Page 9

“You think they ... the people in the SUV are after the baby or Tot’s mom? Or maybe the dirt bike guy is?”

He shrugged off the question. No sense speculating.

His gut told him they were going to find out sooner rather than later.

He threw a quilt on the floor and set Tot in the middle with a ring of plastic keys from the duffel clamped in her tiny fist. Her limbs flexed as if she was relieved to be free of her raincoat cocoon.

“Five minutes,” he said, but this time he meant it. From the closet, he procured a set of lady’s sweats and handed them to her along with a clean bath towel.

She accepted with a raised brow.

“They belong to my sister-in-law who is a bit of a scatterbrain and leaves things here when she and my brother visit. Probably too big but better than my clothes.” He added a pair of men’s sweat socks. “Socks will be huge on you, but maybe you can hike them up. Dry at least.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly, eyes downcast. “I ... didn’t say that before. I should have.” She too was thinking about what might have happened if they hadn’t unexpectedly met up in the middle of an evacuation zone.

He nodded.

When he heard the shower running, he dumped a can of soup into a pot and opened a box of saltines. Not gourmet, but quick and filling. Then he changed Tot into a clean diaper and her fleece jammies. Only three diapers left in the duffel. That would be a problem soon enough.

And where was a baby going to sleep exactly?

Could they stay put long enough for that to happen?

Deep down he had a streak of optimism that simply would not die.

This would work. Even if Cullen couldn’t see a way out, God could.

And that really was the only reason Cullen could face each day, that inextinguishable spark that shone through his pain.

Sometimes it was so minute, he could hardly see it.

With Tot happily gumming her plastic toy on the quilt, he returned to the closet once again for his rifle.

Another scan from the upstairs window indicated no cause for concern, and the driveway camera was quiet.

He carried the rifle with him downstairs and stowed it in an out-of-the-way corner along with a backpack that he kept at the ready for emergencies.

Of course, when he’d first prepared it, he’d been thinking wildfires or floods, not volcanoes and killers, but the supplies would help anyway.

He added a carton of ammo and zipped it closed.

The baby had gone quiet, sound asleep with her arms flung wide as if she hadn’t a care.

Lovely. He washed the bottle, plunged it in boiling water to sterilize it along with the nipple, and let it air dry.

A single bottle was going to be as big a problem as the three diapers if they had to flee or the hot water gave out.

Kit emerged wearing the sweats, which sagged low on her hips until she hoisted them up to her waist. He tried not to notice that her middle was toned and smooth. He handed her a rubber band.

“This might help.” He waved a vague hand at her confusion. “You know ... cinch up the slack.”

“Oh.” She gathered a bunch of material and secured it with the rubber band. “Weird but resourceful.”

“We can put that on my tombstone. Next to your ‘Rest in peace with the paperclips’ motto.”

Her sudden smile was a surprise.

When the soup was ready, they sat at the table, and he thanked God for their survival.

Kit sat uncomfortably through the grace, which he pretended not to notice.

Her discomfort was secondary to his need to express gratitude.

By all rights they should have been wiped out any number of times in the past eight hours, yet here they were with food and shelter and a baby that was very much alive. There was that spark again.

The weak light from the under-cabinet lamps dulled the bruise rising on Kit’s forehead around the bandage.

“How’s the head?”

“Pounding like a drum. How’s the knee?”

He twitched. She’d noticed the limp? “I ... it’s okay.”

“Old injury?”

His mouth refused to answer for a moment. “Yeah. Job related.”

“What’s your job?”

“Now, I raise horses.”

She blew on a spoonful of hot soup and waited. The expectant silence was worse than the throbbing in his patella.

“I was a cop. Call went bad. I got hurt and retired.” So few words that contained a whole world inside them.

She tipped her chin up, and he knew she sensed the scarred place he was trying to cover up.

For the briefest tick he had the urge to spill it all.

Instead, he ate a spoonful of soup and burned his mouth swallowing too fast. He cleared his throat and checked his phone.

“Cameras are still operational, so that’s a relief. ”

“We have to find a way out. Mount Ember is going to erupt. Soon.”

“Until first light, we can’t go anywhere. Roads are way too treacherous.”

She fiddled with her water glass. “But what’s the long game? We can’t stay here and wait for the mountain to explode or for them to find us.”

“Nor can we drive around in the dark without wrecking or broadcasting our location. Before first light we go.”

“Where?”

“Not sure.”

She stiffened. “We need a plan, a detailed plan. I always have one.”

He folded his arms. “I’m thinking your plan for today didn’t include Tot and shooters.”

She shrank into the baggy sweatshirt. “No, it didn’t.” The edges of fear crept over her face.

No, Kit wasn’t a fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants type. He slid over a bottle of aspirin he’d grabbed from the kitchen. “This will help with the headache. I’m thinking we drive up the road to Pinnacle Point. Chances are good we can get a signal there, or at least see how the roads look.”

She swallowed the pills with a swig of water. “Isn’t it better to make for the nearest town?” She squinched her eyes shut. “Grandlake, right? We can get help there maybe. Someone must have stayed behind.”

“It’s fifteen miles from here, along a closed road, and the town’s evacuated. We’re better off heading to Pinnacle.”

“I don’t agree.”

“Why?”

“Because if Tot’s mom is alive, she would head for town, not farther into the wilderness.”

And that dried up his argument. It was possible Tot’s mom didn’t know the area and she was lost and wandering. More likely she was dead. But if there was any shred of a chance they could find her by heading to the nearest town...

“All right. Compromise. We get a signal first. Then we head to Grandlake.”

“Okay.”

“How about some shut-eye? Guest bedroom’s down here. I’ll bunk upstairs with Tot and scan every hour to check our security and see if by some oddball chance the signal’s been restored.”

“You need sleep too.”

“I’ll get it. Cat naps.”

“I’ll switch with you in a few hours. Unless Tot’s screaming, and then you can have as much time as you want with her.” The corner of her mouth curved enough to let him know she’d made a joke. Not as stoic as she pretended to be.

“Fair.” The soup was gone, but he stared at the stray noodle at the bottom of the bowl. The decision was made then. After a quick stop, they’d ride to town.

The thing he didn’t want to say aloud thrashed in his brain.

Town was exactly where the killers would think they’d go.

And it might not be too long before they arrived to finish what they’d started.