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  “Would it were so,” he said. “I can’t care for you, Betsy. Not like you deserve.”

  “It’s not like you think.” She petted his chest. “You’re a good man, Jonas, and a kind one. You should live.”

  “God’s will and I’ll get back to England one day,” he said.

  She flung her arm over him and tugged him closer to her, so he could feel her bosom against his chest. “I can save you,” she said.

  “Can you then?” He smiled. It was a lovely dream, much better than the ones he’d been having. “We’d have a house of our own, plenty to eat and plenty to keep us warm. And children, maybe. Boys and girls both. And a cat. I’d like a cat that doesn’t have to hunt mice for its livelihood.” He kissed her forehead and inhaled the lavender scent of her hair.

  “You’re special,” she said.

  “You’re special to me, too.”

  “No, you don’t understand at all.”

  “Sure I do, love.” He kissed her again. “Don’t leave me yet. Please.”

  He was shocked when she pulled away from him and sat up. He reached for her, then stopped in mid-motion.

  “Listen to me, Jonas.”

  Her voice sounded different. Like a commander. “Go on,” he said.

  “I meant it, when I said I could take you away from here.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. She really didn’t understand. “I can’t desert. Looking like I do, they’d catch me in a week. And you know what happens to deserters.”

  “I can take you where they’ll never find you. And you’ll live a long and happy life there.”

  “With you?”

  She looked startled, then smiled, a slow beautiful smile. “Yes, with me.”

  He grinned back at her. If she wanted to play, then he would play along, so long as she stayed a little longer. “Let’s go now,” he said. “Tell me all about it.”

  “You’re a special man,” she said. “It’s because of your father.”

  He wasn’t sure he liked the way this was going, but said, “Then my brother’s special, too. Like in a fairy tale.”

  “Yes, just like that.” She touched his face, her fingers lingering near his mouth. “No one in your father’s family has ever died from a wasting sickness. Not one. They all died from disease, or accident, or murder.”

  “Or in battle,” he said.

  “Yes.” She paused. “You and your brother, you’re both going to die in battle.”

  “Not yet,” he said, soothingly. “I’m not dead yet.”

  She didn’t reply to that. “A long, long time from now, people are still dying from wasting sicknesses. Even more than now. If you could go to them, you could help. Just by being who you are, you could help their doctors and surgeons and save people’s lives.”

  “I always wished I could be a surgeon,” he said. “Since my mum died. And here … I’d rather stitch someone up than cut them open.”

  “If you come with me, you can do that. You can learn to read and write and do sums, and you can learn to be a doctor.”

  He laughed, then stopped because it hurt. “I’d go anywhere to be with you,” he said.

  “I know you would,” she said. “I know it.” She kissed him again. “Would you leave everything behind? This world and all the people in it? Go to live with strangers?”

  “And you,” he added.

  “And me.” She drew back and stared into his eyes. “Say yes, Jonas. Say you give your consent.”

  Something about the seriousness of her gaze made him hesitate. Not for long. He wanted nothing here except her. “I consent,” he said.

  Her breath whooshed out, and she tipped her forehead against his. Then she sat up and reached into her basket.

  Weston hoped she’d brought some bread. He hadn’t had bread in months.

  Instead, she brought out the little jumble of clock parts he remembered from his visit to her tent. She set it on the floor between them and fumbled with it, while Weston stared at it, confused. Did she think, somehow, that she could really take them away from here?

  She produced a metal ring and slipped it on to his finger. He could have sworn it tightened itself. Then she put another ring on her own finger and asked, “Are you ready?”

  He could make no answer but, “Yes.”

  She fumbled with the device again.

  White light took his vision. His gut roiled, and desperately he grabbed for her in the nothingness. Her flesh was warm beneath his hands and he fell into the void gladly.

  When he could see again, he lay on a bare floor, a floor that was warm and gave beneath his shifting weight. The room was warm, and smelled clean, not a trace of wood smoke or staleness. Betsy sat beside him. The ceiling was high, and covered with glorious colour, pictures of people’s faces among bright flowers. He looked around, and there were others, more people standing behind a low barrier. The women were dressed just like the men in trousers and brightly coloured shirts, and only a few of them were white-skinned. They were all smiling.

  Betsy kissed him. She said, “Welcome to the future. Welcome to our future.”

  Desperate Choices

  Anna Windsor

  One

  Nothing could make Leah Mays consider asking a murdering, low-life bastard like Carson Taylor for help.

  Nothing but this.

  “We should call CARD.” She shook on the inside but refused to let herself twitch on the outside. Rain spattered the griddle-hot pavement as black clouds cobwebbed across the spook-grey sky. “Child Abduction Rapid Deployment,” she added, just in case Chief Oldham Simpson didn’t get it.

  Simpson ran his hand over the stubble of his white crew cut. His eyes never left the boy’s bike lying on the road in front of his big feet. It was a cool bike with stickers and painted lightning bolts, ready to leap small dirt mounds in a single bound. The sight of it made Leah want to burst out sobbing, but her sister Alicia, barely restrained by her husband David at the kerb fifteen feet away, was doing enough of that for both of them.

  “I ain’t ready to involve the FBI.” Simpson’s drawl seemed even slower than usual. “What if the boy just got in a scrap with some bullies and ran off to lick his wounds, Major?”

  Leah ground her teeth. She wasn’t a major any more and hadn’t been for six months, but Simpson didn’t really know what to do with a retired female marine. Female marines, in Simpson’s opinion, just weren’t natural. God forbid a Citadel graduate and a former MP with four years of combat experience. He never would have hired her if the town council and her dead father’s good name hadn’t forced the issue. Leah had been raised to believe hate was wrong, but she was damned close to hating this man, and the two deputies hulking beside Simpson’s nearby car weren’t much better than him.

  Mack Bennett had himself propped against the side of Simpson’s cruiser, arms folded, black shades hiding his eyes even in the rain. With his tan face and thick brown hair, never mind his glory days as the Walker Valley high-school quarterback, a lot of women in town thought he was handsome. Bennett knew that. He more than knew it, and he’d been pissed for months that Leah hadn’t fawned over him like all the other local females. Standing at Bennett’s elbow – as usual – was Jeff Dale. Jeff had even more brown hair than Bennett and much better manners, but half the muscle mass and half the intellectual capacity, too. Dale had spent his life as Bennett’s sidekick, and that obviously hadn’t changed when they’d hired on with Walker Valley’s finest.

  Leah made herself breathe slowly and tried to keep her focus. She had gone to war while her classmates had stayed behind and built lives for themselves. She’d served her country with honour until circumstances forced her to walk back into the nightmare of her hometown. Something had always been wrong in Walker Valley, something deeper than Simpson and his two stooges. She’d been nuts to think she could make a difference.

  But I have to make a difference. I’m Kevin’s aunt.

  Her eyes flicked back to the bike, but she made herself look away. A fau
lt line formed in her gut, then fractured with bitter, clenching tremors. She had to work twice as hard to hide her fury and mounting terror.

  I’m Kevin’s aunt and he’s missing and Simpson isn’t going to do anything until it’s too late.

  Was it her fault Simpson was dragging his feet? He’d worked three child abductions in four years, all with bad outcomes – no findings, no body, just poof, kid gone, never to return. Would Simpson really elf bre-walk Kevin’s case just to keep her in her place?

  Behind Leah, Alicia sobbed with the rhythm of a ticking clock. Each gasp, each whimper hit Leah like a blow. How long had Kevin already been gone? Half an hour? Forty-five minutes? It was getting close to evening by now. Every second that slipped away made it less likely that they’d find Kevin alive – or at all. He’d gone missing halfway between Town Grocery and the safety of his own front door. He’d left behind the bike and a bag with two candy bars and a can of soda that had apparently exploded on impact. The dark liquid had seeped under the fallen bike, looking way too much like a bloodstain.

  No one had seen a damned thing.

  Keep it together. Don’t lose it. Can’t lose it now.

  “I think the bully scenario is unlikely.” Leah gestured to her distraught sister and brother-in-law and the murmuring crowd. “Every kid in town except Kevin is standing right over there on the kerb. If you’re convinced he fought with a bully, talk to them. If you don’t want to do it, send Bennett or Jeff, or let me start asking questions.”

  Simpson’s thick white eyebrows pinched together over his sunburned nose. The lines around his mouth puckered until he looked like a squinting, bad-tempered owl. “It’s not even been an hour, Officer Mays. You might not remember much from round here since you’ve been away so long, but we take our time and make careful decisions before frightening our kids, upsetting our town’s parents, or stirring up a hornet’s nest like the FBI. I know the boy’s your nephew. Maybe that’s clouding your judgment. Maybe you ought to step back.”

  Me and the boys’ll take care of this.

  He didn’t have to say that last sentence. Leah saw his meaning etched across his angry face. He hitched up his brown pants and adjusted his suspenders as his gaze swept over Alicia and David. Leah imagined his thoughts all over again. Another kidnapped brat, and this one’s gonna be more trouble than all the rest put together.

  Because this one wasn’t a brat. This one wasn’t a reject troublemaker. Kevin had a family who loved him – a family who would never stop looking, never stop asking questions and never let up on the pressure.

  Simpson ought to be panicked. Kidnapping wasn’t standard fare for small Southern towns, especially not Walker Valley, population 2,000 plus or minus a few donkeys, goats, sheep, horses and a shitload of chickens. Simpson’s list of troubles should include petty theft, vandalism, public intoxication, fighting and the occasional traffic accident. Instead, Walker Valley saw more than its share of murders, assaults and rapes. They’d had home invasions and ATM thefts, smash-and-grabs at the two local gas stations, and five major drug busts in the year before Leah came home. Then there were the kidnappings. Little boys, eight to fourteen years old.

  Yeah.

  Something was definitely wrong in Walker Valley.

  Simpson might not be the cause of it, but he damned sure wasn’t the solution, either. He must have seen the disgust on her face because he jerked his thumb in the general direction of the police station. “Go on, now, honey. We’ll handle this.”

  Leah said nothing. She had no words left. Heat rising to her face, she turned away from the bike and away from Simpson and his two stooges. Sweating in the warm Southern rain, she headed straight to her sister.

  Alicia’s short blonde hair made her seem that much thinner and more frail as she turned David loose and launched herself into Leah’s arms. “What’s Simpson doing? What’s happening? What do you know?”

  “Nothing,” Leah whispered, making sure nobody but Alicia could hear her. Damn it, she could feel her sister’s ribs through thsoft cotton of her yellow shirt. “Nothing, and nothing.”

  Alicia pulled back, blue eyes wide and horrified. “Is he calling the FBI? Please tell me he’s calling the FBI.”

  Leah shook her head so that everyone could see, but she whispered, “I’ll get help. Better than the FBI. We’ll get Kevin back. I swear it.”

  “Better help than …” Alicia froze in her grip, and Leah knew her sister was processing her meaning. Alicia’s breath caught, then she dug her fingers into Leah’s shoulders. “Oh. Oh my God. Are you sure?”

  She sounded worried but suddenly hopeful.

  Leah knew she didn’t have to answer. She gave her sister a quick kiss on the cheek, walked stiff-legged to her patrol car, and pulled slowly away from the crime scene. She didn’t grace Simpson with a glance as she made like she was headed for the station. She went north instead, turning off on the winding mountain highway she had avoided since she came back to Walker Valley. It would be a while before Simpson understood she hadn’t followed his directive to go to the station. It would be a little longer before he knew she was actively interfering in his non-investigation.

  She figured she had at least an hour to get herself up Grace Mountain and knock on the one door she ought to leave closed.

  Leah could only pray the devil himself would answer.

  Two

  From the minute Carson Taylor heard Leah Mays was back in town, he’d been steeling himself for their first meeting.

  He figured he had himself under good control. He thought he was ready.

  He was wrong.

  His body came to full alert, and he heard his own pulse thumping in his ears. From the honey-coloured wisps escaping the tight weave of her braid to the summer-sky blue of her eyes, her beauty rattled his senses. Ten years. It had been ten years since the last time he saw her face to face, and she still smelled like honeysuckle in full bloom. He felt her nearness like a sudden storm, electrifying and dangerous and absolutely absorbing. Even standing in the rain wearing that idiotic Walker Valley cop costume, Leah Mays was the most incredible woman Carson had ever seen.

  She was just a girl when I knew her, and I was nothing but a stupid kid. What he did to her, to himself – he didn’t have any words for it. What it must have cost her to drive up Grace Mountain and knock on his door, he couldn’t imagine. Thinking about the pain he caused her should have done something to ratchet down his arousal, but it didn’t.

  “Leah.” Yeah, good job. He could still speak even though his tongue felt like dry concrete. “I heard you were back in Walker Valley but I didn’t want to believe you’d do that to yourself.”

  Her blue eyes flickered from his black overshirt to his cotton T-shirt to the bulge of the Glock he kept snug against his ribs. He saw anger. Maybe fear. None of it stopped him from feeling her gaze like fingernails trailing across his skin.

  Still staring at him, she opened her sensual mouth and said, “My nephew Kevin’s missing.”

  Carson’s own eyes went wide. Alicia’s boy? A second set of senses fired into action, finally overriding his more primal instincts, and he stepped out of the doorway to let her inside. “Define ‘missing’.”

  “Abducted approximately fifty-three minutes ago,” she said as she slipped past him into the deliberately filthy living room with its whiskey bottles and hunting rifles in various stages of breakdown for cleaning. “Between Town Grocery and home.”

  Town Grocery and the old Mays place. The distance came to about two miles. Carson knew most Walker Valley arents kept their puppies on long leashes, but Alicia had always struck him as more careful than most. “Your sister OK with the kid running around town alone?”

  “Christ, Carson.” Flash fire blazed in the blue depths of Leah’s eyes, jolting Carson’s heart yet again despite the circumstances. She sounded pissed, but she gave herself away by wringing her hands just like she used to when they were seventeen and something scared her. “It’s Walker Valley, not New York City
– and Alicia’s been sick. Breast cancer. David has to work double shifts to cover the expenses. Kevin’s gotten pretty independent.”

  Carson added up Alicia’s breast cancer with Leah’s return to the hell they had both meant to escape, and things made a little more sense. He wanted to reach out, to touch Leah, hold her and comfort her – but he knew way better than to try a thick-headed stunt like that. “What’s Simpson doing about the kidnapping?”

  “Jacking off and pretending he’s got a clue.”

  Her frown captured him just as much as her smile. Leah had known him once when they were so young it made him ache to remember those years. She had really known him, the truth of him, or at least he thought she did. But then he’d hurt her; he’d blown up his whole life and hers, too. Even after years in the military, years away from the dark spell of Walker Valley, Leah hadn’t gotten over that betrayal, he could tell. And he didn’t blame her.

  Carson knew what Leah saw in him now, and it hurt like hell even though it was just what he wanted her to see. The same façade everyone in Walker Valley bought into, day after day after day. He was the heir to Walker Valley’s lowest-class family of criminals, and the worst of the bunch in years. A man with a record. A man who had killed his own father. Everybody in Walker Valley had their opinion about Carson Taylor. Numbers runner, drug lord, killer for hire – the rumours – and the truths – never ended.

  It took a mighty effort, but Carson mastered himself before he reached out to grab hold of this vision from his past, this reminder of what life might have been. She hadn’t driven all the way up Grace Mountain because she wanted him, or anything to do with him. She came because she needed him. Her nephew was missing, the locals were idiots, and Leah probably knew she had one shot to get the boy back, even if it cost her a career in law enforcement and her whole non-future in Walker Valley. The best and fastest way to catch a monster was to do exactly what she was doing – set loose a bigger monster.