Chapter Fourteen
Smoke watched Emmaline struggle to take in enough air to satisfy her body’s needs. She was sweating with the effort, and something in her eyes told him she knew, knew death was coming. Soon.
He saw acceptance in Emmaline’s gaze, but it gave him no comfort. People weren’t supposed to welcome death; they were supposed to fight it.
“We need you to be a voice in our community,” Smoke said. If he had to remind her of her place as an elder, as a leader, then he wasn’t going to pull his punches. “We need your words to convince the sheriff and hospital people that the time to act is now. Not tomorrow or the next day. Now.”
“That’s,” Emmaline said slowly, taking a breath with every syllable, “your job, Lyle Smoke. You’re already a warrior; now you need to be a leader, too.”
“You’re just going to give up?” Her words, all that she said and didn’t say, were a spear to his gut. It tore him open, leaving him in a winter of weakness.
Emmaline tried to speak, but she was wracked with cough after cough.
Kini scooted around the table to lend a hand, but Emmaline waved her off. Kini looked at him and angled her head toward the doorway. Smoke followed her out of the kitchen.
“Agitating her won’t help.”
“She’s committing suicide,” he countered, clenching his fists tight and holding them rigid against his sides so he didn’t put holes in the walls. “Slowly, but it’s the same thing.”
“We can’t force her to go.”
“Can’t we?” Emmaline might have decided it was her time to die, but a couple of people might be able to talk her out of it. “She has family, grandchildren.”
“Oh, that’s…” Kini thought about it and grimaced. “She won’t thank you for it.”
He’d faced down scarier people than Emmaline. “I can live with it.”
He strode back into the kitchen to confront the old woman again. She was face down on the table. Shit. “Kini.”
She was already darting around him, rushing to Emmaline’s side to put fingers against the unconscious woman’s neck. “She’s got a pulse, but it’s fast. Too fast.”
Kini dove for her tool box and pulled out her stethoscope and wasted no time to listen to Emmaline’s lungs. “It’s worse.” She met his gaze. “Call 911.”
Smoke had his phone out already, so he punched the numbers in and made the request. He was told the ambulance would be there in ten minutes.
He and Kini stood vigil as those minutes ticked down, Kini listening to Emmaline’s chest and back the entire time.
It wasn’t until the sound of sirens became audible that she spoke. “I can literally hear the difference between now and ten minutes ago.” She looked so sad, so fucking helpless that he wanted to yell at the old woman for making a martyr of herself.
“She made this choice,” Smoke told Kini, his anger turning his voice into a sharp-edged blade. There wasn’t any softness in him to dull the edge. “Suicide doesn’t end the pain, it just reassigns it, and that’s not fucking fair to everyone she leaves behind.”
Kini stared at him, all the color draining out of her face. “How old are her grandchildren?”
“Not old enough,” he said with a grunt. “No one is old enough for this.”
“I didn’t mean—”
Smoke cut her off. “I know.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I know,” he said more gently.
The paramedics came in then, the same two who’d bandaged them up an hour before. They gave Smoke and Kini long looks before focusing on Emmaline.
Kini told them the timeline of events since they arrived, and the medics got the old woman on a gurney and into the ambulance in short order. They were gone a few minutes later.
“Now what?” Kini asked.
Smoke looked at her, taking in her slumped shoulders, the lines of pain and stress bracketing her mouth, and the dark circles under her eyes. He probably didn’t look much better.
“Now, we talk to the sheriff then get some rest before we both fall over.”
“What are we going to tell him? That jackass deputy has probably told him all kinds of shit.”
“Trespassing is a crime. Maybe the people she saw in the house didn’t look like any kind of developer.”
“Oh,” Kini said with more enthusiasm. “That might work.”
Or the sheriff could ignore what Emmaline said as the ramblings of a sick old woman. They’d cross that bridge if they came to it.
He phoned the sheriff’s office and was told he was at the scene outside his grandparents’ home.
He and Kini drove there in the jeep and found the man talking to two of his deputies. Neither man was Blackwater.
“Sheriff Davis,” Smoke said.
The man looked up, saw them, and his face hardened. “Lyle Smoke and Kini Kerek?”
“Yes, sir. Emmaline Haskie was just taken to hospital,” Smoke said. “Breathing problems.”
The sheriff stared at them. “Unfortunate, but I don’t see why that warrants you two tracking me down.”
“She became suspicious of increased traffic near her at the old Rogerson place. Said there were strangers in the area at odd hours.”
“I told her to stay away from there. There are a couple of guys living in the house until the developer begins building some kind of lodge for corporate retreats.” The sheriff swore. “Don’t tell me. She took a look herself.”
“Yep. She thought they looked like squatters, and the place stank.” Smoke left out the graves and the smell of decomposing bodies.
The sheriff scowled at them. “Emmaline told you all this?”
“Yeah, she’d asked to see Kini.”
Sheriff Davis turned a confused gaze on her. “What for?”
“She’d heard about my health study and wanted to participate.”
“Participate?”
“Yes.”
The sheriff studied them both for a couple of long seconds with tired, suspicious eyes. “Did she say anything else? Did she see drugs or anything illegal going on?”
Interesting that the sheriff brought up drugs. “No,” Smoke said. “She collapsed after that.” He watched the sheriff’s face as he suggested, as tentatively as he could manage, “The bioterrorism threat from FAFO is all over the news.”
The sheriff waved it away. “Utah doesn’t have enough people to make us a target. Those assholes will go after something shiny like New York or Washington, DC.”
“Lots of sick people right here,” Smoke pointed out.
“Fine.” The word shot out of the sheriff’s mouth. “I’ll send a couple deputies to check it out. Jesus, if it isn’t Blackwater yammering in my ear about ex-military crazies, it’s…” His voice died mid-sentence. He glanced at Smoke, sighed, and rubbed his face with both hands. “I’m too old for this shit.”
“Thank you for your time,” Smoke said, forcing one corner of his mouth up in a yes, we’re all in this together smile. He put a hand on Kini’s back and guided her back to his jeep.
“Where can I find you two if I need you?” the sheriff asked.
“My parents’ house,” Smoke told him.
They left him standing on the sidewalk staring after them as they drove away.
“I don’t like him,” Kini said after they were out of sight. She had her arms crossed over her chest.
“Yeah, he’s an ass.”
“It’s not just that,” she said, glancing at him. “He wasn’t happy with Emmaline or the fact that she got that close to the house.”
“No, he wasn’t.” Smoke considered the sheriff’s reaction—he’d been more concerned about what Emmaline might have told them.
“Maybe we should investigate it, ourselves.”
Smoke grunted. “My mother isn’t going to allow us out again tonight.”
“Part of me wants to argue, another part wants to fall asleep on the spot.”
“No sleep equals bad decisions.”
“Okay, fine, I get it.”
Her huff made him smile.
They arrived at his parents’ house, and both of them were given a bowl of thick stew with bread to eat as well as some over-the-counter painkillers.
Kini nearly fell asleep at the table.
Smoke picked her up and, despite her squawking that she was too heavy, carried her to his room and set her on the bed. He looked into her sleepy gaze and asked, “Do you need help undressing?”
She snorted. “No. Nice try though.”
He shrugged. “Nothing ventured.” He went to the door.
“Where are you sleeping?” she blurted out the question in a rush.
“On the couch. Goodnight, Kini.”
He left the room and crashed on the couch in the living room. It wasn’t long enough. He tossed and turned for a long time, hours. At about two in the morning, Kini came into the room, wearing one of his old T-shirts as a sleep shirt, her bare legs taunting him.
She had bruises blooming under the cuts on her face and arms. Her hair was a mess. Damn, if she wasn’t the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. He had to restrain himself from wrapping her in his arms. He wanted the scent of her hair in his nose again, her weight against his chest, and the silk of her skin under his hands. Wanted with a strength that tested his control.
“You can’t sleep either?” she asked him softly.
“No,” he said.
She stared at him for a moment, her hands rubbing up and down her arms like she was cold. She padded over to stand in front of him then grabbed his hand. “Come on.”
“To where.”
“Your room.”
That was a fantastic idea.
What? No, no it wasn’t. Not touching her would tie him up in knots so tight he’d be lucky if he didn’t strangle himself. “No, you sleep there.” He had to clear his throat. “I’m good out here.”
She frowned and huffed. “Stop arguing with me. I’m not suggesting either of us sleeps out here.”
“Then what—?”
“It’s a king, we’ll both fit.”
Jesus Christ, the word fit took him someplace he didn’t think was on her radar. “Kini—”
“I promise to keep my hands to myself this time.”
“It’s not your hands I’m worried about,” he muttered, feeling his cheeks heat.
“I trust you.” She tugged on his hand again. “You’re too much of a gentleman to…you know.”
Did she think he was some kind of Prince Charming riding to the rescue? He had a hard-on like a steel bar and was dying to get a taste of her. The images his brain kept coming up with of her wearing nothing but skin were far from gentlemanly.
He yanked on her hand so she fell into his lap, then he slid his arms around her so she was plastered against him hip to hip. His erection was pressed into her belly, but he wanted to be sure she understood the enormity of the situation, so he dragged her upward across his body, letting her feel all of him.
She gasped and planted her hands on his shoulders, giving herself some leverage to hold herself away from him. Not enough to get away though. Not nearly enough.
“Does it feel like I’m a gentleman?” he asked her in a low, dangerous tone.
She breathed hard and a small, frightened sound came from her throat.
“I can’t sleep,” she whispered. “I keep feeling the force from the explosion again and again. Getting knocked over, the glass stinging, and the heat of the fire as we watched my car burn.” She sucked in a breath and kept going. “The only time I’ve been able to relax at all was when we rode your motorcycle and I had my nose buried in your shirt.” She shuddered. “I feel like I’m going to fly apart. Please help me.”
Ah, fuck. He couldn’t say no.
Smoke eased his hold on her until she was on her own feet next to the couch, then he got up, towering over her. “I still think this is a stupid idea.”
She flashed him a smile, took his hand again, and dragged him toward his room.
“My mother is going to give me shit,” he said. “Again.”
“Stop worrying. I’ll explain everything to her.”
“You might think that’s going to happen, but I doubt it’s going to work. It never does for me.”
They reached his room. She dragged him inside and closed the door.
He lay down on the right side of the bed first, near the edge to give her plenty of space, and closed his eyes. His body remembered how soft her skin was under his hands, the scent of her hair, and just like that, he was hard and shaking with the effort to stay where he was.
The mattress dipped as she took the other side.
Waterboarding had nothing on this as a form of torture, but he was damn well going to do what he promised and leave her alone.
It took a few minutes, but eventually her breathing evened out.
Maybe it was the deep trust it took for her to sleep next to him that helped him relax.
He was just about asleep when she rolled over, ending up with her nose against his arm. Another shift and she was hugging his arm to her torso.
So much for getting any sleep.
Fuck.