Desert Blade (4 page)

Something watched him.

Jolting awake, Derek uncurled from his prone position and struck out at the threat. A buzzing filled his head and he blinked.

What the hell had happened?

Not sure where he was, or the specific danger, he gripped the man he had by the throat and growled, “Don’t move or blink.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “Don’t even breathe.”

To his captive’s credit, he didn’t blink or even look afraid. He stared him in the eyes, stern, but with a lack of challenge, as if the man held authority and didn’t have to prove himself.

Careful to keep the threat between him and the others he sensed near—others who didn’t move an inch toward him, Derek loosened his hold a fraction. With a flick of his wrist, a well-practiced maneuver, his blade retracted. The weapon formed of his prosthetic slid back into his arm. He flexed his metal, fake-skin-covered fingers, as lethal and strong as the blade.

Nobody ever messed with him, a man who could crush a skull with a squeeze of his hand. Not even the drifter gangs.

“Where am I?”

“Leavenworth.” The man slid a hand up to cover Derek’s fingers to pry his hold away. He let him.

Keeping his gaze on the man in front of him, he counted two behind him and one to the side in his peripheral vision.

Leavenworth.

He’d come here looking for someone, but the troops manning the fort had taken exception to his anger at not being led to his quarry. Desperate to get the doctor and get home, he hadn’t taken the time to sneak in. This mission had already taken too long.

“Where is Dr. Kelso?” He stepped back and took in the rest of the room.

A throat cleared to his left. His head jerked that way. He blinked. The bump to his head had to be messing with him.

A woman in braids rose from a chair and stared at him with a faint frown. “I can answer that for you.”

The other man moved, then. For the first time Derek noticed the fatigues, the silver hair, the medals indicating rank.

“Don’t chitchat with the boy. Just check his eyes for the concussion then get out of here. He’ll cooperate.” The general pulled a sidearm and leveled it straight at his head. “Won’t you, boy?”

He grinned into the barrel of the gun. The woman flinched back a step.

“You keep that gun clean of desert sand?” Derek shrugged. “I keep my sword nice and sharp.”

“Stop it, you two.” She wore blue scrubs—covered incongruously by a light gray hoodie that she removed as she assessed him with a clinical eye—and stepped forward, stethoscope nestled in quite a lovely chest.

She motioned toward the cot. He hesitated but sat on the edge. Might as well do what she wanted so she’d get out of the way. He wasn’t staying here, but he didn’t want to hurt her on his way out.

“We know each other,” she said when she reached out to brush fingers against his temple, now pounding, as recognition tried to break through his muddled head.

The bruise there throbbed. He ground his teeth and didn’t outwardly react, but her touch set off a storm inside him. He swallowed the dry grit in his mouth. “I would have enjoyed a little bump and grind with a pretty thing like you, but if we did, I don’t recall it.”

Pink dots highlighting her cheeks, she frowned as she tilted up his head and checked his eyes. Her scent, clean but tinged with salt and a bit of vanilla, was so alluring he had to grip the cot to keep his hands off her. The cot groaned with a crunch beneath his metal fingers.

“Keep it where I can see it.” The general’s gun tracked from Derek’s hand back up to his head.

“I was there. When you got that.” Her dark brown eyes glanced at his sword arm.

His muddled head cleared and she came into focus. The world tipped to the side. The soft voice. The soft touch. His idiocy for not recognizing the one woman he regretted. He blurted out, “You smell like vanilla.”

He’d dreamed of her, imagined her softness, but he’d lost hope he’d see her again. In his pained haze, she’d formed in his mind as a woman of edible scent and kindness. And a tenderness that haunted his bleak reality. Her hair had been short, but now she had those blond braids that seemed at odds with the dark expressive eyes, rounded breasts and curvy hips beneath the worn cotton. This woman had a rare—no, one of a kind—decadent lushness to her that made him want to sink inside and never come out. And he was damn sure he hadn’t imagined the mutual attraction between them in those few days. He’d never forgotten that kiss.

“I do?” She turned his head side to side, staring dispassionately at his eyes. “Hmm. Must be the soap I use. And make. It cuts the antiseptic smell. Do you have any double vision, trouble seeing, pain?”

“No. I’m fine.” He couldn’t seem to move, completely under her spell.

Like a meek puppy at her feet. He was no puppy.

He stood slowly, his body barely grazing against hers and sending small brush fires erupting along his skin. Never had a woman gotten to him like she did. Sidestepping, he moved away from her, prowling around the back of the cell. The bastards had put him in a flea-bitten cell.

“Tiptop shape. Lidia, right? And who’s the old guy?” He smirked when the officer thumbed the trigger.

“That’s General Toole to you.” The officer said at the same time that the doctor exclaimed, “You remember my name?”

He ignored General I’m-a-Tool. “I remember everything. Every last detail.”

Every last scalpel cut. Every stitch.

She looked at him then, really connected, unlike before when she’d been assessing his injuries. It was as if she reached out and gripped him by the balls but she hadn’t moved, only looked into him. “I’d wondered. Worried about leaving you there after only a week to recover. But you insisted.”

“I had things to do in Chicago. Where’s Dr. Kelso?”

“Are you having trouble with your prosthetic?” She made as if to reach for him, but he stepped back.

The cool cell wall clanked against his arm, fake-flesh-covered metal from the shoulder down.

“I take it you know this drifter in some way. Let’s back it up and you can finish this discussion from the other side of the cell door.” Toole put his hand on Lidia’s shoulder.

Derek pushed away from the wall, and his sword extended with a
shhhttt.

“Get out,” Toole said to Lidia, as he spread his legs and aimed the gun at Derek’s head again. Not that a bullet in the head scared him in any way. Most days, he’d consider it a blessing, but he was here for a reason.

Lidia shrugged off Toole and sat on the cot. “He’s not dangerous. No more than you. He’s a Guardsman.”

“I’m dangerous.” He didn’t move. The few feet between him and the gun put the weapon well within his reach. His muscles tensed beneath his worn jeans and flimsy cotton tee. “But not to you.”

Boots scuffing on the grit, he lunged. The light flashed on his rising blade.

With a
ching,
the general’s gun fell to the floor in two pieces. They clattered, skittering along the concrete in different directions.

Before the two guards could muscle past Toole, Derek calmly spoke his name, rank and serial number.

Everyone hesitated, the tension apparent in the set of Toole’s shoulders. The general took his measure, blew out a breath and nodded, accepting Derek as trained military. “All right, soldier. Why are you here? Where are you from? And what the hell kind of weapon is that?”

“Derek doesn’t belong in here. Let’s have this discussion elsewhere.” Lidia stood and, wrapping her arms around herself, rubbed the skin exposed by her short sleeves. “I hate this place.”

Toole’s mouth flattened in a firm line as his gaze flickered between Derek and Lidia, who grabbed her hoodie and started toward the cell door without a glance back. “I’ll have your word, Covington. No trouble.”

“I won’t start any.” He could get past them all before the guards could react, but he needed to find Kelso. He’d do that and get the hell out of here because, like it or not, trouble always found him.

They followed Lidia out. Leavenworth was amazing. In the past decade, he’d gone out searching—but never this far west. There’d been pockets of surviving humanity, clinging to life and toiling for anything out of the burnt, barren soil. Nothing like this, almost a throwback to the old days. People walked the paths without fear. A few heavily guarded farms thrived inside the windbreak.

Unabashed to do so, he’d stolen a handful of fresh green beans from the vine and let himself remember Hester as he ate them. That little walk down memory lane had distracted him enough for the patrol to sneak up on him.

“I’m sorry I cut that kid. They jumped me and I fought back.” Badly wanting to ogle—and grab—her ass, he strode behind Lidia and kept his stare firmly on the back of her head and the line created by the part in the middle of her braided hair. It had to take a while to comb the thick mass of slick blond.

“I tended to him.” She carried a medical bag in one hand, swinging it slightly with the gentle sway of her walk. He moved his gaze back up to the top of her head and off the curves beneath the scrubs. Most women he’d come across since the riots were skinny as a rail. Food could be had, but it was never plentiful. His mouth watered.

“You better keep it clean from here on in.” General Toole had been quiet, walking behind him on the narrow path, no doubt staring at his metal arm. He was used to the fascination everyone always had with him.

They passed through swept and cleaned streets, rutted with potholes, filled with plants growing in cracks, but mostly even enough for walking. Brick buildings of old lined the way. Some were fallen in, gutted, trees even growing through the roofs of some. Many were inhabited. People in fatigues, jeans, patchwork dresses, came out of doorways or stopped in the street to stare.

“You don’t get many newcomers.” Of course they didn’t. It was a wasteland out there. Only fools like him would dare to traverse it.

He followed Lidia as she veered off the main street toward a small house in good repair. White clapboards, black shutters, and blue curtains in the open windows. A small garden rioting with color bordered the front porch, which was complete with a set of matching swings.

“What are you doing, Doc? You can’t bring him here.” General Toole whipped around them both to step in front of Lidia before she could go up the path.

She turned to him, and the sight of her tanned, healthy skin beneath the shade of an actual tree made him want to reach out and touch. He lifted his metal arm and then dropped it to his side.

Her eyes went from his fake fingers to his face. “We used to get new people. People found us. They’d clear out one of the old houses, settle in, find a way to help. We’re rebuilding. But a decade ago Dr. Kelso gave you something that makes you unique among us. Forgive the stares. They’re good people.”

“There are no good people anymore. Only survivors.” He scowled at her pleasant expression. She had no right to live peacefully when everywhere else, people struggled just to wake every morning.

“Doctor, let’s take this to my office.” The general used a surprisingly placating tone. The concession to Lidia by such a man only confirmed Derek’s decade-old estimation of her. This woman could command a general.

She faced Toole and put her hands on her hips. “No need for you to join us. I know Derek from before, and we have some catching up to do.”

“He’s dangerous. I won’t leave you alone with him. You’re too valuable to us.”

She shook her head. “I’m not just my job, General, I’m also a woman who can make up her own mind. I don’t have a keeper. I know this man well. Know his entire history, his medical records, his blood type. If you’ll be so kind as to move out of the way, I’m bringing a guest to my home and you’re not invited.”

“I can’t let you do that.” The hard set of Toole’s jaw seemed to crack in the air around them.

This was getting interesting, watching the sway of braids as Lidia pointed her finger and jabbed it in Toole’s chest. “Move.”

Derek laughed.

They both stopped and stared at him.

“I won’t hurt her. You have my word. That’s still good for something.” He didn’t know what, but something.

Whatever the general saw must have done the trick because he rolled his shoulders and moved out of the way. Bumping Derek’s shoulder as Derek moved toward the house, the older man muttered, “You’ll wish for a quick death if you put a hand on so much as a strand of her hair.”

He believed the threat. Knew it for what it was. This older man had a thing for the good doctor but had the sense to know the younger woman didn’t return the sentiment, probably didn’t even realize it. The tool general left a parting shot. “I’m leaving men to watch the house.”

That the general left said more about the woman than anything else. Her opinion was trusted. Even when his gut said to protect her, the old soldier had bowed to her wishes. Derek would never have left her alone. Never.

Striding up the porch steps, he battled a sense of surrealness that made him dizzy. The old world, here, better than he’d ever lived it, in this shell of a life he had left. It couldn’t be real.

A board squeaked beneath his boots as he climbed the stairs. Lidia didn’t speak but led him through a clean front room, the living area, with old antique furniture. The stuff from the times of the Tasho Vines had been made too cheaply to last through the ravages of the breakdown of civilization. She led him to the kitchen, where everything seemed more familiar to him, like the place that had been his only home, with Hester.

She put two glasses on the table and poured from a jug of water. “This is from the glacier runoff. We bring back some ice once a year. It’s clean.”

He swallowed it. Pure, sweet. His eyes watered with the pleasure. His throat, forever dry, closed. He coughed and water dribbled down his chin.

Lidia leaned over him with a towel. He hadn’t seen her move. He froze, didn’t even breathe when she wiped him gently. She had such a soft touch. Arousal slammed through him, unexpected, unfelt for so long that it made him lightheaded. Eager to follow the retreating hand, he shifted in his seat and held himself down.

Sitting in the chair, he rolled the shoulder above his metal arm. She sat across from him and flicked a professional glance over him.