Desert Blade (7 page)

Straightening the threadbare blue T-shirt he’d pulled over his head, Derek stared at her, hazel eyes blazing. A tug quirked the corner of those sinful lips, dimples hidden beneath the stubble getting rougher, calling to her to test how it felt against her palms, her chest, her thighs. “My sweet doctor, what’s life worth, if you don’t go after it with both hands?”

He held his up. The ripped covering on his prosthetic fingers were a visible reminder of what he’d lost. Her heart thudded. In Chicago all those years ago he’d taken a chance when he’d not had much in life. He’d gotten attached to something real, a foster mother, and had lost his arm, dealt with recovery, having people look at him with curiosity, or disdain, and still he had so much vitality. Though his past haunted him, though she didn’t think most people saw through his shields, he was full of life. Never had she met anyone like him, like his whole body was a livewire of strength.

She wanted some of the vitality, some of that strength. “I’ve been hiding, haven’t I?”

“I found you.” He cocked his head.

Maybe he’d been meant to find her. “I mean, I’ve stayed in a safe little part of our dying world, instead of helping. There have to be survivors out there in need of a doctor. I’ve been afraid to think about the outside. I hid.”

“I’m glad you did.” He reached for her with his prosthetic arm. She recognized what the gesture meant. He tested her trust in him that he wouldn’t hurt her. “I’m very glad you stayed safe. Nothing has changed. You’ll be safe with me. Come on. Let’s go.”

Then she was in his embrace. He held her against his big body. “Put your arms around my neck.”

Burying her face in his chest, inhaling his musky scent, she realized she hadn’t been so close to a man since he’d kissed her goodbye. Derek made her want to touch, want to be held, instead of standing alone as she’d done all her life. It felt so good to lean into him.

His breath fanned over her head as he placed a soft kiss in her tangled mass of braids. Then he hauled them up the rope, using the strength she’d helped give him in that wonderful piece of medical advancement.

They reached the top. All was quiet. Even the wind lulled.

“Look there.” He pointed behind them and shouldered the backpack. “Hoof prints. They nearly found us, but this dune shifts too much. The horses would’ve shied away.”

“Which way do we go?” There was desert all around them except to the right, where blue glittered amid dusty brown shrubs. “The river’s that way.” She took a step.

“Stop!” Derek yelled.

Too late to turn back, her foot sank and her body lurched into a tumbling slide of shifting earth. The swishing of waves of sand propelling her down roared. She fell back. Grit filled her mouth and nose. Unable to scream, she held her breath and dug in her heels. She kept going, the ground rushing at her and mounds coming over her body.

This was going to hurt.

She hit bottom. A hard shove knocked her forward.

Derek landed with an
oomph
beside her and sputtered, “I said stop.”

Spitting out a mouthful of gunk, she sat up as the landslide trickled to an end. Her body seemed intact and unbroken, but that’d been a close call. She sneezed and the force of it made her rigid, sending a low-level streak of pain from her back to her butt. She was going to be sore.

“We need to have a talk about you listening to me.” With a rough tug, he got her to her feet and, not letting go of her hand, trudged toward the river. “You could’ve been buried under if that dune had been bigger.”

“I wasn’t, though,” she grumbled and jogged after him, unable to quite catch her breath.

“This is the way I came in. I followed it exactly on your little sail craft. I’ve hidden my boat in the scruff there.”

Safety, of a sort, beckoned from ahead.

“Let’s pick up the pace then.” She caught up and started to pass him, but he held fast to her fingers in a secure strength that didn’t hurt.

“We need to take it slow. Don’t know where those drifters got off to. If there’s that many in the area, chances are good they followed my tracks and that’s why they found us yesterday.”

She’d nearly talked herself into believing they’d avoid those men. When she got back, she’d have to thank the general for all the work he and his troops had done to safeguard Leavenworth. The soldiers had allowed her to live in a cocoon of safety.

The hair on the back of her neck rose. Turning about to check around her, she swayed with dizziness. It was hot out here. Her mouth tasted like cardboard.

“I don’t see anyone now. No tracks. We’ll need to be careful of our approach, though.”

Derek signaled her to get low to the ground, and they painstakingly circled around the patches of scrub weeds that led up to the sparse tree line next to the river. Sweat trickled down her back as the sun climbed higher in the sky. Wind blew harsh eddies of grit across her bare skin. Her legs protested the crouched position but she didn’t carry a heavy pack like Derek, who showed no strain, only the pinched expression of concentration. He didn’t make a sound, but she couldn’t quite do the same. Her breath came in pants, she stepped on twigs that snapped in the quiet, and strangled a yelp when a lizard skittered over her foot.

Once they were within several feet of the river, there was more cover and Derek led the way, threading through the scrub and stopping to watch for danger every few minutes. They made slow progress, and her back and shoulders tightened with tension. Edging toward the bank of the river, Derek stopped and peered around a pile of dead brush and fallen branches.

“The boat is still there. Looks fine.” He leaned back and whispered in her ear. “When I say go, run straight for that boat. Don’t stop for anything. Get low on the deck and stay there, no matter what happens.”

“You’re scaring me. I thought you said it looks fine.” Didn’t matter if her heart rose to her throat, she’d do what he said, when he said.

“I told you. I’m never lucky.”

Shhting.

Muscles standing out on his arms, jaw set, he held his extended blade poised and urged, “Go.”

She ran.

Her knee gave a bit and she stumbled in the sand. The hot earth sucked at her feet, slowing her. She trudged ahead. The boat rocked on the water only yards away.

A whoop sounded behind her and she lurched. Derek had been right. The gang was waiting for them. Sprawling flat out on the desert floor, she scrambled up and kept going. Metal clashed on metal.

She tripped again and couldn’t get to her feet. Something wrapped around her ankle and tugged. Rolling onto her back, she gripped her upper thigh and yanked.

Everything came at her in a rush. Yesterday, there’d been nearly a dozen horsemen. In a glance, she was both horrified and relieved there were only three men on horseback surrounding Derek. They crowded him while a fourth man splayed on the ground with a grip on her ankle. She kicked him in the face to a satisfying crunch.

Her would-be assailant howled and let go to clutch his nose, spurting blood.

They were lucky. There were only four. She stifled a hysterical laugh that facing four ruffians was lucky. She didn’t really know if they were the same as yesterday. Their features had blurred together in the rush of escape, but she had to be prepared—this had to be the same gang and there had to be more of them.

For a split second, she hesitated. One of the attackers fighting Derek crashed from his horse and didn’t get up. Derek wanted her on the boat and two drifters were down, but he couldn’t fight off the two still coming at him before any others caught up and rejoined the fray.

Broken-nose scumbag groaned at her feet. She grabbed one of the fallen tree limbs, lifted it over her head and brought it down with all her might. A sickening thud reverberated through her arms. Broken-nose sprawled on the ground. He wasn’t getting up for quite a while. That had been a concussion-inducing, anesthetic whack on the head.

She turned to help Derek.

Between two horses and their riders, he pinwheeled about, striking out with his blade if one got too close. The attacker he’d thrown to the side had gotten into a crouch and, using the cover of a laboring black horse and his pinch-faced rider, he sidled close to Derek.

A switchblade in the creeper’s hand sent dread racing through her. The attackers moved in unison. They’d used this technique before. They’d kill Derek. She had to do something.

Before she could think it through, she charged at the man with her branch raised in the air, screaming like an Amazon on the warpath.

Startled, the drifter turned wide-eyed until he saw her. Then he smirked and raised a hand. Easily deflecting her swing at his head, he lunged and tackled her to the ground.

Derek roared.

The drifter struggled on top of her, trying to pin her down as she flung out at him, wiggling to get away, hitting at him. She dug her short but effective nails into his back.

“You bitch.” His breath smelled rank and spittle flew in her face. He drew back, and his knife ripped through her pants and sent white-hot, excruciating pain through her leg.

His body flew off her.

Derek stood over her like a demon enraged. His face was red. His blade had blood on it. The muscles of his neck stood out. She struggled up and nearly collapsed when she put weight on her leg.

“Get to the boat. I’m right behind you,” he ordered.

The two riders were off to the side, their reins tangled and horses bumping into each other.

“Good job.” She limped as fast as she could, but she couldn’t run.

“Won’t take them long to get out of that mess. You need to move your fine ass.”

When she stumbled again, he lifted her into his arms and trudged toward the water.

“Your shoulder is bleeding.” She sucked in a breath. Used to blood and injuries from her time in the ER as well as in the aftermath of the riots, seeing Derek wounded rocked her as no other. “Get me my med bag.”

“My own sweet doctor, it’ll have to wait.” He spoke through clenched teeth. His face was pale when seconds before it’d been red with rage.

He dropped her in the boat, the thump sending a shock of pain through her. She gasped but refused to cry out. He didn’t have the strength to carry her farther, much less put her down carefully. The backpack plunked down next to her.

Moving fast despite the bloody rips in his clothes, he cut through the rope anchoring the boat. It pulled away from shore.

“Get in,” she urged. The riders came at them again. “Get in!”

Using his foot, Derek shoved the boat away so fast, she fell, hit the deck and struggled to fill her lungs with the hot air of the midday desert.

The craft was a basic rowboat, oars attached to each side. A cry of pain made her want to get up and help Derek, so she struggled to right herself in the heaving boat. Hoofbeats surrounded them and a chaos of noise gave her the strength to push up.

The two riders had Derek between them. One had a sword at Derek’s throat, while the other swung down from his saddle, rope in hand, and slashed out with a riding crop to slice through the shirt covering Derek’s chest. Derek didn’t flinch.

He gave her a hard, emotion-filled look that reached across the growing expanse of water between them, then yelled, “Map’s in the pocket.”

Quicker than she could blink, he dropped to his knees, away from the sword and slashed at the leg of the nearest rider. Screams rent the air.

Her body rocked with a shudder. If Derek didn’t run, or do something fast, he wouldn’t make it onto the boat. With her leg throbbing and useless, she couldn’t swim to the shore.

She couldn’t leave him again. She wiped at the water sliding down her face and scrambled for the oars. No matter what, she had to get back. She had to help him, but she couldn’t unlatch the oars with her shaking fingers. The current caught the little boat and propelled it so far, she didn’t stand a chance of fighting against it and getting upstream.

As the river took her away, helpless with no way to steer, her last sight was of Derek sliding to the ground as the rider pulled back his sword streaked with blood.

Derek’s chest burned. The slice had been superficial but hurt like a bitch.

He jabbed at the nearest rider’s hand and severed through flesh and tendons. The drifter screamed. The bloodied reins slipped free and the horse skittered away before its barrel of a chest slammed into Derek. If he got lucky—he snorted—he’d find that horse and catch up with Lidia.

Pivoting, he rolled from the sting of a whip crackling through the air. If guns held up to the extremes of the desert, he’d be dead already.

The lead rider yelled out as if any were in a position to obey, “Get the woman.”

“Not in this life,” Derek muttered and spread his legs in a balanced stance. They were all unhorsed. Only two still on their feet. They came straight at him. Derek lunged to the side and checked behind him.

The river had taken the boat out of their reach. If he’d done nothing else with his life, at least he’d gotten Lidia out of danger. His only regret was not seeing her safely to the village.

A whip lashed across his cheek, propelling him back.

Punching wildly, one of the scumbags—who grinned like a scarecrow—caught him on the side of the head. White light exploded and blotted out the sun. He shook it off but the pain throbbed in his temple. The scarecrow hurtled into Derek’s chest and knocked him back a step. Derek swiped out with his blade but missed, careening to regain his stance.

Derek blocked a fist, swung around and knocked his scarecrow attacker to the ground, but a hot line ripped across his stomach. A switchblade fell from the scumbag’s hand as he rolled away and left behind the fetid stench of unwashed body. Derek put a hand to his shirt and pulled away. Blood covered his fingers.

He staggered and his foot slipped from beneath him. With a splash, he fell into the fast water of the river. He swallowed a gulp of water. His feet slipped on the muddy bottom and the surge of water carried him under.

His lungs burned and he wanted to say goodbye to Lidia, as he’d been unable to do with Hester. That was all he wanted. One minute to tell her he wished he could hold her, keep her safe the rest of her life, be lucky for her.

Forcing his heavy arms to move, he hoped he could prove himself wrong and that he could swim with his metal arm. Anger at his fate fueled him for a few seconds of thrashing over the water.

But it wasn’t enough.

* * *

A tense day of hot sun and constant boredom warring with fatigue and bone-deep worry had brought Lidia to this point—dizzy and ready to crawl onto the bank of endless sand dunes and scrub trees for a few blessed minutes, even if she couldn’t steer the boat to get to shore. The map lay across her lap. It was so simple a child could use it, but that didn’t matter when the river carried her as it would. After another quick study, she put the crudely drawn but effective directions in the outer pocket of the backpack before the wind snatched it.

Blinking back exhaustion, she swayed. With any luck, the boat would run to ground soon.

Luck. Maybe Derek was right about it.

“Derek,” she sighed amid the slap of water on the hull.

Her hands tightened on the side of the boat. Surrounded by the remaining attackers, he’d fallen and hadn’t gotten up. Her body shook with the sobs that wanted to escape.

“You were right,” she whispered. All day long, she’d talked to him, as if she could rewind the past two days and start over.

“And I was right. I hid. But if you could just…live, I won’t hide anymore.”

Odds weren’t good. One sword against so many men—he had to be dead.

Her gut clenched. She’d fallen hard for him so long ago, and being in his company again for a day, being touched by him, had made her more alive than she’d been since the riots. No, that wasn’t right. More alive than she’d ever been.

Her family had been perfect. She’d always behaved properly and dated in a subdued fashion. The only reason she’d finally lost her virginity was a practical, mercenary decision to get it out of the way in college. She barely remembered the man. Barely remembered anyone she’d been with—except for her ex, whom she wanted to forget—but she’d memorized everything about Derek when he’d come into her life after she’d lost every last thing in the riots.

Moments of happiness and attraction to a strong and noble man had broken through that shield around her heart and then she’d lost him to a bunch of thugs—the same kind of thugs who’d killed her parents.

She’d shut down life.

She didn’t want to do that anymore.

The pain nearly suffocated her as she let herself grieve. Her chest filled, hot and hollow, expanded so it felt as if it’d shatter.

Through a sheen of tears, the river sparkled in front of the bow. A sharp turn loomed ahead and, on the bank, a large boulder painted with three stripes of white paint.

She sat up straight on the boat’s bench. The sign for the settlement.

Ahead, a line of fence made of driftwood and random scraps of metal and wood ran along the bank. She swallowed hard. She couldn’t quite believe what the river was pushing her toward. A large platform rose above the ground on pillars that looked like concrete. Spikes ranged around the bottom. As she got closer, she realized the village had converted an old bridge. It looked as if a half mile of bridge was orphaned in the air, the ends of it chopped off. The only way up was through the fence, the spikes and, apparently, the guards. Two men stood on the bank with spears. They hadn’t been there seconds before.

She’d have to make a swim for it.

Slipping the backpack on, she hoped she could make it with the extra weight and the still-painful slice down her leg, though she’d tended it best she could while drifting down the river. Thank goodness she’d been able to maintain a supply of tetanus shots for the survivors at Leavenworth. She straightened her shoulders. If this village hadn’t had a doctor in ten years, her work was cut out for her. The ache in her heart could not matter.

The two men were as different as night and day. One tall, one short. One wide-framed and dark, one skinny and blond. But they both pointed and shouted. They probably recognized Derek’s boat. Her heart leaped to her throat as the tall one lifted a crossbow and aimed it at her, but she steadied herself. Surely they wouldn’t shoot her. Not after all this.

As she grew closer, almost abreast of them in the flowing current, the tall one shot the crossbow. Her body stiffened, waiting.

The arrow thunked into the wood of the prow. The stocky one grabbed the rope, and they both pulled, hand over hand, to haul her to shore.

They wore hard, suspicious expressions, but after everything, she didn’t allow fear to keep her in that boat. She stood, hitched up her chin and said, “Derek sent me.”

“Where is Derek?”

She nearly stumbled to the ground when the boat landed, but she smiled past the sheer agony of loss and deflected her fears, though her heart wanted it to be true, would do anything to make it true. “He’ll be along shortly, following with supplies. Take me to the sick child. I’m a doctor.”

Needing to get to the kid before they grew even more suspicious of her, she glossed over thoughts and explanations of Derek. She’d probably lied, not knowing if he lived, thinking he didn’t, but needing to get to the sick child without delay. It didn’t sit well.

But explanations could come later.

“I’ll take you, but if you ain’t no doctor, I’ll personally push you over the ledge.” The skinny one pointed over his shoulder to a pile of rags. On closer inspection, she noted several crumpled lumps that used to be bodies, obviously dumped like refuse.

“Don’t let him worry you, gorgeous.” The stocky guy stuffed his hands in the pockets of his ratty jeans and gave her a wink, his short beard hiding most of his smile. His dirty hair fell in his dark eyes. “My name is Horace. If Derek brought you, then I’ll take you to see the kid. But first, tell me, just so I know you’re telling the truth and our guy sent you, where’s his big red birthmark?”

Her face flushed hot, but she didn’t look away from the twinkle in Horace’s eyes. “I wouldn’t know.”

“That’s good. Far as I know, he doesn’t have a birthmark.” His grin widened and showed one lost canine tooth. “If he hasn’t shown it to you, that is. Maybe I could show you mine?”

She laughed and he chuckled with her. The man was a flirt. Nothing more. It’d been a long time since she’d been hit on—not counting Derek, who hadn’t flirted. Her Guardsman had bowled her over with his sexuality. Her laugh died on the wind.

Ignoring the bristly tall one, she walked with Horace, who rambled on.

“That surly one is Kyle. He’s just mad because if Derek don’t make it back, he has to take permanent night duty. And those bags of bones over there, those are drifters. They tried to scale the bridge. We left them there to rot.”

It was a defensible setup. General Toole would be proud. One day she’d make it back and see to it they found a way to help these people.

At the bottom of the center piling, a ladder ran up the concrete post as big around as her old Beetle car. They climbed up. By the time she got to the top, where they’d punched out a hole in the bridge, her body was weak with the strain on her injured leg.

She sat on the ledge and gulped in air. Horace scrambled up and sat beside her. “Send Freddie down to take my place for a few minutes.”

A crowd already surrounded them and a red-haired, freckled teen—presumably Freddie—slid down the ladder with a sword slung to his back.

The village took up the entire half-mile section of bridge. It looked a bit like an RV convention. Large sections of vehicles were tied to the edges. A line of clothes hung on a line nearby. Semis, trailers, strange arrangements of cars and tarps, and even a few portable toilets, which she desperately needed after being stuck on that boat all day.

“Could I freshen up then see the sick child?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Horace led her to a trailer through the parted crowd. The people looked the same as any Americans had. Different races, different body types, but except for Horace and one or two others, they were all rail thin.

He left her alone for a few blessed minutes in a cramped little construction trailer to see to her needs. When she exited, he was waiting patiently, a little closer to the trailer than the rest of the crowd. They all stayed a few steps back as Horace led her across the bridge.

“How do you fare in the winds?” They threaded through the makeshift housing like walking through an old crowded Walmart parking lot.

“We got it pretty good here. Not sure why, but the weather patterns blow most of them around us. We strap down pretty good. Here we are. Trudy’s place is just on the other side of this here garden.”

They’d planted vegetables in raised beds in almost every space not occupied by a vehicle.

“How’d you get all this up here?”

“Most of them were already here. There was a traffic jam when a riot broke out. These cars were stuck when some idiots set off a bomb at the base of one end. We hauled up a bunch of other stuff we needed then took out the other side, to keep the drifters out. Over the years, the Missouri moved, when it filled high with all that glacier melt-off. Well, that’s what we think happened, anyways.” Horace knocked then opened the door to a fancy RV when the occupant bid enter.

“Trudy, Derek’s doctor is here.” Winking, he motioned her inside and backed out, shutting the door.

A wheezing cough from the back of the living area put Lidia directly into doctor mode. A thin woman in a robe opened the door and stared with a frown.

“Where’s Derek?”

Squelching the jealousy that this woman had lived with Derek for years while Lidia pretended she just lived, she dug into her medical bag.

“He’ll be along.” The hope she told the truth, the fear she lied tasted acrid and soul-wrenchingly wrong. “Let’s take care of your child. A son?”

“Yes. Nathan Junior.”

“Junior?” She bit her tongue, refusing to ask point-blank if Nathan was Derek’s—which was a stupid suspicion given the boy’s name. Really, she was a fool. Shaking hands pulled out the worse-for-the-ride lobelia plant. “You have to plant this. Nurture it back to health. It got a bit banged up. I’ll need hot water for the tea.”

She pulled out the prepared packet and gave it to Trudy. “This will need to steep for ten minutes. Use only a teaspoon. We’ll have to watch closely to be sure he doesn’t get worse. If he does, I’ll have to use the little Albuterol I brought with me. I’ve collected as many inhalers as I could find scavenging, but I’m afraid it may not work. Too far past expiration.”

Trudy’s brows drew together and her mouth tightened. “This has to work.”

“It’s worked on another patient of mine, after weeks of adjusting the strength of the tea. We’ll have to monitor his progress closely. I’ll go see Nathan.” There wasn’t much else Lidia could do. If the lobelia tea didn’t work, even if she eased him now with medication, she didn’t know what else she might do for him, except get him to Leavenworth, where they had electricity and a precious oxygen tent.

The little boy couldn’t have been more than eight, and like the others here, was too thin. Another in a long line of personal revelations made her blink the shock at bay. She’d left the pediatrician’s job to the others, even the interns she’d trained to take her place. Shying away from the remote chance she’d get an inkling of a biological clock, she avoided the younger citizens of Leavenworth. She didn’t know if she did want children, didn’t know if she’d be a good mother, but she’d blocked off all possibilities in order to keep safe. It was worth risking hurt in order to give love to this little life in front of her. Trudy no doubt ached daily for this son she wouldn’t give up on.

“Hi,” Nathan rasped and gave her a big-brown-eyed stare.

She smiled the first genuine smile since yesterday. “I’m Dr. Lidia. Let’s take a listen to your chest. Your mom is making a tea that will help you feel better.”

“Really?” His stomach moved in and out with each breath, showing how much his little body worked to pull in oxygen.

“Really.” She pulled out her stethoscope, cupped her hands, blew to warm the diaphragm and adjusted the earpiece. “Take a deep breath for me.”