Surviving Passion (7 page)

“What’s all the fuss about?” she asked no one in particular. Her question seemed to jolt the others back into talking all at once.

“How many?” Cal asked again.

“That’s the problem,” Dan said, still watching Bear. “There were more than twenty.”

Even from behind, Selena could tell that the man was fuming quietly, but Dan went on, “This isn’t the kind of thing where we ride out and get revenge tomorrow. We get into a scuffle and people are going to die, not just on their side. The odds are terrible. It’s not a good time.”

“There
is
no good time,” Bear growled obstinately, looking angrier by the minute. “There are more and more of ‘em. If you hadn’t gotten in my way—”

“You’d be dead,” Dan finished for him, looking even more immovable.

After a few moments of terse silence, Bear went on. “Not so easily. I’ll be damned if I couldn’t have taken five out with me.”

“Bear!” shouted the blonde woman at his side. She looked horrified. “And what about Becky?”

A daughter?

Bear dropped his gaze to stare at the ground.

Dan let her words sink in before pushing on. “The odds were bad before. Now they’re worse. Three to one.”

“Either you’ve got the math wrong or you’re being a damn sexist,” Gina glowered quietly.

Selena was impressed. This bold accusation had clearly taken some courage. She awaited Dan’s response with rising curiosity.

“
Men
only get killed, Gina,” came an agitated reply. It was clear from his demeanor that he would have none of it.

Selena lifted a brow.

“It’s all or nothing,” Gina persisted bravely, shaking her head. “If anyone’s gonna fight, everyone should fight. What good does it do us
girls
if you men all get yourselves killed? Where’s our future then, Dan? I say we’re screwed whether we participate or not. We may as well help.”

“I agree with Gina,” her gap-toothed friend put in. “I vote no one fights, but if we have to, it should be all of us.”

Dan was not swayed.

“I want those men gone and Jake dead,” Bear put in. “No one is safe while they’re prowlin’ around here.”

“They’re still miles away,” Dan pointed out.

“A
hundred
miles away is too close,” Bear insisted.

“Well! I’m with Sara and Gina,” offered Blaire matter-of-factly, nodding at the two women. “Susan?”

Dan looked incredulous that the subject of women fighting was even under discussion, much less that the consensus was going in this direction. He bit his tongue and watched the blonde carefully, waiting to hear what she would say.

The woman sighed and gave it all a moment’s thought. “Bear, you lost your brother in a horrible way. I cared about him too. Everyone did,” and she rubbed his back soothingly. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting that man gone from the world, but whether we all fight or only some of us, we’re going to lose
more
people. We should think about the children. Jake will get his someday.”

Ben spoke up now, “They
do
have some idea what area we’re in. Even if we set a limit to how far anyone’s allowed to go in their direction, we don’t know how far
they’ll
range. I don’t think we can control the overlap.”

“That’s right. But I say we wait and keep an eye out for now,” Cal told them. He paused before turning to Dan. “There’s no way they followed you?”

Dan shook his head, looking slightly relieved that Cal’s suggestion would at least buy time. He grabbed a pair of apples out of Blaire’s basket, taking a bite out of one. “We took our time getting out of there,” he explained as he chewed. “No sign of them on the way home.”

“Are you certain?” Bear persisted.

He nodded again and chucked the other apple up to Selena. “Ask her.”

She caught it easily and tried very hard not to look irritated when all eyes had turned up at her.

“No one,” she said quietly. It was the best she could do under the circumstances and she took a bite out of her apple in a desperate attempt to look casual.

“Okay,” Cal told Dan as he grinned broadly up at Selena, “We believe you.”

After deciding to post a night watch as a safety precaution, the party started to break up. Dan volunteered to take the first shift so he headed up the hill right away. As the others left, some waved to Selena up in her tree before filtering out to their respective cabins. They looked less disturbed than she would have expected, considering her strange introduction.

Blaire doused the fire and bid her goodnight with a wink. Only when everyone was gone did Selena make her way down from the tree and in the direction of her cabin. When she reached the steps, she found she wasn’t ready to retire for the night. Feeling restless and thinking on everything that was said at the fire, Selena made her way up the path on which they had ridden into camp.

Dan’s actions were making less and less sense to her. Why did he drag her here against her will and then dump her in this place where she was free to leave at any time, especially when they thought their community might be threatened? She resolved to get some answers. When Selena reached the top of the hill, there was no sign of him.
He knows I’m here,
she thought impatiently, wishing he would give her some sign. She was in no mood for hide-and-seek.

“Dan,” she called out quietly.

“Here,” came a reply from a low growing oak.

She worked through the bushy, hanging branches. The dead leaves crackled loudly underfoot. (That was the problem with oaks.) He was sitting on one of the lower boughs, leaning against the trunk, and made no move to climb down. He didn’t even look in her direction, focusing instead on his view of the land outside their sanctuary.

“Can I ask you a question?” Selena inquired, trying to start tactfully.

Dan turned his eyes to her now and waited silently.

“Why did you bring me here if you knew your community might be in danger? If you’re so worried about my safety, why didn’t you let me go my own way?”

“You were in the middle of their turf and you didn’t know it.”

Before she could argue, he went on, turning his gaze away again.

“They camp out over there on and off. It was such a long time since I’d seen them, we hoped they’d moved on for good. I had no reason to think you wouldn’t run into them again, and there are some smart ones. After you behaved like a wild animal,” he said looking back at her pointedly, “I knew I couldn’t reason with you, and you’d never accept help. You’re at a safe distance and now you know the situation. You can decide for yourself about the people here. If you want to leave, then you can. Just don’t go in
that
direction,” he gestured back toward the town.

Selena was suddenly angry with his dismissive attitude. At the same time, she was frustrated that she cared. She took a deep breath and when her emotions were under better control, she tried to piece it all together.

“Why didn’t you let me go before we got here?”

“Would have been stupid. You should know what you’re missing before you decide.”

“That’s the reason you chased me when I ran?” she asked quietly, reddening at the memory and staring down at her feet.

“There was camp smoke not far off. Could have been one of ours, but I didn’t know for sure. You didn’t notice it or you’d have headed in the opposite direction. You were going to get yourself into trouble again.”

Selena frowned at him in the darkness. He had the nerve now to sound amused.

“For your sake,” he added, “you might want to stay, even if we go to war.”

Her temper was beginning to rise again, so she spoke slowly.

“I have been avoiding people at all costs for the past nine years. Can I help it if fifteen men ride right to the house I’m at? That’s what happened and it was terrible luck. If I missed the smoke it was only because I was too busy dealing with a closer threat—”

“You
can’t
help it, Selena. You can’t be blamed for what you don’t know, and how much could you possibly know with only one set of eyes and ears? With no one else to talk to? People live in groups because it’s the only way to survive.”

“But you’re all afraid of these men and you’re sitting ducks here. All you have to do is pack up and just walk away from your danger, but for some reason, none of you even thought of that. You would rather risk your lives—”

“Some of us aren’t ready to let go of civilization, Selena. Our way of life gets more primitive and feral every day. We’ve lost too much ground since the Crash. We don’t need to give up more. The world still has some people left and those people are going to rebuild. It’ll be different, but we’re going to have some security again. Some law and order. Wandering around with only what we can carry is just going to set us back. We shouldn’t
have
to run.”

Selena bristled. Her lifestyle and that of her parents was not primitive. “You’re giving up ...” she struggled for the right word, “
resourcefulness
for safety you can’t maintain. You all have too much to lose here. At some point, someone is going to take it from you.

“And my lifestyle is based on mastery of the natural world, not clinging to the past. I think you’re living a lot more dangerously than my family ever did. According to them, things were pretty wild
before
the Crash too. No shortage of danger then either.”

Selena stopped herself with a sigh, turned abruptly and walked away. No point in arguing with him. She knew his response would only make her irate and she didn’t want to wait around for it.

He had answered her question, and she didn’t have to defend her decisions. Who was he to judge her? Selena briskly came back down the hill, needing some time to clear her head.

When she got back to the cabin, someone was sitting on the steps in the darkness.
Case in point
, she thought, with mounting vexation. This was exactly what Dan didn’t seem to get, despite how perceptive he seemed.
He can’t understand,
she decided with resignation.
He’s a man.

“Hello?” she asked the shadow; glad she was in earshot of all the other cabins.

“Oh, hey. I didn’t hear you coming,” said a startled masculine voice. He stepped away from the stairs and into the moonlight.

It was the short guy that she had disliked on sight earlier. He hadn’t participated in the discussion so she didn’t know his name. Short as he was, he was still quite a bit taller than she. With his big, bulky muscles and exaggerated body language, he looked like the kind of person who tried too hard. She thought she remembered something about a syndrome for short men that her parents mentioned, but couldn’t remember what it was. All in all, there was no one she’d be less happy to see between her and her front door. She folded her arms over her chest and faced him squarely.

“So you’re Selena? I’m Clint,” he said sticking his hand out to her.

She shook it firmly and drew it back as quickly as possible.

He stepped in closer before continuing, “I just had to come here and tell you that the whole thing with you hanging out up there in the tree was great. That was totally smooth. No one had any idea. I mean, I noticed early on but I wasn’t going to say anything. Dan is such a pain in the ass, isn’t he? He really shouldn’t have busted you on it.”

Selena frowned at all the chatter but he continued on as though there was some private understanding between the two of them.

“I know you haven’t known him for very long but he thinks he’s the best thing ever. But you know what?” And here he leaned forward like he was going to entrust her with some confidential information, “It’s all bull shit. You’ll see. You’re smart. So don’t mind him. I thought it was great.”

Selena only nodded, humoring him.

“Anyway, I’d better leave you alone to get some rest. But if you ever get bored, my cabin is the second on the left side of the path over there,” and he gestured at it. “Feel free to come hang out any time you like.”

“Okay, thanks,” Selena said, making her way to her steps. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight” he grinned with a wave, adding, “Nice to meet you,” before heading off.

When Selena got inside, she bolted the door, hoping this Clint wasn’t going to make a nuisance of himself. Selena was not so naïve as to think he was only interested in idle conversation with her.
So Clint’s a little creepy,
she decided, shrugging.

The fact that he disliked Dan so much was disconcerting. While she hadn’t entirely trusted Dan, she trusted Clint far less. What if her judgment of Dan was too harsh? Selena began to regret all the arguments they had. She sat on her bed and sighed, running her hands through her hair and feeling like an idiot.
The only reason he chased me was because I was headed in a dangerous direction and risking my safety again,
she pondered. Well that may have been the reason he went after her in the first place, but Selena knew something had triggered his desire.

“God, people are confusing,” she whispered under her breath. What if she just wasn’t equipped for this, Selena wondered. What if she was an exception to the rule?

His story made sense. She
had
acted like a wild animal. It was justified of course, but that didn’t help the situation. And he was right. She wouldn’t have accepted any form of help from him at all. Not willingly. So he fed her a semi-honest truth about adding her to the community, and now that she was here, she could choose for herself. At this point, he didn’t seem to care too much whether she left or not.

Suddenly, Selena wanted to stay.
Well, why not?
she asked herself, feeling suddenly reckless. But there was this other posse and creepy Clint. That made twenty-one good reasons not to stay. Selena lay down on the bed, biting her lip. Most of the people here didn’t seem half bad. She had to admit that human contact felt good. She hadn’t realized how lonely she had been all these years. People were confusing; but interesting too, and she was almost as curious about them as the intriguing leatherworking equipment that was now hers. She’d love to have time to experiment with it.