Eden's Promise, page 18
“Are you hurt?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head and smiled, but even her smile held a ghost of...something.
“The two of you have some explaining to do,” Kelly said as they approached.
“We’ll explain on the way home,” Aaron said. “Get your things. We’re leaving.”
***
The ride west was cramped in the old pick-up. Eden sat between Aaron and Kelly, and Geoff and Christine rode in the back with their supplies. Eden had never expected to find Aaron waiting at the camp, never expected him to have the use of a truck, which wouldn’t take them to the coast but would take them a good deal closer, shaving days off their journey.
And her sister was beside her. Eden held Kelly’s hand, like she had when they were little girls and Kelly had been the big sister she’d looked up to. Now Kelly was gaunt and beaten, but that was okay. They’d be home soon and she’d come back to life.
“Tell me how Dad died,” Kelly said, her voice barely audible over the sound of the truck’s engine, the jounce of the shocks. “Aaron said he was shot.”
Eden looked at Aaron, and he lifted a shoulder.
“Dad didn’t want people coming to the island and depleting our supplies. He died keeping people away. You know how he was when you left? Well, he was even more driven at the end, so certain something was going to happen.”
“He was right,” Kelly said bitterly. “I never wanted him to be right.”
“He didn’t want to be right,” Eden said gently.
“I said terrible things to him when I left, and I never went back,” Kelly murmured. “Now I can never apologize.”
Eden squeezed her sister’s hand, not knowing what to say. Her father had never really been one for apologies. “You know him. Even if you’d apologized, he would have huffed, and put you to work.”
“But at least I would have apologized. And Aaron said Mom is sick. Will I have a chance to make up everything to her?” Tears spilled down Kelly’s cheeks.
“Just you being home will be enough.” But Eden’s stomach tightened. She had no idea if her mother was still alive or not.
Kelly swiped at her tears with the back of her hand. “And the two of you? How did that happen?”
“Aaron was with me when Mom got sick. I needed to come to the mainland, he had just come from here. We thought we’d look for you for a week.” She huffed out a short laugh. “I’m glad we didn’t give up.”
“You’re not answering my question. Clearly you’re together.”
Eden drew in a deep breath. She’d known this conversation was coming. “It’s not something we’ve even talked about,” she said, hoping Kelly would drop it.
“So he’s just sleeping with you. After he slept with me.”
Eden winced and felt Aaron tense beside her.
“It’s not like that, and it wasn’t that way between us,” Aaron said sharply. “Don’t cheapen it, Kelly. It’s not a conquest.”
Kelly opened her mouth to say something, then slumped back against the seat.
“I didn’t do it to hurt you,” Eden said softly when Kelly tried to pull her hand away. “Aaron’s a good man. A good man,” she repeated. “How could I not fall for him?”
She thought the truck swerved a little at that, as if she’d surprised him with her words, but she couldn’t look at him, her cheeks too red. He pressed his thigh against hers in some kind of signal, some kind of approval, she thought, and smiled to herself.
***
Aaron’s gut squeezed inexplicably the closer they came to the farm. He wasn’t sure if it was giving up the truck that had him anxious, knowing he’d be in charge of getting four women, a nearly worthless man and an infant over the mountains to the coast. Maybe it was the tension in the truck. Kelly had been prickly as hell, for someone who’d just been rescued. She was a stranger now. Eden had done her best to placate her sister, to lighten the mood, but Kelly seemed to prefer the dark. Lovely. And most of her bad mood seemed to be about his relationship with Eden, though their relationship had been over ten years. Maybe he’d pull her aside and clear the air. At least a shouting match would be preferable to walking on eggshells. And they had known how to fight. They’d been damn good at it, in fact. He was surprised to find he was looking forward to it.
He crested the rise over the farm and saw what his gut had been warning him about.
Two trucks and a Hummer were parked in front of the farm, two at an angle that told him all he needed to know.
Commander Wayne had found them, and they were under attack.
Chapter Eighteen
He braked so hard, the back of the truck fishtailed, eliciting shouts of surprise from Christine and Geoff. He angled the truck so the driver’s side faced the farm.
“Get out of the truck,” he ordered the women, and banged on the back windshield to motion for Christine and Geoff to do the same.
Kelly was slow, but Eden pushed her out, clearly registering Aaron’s urgency, even if she hadn’t recognized the threat below. Christine tossed their packs out and scrambled over the side, but Geoff was slower. Aaron grabbed him by the back of the shirt and yanked him backwards out of the truck bed, eliciting a yell of surprise from the other man. Aaron swore and looked over his shoulder.
If the men below hadn’t heard the approach of the truck, they’d heard that as it echoed over the hills.
His heart stuttered as he saw one of the men lift something to his shoulder.
“Go, go, go!”
Not letting go of Geoff, he ran around the truck to get Eden to safety, only to see her urging her sister over a rise, Christine on her heels. Good girl. He dragged Geoff after them as a whistle rent the air, a whistle he knew too well.
“Get down!” he shouted, as the rocket hit the truck and sent it flying in a ball of flame, knocking him off his feet as he dove over the rise after Eden.
Geoff landed on his face, Aaron hard on his side, but he brought himself around quickly to look up at Eden, who’d twisted to check on him.
“Okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he muttered before he took inventory. Shoulder in place, thank God. He’d dislocated it on a couple of times, and on occasion, it popped out like some kind of freaky Barbie doll joint. He rolled onto his stomach and belly-crawled toward her. “You?” He couldn’t stop himself, brushed his fingertips over her cheek.
She pressed a hand to her chest as if to still her racing heart. “What do we do now?”
He chanced a peek over the rise. The truck was upside down in flames, their supplies from the refugee camp scattered, their enemy below, though he couldn’t see them from this vantage point. Were they on their way up, or did they trust the explosion finished them?
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Kelly said, her voice panicked. “They could fire again.”
“We can’t. Annie is down there,” Christine said, jerking her thumb toward the farmhouse.
And Bill and Nancy, their lives at risk because they’d taken Annie and the baby in, and he’d left them to go find Kelly. He couldn’t walk away. If he’d been here, none of this would have happened. He looked into Eden’s eyes. “I have to go.”
“Good, let’s go,” Kelly said.
But Eden understood. “I’m going with you.”
“Me, too,” Christine said.
He ground his teeth. “We don’t have enough weapons.” But Bill did, if he could manage to get to the basement of the house without being seen. How many men had Wayne brought with him? And was Wayne here himself?
“We have ours,” Eden said.
He lifted an eyebrow. “On you?”
“Yes,” Christine said without question, while Eden blushed and shook her head.
“In my pack.”
Without a second thought, Aaron vaulted over the hill, grabbed her pack and the one nearest, and tossed it over the rise to her. He glanced down to see two men advancing up the hill from the farm gate, guns at the ready. They didn’t have much time.
He rejoined Eden as she opened her pack, and she gave a laugh of surprise.
“What?”
In answer, she opened the zipper wider and revealed a pack of Oreos sitting on top of her things.
“A parting gift from Hawkins,” she said.
“You’re going to have to tell me all about that later,” he muttered, drawing his gun. He glanced over at Kelly and Geoff. Geoff’s face was bloody below his nose, which made him look sinister, but Kelly was crying.
“You can’t stay here,” he told them. “Come with us, we’ll get you to a safe place.”
“That’s what I thought you were doing when you took us from the camp,” Kelly snapped.
Aaron bit back the angry retort that rose in his throat, and turned his head away. “Come or don’t, but the men who blew up our truck are coming up the hill.”
And he had to get his people to the other side of the road without being seen.
“Our things!” Kelly protested.
“We’ll come back for them,” he said grimly. He was the one who knew the area, so he needed to take the lead. Which meant the only person he trusted to take the rear was Eden. He held her gaze. “Keep them together.”
She nodded.
He dug his fingers into the back of her neck and pressed a kiss to her mouth. Damn, he’d just gotten her back. He didn’t want to risk her. “Keep your head down.”
Because they had to move, he turned away and headed down the hill, hoping to keep the landscape between them and their enemies. He led them across the road and ducked behind a row of bushes in front of the iron fence surrounding Bill’s land. He looked through the foliage to see the two men had reached the truck and were inspecting it. Their distraction gave Aaron and his people their best opportunity to get across the field, but first they had to get over Bill’s tall fence, which had few footholds.
“Climb,” he ordered, turning to grab Kelly and lift her.
She grabbed the bars of the fence almost in self-defense, but her feet had trouble finding purchase on the vertical bars. He put his hands under her ass and hefted her until she lifted a foot and was able to take herself up and over. The minute she was out of his hands he turned for Eden, but she was scrambling up on her own, as was Christine. Geoff stared at the bars, then glanced back at the burning truck, swallowing hard.
“Let’s go, man.”
The young man took a deep breath, grabbed the bars and tried to pull himself up.
A shout on the hill behind them chilled Aaron. They were out of time. He pivoted, grabbed Geoff’s skinny ass and hefted, barely waiting for the younger man to find get a grip before he himself took a running start and scaled the fence in seconds. He landed on the other side in a crouch, and reached for Geoff as the men fired.
Crap, they were out in the open. “That way!” he shouted, directing them north, over the next hill. This time he let them go first and brought up the rear, his thighs aching, his boots digging into the hard ground. The whole thing felt like a bad dream, like he wasn’t moving at all.
He prayed the weapons being fired wouldn’t cover the distance as Kelly slipped in the grass and went down hard, only to be hauled up by Eden and Geoff and dragged over the hill.
“Toward the barn!” he ordered, Even if Wayne had men in there, if Aaron could get them inside he could protect them.
Christine took off first, hauling ass, Eden and Geoff supporting Kelly between them. Damn it, how had she hurt herself? He crossed to them, slung an arm around Kelly’s waist and hauled her into his arms.
“Go!” he snarled at Eden and Geoff.
Eden hesitated, but Geoff did not. Aaron was about to reach for Eden’s arm and drag her forward, but she realized he had his hands full and ran on her own, ahead of him, as Kelly looped her arm around his neck, her gaze over his shoulder toward their enemy. Sounds of terror emerged from her throat, but he couldn’t take the time to reassure her. Every ounce of his strength was used to get her to safety. How bad would it suck if she was hurt—or worse—now, after all they’d gone through to get her? His muscles strained as he carried her, something that would have been so easy before this all went down, back when food was readily available. His arms trembled, even though she didn’t weigh more than the pack he used to carry when he was in the service.
As they crested the hill, he saw the house below them. Any minute, men would be running out, investigating the gunfire. He looked below to see Christine streaking toward the back of the barn and yanking the door open. Eden was behind her, but turned to see his progress, and her step stumbled. She regained her footing and turned toward him, as if to help. He wanted to shout at her to keep going, to signal her, something, but he couldn’t, not without drawing attention. Instead, he plowed forward, willing her to go inside the barn with Christine, who’d wrenched the back door open.
He braced himself for the sound of gunfire inside the building, but none came. He knew better than to think that meant they’d be safe.
Geoff disappeared inside, behind Christine, but Eden stood at the door, waiting for him to bring her sister. Gunshots echoed over the land as the men who’d blown up the truck gained on them. A bullet impacted the wall of the barn, splintering the wood, and Aaron ducked his head over Kelly, who curled herself into a ball to make a smaller target.
The shadow of the barn touched him, and he was close enough to see the lines of worry on Eden’s face.
“Go!” he ordered hoarsely, and she finally moved, just ahead of him, then reached past him to yank the door shut.
The smell of animals and dust assaulted his senses when he stepped through the door, and he choked back a cough. The animals—three horses and five cows, he knew, from working in here just yesterday—tossed their heads in alarm at the invasion. He set Kelly down, eliciting a cry of pain from her that he ignored as he joined Eden at the door, looking for a way to bolt it against the men on the other side. Bill was too damned trusting, because the thing had no way to lock. Arms still shaking, Aaron turned and grabbed a bale of hay and tossed it in front of the door, then added another, and another.
“In the barn!” one of the men shouted.
Alarm sent another surge of adrenaline through his already taxed body. “We’re about to have company,” he said, running the length of the barn to the other door, followed by Christine and Eden. “Get her upstairs,” he ordered Geoff, gesturing to Kelly. “Out of the line of fire.”
“What if they set fire to the barn?” Geoff demanded. “Then we’ll be trapped.”
The guy had seen too many movies. “They won’t.” At least, Aaron fervently hoped not. The farm equipment in here, combined with the hay, would make this a very bad place to be in a fire. “You’re safer there for now.” Once they secured the doors, he intended to join them, and figure out what the hell was wrong with Kelly, who whimpered with each step of the ladder.
The doors at the front of the barn were wider, to accommodate the tractors and field equipment, and so they’d be harder to block. While the two women tossed more hay bales in front of the door, he jumped on the tractor, popped it into neutral, then hopped down and began rolling it toward the door. Eden saw what he was doing and turned to help, calling Christine to do the same. Together, the three of them moved the giant vehicle so the back tires rested against the doors. Before they could congratulate themselves on a job well done, the doors shuddered with impact from the other side, just as the door on the opposite end vibrated as those men attempted to push the door and the hay bales aside.
“Up!” Aaron ordered softly.
This time, Eden obeyed, scrambling up behind Christine. Once in the loft, both women drew their weapons. Smart. Aaron lifted a finger to his lips and aimed the gesture at Kelly before he belly-crawled to the hayloft’s window to scout the situation.
The dust that obscured his view also prevented the men from seeing him, so he was able to linger a moment. Five, maybe six men were below him, fighting to get into the barn on this side, and the two on the other, maybe three now if the man from the front gate had joined them.
Wayne had brought quite a force with him to reclaim his child. But how had he found them?
No point in worrying about that. He needed to get into that house, take out Wayne, and rescue the people who’d been so good to him and Annie.
“How bad?” Eden asked, crawling beside him, but wisely keeping away from the window.
“Bad.” He glanced over at her, flushed and breathing heavily, and so beautiful it stopped his heart for a minute. “I need to go in.”
She nodded. “I’ll go with you.”
“No. You don’t know the house. I do. I can go in through the basement. You stay here and keep your sister safe.”
“Christine can do that. You need someone to watch your back.”
“Sweetheart, I was a Navy SEAL.” He tried to grin, to lighten the mood, but it felt more like a grimace.
She didn’t argue. “How are you getting out of here? We blocked the exits.”
“I have a plan.” Not a great one, and not one he wanted to execute in broad daylight, but he didn’t have a choice. “Look, if they breach, take the animals and go. They won’t expect it, and you can put some distance between yourself and them.”
She looked over her shoulder at Kelly, who sat with her head back, resting against the wall. He sensed a protest, but Eden didn’t voice it. Instead, she nodded.
“Are you going now?”
He glanced out the window again. Damn, he’d sure like time to catch his breath, maybe come up with a better plan. But, “Yeah.”
She curved her hands against his face and looked into his eyes. “Thank you for coming for me. I know this wouldn’t have happened if you’d been here.”
Her words jolted him, that she knew him well enough to know that got him. “I wasn’t going home without you.” It was no declaration of love, which he wasn’t sure she was looking for anyway, but that was for another time, another place. There would be another time and place.
