by Harley Tate
Could they make it across the street without being spotted? Only one way to find out.
He turned to Dani. “You go first. Run as fast and as quiet as you can across the street.” He pointed at the closed copy shop ahead. “Stop at the far end of the copy store, okay?”
She nodded, but from the way her shoulders almost touched her ears, he knew she was afraid.
“I’ll be right behind you. Go!”
Dani took off like a sprinter, dashing into the road. Colt raced behind her, eyes scanning in all directions. Halfway across the pavement, Dani stumbled, but she didn’t cry out. She picked herself up and kept going.
In seconds, they were across the street. Colt stopped bedside Dani and clutched the wall to catch his breath. “Good job.”
“I fell.”
“But you got back up.” He patted her on the back. “That’s what matters.”
Dani smiled and it warmed Colt in a way he didn’t expect. He was proud of her. As soon as the realization hit him, he shut it down. No getting attached. He couldn’t stay in Eugene, and Dani couldn’t leave. He’d promised to keep her safe, and he would. But as soon as he figured out what to do with her and her grandmother, Colt would be gone.
The remaining mile to the nursing home passed without incident. Other than a yowly tabby cat, they didn’t pass another soul on the road. Dani pointed out the low brown building and Colt nodded. “This is it.”
“Looks like a good place.”
“It is.”
“So how do we get in?”
Dani gave him the once over. “It’s going to be a tight fit.”
Five minutes later, they stood behind a row of bushes on the rear side of the facility. “There is no way I’m fitting through there.”
Dani ducked beneath the cut screen and shoved the window open. “I don’t know of another way in. Every door is locked and I don’t have a key.” She pushed it up as high as it would go before reaching for their bags. She dumped both onto the floor of the dark room and hoisted herself up and over.
Her feet landed with a thud on the other side and she stood up. “Do you want me to help pull you through?”
Colt rubbed his chin. “No. I’m going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.”
“What’s that?”
“Brute force. Stand back.”
As Dani stepped out of the way, Colt took a deep breath and jumped. His hands landed on the sill and he managed to catapult a third of the way into the window before his shoulders stuck. “Damn it.”
He wiggled his right arm, biting back a string of curse words as the metal dug into his skin, but after a moment, he pulled it free. With one arm on the inside of the window, he used his strength to push himself through the rest of the way.
Colt landed in a heap on the floor and the whole room shook.
Dani reached out her hand to help him up. “See? I knew you’d fit.”
Colt mumbled his disagreement. “Let’s go meet your gran.”
Chapter Ten
DANI
Sunnyvale Convalescent Hospital
Eugene, Oregon
7:00 p.m.
“Run me through why we’re stuck in this supply closet, again?”
Dani chewed on her lip while Colt expressed his distaste of her hide and lurk strategy. “Because if we get caught, the staff will kick us out.”
“I’m sure if I talk to someone, I can straighten it all out. The people who are still showing up to work have to be at the end of their rope. They would welcome some relief.”
Dani wasn’t about to tell him about her run-in with the staff the week the grid failed or how she’d barely escaped them calling the cops. The less he knew about her life, the better. She wished she hadn’t brought him to the nursing home at all.
But standing in her mom’s apartment, looking at it all with a stranger’s eyes…
She had never been more disgusted or ashamed. Why did she live like that? Why did she keep going back there when her mom didn’t give a damn about her? I would have been better off on the streets.
Dani shook the thoughts off. “They aren’t letting any visitors in. If a relative shows up, then the patient has to leave with them. I don’t…” She twisted the cuff of her sweatshirt sleeve around her fingers. “I don’t have anywhere to take Gran. She needs to stay here.”
Colt didn’t say anything. Did he regret rescuing her? Was he already looking for a way out? Dani didn’t know anymore whether she wanted him to leave or stay. He saved her and helped her find more food and get all the way back to the nursing home without getting caught.
But could she trust him? Could she trust anyone?
At last, he broke the silence and the tornado of her thoughts. “Next time, pick a bigger closet, okay? My knees are killing me.”
Dani ducked her head and smiled. “We can probably get there now. It’s dark enough to sneak around.”
Colt eased the door open and stuck his head into the hall. After confirming it stood empty, he let Dani take the lead. Dani didn’t know how her grandmother would react to a giant guy her mom’s age with a rifle slung over his shoulder, but what choice did she have?
Colt deserved to meet the woman Dani worked so hard to protect. She sneaked a glance behind her. His square head and short hair reminded her of an action hero. The huge shoulders and ability to disarm another man only added to it. She wanted to ask him a million questions. Was he a good guy? Bad? Did he save people or hurt them or was he just a dude with a gym in his garage and too much time on his hands?
Dani would have to leave the questions to Gran. She paused outside her door. Colt didn’t seem like the type to stick around, and he’d said as much, but Dani couldn’t help wondering. If he stuck around long enough, maybe he’d end up being a friend.
She pushed the door open and ushered Colt through. The room was darker than the hall with the blinds drawn and she couldn’t see her grandmother’s bed. “Gran? Are you awake?”
Her grandmother didn’t respond. Dani rushed up to the bed, leaning close enough to feel the older woman’s breath on her cheek. “Gran, wake up.” She gave her grandmother a gentle nudge in the shoulder.
“Are you all right?” Her grandmother whispered so faintly, Dani almost missed it.
“Yeah, of course I am.” Dani pulled back. “What’s with the whisper?”
Gran grabbed the edge of Dani’s sweatshirt in her bony fingers but kept her eyes shut, lips barely moving as she spoke again. “That man. Is he hurting you? Are you okay?”
It took Dani a moment before it all made sense. Oh. She laughed and her grandmother’s eyes shot open. “Gran, I’m fine.” She waved Colt over. “Colt, meet my gran.”
Colt stepped up to the bed and her grandmother eyed him with distrust. “Open the blinds so I can get a better look at him.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea? What about the orderlies?”
Gran waved her off. “They’re all gone for the day. We’re fine.”
Dani preferred to be cautious, but she wouldn’t argue with Gran. She opened the blinds as she talked. “I swear he’s not a bad guy. He saved me from a real creep of a soldier out on the road.”
As Dani turned back around, Gran flicked on a flashlight she kept beside her on the bed. “Gran! Everyone will see you!”
“Hush, Dani. If you’d come back before dinner, I wouldn’t need to use it. But now it’s dark and my old eyes can’t see. I need to get a good look at him.” The beam landed square on Colt’s face and he blinked. “Did you really help Danielle out there?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You didn’t kidnap my granddaughter? Force her to say these things?”
“Gran!”
“Hush, child. I want to hear him say it.”
Oh my God. Her grandmother was off her rocker. Interrogating a guy twice her size who carried multiple guns and knew how to use them? What did she think she would do? Blind him with that dollar store flashlight?
Colt shielded his eyes
with his hand. “Dani told you the truth, ma’am. I helped her out of a tough situation and promised to get her back here safely.”
Gran clicked the light off and Dani exhaled in relief. Anyone could have seen it from outside. What if an orderly already called the authorities? Dani watched out the window, fidgeting with her zipper while Gran adjusted the pillows behind her back. At least the interrogation was over.
Her grandmother cleared her throat. Oh, no.
“You’re awful old to have an interest in Danielle. You aren’t one of those creepy old men who likes little kids, are you?”
Dani’s cheeks burned bright red. She focused on the window and refused to turn around. At least then they wouldn’t see her face.
“No, ma’am. I prefer grown women for that sort of thing.”
Dani almost choked on her own spit.
“Good. You can call me Dorris.”
Dani turned just enough to watch Colt stick out his giant hand and give her grandmother’s a quick shake.
“Thank you for rescuing Danielle.”
“You’re welcome.”
Maybe now they could all relax.
“So what’s with the rifle? Are you a hunter?”
Dani groaned. Her grandmother was going to run Colt off before he’d even sat down. “Gran, enough already.”
Colt glanced her way, an unreadable expression on his face. He slipped the rifle off his shoulder and leaned it against the wall. “A soldier didn’t need it. That’s all.”
“So you’re a thief!” Gran scooted up on the bed and reached for Dani. “You go out there and get someone to take this man—”
“No!” She hated to shout, but this had all gone on long enough. “Gran, it’s not like that. He took it from the guy who caught me. If Colt didn’t, we wouldn’t have been safe.”
Her grandmother frowned, eyeing Colt from behind her wrinkled brow. “Is that true?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Gran’s accusation didn’t seem to faze him at all. If anything, he looked amused. “To be honest, I’m more of a pistol man, myself. Never did like the M-4. Always thought it too big and hard to maneuver.”
Gran eased back against her pillows. “Military, then?”
“Former Navy SEAL, ma’am. I was career until I almost lost my leg in a helo crash.”
“And now?”
He scratched at his beard. “Now I’m an air marshal… Or at least I was until the planes stopped flying.”
Dani turned to stare at Colt. She knew her eyes had to be round as saucers, but she couldn’t help it. A Navy SEAL? No wonder the man knew how to hide and fight and get out of a jam. She shifted her weight back and forth on the balls of her feet while her grandmother peppered Colt with more questions. Where he came from, what the streets were like out there, what he knew about the power loss.
His answer stopped her cold.
“What’s an EMP?”
He glanced up. “An electromagnetic pulse. I’m not a scientist, but I think it’s like a really big wave of energy. It flowed through the power grid and fried it. Nothing’s coming back on.”
“That’s crazy. The power companies have to know how to fix it.”
Colt pinched the back of his neck. “According to the people I talked to, it’s not fixable. Not for a long time.”
Dani shook her head. “What’s that mean? Weeks? Months?”
“Years. Maybe not ever.”
She leaned back against the wall. “This is it? This is how we have to live now?”
Colt nodded.
Her grandmother spoke back up, asking more questions about the power and the army and what Colt thought about Eugene. Their whole conversation passed Dani by in a blur. All she could think about was life before the power went out.
At last, her grandmother turned to her with a smile. “All right. He passes.”
Dani didn’t even know what to say.
Gran smiled and reached out to pat her face. “Don’t worry, dear. I’m just doing my job. What kind of grandmother would I be if I didn’t make sure the man you brought home wasn’t out to rob us or worse?”
“Not a very good one, that’s for sure.” Colt smiled. “It’s all right, Dani. I’m glad to see your grandmother cares. After seeing where you live…”
Gran stilled and glanced at Dani. Heck. She’d hoped to keep that little visit a secret. She braced herself for Gran’s reaction. “I took him to Mom’s place.”
“Danielle!”
“I didn’t know if I could trust him and I… I wanted to see if she ever came home.”
Her grandmother shook her head. “I never should have let them send you back to that woman.”
“You were sick. You didn’t have a choice.”
“I take it you and your daughter weren’t on the best terms?”
Gran practically spat out her tongue. “That woman is not my daughter. She’s Danielle’s mother. Married my son, had Danielle, and a year later Ricky died at the factory in a horrible accident.”
She reached for a tissue and held it up to her lips. “We couldn’t even have an open casket. But that woman… She blew through the insurance money like it grew on a tree in the backyard… Shacked up with I don’t know how many men… Got hooked on those drugs and then—”
“Gran, that’s enough.” Dani hated it when her grandmother went on a tear about her mom, but to have Colt stand there like a ghost and listen to the whole thing… She shook her head. “You know she didn’t get addicted on purpose. She hurt her back. The pain pills the doctor gave her were too much. She couldn’t get off them. When he stopped writing her the prescription… that’s when everything went downhill.”
“Hmph. That’s what her lawyer said, but I don’t believe it.”
“I do.” Dani reached for her grandmother’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “She wouldn’t have let things get so bad if she hadn’t taken those pills, Gran. I know it.”
Her grandmother exhaled. “You were a little girl, Dani. You didn’t see the whole picture.”
“I saw enough.” Dani pulled away from her grandmother and bent to open her backpack. She held out Colt’s two shopping bags without looking up and he took them from her hands.
Bringing Colt to visit Gran had been a mistake. Now she’d poisoned him against her mother and told secrets she had no right to tell. Dani kept her head down as her grandmother’s tirade rattled around in her head like marbles in a tin can.
She needed some air. “I’m going to check out the floor. See if anyone’s still on shift.”
“Danielle, are you sure that’s a good idea?”
She stood up and brushed off Gran’s concern. “Yeah. I’m sure. I’ll be back in a while. There’s some food in the backpack.”
Colt spoke up. “I’ll make sure she eats.”
“Thanks.” Dani rushed out of the room before either of them could see her cry.
Chapter Eleven
COLT
Sunnyvale Convalescent Hospital
Eugene, Oregon
7:30 p.m.
Colt pulled up a chair next to the old woman’s bed and sat down. His feet ached from a day on the hot asphalt and his back cramped up from the tumble in from the too-small window, but the company pleasantly surprised him.
After grilling him a bit harder once Dani left the room, her grandmother seemed to accept he wasn’t interested in anything more than helping the pair of them for a little while. He slipped his hands behind his head and leaned back.
“What was Dani’s father like?”
Dorris smiled at the memory. “A good man. My son worked fourteen-hour days to take care of that little baby.” Her smile faded as she glanced at Colt. “He never should have married Becky. That woman was trouble from the start.”
“Dani’s mom?”
Dorris nodded. “All she ever saw in him was a meal ticket. A good factory job, health care. That’s all my Ricky was to her. If she hadn’t gotten pregnant, I’d have been able to talk some sense into him.”
Colt b
it back a smile. Mothers never approved of the people their kids dated, but it sounded like Dorris might have been right this time. “Dani said she hurt her back?”
“A few months after Ricky died, Becky was in a nasty car accident. A postal service van ran a red light and T-boned her. Wrapped the little Honda around a telephone pole.”
“Sounds like she was lucky to be alive.”
Dorris snorted. “Would have been better if she died. It took me three years to get that baby away from her. Three years of pills then pot then meth. Every man she brought home was worse than the last. The one she was with when everything went to hell, Lord have mercy, I thought he was gonna kill her and Dani too.”
Colt knew guys in the service who couldn’t get off their pain pills. Doctors were willing to write anyone a prescription these days for a narcotic. Thirty days on oxy and good luck trying to kick the habit. He’d seen it so many times that Colt vowed never to touch the stuff. He didn’t even take aspirin anymore.
Part of him didn’t want to drag painful memories out of Dorris, but he needed to know what he was getting into. Assessing risk was the only way to stay alive when the world went to shit. “What happened to the last guy?”
“He had Becky all strung out, begging for another hit. She tried to—” Dorris coughed, choking on her own words, and Colt rose up to stand. She waved him off with a crumpled tissue in her hand. “When he wouldn’t give her any more drugs, Becky tried to sell Dani to him, but he said she was too young. That he needed her at least seven.” Dorris trembled on the bed and the sheets rustled around her. “Seven.”
Colt hung his head. He’d seen some terrible things in his years of active duty, but kids like Dani always got to him. “What did she do?”
“Becky stole. Got caught trying to rob a convenience store. She had a knife, no gun, but they charged her with armed robbery. She didn’t get out until Dani was ten and by then, she’d been living with me for so long, that the court let her stay. If I hadn’t gotten sick…”