Eden's Promise, page 7
He oriented himself, trying to remember the layout from last night, where she might be. Maybe she’d gone back to Jodie, to get the other books, though surely she hadn’t gone through them all already.
He was about to knock on the door to Jodie’s office when he smelled cooking food. His stomach grumbled and he turned toward a long barracks he’d noticed but dismissed last night. The mess hall. Was she in there, with strangers? Thinking it would be best to at least get an idea of the operation, he opened the door and stepped into the dimly lit hall. He scanned the room, seeing a serving line at the front, just like when he’d been in the service, a queue of people waiting their turn, and several dozen people already seated at picnic tables lined neatly in the room. He couldn’t discern what the meal was, but it smelled good.
But no Eden.
He turned and stepped outside, about to return to Jodie’s office, when he saw her, under an open-sided tent, sitting at a table, head bent over a stack of ledgers. She didn’t look up when he approached, and he’d taught her better than that.
“Have you been at this all night?” he demanded, and she jumped guiltily, blinking up at him with red, swollen eyes.
“I slept a little,” she said. “I have to know, Aaron.”
“And if not, you’re going to be too tired to go on to the next camp.” He sat across from her and grabbed a book from the stack.
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” she muttered.
He grabbed her wrist and she snapped her gaze to his, eyes wide.
“What?” she asked.
“Don’t say that. Jesus, Eden. With as many people who have died the past few months? Don’t say that.”
She swallowed, then nodded, drawing her arm free from his grasp. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I overreacted.”
She shook her head, and turned her attention back to the book.
“Have you gone through this one yet?” he asked as he opened the one he’d taken.
She shook her head again.
“How many have you gone through?”
“Five, myself. Jodie helped for a bit and did almost two before she got called away. Joel said he’d help when he woke up, which should be soon. I can’t do them very fast, and it’s easier to see out here. I don’t even remember what her handwriting looks like.”
“She may have been with someone, too, and the other person might have signed both their names,” he pointed out.
“True. I talked to the medical staff here earlier, but they don’t remember names, and some of them are new to the camp.”
Which reminded Aaron, this was an opportune time to find out what was going on in the country at large, with the government, the rebuilding efforts. He’d talk to Jodie after he helped Eden go through a book or two.
“You should go in there and get something to eat,” she said, not looking up. “It’s actually pretty good. Not like your mom’s, but better than olives and coconut milk.”
“Did you eat?”
“Breakfast and lunch.”
“So you didn’t sleep.”
“A few hours, like I said. Go get something. I’ll be right here.”
He wanted to protest, but his stomach wouldn’t allow it. He returned a few minutes later with what looked like chicken a la king.
“They have a farm on site,” he told her. “Chickens and vegetables. I wonder if we could get a rooster for your mother.”
“And tell Jodie what? That we lied about where we came from?”
“Good point,” he muttered, opening the book again.
“Plus, we can’t exactly cart a chicken around while we look for Kelly.” She cast him a look that told him she knew he didn’t believe they’d find her.
But he’d come anyway.
He dug into the meal, which was pretty good, not unlike meals in basic training. Before he knew it, it was gone. He’d mopped up the gravy with the best roll he’d had in years, since before he’d joined the Navy. He took a long drink of water and looked up to see Eden watching him with an amused smile.
“Hungry?”
“Olives didn’t really do it for me.” And he knew how to take advantage of supplies when he had them. He pushed the tray away and reached for the book again.
Jodie joined them a short time later, greeting Aaron with a hand on his shoulder that he might have interpreted differently if she didn’t know he and Eden were “married.”
“Find anything?” she asked, sitting beside Aaron.
Eden shook her head but kept scanning.
“So tell us what’s going on in the world,” Aaron said. “You must have some form of communication to get your orders, to get your supplies. Are things leveling out, getting back to normal?”
Jodie sighed. “I don’t think things ever will be normal. The only place we have any control is in these camps. Outside, as I’m sure you know, anything goes.”
“We know,” Aaron said. “What about the government? The army? National Guard?”
“The military is stretched thin. A lot of men were stranded overseas when this all happened, and many were attacked and killed by the same people who did this to us.”
Aaron swallowed against the bile that rose as he remembered being in more than one of those attacks.
“What was it?” Eden asked. “We heard rumors but never heard for sure.”
“A coordinated terrorist attack. Really well planned, really incredibly timed. They hit major power plants, water filtration plants, the financial districts, the military bases, oil and gas refineries. No one could have imagined what they were capable of—they had people who had infiltrated all these places—it had been planned for years. And then it just took us out.”
Aaron dragged his gaze away from Jodie, who he’d watched with horror, and looked at Eden. She’d frozen, except for her shaking hands. Christ, he should have thought before he asked in front of her. He had more questions, but instead, he pushed to his feet, rounded the table and pulled her into his arms. She stood stiffly for a moment, then wrapped her arms around him, tight, so tight, pressing her face into his shoulder. He smoothed his hand over her hair, trying to absorb her trembling.
He needed to get her alone, let her break down while he held her. He looked at Jodie over Eden’s head. The other woman nodded, gathered the books as Aaron started to guide Eden back to their tent.
“No, the books,” Eden choked out, trying to pull free.
“We’ll look,” Jodie said, hefting the books into her arms.
He expected more of an argument, but exhaustion—and the fact that she wouldn’t be able to see through the tears he felt against his neck—won out and he led her to their tent, sat her on the edge of the cot.
“How?” she managed in a strangled voice as he knelt before her and unlaced her boots. “How could they do that? How could they hate us so much?”
He held her feet in his hands, pressed them against his thigh. Her feet were so cold, her hands. He stood and wrapped his blanket around her shoulders, then rolled her beneath her blanket, but she was still shivering and grasped for his hands.
“Don’t leave me.”
He edged closer to the cot, still on his knees, and stroked her hair back from her face. “I won’t. I’ll keep you safe.”
She barked out a harsh laugh. “Safe? How can anyone be safe again? We’ll never be back to normal, will we, not with all of that gone? I know you said, but I always hoped, you know, that in another year or two down the road, things would come back—television, transportation, Jesus, Oreos, you know? But you were right, my dad was right, my sister is probably dead, and what’s the point?”
“The point is that we’re alive, and we need to stay alive.”
“For what?” she asked, looking into his eyes, her fingers like ice in his. “For what?”
The hopelessness in her face hit him in the gut. He stroked her hair back from her face as he struggled to find the right words. Instead, he bent and brushed his lips against hers.
With a soft cry, she curved her hand around the back of his head and lifted her mouth to his, parting her lips. She curled her fingers in his hair as he scooped his arm around her waist to drag her to the edge of the cot, deepening the kiss, slanting his mouth over hers. He could taste the desperation in her kiss, could feel it in the tension of her body, and broke away.
“Not like this,” he whispered, sinking back on his heels, his hand still on her waist, her fingers in his hair. “Not like this, Eden.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Jodie’s voice said from the entrance of the tent. “But I thought you’d want to know right away. We found your sister’s name in the books.”
“Kelly’s name?” Eden shoved off the cot and stepped over him in one fluid move. She snatched the book from Jodie’s arms and stared where the other woman pointed.
“Does it say who she was with? When she was here?”
“November, right after it happened, and she stayed until March. She was with a man, it looks like, because the name below it, Jake, is written in the same handwriting.”
“Does it say where they went when they left here?” Aaron asked, pushing to his feet to look at the book upside down.
She traced her finger along the line on the page, then looked up at him. “California.”
Chapter Seven
California. It might as well be Mars. No way would they get to California from here in the next three days. Even if she could convince Aaron to give her more time—would they be able to get back to the island while her mother was still...?
She couldn’t think the word.
Aaron took the book from her, turned it around. She kept her attention on his face, trying to read his expression.
“How can we get to California?” he asked, closing the book and passing it back to Jodie. “You have supply convoys, right? Do they go from here to California?”
“Usually the other way.”
He scrubbed a hand down his face. “No chance of us getting a ride down?”
“Let me check my schedule.”
Eden wasn’t going to wait for the woman to come back with the news, or perhaps get distracted on the way, waylaid by someone else’s problem. She fell into step with Jodie and followed her to the office. The woman went straight to a shelf with a row of file folders, neat as a pin, and laid one out on her desk.
Even in the apocalypse, there was paperwork. The thought almost made her giggle as the woman scanned the page, dragging her finger along it. Jodie looked up, almost startling her.
“We have a truck leaving here in two days. I can get you on it, but you’ll have to ride in the cargo section. It can get pretty cold.”
Eden opened her mouth to agree, but she wasn’t in this alone. She turned just as Aaron walked in. He had his deadline, but perhaps, now that they knew Kelly was alive, where she was, he’d extend it.
“Aaron. Two days.”
“I heard.” He met her gaze. “She might not still be there. Maybe we could get your radio operator to give a shout out?” he asked Jodie.
“Good idea.” Jodie closed the folder and rounded the desk. “We don’t have someone on the radio all the time anymore to conserve fuel, just between five and ten, in case there’s news from back east. We can put out a call then—the operators in California should be on at the same time.”
Aaron turned to Eden. “Will you sleep now?”
“Will we go? If we find out she’s there? Will we go?”
“We’ll find a way,” he said quietly. “Go get some sleep.”
She crossed the room and looked into his eyes a long moment. His gaze didn’t waver—did anything about him waver? She wanted to take his hand, pull him back to the tent, lay down with him until she slept. Instead, she slipped past him and returned to the quiet tent. Relief burst from her in tears that shook her until she fell into an exhausted sleep.
***
Eden wandered toward the mess hall after dark, after waking to an empty tent. Funny how she didn’t think much about what time it was when she was home—their days were regulated by daylight, and once the sun went down, most people were in their homes. But now she found herself wondering what time it was, how long she’d been asleep.
Apparently the mess hall was the social center of the camp. She heard music when she slipped into the building, and rounded the corner to see a young woman playing an acoustic guitar up near the food line, which was closed. Too bad, because of course now her stomach rumbled.
She scanned the crowd and found Aaron sitting near the far wall beside Jodie. He was watching the performer, but when Eden walked in, he turned to look at her, gifting her with a smile she hadn’t seen since he was a teenager. He half-rose and beckoned her over. The warmth spreading through her was more than the familiarity of seeing him. She wasn’t sure she was ready to put a name to it, not yet. She approached, to see Jodie shifting away in her folding chair, an odd expression on her face.
Eden sat across from Aaron. He pushed a plate toward her with a sandwich and a small square—
“Is that a brownie?”
Her exclamation carried through the hall as the music died, and she ducked her head in embarrassment. Aaron leaned forward, his grin wide, so handsome. The warmth spread.
“You don’t know how I had to fight to save that for you. Want to see the battle scars?”
For a moment she feared he would show her some damage bestowed on him by Jodie, who seemed a little miffed that Eden had showed up. But then she remembered that Jodie thought she and Aaron were married.
“Thank you,” she said, giving him a small smile. She used all her willpower not to dig into the brownie first. Instead she bit into the sandwich, with fresh bread, fresh tomatoes and lettuce and—”Cheese?” She looked up at Aaron. She hadn’t had cheese in almost as long as she hadn’t had chocolate.
This time Jodie chuckled. “One thing the government has is cheese.”
It was delicious, creamy, sharp, and combined with the homemade bread, one of the best meals she’d ever had. She washed it down with tea and eyed the brownie for a long moment before she tasted a crumb. It wasn’t quite right, not as good as the cheese, but she savored each bite, then turned to watch the young woman singing at the front of the room. She recognized some of the songs, though they were arranged differently. She wondered if the young woman took requests.
Some of the people sang along, and Eden opened her mouth to join in, only to shut it again when she saw Aaron watching her.
“That’s one thing I’ve missed most,” she murmured. “Music.”
“More than chocolate?” His mouth quirked.
“I would listen to music all the time before. My dad didn’t want me to get an MP3 player, because when everything went to hell, what good would it be? He was right, but I listened to that thing every day until the power died. Even then, when we had the generator going, I’d sneak a charge.”
He leaned a little closer. “What kind of music did you like?”
She waved a hand. “All kinds. Alternative, classic rock, some country. You?”
“I had my favorites.”
The young woman finished a song and Aaron rose, surprising her at the abrupt move. He made his way through the room toward the young woman, bent and whispered something to her. The young woman smiled, lifted the guitar over her head and handed it to him.
Eden’s heart kicked when he looped the guitar strap over his own head and sat on the stool. He flashed an uneasy smile in Eden’s direction, did a few test strums before he began a melodic tune. She didn’t recognize it until his low, surprisingly smooth baritone began to sing the old John Lennon song. Her chest swelled with pride and desire as his fingers moved over the strings, as his voice dipped and soared. God, she’d admired him forever and hadn’t known he had this talent.
After the song, he rolled into another, more upbeat song, and then a love song—one Eden had listened to over and over on her iPod, one she’d loved, but never as much as she loved it now. He met her gaze across the room and lust shot straight to her belly as he sang of need and loss. The words, carried across the room on his sexy voice, wrapped around her until she was aware of nothing but him and her.
Jodie stood then and drew attention by clapping her hands.
“I hate to call an end to this, but it’s time for lights out. We need to conserve our fuel.”
Aaron handed the guitar back to the young woman and headed down the aisle between the tables, stopped more than once by listeners who complimented his playing, his song choice. He smiled and nodded, but when he reached Eden, the expression on his face was unreadable. He linked his fingers through hers and guided her from the hall, slowing only a few seconds when someone commented on his performance. He adjusted his hand on hers, strengthening his grip as he led her down the steps and across the yard, through the other people leaving, toward their tent.
Her heart thundered as he opened the flap, pulled her inside, then turned her to him. Without a word, he scooped her hair back from her face and covered her mouth with his. Her knees sagged and she gripped his hard shoulders, holding herself against his chest.
There was nothing gentle in his kiss, his lips firm, his tongue stroking her lips apart, sliding between them, claiming. Claiming her. Her skin tingled—she’d dreamed of this since she was a girl, when she was learning her own body and what pleasure was, and wanted him to be the one to teach her. His breath came hot and strong, the only sound in the tent, his fingers curling in the fine hair at the back of her neck, almost painful, his other hand pressing against the small of her back, holding her against him so she could feel his arousal.
All her common sense scattered in the flood of want, and she angled her head to take his tongue deeper, to press her breasts against his chest. His fingers at her back crept beneath the hem of her shirt, warm and rough on her skin, and the caress sent skitters of desire downward. She glided her hands from his shoulders to slide beneath his own T-shirt, over hard abs, smooth skin covered with the softest hair, up over his belly, feeling nothing now but his mouth on hers, his flesh beneath her palms.
