directions. “Stay here,” he told Devina as he took out his cell phone.

  He punched in 911 as he rushed toward the commotion, but didn't hit send yet. Jumping up onto the floorboards, he jogged over—

  His thumb hit a button and the call was made.

  The workman on the ground had eyes that were fixed and unseeing on the bright blue sky overhead, and his limbs were stiff as a corpse's. The live extension cord remained in the puddle, but the man's spasms had carried him away from the source of the deadly charge.

  Vin's ring was answered. “Nine-one-one, what kind of emergency is this?”

  “A man's been electrocuted.” Vin dropped the phone from his mouth. “Turn off the fucking generators!” Lifting the cell back up, he said, “Job site address is Seventy-seven Rural Route one-fifty-one N. He appears to be unconscious.”

  “Is someone administering CPR?”

  “They will be right now.” Vin handed the phone off to Chuck the foreman and pulled guys out of the way.

  Dropping to his knees, he yanked the workman's jacket open and put his head down on a muscled chest. No heartbeat and a hover over the mouth revealed no breathing, either.

  Vin yanked the guy's head back, did an airway check, pinched the nose, and blew two breaths deep into those frozen lungs. Moving to the chest, he linked his hands together, positioned his palms over the guy's heart, and stiff-armed ten compressions. Two more breaths. Thirty more compressions. Two more breaths. Thirty more compressions. Two more breaths…

  The color in the guy's face wasn't good and only got worse.

  The ambulance took about fifteen minutes to come, although not because they wer
en't hauling ass. Caldwell was nearly ten miles away, and that was the kind of geography no amount of pedal-to-the-metal was going to improve. The second they arrived, the EMTs didn't waste any time getting up into the house, and they took over from Vin, doing a vital statistics check before one continued what Vin had started and the other went racing back for the gurney.

  “Is he alive?” Vin asked when the workman was lifted from the floor.

  He didn't get an answer because the medics were moving too fast—which maybe was a good sign. “Where are you taking him?” Vin said as he hopped off the foundation and hustled along with them.

  “St. Francis. You got a name, age, anything on his medical history?”

  “Chuck! Get over here—we need information.”

  The foreman ran up. “Jim Heron. I don't know much more than that. Lives alone down on Pershing Lane.”

  “You got an emergency contact?”

  “No, he's not married or anything.”

  “I'm the contact,” Vin said, taking out a card and giving it to the medic.

  “Are you kin?”

  “I'm his boss and all you've got at the moment.”

  “Okay, someone from St. Francis will be in touch.” The medic disappeared Vin's info into his jacket and the workman was shoved into the ambulance. A split second later, the double doors were shut, and the vehicle took off with lights and sirens going.

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  Vin looked back at Devina. Her dark eyes were glossy with unshed tears and her hands were up around the collar of her fur coat, as if in spite of all the white mink she was freezing cold.

  “I don't know.” He went over and loosely took her arm. “Chuck, I'll be right back. I'm going to take her home first.”

  “You do that.” Chuck took his hard hat off and shook his head. “Damn it. Damn it to hell. He was one of the good ones.”

  Chapter 5

  “Nigel, you are a sod.”

  Jim frowned in the darkness that surrounded him. The English voice came from over on the right, and the immediate temptation was to open his eyes, lift his head, and see what was doing.

  Training overrode the impulse. Thanks to being in the military, he'd learned that when you came to and didn't know where you were, it was better to possum it until you had some intel.

  Moving imperceptibly, he flattened his hands out and felt around. He was on something soft, but it was springy, like a deep-napped rug or…grass?

  Inhaling deep, his nose confirmed his palms' observation. Shit, fresh grass?

  In a rush, his accident at the job site came back to him—except, what the hell? Last thing he knew he'd had one hundred and twenty volts of electricity sizzling through his body—so it seemed logical to assume that if he could still string two thoughts together he must be alive and therefore in a hospital. Except as far as he knew, hospital beds were not covered in…sod.

  And in the States most nurses and doctors didn't sound like British lords or call each other lawns.

  Jim opened his eyes. The sky overhead was dappled with cotton-puff clouds, and though there was no sun to see, the glow was all summer Sunday—not just bright and stormless, but relaxing, as if there were nothing urgent to do, nothing to worry about.

  He looked over to the voices…and decided he was dead.

  In the shade of a castle's great stone walls, four guys with croquet mallets were standing around a bunch of wickets and colored balls. The quartet was dressed in whites, and one had a pipe and another a pair of round, rose-tinted glasses. The third had his hand on the head of an Irish wolfhound. Number four had his arms crossed over his chest and an expression like he was bored. Jim sat up. “Where the hell am I?”

  The blond who was lining up his shot glared over and talked around his pipe. Which made his accent even more high brow. “One moment, if you please.”

  “I say you keep talking,” his cross-armed, dark-haired buddy muttered—in the same dry voice that had woken Jim up. “He's cheating anyway.”

  “I knew you would come around,” Round Glasses chirped in Jim's direction. “I knew it! Welcome!”

  “Ah, you're awake,” the one next to the wolfhound chimed in. “How lovely to meet you.”

  Goddamn, they were all good-looking, with the no-care-in-the-world vibe that resulted from not just being rich, but coming from generations of wealth.

  “Are we done with the chatter, lads?” Pipe Guy, who was evidently named Nigel, looked around. “I should like some silence.”

  “Then why don't you stop telling us what to do?” the dark-haired one said.

  “Pop off, Colin.”

  With that, the pipe was shifted around to the other side of the mouth, the shot was taken with a crack, and a red-striped ball rolled through a pair of wickets and struck a blue one.

  The blond smiled like the prince he no doubt was. “Now it's time for tea.” He glanced over and met Jim's eyes. “Well, come on, then.”

  Dead. He was definitely dead and in Hell. Had to be it. Either that or this was some weird-ass dream because he'd passed out in front of the TV and there'd been a Four Weddings and a Funeral marathon on.

  Jim got to his feet as the lads and the wolfhound headed for a table set with silver and china, and without a lot of options, he followed them over to “tea.”

  “Won't you have a seat?” Nigel said, indicating the vacant chair.

  “I'll stand, thanks. What am I doing here?”

  “Tea?”

  “No. Who are—”

  “I am Nigel. This rather acerbic fool”—the blond nodded at the dark-haired guy—“is Colin. Byron is our resident optimist and Albert is the dog lover.”

  “I go by Bertie to friends,” Mr. Canine said as he stroked the wolfhound's ruff. “So, please, by all means. And this is the darling Tarquin.”

  Byron pushed his rose-colored roundies higher on his straight nose and clapped. “I just know this tea is going to be fabulous.”

  Sure it was. Absolutely.

  It's finally happened, Jim thought. I've finally lost my damn mind.

  Nigel picked up a silver pot and started pouring into porcelain cups. “I can imagine you are a bit surprised to be here, Jim.”

  Ya think? “How do you know my name, and what is this place?”

  “You've been chosen for an important mission.” Nigel put down the pot and hit the sugar cubes.

  “A mission?”

  “Yes.” Nigel lifted his tea with his pinkie extended, and as he looked over the rim, it was hard to pin down his eye color. It was neither blue nor gray nor green…but it wasn't brown or hazel either.

  Good God, it was a color Jim had never seen before. And all of them had it.

  “Jim Heron, you are going to save the world.”

  There was a long pause. During which the four lads looked at him with straight faces. When no one else started laughing, Jim picked up the slack, throwing back his head and belly-rolling it so hard, tears spiked into his eyes.

  “This is not a joke,” Nigel snapped.

  When Jim caught his breath, he said, “It sure the hell is. Man, what a fucked-up dream this is.” Nigel put his cup down, got to his feet, and walked over the bright green grass. Up close, he smelled like fresh air, and those weird eyes of his were positively hypnotic.

  “This. Is. Not. A. Dream.”

  The bastard punched Jim in the arm. Just balled up his smooth hand into a fist and fired the thing hard.

  “Fuck!” Jim rubbed the sting—which was considerable. Pipe Guy might have been built lean and long, but he packed a punch all right.

  “Permit me to repeat myself. You are not dreaming and this is not a joke.”

  “Can I hit him next?” Colin said with a lazy grin.

  “No, you have horrid aim and you might strike him somewhere delicate.” Nigel returned to his seat and took a small sandwich off a wheel of perfect little snackie-poos. “Jim Heron, you are the tiebreaker in the game, a man agreed upon by both sides to be on the field and
settle the score.”

  “Both sides? Tiebreaker? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You are going to have seven chances. Seven opportunities to influence your fellow man. If you perform as we believe you will, the outcomes shall save the souls in question and we shall prevail over the other side. As long as that win occurs, humanity will continue to thrive and all shall be well.”

  Jim opened his mouth to shoot off some shit, but the expressions of the lads stopped him. Even the smart-ass in the group was looking serious.

  “This has to be a dream.”

  No one got up to punch him again, but as they stared at him with such gravity, he began to get the creeping suspicion this might be something other than his subconscious talking while he was out cold.

  “This is very real,” Nigel said. “I realize it is not where you saw yourself going, but you have been chosen and that is the way of it.”

  “Assuming you're not full of shit, what if I say no?”

  “You won't.”

  “But what if I do.”

  Nigel looked out over the distance. “Then everything ends as it stands now. Neither good nor bad wins and we are all, including yourself, over. No Heaven, no Hell, all that has gone before wiped clean. The mystery and the miracle of creation over and done and dusted.”

  Jim thought back on his life…the choices he'd made, the things he'd done. “Sounds like a good plan to me.”

  “It isn't.” Colin drummed his fingers on the tablecloth. “Think about it, Jim. If nothing exists anymore, than all that went before was meaningless. So therefore your mother doesn't matter. Are you prepared to say that she is nothing? That her love for you, her darling son, is not valuable?”

  Jim exhaled as if he'd been hit again, the pain of his past ricocheting through his chest. He hadn't thought of his mother for years. Maybe decades. She was always with him, of course, the only warm spot in his cold heart, but he did not allow himself to think of her. Ever.