Chapter Seventeen
Ben had slept some after supper, sprawled on the couch with the dog on the rug beside him, but after he woke up from the nap
he was restless and couldn’t settle down. His shoulder was just sore enough to be annoying, but what made him more uncomfortable
was thinking about Sela’s gentle hands on his bare skin. It had been a long time since he’d been focused on a woman, period,
and never to the extent Sela grabbed his attention. He could have had her this afternoon, and his dick was telling him that
he’d lost his fucking mind because he’d refused. He was beginning to agree with his dick.
Except—he didn’t want her under him as payment for anything. He kept coming back to that. He wanted her there for no reason
other than the two of them wanted it. His instant decision had been the right one; knowing that didn’t stop him from regretting
it.
He lit a lamp, kicked back, and read for a while, but he was wide-awake, uneasy, and didn’t see the point in going to bed.
After a while the dog raised his head and whined, so Ben took him out to let him mark his territory again. Then the dog went
back to sleep; Ben didn’t. He made some coffee—to hell with sleeping, it wasn’t happening anyway so he might as well have
some—and walked out on the porch to stare down at the dark valley. The moon was bright, the air cold but not freezing. His
breath fogged in front of him.
There was enough light he could make out portions of the silver ribbons of roads into and out of the valley, including the
bypass from Knoxville. He began thinking about strategy, how people would try to move in and how best to energetically discourage
them from it. Not everyone would be automatically turned away; those who could contribute would be welcome. They didn’t need
a constantly moving patrol as much as they needed strategic sentry posts, clearly understood signals, and organization. They
would be more efficient with a clear progression of authority rather than different people making decisions on the fly—in
effect, more military in structure.
He didn’t want to be actively involved; he’d get them set up the way he’d promised Sela, then let them handle it.
Sure.
He growled a bit under his breath as he gave up that fiction; come morning, he’d be stepping into quicksand and he’d likely
never pull himself out. The idea of helping the community with their self-defense was tantalizing. As disgusted and emotionally
exhausted as he’d become with political decisions that had cost the lives of his friends, his men, at his core he was military
and part of him felt as if he was going home. This wasn’t just in his wheelhouse, it was his wheelhouse. Even when he’d devoted himself to being as solitary as possible, he’d used military applications for self-defense.
Not only that, he had to accept that Sela wasn’t solitary. She came with people she cared about, not just her relatives but her neighbors, her community. He couldn’t isolate
her up here with him, despite his instincts to do just that. For as long as this reluctant fascination with her held, she
would link him to those people. Exactly how long that would be, who knew—
The sharp, light crack of rifle fire echoed across the valley.
Years of training kicked in and he was moving before he had consciously identified the sound as that of a .22 rifle. The mountains
could mess with sound and a lot of people around here had .22s, but his instinct told him it was coming from in front and
to the right, which would roughly be where Sela’s store was.
Alarmed, the dog stood up and barked when Ben erupted into the house. He grabbed his hunting rifle from the rack, a box of
cartridges, the Mossberg in its scabbard, and his truck keys. He was out the door again seven seconds after he entered, leaped
off the porch, and was in the truck at ten seconds, accelerating down the rough driveway in twelve seconds.
In the three seconds between porch and truck he heard more gunfire, the distinctive sound of more .22 shots, and the deeper
bellow of higher caliber rifles.
“Fuck!” he ground out.
This was his fault. He should have been thinking strategically, from the second he agreed to get involved, instead of letting
himself stay secure behind his emotional walls for one more night, as if that meant anything. He’d told Sela himself that
the gasoline was beyond valuable, and he knew she’d spread the word for people to come first thing in the morning to begin
getting it. Logic dictated, then, that if anyone wanted to get all the gas for themselves, they had to do it tonight before
all the valley inhabitants showed up in the morning for a share.
He’d bet his ass that the .22 fire was coming from Sela’s rifle, which meant she’d been way ahead of him in planning, and
was guarding the gasoline supply.
Dear God, let her not be by herself.
The small caravan slowly rolled forward. If she could see them, then obviously whoever was in the vehicles could see her SUV
parked there. They might or might not be able to also tell that the store door was open. Sela held her breath as a dark-colored
pickup truck slowly crunched its way over the gravel at the edge of the parking lot, facing toward the store. She couldn’t
tell how many people were in the truck, but she thought she saw someone in the bed. The truck stopped, and a dark figure hopped
out of the truck bed. All the vehicles came to a stop; the drivers exited and reached into truck beds and back seats for gas
cans. They were all men, going by their build, but with their winter coats and ball caps, or hoods pulled up, she couldn’t
recognize anyone.
She might have missed someone but she counted six men—at least. There could be more.
She heard muffled voices. They seemed to be looking at her SUV. Beside her, Olivia was sucking in quick, shallow breaths.
Sela reached out and gave her a comforting touch on her arm. With luck, the group would decide that since she had blocked
access to the tanks, they might as well leave . . . unless they thought they could move her Honda.
Three of the men started toward the SUV.
Dear God, was she doing the right thing? She didn’t know. But decision was better than indecision, and Sela made her decision. She raised the rifle, aimed high so
she wouldn’t accidentally shoot someone, and fired over their heads.
Everyone dove for the ground, a confusion of movement in the night, people going in different directions, rolling, searching
for cover.
Her wild hope was that the single shot would be enough to scare them off, that they’d leave when they realized there was an
armed guard at the store. Right now the dark was her friend. They’d have no idea how many people were in here, only that their
surprise raid hadn’t worked.
Then another shot boomed out, and the window shattered beside her.
Panic filled her like a huge inkblot, spreading through her entire body. Olivia squeaked; Sela turned and dropped down, expecting
to see Olivia lying bleeding at her feet. Instead the girl crouched by the door, staring up at her, her face a white blob
in the darkness. “Back!” she yelled, ordering Olivia to retreat to the rear of the store. More shots. More glass shattered
and rained on and around them. Sela felt several stings on her face, her hands. Instead of obeying Olivia moved forward, not
back, raising her rifle and taking aim. She fired, then fired again.
Shit! Shit! They were so vulnerable here, with nothing to hide behind that would stop a bullet, and Olivia shooting back instead of taking
cover. They had to get out, they had to get out now. “The back door!” Sela said insistently. They wouldn’t be able to get
the Honda, but they could escape down the path. She grabbed Olivia by the collar of her coat and hauled the girl backward.
This time, thank goodness, Olivia cooperated by scooting back, crawling with the rifle in her hand. Sela did the same; as
she did so she saw two dark figures darting past, skirting along the sides of the store. It was already too late to run, they’d
be caught as soon as they went out the back door—but at least that door was locked with a heavy-duty dead bolt, and they only
had to worry about people coming through the front.
“Too late,” she panted, and fired through the door to hold off any who thought they might rush through it.
More shots. The plate-glass windows were completely gone, the glass door nothing more than an empty steel frame.
Her only advantage was that in the colorless moonlight she could at least see them outside, whereas she and Olivia were swallowed
up by the darkness of the store’s interior. Terror almost swamped her, but for Olivia, not herself. She would shoot as long
as she was able to keep Olivia safe. How could she ever have let Olivia stay? She should have insisted on taking the girl
home. If anything happened to her, Carol would be devastated.
“Get behind the counter!” It wouldn’t provide much shelter at all, being made of wood instead of heavy metal, but it was better
than nothing. She kept herself between Olivia and the front of the store as they crawled across the glass-studded floor.
Someone would hear, someone had to hear. Even though it was the middle of the night, the sound of gunfire would wake people up, people who were on edge after
what had happened at the Livingstons’ house the night before. Someone would come. Let it be soon! she thought frantically.
She saw the moon glint on a rifle barrel resting on the side of a pickup truck bed, near the left edge of the parking lot.
Quickly she aimed and pulled the trigger, then ducked as answering fire splintered the counter to her left. Olivia popped
up like a jack-in-the-box and shot, then dropped back down. “I think I got him,” she said, her voice so high it sounded as
if she was on the verge of shrieking.
“Good girl!” Later she would think about what it meant that she had praised Olivia for possibly shooting someone. Later she
would likely fall apart herself. For now she was too busy trying to stay alive to do more than have the fleeting thought.
“Get in the cooler!”