Explosive Engagement (20 page)

“That must have been horrible,” she said, visibly shuddering.
“How is your leg now?”

“Pretty good. I’ll probably limp for the rest of my life, but
considering everything, that’s not so bad.”

She nodded. “Okay, now tell me how you ended up in an asparagus
patch.”

He shrugged as though it was all no big deal. The actuality of
it was a whole different matter. “I waited until the snow started to melt,
smoked a bunch of fish, broke camp and stared downhill, following a stream that
fed from the lake. After a few days, I ran into tended land, though I didn’t see
a house. There was this big, tall fence surrounding some seedlings so I went
through the gate to see if anything was mature enough to eat yet. I found a few
strawberries, gobbled them up and must have passed out or fallen asleep because
the next thing I knew, an older woman was shaking me awake. She told me her name
was Doris and that she and her husband, Duke, had built themselves a place just
over the rise. They nursed me for a day or so and then they insisted on driving
me home and that took another two days.”

“Thank heavens she found you,” Jessica said. “You should see a
doctor about your leg.”

“I will. Right now, it’s enough just to be sitting here.” He
ran a hand across his hairy chin and added, “I need a shave and my own clothes.
Duke lent me these.”

“They sound like incredibly kind people. But, Alex, why didn’t
you phone me?”

“They don’t have a phone,” he said. “No television, no
internet, no electricity. They’re the back-to-nature type. I did call my parents
on the way, though.”

“But not me.”

Did that bother her? Was she thinking that in the months before
he disappeared he’d often not reported in as often as he should because it
always seemed to come with an argument or apathy, either one of them hard to
take? “I didn’t want you to find out about me over a phone,” he said gently. “I
wanted to see you. I wanted to look in your eyes, to know if it mattered to you
that I was alive.”

“Of course it matters to me,” she said, brow furling. “What a
terrible thing to say.”

“You know what I mean, Jess.”

She nodded as she bit her lip and took a deep breath.

“Still,” he continued, gesturing at the wall phone. “I’m kind
of surprised that thing isn’t ringing off the hook. Mom has had time to tell all
the relatives by now.”

“I have it switched to message only,” she said. “I had to. It
felt like every call was a possible ambush. I had to be able to deal with people
on my own terms, at least once I was inside this house.” She met his gaze and
smoothed back her hair. “I’m sorry, Alex, that must sound selfish to you.”

“No,” he said gently, patting the chair again as she finished
folding the laundry. “No, it sounds like survival, that’s all.”

She sat down next to him, their knees all but touching. He
ached to fold her in his arms. He wanted to tell her that he’d been thinking of
little else but her for weeks and weeks and that he wanted them to be together,
to make things work. But she was distant and jittery and he wasn’t brave enough
to admit his feelings and have them dashed in his face.

For that matter, dare he trust his feelings? The past several
days had been a roller coaster of a ride, exhausting on all levels. Being back
was strange and wonderful and truth be known, scary as hell.

He caught her studying his face and wished he’d taken Duke
Booker up on his offer for a shave and a haircut so he’d look a little more like
he had before.

“There are things you need to know,” she said.

He braced himself. Here it came. She’d moved on.

She shook her head as she added, “Maybe you should call Nate
and get him to tell you.”

“Nate?” What did his best friend have to do with her?

“He’s been so concerned about you,” she said.

“I can imagine,” Alex murmured, trying to imagine what it must
have been like for Nate to keep waiting for a plane that never arrived. They’d
met in the army, had both ended up with careers in law enforcement, Nate as a
deputy in Arizona and Alex a police detective in Blunt Falls. Now they were
fishing buddies when the opportunity allowed.

“What does Nate need to tell me that you can’t?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Okay, I’ll try to explain. Before people
start asking you questions, you’ve got to know a few things. There are a lot of
people, Nate included, who don’t think your plane crash was an accident.”

He frowned. “What?”

“Right around the time your plane disappeared, Nate was almost
killed. That’s why he couldn’t join the search to try to find you. Worse than
all that, though, is that Mike Donovan was murdered.”

“Mike is dead?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

Mike wasn’t a close pal, like Nate, but Alex had cared for him
all the same. Head spinning, he murmured, “Nate thinks all three of us were
targeted by the same person?”

“Yes, a man in Shatterhorn who sang your accolades after the
mall incident. Everyone refers to him simply as The Shatterhorn Killer and not
by name, a tribute to those he killed or caused to die. Anyway, he’s dead now,
thanks to an unidentified driver Nate saw purposefully run him down with a car.
This same man was also behind the shooting at the Shatterhorn mall and
apparently, him and others like him have been responsible for all sorts of
mayhem occurring on national holidays around the country. Remember that incident
in Hawaii last Pearl Harbor Day where some angry kid shot and killed those
off-duty soldiers on the beach? Things like that. Everyday events shattered by
violence. And everyone is certain something is going to happen this Memorial
Day, too.”

Alex stared at her a moment, trying to make sense of all this.
“But you said the guy was run over.”

“There are apparently others. Even if this man wasn’t in Blunt
Falls when your plane was sabotaged, he could have hired someone to help him do
it.”

Alex simply couldn’t wrap his head around any of it. The lonely
austerity of the mountains suddenly seemed like the epicenter of civilization
and this place a jungle. “Why would anyone do this?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s complicated, Alex. Something about creating terror
for people engaged in normal, ordinary situations so they won’t support any kind
of weapon control. It’s domestic terrorism but with a spin. They call themselves
patriots and they recruit malcontent kids to do the dirty work. It’s been in the
news lately, but I’ve been a little distracted.... Nate can tell you more and I
know the FBI and FAA are going to want to talk to you, too.”

Welcome home,
he thought. Here all
this time he’d assumed he’d been in an everyday kind of plane crash, no
intrigue, no drama, just rotten luck and maybe a bad gasket or something. And
now he was hearing someone may have tried to murder him.

The fact was the day of the crash was something of a blur. He
hadn’t felt very good; he’d thought he was getting Jessica’s flu. He’d been
tired and thirsty and out of it, and then the plunging oil pressure, so sudden
and dramatic and final.

Could that have been caused by someone tampering with his
plane? But he’d had the required maintenance performed on the plane—in fact, he
was a stickler for that. He’d also conducted a preflight check. He could vaguely
remember doing it although like everything else about that day, the recollection
was hazy.

“We don’t know for sure that your crash was premeditated, but
it’s awfully coincidental,” Jessica said, and he wasn’t positive but it sounded
to him as though she was trying to ease some of his shock.

“Yeah,” he said. He took a deep breath before trying to shy
away from all of this for a moment. “How about you?” he asked. “How have you
been? Did anyone try to harm you?”

“No, I’ve been fine,” she said, and then shook her head.
“That’s not true. I’ve been a wreck.”

“In some odd way, I’m glad to hear it,” he admitted. He took a
deep breath. “I’ve had all sorts of time to regret what I said that last
morning. I shouldn’t have even suggested you were lying to me about having the
flu.”

“I wasn’t making it up, you know. I really did feel sick.”

“I know. I think I had a touch of it, too. It’s just that we’d
been going our own ways so often that it was beginning to feel like we’d never
hook back up.”

“I know,” she said.

“You began to say something earlier,” he added. “Something
like, there being something worse than me being dead. You stopped yourself. What
were you going to say? What would have been worse than me being dead?”

She blinked a few times and he could almost see the wheels
turning in her head. “I don’t remember where I was going with that,” she said at
last.

Their gazes met and she looked away. She may not have been
lying about having a virus but she was lying now, he was sure of it. He wanted
to demand she explain, but he couldn’t bring himself to further distance her.
The warmth they’d shared in her classroom had evaporated as soon as they hit the
house. How ironic would it be to survive what he’d survived just to lose
everything that really mattered?

But had he really thought he could waltz back in here and erase
the past year or two of tension between them with a few kisses and an
apology?

“We can try again,” he said very softly, searching her
face.

“Try again? What do you mean?” she asked.

“Having a baby. I know you said before that you were finished
hoping but I’ve been thinking about that, too. The doctor might have been wrong.
We could consult another specialist.”

“Please, Alex,” she said, staring into his eyes. “This is all
too much. An hour ago I thought I’d never see you again. There are things we
need to discuss.” She smiled and added, “That’s a real understatement.”

There was a sudden knock on the front door and they both turned
their heads and stared into the living room as though expecting an invasion.

“I think our time before the blitz is about up,” he said as the
doorbell chimed. He could hear voices coming from outside and more knocks seemed
to rattle the windows. “Continue with what you were saying,” he urged.

“Not now, not like this,” she said with a shake of her head.
She pushed a few strands of hair away from her face and smiled. “Later, okay?
I’ll go stick these clothes in the bedroom. Will you answer the door?”

“Might as well get it over with,” he said as he got to his
feet. But for a second he stood there watching Jessica hurry into the kitchen
with the basket on her hip. He knew she would take the back stairs up to their
bedroom.

What he didn’t know was what she was trying to tell him.

Copyright © 2014 by Alice Sharpe

ISBN-13: 9781460335215

EXPLOSIVE ENGAGEMENT

Copyright © 2014 by Lisa Childs

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