“Here’s our home sweet home for the night.” He pointed to an alcove under an overhang of rock. Another outcropping protected them from the fierce oncoming wind swiping at them up this high.
It didn’t look like much, but it certainly beat dropping onto the sand and trying to drift off, she supposed. She ducked under the overhang and started to lower herself to the cold rock below.
“Wait.” He fished through his pack and extracted a flashlight, quickly scanning the area. Seemingly satisfied, he flipped it off, then pulled out a thin, khaki blanket with a tinfoil-looking lining. “We’re clear. I needed to check for scorpions and any other venomous creatures that like warmer, dark spaces.”
Yikes, she hadn’t even thought of that. “I’m glad we’re alone. I don’t like pinchers.”
“It’s not just the bite, but the venom. Bark scorpions lurk around here. I know a guy who got stung once. He said it was the most painful seventy-two hours of his life. They’re hard to see because they’re about a third of the size of the desert hairy variety, but those suckers can be lethal. We’ll start a fire to keep them away. They burrow. They like warmth but not flames. So now we just need to be careful of rattlers doing their equivalent of hibernating. They’re too sluggish to move this time of year because they’ve already hunkered down against the cold, so if you disrupt them, they’re more likely to strike.”
He knew everything about the landscape and the wilderness. Again, he filled her with total awe. Kind, smart, built, manly . . . “Is there anything you don’t know and can’t accomplish?”
Axel looked taken aback. “I don’t think I’d do too well if you tried to put me in a ballet.”
Mystery tried to picture him in a tutu and burst out laughing. “Probably not.”
“But I cook a lot, sew when I have to, keep things tidy because I don’t like clutter.”
“The woman in your life is really lucky. My dad can’t boil water. And he won’t pick up after himself. I’m constantly moving his stuff out of my way.”
He shrugged, and she held her breath to see what his answer would be. The whole fishing expedition was a little silly. He probably had no interest in her, but that didn’t stop her from wishing.
“I probably have it easier since I live alone,” he said. “I only have to keep up with myself.”
He sounded single. That made her sizzle. He might not consider nineteen grown up . . . but she was pretty mature by virtue of being an only child and having grown up in Hollywood. Dad tried to shelter her but she’d experienced more than a few adult vices. She wasn’t an innocent kid. Maybe if Axel saw that, he’d see her as woman enough for him.
“Let’s get settled,” he suggested before she could continue their conversation.
That would probably be best. She felt a bit tongue-tied, and the wind was picking up. Alvarez’s jacket blocked some of the cold, but her exposed legs were freezing.
Axel spread out his blanket, then crawled in and bunched his jacket into a makeshift pillow. He set it against the rock behind him and eased his head back. Then he patted the spot beside him on the odd silvery material. “C’mon, princess.”
Sleep curled up with him? She flushed hot. No, it wasn’t exactly a sex invite, but lying beside him, sharing blankets barely big enough for two, entwined together all night . . . it seemed so intimate. She wasn’t a virgin but she’d never actually shared a place to sleep with anyone of the opposite sex. Her heart stuttered.
“Something wrong?”
Mystery wished she could have a minute to herself, but where? The little ledge on which they slept wasn’t big. Two steps in any direction and she’d be falling down the mountain, probably to great injury or death.
“No. I’m good,” she lied, then dropped to her knees beside him. She couldn’t stop herself from looking into his eyes as she slid under the blanket. It was a buffer from the wind, but Axel was far warmer. Being against him was like cozying up to a blast furnace. After hours of feeling her hands stiff and tingly from the chill, she breathed a contented sigh.
He dragged his pack into his lap and unzipped a bulging pouch. It tipped over and into her lap. Holy cow, that sucker was heavy. And he’d been carrying it all day? Slinging it around like it weighed nothing?
“Sorry,” he muttered, then righted it again, delving inside.
“It’s fine. I guess we’re going to be really close up here. Not a lot of space.”
“Roger that.” Moments later, he withdrew two brownish plastic pouches from his backpack and handed one to her, along with another bottle of water. “I want it all gone.”
Mystery held the little package and tried to read the black writing in the dark. She didn’t have a lot of luck. “What is this?”
“MRE. I think you’ve got the meatballs in marinara sauce.”
She tried not to wince. How was that going to work without a microwave? But she knew soldiers survived on these all the time. It fueled them while they defended the country, so she could swallow it down and just thank God she was still alive. “Good. What about you?”
“Scalloped potatoes with ham.” He smiled at her in the darkness. “They all suck. You get used to it.” He bumped his MRE with hers. “Bon appétit.”
“Bon appétit.”
As she pulled her meal open, a little glow warmed her inside. They felt a bit like a couple on a camping trip, having an adventure for the hell of it. With Axel, she could almost forget that someone had gone to a lot of trouble to abduct and keep her hidden from her father and the world. Beside Axel, she felt safe again.
Oh, she had it for him bad.
In silence, they ate. The dehydrated meals tasted like cardboard, and she’d be damn glad to get back to some of her favorite restaurants. She’d certainly never look at a ham sandwich again without thinking about her terrifying days at the shack.
“How did you find me in the middle of nowhere?”
Axel swallowed a bite and washed it down with some water. “The club had a parking lot cam that captured footage of your abduction. We noted the license plate of the van. Whoever pulled the job either didn’t know he was being taped or didn’t care if we caught the plate number. We managed to pick up that same plate number on freeway cams on Highway 14 heading north out of Palmdale, so we knew the general direction he’d headed. The last place we picked him up on camera was on the 395 junction with 190, and he headed east. From there, we worked with the Inyo County Sheriff’s Office. We did a thermal sweep of the area, and they were able to tell us where the heat signatures from towns and settlements should be. We started investigating anything that didn’t belong, which led us to you.”
“Wow, you made quick work of finding me.”
“We got a couple of lucky breaks, and your father moved mountains to make it happen.”
Money talked. It always had, and Dad was never afraid to throw it around if he believed in the cause. “I’m so grateful to everyone involved. I’m particularly sorry for Carr’s and Alvarez’s families. I feel awful that my stupidity caused their deaths.”
He took her hand in his. “You weren’t stupid, and nothing you did caused their casualties. You were being a teenager, Mystery. Which meant you were sneaking away to do typical stuff teenagers do. You didn’t ask to be kidnapped. When Carr, Alvarez, and I took the job, we knew the risks. We plan as much as we can for every eventuality and all do our best not to get dead. Not every mission goes our way. It’s something you accept as a soldier.”
“Carr and Alvarez did something for me I can never even thank them for. I feel terrible for the wives and children they left behind.”
“Carr only had a mutt I’ll probably inherit. His parents passed away last year. He never married or had kids. Alvarez’s wife, Rose, will take it hard. They’ve only been married two years. Their son is six months old.”
Hearing that was like a stab in the heart. She had to talk to her father when she got home, see if he could do anything to help the poor woman who’d just lost her husband and become a single parent.