Chapter Two
Charli shifted gears, feeling the powerful motorcycle beneath her respond. She grinned and wound the bike out, preparing for the curve a hundred yards up the road. She’d ridden this road enough now that she had every bump and bend memorized.
She leaned forward and had just started into the curve when suddenly, there it was. In her lane. A pickup truck.
Charli had a split second to choose. Ride it out or lay it down. In her book, that was a no-brainer. Laying down a bike was a promise of injury. Instead, she braked slightly and watched the truck bear down on her.
They were close enough that she saw the driver suddenly sit up straight and jerk the steering wheel to the right. She braked ever so slightly again and swerved to the right.
The truck passed within inches of her. She heard the squeal of tires and smelled the burn of rubber as she slowed and put on the brakes. By the time she’d come to a complete stop, the truck was on the side of the road at a dead stop with dust billowing around it.
Charli’s heart was pounding as she killed the engine and climbed off the bike. She removed her helmet, hung it on the handlebars, and headed for the truck. It was pulling a horse trailer, which had ended up nearly perpendicular to the truck.
The trailer was empty, which is probably why it didn’t flip. She continued on to the driver’s side door. The glass was cracked and stained with blood. Charli hurriedly opened the door.
Sure enough, the driver was slumped over to one side. She rushed around to the other side and opened the passenger door so she could climb into the cab. The driver’s hat was canted to one side, obscuring his face. She eased it off and saw the blood that was steadily streaming from a cut on his head.
She eased around to get a look at his face and it felt like all the oxygen had suddenly been sucked out of the cab. Holy hell. She jerked her phone out of its holster on her belt and dialed 911.
Flashes of memory assailed her, blinding her to reality. Charli shook her head to dispel the memories. “Hey, this is Charli Sampson. I’m on county road 217, about two miles from River Road. A truck ran off the road and the driver has a head injury.”
She listened to the dispatcher and followed the directions she was given. It was a long fifteen minutes of battling flashbacks and reminding herself that memories couldn’t hurt her, before she heard the wail of sirens. She slid out of the truck as the EMTs got out of the ambulance and gave them a quick rundown of the vitals she taken at five-minute intervals.
Once that was done, she walked back to the police car to speak with the officer. “You know the driver, Charli?” Deputy Derrick Rogers asked.
“I do. He works for Kyle Stadler. I should call Kyle and let him know, or maybe I could load my bike up in the trailer and drive the truck over to Kyle’s.”
“It’d save us from having it towed, so have at it.”
Five minutes later, Charli started the truck and slowly turned to head for Kyle’s place. To keep herself grounded in the present, she forced herself to think about the man now headed for the hospital. Fred Crandal was a longtime resident of Cray County, the home of Cotton Creek. He was in his mid-fifties and from what she knew, had spent most of his life working ranches and farms.
He’d worked for Kyle since Kyle and Liz were married. They’d bought some property adjacent to Kyle’s ranch and had started growing organics—sorghum, soybeans, and hay.
Fred managed that part of things for Kyle and pitched in as a driver when Kyle needed to deliver or pick up a horse. Fred was a good, dependable man who’d been married to the same woman for over thirty years and had one grown daughter who worked at the hair salon in town. Charli bought vegetables from his wife, Kay, and Kay had been helping her learn to cook.
Charli hoped he would be okay—and hoped the memories that were trying to press in on her would leave her alone. She made the turn onto the drive leading to Kyle and Liz’s place. She liked it here. It was peaceful and beautiful. The pastures were always maintained, as were the fences and the sides of the road. Stock grazed or stood gathered in the shade of stands of trees that dotted the landscape.
She pulled up in front of the main barn and got out of the truck. She hadn’t taken three steps before Kyle appeared. “What’s wrong?”
“Not sure. Fred keeled over on 217. He wasn’t conscious but was breathing. Slow, erratic pulse. Does he have a history of heart problems?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to call his wife and let her know. Why’re you bringing the truck back?”
“I was off today and was out on the bike. I saw it happen. My bike’s in the trailer. I didn’t want the department to tow your truck so volunteered to drive it here.”
“I appreciate that, Charli, but there’s something else. Let me call Liz and have her run down to Fred’s place.”
Charli nodded and leaned back against the truck, concentrating on her breathing as Kyle talked on the phone to his wife, Liz. When he finished, he turned his attention to Charli.
“Tell me where you are.”
“Well, duh, I’m standing right in front—“
“In your head. Where are you?”
Charli didn’t want to talk about the memories, didn’t want to let them take control. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I know, but it’s pounding at you. I can see it.”
That didn’t help. If anything, it fueled the power of the flashbacks. Charli knew it wouldn’t take long for the memories to drive her to her knees and she didn’t want Kyle to see her break.
“Jakarta. A team was led into a trap. All but two escaped, and they were being held with women and children from a local school. The only way in was to pose as health workers, but they wouldn’t allow men. So, it was me and two other women, enlisted grunts who’d gotten an unlucky posting.”
Charli looked at the horizon as she spoke, feeling it all swell inside her until she was more in that world than the one where her feet were currently planted in dark packed soil.
“We were supposed to ascertain the location of the hostages and be ready to act when the air strike hit. We did, but didn’t realize there was as much of a force present in the village as there was. Our ground personnel took heavy casualties. They weren’t going to make it to us. So we had to take matters into our own hands.”
She fell silent, seeing it all unfold in her mind. “And?” Kyle’s voice sounded like it came from a great distance.
“And I walked out with all but two of the women and children and one of my team.”
“So they got to you in time.”
“No.” She turned her head to look at him. “They didn’t.”
To his credit, Kyle didn’t ask anything more and for that, Charli was grateful. She was learning to live with it because she had no choice. Well, she could do like a lot of soldiers—dive into drugs or drink in an attempt to forget. Or eat a bullet.
So far, she’d resisted both paths. She supposed that her only self-destructive tendency was sex. She used it as an escape, but couldn’t find it within her to feel any kind of human connection with any of the men she slept with.
She didn’t know if she ever would, so she stopped trying and stopping letting it weigh her down. You had to accept what was good in your life and let that be enough. She damn sure was trying to make that happen.
The honk of a horn brought her back from her private thoughts. She looked to see Liz with Fred’s wife, Kay in the back seat of Liz’s double cab truck. Liz stopped and motioned to Kyle. Charli felt a surge of jealousy as she watched the look exchanged between them. Love was clear on Kyle’s face.
She wondered how he’d managed to walk away from the demons of his past and find peace and love. His tale was tragic and she couldn’t imagine how difficult it had been for him to learn to trust and care again, but he had. And because he had, she thought maybe there was a chance for her as well.
Kyle interrupted her thoughts. “Let me help you with the bike and then I’ll head on over to the hospital with Liz and Kay.”
“Go on. I can manage.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I got this. Go.”
“Ok. Thanks, Charli. And you hang tough. If I can find happiness, then it can happen for anyone. You never know what’s around the next corner.”
“From your mouth to the big guy’s ears,” she said and forced a smile. “Let me know about Fred?”
“Will do.”
Charli turned her attention to unloading her bike as Kyle hurried over to Liz’s truck. She waved to Liz and Kay as he climbed in and then watched them pull off.
The memories threatened to return so she quickly climbed on her bike and kicked it into life. The best thing for her right now was serious physical release and since she clearly had no ready volunteer for sex, she’d head to the gym and find someone wanting to spar.
Fighting or fucking. It wasn’t perfect, but you used what was handy to beat back the demons and keep your head from being swallowed by the darkness that lurked within.