The Phoenix Encounter Read online

  “We’re not going to make it to Rajalla by morning, are we?” she asked.

  “We can’t risk traveling on the road. Unless there’s an alternative route that’s relatively smooth going—or maybe a taxi service—we’re out of luck.”

  “There are trails through the woods, but they’re not well traveled.”

  “That’s going to slow us down.” He looked up. “And if I’m not mistaken the sky is going to open up in about two minutes.”

  Lily looked up in time to see lightning flicker. The thought of traveling at night in cold rain with a band of angry soldiers hot on their trail was bad enough, but the thought of Jack getting wet was unbearable. “How are we going to keep Jack from getting wet?”

  “Good old-fashioned American ingenuity.” Working the carrier off his shoulders, Robert removed his jacket and draped it over the baby. “Water resistant nylon.”

  Trying not to let it show how much the gesture meant to her, Lily held Jack while Robert slipped the carrier onto his shoulders, then put the baby into the carrier.

  “How well do you know the area?” Robert asked.

  “I’ve taken this route to Rajalla several times.”

  “Is there someplace where we can take shelter?”

  Lily thought about it for a moment, pulled a dusty fragment from her memory. “There’s a mine not far from here. It’s old and the entrance is boarded up, but I think I can find it.”

  “As long as the roof doesn’t leak.”

  She didn’t relish the idea of spending the night in a dark and dusty mine, but it beat the alternative of sleeping in the rain. “This way,” she said and started down the trail.

  Robert knew things could always get worse. That seemed to be the only rule he’d been able to count on since arriving in Rebelia. Of course it was little consolation when 2:00 a.m. rolled around, the skies opened up and the rain began to fall in sheets. To top things off his leg was aching like a son of a bitch. It had started troubling him several miles back, and the pain showed no sign of abating any time soon. The orthopedic surgeon had told him the pain stemmed from nerve damage he’d sustained from the shrapnel injury. He’d recommended ice, anti-inflammatory drugs and elevation to alleviate swelling and pressure on the nerves. Robert didn’t think he was going to get any of those things any time soon, so he’d just have to grin and bear it.

  He hadn’t even bothered to tell Lily about the bullet wound in his shoulder. Mostly because he knew it was superficial and he didn’t want her fussing over him and risk slowing them down. But it was starting to hurt, too.

  Looking up at the sky, he let the cool rain wash over his face. Jack had been sleeping uneasily for the last two hours, but Robert could tell the baby was getting uncomfortable with the constant motion and cold, damp air. They needed to camp for the night. More pressingly, they needed to get out of the rain. It was barely fifty degrees. Once they were wet, it wouldn’t take long for hypothermia to set in.

  “How much farther?” he shouted over the din of rain.

  Lily turned to him, looking miserable and wet and uncertain as hell. “I’m not sure.”

  “Let’s keep moving.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “What’s wrong? Are you in pain?”

  “I’m fine. Keep walking.”

  “Robert, you’ve been limping for the last couple of miles. Do you want me to take Jack?”

  “No, damn it.” He hadn’t even realized he’d been limping. He was so accustomed to the pain, he compensated almost automatically by keeping as much weight off his leg as possible.

  “If you need to stop—”

  “What I need is a dry place to spend the night, okay?”

  “No need to get so testy about it.” Lifting Robert’s jacket, she peeked beneath it at Jack. “Poor little guy.”

  “He’s dry for now, but we need to find shelter,” Robert said. “It could rain like this all night.”

  Cupping her hand over her brow to shield her eyes from the downpour, she scanned the surrounding forest, looking a little bit lost and a whole lot hopeless. “I don’t understand. It seems like we should have come to the mine entrance by now.”

  Robert looked at her and wondered how long her teeth had been chattering. Guilt tugged at him that he hadn’t been able to come up with a better plan than the one he’d offered. “Maybe we need to backtrack a little,” he said.

  Even with her hair soaked and plastered against her head, she looked beautiful. He felt another tug, stronger this time, deeper. He wanted to put his arms around her. He wanted to comfort her and tell her he was sorry for getting her into this. He wanted to reassure her and tell her everything was going to be all right. He wanted to kiss her again. Lose himself in the lush softness of her mouth. He wanted to touch her the way he had the night before, make her lose control…

  “There’s a village a few miles from here. Maybe if we keep walking…” Brushing wet hair off her forehead, she sighed. “Damn it. I don’t see how we missed it.”

  “How long has it been since you’ve been here?”

  “Since before Jack was born.”

  “The entrance could be overgrown with foliage.” He followed her gaze with his eyes. “What about landmarks?”

  “I remember the mine entrance being near the little wooden bridge we crossed a while back.”

  “How far off the trail?”

  Turning, she pointed toward a jut of earth and rock tangled with vineage and saplings and dry leaves. “In that general direction.”

  Aware of Jack’s little body soft and warm against his abdomen, Robert walked over to the jut of earth. Cold rain trickled down his neck and back as he stooped to pick up a broken branch. The rain burned the bullet wound in his shoulder as he began breaking off the smaller twigs.

  “What are you doing?” Lily asked.

  “This jut of earth looks man-made.” Using the stick, Robert poked at the tangled foliage. He walked several yards and poked again. Nothing but rock and earth and winter-dead foliage. Damn it.

  Rain poured down his face and into his eyes. Jack felt so warm and delicate, he couldn’t stand the thought of the baby getting wet. He couldn’t let that happen. He poked again with the stick. This time, a hollow thump sounded.

  Tossing the stick aside, he fought through the brush, tearing the vines and branches away, eventually locating an ancient wooden door. “Bingo.”

  But Lily was already beside him. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Rain poured down her face, but she didn’t seem to notice as she tore aside the tangled branches and vines. “This is it!” she shouted excitedly as the wood planks of the door came into view.

  “Stand back.” Quickly, Robert unbuckled the carrier and carefully passed Jack to her.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked, taking Jack.

  “I’m going to kick in the door.”

  “Wouldn’t the knob be easier?”

  Robert blinked the rain from his eyes and looked at the rusty knob someone had nailed to one of the planks. Trying not to feel like an idiot, he twisted it and shoved. The door creaked like ancient bones and swung open to reveal an ink-black tunnel.

  “What do you see?” Lily asked, craning her head to see over his shoulder.

  “Not a damn thing.”

  “Do you have a flashlight?”

  “Hey, I’m a Boy Scout, remember?” He dug the halogen flashlight from his backpack and shone it into the depths of the tunnel. The beam revealed a narrow chasm carved into rock and earth that went on for as far as the powerful beam penetrated. The passageway was seven-feet high and ten-feet wide. Ancient wooden support beams a foot in diameter had been set into the walls and ceiling at four-foot intervals. Cobwebs hung down like Spanish moss. Broken rails and rotted ties littered the floor where mining cars had once hauled ore from the bowels of the earth.

  “Home sweet home,” Robert said, stepping inside.

  “I wonder if they deliver pizza.”

  “In-room movies would be nice.
”

  “Gone With The Wind.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of The Matrix.”

  She smiled at him.

  Robert knew it was a stupid moment, but he couldn’t help but smile back. She was standing so close he could see the water beading on her eyelashes. He could smell the subtle scent of her shampoo coming off her wet hair. Her eyes were luminescent in the light of the beam. He was aware of Jack sleeping soundly between them, that Lily was close enough to touch, and an odd sense of rightness settled over him.

  The moment shouldn’t have meant anything—they were cold and tired and hungry with a band of hostile soldiers hot on their trail—but the moment did mean something. It meant a lot. More than he could put into words. A hell of a lot more than he wanted it to.

  As he stood there looking into her beautiful eyes, the realization of just how lucky he was to have found them, regardless of the circumstances, hit him like the business end of a cane. Lily stared back, her eyes wide, her lips trembling with cold. A single drop of water hung from her earlobe. Robert wondered what it would be like to lean down and catch that tiny droplet with his mouth. If she would allow it. If it would taste like her.

  Before he realized that he was going to touch her, he reached out and caught the drop with his thumb. She flinched, then opened her mouth as if to speak, but no sound came out. Lord, he wanted to kiss her. Wanted to devour that mouth. Pull her to him. Finish what they had begun the night before. Damn it, he wanted to know if there was a future for them.

  “Now might be a good time to pull that door closed,” he said gruffly.

  “That’ll make it awfully dark in here.”

  “You’re not afraid of the dark, are you?”

  “No, I just…don’t like it.”

  He thought about what it would be like to be in a dark room with her, decided it was something he’d be better off not thinking about at the moment. “Leave it open a few inches. I’m going to build a fire. We’ll use it as the chimney.”

  Lily turned quickly away and pulled at the door.

  Robert let out a long breath and wiped the rain from his forehead, wondering how the hell he was going to get through the rest of the night without doing something he was going to regret.

  Chapter 10

  Lily sat on the small tarp Robert had laid on the floor trying not to shiver, trying even harder not to think about how she was going to get through the night when she was cold to her bones and her life had just taken a hard left turn straight into disaster. She couldn’t believe DeBruzkya had put a price on her head. One hundred thousand dollars was an outrageous sum of money in Rebelia. A lot of people would do a lot of things to earn it.

  The possibilities made her shudder.

  She looked at Jack snuggled in Robert’s jacket next to her, and another layer of fear lanced through her. Robert was right; she’d put her child at risk. The thought struck her like a punch. He was the most precious thing to her in the world. A sweet, innocent baby—and she’d put him in danger. Not only Jack, she realized, but Robert, too, and guilt wrapped gnarly fingers around her and squeezed.

  For several long minutes she sat next to Jack and watched him sleep. He’d wakened for a few minutes when she’d changed him; he’d even taken a little bit of the goat’s milk, then quickly fallen back to sleep. Lily wished sleep would come to her as easily. Wished she wasn’t wet and cold and still shaking from their brush with DeBruzkya’s soldiers.

  A few feet from the mine entrance, Robert fed ancient wood planks to the small fire he’d built. Lily watched him, a new trepidation creeping over her. She’d never been particularly claustrophobic, but for the first time since they’d set foot inside the mine some twenty minutes ago, she felt hemmed in. Trapped. Not only by the dangers lurking outside, but by her feelings for Robert.

  No matter how badly she wanted to deny it, there was something powerful and undeniably profound between them. A tangible connection that pain and grief and distance hadn’t erased.

  “The fire should warm it up in here a little.”

  She started at the sound of Robert’s voice and looked up to find him silhouetted against the fire, facing her. His wet hair looked black in the flickering light. He’d slicked it back, revealing sharp cheekbones and angular planes that lent him a menacing countenance. His face was in shadow, but she knew he was watching her. She could feel his eyes sweeping over her as surely as she could feel the welcome heat from the flames.

  “It’s going to be a long night,” he said. “This might be a good time to see what we can do about drying our clothes.”

  “I’m fine.” She knew the instant she said the words how silly they sounded.

  “Wet clothes are fine if you’re a fish. But you’re not, and I don’t have to tell you about the dangers of hypothermia,” he said. “Do I?”

  When she didn’t respond, he frowned and walked over to the fire. She knew what he was going to do next—take off his sweater. And while she knew that was the practical thing to do, the side of her that wasn’t feeling quite so practical jumped into panic mode.

  “What are you doing?” she snapped.

  He scowled at her. “Getting dry.”

  Feeling awkward and silly and terribly uncomfortable, she looked away. She didn’t want to see Robert Davidson without his shirt. Seeing him shirtless and brooding would make her remember, and the last thing she wanted to do was remember how things had once been between them.

  But for all the warnings blaring inside her head, she couldn’t keep her eyes off him for long. She turned her head and watched him drag the sweater up and over his head. Her mouth went dry as his flat abdomen came into view. She saw black hair and taut flesh, and sudden heat flashed through her. He winced a little as he worked the sweater off his shoulders and draped it over a makeshift clothesline he’d fashioned from a coil of old wire.

  Aware that her heart was hammering, she stared at the red slash just above his bicep for several long seconds before realizing it was a wound. “What on earth happened to your shoulder?”

  Frowning as if the bullet wound were nothing more than an annoying bee sting, he looked at it. “It’s nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Rising abruptly, she crossed the short distance between them. Shock rippled through her when she realized the damage had been done by a bullet. “My God, you’ve been shot.”

  “It’s a graze, Lily. Hurts like the dickens, but it’s not serious.”

  “How can a piece of lead tearing through flesh at a high rate of speed not be serious?”

  “The medical term for it is flesh wound.”

  “Why on earth didn’t you say something?”

  “I didn’t want to distract you.”

  “Distract me?”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t think you could run and fuss over a flesh wound at the same time.”

  A noise of exasperation escaped her. “I thought doctors were supposed to be smart about injuries.”

  “We don’t panic.”

  “For God’s sake, Robert, you could have been killed.”

  “Any of us could have been killed,” he returned evenly.

  The words chilled her because she knew they were true, and the guilt twisted brutally inside her. Because she didn’t want to think too hard about all the terrible things that could have happened, she turned her attention to the wound. The sight of it made her wince. The bullet had opened a two-inch-long gash. It wasn’t deep, but the surrounding flesh was swollen and badly bruised. She could tell by the stain on his sweater that it had bled quite a bit. “At least the bleeding has stopped,” she said.

  He shot her a canny look. “Think you can butterfly me?”

  Lily jerked her head. “Of course I can.”

  Scowling, he limped over to Jack, knelt and set his hand against the baby’s plump cheek. Lily watched as Robert’s features softened, and in an instant he went from annoyed man to gentle father. “He’s sleeping well,” he said softly.

  “Up until recently he
was always a good sleeper,” she said, coming up behind him. “The vitamins really helped.”

  Robert picked up one of Jack’s tiny hands and inspected his fingers. “Nail bed coloration is good.”

  Kneeling beside him, Lily brushed her hand over Jack’s forehead. “Is he going to be all right?” she whispered.

  For several moments, the only sound came from the crackling fire and the incessant rain outside. “He’s going to be fine,” Robert said.

  “Promise me,” she said.

  “I promise.”

  She knew it was a promise he couldn’t ensure, but she desperately needed to hear it, needed even more desperately to believe it. “Thank you.”

  The fire had eased the dampness from the cave. Slowly, Lily felt the tension at the back of her neck begin to unravel. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world when Robert reached out and brushed the wet hair from her cheek.

  “Are you holding up okay?” he asked.

  Lily nodded, resisting the urge to press her cheek against his hand. The backs of his fingers were warm and dry, and his touch reassured her as nothing else could have. Her heart beat a little unsteadily against her ribs when he brushed his thumb over the scar at her brow.

  “I wouldn’t have left you that night,” he whispered. “If I’d been able to stay. I would have found you.”

  Lily saw something she couldn’t quite identify in his eyes. Tenderness, perhaps. Affection tempered with caution. She wanted that to be enough, but it wasn’t. “I know.”

  Taking her hand, he rose, and she rose with him. Need and the sweet ache of memories past tangled within her. She knew it was a dangerous thought, but she wanted to step into his embrace. She wanted to be held. She wanted to be kissed. For a short while she wanted to forget about all the troubles in the world. The dangers she had brought down on them.

  “You’re shivering,” he said quietly.

  “It’s cold.” But Lily knew damn good and well she wasn’t shivering because of the cold.

  His gaze dropped to her mouth, but he made no move to get any closer. “We need to get your clothes dried.”

  “I think that might be a little awkward.”