Dangerous Dreams (A Dreamrunners Society Novel) (25 page)

“ ‘Just shut up and drive,” he said.

“We returned to the Interstate. Starr had woken the moment she’d heard her father’s voice and by this time both girls were crying. He pointed the gun at them. ‘No, Daddy, please,’ Starr said. He shot her in the face. Jamie screamed. I jammed the brakes and grabbed his arm, trying to wrestle the gun away, but it all happened so fast. We flew off the highway, the car flipping and rolling six times until we crashed into some trees. When I opened my eyes again, Starr was dead, the father was dead, and my face…” Jack paused and ran two fingers along his slightly deformed cheekbone. “…my face was impaled on a piece of the engine that had joined us in the front seat. My head was turned just so. I had a perfect view of Jaime in the back. She hadn’t been ejected during the accident. In fact, she’d had the presence of mind to buckle herself back in, even after her father had taken control. It didn’t matter. Her neck had snapped. Her head lay unnaturally to one side.”

Lara hissed in shock at the image.

“They were all dead,” Jack said.

Lara couldn’t say anything for several moments. She could only shake her head slowly from side to side. Finally, she found words, inadequate ones. Hell, what words would ever be adequate?

“God, Jack. I can’t begin to imagine. How horrendous for you.”

“For me? I survived.” Jack’s voice sounded callous.

Lara could see that was precisely what he’d thought of himself all these years for having the audacity to live. As opposed to dying in the wreck.

“And yet you had the strength to go on,” she said.

“Oh, yeah, if you mean I didn’t have the balls to do the Society a favor and give up on finding, or something more sensible like committing suicide, I’ll agree with you.”

“No, Jack. You had the strength to go on and save people. Poppy. Me. And how many other Lost Ones over the years?”

“I don’t count them,” he said.

“Well, you should.”

“Jack it takes a strong person to come back after the abuse that man put you through.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re his fourth victim. Don’t you realize that?”

“No.” Jack made a grimace, shrugging off her suggestion. “He didn’t shoot me.”

“He didn’t have to,” she said. “He left you with that. All of that.” She got to her knees and moved to the edge of the bed. She reached up for him, and he automatically lifted her off the bed to her feet. She touched a finger to his temple. “He left you the horror in there,” she said. “For the rest of your life. You can’t unlive what he made you see, or what he took away from you.”

“Sweet Pea. Starr,” he said.

“Sweet Pea. Starr,” she said. “And the part of you that you gave to them.”

She circled her arms around his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers. She kissed him softly. Then afraid it might remind him of Jamie’s peck on the cheek, she kissed him again hard. Deeply. Filling that kiss with as much living, breathing imperfectly human love as she could show him. There were reasons to live and none to die for. Not now. Not yet. After unburdening himself of a story like that, she wished he could cry the way she had earlier. Just open himself up and let it all go. But this was a man she knew would never cry. Not ever. It was a sad thing, but he was who he was and she loved everything about him.

“The fact you still hold Jamie and Starr in your heart is just one of the reasons you’re amazing to me. It’s why I couldn’t stand it if I lost you,” she ended off the kiss and said.

He looked at her, confused. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I’m sorry I left you yesterday, but it wasn’t because of you. It was me. I was too afraid to look at my past straight on. You thought we were over?”

Tell him. He can handle it
.

“Tell me what?” he asked. “You were just thinking you needed to tell me something.

“Jack…” She let go of him and walked to the window where last night she’d gazed out to discover the place her worst nightmare would unfold.

He came up behind her, but stopped before he could touch her.

“You’re shaking. Lara, what is it?”

She pointed toward the tree in the distance. “In the nightmare, I’m standing under that maple of yours. Bodies litter the ground. At least five buildings are in ruins. Flames snapping and fluttering like bed sheets in a high wind. I hear a voice behind me. It calls my name. I recognize the voice. I don’t want to turn around and look, but it keeps calling, insisting I listen, hear what he has to say. He won’t give up until I turn and hear what he wants to say.”

Jack wrapped his arms around her while she talked. She felt him infusing her with his strength and confidence. He rested his chin on the top of her head. She kept going.

“I turned. I saw him. His arm was outstretched. He reached for me with his last breath. He was dead. But there was just enough of him left to linger in my mind. To exist for that one last moment and say to me, ‘Never forget–’ ”

“I love you,” Jack said.

Lara gasped. “What?”

“It’s what I say to you, isn’t it? ‘Never forget, I love you.’ ”

“Oh, God, you know? It’s you, Jack. You’re the voice I hear calling me. You’re the one I see among the dead. The bombs…while I’m just standing there watching.”

He turned her to face him and, when she wouldn’t meet his eyes, used his index finger to lift her chin.

“Hear me now, little love,” he said. Indigo eyes shone with his belief in the two of them. “The bombs are a long way in the distance still. They aren’t here today, and won’t be next week. We have time. Remember what Gavin said, we aren’t alone. We’ll figure this out. Together we’ll stop them.”

“But Jack–”

“Hush. Death won’t find me, or you, or any of us to take. Your future Jack got it wrong. He should have said, ‘Trust me, Lara. Trust in me. Nothing and no one can take me away, not while I have you to love.’ ”

“I do,” she said, and kissed him again, in the here and now.

Let tomorrow come.

“As in the ill-fated Donner party?”

Tragic. Wearing a cartoon hero’s hat, with a last name matching California’s early explorers-slash-cannibals.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Tell me, how long have you been working for the park?”

“This is my first day, ma’am.”

I swear to God, if he doesn’t stop calling me
ma’am,
I’m going to scream
.

“Well, Ranger Donner, I suggest you get on your walkie-talkie or whatever it is that park people carry and talk to the park office. You obviously haven’t been here long enough to learn the rules.”

“Cell phone.”

“What?”

He pulled a smartphone out of his back pocket and held it up for her to see.

“We use cell phones.”

“Great. That’s terrific,” she said. “Now get on yours and call the office.”

“Don’t have to, ma’am.”

“And why’s that?”

She was getting tired of squeezing her eyes to slits and holding up her hand to block the sun. A headache suddenly pounded into existence centered right between her eyes. They hurt so much she could no longer look directly at the man. What’s more, she had a feeling he knew this and was, in his pompous little heart, enjoying her discomfort.

“They’re the ones who sent me over here.”

“The office.”

“That’s right. You have to stop. I’m asking you, politely, to leave.”

“Like hell you are.”

She turned her back on him, yanked her shovel off the gravel bar, sunk it into the first of her buckets and dumped a spadeful of dirt into the sluice.

“Excuse me?” he said.

Holly knew she’d not only offended the man, but the sensible part of her understood that she’d just crossed the line. She didn’t know if park rangers could arrest people, but she was sure that a sheriff’s deputy could. The other part of her, however, the stubborn, upset, tired and generally fed up part of her, wouldn’t let her stop. She drove the shovel’s tip into the bucket for a second scoop of material.

“This is my third fall working this very spot,” she said. “My third year,” she shouted. “I have a right to be here.”

“Not as of this week,” he said. “The park is under new management. The county is no longer administrating. They can’t. They don’t have the budget. It’s either volunteers or it’s closed. And what they say goes.”

She spun back around toward him. Dirt flew in an arc from her shovel, feathering into the wind.

“So you’re telling me you aren’t even a real park ranger.”

At her words, the tall, very male silhouette drew itself up even taller.

“Real enough,” he said.

He hadn’t moved from his original position, and she still didn’t have a view of his face, but the challenge in his stance made his intent clear. Her next opportunity to take a break would be in the back of a police cruiser.

“Fine,” she said and tossed her shovel to the bank again. She marched to the first bucket, hefted it by the handle, and dumped the carefully collected and graded material on the ground.

“Happy now?”

She grabbed the next bucket in line and did the same.

“I’m going. Happy?”

As fast as she could, she lifted the buckets and upended them on the ground, twenty buckets, each holding upwards of 30 lbs. of damp soil and rock. The first five were easy, the next noticeably harder. By the time she reached the final five it was sheer agony. Her arms felt like they’d been wrenched from their sockets. She persisted until empty white buckets rolled and lay scattered from one end of the gravel bar to the other. Hot tears stung her eyes. She blinked them back. Her breathing sounded like someone who had been trapped underwater for minutes. Lastly, she dragged the sluice out of the river and hurled it onto the bank.

“Happy?” she said for the third time and turned toward the giant boulder, but the ranger’s silhouette was gone.