WANTED (A Transported Through Time book) (22 page)

Samantha opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Her throat seemed unable to move the words forth.

“Sammie? No, don’t ....”

Her vision grew fuzzy in an all-too-familiar way. Her mind screamed against it, but she knew. It was inevitable. She enclosed her limbs around his as tightly as if her life depended on it. In a way, her life did. As the blackness shrouded his face, she closed her eyes.

Her mind told Jesse good-bye, and darkness swallowed her up.

~~~

Chapter Twenty

“Carla Spencer, I will say this one more time, and only one more time,” Charles said. “Where is Samantha?” The finger he pointed at her shook as much as his voice.

The woman’s eyes couldn’t get any wider, or so he thought, but when her gaze darted from his face to his finger and back again, they did. She didn’t answer him. She tried to. Her mouth moved, squeaks of noise escaped her, but not one, single, intelligible word.

He was going to have to hit her. He’d already phoned the police, and they were taking their sweet time as always. Of course, he’d found no blood and no body, but Samantha was gone. Without a fucking trace.

“Answer me,” he shouted. He didn’t want to hit her but raised up his hand, ready to backhand her for all he was worth. Aim.

“Please, don’t,” she finally said. “She could be anywhere. We just have to look. Please. I swear, I wouldn’t hurt a hair on her head.”

Charles slowly lowered his hand. “Then get up and look. Now!”

She rose from her half-lying, half-sitting  on the sofa where he’d awakened her from a heavy sleep not five minutes earlier. Charles hadn’t thought he was dreaming. He didn’t dream in color for one thing, and he was far too drunk to sleep. The spinning room had made Samantha’s form blur, but he was certain she was there, and then she was gone. He’d risen and looked for her, found no sign, puked, and was now ready for this big-haired woman to stop jerking him around and find his friend.

He had three people in this world he gave a shit about, who in turn gave a shit about him, and Samantha was one of them. If he had to rank them, she might even be the first of the three. He didn’t fool himself into thinking he ranked as well with her, but he didn’t care.

He cared only about knowing she was safe and the world was right again. Completely screwed up and full of nasty, self-serving, unconscionable idiots, but the same.

Carla rose, looked at him warily, and began to search each room of her small upstairs apartment.

“She could be anywhere,” Carla said. “I fell asleep, so ... is her car gone?”

Charles stayed close. “No. Her car was the first thing I looked for. I’ve called for her. She’s not here. I know it.”

“Well, if she’s gone, I can’t help you.”

Charles took hold of one of Carla’s shoulders and spun her around, mindless of her hands coming up defensively. “I called the police. They’ll be here any moment. So you’d better find her. Now.”

Carla backed up a step, shaking her head. Her lips parted, then closed. But she nodded. “Don’t worry. She’ll turn up. I promise.”

He followed her again into the kitchen. “She’s not in the cupboards,” he said when she began to rummage through them. “And I don’t want another drink.”

She shot him a look telling him how little she appreciated his heavy sarcasm and put her hands on her hips. “This is worse than you thought,” she said.

“What do you mean?” The tremble in his voice was his heartbeat. He was sure of it, because his heart jumped up his throat.

Carla slumped into a chair, shaking her head. “I told her not to do it. You have to believe me. I warned her she would get hurt.”

A chill ran through Charles’ heart. He sat down stiffly. He didn’t want to know. “What did you warn her about?”

*

Jesse said the words, and a part of himself tore apart. Not from the stab in his ribs or the burn of his cuts. He was losing her. He knew it before he finished speaking. Maybe even before he spoke at all.

The breath knocked out of his body, he closed his eyes against the pain. Enormous agony shot through every inch of him, like he’d been drawn and quartered. He opened his mouth to scream, but the world swam away and sucked him along into an abyss.

When consciousness seeped back in, the ache through his body was almost unbearable. Sharp pains ran across his back, and a heavy weight on his chest made it damned near impossible to breathe.

He groaned, clenching his teeth.

Slowly, he opened his eyes, one thought permeating his hurt. His sweet Sammie was gone.

Death itself must have changed its mind and come to drag him into hell by the skin on his back. When he finally forced his eyes to open, his vision was blurry and dark. Oily stink surrounded him.

Breathing in a deep gulp of acrid air, he tried to move. Something was on him. Or someone. Jesse moved his hands to the person who could only be Sammie. As he touched a mass of hair, his heart soared. Through the dark, forms materialized.

It was Samantha! She hadn’t left him, yet.

He thanked God and held her, kissing the top of her head. He must have passed out. Never mind embarrassing, if Mick had done him so badly, he’d better see the doctor fast. Hell, Mick. He’d forgotten about the two dead brothers.

He had to get the local sheriff, even if he put a rope around his own neck.

“Sammie,” he said. She must have fallen asleep on him. Part of him hated to disturb her, but he didn’t have much choice. The longer those two bodies remained here, the worse his situation would get, the tighter the noose would get.

Maybe he would let the brothers stay where they lay and disappear. He could leave a note for Ginny or get word to her somehow.

“Sammie,” he said, thinking her asleep. “Sammie, wake up.”

He moved to shake her and realized they were nude, still entangled from their lovemaking, and no longer in his bed.

Samantha lifted her head and blinked. “What happened? Did I faint again?”

“I don’t know.” His voice sounded raspy, his throat dry, and his muscles screamed when she moved to sit up. He shut his eyes and groaned. His ribs pressed like they might cave in on his lungs. As heat from the pain flushed his skin, a sheen of sweat broke across it. When he lifted his hands to stop her from moving, they shook.

Before he could stop her, she rolled to her side and bent over him. “Jesse, you’re hurt. Oh, God, what have I done?”

“Nothing,” he grunted. “Mick did this. Not you.”

She didn’t seem to hear, kept repeating the same words over and over. “Oh, no, what have I done?”

Another wave of hot pain racked him, and he clenched his teeth. He was being turned inside out, twisted and turned. Lying still, he counted and breathed, waiting for it to ebb.

Samantha wiped his brow and whispered, “It’ll be all right, Jesse. I promise. This is all my fault, but I promise, you won’t regret coming with me. I just have to figure out where we landed.”

She wasn’t making much sense, which was fine, since he couldn’t really listen. He had enough trouble keeping from moaning and writhing. Somehow he sensed moving would only make it worse.

“I think I see where we are. Don’t move. I’ll be right back. I promise.”

He barely nodded and regretted it immediately. Pain clawed through his temples. Jesse gasped. This was so much worse than before. Not even Mick’s meaty fists pummeling his rib cage over and over again, hearing each rib crack under the repeated blows, compared to this. This pain seemed deeper, sharper, like broken glass scraping his flesh away from his bones.

Samantha’s soft steps faded, and in the distance he heard her knocking. The pain blinded him from most other thoughts, but somewhere, the idea penetrated his fog that he wasn’t in his home or anywhere near it.

Her words sunk in.
Come with her.

Had she managed to rip him forward through time?

No. Far more likely he’d lost consciousness from the beating and subsequent relief. Jesse moaned. Another wave of shards racked him, prickling and tearing down his legs, through his torso, knocking into his head.

Wherever she was, he wanted her to come back. He needed a doctor. She would have to find one. He had to tell her. He opened his mouth, his lips too sticky to say her name.

“Where in God’s name have you been—where are your clothes?” A voice he didn’t recognize. A man’s voice. Christ, someone found them.

“Not now,” Samantha said. “You have to come with me. He’s badly hurt. Please, Charles. Please.”

The steps drew near. She was naked. Hell, he was naked. He didn’t care except that he couldn’t protect her.

He still couldn’t move, but the pain seemed to be receding. Samantha reached his side, caressed his brow. “Doctor,” Jesse managed to say.

“Yes, I promise, Jesse. I’ll get you a doctor. First, we have to move you.”

We? The man she was speaking to. The man she stood naked before. Jesse would kill him if he hurt her, touched her. Somehow he’d manage it.

The man grabbed his shoulders, while Sammie took his feet.

“Where’s Carla?” Sammie asked.

The man shrugged, jostling Jesse. Another cramp tore through him, making him exhale sharply and inhale in a hiss.

“Be careful, damn it!”

“Sorry,” the man said. “So is this your mystery man? Nicely proportioned at least.”

“Charles, not now, please,” Sammie said.

He could tell she was gritting her teeth and having no easy time of carrying her end of his limp limbs.

What in the hell had happened to him? He had a feeling he was about to find out. Whatever doubts remained about the lunatic claims his Sammie had made would soon be erased from his mind.

It didn’t seem possible. Him, limp, in excruciating pain, being hauled up a slope of something definitely not grass or dirt, in some smelly, noisy place he couldn’t open his eyes to see.

Maybe this was hell.

Maybe she hadn’t jumped through more’n a hundred years and dragged him with her. Maybe they’d died in each other’s arms and were paying for their sins. It certainly felt like hell, his body being raked across some torturous device.

A door opened. He could tell by the gasp that a woman had joined them.

“I can’t believe it. Oh my word, I just can’t believe it. How did you do it? Is he okay? Is he dead?”

“No, he’s not dead, but I’d appreciate a little less gawking and a lot more help here,” Sammie said, out of breath.

Feet scuffled. They laid him down on a cold, wood floor. The last round of aches subsided, and Jesse breathed easier. Carefully, slowly, he opened his eyes. The bright light stung them, and he shaded them with his hand.

Samantha’s face appeared above him. As she smiled into his eyes, a large sheet billowed over his body. She wiped his brow.

“Can you speak?” she asked.

“Where ...” he croaked.

Her face scrunched up in the same way it had at the camp, when she’d tried to explain, and he’d thought her a liar, an actress. He wasn’t sure he was going to like what she had to say.

“I brought you with me, Jesse. I didn’t know I could, and I never really asked you, but ...” She put a hand over her mouth. A sob pushed past it. “You’re here. You’re in 2007 with me.”

Her hand went from her mouth to her throat. Her gaze searched his. Even if he were able to speak, he didn’t know what to say. It was true, then. All of it.

Dummy. Of course it was true. Sammie wouldn’t lie to him, and she wasn’t crazy.

“Ginny,” he said.

Sammie’s face fell. She gasped and covered her mouth again. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think of your sister.”

From above her, a blanket came down over her shoulders.

“Who ...” he said.

“Oh, that’s just Charles ... and Carla.”

“Just Charles?” the man behind her said, but he didn’t sound mad. If Jesse had known the man, he might’ve said he sounded rather pleased.

He watched Sammie adjust the blanket and wave the man off.

Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she was smiling, too.

“Can you get him something for the pain, Carla?” she asked without looking up.

As a round of cramping came on, not nearly as unbearable as before, Jesse bit down. He closed his eyes, clenched his brow.

“I should have asked, Jesse. If you ... well, if you want to go back to Ginny ... I understand.”

He could hear in her voice that she didn’t understand. Neither was she trying to manipulate him. She simply wanted him.

He waited for the pain to subside.

He opened his eyes and looked at her. Her very soul seemed to shine from her face.

He was wrong. This wasn’t hell.

This was heaven.

“No,” he said, the only word he could manage.

“No?” she repeated and seemed to hold her breath. She cupped his face with her hands. “Do you mean you want to stay with me, Jesse?”