by Dale Mayer
*
Hunter had never met anybody as prickly, as cantankerous, and as hard to get along with as Beth was. Did she really not sleep? He wondered about that because she had surely slept at Stefan’s before. But maybe that was because she was injured and so badly overwhelmed by everything. That was certainly possible, though it didn’t say a whole lot about her body’s ability to function if she couldn’t sleep because it also meant a lack of trust. But then she’d probably been sleeping with one eye open all this time, and that’s more likely what she meant.
He kept driving, ignoring his passenger, as he tried to remember the pathway from this road. He’d taken a different entrance, avoiding all the main routes to keep them a little bit hidden. He also had managed to make a couple contacts and to send a few texts before he left. One to Stefan to let him know what they were doing and another to a friend, hoping that the cabin would have heat and power by the time he got there, as well as a stash of weapons he could utilize. Not everybody did this same type of work, but Hunter had enough friends in the private sector that he could get what he needed, when he needed it.
Finally he took the turnoff onto the road he wanted and drove down the rough gravel for a good ten to fifteen minutes. He wasn’t at all surprised when he looked over to see her studying the area with interest. “The cabin’s up there.”
She didn’t say anything, but she did sit up and pull her jacket a little closer around her.
“It will be colder just because we’re at the lake, and the weather isn’t supposed to be all that great for the next few days,” he said.
She just nodded.
He frowned. “You don’t have to go out of your way to be cranky, you know?”
“I’m like this all the time.”
He shook his head and said, “Interesting way to get along with life.”
“I don’t plan on getting along with anybody,” she said. Then she looked at him and added, “You don’t have to stay at the cabin. You know that, right?”
He shrugged and said, “Let’s get you healed up, get your energy back to normal, and then see how you’re doing.”
“And you won’t hold me captive?”
“No,” he said, “I won’t hold you captive.”
She studied him intently, then turned and completely ignored him again.
He pulled up in front of the cabin, happy to see that lights were on at several other cabins around.
“There are neighbors?” she asked in alarm.
“A few, but they don’t know who you are. Remember?”
“But they could find out easily enough.”
“Maybe, and maybe they don’t care to. Not everybody knows or cares who you are.”
“And yet enough do,” she said, “and that, for me, is a problem.”
“Maybe it’s a problem, or maybe the problem is you being overly paranoid.”
“Maybe not,” she said, as she swung open the door and stepped out.
He watched her as she assessed the area. He saw the boundaries, the barriers going up, the energy probes going out, and recognized somebody who had been on the defensive for a long time. But something else was going on in there too, something he couldn’t quite understand. Energy went off in directions he couldn’t keep track of. He frowned at that but didn’t say anything and just kept watching.
Finally she turned to him and said, “Will you let me in?”
He raised an eyebrow and said, “Absolutely. After you, ma’am.”
Just enough sarcasm was in his voice that she glared at him. “I don’t have to stay here.”
“Nope, you sure don’t. You are more than welcome to go wherever you want.”
“What if I took your vehicle?”
“Well, I can’t say I’d be thrilled, but it’d be easy enough to get it back.”
“And how’s that?”
“Do you think I wouldn’t track it?”
She smiled and said, “Of course you would.” She walked up to the front of the cabin and waited for him to join her. He unlocked the front door and pushed it open. As she stepped inside, he heard her suck back the breath in her throat at the view that opened up, as soon as she stepped through. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
“It is, indeed,” he said. “This is where I plan to retire one day.”
“One day? Why not now?”
“Because I spend a lot of my time hunting.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” she said. “It doesn’t sound like that great of a pastime.”
“I’m helping people. Like Stefan helps others like us. What’s not to like?”
“Maybe,” she said.
He said, “Wow. You don’t even trust Stefan, much less me.”
She nodded.
“So you’ll never share information with us, based on that lack of trust, right?”
She remained silent, gave a one-arm shrug.
“And you’ll always be so cryptic?” She tried to hide her grin, and he burst out laughing at that. Suddenly he realized just how much of the problem was her inability to even recognize friend from foe and to relax in a circumstance that was well past what she was used to. He said, “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Well, you could have tried already, and we would have had this discussion with you pinned to the ground.”
He looked at her with interest. “Well, I’m glad to see you think you have some skills.”
“I do,” she said absentmindedly. “And, if you keep pushing, you’ll find out.”
“Well, I hope I don’t,” he said, “because it would mean that I attempt to get you under control.”
At the term control, she stiffened.
He cringed at his use of the term. “I didn’t mean it in that abusive way.”
She turned ever-so-slightly and looked at him, and he saw the huge black wells of pain on the inside. “Just in case you ever think you will use that term,” she said, “I can tell you, right now, that you won’t succeed.”
He held up his hands. “Sorry. Like I said, didn’t mean it that way.”
She studied him for a long moment and then nodded. “Good thing,” she whispered, “I wouldn’t want to have to kill you.”
With that, she turned and walked toward the windows, leaving him standing there in shock, staring after her.
Chapter 7
Beth didn’t know why she was being so difficult, except that she was still edgy. The farther away from Stefan’s place she got, the more nervous she became, and all she could do was not show it. Inside the grocery store she’d been one step away from bolting out to the parking lot, stealing the vehicle, and disappearing. She’d learned a few tricks in the last few years and had befriended a couple homeless guys. One had showed her how to boost cars, and another had taught her how to pick door locks. She was decent with both after many hours of practice, but it still wasn’t the same as being safe. Having skills helped; it gave you power in a powerless world. It made you no longer a victim, after being a victim for too many years. But still, not enough.
She stood here, staring at the view, wondering how something so absolutely gorgeous could belong to one person. She shook her head, hearing him come up behind her.
“It’s something, isn’t it?” he said, his tone soft and calm, like oil on her troubled water.
She gave him a sideways glance. “I’m still struggling to understand how one person could own this.”
“A lot of people own something like this,” he commented, studying her directly.
She shrugged. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Many houses are up and down lakes, rivers, and oceanfronts,” he said, “and many are far more spectacular than this.”
“But that’s Mother Nature right there,” she said, “so close you want to believe you can just reach out and touch it.”
He walked to the left a few feet, and, as she watched, he opened up a huge sliding door that must be at least eight feet across, then motioned for her to step out wi
th him. He stepped out first, and a huge deck ran the length of the house and around the corner. From there, steps went down to another level with another deck and a little bit of a walkway down to the lake below.
“It’s so beautiful,” she whispered. She sat near the top step, wondering if her knees would even hold her up after seeing such a place.
“Where have you been living?”
“Garages, basements, storage units,” she said, with a wave of her hand. “They were all I was comfortable with.”
“You were kept in a concrete windowless room?” he guessed.
She looked up at him and smiled gently. “Yes. So, anything other than that never quite felt safe. Odd, I know, since I was tortured in that compound, but somehow my room was not where I was trained, as they called it. Being held there for so long made me wary of anything else. Being out in Mother Nature, even like this, it took me a long time to venture out,” she said. “To go for a walk or to feel the wind on my face, it was all so foreign. As much as I loved it, the lack of security made me want to run back inside again and shut the doors. I had spent all that time under their control, doing what I was told to do, without the ability to go anywhere, and then, when I got the freedom, I didn’t know what to do with it. I couldn’t reconcile safety with it in any way.”
“But it’s different now,” he said.
She laughed. “It sure is. What’s different is the fact that even more people are out there after me, more danger that I must find a way to get around,” she murmured. “It’s certainly not that it’s any safer.” She looked at the houses barely visible on the neighboring properties on either side. “When you see that people are right there,” she said, “doesn’t it bother you?”
He looked at her and shook his head. “No, not at all,” he said quietly. “They aren’t after us. They aren’t after anything but peace and quiet for themselves. We don’t bother each other. We’re friendly when we need to be and always cordial, but, beyond that, I don’t have any contact with them.”
She nodded slowly. “And you trust that?”
“I do,” he said with a smile. “And eventually you’ll get there too.”
“Not as long as I’m being hunted,” she said quietly.
“Nope, but that state doesn’t have to continue.”
“Says you.”
He shrugged. “Let’s get the groceries inside.”
She followed him back out to the car. She studied everything, as she moved through the motions of unloading, her gaze constantly searching and looking around.
“See?” he said, when they got back inside. “Nothing to worry about.”
She just gave him an odd look and said, “I’m surprised you would say that.”
“Why?”
She said, “Because danger’s everywhere.”
“Sure, but you can’t just give in to it. You still have to live.”
Her lips quirked. “I tried that, and then one morning I got up, went outside into the sunshine, and stretched, wondering how it could be such a beautiful morning, and I took a bullet in the side.”
Stated so simply, it had more impact, and, although she didn’t mean for it to come across that way, she heard him suck in his breath. Turning to face him, she said, “I didn’t mean to bring that up again. It’s just hard to forget that’s how I got to be here.”
“I get that,” he said quietly, “and obviously you’ll still deal with a lot of memories and issues on a daily basis.”
“It happened just when I thought I was doing so well,” she said. She turned to study the area around her. “I can stay here for a little bit,” she said. “Maybe long enough to heal.”
“On a scale of one to ten, where are you?”
“I’d say five. The stress affects me in an ugly way,” she said, with a nod.
“So you need to make sure your time here is as stress-free as possible.”
“So, how will we do that?” she asked, with a laugh, looking at him.
“Have you ever been fishing?”
She shook her head. “I’m not even sure what it involves,” she murmured, as she looked out at the lake. It called to her in a way she’d never felt before. “Does it mean going out there?”
“It does, indeed. I have a boat down at the dock.” He pointed off to the side at a small rowboat.
“Is that thing safe in the water?” she asked doubtfully.
At that, he burst out laughing. “Absolutely,” he said, with a bright smile. “But we’ll get to that later.”
“Maybe,” she said, “but how do you protect yourself when you’re out there?”
He took a deep breath. “Well, you make sure that you’re not being followed, before you get out there,” he said, trying for a logical answer. “And then you just have to trust.”
She winced at that. “Back to that trust thing again.”
“I know it’s hard for you.”
“Very,” she said, “but, if you think it’s safe, I could consider it. You should have better instincts than I do.”
“Oh, I doubt it,” he said. “Your instincts should be phenomenal, after being hunted all this time. Nothing makes you more in tune to what’s going on around you than that.”
“Maybe,” she said, “but it would be nice to get out for a bit.”
“And we will,” he said, “after we get some dinner and after you get a good night’s rest.”
She nodded slowly. “I won’t let down my guard,” she said, “so don’t ask me to.”
“I would never ask anybody to do that,” he said. “That guard is what kept you alive all these years. Don’t let it down on my say-so.”
She smiled and said, “Okay, good.”
And, with that, he asked, “How do you feel about pasta?”
“I like it if it’s cooked,” she said, “but the raw stuff is hard to get down.” He looked at her sideways, unsure what to say. She shrugged. “I didn’t know how to cook when I first came out,” she explained, with a smile. “It took a bit and watching lots of videos to understand that some stuff you had to cook, and other stuff was ready to eat out of the package.”
He grinned at that. “That’s a hard lesson to learn,” he said, “but I’m sure you learned it fast.”
“Yeah, I got it right the first time after that,” she said, chuckling.
“What else have you learned to cook?”
“Lots,” she said. “I have an affinity for it, I think.”
“Good,” he said. “I’ll cook dinner tonight, since I’m rested up, and maybe you can cook dinner tomorrow.”
“I can do that,” she said, “as long as we have something that I know how to cook.”
“That’s always the caveat, isn’t it?” he said. While she watched, he quickly put together a simple pasta with fresh tomatoes, canned olives, and parmesan.
“That looks good,” she said. “I would never have thought to combine them like that.”
“I like simple meals,” he said, “especially if I don’t have a ton of time. And, right now, getting a meal on the table quickly seemed like the best idea.”
“I won’t argue,” she said. “Seems like a long time since whatever I ate at Stefan’s.”
“And that was nothing but a couple muffins and sandwiches,” he said, “and nowhere near enough for your body to heal.”
“My body heals all the time and from sources that you have no idea of.”
“Should we have bought pet food then?”
At that, she froze and turned slowly to stare at him. “Why would you ask that?”
“Well, you didn’t knock on Stefan’s door,” he said. “You told us that at Stefan’s, and you haven’t explained who did. You also weren’t alone, but the companion energy is very different. I don’t have a ton of experience with animal energy, but,” he said, his gaze studying her, “you’ve also never mentioned anybody else being here. Not to me anyway.”
“So,” she said, “why would you mention it then?”
“Because
I sense another energy with us. And I thought one spoke to me at Stefan’s.”
She frowned.
He groaned and said, “You can just tell me if you have a pet, you know.”
“Do you think I would leave a pet behind?” Interesting he could sense but not see Nocturne. She waited until Hunter was focused on setting the table, then turned and winked at her cat. He swished his tail at her but stayed quiet. Was that in case Hunter heard Nocturne again?
Hunter shook his head. “No, I don’t think you would have. The question is whether you managed to get him in the vehicle while I wasn’t watching.”
She just gave him an openmouthed look and shrugged. Then she picked up a spoonful of pasta and ate it. And just as he went to do the same, a huge black cat jumped up on the table in front of him and meowed. She laughed. “Nocturne, your timing is impeccable.”
The big cat stared at her, then turned those massive golden orbs to Hunter.
Hunter stared at him in shock. “Where did he come from?” he demanded.
“And you’re the one who had it all worked out,” she said casually.
“He was in the vehicle?”
She nodded. “Of course. I brought him with me.”
“What about at Stefan’s?”
“He was outside, but I opened the window, and he came in and spent the night with me. But he always leaves before anybody else is around.”
“So he knocked on Stefan’s door, when you were unable to.” She avoided his gaze. Hunter turned to Nocturne. “Thank you for watching out for her.” He studied the cat, who stared right back, measuring him. “Yet he appears here now, before me and you,” Hunter said, still staring at the massive feline. “Why is he visible now?”
“Because he chooses to be,” she said, facing Hunter. “He’s obviously checked over your energy and made a decision about you. Honestly I’m surprised. He’s often been very difficult about making those kinds of decisions.”
“Difficult?”
“Yeah, he doesn’t like people,” she said bluntly. “Especially men.” Her gaze narrowed, as she studied the look on Hunter’s face. “Particularly young men.”
He looked at her, eyebrows up. “What difference does age make? Isn’t it just about character?”