“June! Are you all right?” He clambered around the back of the vehicle, now slanting to the sky, and wrenched open the door. “Can you walk? Are you okay?” He released her seat belt. She sagged against him and he helped her out. “I had to take the chance. I couldn’t think of anything else to do.” His hands, still bound together, shook as they stroked her face, her shoulder.
She drew in a deep breath and let it out deliberately. “I’m fine.” Her eyes were hazed with shock, but he couldn’t see any injuries. “I think. Better than them, anyway.” She squinted into the Jeep. Tabitha sprawled over the steering wheel, eyes closed, blood trickling from her nose. Her chest rose and fell rhythmically. Fleetham made a feeble attempt to extricate himself, but collapsed with a groan. “What about Schwarz-Silber?”
Alex reached in and managed to lift out the rifle. Together they scrambled onto the road. The silver SUV had stopped up ahead. Schwarz-Silber stood, one foot on the road and one in the vehicle, looking over his shoulder toward the wreck.
On the highway, a baby blue pickup, jacked up high on huge tires, screeched to a halt. The driver leaped down. The appearance of a witness decided Schwarz-Silber. He slammed the door shut and sped away, gravel spewing from under the straining tires. The vehicle vanished into the trees.
The pickup driver ran to Alex and June. He wore a grimy black ball cap and ragged plaid shirt over oil spotted jeans.
“Hey, is everyone okay? I saw you spin out there.” He spied the rifle and stopped so suddenly his arms flailed to keep his balance. Hands raised, he backed away. “Oh, hey, I don’t want any trouble, man.”
June held out her wrists, still bound by the nylon rope. “Please, help us. We were being kidnapped.” She gestured at Alex. “See, he’s tied up, too. You’ve got to help us.”
“I’ll give you the gun,” Alex said. “You take it. The kidnappers are in the Jeep. Make sure they don’t get out.”
The Good Samaritan hesitated. “You put that gun down, I’ll think about it.”
Alex lowered the rifle to the ground and stepped away, drawing June with him. “Come and get it. But you’ve got to make sure those two don’t get out of the Jeep.”
The man picked up the gun using the tips of his fingers.
His caution made Alex wonder if he’d done the right thing, surrendering the weapon. “Have you ever used a rifle before?”
“Of course I have.” The man looked affronted. He grasped the weapon firmly and straightened his back. “Don’t you worry none, I’ll take care of them.” He peered inside the Jeep where Tabitha and Fleetham still lay. “They were kidnapping you?” he asked incredulously.
“It’s a long story.” Alex sighed. “I work for the Ministry of Environment. I have identification if you want. But first, do you have a knife or something, so we can get this rope off?”
“In the cab. Glove box.” Alex started toward the truck, its chrome gleaming. “Don’t get any blood on the seat.”
****
Events moved quickly once Alex was able to use his cell phone to call Detective George. The pickup driver kept a wary eye on Tabitha and Fleetham, and was incredibly relieved when RCMP members showed up in full force. He cheerfully gave his name to a constable, patted Alex and June heartily on the back, and headed off in his monstrous truck with a snappy wave.
Numerous officials swarmed over the accident scene, led by the grey-haired, grey-eyed detective, whose name Alex never had learned, accompanied by Detective George and Constable Wendy Hoffarth. June sat in the front seat of a cruiser. Alex leaned over the open door, arms folded on the top frame of the window. He kept an eye on June, who was unnervingly still.
Constable Hoffarth strode up. “It seems one of them got away.”
Alex nodded. “The big German guy.”
“Schwarz-Silber. Walter Schwarz-Silber.” June added quietly.
“It shouldn’t take us long to find him,” Hoffarth assured her. “These two are nattering away a mile a minute.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder, and Alex looked past her to see Fleetham being helped into a cruiser, while Tabitha was strapped onto a gurney in the back of an ambulance. “We’ll take him in now, and as soon as they’ve fixed her up we’ll get a chance at her, as well. We’ve put out a bulletin for their buddy.”
“Can we go home?” June asked. Alex’s eyes narrowed. She might look like she was holding it together, but her hand trembled as she brushed hair off her forehead. A paramedic had treated her abraded wrists, wrapping them in white bandages. Alex fingers curled into fists.
“I’ve been asked to drive you both into the detachment. We need to get your statements.”
June closed her eyes. The sign of weakness infuriated Alex even further. “Can’t it wait until morning?”
“I’m afraid not.”
****
Fatigue deepened the dislocation from reality June had experienced since the accident. Everything seemed unnaturally bright and clear, and the smallest sound echoed in her head. At the detachment, the smell of stale coffee and trapped air was so overwhelming it made her queasy. She answered all questions as if an opaque screen separated her from her interviewers. Not even the news Schwarz-Silber had been arrested pierced the veil covering her.
A pink dawn was beginning to glow over the eastern horizon when she and Alex were allowed to leave.
Alex’s Jeep had been towed out of the ditch and impounded for forensic investigation, so Hoffarth called them a cab. Eager for fresh air they stepped out onto the sidewalk and waited in the crisp, early light. A police cruiser pulled up to the station. Schwarz-Silber looked daggers in the back.
He’d been found as he was hurriedly leaving a local hotel. According to Hoffarth, who had brought the news to June, the battle he put up when the police apprehended him had done him no favours.
Alex hugged her to his side. She wrapped her arms around his waist.
Schwarz-Silber was led up the steps, struggling in the grip of two large officers. His face purpled with rage when he saw them. “
Du Hurensohn
,” he spat. “
Bloede Kuh! Gottverdammt!
”
June watched silently until they disappeared into the building, then lifted her head to look at Alex. A bruise stained his skin where the rifle butt had gashed his temple. He studied her with an air of concern. This was the man who loved her, who fought for her, who stood next to her.
With a click the world realigned itself. A taxi pulled up at the curb. She lay her cheek against Alex’s, rough with stubble, flush with life.
“Let’s go home,” she said.
****
They staggered wearily into the house and crashed into June’s bed. Alex spooned around her, soaking in her warmth. She dropped into sleep immediately, but he was unable to do the same, despite muscles quivering with fatigue. His brain wouldn’t shut down, whirling and spinning with the events of the last few days.
Her head fit perfectly under his chin, the silk of her hair sweeping his chest. He inhaled her scent and snugged her tighter against him.
She was truly amazing. Her resourcefulness, her courage, her strength. It had been nothing but the truth when he told her he had never known anyone like her. Throughout his turbulent youth, bounced from one parent to the other, one stepmother or “uncle” to the next, he had been unable to believe in love, in happily ever after. She had changed all that, with her steadiness, her certainty, her love.
Oddly enough, these new feelings helped him understand his father better. It was an adrenalin rush like no other, this falling in love.
She murmured in her sleep and he smoothed a hand up and down her torso. Restless, she flipped onto her back, making small mewling noises. Her hands plucked at the sheets. She gulped in mouthfuls of air, and her eyes opened, but they were wide and frightened and blank as she stared at some nightmare image.
“Hush, now, hush.” He cupped her face in both hands. “Look at me. I need you to look at me. Everything is okay.”
Her eyes darted right then left, up then down. She never came fully to consciousness, but he continued to talk to her, calmly, softly, and gradually her breathing eased. Once she’d slipped back into sleep, he nestled down with his arms about her and, at last, followed her into slumber.
****
June floated to the surface the next morning. Golden light drifted through the window, glinting in the hairs on Alex’s forearm as it draped over her. His breath fanned the back of her neck. She lay still, reveling in their closeness.
“I love you.”
She twitched, startled, then turned her head to smile at him. “And I love you. What a wonderful way to wake up.”
He rolled onto his back and shifted her so she stretched out above him. “I can think of a better way.” With a hand on her nape, he guided her down so he could nibble her lower lip. She moaned, deepened the kiss and relaxed into him.
Their lovemaking was languorous, touches and tastes, sips and sighs. She skimmed through clouds of desire, her mind hazy, passion simmering. Alex’s hands glided over her, into her, everywhere, and when she crested the first time it was a long, slow swell that left her gasping.
He slipped into her. Their lips clung, tongues sliding against each other. With long strokes he brought them both closer and closer, in heart, in mind, in body.
And when they shuddered together in that final, wrenching moment, he whispered her name as she called out to him.
She lay sprawled on top of him, her face buried in his neck. He smelled wonderful, male and woodsy and...hers.
“Will you marry me?”
She could have sworn her heart stopped beating. She might have even gone blind for a second. Lifting her head from his shoulder she gazed down at him, flabbergasted. “Marry you? As in a white wedding and ’til death do us part?”
“Oh, is that what it means?” he teased, and earned himself a sharp poke in the ribs. His laughter rippled out.
She sat up, knees on either side of his hips, hands fisted. “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it,” she warned. “Because I won’t let you change your mind. If you’re not in it forever, don’t believe in forever, I’ll hunt you down and kill you.”
He answered with a reckless light in his eye. “I’m good with that. I don’t want to go another day without knowing you are mine, really and truly, forever.”
Pressure built at the back of June’s throat. She allowed herself to hope.
“You are the most incredible woman I have ever met. You’re strong, capable, independent.” He reached up and stroked a finger down the side of her neck, over the upper swell of her breast, across her nipple. She shivered and splayed her hands on his chest. “And when I touch you, you take me places I’ve never been before. I want to love you, and work with you, and fight with you...and make babies with you. I want to marry you.”
This time the tears did spill over. She rubbed them furiously off her cheeks. “I hate this. I hate that I’m crying, when I’m so happy. I love you.” She threw herself onto him and he grunted, then wrapped his arms around her and crushed his mouth to hers. It was a declaration, it was a promise, it was a future.
A word about the author...
Writing and reading have long been ways for Brenda to keep sane. She is thrilled to have actually finished writing a book, let alone have it published. She lives in British Columbia with her husband and three children (all of whom are taller than her) and various finny and furry pets.
Find her on Twitter, Facebook and at www.brendamargriet.com.
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