Ashfall (7 page)

“And you applied to work here?”

“Yep. The General had just started recruiting. Here I am.”

Silence dropped over them as for a short time. He spoke moments later. “What’s your latest novel about?”

“I’m not telling.”

One of his dark brows lifted. “Why?”

“Because if I talk about it a lot it sort of…drains my enthusiasm for the story.”

He nodded. “Makes sense. Is the story set during this world…the here and now?”

“Contemporary yes, but not during the ashfall. It’s a world like what we had before.”

“What did you do before you wrote novels?”

“I was business manager for the community college. My degree is in history, which I love, but I didn’t like the job as a manager.”

“You didn’t know what you wanted to do, you did what you
thought
you had to do.”

His matter-of-fact statement couldn’t be denied. “Yes. Exactly.”

Once more that smile touched his mouth, but this time it wasn’t full blown. “Sounds like hell. But things have gone to hell out there. I’m glad you’re with us.”

“I don’t understand why you wanted me to come here.”

“I already told you. To keep you safe.”

“You said you care about me, but you don’t know me that well. How can you possibly care that much?”

He leaned forward in his chair and pinned her with a dark look. There was no real hostility in his eyes, but he wasn’t happy. “All right. Have it your way. You want to believe bad things about me.”

“I don’t think you’re…I don’t believe you’re a bad person. I just…” She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “People don’t bond that fast. Sexual attraction, yes. That’s animal. Instinctive.”

“I agree. We could just keep it there. Animal. Instinctive. Sounds like fun.”

She didn’t buy it. “It has nothing to do with common sense and intellect.”

Once more he tilted his head to the side, and his eyes kept that keen curiosity. “No, it doesn’t. But then it wouldn’t be sex would it? Sex is messy, loud, primitive. It isn’t pretty.”

A low, growing arousal thrummed in her belly. Hell, this man knew how to turn everything on its head. Messy, raw sex.
Oh, yeah.
She wouldn’t mind having some of
that
. The pure intensity in his gaze assured her that sex with him would be everything he said it was and so much more.

He continued with, “Wait. You’re the kind of person who needs an emotional connection. No sweaty naked stuff until there’s meaning in a relationship.”

Heat climbed into her face. “A lot of women are like that.”

He nodded. There was no mockery and slight in his expression. “So are a lot of men.”

“Are you?”

“Yeah. I didn’t kiss you just because I think you’re hot. I kissed you because I feel a connection.”

Surprise kept Mally’s trap shut. She still didn’t believe him, but she was tired of analyzing.

Finally he said, “I guess if I was you I wouldn’t trust me either.”

“I heard the General or someone telling you it was a mistake to bring me here.”

His eyes widened. “You were skulking around outside the war room?”

“Yes.”

Laughter reached his eyes and mouth. “I’m going to have to watch out for you.”

Feeling lighter than she had in quite a while, she smiled with him. “Are you trying to hide something?”

“Hell, no. I’m an open book.” He leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out. He crossed his ankles.

She stood and went to the window again. Clouds had made darkness descend on the city quicker than it normally would for this time of the year. “I like the nights.”

“Why?”

“Because at night it’s easier to pretend none of this is happening. That Long Valley didn’t happen. Darkness hides a lot.”

He stood and walked up behind her. His hands slipped under her hair and landed on her shoulders. He leaned down and his warm breath on her neck sent spirals of heat straight to her loins. His voice was soft in her ear. “Why don’t you rest?”

He stepped away and within seconds he was out the door. She pulled the shade closed on the window. After locking the door she stood there in a stupor. She couldn’t remember the last time fatigue had wrestled her into submission like this. Time to dig out her old sweats and find some sleep.

A knock on the door, soft but insistent, awakened Mally. Groggy, she sat up with a groan. Light from the apartment living room trailed in the bedroom door from a lamp she’d left on.

“Who is it?” she called out.

The knocking came again, and her foggy brain remembered that she was in the bedroom and far enough from the suite door no one would probably hear her. She turned on the bedside light and blinked in the extra glare. The bedside clock read seven o’clock in the evening. She snatched her gun off the bedside table and held it down along her right thigh. She entered the living room.

More knocking, and this time she heard Adam’s muffled voice. “Mally? Are you okay?”

Equal parts apprehension and excitement made her reach for the door and open it. “I’m fine.”

He’d changed into sweat pants and a t-shirt and stood with arms crossed over his chest. “You sure?”

She eyeballed him a moment before saying, “Let’s eat. All I’ve had is a protein bar.”

“There’s leftover chicken and salad in the fridge.”

She kept her gun in hand. “Chicken and salad sounds good.”

He ambled over to the kitchen, and she sat on a bar stool. Let him serve her. It was his kitchen. She placed her Glock on the counter.

He paused while taking dishes out of a cabinet. His gaze landed on her weapon. “Still feeling unsafe?”

Yes, damn it.
“Yes.”

Rather than say anything more on it, he methodically took out utensils, napkins, and delved into the fridge to get the chicken and salad. She watched him cut up the rotisserie chicken and add it to the salad, and when he offered her a selection of dressings, she chose low fat ranch. She grabbed water to drink and before she knew it they sat side by side at the kitchen counter. Silence enveloped them for quite some time as they finished their salads.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I can’t believe how tired I still am.”

“You sick?”

Mally perked up a little. She couldn’t give him the impression she was vulnerable. “No.”

“Maybe we should have you see a doctor.”

Mally shrugged. “I’m fine. There’s no need for medical attention.”

“Probably coming down from the adrenaline of earlier today. It’s not every day you have to fight off men trying to break into your house. Give yourself some time to recover.”

She thought of her home with all its expensive equipment, art, furnishings and cache of weapons. “Because I’m not a soldier?”

“You’re doing a great job holding up. This isn’t an easy situation for anyone.”

“This?”

“The apocalypse.”

She took their dishes to the dishwasher and loaded them inside. “I don’t think of it like that. I can’t.”

His gaze fell on her, heavy and curious. “What else is it, if not an apocalypse?”

The phone on the kitchen counter buzzed. She started in surprise, and he snatched up the cordless.

“Becker.” His gaze turned slightly annoyed. “Hey, Ian. What?” He sighed. “Okay, right.” He hung up and slid off the bar stool. “Another meeting in the war room. Son-of-a-bitch.”

“What is it?”

“The General’s daughter needs an escort up from Bangor.”

“It’s that bad between there and here? It’s only fifty miles.”

He made a face. “Fifty miles of hell. Come on, let’s go.”

Surprise held her immobile on the stool. “You want me to go with you?”

“Ian says the General wants me to bring you.”

She headed downstairs with Adam, wondering if the General had decided he needed to kick her to the curb.
Never a dull moment.
The compound here was secure, and she liked that. But she needed to get her security system fixed.

“Do you think the General will want you to help his daughter?” She asked as they crossed the foyer and down the hall leading to the war room.

“Good possibility.”

That’s when she remembered she hadn’t brought her weapon with her, and a tingle of apprehension touched her.

When Adam opened one side of the wood double doors, nausea churned in her stomach. The General sounded like a formidable man, and she’d already dealt with heavy-duty testosterone more than once today. Still, the idea that the General might send Adam out into the world right now into a dangerous situation made her skin prickle.

Adam gestured for her to enter, and she slipped inside. She took in the windowless room. On one wall was a huge flat-screen television with news reports flashing over it. Sitting at a large oblong table was Ian, Mark, and a smaller-statured man with broad shoulders, steel gray hair and a roughhewn face. He must be the General, and his frown was as awesome as the laser intensity of his dark eyes. All of them wore casual clothes with no rank or insignia of any kind. Of course. They weren’t in the military anymore, even though they’d come into Mally’s compound like a special forces unit ready to kick ass. All the men stood when she entered, even the General.

He used a remote to click off the television, rounded the table and approached her. “Miss Andretti, I’m Alexander Graham.”

She shook his hand, and his grip was firm but not too hard. “Pleased to meet you…Mr. Graham? Or do you prefer General?”

He cracked a smile. “Please, just Alexander. We don’t stand on formalities, and it isn’t General since I’m retired.”

Since Adam still called him General, she doubted the men thought of him so casually.

“I’m surprised you invited me to this meeting,” she said, preferring to cut to the chase.

His eyebrows rose just a moment, registering perhaps surprise at her straightforward statement. “I understand.” He gestured to a chair next to his. “Please have a seat.”

She sat in the cushioned tan leather chair and tried to relax, but she was strung tight. Adam took the chair at the opposite end of the oblong from the General.
That’s right. General.
I couldn’t think of him as Alexander. Mild mannered or not.

The General cleared his throat. “I just received a cell call from my daughter.”

“Cellular service?” Mark swiveled his chair toward the General. “That’s lucky.”

The General sniffed. “That’s one of the reasons the call was short. We got cut off after about five minutes. She told me she’s at her condo and things are starting to go to hell where she’s at.” He shifted in his chair and leaned his arms on the table. “She…” He swallowed hard. “She’s not trained to handle this sort of situation. I asked her to move here three months ago when all of this started. She refused, and now she’s paying the consequences for her foolish stubbornness.”

Wow. That sounds a bit cold.
Okay, she could give the General slack. She’d already heard dozens of stories of people blowing off direct mandatory evacuation orders and many of them got dead really quickly. Maybe his daughter
was
foolish. Just as she didn’t know much about Adam, she knew virtually nothing about the so-called Alexander Graham or his daughter. Maybe the General’s daughter was a full-fledged bubble head.

The older man’s lips thinned. “She’s smart as hell, capable and strong. But we know what is happening out there isn’t good and it isn’t safe.”

That shoots my theory in the ass.
If her father acknowledged that she was capable, smart and strong, perhaps it was plain parental concern that drove the man.
Isn’t good
and
isn’t safe
were obviously understatements. When he paused, she half expected one of the other men to speak. They remained stoic and silent, but Ian cleared his throat and his eyes flickered with some emotion. It disappeared as quickly as she noticed it.
Interesting. Wonder what that’s about?

The General swiveled his chair toward Adam. “Becker, I need you to go to Bangor and retrieve my daughter.”

Surprised, Mally glanced at Adam. Adam’s mouth tightened a second before displeasure showed on the rest of his face. “I respectfully decline, sir.”

The chill in the room was almost palpable as the General responded. “That’s an order.”

“Sir, as much as I respect your military career and I value my job, this isn’t the military. We’ve been hired to protect people in this city, and we’re stretched thin as it is. We’re still on tap to help tomorrow and for who knows how long if there are more riots,” Adam said.

“There will be,” Mark said.

The General’s eyes turned equally icy as his gaze darted to Mally’s face and then back to Adam. “Yet it’s all right for you to commandeer equipment and personnel to trek across town and rescue a woman who isn’t a client. Who was perfectly safe in a compound not unlike this one. You don’t get to pick and choose your assignments, Becker. If you won’t take orders, you go freelance on your own. It’s your choice.”

The man’s words were so clipped and solid Mally didn’t see how Adam could refuse.

Adam said, “She wasn’t safe and secure. Her security system was breached.”

The General drew in a deep breath, his gaze still hard. “I know.”

“We have to make split-second decisions in the field all the time,” Adam said. “She was in danger. I couldn’t forgive myself if I saw a woman being harmed or knew a woman was in danger and I didn’t try to do something about it. You know me. I’d like to think it’s one of the reasons you hired me.”

Mally wondered if Adam’s stubborn stance would earn him a swift kick out the door, and she almost held her breath.

After a long, somewhat tense silence the General said, “All right. You make a good point. I did hire you for your skills and integrity. And this is a case where a woman is in danger right now and needs your help.”

Got you there, Adam.
Mally wondered how Adam would answer.

Before Adam could answer, Ian held up his hand. “Sir, I’ll do it. I’ll get Penny.”

The General froze in place, surprise evident on his face. “Why?”

Ian answered without hesitation. “You know me, sir. I like a good adventure.”