Vengeance Borne (6 page)

“What the hell happened to your face?” Libby’s voice boomed to the back of the convenience store.

“Nice Libs, I don’t think the guys out in the garage heard you. Quick, start talking,” she said, looking past her friend and out the window.

“I thought I was,” Libby replied. “What are we supposed to be talking about besides the fact that you look like you slid down a hill face first? Did you trip on your porch last night? I didn’t think you were that drunk, Jax. Shit,
I
wasn’t that drunk, and I had twice as much as you did.”

Jacquelyn laughed a little too loud and watched as Pete sulked past the gas station, his eyes lingering on her through the window as he went. “I tripped,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “And I don’t think you
can
get that drunk. You’re immune to alcohol or something. I’m ducking Pete, and I don’t want to look bored or unoccupied. Humor me.”

“I’m not immune, just well-practiced. Poor Pete,” Libby said with a sigh. “He’s in way over his head chasing after a cranky-ass like you. And oh my god, can you imagine what Finn would do to him?” Her voice once again escalated to megaphone proportions and Jacquelyn shot her a caustic glare. “All right clumsy, if you want to look busy, go stock these for me.” Libby handed over a large box full of snack-sized tortilla chip bags as she took off toward the office at the back of the store. “If you want to look occupied, you might as well
be
occupied.”

Libby and her husband owned the gas station/mechanic shop/convenience store and Jacquelyn did her best to impede their day-to-day business by loitering in her free time. She placed the bags of chips on the appropriate rack without arguing or complaining. Digging a thirty-foot ditch would be better than trying to find the right words to spare Pete’s feelings.

“Hey, Jax.” Libby poked her head out of the office door. “I need to run to the bank. Think you can hold down the fort until I get back?”

Leave it to Libby to give her an excuse to hang around. Jacquelyn had to assume her friend liked the way she loitered. “You rock my world, you know that, Libs?” It wasn’t like she was anxious to ride her bike home and despite the fact that he meant well, she really didn’t feel like hitching a ride with Pete.

From the back room, Libby called out, “What did you say? Hang on, I have to pee! Last night’s margaritas are still sloshing around in my bladder!”

The clatter as some tool dropped to the concrete floor in the shop was followed by a splutter of Evan’s soft laughter. Libby’s voice had a tendency to carry. No doubt the tellers at the bank two blocks down the street heard that particular proclamation.

Once Libby took care of her bladder issues, she loaded up a zipper bag with the day’s deposit and headed for the bank. Jacquelyn manned the pumps, well… she stood at the counter and pretended to man the pumps while she flipped through a magazine Libby had stashed beneath the counter. Cosmo. She was particularly interested in the article titled,
Maintaining a Friendly Relationship with Your Ex: A Breakup Guide
. It was like Cosmo had read her mind or something. She wondered if they had any advice specific to supernatural hunters and their empath counterparts. Jacquelyn sighed. Probably not. Surely Buffy dealt with similar problems?

Micah hated waking up, becoming one with the living once again. He swam from the bottom of the blackest ocean, kicking and paddling toward the blue-gold water glistening with sunlight. But he wanted to sleep; give himself up to the nothing, and sink to the empty black. Dreams did not exist at the bottom of this dark ocean.

He could take another Ativan—or better yet, a couple of Trazadone. He could sleep another eight hours if he wanted. Eight dreamless hours. But he already felt hung-over and taking another half of a pill would leave him feeling even worse. Eyes sticky with sleep, he pried them open to the harsh afternoon light and groaned. A headache was the least of his troubles. His gut twisted into knots from taking too many pills on an empty stomach. What a great way to start the day.

Breakfast—was it still breakfast when you ate it after noon?—helped, at least he didn’t feel like throwing up anymore. The crisp fall air cleared his head when he stepped outside to find he was closer to town than he’d thought the previous night. Further up the grade the trees thinned and he could just make out the roofs of a few houses. He had to assume that as the highway continued up the grade, it would deposit him into the small town marked with a dot on his GPS.

As he took in his surroundings and filled his lungs with the cool morning air, Micah realized the small campground wasn’t at all as eerie as it looked through the veil of darkness and moonlight. Sun filtered down through the branches and needles of pine trees. And the brush that had appeared dark and menacing the night before quivered in the breeze, bright green and dotted with purple berries. A forested area like any other he’d parked beside over past couple of weeks. And no amount of mysterious shrieks could convince him otherwise.

He’d be glad to put this place behind him, though. More than several hundred miles stretched out between him and Wyoming. An internet search of the country’s least populated towns had directed him to a place called Lost Springs. Even the name hinted that the town was tucked away from civilization. He had no idea what he’d find when he got there, but the thought of living somewhere with a population of less than a couple hundred people was too appealing to pass up. Micah pulled the red plastic wedges from behind the tires and stowed them in the RV’s outside compartment.
What a way to travel
, he thought as he secured the door behind him and took a seat in the comfy leather captain’s chair.

Micah squirmed and reached beneath him, grabbing the crumpled wad of paper bearing the sketch of the dream-woman’s face. He held it in his hand, a suddenly heavy burden. She’d looked so afraid. For a moment, he considered opening the tangled mass of paper. Just to see her face one more time. But he’d be damned if he got sucked out of reality and into prophecies and superstitious nonsense. She was just a face in a dream.

He threw the drawing somewhere behind him and the engine roared to life. The RV maneuvered pretty well despite its size, but Micah still had to make a thirty-seven point turn just to get it facing the right way so he could pull out onto the highway. He drove for five minutes or so, up the canyon, past a marker indicating, Brundage Mountain Ski Area and further up the highway past a tiny ski hill all but abandoned until winter. Two ski hills and he wasn’t even to town yet. He could only assume this mountain area would soon see a ton of snow. The trees thinned, houses jutted up here and there but there was little else to mark the town’s existence save a large carved sign that read
Welcome to McCall
.

“McCall, huh?” He checked his fuel gauge, dangerously close to empty. “I hope you have a gas station.”

A fancy-ass motor home pulled up to pump number five and Jacquelyn watched as the driver maneuvered the vehicle toward the appropriate nozzle. It looked as though he’d never driven anything larger than a Passat before he hopped behind the wheel of the motor home that took up the length of the gas pumps and she wondered as she watched him ease to a stop how the driver had managed such a sharp turn. She’d expected the front end to hit the post that supported the awning, but luckily, he missed it by about a quarter of an inch. If he’d done any damage, you can bet Libby would have burst a blood vessel.

The fuel machine beeped at her as if trying to get her attention and Jacquelyn fumbled with the buttons for a second before she found the correct key to authorize the pump. Thankfully the station wasn’t too busy. She’d only filled in for Libby once or twice and didn’t have the experience to do more than push a button or two. She watched the RV from the window for a minute but got bored after the first five gallons and turned her attention back to Cosmo.

So engrossed by the quiz at the end of the article, Jacquelyn wasn’t even sure how long the guy had been standing at the counter before clearing his throat to get her attention. When she finally looked up from the glossy color pages, the man standing before her set his fountain drink down with unnecessary force. Damn, he looked like he was going to be sick.

“Sorry.” The word rushed out too fast as if she’d been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to. Well, technically, she guessed she had. But seriously, what would Libby do if she found Jacquelyn slacking at her non-job? Take away her birthday? “I was sort of zoned out there for a minute. I didn’t even hear you walk in. Pump five, right?”

The man didn’t answer but stared at her with a concerned expression, his brow furrowed, full lips parted, and Jacquelyn’s breath left her chest in a hasty rush as if running for cover. His power was so immense it knocked the air right out of her.
Ho-ly shit. A Bearer
. Magical energy emanated from him like a Fourth of July sparkler, washing over her senses in a way that made her skin warm and tingly.

“Number five?” he asked after the silence became uncomfortable.

Did he know what he was? If he had, he would have gone to see Trish—the territory’s head honcho. But Jacquelyn hadn’t heard of any Bearers passing through. “That’s your RV, right? One hundred and eighty-five dollars.” His eyes were the color of old oiled leather, accenting his darker olive skin. He brushed a hand over the quarter-inch of stubble that shadowed his shaved head. A tough guy. Or at least, tough looking.

Impulsively, he reached out for Jacquelyn’s cheek and ran his fingers in a gentle caress along the butterfly bandage before she could pull away. A delicious heat, followed by a tingling sensation crawled over and under her skin, the intrusion too intimate for her to feel comfortable. She knew the invasive feeling of a Bearer’s power all too well. “Are you all right?” he asked, his eyes lingering on her jaw. “I was worried.”

Oh yeah. He was a Bearer all right. The touch confirmed it. She could already feel the effect of his magic flowing through the bandage into the cut, her skin becoming tighter by the second. He’d healed her and probably didn’t even realize it.

“You were worried?” Jacquelyn asked in a soft but facetious tone. This Bearer was obviously a few eggs short of a dozen. He was worried about her? She’d never seen him before in her life. “Do I know you…?”

“Micah,” he murmured, his gaze trained on her face.

“Do I know you, Micah?”

“No. I guess you don’t.”

A rogue Bearer could be trouble, and a crazy one, disastrous. Jacquelyn had a full enough plate already. “Are you passing through, Micah?” she asked, as she indicated his RV in an effort to coax a little info out of him. Like what he was doing here for starters.

“I don’t know,” he answered as though distracted. “Maybe I’ll stick around for a while.”

With his eyes still locked on her face, Micah handed over several folded bills. Jesus, he looked at her like he’d seen a ghost. Jacquelyn’s brain raced, as she tallied the odds of an unrealized Bearer—meaning that he’d yet to recognize and identify his abilities— wandering into her territory as she counted out the necessary change, filling his hovering and empty hand.

“Fourteen dollars and twenty-two cents change.”

“Thanks,” Micah answered as if waking from a dream. He stared down at his hand and stuffed the bills in his pocket. “Have a nice day—” he paused to look at the coffee shop name tag still pinned to her chest “—Jax.”

“Right back at ya—Micah,” she said, perplexed.

Without even taking his drink with him, she watched the disoriented Bearer wander out the door to the RV. Through the window she observed him, just sitting in the driver’s seat, staring straight ahead. He was still frozen in time when Libby walked through the door.

“What’s up with the hottie in the motor home?” she asked, shooing Jacquelyn out from behind the counter. “He looks lost.”

“He is.” Jacquelyn’s eyes remained focused on the gas pumps and the RV outside.
He just doesn’t know it yet
.

“Well, hot piece of ass or not, he better get the hell out of here,” Libby said. “He’s blocking the pumps.”