Secret Worlds (489 page)

Lena sat up, watching him. A look that fell somewhere between curiosity and confusion played over face. “I thought you said no running away.”

“I’m not.” He leaned in to plant a kiss on her mouth to wipe away any concerns she had. “I’m
not
. But I stole away to come see you, and as much as I’d like to stay and spend the afternoon with you, I can’t. We leave in three days.”

She nodded. “Wow. So slam, bam—”

“
Lena.
”

She arched a brow at him.

“We’ll have more time soon. When Three’s gone. There’s always a lull between missions.” He leaned back in for a slower kiss. “But right now it’s stolen moments. I’d like us to handle this.” He searched her face. “Are you sorry I came?”

She met his eyes. A wicked light gleamed in hers. “I’d have been pissed if you didn’t.”

“That’s not what I meant.” He nipped at her lip.

“I know. But it’s all the answer you need.”

He answered her smile with his own, and dressed himself while she watched. Her head tilted to the side, and the dress still bunched around her waist. It was a great look on her.

When he’d finished, she finally reached down and found the straps to the dress, hopping off the table and pulling them up over her arms again. As she pulled the fabric up, she did that little shimmy that had made him lose his mind earlier, a mischievous smile on her face.

Alex barked a laugh at the provocation and pulled her into a kiss. When he let her go, he lightly smacked her ass and backed away. If he didn’t leave right then, he wouldn’t leave at all.

“Be sure and pass my regards to Jackson on his taste in women’s clothing,” he told her. “Unparalleled access.”

She laughed loud and long, head thrown back. He couldn’t help but grin. Happy sounded good on her.

“You tell him,” she called out as he walked down the hall.

“I will,” he shouted back.
Little fucker. Bringing gifts to my woman.

Alex’s hand paused above the lock plate. He leaned his forehead on the door.
My woman, huh?

Yep. It had been a terrible idea coming here. And when he stopped smiling he might be able to make himself believe it.

Lena turned the small folder with her papers in it around and around in her hands. Alex had warned her against being late the morning before, but she’d still moved slowly this morning. She hadn’t wanted to be among the first in line to gain final clearance to enter the caravan area.

Being first wouldn’t be a problem. She’d arrived at mid-morning to find the line snaked up the alley beside the Council building and then curled around down the walkway bordering the street in front of the building. The sun had long since heated the top of her head and the shorter hair at the nape of her neck dripped beads of sweat. They ran down the curve of her spine, not chilling but itching her skin. She should have heeded Alex’s warning.

Lena distracted herself with the memory of his last visit the morning before. He’d slipped into the safe house in the dark of the early morning hours, so they’d have more time for that last visit before heading out. They’d made good use of the time.

A sharp finger jabbed into her shoulder. She jumped, nearly dropping her papers.

“Why are you standing in this line with all of these…people?” Chef Domenico’s disdain for those around her was palpable. His lip curled, and his nostrils pinched as if he’d smelled something foul. His expression made it clear what most displeased him was herself.

He pinched her blouse away from her shoulder with his index finger and thumb and drew her out of the line to sweep her along beside him as he strode past those who’d been waiting in the hot sun since early morning.

“Excuse me,” he drawled, giving a couple in front of him the once over as he pushed through the line. On the other side was another, far shorter line. Domenico marched over and stood in it, his thin lips still quivering with outrage. He waited four back from the desk manned by a Council official.

After a moment, he turned on Lena and growled in her face, “I do not wait in line with the
peones,
and neither do my people. It is simply not done. Anyone who knows me, knows this. What are you trying to do?”

Taken aback, she stared at the man. His face was florid. Did he care more about discovery or his reputation? She remembered her role as a new sous chef and dropped her gaze seconds before she would have responded to the man in like outrage. “I’m sorry, Chef,” she murmured for any who might be listening. “I forgot. I was just so excited.”

He pulled himself up to his full, impressive height. “Remember your place from here on. I am doing your…father…a favor by hiring you on. But my generosity does have limits. It would be a shame for you both if you exceeded them.”

She kept her head bowed in what might appear to be crimson-faced shame to anyone looking. In reality, the threat left her shaking with rage.

“Papers?” The official snapped at her, and she realized it was the second time he’d spoken.

“Pay attention, you idiot girl,” Domenico hissed at her.

She fumbled her papers out of the folder and handed them over.

“Mina Gardin?”

She nodded, acutely aware of the sweat beaded on her upper lip and across her brow.

The man dribbled a tiny amount of wax from a candle burning beside him across the first of four boxes and neatly pressed a small square seal into it. While the wax dried, he found her name in a ledger before him and initialed beside it. “You’ll present your papers again upon arrival at the Meet, and then again when you rejoin the caravan to leave, and upon arrival home.”

He refolded the papers and handed them back, watching as she tried and failed twice to slide them back into her folder.

Domenico sighed his impatience.

“Keep them with you at all times.” The official smiled, but his lips barely perked. His face remained bored, and he had already focused on the VIP behind her as he extended his arm out and at an angle to be seen around Lena. “Papers?”

Domenico gripped her shirt between his fingers again and tugged her away toward the lines of steam-powered trucks, each with its attached car or trailer. The trucks and refitted train cars filled the cordoned-off parking area behind the Council building.

The converted trucks themselves were large, former industrial trucks retrofitted with fireboxes and boilers in the rear cargo area. Some of them had trailers attached to carry supplies or goods in large cargo boxes, or to carry the wood and water needed to fuel the trucks. Some pulled closed, adapted train cars where the caravaners would travel.

Their car was near the front of the second line of trucks. The position meant they’d be mid-way back from the head of the caravan, several cars down from the luxurious double-car carrying the Councilor. It was also many cars up from the regular kitchen cars and the supply trucks.

How efficient.
She’d be spending a good portion of her day trotting back and forth, bringing up the non-specialty supplies they needed to feed Three and his elite staff, including Alex. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t actually be seeing him at all until he came for her in two days.

Domenico released her shirt once they arrived at their car. He marched up the two metal steps to the door, slid it open, and entered. Lena followed.

The train wasn’t what she expected. It was all kitchen, long, sleek, metal, and electric. As the sous chef, one of her responsibilities would be to keep it all powered. A narrow aisle ran the length of it. Stove and ovens were on one side, sinks and counter prep space on the other. At the far end of the aisle, each side had a narrow ladder leading up to curtained privacy areas: their beds. The aisle ended in a door she assumed was the bathroom they’d be sharing. Two flip-down stools at the head of the kitchen across from the entry were the only seating.

It was gleaming, clean, sophisticated, and practical. It only served to underscore that the next forty-eight hours would be hell. If she’d had any doubts, Domenico put them to rest when he walked immediately down the narrow aisle, climbed up the rungs on the wall to the right, and slid his duffel onto the mattress of that bunk.

“I always sleep above the sinks,” he told her with a sniff as he climbed back down and came back.

Of course he did. The hellish residual heat rising up from the stove and ovens would be reserved for the sous. She didn’t even bother rolling her eyes as she slid past him to climb the rungs on the left and put her own bag away.

“Hurry up,” Domenico snapped when she pulled back the curtain to look at her meager sleep space. “We need to complete our inspection and be sure nothing is missing.”

She dutifully hopped back down. The next five hours proceeded exactly as she expected. Domenico was furious with Alex for putting him in this position, but too frightened of the Agent to refuse. The fear, however, did not extend to her. He’d obviously decided to make her life as difficult as possible.

It didn’t take her long to conclude Domenico fluttered from shelf to shelf noting the items he had deliberately forgotten to stock. The realization did not help her disposition as she ran back and forth from his car to the rear of the column where the supply trucks were in various stages of being loaded. Searching manifests for specific items and then sorting through the crates themselves, over and over, was exhausting in the full heat of the day. The embarrassment of returning to the foreman again and again added to her foul mood.

By the time Domenico pronounced everything in its place, she wore a gritty coating of dust. Her eyes burned from salty sweat and from smoke billowing from the rear kitchen area. An hour before, as dusk had fallen, the fires had blazed as cooks prepped dinner for the masses. She ran through the area with every trip, eyes tearing and stomach growling.

As soon as Domenico made his proclamation, she turned and slid the door open. Domenico’s rapid footsteps chased her as she swung down from the car. The raucous voices and laughter from gathered workers sharing their first meal in the open sounded like freedom.

“Where do you think you’re going?” He sounded offended again. “We take all of our meals in here.”

The smoky fragrant breeze flowing outside the car raised gooseflesh on her sweat-dampened skin. She looked past him to the hot, closed space of the car. She could only imagine how much more miserable it would be once the boiler to power the steam engine was lit. She refused to spend every hour hiding in this car, even if it meant she spent the next days on constant alert.

“No,” she told him firmly, “
we
don’t.” She strode away, weaving through the trucks and trailers she’d spent the afternoon darting between, and was gone before Domenico had even managed an exit.

Once she was sure Domenico wouldn’t be pursuing her to pinch at her shirt in distaste and drag her back, she relaxed. She wandered through the gathered caravaners, lost in the crowd and the gathering dark. Were Alex and Jackson settled into their places within the caravan yet? Hoping to see Alex was pointless. Even if she caught a glimpse as he went about his duties as a senior member of the retinue, he’d pretend not to notice her. She understood that, and why, but it didn’t help her mood now.

She hadn’t expected there would be so many workers, although it did make sense. Scouts roved ahead and behind in the wild lands they’d move through. The caravan also needed drivers, and loaders, and techs in case equipment went wrong. While the trucks themselves were steam-powered and not electric, people still depended upon the old power. There had to be Sparks. And someone had to cook for all of them.

Even more than an hour after they’d started serving, a short line waited for food. Once she had her food, she went to hide in the shadows cast by a bonfire. She balanced her wooden plate on her lap and leaned back against the big wheel of a cargo truck to watch the others as she ate.

Although she’d come to look forward to Alex’s all-too-brief visits, to laughing and talking and touching, neither the darkness nor the lack of company tonight bothered her much. She’d spent so much of her childhood alone, trapped in the house, that the solitude of her existence out in the desert had been calming. The constant light and movement and mental presence of so many others at Fort Nevada was overwhelming. Here, she wasn’t a part of the hum of voices and laughter and the occasional shout. She curled around her plate in the darkness and went unnoticed by those around her. Or so she wished.

“What are you doing out here?” Jackson appeared out of the dark and squatted down beside her, keeping his voice low. He had clearly been taking inscrutable stare lessons from Alex. She gestured at her plate, to indicate the obvious. Jackson waited for a verbal response.

“Avoiding my boss so I don’t kill him.” Her voice was low, but she didn’t bother to keep the agitation from it. “The man is insufferable.”

“Don’t you like insufferable men?”

She could see that Jackson immediately regretted the words.

“I’m sorry,” he said to the ground. “That was unnecessary.”

“I’m sorry, too.” She waited until he lifted his face to her. “Not for—I’m happy now. I really am.” She couldn’t help the smile that tugged at her lips. “He may be insufferable, but he makes me happy. I am sorry you were hurt. I thought you’d made your choice, Jackson, and it wasn’t me.”

Jackson shrugged. “Guess I should’ve been more like Alex.” A world of resentment welled up in the tight words.

She snorted and shook her head. “I fell for you because you weren’t like him. Which is ironic now….”

A flash of something crossed his face. Disgust? Regret? Lena wasn’t sure, and she wasn’t sure whether it was aimed at her or at himself.

“Mmmm,” he agreed. He swiped his finger over the dust on his boot. “And then I lost you for the same reason.” He took a deep breath then swallowed. He met her gaze for a second before his swerved away. “It’s fine. I understand. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I always know what I’m doing.”

“Like running away from your boss and jeopardizing everything?” He shook his head in disapproval. “I get that he’s obnoxious. My understanding is he’s also vain, egotistical, and stupid. That’s why Alex was able to finagle you a spot. It would be a shame if everyone’s hard work came to nothing because you couldn’t deal with a difficult personality for a few hours.” Jackson bounced twice on the balls of his feet, working his knees, before he rose to continue his patrol.