Holding Out For A Hero: SEALs, Soldiers, Spies, Cops, FBI Agents and Rangers (150 page)

“So, since we’re being personal, what are you doing up here?” she asked.

“Recuperating.”

“From what?”

Those wide shoulders lifted and fell. “One of those long stories we mentioned. With a nod, he said, “Storm coming.”

She glanced around and saw puffy thunderheads rearing over the mountains to the west.

“Weird for this time of year. Should be snow clouds. Watch out. The Mayans might be right and the end of the world is coming,” she said lightly.

He looked at her sharply. “You don’t believe that kind of stuff, do you?”

“No, but my mother does. She’s a histrionic and a hypochondriac. Everything is an extreme with her. When 2012 came around she asked me what would happen if the Mayans were right.”

“People misinterpreted what the Mayans said. And they were wrong to worry.”

Quiet surrounded them for a long time. As the breeze rustled around her, she sank into a fantasy world. Time seemed to crawl but her need to draw was fierce upon her. Griff stayed where he was, unmoving as a statue. To her surprise his presence didn’t intrude on her creativity. Her fingers flew over the page as she drew. Lines and circles and smudging, darker strokes and light. Her right hand started to cramp, and she transferred her pencil to her left hand and shook out her fingers. She looked up, and Griff was sitting under a huge pine, his body shaded from the sun. She returned to her sketching until time stretched.

“Tired?” His voice made her jump.

She glanced at her wristwatch. “We’ve been up here for two hours.”

He stood and strode her way. “Can I see what you sketched?”

“No. I—” But he was there, gazing at what she’d created.

His eyes narrowed, face clearly reflecting his surprise. And chagrin. “Why did you draw that?”

“I just imagined it.”

He gently removed the pad from her hand and perused the details of her pencil drawing as if he wanted to commit it to lifelong memory. “How could you imagine it? You don’t know me.”

A gust threatened her hat, and she used her free hand to keep it from flying off. “Were you a soldier?”

He handed the pad back to her, and she looked at her own creation. It showed him in a military uniform, the type worn in battle. She had no idea what they were called. He carried a gun, a big military rifle. Though it was a raw sketch at best, it still spoke volumes.

When his gaze rose to hers, Cassie rushed to explain. “Something about you told me you were in the military. Or you still are.”

He went back to his tree and lifted the backpack and slung it over his left shoulder. “You know anything about the military?”

“Not much.”

His expression went grim. “Could have fooled me from that drawing.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“You didn’t.”

He lied. She knew it and he knew it. Maybe offended wasn’t the correct word, but she understood that her drawing had hit a raw nerve, a bleeding patch of skin exposed to elements.

Sure. So why was his mouth so tight and why were his eyes so filled with suspicion? “Were you in a…war?”

“Yeah. Afghanistan. Iraq. The works.”

She wondered if he were damaged. So many women and men had come back more than physically impaired. Sometimes the mental damage was as bad as physical. She’d battled her own demons and felt proud to have conquered them. Not everyone was so fortunate.

“That must have been…” She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry you had to go there.”

“I’m not.”

Not sure how to take his statement, she decided it was better to cut and run before the weather hit. She reached for her backpack at her feet and stuffed the sketch pad and pencil inside. Thunder rolled nearby, and she lifted her attention to the mottled dark blue clouds that boiled over the mountains. She knew how to cut off this awkward turn of events.

“I should get back. See you later, Griff.”

She took off down the hillside with quick steps. At this rate she’d get wet far before she reached the hotel. She’d barely reached the creepy house before the clouds almost directly overhead spit a bolt of lightning. She flinched and the rumble came hot on its heels. Rain hit her hat. Lightning flashed again, and she flinched even though the thunder hadn’t come yet. When it did, it was a far away, low sound that promised worse. She hurried and the scent of rain carried on the wind. A breeze stirred, this one fresh with moisture. When she reached the ruined house, she glanced over and caught a light moving across one of the front windows. She stopped and stared. The light went by again. Curiosity drew her closer to the driveway and so did complete surprise.

“No way,” she whispered.

The red, pink, and white rosebushes in front of the house had turned into gnarled, dead plants.

Impossible.

She closed her eyes for a full five seconds and opened them. The roses remained dead with an oddly monstrous appearance. A cold breeze danced over her skin.

A creepy, undeniable sense of the unreal danced over her body, and she took the rest of the hill at a run.

* * *

Griff wanted to eat her.

His cock hardened as he thought about Cassie Kovac, and he didn’t know whether to be alarmed as hell or happy. The stirring in his groin gave him a sick sort of hope. He hadn’t experienced this kind of undiluted lust in so long he couldn’t remember when it last happened. His body tightened and readied for action, but not the fight for his life he’d experienced too many times in the last few years. No, this was nothing more than his body wanting and needing the way any normal man would. He’d gone too many months deep into his job and no sex life.

Fuck me. This is good.

He rubbed one hand over his chin. He glanced at the dark clouds as they boiled above the mountains and trees, warning with another sinister flash of electricity. Raindrops hit him square in the face, but he stayed put. The storm had moved in swiftly, as if chased by a devil bent on havoc. Thunder growled, and he welcomed the threat. He’d fought off suspicion when Cassie had shown him the sketch, but hadn’t succeeded. Maybe he’d always be this way—worried about where the next round would land, feeling as if the war had followed him to the United States and right to Bowmount itself.

I thought I was over that shit.

He was. And he wasn’t. Less than a year had passed since he’d left the rugged, inhospitable lands where war had once raged. Where unstable elements threatened every day to bring the war back to life. Danger lurked nearby, and he’d felt it when he’d walked by that damned house lower down the hill. A stupid way to feel, but he’d learned his instincts were rarely wrong. Failing to heed them could get a man killed. At least those instincts had saved his ass in war, but could he trust them now? The clouds rumbled and a breeze stirred the huge trees. There was nothing here to fear but nature.

He waited until the boiling storm came completely overhead, and then he started back down the hill. He’d shown the storm, and himself, that he might feel fear but it could never destroy him. When bigger drops pelted him, he lifted his arms into the air, tilted his head back, and let the rain beat him. Fat drops plopped against his forehead, splattered his nose and lips, and drowned his eyes. He didn’t give a shit. Instead he shook off the rain and started a slow trek down the hill.

That’s what you’ve been doing all these months since you came back from the desert.
He heard one of his friend’s voices in his head, telling him he’d lived on the edge for so long he now looked for danger even when it didn’t exist. Right. Time to come back to reality and take life at a pace that didn’t amount to a hundred miles and hour with his hair on fire. He’d seen some fellow military compatriots lose their fuckin’ minds drinking to dull the buzz, the frenetic jumpiness that would never go away. He wasn’t drowning his twitchiness in drugs or booze. Not if he could help it. He turned his mind to getting back to the hotel.

Cassie had long disappeared down the road back the resort, but he couldn’t push her out of his mind. Not because she’d drawn him in military attire. Weird as hell. No, he couldn’t wipe her from his mind because from the moment he’d seen her at the hotel he’d been drawn to her. Which didn’t make a damn bit of sense, because a good chunk of his life he’d favored shallow women and meaningless relationships. Easy-going women who knew the score and didn’t care if he called them again. They’d all been blonds with big tits, which he’d thought fit his type of easy lovin’ woman. He’d stereotyped, but so had they, giving and taking what they wanted. Cassie…well…she didn’t fit at all.

She was tall, graceful and slim. Probably around five feet, six inches and with a small bust. Her shiny, jet black hair lay thick and straight about her shoulders. Her white bucket hat shaded her from sunburn. Her small nose was sprinkled with freckles and her eyes a stunning brown that cut through him like a whip. He was a bad judge of age, but he figured she might be over thirty. He certainly hoped she was, because he didn’t sport erections over twenty-somethings no matter how good they might look in a centerfold.

Who are you kidding sport? You haven’t screwed in so long your balls have to be useless by now.

But Cassie hadn’t flirted and hadn’t turned on his bullshit meter. She was an enigma. A mystery had always challenged and turned him on, and he would figure her out one way or another.

The rain opened up on his head, but he didn’t quicken his steps. No point. He couldn’t run fast enough to avoid the downpour. As he came alongside the weird house, he glanced over at the weeds growing in the yard and the dead rosebushes and continued on his way. He’d taken only a few steps before he stopped and turned around to examine the house again. Had he seen movement? He stared at the half-derelict structure, perusing the peeling outer shell. The house didn’t look that old, yet it had a weird flavor to it, as if time had nibbled and chewed on the structure until it appeared far older than it was. Out of sheer instinct he gazed around the property. He didn’t see a damned thing out of order and continued on his way.

Blackout: Chapter Two

Monday

A light breeze lifted the man’s hair as he stood and stared at the house down the winding driveway. He dragged his fingers through the strands and grimaced. How long had it been since the military had shorn him clean? A few months had passed since he’d left the regimental lifestyle, and he was damn glad for it. He planned to let his hair continue to grow even longer. The military had stripped his ability to play outside the rules. Their rules anyway. He followed a bigger set of parameters ruled by a higher power. Now that he’d arrived in Bowmount, he knew he’d found the right place to fulfill his destiny. His job in the military had kept him from completing his mission. One by one his goals were completed, but it took too long when he’d needed to negotiate the military lifestyle. Too many people, especially women, had blocked every chance for him to slake his needs and wants. All of them would pay when the house ate them.

He sighed as the house called. Walking down the long driveway leading to the front door, he waited for the house to explain why it wanted him. In his journey to this Podunk town, he’d expected something else to call him. The trees perhaps. Deep in a forest, in the night, evil would slip out of its confines and look for him. Evil knew his heart. Understood the consistency, the flavor and taste of greed, want, and endless suffering. Not suffering for him. No. He savored the pain, ate it and it gave him succor. He thrived on the taste of torment. In the forest he’d slaked his thirst a few times, and he’d grown comfortable with the way trees covered his deeds. They made a canopy, a roof for his kitchen. Yet even as he came nearer the house, and even though he’d been to the house once yesterday, he wasn’t prepared for what he felt this time. Yesterday the house had tickled him. Today…well, today the message was clearer.

Hate.

It punched him in the gut, a knife-like twist that sucked away the air in his lungs and sharpened the pain slicing through his innards. He put a hand to his stomach, feeling almost as if he’d been stabbed. He sucked in a breath and stared at the house. He smiled in utter happiness, and loved the nasty urges that came upon him. His craving was stout, filled to the brim with a sodden stench that demanded fulfillment. He’d have to walk into town to take care of the need. It ran thick in his blood, and he licked his lips, eager to run back down the hill and satisfy himself. A violent urge made him drop his backpack to the earth and hold his hands out in supplication. If anyone saw him now they’d think him crazy. He could run down the hill, search the town for—

No.

He drew in one deep breath and then another. No, he must be practical. As his grandfather always said, there was a time and place for everything.

That wasn’t true. His grandfather didn’t say anything anymore. He was dead.

He returned his attention to the house. The house had an ambiance he couldn’t put his finger on or explain adequately to himself. And that thrilled him down to the bones and sinew.

How did one describe it? It was organic. Not wood or brick or metal, but living and breathing. The wood was a jacket for the life within the structure, and the only ornamentation in an otherwise drab exterior. He looked at the eyes—the slats that shuttered all within from the brightness outside. He feared if the windows were thrown open to light, the evil would shrink and perhaps disappear. He closed his eyes and hoped the house would accept him. He knew that if it swallowed him, his life would forever be complete. He would flourish here where evil knew its own kind and embraced him.

The front door had a lock box, and he took the bold step to touch the lock. Cold metal greeted his fingers. Maybe if he went around the side he’d find what he looked for. He tromped through weeds along the left side of the house past more shuttered windows. He came to the backyard and stopped. There was no swimming pool drained and lonely or a rusted swing set creaking in the wind. He laughed, the sound harsh to his own ears.