Reawakening Eden (3 page)

She had no guarantee she’d be safe with him. Or that the children would.

It was a gamble, and Eden had never been the kind of girl who got off on risk. Control. Order. That was more her speed. She was a librarian, for chrissake. Or she had been.

Ben was a known quantity. He’d drag them back to Seattle where Jonah was waiting to make them the centerpiece of his twisted new religion. She hadn’t been watched before, but if they went back, she would be. She wouldn’t be able to talk Jonah’s minions into releasing her. You couldn’t reason with zealots.

Jonah wanted power—and had actually started buying his own pseudo-religious bullshit. Ben was motivated by greed. But her rescuer, this behemoth in hunting gear, was a wild card. There was a chance he would help her. A chance he was the one good man who’d survived the epidemics. And she and Lucas still had their weapons, if it came to holding him off.

In Seattle, there were no chances. So no matter how slight the chance that this mercenary-looking bastard with the ice-cold voice was really pudding and marshmallows on the inside, it was still a chance worth taking.

“We don’t want to go with him.”

“That’s all I needed to hear.” Rambo’s machine gun barely moved an inch, but suddenly it was poised for death. The wolfhound began a low, constant growl, circling to take a flanking position.

Ben’s facial muscles tightened reflexively, souring his grin. “She’s a thief,” he tried again, the words fast and desperate. “A kidnapper. She abducted those kids.”

“He’s ly—”

Rambo made a low scoffing noise, cutting her off. “You should have started with that story if you wanted it to fly.”

Ben’s gaze pinged between Eden, sprawled protectively over the kids, and Rambo with his wide, immoveable stance and steady gun. “Shit.”

“I’m getting impatient,” Rambo said, the threat deceptively soft, an odd harmony to the dog’s menacing growl.

“I’m
going
,” Ben snapped. He began to back away, sending Eden one last meaningful glower. “See you later, honey.”

She shivered at the promise in those words.

Eden held her breath, warily eyeing their rescuer as Ben’s footsteps retreated. The wolfhound followed him, weaving a serpentine pattern through the trees. When Jonah’s man was out of sight, Rambo turned his attention to her, catching her staring. She didn’t look away and neither did he—not so much in a battle of wills as a waiting game, a strategic feint to see who would reveal their true intentions first.

His gun was held at the ready, but she wasn’t exactly pointing a lollipop at him, so she couldn’t really blame him. She didn’t precisely aim the rifle at Rambo’s head, but she didn’t put it down either.

No one moved until the sound of Ben’s engine had faded to a distant whine, and then it was Hannah Rose who broke the silence.

“Mama?”

Eden shushed her. Rambo’s eyes flicked down to the kids huddled half beneath her, and her hands tightened on the rifle. Then he dismissed them—faster than she’d ever seen anyone look away from the miracle children before—and met her eyes again. “You okay?”

That remained to be seen. Eden wet her lips. “How long have you been following us?”

His expression, so hard to read beneath the camo paint, didn’t change, but she had the impression she’d managed to surprise him. “What makes you think—?”

“I’ve seen your dog.” Only the one time, but he didn’t need to know that.

As if on cue, the wolfhound reappeared in the narrow clearing where she and the kids had taken cover. Its jaws hung loosely in a canine grin as it loped over to Rambo’s side. Its butt thumped down and it listed heavily against his thigh. They fit together, the oversized dog and its oversized master. He reached down to absently scratch the enormous animal’s head, and something in Eden’s chest unknotted. He couldn’t be evil if he was good to animals, right? And he hadn’t shot them yet. Maybe he wasn’t so terrifying, though he had been following them…

“Been keeping an eye on you since you started running circles on my land.”

His concept of possession startled her a bit. It had been a while since
my land
meant anything to most people. Then she caught up to the
circles
part, and her heart thudded against her ribs. Just how lost were they?

“Who are you? What do you want from us?”

His face twisted with what might have been exasperation without the camo paint to make it look foreign and terrifying. “Look, lady, I don’t want anything from you. You just looked like you could use a hand.”

God, how amazing would it be if she could believe him?

She reminded herself he’d come out, made a target of himself and stepped in to help them. He hadn’t had to do that. He could have just walked on by. Or if he’d wanted to hurt them, he could easily have killed them all without stepping a single foot out of cover.

His eyes flicked down to her white-knuckled grip on the rifle. “You ever fired that thing?”

“Yes,” she replied too fast, defensively.

His mouth moved in what could have been a half-smile, but with the face paint she couldn’t really tell. “Ever hit anything?”

“
Yes
.” A moose. Her dad had loved to hunt and taken her when she was a teen. She’d shot the poor thing dead. Then puked all over the place for the next hour.

“Uh-huh.” Rambo pointed his machine gun toward the sky, propping it back against his shoulder.

Eden’s barrel didn’t waver, though she did let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She wasn’t going to shoot him and they both knew it, but she still felt stronger, more prepared, with the muzzle aimed in his general direction. He didn’t seem to mind.

But she didn’t know how she would be able to tell if he did. The man made robots look emotive.

“Where’re you headed?”

“We’re just passing through,” Eden said, trying to keep her own voice as even and emotionless as his.

Rambo jerked his chin toward the dirt track they’d been walking down all morning. “Nothing down this road to pass to.”

Which meant she’d gotten them just as lost as she’d feared. “We’re going south.”

She couldn’t read his expression past the camo paint, but his voice was dry. “You need a new compass. You’re going west.”

West. Back toward Spokane. Back toward Seattle.
Shit
. She’d tried to stay on small roads because they were easier for the kids to manage, but the country lanes didn’t always run straight, and she hadn’t been very good about watching the angle of the sun and all that shit to make sure they were staying headed in the right direction.

Suddenly she felt weary to her soul. It was too much for one person to do everything, to be wholly responsible for three lives when the world was spinning upside down. How had she thought she could do this?

Eden swallowed back the self-flagellation and defeat. She needed to focus on moving forward. Getting the kids to safety. Building a life for them somewhere that didn’t involve guns or cults or fear.

Hannah Rose made a small sound of complaint, and Eden shifted so she wasn’t smushing the little girl quite so much. Lucas sat up at her side as Eden crouched in front of them, still defensive.

She jutted her chin up the road back the way they’d come. “So that’s east, huh?”

“East-north-east.”

So south was right in front of her, through the dense forest where this man had appeared. He didn’t look like he was in the mood to play tour guide, and she wasn’t sure she wanted him to. He was too imposing, too obviously deadly for comfort. This didn’t look like the kind of man who had picked up a gun and some hunting gear out of desperation and self-defense the way she had. He was too calm. He’d probably been living the curmudgeonly mountain-man existence for the last two decades, reading the Unabomber’s unauthorized biography and taking shots at anyone who trespassed on
his
land. No doubt he was delighted that only one person was living today for every three thousand who’d been alive a year ago.

But he was plainly capable. He knew the area. He’d tracked them easily, so it wasn’t like she’d be able to escape him without a car anyway.

“Could you give us directions to Boise?”

He snorted. “On foot? Honey, you’ve lost your mind if you think you can walk to Boise this time of year.”

“What about someplace we can get a car? Is there a town near here?” She’d pretty much exhausted her knowledge of Idaho towns with Coeur d’Alene and Boise.

The sense of hopeless defeat rushed back in. How was she supposed to get the kids south for the winter if she couldn’t even figure out which way south was?

A tiny hand plucked at Eden’s jeans, Hannah Rose trying to get her attention. She shifted her leg away.
Not now, babygirl. Mama’s holding a gun on the nice man.

“Look, I’m sorry, lady…”

“Mama?” The little plucking fingers were back. Hannah Rose poked her head around Eden’s shoulder.

“Not now, Hannah Rose.”
Don’t call attention to yourself, babygirl.

But it was already too late. The mountain man was staring at Hannah Rose’s rosy cheeks, his fierce frown evident even through the camouflage paint. “What does she want?” His voice was gruff, choked.

And a note in it set off warning bells in Eden—a note that made him simultaneously a dozen times more likely to help them and a thousand times more dangerous. Not a loner mountain man after all.
This man was a daddy once.

Eden scrambled to think of something to say to distract him, to take his attention off Hannah Rose and Lucas, but the girl was already wiggling away from her brother’s attempts to quietly pin her and climbing around Eden. “Can I ride the pony, Mama?”

“It isn’t a pony, babygirl.” The inane response was all her brain could manage. Suddenly holding a gun on the man who had rescued them felt absurd, but putting it down required an impossible level of trust.

“She’s a dog,” the mountain man said, reaching down to pet the hound again.

“That’s a
big
dog.” This time it was Lucas’s voice by her knee, filled with an awe she hadn’t heard there in a year.

Eden’s gaze shot down to study Lucas’s face, taking in the hint of wonder there. He looked like a child. For the first time in far too long, he wasn’t carrying the world on his shoulders. He was just gaping over a big-as-a-pony dog.
Damn, I should have found him a pet months ago
.

“Is she friendly? What’s her name?” Lucas asked as Hannah Rose simultaneously said, “Can I pat her? I’m gentle,” at her most wheedling.

Rambo sent Eden a look of such helplessness it was almost endearing.
Maybe not a daddy after all
.

Hannah Rose was smiling up at him, practically batting her eyelashes to get her way. Another knot of distrust loosened and unraveled in Eden’s gut. The five-year-old had amazing instincts when it came to people. She’d hated Jonah Carter on sight and frequently cried in his presence, but this man seemed to have the Hannah Rose seal of approval.

And in spite of all the rules Eden had made for herself to keep them all safe, for some reason she
wanted
to trust this man. Taking a deep breath, she relaxed her stance, straightening to her feet and shifting the rifle to hang from the strap over her shoulder. “Does she have a name?”

“Precious.”

Eden’s eyebrows flew up and she bit back a smile. Not a name she would have expected Rambo to give his mine’s-bigger-than-yours dog.
Maybe someone else named her.
“Is it okay if they pet her?”

He nodded and stepped away from the dog, who whined in protest, somehow knowing Eden would want some distance between him and the kids. His stiff posture relaxed as the kids squeaked with delight and bounded over to the dog. Precious pricked her ears up and then dropped onto her stomach, her tail sweeping the ground.

Eden followed more slowly. “She’s great with kids,” she said softly, a peace offering of sorts.
Sorry I pointed a gun at you after you saved my life. No hard feelings.

He looked up from watching the kids lavish adoration on his dog and met her eyes, acknowledging their uncomfortable truce and accepting her earlier mistrust with surprising equanimity. Close up she could see his features better through the paint. He was younger than she’d originally thought—maybe only a few years older than her own thirty-two. His eyes were a clear, sharp green. Kind of gorgeous, really. Eden’s mouth went dry, and her train of thought took a detour into Lustville.

“Connor.”

“Sorry?”

“My name. Connor Reed.”

She blushed at the direction of her thoughts. “Eden Fairfax. And these two are Lucas and Hannah Rose.” It occurred to her after she spoke that she could have lied about their names. That perhaps she
should
have lied. If anyone else from Seattle came through asking questions about them, would he tell them where she’d headed?

Not that he’d seemed particularly inclined to help Ben, but not all Jonah’s people were bullies, and several of them were very good at getting their way. Especially some of the girls when it came to coaxing information out of men.

Of course, they had to find her rescuer first, before they could interrogate him. They were in the middle of nowhere…

Eden’s heart stopped beating for a moment, then restarted at a hare’s pace. How had Ben found them?

He’d worked for Microsoft. Computers. Electronics still functioned when they had the electricity to power them. Generators and solar cells were still going strong. Satellites were still in orbit.

“Shit.” The curse was loud and involuntary, and the children looked up at her, frowning their confusion. Eden barely noticed. She rushed over to the pack she’d dropped earlier and yanked it open.

Could a tracking device of some kind still function? Had Ben somehow given himself a leg up on other bounty hunters by tricking her into bringing one with her?

Their few precious possessions quickly littered the forest floor as Eden ransacked the pack. Would she even know what a tracker looked like?

“Lucas. Hannah Rose. Bring me your packs.”

The bags appeared at her side and she grabbed for them, only belatedly noticing it was Connor who held them rather than the children. “You okay?” he said under his breath, a slight edge of stop-freaking-the-kids-out in his voice.