I was going stir-crazy.

I got up and paced my bedroom, moving silently because I was paranoid that any unusual sound would set Tucker off. He’d begun calling daily meetings of the Guardians, keeping everyone from their jobs, their families, all so they could practice with the assault rifles. I felt like I was training the devil’s army, not God’s.

I needed to see Whit. I needed to hug my mother and touch my sister’s growing baby bump. I needed to know my family was safe.

I’d sent word to Jack days ago about the information Kari had given me, but I had no way of knowing for sure if he’d gotten it. There’d been no word from that side of the camp since the day in the alley.

Kari’s funeral was yesterday. I stood beside her parents, her mother’s hand tucked in mine. The poor woman was devastated, sobs shaking her entire body the whole ceremony. Todd Lawson, however, was as stoic as ever. In fact, he seemed slightly bored by the whole thing except when people came up to him, offering their condolences. He seemed to be eating the attention up.

What kind of sociopath would act like that at his own daughter’s funeral?

Tucker attended the funeral, as did most of the members of the Guardians. My father was there, standing with Todd the entire ceremony. My mother should have been there, but there was no discussion about bringing her back. My father and I were in agreement that she needed to remain where she was for as long as possible.

It would all be over in less than a week. But I wasn’t sure we would all survive that long.

What kind of people could plan a mass execution in this day and age? How could they do it while embracing the Scriptures, telling themselves that it was all sanctioned by God? I just couldn’t wrap my mind around it.

I’d thought for a long time that I was having a crisis of faith. Realizing that the Guardians were not what I thought they were, finding myself in that car with Tyler the night of Harry’s death, made me think that everything I’d been taught in my church was wrong. But now I could see it wasn’t the basic tenets of my faith that were wrong. It was the people who had twisted the Scriptures to their own purpose, the people who had changed the meaning of God’s words and made them into something dark and perverse. The evil was in these people, not the Scripture itself.

When this was over, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever return to the church. But I didn’t have to look back on my childhood in that community and see anything more than what it was, a religious upbringing with only the best of intentions.

It was Tucker that needed to be stopped. Tucker and Todd Lawson and this Andrew Young person. It was the evil in these men that needed to be destroyed.

I paced the length of my room, feeling impotent, feeling stuck. I needed Jack to call me and tell me the cops were on their way to end this. I needed Jack to tell me they’d found everything they needed, and they could end this.

Somehow, I didn’t think that call was going to come.

I was out of the loop, and it was frustrating as all hell.

I kept looking at the window, kept thinking of the night Jack had snuck into my room.

“There’s a man sitting in a car down the street, too. I had to park half a mile away and sneak in through the alley. They never watch the alley for some reason.”

If he could sneak in, did that mean I could sneak out?

It was worth the risk. I needed answers. And I needed to see Whit.

Climbing out the window was a breeze. I was tall, tall enough that I could touch the ground with one leg thrown over the ledge. Slipping through the back gate was easy, too. It had well-oiled hinges and didn’t make a sound as I pulled it open. The difficult thing was trying to figure out where to go and how to get there. And whether going there would be safe.

Was I just bringing attention to someone who’d been off the radar before?

I took the chance and hiked downtown to Stone Security’s temporary offices. Jack was building on the site of the warehouse he’d intended to convert into offices on the outskirts of town. The old building had been destroyed in a bombing months back, but the frame of the new building was already forming, covering the scar in the ground with a promise that we would not be beaten back by anything the Guardians tried to throw at us.

Us. I still thought of myself as a part of Stone Security even though I knew most of the operatives didn’t trust me and had never really made me feel welcome. I felt more a part of them than I’d ever felt a part of the Guardians. Stone Security was a group of men who had respect for their fellow operatives. Jack had created an atmosphere that promoted more than respect. It was hard to describe other than to say it was a family.

The Guardians should have been a family. If they’d been what they advertised in those first few months of their creation, they would have been. Instead, they became a group of criminals, each out for his own benefit.

I let myself in through a back door of the building using a code on the security pad. I was hoping anyone watching the building was following the same rule of thumb the men watching my house were using, watching only the front of the building and not the back. Jack kept a couple of spare cars in the lot in case someone needed a quick ride or needed to exchange their normal wheels for something different. The keys were hanging on a peg board in his office.

The building was silent as I made my way down the dark halls. Therefore, I was startled to see a light on in Jack’s office.

I hesitated, approaching carefully. But when I moved into a position to look inside, it was clear that it was only Jack, burning the midnight oil.

“You’re working late.”

He looked up, a slight smile on his face that told me he wasn’t surprised to see me.

“You make sure you weren’t followed?”

“Yes. You taught me well.”

His smile widened. “If I’d taught you that well, I would have told you to watch for the security cameras.” He turned the screen on his computer that showed the running feed from the cameras both outside and inside the building.

“Why didn’t you let me know you were here?”

“I was having fun watching you sneak up the hall.”

I threw myself into a chair and sighed. “I was going crazy at the house. I can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see those idiots with those assault rifles in their hands. My only consolation is that most of them can’t hit a target to save their lives.”

“He still have you training them?”

“Yeah. Ironic, isn’t it?”

“Just a little.”

I sat up, running my hands over my skull. “He wants to have them ready by the Fall Festival next weekend. I think he plans to put on some sort of demonstration.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me.”

“My father’s preparing a speech to inform the congregation about what they have planned, but it seems like it might be a waste of time if that’s what Tucker’s up to.”

Jack sat back in his chair and studied my face. “Your father’s willing to do that?”

“We’ve been working on it for several days now.”

“What brought him over to our side?”

I shrugged. “I think he’s always been on our side. But the Guardians were threatening him.”

“How?”

“Threatening to hurt me and Ruth.”

Jack frowned, clearly not pleased to hear the Guardians were once again threatening his wife. “We always assumed your father was part of the leadership that was behind all this from the beginning.”

“He was. But he changed his mind when they killed Harry Cravits, just like I did. But they threatened him, made it clear that he was in too deep to back out now.”

Jack nodded. “Makes sense. Plus, he’s the treasurer. He controls the purse strings. Excommunicating him might have set their plan back by months. Maybe years.”

“Money? What does that have to do with anything?”

Jack looked through some files on his desk and handed one to me when he found it. “We had Malaika go through the records you scanned for us. She found quite a few irregularities that corresponded with entries in Truesdale’s journals. They have to do with some of the foreclosed properties that ring the town.”

He got up and came around the desk, touching a map that hung on the wall that showed properties in and around Ellaville.

They bought up all these properties,” he said, running his finger around the outside of the city, a ring that completely enclosed the city. “This is Quentin’s place, one of the first properties the bank foreclosed on. With all these properties, the bank owned a sort of fence around the city. A moat, if you will.”

“A wall of properties.”

“Yes. And then the bank began quietly making deals with homeowners inside the city limits. Buying homes, empty lots, businesses. The church bought some of them to keep the bank’s powers from understanding what was happening, to keep the county clerks from raising an alarm. But, as far as we can tell, the church now owns or otherwise controls a ring of properties here.” He made another circle, closer to the center of town.

“Why? What are they up to?”

Jack stepped back, regarding the map like he was seeing these things for the first time. “I think they’re building a compound.”

“I thought we discarded that idea already.”

“We did. But we were looking at it as an investment of sorts, as a way to make money. Now I’m wondering if it’s more of a fortified castle. A power base.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You told us that the Guardians are preparing for war, correct?” Jack turned to regard me. “That they want to rid the country of nonbelievers and return this country to its core values, right?”

“That’s what Tucker told me.”

“We think this is where they plan to make their base. Any army needs a base of operations, a fortified base from which to launch their attacks. I think this is it. I think they want to build a castle in the desert, with a moat and walls and whatever is required to make them untouchable.”

“But why buy up the property?”

“To keep the government from interfering. In America, people are still allowed to do just about anything they want on private property. And when that private property is owned by a church? Separation of church and state only adds to the rights of the property owner. Short of rape and murder, they can do just about anything they want, including the collection of huge stashes of weapons and the training of a private army.”

“You think my father has helped the church buy property so that Tucker can do exactly what he’s doing?”

“All these properties here?” Jack touched the outer ring of the map again. “They were just transferred into the ownership of a private corporation out of Portland, Oregon that we believe is a front for Andrew Young.”

“Todd Lawson’s former college roommate.”

“Yeah.” Jack sighed. “Another complication. He also happens to be Alli Sullivan’s father.”

My mouth dropped open like a child exaggerating surprise. “You’re kidding!”

He shook his head. “He also happens to be the religious expert Crispin and I visited for advice. Turns out he’s also Leo Baker’s theology advisor.”

“Is that why Alli’s name wasn’t on the hit list?”

“Possibly. Maybe he had his own plans for his daughter.”

“And why Crispin’s was on there?”

Jack rolled his head. “I suppose daddy doesn’t like his new son-in-law.”

I sat forward, running my hands over my skull again. “So, let me see if I understand all this. A man in Portland is planning a war on nonbelievers, using a little church in the middle of the Arizona desert to grow an army willing to do his dirty work. To test out his army, he had them rid the town of unsavory characters and win over the trust of devout church members. And now he’s building his fortification in order to begin his war on nonbelievers?”

“We think he plans to use a few strange loopholes in the Constitution and state law that will allow him to declare Ellaville a separate city-state, to establish a government of his own that will be a miniature version of the one he plans to replace the federal government with when the time comes.”

“There are laws that will allow that?”

Jack chuckled humorlessly. “There are, actually. Crazy as it sounds.”

“What about the nonbelievers in town? What about Alli and the other business owners who stood up to the Guardians?”

“Most of their names are on Lawson’s hit list. We think he plans to get rid of them before starting on whatever construction he plans to use to block the town off from the surrounding areas.”

I shook my head. “This is insane.”

“Most radicals are.”

I stood up and began to pace. “What are we doing about this?”

“I’ve notified my contact in the attorney general’s office. They’ve launched an investigation into Andrew Young, but he’s kept his personal life pretty clean. Hell, his wife is a United States Congresswoman.”

I shook my head. “What are we up against here, Jack? How bad is this going to get before we can stop it?”

His expression was darkly sober. “It’s bad, Matthew. I’m not going to lie to you.”

“We have to stop them.”

“The best way to do that is to prove Andrew Young’s connection to everything, but he’s very careful. We’ve hit dead end after dead end with him.”

“What if I could get Lawson on tape implicating him?”

Jack’s eyes lit up. “That would be ideal. But what are the chances you can do that?”

“I don’t know. But I can try.”

“Hold on. I think I have something you can use.” He disappeared out into the hall, returning a few minutes later with a couple of dress shirts. “My office in Memphis sent these over. They’re experimental.”

I took the shirts and looked at them, unable to see anything unusual about them. And then Jack lifted the collar and touched the top button.

“Looks normal, doesn’t it?”

I nodded.

“It’s a camera. Records color video and sound both.”

“No kidding?”

“No kidding. If you wear this shirt to visit with Mr. Lawson, you can get him on tape without having to do anything special. It’s wireless, set up to send anything it sees to the computers here in the office.”

“We can record the weapons the Guardians are using, too.”

“Exactly. That’s evidence we can send to the attorney general’s office.”

“This is perfect, Jack!” I felt a rush of excitement for the first time since this whole ordeal began. “We’ll have them on the run now!”

“Just make sure you remain calm and don’t give them reason to suspect anything.”

“Is there a button I need to touch or anything?”

“That’s the beauty of these things. They activate when they come in contact with body heat. Here, I’ll show you.”

He pulled me around the desk and pressed a couple of keys. A blank video screen came on. He reached over and pressed his thumb against the back side of the button and the screen immediately came to life, showing the office from the angle at which the button hung from the shirt.

“That’s impressive!”

“Modern technology is a wonder.” Jack slapped me on the shoulder. “We’ll get them, Matthew. We just have to go about this the right way.”

I nodded. “I have faith.”

He studied my face for a long minute. “Come on, Matthew. I think there’s someone who wouldn’t mind a visit from you.”

 

 

They had her in the most obvious place possible, the hotel across the street from the church bookstore. I’d assumed she was at Crispin’s or staying with Jack, or maybe they’d taken her out of town like she told me. But she was in town, just a mile from my own home, sleeping in a king size bed in a room across the hall from Quentin and Patrick.

“How long has she been here?”

“A day or two. We keep moving her to keep the Guardians off her trail.” Jack handed me a key card to the door. “Be gone before dawn. And watch that dark sedan out front.”

“Thank you, Jack.”

He just bowed his head as he backed off, headed down the stairs. I hesitated at the door, wondering if Whit would be happy to see me. My head said she would be, but my heart was still a little uncertain.

I unlocked the door and stepped inside, standing by the door as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. When they did, I could see her form curled up under the bedclothes, her blond hair spread out on the pillow behind her. She was breathing softly, clearly deep in dreams.

I almost didn’t want to wake her.

I slipped into a chair that was positioned near the bed and watched her for a while. I was okay with this, okay with just being near her. I studied her, the curves of her waist as her chest moved down into her hips. The roundness of her ass, the fullness of her breasts. The memory of the softness of her skin rushed through my mind as she shifted, allowing the blankets to fall away from her arms. I wanted to crawl into bed with her, mold my body against hers. But watching her, memorizing her form, was good for now.

How was it possible that I was so filled with hope in the darkness that had become my world? Men were planning a private war against the country, and I was sitting here, thinking of how beautiful this woman was, admiring God’s work in her curves and her angles. Content just to study her.

The human mind was a complicated thing.

“Matthew?”

She suddenly sat up, letting the blankets fall free of her body. She studied me in the dark for a long moment, not moving. It was almost as if she thought I were an apparition or something.

“I was just dreaming about you,” she finally said.

“Were you?”

“I dreamt that I was standing in a green meadow, and you were walking toward me in a tux. Your tie was red, and your cummerbund had red flowers on it.”

“I was in a tux? I don’t think I’ve ever purposely worn anything that formal.”

“You wore a suit to the prom.”

“True.”

She was quiet again, her hand moving up to rest against her throat as she continued to study me. She didn’t seem concerned about the fact that she was wearing only a thin camisole and panties, not worried that I couldn’t seem to keep my eyes on her face.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m good.”

She shook her head as she slowly climbed out of bed and came to me, settling gracefully in my lap. Closer now, she continued to study me, her hands moving slowly over my face, my chest, all the places where there were bruises, but were now mostly healed.

“You’re not okay,” she said softly.

“I am when I’m with you.”

She nodded softly as though that was the most sensible thing she’d heard in a long time. Her hands continued to move over me, her fingers dancing against my jaw, the spot on my chest just above my heart.

“Let me make you feel better, then.”

She kissed my neck just below my ear, her touch so soft and tender that my heart threatened to break. Then she pressed her lips to the soft hollow under my chin, to that place just below the Adam’s apple. And then lower, her lips moving down past my collarbones, down to all the places her fingers stretching the collar of my t-shirt allowed.

I ran my hands up her back, drawing her close as she straightened her back, pressing her breasts against my face for a second. I caught one nipple between my teeth through the thin material of that camisole, made her gasp. And then she moved back, her mouth against my throat again.

I lifted her chin, and we kissed for a long moment, our tongues dancing as my hands slipped under her camisole, as I found that silky skin that ran along the bumps of her spine. Her breasts were heavy in my palms when I found them, her nipples like hard little marbles against my flesh. She shifted, straddling my lap as she again straightened her back to give me all the access I wanted to her perfect mounds. I lifted off that thin top, tossed it to the floor as my mouth found its way to those beautiful, dark nipples.

Her hand slid over my skull, drawing me closer as she released a slow, deep moan from her long, graceful throat. She moved her hips, igniting a fire I’m not sure she completely understood. I grabbed her hips in both hands, held her still for a long moment as I pressed my face between her breasts, holding her as still as I could until I could regain control of my wildly beating heart.

“We have to stop.”

“Why?”

I looked up at her. “I want you, Whit. If we keep doing this, I don’t think I could stop.”

“Who asked you to?”

I groaned, my hands almost involuntarily sliding down her back to hold her ass, to pull her hard against my body, showing her exactly what she was getting into.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she whispered near my ear, the most beautiful syllable I’d ever heard.

It took every bit of control I possessed to keep from throwing her onto the bed. I wanted her so desperately that I knew if I lost that last bit of strength, I would ravage her in a way she wasn’t ready for. I dropped my hands to my sides as she began to kiss my neck again, as she slowly made her way across my throat to my shoulder, letting her take what she wanted without interference from me.

My shirt ended up on the floor a moment later as her lips continued their trail over my teeny nipples, down the rippling muscles of my abdomen. She slid to the floor, and I thought I would lose it right then and there, watching her kneel in front of me like a goddess brought to her knees by the power of her emotions.

And then she began digging at the buttons on my jeans.

Her hands on my flesh were mind-blowing. I lifted my hips to help her pull my jeans from my body, watched her eyes widen as she removed my boxer briefs. I’m not sure she’d ever seen a man naked, as incredible as that might seem in this modern world. She couldn’t take her eyes from me until I lifted her chin, until I pulled her back into me with a kiss that sent pleasure rocketing through my body, from my lips to my toes.

When she pulled away, there was a spark of mischief in her eyes as she began to slowly slide her panties down her hips. She did it with impossible patience, offering me a peek here and there, but not taking them completely off until I was ready to jump out of that chair and rip them away myself. And when they were finally gone, I was the one who couldn’t pull my eyes away from the masterpiece that stood before me.

She blushed, her hands moving instinctively to hide her feminine core. I pulled her hands away and pressed my mouth to her, reminding her that I’d seen it before and knew exactly what to do to offer her pleasure there.

“Matthew,” she whispered softly, my name a moan of ecstasy.

When I settled back in the chair, she climbed into my lap, her hands again making a smoothing motion over my head, her fingers digging into my hair as she pulled me against her chest. And then we were kissing, the familiar taste of her the most exciting thing I’d known in all my life. I held her ass in my hands, my fingers exploring places that had never been explored before. She was moving against me, instinctively aware of what she wanted, what she needed. And those movements were threatening to drive me over the edge of sanity.

I waited until she was completely ready, waiting until she reached down to guide me. When she did, I let her tease me, tease us both, by touching that spot with my appendage, but not allowing entrance. It was agony, a sweet agony that promised something that went above and beyond rapture.

“You’re killing me,” I whispered against her lips.

“Show me what to do.”

I watched her face, watched her eyes as I grasped myself, guiding our bodies together. She closed her eyes upon the first bit of pressure, but opened them as her mouth opened, and a sound like a growl slipped from her throat. I knew the moment I hit that delicate lock that God both blessed and cursed women with, knew the moment the pain burst through her lower belly. But I could also see that the pleasure far outweighed whatever discomfort that second created.

I held her hips and aided her as she lowered herself against me. It was a slow process, an agonizing process, but it was pure bliss. Her eyes slid closed again, her face an expression of nirvana. I waited, willing to wait as long as she needed me to. She would let me know when she was ready, would let me know the moment her body and soul were ready for the next step.

And she did.

And then…it was indescribable, the rhythm our bodies found together, the physical and emotional connection that changed everything about the way we saw each other, the way we saw the world. This was hope. It was a reason to fight, a reason to prove to the world that we, as human beings, were not so broken that we couldn’t find goodness inside of us. It was a future I’d never imagined for myself, a life I now understood I’d come to accept was impossible. But it was possible. And it was necessary.

Holding her in that chair, reaching that moment of pure joy with her, was a return to my faith. It was a return to the understanding that life was precious and meant to be cherished. This was a gift. And I was incredibly grateful for it.

“I love you,” I whispered softly against her ear.

She was beyond relaxed, her head against my shoulder. Her fingers were playing against my chest, moving in a slow pattern that seemed to have no purpose. She stopped when I spoke, her fingers frozen in mid-movement.

“Don’t say that just because you’re scared. Or because you think I need to hear it.”

“Don’t tell me what to say or how to feel.” I kissed her temple. “I love you, Whit Ellington. I think I loved you from the moment I first saw you walk onto that damn school bus.”

She groaned. “We were children.”

“Maybe. But I felt the same way when I saw you walk into the Watering Hole that day.”

She was quiet for a long moment, and then her fingers began creating that pattern against my skin again. “Okay. I accept that.”

“Thank you.”

“You have to understand that those words lost their meaning for me when my mother said them to every man who walked into our apartment over the years.”

“I know.”

“I wasn’t even sure love even existed for a long time.”

“You don’t have to say it back.”

“But that’s the thing.” She sighed heavily like a huge burden had just settled on her shoulders. “I want to.”

I chuckled, and she groaned because of what the movement did to her body.

“Is it always like this?” she asked a moment later.

“I hope so.”

“Me too. It certainly would explain a lot.”

I groaned, pressing my lips against her bare shoulder. “We can’t judge the whole world by our parents, babe.”

“I know. I don’t plan on it. I plan to judge it by what you do next.”

“Oh?”

“And the time after that, and the time after that, and the time—”

“Whoa! I’m not a machine.”

She laughed as she lifted her head off my shoulder. “Maybe not, but I think you could go one more round. Don’t you?”