Hidden Flames (10 page)

“We’re getting the rest we need in order to get there alive,” Owen stated in a deadpan voice that broke no argument. Prue grimaced and shook her head in disagreement but kept her thoughts to herself. She swung her leg off of the bike and almost let a moan of agony slip off of her tongue. She turned away from him, not wanting him to see that the long hours on the road had caught up with her body. “I’m going to look around. Stay here but keep your eyes and ears open.”

Prue was having a hard time accepting the attitude Owen took on during times of peril. It was as if he became a totally different person than the one she was used to seeing day in and day out at the shop. There had always been smile on his face, a sparkle in his brown eyes, and a joke of some sort coming out of his mouth making light of something that usually had her in a bad mood. He walked off after having taken his helmet, riding gloves, and glasses off as well, stowing them inside of his saddlebag. She stayed with the bikes and supplies, rubbing her arms as the temperature had dropped by several degrees since the sun had set.

Owen didn’t return right away and Prue strained to hear any sign of him. Nothing. No birds, no crickets, not even a breeze. Everything was mute. To keep herself busy, she put her gear away and grabbed her cap. The military eight-sided hat was given to her at her college graduation by a friend who also afforded her extra benefits. He’d gone into the service, married, and had two point five kids the last she’d heard. She hadn’t kept it for sentimental value, but she’d learned quickly that people treated her different when she wore it instead of letting her long hair flow free.

Prue secured her hat and looked around in the dark, the shadows not showing her much and certainly not allowing her to see Owen. She could make out the front of the small house overrun with weeds and nothing but blackness surrounded it. A tremor traveled down her spine and she rested her hand on the knife that she’d secured in a sheath next to the pistol at her waist. It was still her weapon of choice and she wouldn’t use the gun unless she had to.

Should she start searching for him or wait a little bit longer? Prue hadn’t heard any scuffles or noises to indicate that Owen was in trouble, but that didn’t mean anything. Someone could have heard them pull up and been waiting for him around the back. She looked down at the cases of weapons attached to the back of his bike and didn’t want to leave them, but there were too many for her to carry with the supplies. She contemplated calling out, but she didn’t want to give herself away.

“We’re clear.”

“Shit, Owen,” Prue gasped, startling to the point her feet came off the ground. He’d come around the left side of the house and was walking toward her, a frown on his face from her reaction. “Damn it, don’t do that again. You almost gave me a heart attack, you jackass.”

Owen raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment right away. He started to unfasten everything from his bike, confusing her as to why he would do that. They had sleeping bags they could lay on the ground like they had last night. Prue glanced at the house but she shook her head at the thought. He couldn’t possibly be thinking of breaking into someone’s house.

“What are you doing?” Prue asked warily, taking a step closer to get a better look. Sure enough, he was slinging each of the rifle cases over his shoulder and then went to work on retrieving the black bag that held his clothes, their gas masks, and other supplies. “You can’t be thinking of—”

“Prue, you need to face the fact that the rules have changed. In a couple of hours, ash is going to be falling down around us. Too much of the stuff and it’s going to collapse the roof of every wooden structure in this area. We need some temporary shelter and this house is it. Whoever lived here either traveled south or east, so we’re staying here for a few hours.”

Regardless that Owen had returned safely, Prue still had an unsettling feeling that all wasn’t right with this scenario. She looked around the darkness, not making anything out other than the tall trees and the house in front of them. It wasn’t that she was concerned about the bikers from earlier, because she hadn’t seen them since Owen had pulled off the road and ditched them. What was it that was making her so unsettled?

“Prue?” Owen gestured toward her bike. “Grab what you can and we’ll head on inside. I made it in through the back and unlocked the front door.”

“Owen, I don’t think we should stay here,” Prue whispered, the eerie feeling returning. She squinted as she tried to see what was past the house, noticing something in the distance. “Is that another house back there?”

“No, it’s a barn of some sort,” Owen said, signifying that he’d already checked it out. That would be the reason he’d taken so long, but it still didn’t ease her anxiety. “I’ve checked everything about this place and it’ll make do for the couple of hours that we’ll be here. There are also two old fuel tanks by the barn. One of them is gas we can use for the bikes and to replenish our emergency backup can with.”

Prue tried to think of a reasonable argument to provide but came up blank. She went to her bike and started to detach her bag and the other items she’d brought with her. She wasn’t one to ever look on the bright side—always concentrating on reality—but she wondered if their hot water tank was still up and running. They hadn’t washed up at the campgrounds, having slept a little longer than they’d wanted. A long hot shower sounded damn good right about now and might actually ease some of the tension that had settled over her since yesterday.

“I call dibs on the bathroom first,” Prue stated, doing her best to ignore her gut instinct that they should have kept traveling a bit longer. She lugged her things into the house behind Owen, who hadn’t turned on the lights. She stumbled into a side table and didn’t bother to keep the string of curse words to herself. “Could you hit the damned switch so I can see what I’m doing?”

“Hold on.”

Prue heard the thud of Owen’s things hitting the ground. She stayed where she was, her hip throbbing in time with her heartbeat from where it had met up with the hard wooden table. She counted to ten, doing her best not to snap at him. A dim light finally lit the room, although it was so low that she still found herself squinting to see the layout of the place.

“Could you turn it up?”

“No,” Owen replied, setting some type of flashlight on the coffee table that was positioned in front of a couch. “I don’t want the light to be seen from outside. It would give away our position and I really need some shuteye before dealing with some asshole wanting to take our precious few belongings.”

Prue wanted to tell Owen that he was being a little too cautious, but the fact that Deacon and his gang had actually followed them for such a length of time made her rethink that. She shrugged and then dropped all of her things at her feet. The house had a musty odor and she wondered if the people had lived here before hadn’t left long before the Yellowstone eruption.

The front room couldn’t have been bigger than eighteen feet by thirteen feet. There were two doors on either side of the far wall and when Owen held out another flashlight, she took it and did a little investigating of her own. There weren’t any family pictures hanging on the wall, nor were there any knick-knacks. Maybe this place had been a rental and was between leases.

“Found the kitchen,” Prue said softly, standing in the doorway on the left. It couldn’t have been more than eight feet long by six feet wide. There was just enough room for a sink, refrigerator, and a small oven. She wondered where a table would go and then figured it was supposed to be in the living area, but all that was surrounding Owen was a couch, chair, and table. No television, no phone, and no other furniture except the small one by the door that was responsible for the current pain in her hip. “I see how you got in.”

The beams from the flashlight sparkled off of remnants of glass that Owen had smashed to gain access through the back door. So much for being law-abiding citizens. Prue aimed the light in front of her and made her way toward the other room, which had to be the bedroom. Sure enough, there was a queen size bed up against the far wall with one dresser. Another door led to what looked like a small bathroom. Bingo. That was what she was looking for and exactly what she needed. She walked closer, Owen following behind. Her previous unease evaporated at the sight of a shower, regardless that the plastic insert was discolored from iron water deposits. She’d certainly used worse places to wash up in her teens.

Prue turned to head back into the living room to gather some toiletries and hadn’t realized that Owen was so close to her. He was like a brick wall and his arms wrapped around her to keep them from stumbling. The bill of her cap hit his shoulder and fell to the floor, along with the flashlight, which landed on one of her black boots she always wore when riding.

“Are you okay?” Owen asked, looking down at her with an illuminated face due to the beam of the flashlight. He gave her a tired smile, but somehow it reminded her of the one he gave her the night he kissed her. “Boot stopped it from breaking your toe, huh?”

“Could you, uh, move?” Prue held her breath, not wanting to breathe in his cologne. It had to be cologne, but they’d been riding for days and it was hard for her to fathom that anything he might have put on his skin would still be there. Did he smell that good naturally? She’d originally wanted a hot shower, but now she was contemplating a cold one. She was chalking this moment up to exhaustion. “I need my stuff.”

Owen didn’t move right away and his warm hands held onto her arms, his heat filtering through the long sleeved white shirt she was wearing. Prue didn’t consider herself the swooning type, but damn if he didn’t continue to make her want more than what she’d decided on long ago. She’d consider taking him up on the sex part if she thought he’d be the type of man to be friends with benefits. It had definitely been too long since her last romp, but Owen wasn’t the player type. That was odd in and of itself, considering he knew firsthand that marriages didn’t last. Being near him twenty-four seven was wearing her down. It had been a hell of a lot easier working at the shop with clear boundaries. Now…she didn’t have that to fall back on. She cleared her throat.

“On second thought, you take a shower first,” Prue said, quickly leaning down and snatching up her cap and flashlight. Owen’s arms fell to his sides and she managed to step aside without touching him. She held onto the end of the flashlight so that he could take the heavier portion. “You need it a hell of a lot more than me. You stink.”

O
wen walked into
the living room after taking a refreshing shower, although he was sure that Prue would have taken that statement a totally different way. Her reactions over the last two days told him that she was becoming irritated with the fact that their attraction was growing. There was no denying they wanted each other physically, but he needed more than that from any woman he planned to be with.

“Your turn,” Owen stated, tossing a clean towel her way that he’d found underneath the sink. Prue lifted her hand and caught it just in time. From the frown on her face, she wasn’t in any better a mood than when he’d gone into the bathroom. He ignored her testiness and rolled up his dirty laundry, placing it into the corner of his bag so that they were out of the way. There wasn’t a good time for what he was about to bring up, so he just threw it out there. “Where are your parents?”

Owen didn’t need to turn around to know that he’d caught Prue by surprise. They’d never really discussed their pasts, although he didn’t have anything to hide. He’d mentioned a time or two that he’d grown up in and out of foster homes. There wasn’t much to tell, although he’d shared military stories with her on the days when the shop had grown too quiet. It was Prue who kept her past close to her chest. He kept himself busy, not wanting her to feel too much pressure with his question. She probably already thought he’d crossed a line, but their relationship couldn’t progress unless he knew what ghosts he was up against.

“My mother’s dead and my father left long before that.” Prue’s reply was clipped and to the point. Owen moved his bag off of the coffee table and onto the floor where he’d placed the weapons cases. He’d taken his holster into the bathroom but had yet to put it back on. He sat on the couch with it in his hands and finally looked up at her. She was unzipping her bag a little more forcefully than needed, and he eyed the weapon on her side with speculation. He wouldn’t be surprised if she actually used that on him one of these days. “Why is that important?”

“I’ve known you for over a year and I know practically nothing about your past,” Owen said, leaning back against the couch and dropping his boots beside the scratched coffee table. “The Prue Whitaker that’s standing in front of me likes her coffee black, enjoys the flavor of dark beer, despises sports in general, makes a hell of a lot more money than her lifestyle requires—which makes me wonder what you do with the remainder. She likes the color hunter green, enjoys the freedom riding a bike gives her, gets irritated when men don’t trust her opinion regarding her profession, and has no compunction to hold back her thoughts. She’s intelligent, compassionate—although she’d disagree with me on that—honest, and hides her vulnerabilities behind the cap that she feels provides a barrier against stereotypes. What I don’t know is why…and I
want
to know.”