Fire in the Woods (7 page)

“So you
do
have some sort of freaky disease. Is that why they’re looking for you?”

He chewed his upper lip, his face pensive. “I promise I’ll tell you everything, but right now I don’t think it would do either of us any good. Can you please just trust me for now?”

“I don’t know you. I’m not even sure why I brought you here.”

David stood and curled his fingers around my hands. “Trust me. We’re alone. If I wanted to hurt you, I’d have done it already.”

“But David…”

He stepped away from me and grabbed his temple.

“Please don’t tell me you’re getting another chill.”

“No.” He sat on the couch, jostling the pink blanket. “Just dizzy.”

He closed his eyes and stretched his neck as I sat beside him. “David, I don’t know what to do.”

“I think I’m just tired.” He cuddled into the corner of the couch.

Shifting the blankets out from under me, I stood and threw one over him. David blinked and smiled, sending a rush of tickling energy through me, heating my cheeks. What was it about that smile? Why did I turn into a heaping sack of melted jelly when he barely even looked at me?

My hands shook. Distraction. I needed a distraction.

“Tell you what. You get some rest. I’ll see if I can scurry up something to eat for dinner.” Yep. Food. That would work. Nothing helps a girl keep her calm and focus like a good old-fashioned dose of carbs and calories. I walked toward the kitchen. “I can always make peanut butter and jelly again if I need to.”

David drew the blanket up under his chin. “I’d rather have more PB&J if you have it. That was great.”

I turned, leaning on the doorframe. “That’s what I said.”

His lashes flickered closed, and his face softened. A placid rhythm developed in his breathing.

Maybe he was more tired than I thought. I walked back and sat beside him on the couch. Trailing my fingers across his forehead, I brushed back his long, dark bangs.

Who was he? Why was he here, and what the heck was going on?
I rubbed my chin. He asked me to be patient, but all these questions were killing me. Was I sitting on the story of my life, or was I setting myself up for disappointment, and perpetual, eternal grounding?

The firelight cast a stunning shadow behind him. Eerie, ethereal. I pulled out my camera and rattled off shots from several angles, but the photos in the preview screen did little to convey what my eyes saw in real life. Maybe they’d look better when I downloaded them later.

Making my way into the kitchen, I opened the cabinet and reached for the peanut butter and a loaf of bread. I slathered as much jelly as I could without it sloshing out the sides of the sandwich. Admiring my finished masterpieces, I licked the jelly that still clung to the knife. Waste not, want not, Mom always said.

I smashed a quarter wedge into my mouth and placed the rest on a napkin, leaving it on the coffee table beside David. His lips rose in a half-smile as he slept.

Boiling hot skin met my fingertips as I touched my hand to his forehead. I winced, fright overtaking me for a moment, before I settled myself.

Duh. Of course he was going to feel warm. Temperature disorder, remember?

The sun broke through the clouds outside. Cheerful sparkles glimmered on the water droplets still clinging to the window screens. At least the rain was over.

I eased into the armchair and watched David sleep. So many questions muddled inside my mind. What was he running from? What’s really wrong with him?

Although the storm outside had abated, the storm inside still slumbered on my couch. I should have been terrified of him, but I wasn’t…and it drove me crazy.

And what about Dad? He could burst through the door at any moment. What would I say? How would I deal with the unavoidable life-long punishment? I covered my face.
Crap.
I was in way over my head.

The rhythm of David’s breathing transfixed me, lulling me to sleepiness. I blinked twice, and grabbed my phone. I Googled ‘rare temperature diseases’ and scrolled through listings of pointless topics. Raynaud’s syndrome. Nope didn’t make your temperature high. Lyme’s disease…nah, didn’t seem likely. Cold urticaria…allergic to cold temperatures, causes hives in the cold. I glanced in his direction. No, there was never a mark on him, and they didn’t say anything about constant high temperatures.

I clicked off my phone and rubbed my eyes. The sun had gone down, and the last embers in the fire had died out. I spied a carton of synthetic logs under the kindling newspapers. I added one to the grate to keep the fire burning.

David rolled over in his sleep, his bangs falling toward his right eye. I brushed them aside and sat on the floor staring at him. Was he telling the truth? Could he really have some sort of freaky temperature problem?

The clock on the wall clicked to nine-thirty. I tousled my hair and found it damp from the heat. Sweat beaded on my chest and dripped down into my bra. Gross.

David’s cheek was warm, but not sweaty. His breathing remained deep and regular.

He may have felt fine, but I felt like I was going to yack. I headed up the stairs to my bedroom and hoisted the window open, letting in the cooler outside air. A light breeze blew the curtains beside my shoulders, refreshing me from the heat in the house. I rested against the sill and turned my face to the sky. A thousand lights in the heavens glinted and sparkled, settling my uneasiness. I breathed deeply, enjoying the sweet scents of Mrs. Miller’s garden until a star overhead winked out. Then another.

I grasped the windowsill and pushed against the screen—holding my breath as the stars wiped away before my eyes. A deep, dark blanket stretched out over the house, consuming the sky quickly and more completely than any cloud cover.

I reached for my necklace. Startled by its absence, I froze until I remembered it lay safely around David’s neck. My gaze drew back to the sky. A black mass hovered over the houses, continuing to blank out the stars. One by one the little pinpricks of light returned as the form passed overhead and moved toward the airstrips.

No lights. No landing gear. Just black—And really, really slow. A blimp? In the middle of the night? And no noise at all?

I shivered and backed away from the window. Keeping an eye on the mass, I fumbled for my phone and dialed Maggie. I recounted my entire day, right up to the apparition that’d just flown over my house.

“Did you see it?” I asked.

“So they flew a plane over your house. It’s not the first time.”

“Have you been listening to a thing I’ve said?”

“Come on, girl. I don’t care about the plane,” Maggie said. “I want to hear about the hottie. He’s actually there in your house? Right now? And your Dad’s not home?” Her giggle always sounded maniacal. “Are you going to
do it
?”

“No! Maggie, come on.”

“But seriously. What are you going to tell your Dad?”

I shook my head. “I was thinking of the truth. I can’t send David back into the cold, and I can’t really hide him either. Right now he’s passed out on the sofa.”

“Holy cow. The major’s going to have a brain aneurysm.”

“Believe me, I know.” I tucked back the curtain and peeked up at the stars. Everything seemed perfectly normal—now. “Maggs, that plane, or whatever—it was weird. I mean, really weird. I couldn’t even hear it, but it must have been huge.”

“Hon, maybe you were dreaming.”

“I wasn’t.”

She held a long pause on the line. “Are you going to deal with the real problem, here? What do you think is wrong with Prince Charming?”

I checked the window again and slumped onto the bed. “I have no stinking clue. He says he has this funny disorder.”

“Okay, so what is it?”

I rolled onto my back. “He said it was something like thermo-dynamic disorder. Or maybe it was thermo-nuclear disorder. I don’t know…something that makes him really hot and he freezes when it gets cold out. I tried to Google it but I couldn’t find anything.”

“You already knew he was really hot.”

I ignored her. “It was so bizarre. I couldn’t get him warmed up, no matter what I tried.”

“You know, if it happens again, you can always smother his body with yours.”

“What?”

“Seriously. I see it in the movies all the time, and they told us that in first aid class too, remember? Sharing body heat and all.” She snickered. “And I hear friction…”

“Maggie!” I sat up and tossed my pillow back to the head of my bed. Not that the idea of snuggling up with David was all that gross, but I didn’t need her to know that.

“Okay, okay, but I’m going to research it to make sure he doesn’t have the plague or something.”

“Whatever. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

I smushed my forehead against the window screen again and counted stars. Not that I knew how many were supposed to be up there, but tallying them made me feel better. Scattered light clouds left from the earlier storm dotted the sky, but otherwise the stars shone as brightly as any other night. I closed the window, pulled the blind down, and leaned against the edge of my dresser. I knew there was no way I was going to be able to sleep.

I grabbed my comforter and pillow and padded down the stairs. Throwing the bedding on the chair beside David, I placed my fingers on his forehead. Still hot.
Duh – Temperature disorder, Jess.

First things first: I needed to make sure Dad didn’t have a conniption when he walked through the front door so he didn’t shoot David or something. I grabbed the note pad from the counter and scribbled:
Don’t be mad. I’ll explain in the morning
on the yellow-lined sheet. I taped the note on the couch behind David.

Lame, but it was all I could come up with. Tomorrow was not going to be fun.

I eased back into the chair beside David and yanked the lever to raise my feet. Using the blanket to prop up my side, I cuddled into my soft down pillow and watched David sleep. So many questions…but tomorrow I’d get some answers.

Hopefully David would comply. If not, Dad might beat the answers out of him.

The trumpeting throng of Reveille smashed its way into my dreams.
Stinking P.A. system!
I crushed my pillow around my ears, but the blaring trumpets pierced the feathers and shot straight into my brain. There was no escaping the military wake-up call: an evil tune perpetuated by evil men joyously pressing a button and cackling as they woke the world.

The trumpets faded. I growled, willing myself back into sleepy-land as I did every morning. A scrumptious smell teased my senses before I fell back into dreamy land.

Mmmmm, bacon.

I salivated, dreaming of the crispy strips crunching in my mouth.

Wait. Bacon? Bacon’s cooking? Dad’s home!

I sprang out of the easy-chair, stumbling in half delirium and falling onto the sofa.

Omigosh, David.
I tapped the empty blankets.
Where was he?

Someone scraped a pan in the kitchen and turned on the faucet. I rolled David’s blankets into a ball and tucked them on the side of the couch. I snatched the pieces of the thermometer off the table and slid them into my pocket.

“David?” I whispered.

Silence lingered—except for the bacon sizzling in the kitchen.

The napkin I had placed David’s sandwich on the night before still sat on the end-table, holding a few stray crumbs. I shoved it into my other pocket.

“David?”

Horrid images of him bound and gagged to a chair in the kitchen crossed my mind.

The note was no longer on the sofa. Had Dad read it? What
would
Dad do if he caught a boy in the house? Would he have woken me up to see what the deal was, or would he have shot first and asked questions later?

I counted to ten, calming myself, and walked through the archway.

Dad looked up from the stove and raised an eyebrow. He wore the same jeans and tee-shirt he’d left in the day before. “Hello,
pequeña
,” he said.

I glanced about the kitchen. No sign of David. At least he wasn’t tied up.

“Morning, Dad.” I kissed his cheek.

“So, you’re feeling better? I’m surprised to see you up. I figured you were sick.”

“Me? Why?” I flopped into a chair.

He scraped some eggs onto a plate. “Well, first it was hot as Hell in here when I got home, and it’s not like you to start a fire, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sleep in a chair, and all those blankets…” He looked up. “And I saw your note. If you were that sick, you should have called.”

He hadn’t found David.

Think fast, Jess…and make it good.
“Well—I had this chill. I, I turned up the heat, but it wasn’t getting hot enough, so I started a fire, and I guess I fell asleep. Sorry.”

He used those ‘daddy thinks you’re lying’ eyes on me. Probably because I was babbling like a guilty idiot. Time to change the subject.

“So, anyway, did you catch the bad guy?”

“Who said there was a bad guy?”

I propped my elbows on the table. “Come on, Dad. I’m not stupid.”

“We’re still investigating the crash.”

“Does that mean you’re leaving again?”

“Not immediately. I need to report back in around noon, but I’ll be home tonight.”

I poured myself a glass of orange juice. “Dad, does the investigation have anything to do with a huge, quiet plane?”

“What? No!” His quick reply told me he wasn’t completely telling the truth. It also didn’t help that he nearly dropped the pan. Time to keep pushing while his guard was down.

“I saw something strange last night. Why would a plane fly over the houses without lights on?”

He bit the side of his cheek…typical Major Martinez stall tactic when he was about to lie.

“I don’t really know.” He turned back to his cooking. “Jess, I asked Grandma to come help out for a bit, but I’m thinking it might be a good idea if you stayed with her instead, you know, until this all blows over.”

Oh, no you don’t
. “No way. I hate Grandma’s. You know that.”

Grandma’s. The pit of doom. Well, maybe not doom, but boredom anyway. She lived in a retirement village for goodness sake. What would I do all day? He slid eggs on a plate and handed it to me. He topped it off with extra bacon.
Sorry, Dad. I can’t be bribed
. Well, not this time at least.