Triple Exposure (19 page)

Cold. So cold that shivering woke her. Such hard shivering that Rachel’s bones ached with it.

No, that wasn’t right. Or wasn’t all, at least. The fall had her left shoulder throbbing, the left side of her skull pulsing with violent bursts of light that sparked when she tried to lift her head.

Yet she had to raise her face from the hard grit, so she pushed off the uneven surface with her right hand. Pushed and strained to sit up, with the flashes blazing Morse code protests.

She waited out the pain, waited out the waves of nausea. And stared into a darkness so complete that she feared she’d been blinded. Hadn’t the doctor warned her to be careful, that another blow to the head, after her recent concussion, could have dire consequences? Memory issues, mood disorders, coma, even death—and wasn’t vision part of the brain’s function? The part that allowed her to create a photograph, to fly a plane or glider, to see the people she loved.

Her father’s face flashed through her consciousness, her grandmother’s as well. Even Patsy’s, and, more surprising still, Zeke Pike’s.

Where was Zeke?
Had his horse, too, bolted after the off-road vehicle came roaring toward them? Fear shot through
her center at the idea that he could have been struck down—perhaps because of her.

She blinked back moisture, then noticed a bright streak—a meteor flashing through the dark skies. As it dimmed, she stared upward at the swath of stars that speckled the cold expanse. Stars far brighter and more numerous than those that dotted the diminished sky of the light-saturated East Coast. By the tens of millions, they flanked the Milky Way’s pale swath, offering her reassurance that she could still see after all.

She sighed and shook her hands to get blood flowing into her chilled fingers. After buttoning her jacket, she rubbed her arms, then grunted with the effort of rising to her feet. Tottering for a moment, she watched the lights above blur as the canopy of night swayed. By widening her stance, she managed to stay upright, standing until the cold forced her to move.

But where could she go? Despite the bright display above, she couldn’t see where she was walking, so she was forced to take small and cautious steps. And she had no idea of direction, no way to gauge whether she was moving toward or away from Zeke’s place or the tiny airport, toward Marfa proper or the mountains. She pictured the area rolled out beneath her like a relief map, the miles and miles of emptiness she’d seen so often from the air. How easy it would be to miss one of the tiny outposts of civilization on this broad plain and wander off, directionless, into oblivion.

And yet she had to move to warm herself. To move and to pray that Zeke had made it back to safety, that he had gotten in his truck and gone for help.

Who could say how long she had been unconscious? Maybe searchers were already organizing parties and equipment. Maybe they were out looking with their flashlights and their lanterns. Or she might be closer to Zeke Pike than she thought.

She cupped her hands around her mouth and called, “Zeke, where are you? Zeke?
Anybody?
”

She never stopped to consider that “anybody” could include the same person who had tried to hurt her in the first place. Never imagined she could be so unlucky until she saw the headlights taking aim.

Twin lights. Much like headlights, except they rose like a child’s balloons above the desert. Rose and merged, the yellow-white left orb swallowing the right.

Silent and so lovely. The light swelled, spinning on a strangely disconnected axis. Hovering, then giving birth to gently glowing spheres.

The observer lowered the field glasses, smiled. Because the mystery lights were part of a pleasure so acute it had a sexual component. As if spent bullets and spilled blood had quenched a violent thirst.

From the farthest reaches of a nightmare memory, The Child’s weeping faded, the cries morphing into the happy yips of the distant coyotes.

And as the glowing crescent moon cleared the horizon, its thin curve seemed the desert night’s sadistic smile.

Hopeless. This is hopeless
…

Yet Zeke couldn’t force himself to give up, couldn’t abandon the rough grid he had mapped out in his head to keep from getting completely lost out in the darkness. Leading both of the horses, he walked imaginary lines for hours, stopping every so often to call Rachel’s name.

He continued long after he had given up hope of hearing any reply. If he stopped and let the horses follow their instincts to lead him back home, he would have no choice except to climb into his truck and drive to town to ask for help. The sheriff would have to be called and searchers
organized, none of whom would want to begin looking before daybreak. Might as well keep looking on his own, then, on the off chance that he would stumble across her.

Or maybe he was avoiding Rachel’s family. Zeke’s throat tightened at the thought of facing Patsy, who might have mixed feelings about her stepdaughter but wouldn’t thank him for losing her. And what of Walter Copeland, whose love for Rachel streamed behind him like a banner? No matter what the sheriff told him, Walter wouldn’t be able to hold off until morning. He’d come back out here with Zeke and crawl on his hands and knees if necessary.

Maybe he had that right. God only knew Copeland had more claim to this futile effort—to Rachel herself—than Zeke ever would. Head bowed in defeat, he reached for the horn and cantle of Cholla’s saddle and swung back aboard for the ride home.

From this new vantage, he sucked in a breath and stammered, “Holy shit…” at the bright orbs he saw floating off to his right. Floating, blending, shifting in color, and then separating.

Zeke had seen the area’s mystery lights a number of times during the years he’d lived in the high desert. But he had never seen them in this area nor looming so close, perhaps only two hundred yards away. Close enough to reach, with just a short ride.

As worried as he was for Rachel, the lights beckoned. How many times had he wondered about their origin, wished for a closer look?

The pinto pulled against the lead rope, a nervous nicker telling him she was no fan of the idea. Cholla, too, sidestepped uneasily, rather than moving forward at his rider’s signal.

Give up
. Cold and hopeless, the words reverberated in the darkness, pointing him toward the path of least resistance, the path he knew too well. Give up on family, on the hope of clearing his name. Give up on building friendships, on making a real life using this name or any other.

Give up on Rachel Copeland, who, even when right next to him, stood so far out of reach.
Giving up is what you’re best
at, what you’ve come to know. Standing back and waiting for death
to sort it all out, or to bury the problem six feet under.

“Damned if I’m doing that to night,” he said. Because if the strange illumination had drawn him, wasn’t it possible that Rachel, too, might be lured to investigate? With a prayer on his lips, he forced Cholla to move toward lights even more mysterious than the leering of the moon.

One by one, they winked out. First a yellow one, then a pink, then white. A greenish orb was last to go, an orb that vanished with a sound like weeping.

Yet the crying lingered, floating in the cold air like the faint plumes from Cholla’s nostrils. Suspended in the starlight until Zeke realized it was human.

“Rachel! Rachel, is that you?”

His heart pounded, but his breath froze as he strained to hear the sobs.

“Zeke. Oh, my God.
Zeke
. Wh-where are you?”

Thursday, March 13

Rachel laid her head against Zeke’s back as they rode double, her arms winding around him for both security and warmth. He hadn’t trusted her to ride on her own in her condition, and he’d said something, too, about Candle favoring one foot.

“Keep talking to me,” he urged.

She wanted to close her eyes and savor the low vibration of Zeke’s words, to soak in the rich, deep sound of his voice as her shivering abated.

“Are you with me, Rachel?” he persisted. “I know you’re hurting, but you have to answer.”

“I’m still here.” She squeezed his midsection and found him as solid as a live oak, and just as reassuring in his realness. Heat streaked from her right eye. “I didn’t dream you, did I? You won’t fade like the lights did?”

Fear slashed at her, threatening to spill whatever little calm she’d gathered since what she had first taken for headlights appeared in the darkness.

“Not planning on it,” he assured her. “And pretty soon, we’ll be back at my place. Then we’ll get you cleaned up, and I’ll run you on home.”

“I—I brought my van,” she said, her headache pulsing.

“You aren’t driving, Rachel, not after you were knocked unconscious. Probably I should take you to the hospital in Alpine, get you checked out thoroughly.”

“No.” She spoke more sharply than she meant to, imagining yet another set of bills she couldn’t afford. “I’m feeling a lot better now. Just a little sore. And cold.”

“I can feel you shaking,” he said. “I should have made you take another coat.”

He had taken off his own and put it over her jacket in spite of her protests that he would freeze.

“Neither of us could’ve imagined this would happen. What
did
happen, Zeke? Was it a woman driving that thing? That crazy lady here from Philadelphia to run me down?”

“Couldn’t say—I never got a real look at the driver. Too busy getting the hell away before whoever it was shot me.”

“
Shot
you? There was shooting?” She thought back to her wild ride but recalled no sound save the desperate pounding of her mount’s hooves against hard earth.

“Yeah, but the SUV got hung up, stuck long enough for me to move out of range. Didn’t stay there long, though. I heard it driving off a few minutes later. Heading back toward town, I think.”

“Did you recognize the vehicle?”

“Didn’t ring any bells with me, but I didn’t get a good look, either. At first, I thought it could be local kids—teenagers joyriding. Could’ve felt like fun to them to chase the deer.”

“Some fun,” she said, too exhausted to pay much attention to the doubt in his voice. “Damned jerks. But if they came on us accidentally, they would have turned around and taken off, right? Not kept coming.”

“And not fired after us,” Zeke added. “Although it’s possible they only meant to scare us off. For all I know, the shooter could’ve been blasting away at the sky, not you and me. I just didn’t think it was a wise move to sit around and plot bullet trajectories.”

She pressed even closer to him, laid her cheek against his back, and listened to the beat, so strong and regular inside him. A rhythm she could depend on, like his strength and warmth. “Glad you didn’t. I don’t want you to be hurt on my account.”

“We can’t know for sure this has anything to do with you. For one thing, there’s that fellow who shot up my truck. And didn’t the sheriff say your caller’s left the area?”

“I wanted to believe that, but now…How likely does it seem that a woman obsessed enough to come
two thousand
miles to get to me would make a single phone call, then turn right around and head home?”

“I couldn’t make out the driver, but I did get the impression of someone on the small side. Could’ve been a woman.”

She closed her eyes and sighed. “We could have been killed. Both of us. It might’ve taken days for anyone to find us.”

“Someone would’ve looked for you.”

“Not to night, I’ll bet. I told my grandma I was stopping by a friend’s house. She’s used to living on her own, and she’s always in bed early. Probably went to sleep thinking I’d slip in after a while. And I never mentioned which friend I was visiting.” She smiled, thinking about it before adding, “Though come to think of it, you’re the only real friend I’ve got here.”

“I can’t believe that’s true.”

She shrugged. “I wasn’t what you’d call popular in high school, and apparently, some people never move past that garbage. But even if I’d been the prom queen, who wants to buddy up to a killer? I might’ve been acquitted, but the whole situation was so ugly.”

“I wish that asshole was alive. So I could kill him.”

“Thanks, I think. That may be the most brutally chivalrous offer I’ve ever had. But it wouldn’t be worth what it would cost you. I wouldn’t wish it—” She blocked the memories, not only from that night but later, when she’d
learned the DA’s office was pursuing charges, that the photos Kyle had faked—lies that ravaged her soul each time she’d been forced to look at them—would be used as evidence against her. Had already been circulated until her e-mail box was crammed with messages that made her feel as though she had been raped in public, then forced to endure critiques on her “performance” as a budding porn star. “I wouldn’t wish what I’ve been through on
anyone
.”

He had no answer, so she was left alone with the memory of her shame and horror—with the futility of hoping to ever escape it. But after a time, she must have drifted off, for the next thing Rachel knew, Zeke was squeezing her wrist and whispering, “We made it. We’re back home—at my place.”

Through bleary eyes, she saw a light shining through a window at the end of the candelilla factory where Zeke lived.

“Let’s get down,” he said. “Then I’ll help you inside, where you can get warm.”

Her legs felt wobbly after he helped her dismount, but a moment later, he lifted her in his strong arms.

“You don’t have to carry me. I can make it on my own.”

“I know you can.” He pulled her closer to him, his tone surprisingly gentle for such a big man. “But you don’t have to. Not now.”

He carried her straight inside, opening the unlocked red door to his apartment. She thought he’d set her in one of the chairs beside his kitchen table, but instead, he walked beyond the kitchen and laid her on his bed before removing her shoes.

He smoothed her hair back from her face and tucked the blankets in around her. “Rest here and try to warm up. I’ll start a fire in the woodstove. Then I have to go back out.”

“Are all the animals—?”

“Cholla’s fine, and Gus’s found his way home safely. Stitches held, too.”

“What about Candle? Will she be all right?”

Zeke crumpled old newspapers and tucked them beneath some kindling in a metal woodstove. “I’ll do all I can for her. Don’t worry.”

Don’t worry
. Such simple words and yet so soothing. Rachel thought she wouldn’t have needed sleeping pills, or even Dr. Thomas, if she’d had someone to say—and mean—that back in Philadelphia. If she’d had someone she knew and trusted to watch out for her interests while she rested.

She meant to wait for him to come back, but she must have dozed again. She woke to hear Zeke moving around the apartment and wood crackling as it burned in the stove. She smelled the faint, sharp scent of smoke, a heady, resinous odor that reminded her of campfires from her childhood.

From somewhere nearby, she heard running water, followed by Zeke’s footsteps. Looking up through sleepy eyes, she saw him carrying a steaming basin with a couple of towels draped over his broad shoulder.

“Warmer now?” he asked and set the metal basin on a chair he must have brought out from the kitchen.

“Much,” she said, suddenly aware of how comfortable she felt wrapped in the blankets, until she made the mistake of moving and hissed in sudden pain.

“Your head?” he asked.

“Mmm, yeah—but mostly my left shoulder. I think it took the brunt when I fell.”

“Be right back.” He returned a minute later with a glass of water and a bottle of pain reliever. “This won’t hurt you, will it? It’s non-prescription.”

“That’ll be great.” She tried to push herself upright, but groaned as pain spun up like a dust devil.

When Zeke sat on its edge, the bed creaked in protest. Rachel held her breath, braced for contact.

He put down both the glass and pills, then slid a hand behind her. “Ready?”

With a tight nod, she let him help her up and rearrange
the pillows to support her. When she sighed, “That’s good,” he handed her the glass and a pair of oblong white pills.

She drained the water to the last drop, then used the back of her hand to wipe the excess moisture from her mouth. “I didn’t know I was so thirsty.”

“Want some more?”

“I’m okay. But I forgot to ask, how’s Candle?”

“She threw a shoe and split the hoof. Nothing major, but I put on a protective boot, and I’ll call the farrier to come tomorrow. I’m pretty sure she’ll be good as new in a few days.”

Rachel blew out a breath. “I’m glad. I was scared to death she’d break a leg, galloping blind like that.”

“Damned lucky. For her, for you. For all of us.”

His green eyes looked at her face so intently, she felt a flush rise in response.

He touched his fingertips to the still-steaming basin before saying, “Water’s cool enough now. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

A chill danced along her nerve endings, then coiled beneath her stomach. Reminding her that she lay in his bed, that they were so close, so alone.

She swallowed hard, and spoke in a small voice. “I think I could drive home.”

He dipped one of the towel’s ends into the warm water. “Your face is dirty,” he said. “And you’ve got no business driving.”

“I—I should call, at least.”

“It’s after one.” He wrung the towel and pressed its heat and moisture to her sore cheek. “Your grandmother must be sleeping.”

Rachel leaned back against the pillows, allowing him to wash her face and hands. Knowing this was what she’d warned herself against, what she’d been warned against by others. Knowing and not caring, with the crackling wood fire a cold light in comparison to the flame igniting his gaze.

She arched her body forward and let him help her out of
both jackets. She didn’t stop there, but pulled her arms free of the long sleeves of her T-shirt, then eased it from her torso and over her head.

The look she sent him was a wordless challenge to their previous denials, as well as to the logic that ruled their daylight hours. Because right now, it didn’t matter that her past had made her future so uncertain, or that his background was a great, unknown
Here Be Dragons
on the map. To Rachel, the only thing that mattered was that she felt safe in this place, with this man, safe for the first time in so damned long. Safe and warm and utterly aroused….

He didn’t spoil it with words but instead let his gaze drift downward. He smiled gently as he reached around her torso and unhooked her bra.

He removed it without touching her. Stared at her so reverently, she felt like something sacred.

“So beautiful,” he whispered, watching in silence as she pulled back the blankets and carefully removed both jeans and pan ties, then slipped off her socks.

Completely nude, she grew even warmer, but her skin felt tight and itchy, gritty with both desert sand and her desire. “Will you wash me?” she asked.

“God,” he groaned as he dipped the cloth back into the water. Then he washed her, every inch of her, so slowly and carefully, it might have been a penance for the worst of sins.

It was when he began to blot her with the dry towel that his resolve snapped. With a groan, he fell upon her lips, one big hand spanning her breast. She sobbed into his mouth, accepting the thrust of his tongue as her back arched in a helpless spasm.

She pulled his shirttail out of his jeans, then slipped her hands beneath the chambray to run her palms along his hot flesh. Absorbing the play of muscles beneath the surface, tracing the groove that marked the column of his spine and murmuring approval as he fed upon her neck and stroked her still-damp breasts until the nipples peaked.

She shifted, then made short work of the buttons on his
shirt to bare the chest she’d studied so closely—for the sake of
art
, of course—in the photos she had taken. But she found the feel of that chest, so deep-breathing and hard-muscled and solidly male, with its scattering of coarse hairs and the hammering heart beneath its surface, a far greater aphrodisiac than any picture ever taken.

Or perhaps it was the gentle nips along her shoulder that had her gasping and then…Conscious thought melted away as his mouth dropped to her breasts.

She threw back her head and allowed the pleasure to spiral through all her senses, to carry her to a place beyond the crackling fire and soft blankets, beyond the aches caused by her fall. When he stopped, she nearly wept, until she saw him rise to strip off his jeans.

And if his chest had been a work of art, the whole of him was a museum. The muscles of his thighs, his taut waist, the size and strength of his erection—she felt her flesh give way to heat, to liquid, felt every last misgiving melt as her mind filled with an imperative. To touch. To taste, to open herself to all that he could offer.

Yet she saw hesitation war with the hunger in his expression. “Rachel,” he said, “This isn’t—You shouldn’t be—”

She pulled his hand to her mouth and kissed it, then ran a single fingertip along his length.

Whatever he had been about to say dissolved into a moan of pure need. He moved over her, their bodies undulating, desperate for skin-to-skin contact and for friction, hurrying before their better judgment caught up with their need.