Hunter's Heart (15 page)

The ferocity of his tone startled her. She nodded, grateful for the comforting words but said nothing as they bobbed in the waves created by a boat pulling kids in a tube.

“Please, put your arms around my neck and let me show off.”

She gave in, doing as he asked. He backstroked, carrying them at least a hundred yards from the boat, showing no signs of tiring. His ability and strength was staggering and impressive.

Finally he slowed.

“Hang on tight,” he said, rolling so she was now on his back. “Going under.”

She grappled to get her arms around his neck as he took them down. He surfaced, then repeated the moves—porpoising he called it—until they reached the boat. He hoisted her onto a platform at the back where she sat kicking and splashing him until he sprang up and sat next to her.

“Teach me to dive off the boat like you did.”

A smile bright enough to light up a small city split his beard. “You’re on.”

He instructed and she dove until exhausted, water logged and starving.

“Food has never tasted this good,” she said, finishing off an Italian sub and unabashedly licking her fingers.

“Fresh air and exercise will do that.”

He handed her another beer and opened a bottle of water for himself. Celia scooted close and he adjusted his position, allowing her to rest her back against his chest. His arm looped around her in a natural embrace and they were silent a long time. She used the time to gather her courage. She took a long pull of the lager.

“Hunter?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m ready to talk about…last night and why…. How it was for me.”

The muscles in the arm wrapped around her went iron hard. “You sure? You’re having a good time.” He nuzzled the side of her head. “It can wait. I don’t want anything to bring you down.”

“I’m ready.” She twisted to face him. The day, her happiness,
him
, bolstered her confidence. And, there was something else. She trusted him. “I want to.”

“Okay.” It was a simple, common word, but said in that gravelly voice he used during sex and with a warmth that set her at ease. He swiped the glasses from his eyes, letting them hang to his chest from the strap as he bent his head to see her face. “Anything I can do to make it easier?”

She considered him for a moment. “I don’t know if I can look at you while I talk. Just let me say it.”

He nodded.

“And please, please don’t feel sorry for me.”

He nodded somberly but said nothing.

She stood and went to the rail, the boat rocking slightly as she moved. “We left our home with what we could carry, tanks and soldiers in view behind us. My father worked for the government and had to leave us. Mama was dead in a year….” Despite the warm day, a cold shiver danced over her.

She stared into the water, watching ripples from the wake of a passing boat sparkle and dance, then fell back into memories.

“It was in the spring. Mama and several people were buried in a mass grave. A yellow bulldozer splattered with mud dug a hole in the wet ground. Before all the bodies were in, there was a foot of water in the bottom.” She straightened and for a moment watched a passing sailboat.

The people on board waved and Hunter returned the gesture.

“In winter and spring the mud was awful. Military vehicles, tanks, and boots
mashed the snow and rain into the earth to make a sucking, knee-deep mud. I was dirty all the time. Summer and fall were better. The rain was warm. There was more food. I could stay in the country with more places to hide. Winter it was necessary to be in the city. Sometimes I could go to a real school.” She turned her head to face him.

He sat, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped, watching.

“Other times there were women who would do their best to teach. Like home schooling. Father would show and while he was there conditions were better. A safe place to sleep, food. We’d move. Not for safety, but his work. For me it was a downward spiral. Each place was worse than the last. The cities were the worst, with frequent bombings. Mostly at night.”

The boat rocked and creaked and Hunter was there next to her.

“I’m not stopping you. But I can’t sit over there listening to this and not offer some kind of comfort.” Somehow he’d sensed what she’d say next would be the most difficult. He took her hand and squeezed.

Once again, she was taken aback by the size of those hands. The knowledge of what they’d done. Had done to her. Her heart did a little jump.

“Sit with me so I can hold you.”

She let him guide her back to the bench, sitting as they had before.

“In the cities, buildings were frequently bombed. Never any rhyme or reason. One block would be totally destroyed, the next untouched. It was like pictures you see of tornado damage. A house gone. The house next to it just fine. But, sooner or later the undamaged buildings would be targeted. It didn’t take long before the people realized staying in an-already-damaged building was safer.”

“You’re telling me, your dad. Your father, would leave you, knowing how things were?”

She nodded, took in a long breath and let it out. “He left for days—a few times for weeks.”

“Fuck.” He scrubbed a hand over his face.

“He’d convince someone to watch out for me. On occasion, give them money for food. Sometimes they’d move on. Sometimes they’d kick me out of where they were living. Mostly, I was on my own. Once, he paid a man with a boy a couple of years younger than me. We were sleeping in the dressing rooms of a department store.”

Her heart rate kicked up. Her breaths came quick.

“This the nightmare?”

She nodded.

“You don’t need to say any more. I get the picture.”

“I…I…want to.”

“Take your time.”

She couldn’t. The rest poured out. “The flashes and sounds came together. Like last night. Tanks firing, buildings collapsing. Being alone.

Then it all changed. One day he showed up, we went to an airstrip and in twenty-four hours I was in Washington DC. In a condo with food, a bathroom, my own bed, and no bombs. A week later, I was in a real school. Told I was safe…. In six months he left again.”

“You didn’t tell anyone about his leaving,” he said slowly. Not a question but a confirmation of his thoughts.

“No. He said if I caused trouble, I’d be sent back. I believed him.”

She glanced his way, expecting him to have a you-poor-thing expression plastered on his face. There wasn’t. He was still, except for his beard that moved as he clenched and unclenched his jaw muscles. Comforted by his silence she gathered her courage and before she changed her mind blurted, “There’s more. It’s not nice. Promise you won’t get weird.”

His eyes narrowed to slits and he gave her a single nod.

Chapter 10

An edited truth.

“When my father drank, he knocked me around. It grew increasingly worse. The summer between junior and senior year was bad enough to scare me. I don’t scare easily. I began a plan to disappear. To do that I needed money.

Each month, money was transferred into a household account I used to pay the bills. I learned I could trace where that money came from.” She’d joined a computer geek club at school and gained enough skills to unlock the world. I discovered there were two accounts in separate banks that contained enough money for me to start a new life. I was able to access both accounts. Mind you, this was before all the über cyber security. Both had safety-deposit privileges.”

“A second signer was required and he’d foolishly put my name on. I turned our condo inside out looking for a key or anything I could use to get access to those boxes. There was nothing. He had to have the keys on him. His visits were becoming less and less frequent and I prayed he’d come back before I’d have to go.”

“
Have
to go?”

“Yes, he talked about us returning
home.
By that time, I was a US citizen. Not a child anymore and there was no way I would go back with him.” Go any place with the man who killed her mother. “He came back the end of February, sick—bronchitis or pneumonia, I think. A doctor some place had given him antibiotics. He wanted me to take care of him. I did and I found those fucking keys. I fed him enough alcohol and cough medicine to put him out for hours. Those keys aren’t supposed to be copied but I’d found a locksmith who would, for five hundred dollars. My father left three weeks later.

“I was terrified he’d clear out the bank accounts and boxes before I could. I knew once I emptied the accounts and took whatever was in them I would have to disappear.”

“What was in the boxes?”

“Birth certificate. Other documents I needed. Some cash.”

The
other
documents were passports for him and her in alternate identities, and a variety of forged papers that would make her escape much easier. The cash came to more than five-hundred-thousand US dollars. An equal amount in rubles supported his statement about going
home
and fortified her resolve to run.

“Is that when you left?”

She shook her head. “I should have, but I wanted to do one normal thing in my life. I wanted to graduate with my class.”

She paused and could hardly believe she was telling him. “I planned to go the day after graduation. I had a suitcase ready in the storage room.” She didn’t tell him about the plates she stole to put on her 85 Escort hatchback.

“I left the ceremony, went home, excited to be starting a new life and found
him
there. He said we were leaving. It was time I earned my keep in a new sure-fire moneymaker. He was going to pimp me out. Internet sex videos.”

Hunter hissed in a breath.

She skimmed the surface of what her father told her she would have to do. “The man he’d brought with him was going break me in. They were going to begin right then.” She stopped talking and focused on slowing her breathing.

He squeezed her hand. “You know what I said about not getting weird. I may go back on that.”

She closed her eyes and the memory came flooding back like a video. Struggling with her father. Her hand clenched around the handle of a kitchen knife. The sickening sound of muscle and sinew being sliced as she rammed the eight-inch blade into his stomach. His look of surprise. The awful, indescribable smell. Her absolute rage. The overwhelming desire to put him in a muddy, unmarked grave like he’d done to her mother. The images so intense and complete with every sensation she felt she was there.

“Celia?”

She jerked at the sound of Hunter’s voice, opened her eyes and looked around. She wasn’t in that kitchen. She clenched Hunter’s hand, not a knife. Hunter was here, not her father

“I ran.” She hastily began the story. “I took my bag, ran, and never went back. Not even to get my things in the storage room. Everything I needed was in my bag. Money, phone, laptop and the
keys
. Next day, using Internet banking, I transferred money from his account to the household account.” Then to ten accounts she’d recently opened. She also raided the boxes. The following day she began withdrawing the money from the new accounts. “I had some money to start a new life.” Three quarters of a million dollars to help.

“When I told the agency that watched over us he wanted to return to Russia they helped with new IDs and documents.” She did spend a chunk of the money on backup identities. She found it ironic the best document forgers in the country were in DC.

“I registered at a nearby junior college and worked a part time job.” She stayed away from people and made herself as unattractive as possible. Ditched her car, used public transportation, rode her bike and lived like she didn’t have a dime. “Two years later, I transferred to George Washington.”

“What happened to him?”

“I don’t know. I never saw him again.” That was the truth. An edited truth. Guilt ripped through her. Lying to this man, even if it were by omission, was all wrong. The honor and truth that were his life was far removed from hers.

If she told him the whole truth, she could lose him. Fear tremors ripped through her and her breaths came too quick. Lightheadedness overtook her.

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Put your head between your knees,” Hunter said, putting a hand to her back and gently pressing down. “Take in a breath, on a count of four. Let it out on a three count. Keep doing that until you feel better.” He held a chilled bottle of water to the back of her neck. “This’ll help.” In a few moments the queasiness passed and she sat up. He said nothing, only held her. They stayed like that for a long time. If only she could chase away the rest of the world and stay like this forever. The afternoon warmth cooled by the breeze and the gentle rocking of the boat lulled her into a light sleep until he woke her with a soft kiss.

“Celia,” he whispered.

“Hmm.”
She snuggled in.

“Look.”

“Hmm.”

“Open your eyes and look.”

She did.

“Not at me. In the water.”

She heard puffing sounds and sat up. Fins rolled past the boat.

“Dolphins.”