Hell on Wheels (17 page)

She was right, of course.

The little run-in with Mystery Man in Kentucky continued to bug the hell out of him, and despite Becky’s assurance, with the help of Eyes in the Sky, that Mr. Mystery had taken off down the road, he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was eyeballing them. Right at that very moment.

Unsnapping his chinstrap and hooking his helmet on Phantom’s chrome handlebar, he scanned the area.

The neighborhood was filled with Cape Cod style bungalows. Their tiny front lawns all carefully tended, their hedgerows precisely trimmed. Flowers burst forth in colorful profusion from all available spaces, in window boxes, overflowing clay pots, and cheerfully lining flowerbeds.

In short, it was a picture-perfect postcard of the Great American Dream.

And here he was, armed with enough firepower to start a coup and a hard case of paranoia quickly growing to the relative size of Texas.

In his head, he started humming that old song from
Sesame Street
that said something about one of these things being not like the others.

Geez. Definitely too much time spent with Ozzie.

A wind chime caught the balmy evening air and tinkled its delight. The tart smell of freshly mowed grass perfumed the quiet night, mixing with the slightly more pungent aroma of newly laid mulch.

A dog barked somewhere down the block. A sound of inquiry. Nothing answered, and silence once more settled over the pristine little neighborhood.

Further inspection revealed no telltale security signs placed strategically in flowerbeds. No ADT or Brinks Security stickers graced the corners of front windows. Hell, he would bet his left nut—his very
blue
left nut—that most of these homes sported either unlocked windows or doors or both. The whole scene screamed safety and security. The kind of place parents still let their kids run around unsupervised.

So why the hell were the hairs on the back of his neck doing that annoying little tango?

“Hey,” Ali poked him to get his attention. “What are we waiting on?”

He shook his head by way of answer and reached around to snag his night scope from one of the heavy leather saddlebags. Holding it to his right eye, the world dissolved into a series of greens as he quartered the area, searching for movement, a darker shadow that just didn’t belong.

But…nothing. Not one blade of perfectly mowed grass out of place.

Christ, the place could’ve been the set for
The Stepford Wives.

Well, wasn’t
that
a disconcerting thought?

He scanned the area one more time and was finally forced to shrug away his tension and release his pent-up breath.

Maybe having Ali along had pushed his usual tendency toward paranoia into the realm of straight-up lunacy. And that was never good, especially for an operator whose reflexes were honed to a razor-sharp edge.

He took another deep breath and flexed his shoulders.

“Okay,” he told her as he swung from the bike, “we’re going in fast and quiet. Understood?”

He watched her remove her helmet and shake her shiny hair loose like some damned
Suave
commercial before she shot him a look clearly stating that she was convinced he suffered from an IQ very close to his shoe size.

“Roger that.” She snapped him a surly little salute.

God help him.

He was suffering from a case of blue balls as well as a McDonald’s super-sized order of someone’s-watching-me phobia, and the minute she got all snarky and sarcastic he forgot everything. All he could think of doing was grabbing her up and kissing her until that sardonic look melted into one of soft passion. That’s the way it’d happen, too. That’s the way it happened every time he was suddenly struck by chronic stupidity and allowed himself to get his lips on her. She’d tense for a second, just a second, and then she’d dissolve in his arms like a spoonful of sugar in a jug of sun tea. It was the damndest thing, and it made his already throbbing dick play the part of drumstick against his lower belly.

“Now’s not the time,” he muttered to himself and his little head.

“What did you say?”

“Nothin’.”

She eyed him askance.

When he motioned with his chin for her to head down the block, she cast him one last skeptical look, then shrugged, before turning to do as he instructed.

They were only halfway to the Morgans’ house when he got that itchy feeling again, like someone had him lined up in the ol’ crosshairs. He really wished he’d taken the time to search the area. As Grigg always said,
Time
spent
on
recon
is
seldom
wasted.

Unfortunately, it was too late for that. They were already in the open or, in grunt vernacular, they were left hanging with their asses in the breeze. Easy targets for whoever might be out there watching.

Easing his .45 from his waistband, he covered Ali’s six as she blithely strolled down the quiet street. Keeping his head on swivel and his ears cocked to the slightest sound, he followed her around the side of her parents’ house, through the wooden gate and into the cool, quiet backyard.

A mammoth, stainless steel grill took up center stage on the flagstone patio, testament to the many barbecues they’d all shared during those rare times he and Grigg had taken leave. A round patio table and six chairs occupied the remaining patio space and Nate remembered a time, not too many years ago, when he and Grigg had sat right there, after the rest of the Morgan family retired, and talked about quitting the Corps and signing on with the new outfit Frank Knight was trying to put together.

He was suddenly overcome by a terrible case of
what-ifs
.

What if they’d stayed in uniform? Would they be retiring now? Maybe opening up a little pub together, getting fat on beer and steaks and thinking about settling down to start families?

What if he’d missed that last transport back from Colombia? Would they have still been tasked with that goddamned, ill-fated Syrian job?

What if he’d just been able to chew through those ancient ropes a little sooner? Would he have been able to save Grigg’s life?

What if—

“Watch that first rung,” Ali broke into his uselessly spinning thoughts, “it’s pretty frayed.”

He glanced up to see her quickly climbing the old rope ladder hanging down the rough trunk of the huge oak tree that regally stood sentry in the Morgan’s backyard.

Wow. Her butt was at eye level, causing his neon blue balls to tighten.

So great. His miscreant mind instantly jumped from death to sex. Not for the first time on this mission, he realized there was obviously something wrong with him, and the trip to see that shrink was starting to look more and more unavoidable.

“Say the magic word,” she teased after pulling herself up through the dark hole in the bottom of the tree house, grabbing the rope ladder and acting like she was going to reel it up.

“Alliii,” he warned and snagged the end of the frayed rope before she could lift it any higher. Not that he couldn’t scale the tree sans rope ladder one-legged and blindfolded, but he didn’t particularly like the thought of the rough bark tearing into his palms, or the state of Ali’s precious neck once he got his hands on it.

“Naaatte,” she mimicked his tone, her damn nose doing that irresistible wrinkly thing again when she grinned and peered down at him.

“This is no time for games,” he told her, although he was beyond relieved to see her somewhat back to her old, mischievous self.

He worried their little row in his bedroom last night, not to mention the way he’d ended things this morning, had forever wiped that teasing smile from her sweet face—at least as far as he was concerned. And wouldn’t that have been a crying shame? Especially considering Ali’s smile held an annual spot on his list of Top Ten Great Things to Happen to Me This Year.

“Oh pooh, you’re too serious. Besides, there’s nothing to fear up here,” she sat back as he quickly scaled the ladder and hoisted himself up through the tree house’s trap door. “This place has been besieged by dragons, Vikings, bandits, Indians, robbers, and cutthroats. It has yet to be taken.”

“Hmm,” he pulled the trapdoor shut, effectively shutting out the light from the Morgans’ landscaping and closing them into inky blackness.

The interior of the tree house smelled like dry, flaking paint and dusty fabric, like melted wax crayons and old Elmer’s glue, like years of gooey s’mores and roasted hotdogs.

It smelled like every kid’s wildest dream.

“I bet all those villains had brown hair, mischievous brown eyes, and answered t’the name Grigg,” he mused aloud as he fished his penlight from his hip pocket.

A dull
snick
sounded just before diffuse yellow light washed through the interior. Overhead, a single, bare bulb hung from a utilitarian socket.

“Wired for electricity?” he asked, impressed, and re-pocketed his penlight. “You and Grigg weren’t playing around when you built this thing, huh?”

“Dad did most of the construction work. Mom’s the one who made the curtains and the cushions for the benches,” she motioned to the low benches under the four identical windows. “She also painted the faux rug on the floor,
and
she even made sure there was real glass in the windows. Dad was just going to leave them open, but she insisted. I remember her saying, ‘
Paul,
how are they supposed to keep out the wind and rain and marauders with no glass in the windows?’”

He blinked at her.

“What?” she asked, “Oh don’t give me that look. It’s not like my parents never spent
any
time with us; it’s just that they
preferred
each other. And you’re wrong, you know,” she quickly added, then smiled when she saw his confusion. “The villains? They were always blond, tawny-eyed, and answered to the name Ali. Did you really think Grigg would deign to be the bad guy? He suffered from save-the-world-syndrome even back then.”

Yeah, Nate could see it all very clearly. Grigg guarding the tree fort while a ponytailed Ali stood below, shooting up plastic arrows with suction-cup tips, or brandishing a homemade slingshot armed with rubber balls. “You were never able to vanquish him?”

“Well, once I got old enough to get really crafty, Grigg lost interest in playing Knights and Dragons or Cops and Robbers. About that time he started using the tree house as his personal testing facility for the seduction of Candice Honeypot.”

A startled snort erupted before he charged, “C’mon. You’re kiddin’ me. No sane man names his daughter Candy Honeypot.”

She raised a brow that clearly stated,
oh
yeah?
“You’d believe me if you ever met
Mr.
Honeypot. Let’s just say he could be relied upon to buy us beer while we were underage, not to mention the fact that he smelled like he bathed in his own bong water.”

“Jesus.”

“Mmm,” she shook her head and grinned. “Not even close.”

They were silent for a few seconds as they contemplated the great paternal calamity that was Mr. Honeypot. The rhythmic drone of night insects was a distant hum in the background, the biological equivalent of white noise.

“So,” she finally said. “You wanna see the memory box?”

“Yeah,” he told her, glad for the change of subject because he was seriously considering finding the paragon that was Mr. Honeypot and zealously maiming the guy for encouraging Ali and the neighborhood kids to degenerate behavior.

Man, people should really have to apply for a special license before being allowed to procreate…

With a flourish, Ali pulled a dusty sheet from a large lump in the corner to reveal an old trunk. He raised a brow even as he helped her drag the trunk closer.

“He gave it to me to replace the old toy box we used to use,” she said, running a reverent finger over the stenciled letters PFC MORGAN, GRIGG.

“Mmm.”

Mmm?
Really? That was the best he could do?

He opened his mouth to try to come up with something a little more erudite than
mmm
when she continued. Obviously, she hadn’t noticed the inelegance of his answer. No shock there.

After a dozen years, she was no doubt accustomed to his reticence. At least that’s likely what she’d call it—reticence. But the truth of the matter was, when she got that soft, vulnerable look in her eyes? He was tongue-tied.

Tongue-frickin’-tied.

“You know, a lot of people thought it was strange that Grigg and I were so close. Brothers and sisters usually aren’t, or so I’ve been told. I think it was because our parents were so lovingly…uh,
inattentive
is the best word to describe it, I guess. Anyway, because of that, Grigg and I had to depend on each other. We’d go together, just the two of us, to Dairy Queen to celebrate our good report cards. I never missed one of Grigg’s baseball games, and he never missed any of my piano recitals.”

But then Grigg died, and now all she had was a big old chest full of memories.

Nate had never really realized it before, and it broke his friggin’ heart to suddenly lightbulb it now, but for all intents and purposes, Ali was alone. And even though he wished it weren’t that way for her, he figured there was some comfort to be found in discovering they at least had that in common.

“Grigg,” she whispered, still caressing those stenciled letters, “he taught me to tie my shoes, to ride my bike. He even taught me how to use a condom.” Her smile was faint, sweet. “With this giant, garden cucumber as a model, no less. You can imagine my disappointment the first time I actually got the chance to try out my skill on living flesh and blood.”

He really didn’t want to know but… “How old were you?”

“Nineteen.”

“Christ,” he growled, hating the guy who’d had the unfathomable honor of being Ali’s first and…oh, great
.
What a wonderful time to have a friggin’ epiphany.

As if his day couldn’t’ve gotten any worse.

But hold the phone, it just had. Because he suddenly realized there’d be no more fooling himself. No more pretending this thing he had for her could be explained away as a simple case of unrequited lust.