BILLIONAIRE BIKERS: 3 MC Romance Books (56 page)

She stirred with a light moan when he returned. He took off his shoes and padded over to the bed and felt her forehead and temples. She was burning up. He sat beside her for a while. She rested, intermittently punctuated by tossing and turning.

He decided to allow the fever to do its work, but after several hours, when she didn’t wake and there seemed to be little change in her condition, he realized he needed to bring her fever down.

He searched the cupboards until he found towels. He took the thinnest one he could find and cut it into strips. He turned on the faucet and held his breath, thinking at first that the water lines had been disconnected. But after a few seconds, the pipes began to screech as water forced the air out and began to pour. It was rusty at first but quickly ran clear. He found a bowl, which he filled halfway and dipped the strips.

The water was too cold. He would have to let it come to room temperature. He pulled some of her blankets off and pulled one of her feet from under the covers to help regulate her temperature.

He put his shoes back on and went out to look around. It took him a while, but he finally uncovered yarrow plants in some undergrowth. He gathered several stalks with their feather-like leaves and made it into a tea. The yarrow would induce sweating and break her fever as well as help to hydrate her—if he could rouse her enough to get her to drink.

By the time he returned, the water was warm enough, and he put a pot with water on the wood stove with the yarrow stalks in it. Then, he sat beside her again on the bed and gently pulled the covers from her torso so that he could sponge her off with the tepid water.

He paused for only an instant, but her beauty nearly took his breath away. He wrung out the strips one at a time, placing them on her skin then dipping them again and replacing them in several rounds. When he finished, he placed strips across her forehead then toweled her off and replaced the bed sheet over her. He checked the water and yarrow and found that it had steeped enough. He found a cup and poured it, allowing it to cool for a bit.

When it was cool enough, he pulled her limp body up. Supporting her shoulders, he talked to her and bathed her face. After a short while, she began to open her eyes. They looked swollen and feverish, but at least they were open.

“Can you hear me, Audra?”

She turned slightly and looked at him. It seemed to take her a few seconds to recognize him, but then she licked her lips from dryness and whispered his name.

“Sit up a little if you can. I’m supporting you. You need to try to drink some of this.”

She didn’t move, but he tipped her forward a bit, and she seemed to be able to hold herself up. He held the cup to her lips, and she moved to drink from it.

“Can you hold the cup?” he asked.

She didn’t answer, but she kept sipping from the cup as he held it.

“Drink as much of it as you can,” he said. “It will break your fever and make you sweat.”

She drank almost the whole thing and then indicated she wanted to lie back down. She simply turned on her side and went back to sleep.

He went to look for food. There wasn’t anything in the cupboards, but he didn’t expect there to be. It would be too easy for hunters or anyone out here to loot the place. He was surprised everything was as intact as it was. Next, he moved the rugs until he found the one with the door into the cellar.

He cursed when he saw that there was nothing but MREs. He knew, though, that they had come earlier than anticipated, and no one had had time to stock it, yet. He shouldn’t complain, he realized, it was just that most of this would be difficult for Audra to eat. The ready-to-eat meal was nutrient dense, each one designed to provide a soldier with 1,200 calories to make up for the energy deficit that came from prolonged activity.

It didn’t matter. She probably wouldn’t eat for another day or so anyway, then hopefully she would be well enough to eat some things. He would try to save some of the items from his meals that he thought she might be able to eat first like the beverage powders and crackers.

He chowed down on pepper steak and rice and Southwest chicken with beans and rice. He was glad the new MREs no longer contained Chicken á la King, a disgusting mess of white sauce, potted chicken, carrots and peas that had been popular in the 70s. He thought maybe the public decided it was no longer
the
thing that the Army had adopted it as food rations.
Gross!

In a couple of hours, he saw the beads of perspiration begin to form on her forehead, and when he felt her, the fever was down. In another hour, she woke. He had been sitting in a chair with one leg thrown over the arm, reading the Bible, which was the only book he could find on the premises. She cleared her throat, and he immediately clambered out of the chair.

“Hi,” he whispered. “How are you?”

“Better, I think,” she said. “I’m really thirsty.”

“Good,” he said, bringing her some of the sports drink he had mixed up from the powder in one of his meals.

She drank it down quickly. “My head really hurts,” she said.

“Probably just dehydration,” he said. “Can you drink some more?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so right now. Can I go back to sleep?”

He felt the bed underneath her and found her sheets soaked.

“At least move over to the other side where it’s dry,” he said. “We’ll change it the next time you wake up.”

She nodded sleepily and scooted to the other side of the bed where she promptly fell back to sleep.

# # #

The next morning, they went through the same procedure twice more. Her fever had come up, and he gave her the yarrow. Then, it broke, and she woke and drank some of the sports drink and went back to sleep.

The last time it was as if the Grim Reaper were trying to pry her out of the bed, she thrashed so hard and yelled unintelligibly. He tried to wake her, to hold and comfort her, but she kept pushing him away. He feared for a while that she would start seizing; but, with his steady bathing and the yarrow, the fever finally subsided.

She finally woke mid-morning and sat up in bed on her own.

“Jesus,” she said. “Where are we and what day is it?”

“Thursday, and somewhere in California.”

“We were somewhere in California before, but this is definitely not the same place.”

Ah
, he thought.
She is back.

“No, not the same place. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I have a dim memory of having gone for a swim, but before and after that are pretty hazy.”

“Yeah, I haven’t figured out the part about the swim yet, but you were definitely drenched when you came back to the car.”

“Came back?”

“Sshhh,” he said. “First, are you hungry?”

“I think I could eat,” she said.

“Well, I saved you some chicken and noodles—definitely not the best tasting, but easier to digest than most of them—and some lentil stew with ham and potatoes.”

“Hmm…the lentil stew sounds intriguing. Did you make it?”

He laughed. “No. They’re MREs.”

“MREs?”

“Meal-Ready-to-Eat. A meal designed for the soldier on-the-go.”

“I see. Kind of like C-rations?”

“Kind of, but C-rats went the way of the dodo bird. MREs took their place.”

“Oh, yummy,” she said, drily.

“Aw…they’re not that bad.”

He prepared the lentil stew for her using the ration heater since he had let the fire die out completely because of her fever.

“I have to pee,” she announced.

“I’ll have to accompany you,” he said.

“Still?”

“Well, only because it’s outside and down a hill, and I don’t think you’re probably in great condition for the hike.”

“It?” she asked.

“Outhouse. Latrine. Pissoir.”

“Oh. Ohhhhhhh,” she said.

He took her hand to stand her up when she noticed for the first time that she was naked.

He brought her bag to her, and she pulled out the silky pajama pants and tank top.

“My favorite,” he said.

She had no response. She clutched them to her, looking in vain for somewhere she could go to dress in private.

“I’ll turn my back,” he said. “Although I’ve been bathing you for two days now, so it wouldn’t be anything I haven’t already seen.”

She scowled, and he turned to face the wall. She dressed quickly and looked about the cabin.

“I don’t suppose there’s coffee or tea?”

“We actually have both. Which would you prefer?”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Okay, it’s just instant coffee or a teabag.”

She was quiet for a second, then said, “Believe it or not, I’ll have coffee.”

“After all the dehydration, your body is probably craving the magnesium.”

“Okay,” she said, “so help me to the…what did you call it? The pissoir? And then we can work on the coffee.”

She was woozy when she first stood, but she quickly got her legs under her and shuffled across the floor. Her shoes were dry but stiff from all the water they had taken during the
swim
.

He took her arm, as they walked out the door and down the hill behind the cabin. The smell of freshly crushed pine rose up as they walked on beds of needles.

Back in the cabin, he rebuilt a small fire in the stove and heated some water. Soon, they were sitting across from each other at a small pine table, sipping the hot coffee that tasted more like roasted chicory than coffee, but just the warmth of the beverage was comforting.

She rested her head in her hand with her elbow propped up on the table. Momentarily, she bent her head to the side, pressing into her head above her ear and over to her right eye.

“Hurts,” she said.

He nodded. “It will take you a couple of days before you feel all right.”

“So, why are we alone?” she asked.

“You really don’t remember anything, do you?”

“I’m beginning to remember a little, mostly being pulled across the bedroom at The Nestor House—two bedrooms, even—and pushed out a window. That’s about it for now.”

He nodded. “Somebody killed Bill. I heard him fall and heard them come into the kitchen. I grabbed you, and we went out the window in Brighton’s room.”

“So, where’s Brighton?”

He hesitated for a moment, wondering how much to tell her. But, he supposed, she would remember it all sooner or later anyway.

“Brighton is not our friend,” he said, simply.

A questioning look passed across her face.

“I had started to suspect him anyway. He was kind of a rogue, and he kept going off without letting either Bill or I know. I thought maybe he was just being proactive, but when I gave him direct orders that he controverted, I knew it was more than that.

“He disappeared again that night. When I took you through his room, he wasn’t there, and his window was already open, so I figured he had gone out of it. He picked us up as we ran from the assassin, but the clincher was when he came up with your bag.”

He explained how he had left it and how Brighton had shown up with it and a random excuse. “I was sure then, but I had to figure out what to do. I didn’t want to bring him here if he was not with us, so I stalled. He gave away our position, and I pulled him out of the car and handcuffed him, leaving him behind,” he said, omitting the rest of the details.

“I remember some of it now,” she said, nodding. “I got out of the car and ran away from the scene. I heard shots. That’s when I went swimming. Some kind of pond or fountain or I-don’t-know-what. I tripped and fell into it. I dragged myself out. I felt disoriented, but I followed the lights back to the car.”

“Yes,” he said. “I don’t know if we were compromised once or twice. I don’t know whether Brighton was working with the assassin or separately. I’m betting that they were working together since he signaled him. I had seen the truck near the house more than once. That’s probably where Brighton was when he kept disappearing.”

“That’s weird, though,” she said. “He could have just shot me any time. Why go to all the trouble of the ruse?”

“I think they thought they could take us all out and get away. That’s why they started with Bill.”

“Why would he be stupid enough to alert the other guy with us right there? Why not just come up here with us and do us in?”

“I keep asking myself the same thing. The only thing I can imagine is that he figured I was on to him. The whole bag thing was hokey, and he knew it. I dunno. He did some really stupid stuff for a U.S. Deputy Marshal.”

“So, what do we do now?”

“Sit tight. They’re bringing us in some supplies tomorrow, the ones I called for before we left, but we arrived a bit ahead of schedule.”

“Supplies? How long are we going to be here?”

“It could be for the duration.”

She looked around the cabin. “Charming,” she said. “Just charming.”