Desert Blade (5 page)

“I’m sorry to bring you bad news, but…” She gripped the glass in front of her and stared into the clear liquid. “Dr. Kelso is dead. We ran into some trouble on our way here, stopped by riots. He was in Kansas City when the Great Fires destroyed everything.”

“Kansas City was wiped out by fire?”

She nodded.

“Might’ve been easier than everyone starving to death.”

Lidia paled and lifted a shaking glass to her pink lips. Her throat worked as she swallowed. The pale column of her throat was so fragile, vulnerable to the strength he carried in his left arm. He skidded back his chair, stood and strode to the window. A line of scrubs hung on a clothesline. No other color in the barren and dusty backyard.

“He’s who I came here for.” He curled his good fist and closed his eyes to the feel of tension running up his arm.

“Why?”

“He was needed over near old St. Louis. There’s an outpost where a few of us from Chicago made it.”

“What about the Vines? I heard nothing east of the Mississippi is left. Have you seen?”

“I’ve seen. Nothing left.” He spun and loomed over her, close enough to touch. “It may not be like here, but they’ve made a start of it. Have roofs over their heads, some food crops, and even manage to fight off the drifters.”

Her eyes flashed with pity or anger, but she didn’t speak, leaving room for him to continue.

“But one of the kids can’t breathe right. He needs a doctor. I only knew of two, both headed here.”

He sank into the chair and leaned toward her. Her eyes grew wide and she licked her lips.

“It took longer than I wanted to get here. I had to stop along the way. There were no other settlements. Only a dustbowl. Hardly anybody left. No doctors…”

“So many people gone,” she whispered.

He fisted his good hand on the table. “You’ll have to come with me.”

There. He’d said it. It had to be. It was right.

“No.” She lifted her chin as if in challenge. “It’s not like back when we could get in a car or a plane to be anywhere in a few hours. I’m needed here.”

“You’re needed more there. I’ll keep you safe. On the way east, it’ll be easier. Much easier. Won’t take much time at all, going on the river with the current. We’ll boat most of the way.”

“I can’t. I’d be gone too long. Maybe never come back.” Her steady response was reasonable, patient.

He nodded. “You probably won’t make it back. Getting here, the drifters let me be. With a woman, even if there’s only one of them and he doesn’t stand a chance, he’ll go for you. The drifters fight to the death for a female. You have anything you need to come back for?”

Something about that question bothered the hell out of him. Like, that she might have a man. A useless man since Derek sat here alone with her. He was up out of the chair again, putting distance between him and that clean, salty-vanilla scent of hers that made him a little crazy.

Her chin hitched. “As much as your people may need me, there are just as many here that do, too. I can’t pick up and leave. I have friends here. A clinic to run. I have to back up the other doctor when he needs a rest. The new interns need my midwifery and herbal remedies classes. If it’s as desolate as you say out there, this hospital school is even more important.”

“True enough. But I made a promise. I swore to Trudy I’d get a doctor for the kid. I mean to keep that promise.”

A small crease formed between her brows. “What’s wrong with the kid? Yours?”

“In a manner of speaking.” He’d done his best to honor Hester. He followed in her footsteps, taking care of the little ones who had nobody else. In this case, more than that, he’d promised his best friend’s woman that he’d take care of their boy Nathan Junior. Nathan wasn’t here anymore to do it himself, and that was Derek’s fault, too. He’d lost Nathan in a drifter clash. He should’ve protected his friend. He couldn’t fail again. “He’s too weak to get out of bed. Just curls up and stares at the walls and wheezes. Little Nathan hasn’t been able to leave his house in months. We thought we’d lost him a few times.”

“Asthma?” Her dark brown eyes defocused. Deep in thought, she hummed low in her throat. She probably didn’t even know she did that. “What have you tried?”

He detailed the weeks of doing all they knew to do. Like giving him mint tea to settle him a little—mint being the only herb they had been able to get to grow in the scrabble of soil available to them. They tried the few drugs they had, like outdated ibuprofen, but that didn’t help asthma. Really, all they’d done is held Nathan and hoped. During his recounting, she leaned toward him, the little lines between her brows creasing as she scrunched her nose. When he finished, she had her chin in her hand and she remained silent for several long minutes.

“I can’t help without seeing him.” She abruptly left the kitchen and called from over her shoulder. “I have one or two plants I’ll need to bring and a few dried teas. We’ll go to the general and ask for a few men to accompany us and bring me back.”

Snapping his mouth shut, he sat with a thud. His mind jammed with all the thoughts rushing at him, but he picked the one that came screaming to the top.

“We don’t have time to wait on a general to mount a campaign.” He scrambled after her and talked at her determined expression as she came back in, carrying a flowery weed that she plopped into a plastic bag. He hadn’t seen a plastic bag in years. That stole his thoughts for a moment as she grabbed a few things from her cabinets, put it all in her medical bag on the table and kept walking past. He watched her deliciously curved ass disappear down the hall. He shook his head. “Bringing a group of men will draw more attention and make you more of a target.”

It was a shitty idea to involve the general. Or the men sent to watch Derek by a man who wanted this woman in his bed. But Derek himself had no business spending that much alone time with a woman—especially Lidia.

His mind threatened to drift, to imagine a night with her next to him, but he forced himself back on even ground.

Oh, hell.
He was in her bedroom.

It smelled like her. Even ground? Fuck it all. It was all he could do to stand without falling on his face. Already pulling out clothes from a dresser, she carefully stacked them in an open suitcase on her bed. Her soft, wide, comfortable-looking pale blue bed. The last time he’d slept on something like that had to have been when Hester’d taken him to Memphis as a kid. She’d loved Elvis.

Lidia brushed past him. He slammed his mouth shut, stood straight and tried not to breathe in her dizzying vanilla scent—that she didn’t even know she had. She went in an adjoining bathroom and came right out, explaining as she threw more things in her suitcase.

“I’ll need to be back in three months. I have a young first-time mother who’ll need me. She’s not comfortable with the male doctor or interns. Though they’re the ones I’ve trained to take care of childbirth and pediatric care.”

Lulling him into watching her graceful moves, she continued about how they’d worked to build the community here, how they’d created the hospital and training facility. How she’d tried to step back from the pediatric side of medicine.

He shook his head to clear it from the magic she must possess to throw his thoughts so far afield. “You’re not bringing a suitcase. We’re leaving before nightfall with only what we can carry on our backs.”

“I’m sure the general can come up with a better plan. A way to make this quick and painless.”

A pampered general who guarded an isolated military base and hadn’t traveled the desert had a better plan? Not a chance. She snapped the suitcase shut, hauled it out of the room and grabbed her med bag. “If you’re in such a hurry, why are you standing there? Let’s go.”

A dark feeling spread through his chest as he looked at the soft woman. She’d never make it. Much as he wanted to spend a few nights between her thighs, he should show her his back and never even glance over his shoulder on his way home. “You said you had some interns that were good. One of them must be a man.”

“They don’t have the experience I do and the other doctor is eighty. He can’t make this trip.” She stopped in her tracks, braids spinning, and glared at him, brown eyes glinting with ire. “Do you have problems with women?”

“No. I love women.” He snapped his mouth shut so hard his teeth clicked.

She folded her arms over her lovely chest, her dark brows angled down, and her pink lips flattened. “Oh. So, you’re that kind are you?”

He laughed, a rusty sound he hadn’t heard much in past years, much less so many times in one day. The last time he’d touched a woman hadn’t gone well. At all. No, not even in his wildest dreams could he imagine that disaster had been anything but a nightmare. He hadn’t touched one since.

His grin slipped. She frowned and cocked a hip, opening her mouth again. Holding up his hand, he stopped whatever nonsense she was about to spout. “I’m no more that kind than any man, maybe less. What I meant is that you’re a lure for those drifter gangs. It’ll be a fight to the death if any of them spot you. We can avoid that trouble if you just pick one of the men to go with me.”

“The general’s soldiers will get us there. Besides, I’ll dress like a man.”

Ignoring her complete lack of faith in his ability to keep her safe on his own—despite the fact he’d voiced his own doubts—he let his stare slowly track down her body, linger on her curves, pointedly stared at her breasts until her nipples tightened beneath her scrubs, and then to her face, pink along the tops of her cheeks, her moist lips parted. His mouth watered and he swallowed hard.

Her cheeks flooded with red and she licked her lips with a small little “oh.” Her suitcase hit the dust at her feet.

“Don’t think you’ll manage to fool anyone.” He shifted his stance to alleviate the tightness in his jeans and waved her on before she took a glimpse in that direction. She spun around and practically ran away from him. Even in her haste, her hips moved fluidly, so damn female.

“Where are you going?” He yelled after her and didn’t add, “besides with me, wherever I tell you to go.” Because despite his momentary doubt, she was going. She’d practically dared him to get her there safely, to show up the general.

She didn’t answer. He’d have to set her straight on a few things. First being that he was in charge and she had to follow his instructions or they’d both end up dead, and that meant answering his damn questions, too. He followed at her heels, like that damned puppy.

A small group of men came out of one of the more official-looking buildings that sat close to the windbreaks on this side of town. The gardens around it were in good shape and several of those strange go-cart-looking things with sails were parked to the side. The men hadn’t seen Lidia, yet, but it was only a matter of seconds.

Shhting.

The sword extended on his arm and his metal fingers curled into a fist. Not wanting to hurt her, he grimaced and forced the blade to retract.

She was too far ahead. Something else they needed to talk about. He picked up the pace, dirt crunching beneath his boots.

With a lunge, he was on her. His arms went around her waist and propelled them in the alley between two houses. Cushioning their fall with his sword arm, he sprawled over her and to keep her mouth from doing something it shouldn’t, like yell for help, he crashed his lips down on hers.

She whimpered. Her hands tickled across his head and held him closer as her mouth opened.

The world went helter-skelter around him as he sank into the hottest, most erotic kiss he’d ever experienced. His entire body got into the moment, sliding against her softness. Her legs came up around his waist. His cock, straining against his zipper, rocked rhythmically against her cloth-covered pussy.

She moaned a desperate sound like a caged animal and bucked up against him. His tongue slid in and out, mimicking what he wanted to do to her.

A pebble skittered past him and hit the wall next to his head.

With a jerk away from those tempting lips, he glared over his shoulder. The group of men passed by, jostling each other and kicking up sand as they laughed about something he couldn’t hear. They hadn’t seen them.

Not daring to let himself think, he pushed up. Her legs fell away as he stood and extended his good hand. Lidia’s small fingers slid into his and he pulled her up.

“Sorry,” he muttered, but he wasn’t.

“Don’t be.” She sounded out of breath. “I’d wondered. About you. A lot.” She didn’t say anything else but closed her lips tight as if to stop more words. Whatever she’d been about to confess, she’d sealed her fate.

She was his, even if she didn’t know it yet.

Moving so fast she didn’t have time to run, he slapped a hand over her mouth and yanked her against his body.

“Shhh. I won’t hurt you. You know I won’t. But you’re going with me, and we’re taking that little land boat of yours. Sorry, Lidia.” There he went, apologizing when he never apologized and lying through his teeth when he never lied. He wasn’t sorry. “But, my own sweet doctor, you’re being kidnapped.”

Lidia struggled against the ropes binding her feet and wanted nothing more than to plant her boot in Derek’s backside as he bent to refill the canteen in the swiftly running water of the Missouri. Supplies he’d procured from somewhere—she didn’t dare think about whether he’d hurt someone while stealing them—were loaded in the land yacht. Her new, highly prized land yacht.

“I told you I’d come with you. Just needed a few days to plan the trip. Pack. Get some men to come with us. If you’d listen to reason. You don’t need to tie me up.”

General Toole would probably hit the roof when he found her missing. Derek had gotten harder—as to be expected in this harsh world—but underneath, he was the same man with the same regard for his duty to protect.

The stubborn man didn’t respond. Hadn’t talked to her except to ask for instructions on driving the yacht until now, when he’d stopped for the night. The only thing he’d taken off the yacht was her black medical bag sitting on the ground next to her. She leaned toward it, but her hands were bound tight against her body. If only she could get to that shot of anesthesia.

She might dare to use it to get free. It’d pain her to waste it, with medicine in such short supply. No matter what, she couldn’t get to it now. She had to bide her time, but time was running low if she wanted to get back before she’d be unable to find her way home—and before Toole found out. If he set his mind against Derek, he wouldn’t help.

They’d traveled south on her little yacht until the sun started to set. Derek had caught on fast, and by the time he sought out the river, he’d become adept at navigating. After setting camp while she stayed secured in the vehicle, he’d picked her up, carried her cradled against his chest to the small, smoke-free fire and dumped her. He sat opposite, cleaning his sword arm—of all things.

“Where exactly are we going?” She stared at her bound legs and remained motionless.

“Just another place in this never-ending dustbowl.” That was the best answer she’d gotten out of him since that bad idea of a kiss.

“If you leave me tied up, that long trip will be even longer.” She glanced at him. He stared at her mouth with firelight glittering in his eyes. “I’d already said I’d go with you. There was no reason for all this.”

Derek blinked slowly then looked into the night. “I’ll untie you, after I get you far enough away that you won’t risk going back.”

He didn’t know her. Not at all. As soon as she could break free, she’d walk to Leavenworth and start over. Plan this rescue effort the way it should’ve happened in the first place. With a roll of her shoulders to ease the ache, she raised her chin to meet the gaze he returned to her with a challenge. “I can’t sleep like this.”

To her surprise, he nodded. “I’ll make sure you’re comfortable.”

This didn’t ease her mind since he’d said it with a bit of secret humor, a twitch at the corner of his lips and the irises in his eyes going wide and black as the night. She turned her nose up and inched to the side. Not exactly showing him her back, but it was the best she could do.

“Do you want to check your bag? You seemed sure I’d break something in it, or lose it. See. It’s in one piece. Nothing wrong with it.” The reassurance reminded her of when she’d met him. When her attraction to him had made her knees weak. Well, that was no more. A sense of loss flittered through her to realize she hadn’t been attracted to a man since and now he’d ruined the fantasy she’d built around him in the past decade. She was a fool.

“You’re all talkative now, aren’t you?” she muttered. “Wouldn’t reason with me earlier.”

“I told you. I wasn’t going to keep arguing with you. You’re going with me—alone, no caravan to draw the attention of the drifters—and there’s no reason to rehash it. I’ll get you there, safe. My life for yours. When it’s all over, you can think of it like a vacation.” His voice had heated. He was upset.

Well, newsflash, she was upset too.

“Right.” There was so much wrong with “vacation” she didn’t know where to start, but one thing was for sure. “I haven’t had a vacation since well before the riots. Oh, hell, I’ve never taken one, and you can’t exactly call this a fun-filled holiday.” She lifted her bound hands and glanced at them pointedly. “It won’t be a walk on the beach to cross the desert.”

A vicious howl sounded in the distance.

“You just had to say that didn’t you?” Derek surged to his feet, kicked sand over the fire and scooped her up along with her bag. He whispered hot air into the shell of her ear as he strode to the sail glowing faintly in the near-darkness. “Never tempt fate. Never say things are bad, ‘cause they’ll always go immediately to shit.”

A chorus of howls joined in with the first, echoing around them. She crowded her body against his hard one as much as she could while tied up and in his arms. “What was that?”

“I wish it were as simple as wild dogs.” He sat her in the passenger seat and, bracing one hand on the frame, vaulted over the small vehicle and slid into the driver’s seat.

“How could a pack of wild dogs be simple?” Her voice shook, but she had a right to be rattled at this point.

“Because dogs we could outrun. Outsmart. We can lose them. Can’t lose a gang of drifters once they’ve caught the scent.”

Her body shuddered in the seat.

Using his enhanced arm, Derek popped the anchor and reeled it in at a dizzying speed.

Drifters. She hadn’t seen any since the general had trained enough men to form a perimeter around Leavenworth. Drifters tended to form gangs to survive by preying on others. She’d seen their handiwork, the ghastly injuries and worse tales, the teen who’d lost her ability to have children being only one. Desperate and mean, these gangs plowed over—and through—their victims. They took what they wanted and didn’t care what happened to those in their way.

“Hold on.” He jerked the sail to catch the ever-present wind and they lurched to the side.

Her body slid toward his and nearly came off the bucket seat and into his lap. Her mouth slammed into his rock-hard biceps. She hissed, “You didn’t tie me back in.”

Shhting.

His blade extended. The moonlight glinted as it swished down.

She should’ve have been afraid of that metal arching toward her.

She wasn’t.

With a deft flick, the blade sliced through the air in front of her. The ropes fell away. Breathing deep, she straightened and shrugged away the stiffness as she gripped the
Oh-Shit
bar over her head. Both hands now on the directional, he banked hard to the left as a mass of galloping horses crashed around the bend of the river in front of them.

The hooting and hollering grew into a fevered pitch, nearly deafening in its intention. Terror. It nearly suffocated her, but not so much that she didn’t feel even more terror when the yacht pitched. She slammed into Derek again as the yacht’s side rose up off the ground.

“Straighten the sail,” she yelled.

Derek’s jaw worked as he gripped the directional and ignored her.

“Let me drive this thing.” She nearly shrieked as she reached up and, with a grunt, forced the sail straight. The craft thumped down. Her entire body jolted and she bit her tongue.

“No time to switch places,” he grumbled, but he didn’t sound the least bit concerned.

Sand coated her mouth. Her shoulders and arms ached from holding on, and her heart thumped wildly. Dust rose around them as hoofbeats grew louder. The hot panting of a horse breathed down the back of her neck. The smell of rotten hay sent her toes curling in her boots.

Whoot.

The tang of blood rose around her, but she didn’t know from what. A grim-faced man, clad in dark skintight clothing, reached from the left, hanging low over a straining, sweating horse, to grab at her. A riding crop cracked in the air from another rider pushing past the one groping for her. Wind brushed past her cheek with the near miss. She cringed and crowded toward Derek.

There had to be a dozen men beside her bringing thunder down on their heads in pounding confusion.

The yacht shifted and slid across the sand toward another group of horsemen. The gang had split up to surround the little craft. In a matter of moments, they’d be at the mercy of these men with hard, harsh glares above bandana-covered mouths.

Derek couldn’t have the skill to maneuver this thing to get away from the horsemen corralling them. He didn’t look at her when he calmly directed, “Put your feet up here.”

She didn’t think. Like she’d done as an intern in the ER, she obeyed instantly, crisis mode taking complete control.

With an efficient swipe that once again she didn’t feel, he freed her legs.

Not three seconds later, the yacht banked hard to the left. The wind caught the sail in a snap. She jerked against the seat as the craft whooshed forward in a dust cloud. She shut her eyes against the sting of sand pelting her skin. She’d never gone so fast before.

Then the wind cut and the yacht slowed.

“That little gust pushed us ahead, but they’re still back there.”

Behind her, the thunder of hooves grew closer.

“Hold on. We’re here.” Derek shifted next to her, but she couldn’t move. Hadn’t been able to unclench her body.

“Here?”

The yacht dropped beneath them.

Derek’s hand shot over her mouth, cutting the scream that ripped from her.

Crash.

She jerked up in her seat and then fell down into it with a jarring
thud.

“Shhh.” Derek’s hot breath blew against the crown of her head. Despite being in a place that was entirely pitch-black—wherever it was—with a gang of scumbags chasing them down, the sheer size and comforting presence of his heat made her feel safe. A soft brush and a breath tingled through her hair. Had he kissed her on the head? Her fingers curled in her lap.

His lips came to her ear and he whispered, “Stay quiet. We’re hidden. It’s an old building buried in the sand, completely covered by a dune. I found it on the way up. Under the dune, it’s like a cave now. We came through a hole in the roof. It’s a big hole, but it’ll be hard for them to find it at night unless they already know about it.”

“We fell inside an old building.” She couldn’t grasp it.

With a grip on her hand, he tugged at her rigid body, still in shock from that crazy ride and the fall. “Let’s get to the side, under some cover in case they find the hole. We didn’t fall far. The sail isn’t all the way inside and I need to get it down before they see it.”

That was why the fall hadn’t done more than jar her.

With a quick slice of his sword arm, the sail fluttered down in a swish of fabric. Her poor brand-new yacht. It had to be ruined now.

Grabbing her med bag, she allowed Derek to lead her through the darkness. The touch of his hand awakened those female instincts of hers she’d buried in the past years, buried except for those nights when she’d dreamed of him. The patient who’d become an obsession when the world had fallen apart and all she had were memories.

She swallowed hard and regretted it instantly. The sand coating her mouth tasted vile. She spoke low, to fill the tension spreading between them. “We got lucky. To be close enough to here and you knew about it.”

“That’s a problem.”

“We’re safe right now. How’s that a problem?”

“Problem is—I’m never lucky. So things have to go to shit, real soon.”

“Well, this is unlucky enough. We’re stuck in this strange building. The yacht has to be wrecked. Those thugs are as likely to know of this place as you are.”

Derek stopped and she brushed up against his strong arm. “There you go, saying the sweetest things.”

“Did you bump your head? What could I have said that you thought was sweet?” The moonlight finally found them through the hole they’d dropped through, probably from behind a cloud, in time to show his devious and handsome smile. Dimples deepened amid the stubble in his chiseled face.

“You made me see we are unlucky. That’s the best news we could’ve had. That means we can rest easy for a few hours at least. Those horses can’t smell us out. It’s gone dark. The drifters will hole up to protect themselves from the night winds. They’ll come after us, but not ‘til morning.”

“Alright, then. How are we getting out of here?”

His smile didn’t dim at all and, for a second, she dared dream of his suggesting they go back to Leavenworth. He shook his head. “I have no idea.”

“Oooo. You. Ugh.” She threw up her hands. “What about getting to your people?”

His grin fell and she had to admit she wanted it back. It wasn’t a joking matter that a child was sick. He ran a hand over his shaved head. “First light, I’ll find us a way out of here. If we have to hike to the river and ride a log downstream, we’ll do it.”

Down
stream.
Right. Riding a log on the Missouri would be suicide.

Despite his irrational suggestion and for a reason too disturbing to contemplate, he soothed her worries. She didn’t doubt he’d get them on their way in the morning. But she also didn’t doubt that those drifters would be hot on their trail. Even without Derek’s warnings, she knew what a commodity she was by virtue of her sex. As if in reminder, the snort of a horse echoed in the distance.

Derek tugged her close enough that his elevated temperature reached out and caressed her. She marveled at his sheer size. His shadow cast by the moon coated her in darkness. The rustle of his clothes was nearly lost by the noise of her thundering heart. She didn’t see him move before the gentle stroke of a finger trailed down her cheek. She shivered.

“You’ll be safe. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

Ever?

What a traitorous, ludicrous wish. They might as well live a world apart, but for the moment, he was here.

She couldn’t have moved if those horses stampeded down into this dark hole. That touch of the pad of his finger had immobilized her. All sense scattered and she leaned into his hand. He cupped her face before sliding a caress down her neck. The loss of skin on skin brought a shudder through her as he traced her shoulder. His warmth seeped through the thin material of her shirt. The slow caress jolted her, brought heat and want to pool deep in her belly when his barely there touch skimmed down her naked arm to her hand.