Chapter 2 #2
“Could have been better. Because I’m here, obviously.” She folded her hands in her lap, working hard to keep from clenching them and giving away how nervous she was. If she could just explain, Cannon might understand.
“So what did you learn about adventures?”
She sucked in a big pull of the very air that in itself confused her. For being underground or in a concrete bunker, the air didn’t smell stale or musty.
“Cannon, sir, I just spent the last eleven years raising my three siblings. Among the things I taught them was that family comes first. You stay in touch and never make them worry about you. And here I am. The first time I go away from them, I didn’t stay in contact.”
When he didn’t respond to a single word she said, she floundered on. “They gave me an adventure fund.”
His manly brow shot up. “An adventure fund?” He shifted positions. That was a good sign. It showed he was listening.
She nodded. “And a camera. Speaking of my camera, when am I going to get that back?”
“When you get to leave.”
She gave a little toss of her head as impatience took hold. She quickly checked her rising frustration before he caught it.
“And when will that be?” she pressed.
“When we say so.”
The answer felt like a slammed door. She straightened her spine, searching his face. Was he joking or trying to be the big man on a base that already seemed secretive enough?
His flat look told her that whatever this place was, they made the rules, and she wasn’t leaving until they decided she could.
“I can’t stay here. I have a life. A job to go back to. And I don’t exactly feel comfortable here.”
He leaned back farther, eyeing her. “I’m sorry about that, Jolie. We don’t get many visitors. In fact, you’re the first outsider to enter these walls.
“You mean besides the aliens.”
He smirked. “We’re not that kind of military base.”
She eased the tiniest bit at his response to her joke.
“The storm is predicted to last up to two weeks.”
“Two weeks? I’m supposed to sit here for two weeks? What am I supposed to do for that long?”
“The place’ll grow on you.”
She stared at him for a beat. “Fungus grows. I don’t want that either.”
For the first time since she’d walked in, he looked entertained. He didn’t give her anything resembling a smile, but she saw the change in his demeanor.
She rubbed her palms over her thighs, trying to hold it together. Two weeks. Her siblings were going to lose their minds. Her boss was going to think she’d vanished. Or worse, that she quiet quit, and she’d worked so hard to land her management position in the restaurant.
Now she was probably going to be fired or demoted to waitress again, scrabbling for tips and avoiding the dirty old men who tried to cop a feel. And all because her stupid need to capture a perfect photo opportunity landed her in the middle of a blizzard—and stuck in a place she didn’t understand.
Cannon set his elbows on his desk and loosely steepled his fingers. “Since you’ll be with us for a while, I encourage you to find something to do for fun. What would you do if you were at home?”
“I’d be working at the restaurant. I manage a restaurant. I started there as waitstaff, kept taking on more and more responsibilities, and now I’m one disappearance away from probably losing the first job I ever fought that hard to get.”
Saying it out loud made her stomach twist. She had worked too long and too hard to move up the ranks and get out of the cycle of just scraping by.
Her siblings’ successes proved she’d done right by them, but her management job showed that she’d worked toward her own future.
While that might seem silly to some people, it was a huge deal for her to strive for anything for herself.
He nodded once. “We have food here. Would you like to plan menus?”
She stared at him in awe and almost laughed. “Actually, I never have to do that. We have one menu.”
His mouth twisted at one corner. Not a smile. But the closest she’d come to coaxing one from the hardened man.
She tried to think of what qualified as fun when her childhood had been ripped away too soon and she’d spent her adult life dealing with work, home, bills and siblings. The answer came easier than she expected.
“I like taking pictures.”
“And that’s why we took your camera.”
Her shoulders slumped and a lump of frustration clogged her throat.
He tapped the desk with a fingertip. “I have an idea that might interest you. Come with me.” He stood, and she followed him out of the office.
The walls of the corridor were concrete as well.
Not stacked blocks but smooth and light gray.
Somewhere in the bunker, there had to be a window.
She hadn’t seen it yet, but daylight found its way in, possibly through skylights, reflecting faintly along one wall like a reminder that the outside still existed.
Cannon had a swagger to his walk, not unlike the man who rescued her. That thought brought to mind that she hadn’t seen Archer since he brought her breakfast.
Carved into the hallway were several closed doors. Cannon stopped at one and pushed it inward to reveal a space filled with books. Shelves lined one wall, books crammed into every available space, both hardcovers and paperbacks, the spines bent from use. Some stacked on a side table.
“This is my room.”
She turned her head and saw a simple double bed tucked against a wall, an afterthought in a space whose real purpose was to house his book collection.
“You’re welcome to read any you’d like.”
Reading wasn’t something she did for fun—she didn’t have time. Curling up with a good book was certainly preferable to planning menus for a strange military team.
She drifted to one of the shelves and began scanning the titles. There were a lot of history books and military memoirs. Some technical manuals and biographies. Three books with maps on the spine. Not a single thing she wanted to curl up with and wait out two weeks of forced captivity.
When she turned to Cannon emptyhanded, he walked over to a wall and pressed a button for an intercom. There was a click and a burst of static before a male voice answered from somewhere on base.
“I need Archer and Rome in my room now.”
“Copy.”
She folded her arms and waited to see what was about to go down. She looked up to see Archer’s big body filling the doorway…and his presence seemed to fill the entire base.
Their gazes locked for three whole beats. Then he dipped his gaze over her body, probably taking in the outfit she’d settled on from the selection he’d given her.
The thick red sweater was too big but cozy enough to be called oversized. And when she’d spotted a pair of what looked to be genuine bellbottom jeans from the seventies, complete with a few denim patches, she’d almost squealed.
The bottoms fit a little tighter than she preferred, hugging her hips and butt, but they were too good not to try on.
Cannon issued a rough noise as he cleared his throat, and Archer’s gaze snapped back to hers.
Another man, presumably Rome, appeared behind him. They stepped into the room, their broad shoulders and cocky attitudes making the space feel overcrowded.
Cannon addressed them. “I have a mission for you. Find girl books.”
Silence.
Both men looked at her like she had sprouted a second head and it had strong opinions. Or morning breath.
Archer shifted his attention to Cannon. “Girl books. What does that mean? Commanding officer,” he added almost as an afterthought.
“Jolie needs something to do. She doesn’t like any of my books. Find her some she likes.”
Jolie closed her eyes for a second, equal parts embarrassed and amused. When she set out for an adventure of a lifetime, she never pictured herself standing here while two men tried to decode female reading preferences like it was enemy intel.
“What kind of books do you like?” Archer asked.
She couldn’t tell them that she wasn’t really a reader. She only had a GED and she’d been too busy slinging Italian food and wine and attending parent-teacher meetings to educate herself through reading.
Back before her parents died, she did sometimes get hold of an old paperback novel and drift into another world. But she wasn’t about to tell these big, burly dudes what kind of books those were and face their teasing.
She turned her face aside so they didn’t catch her expression. “Whatever you can find will do.”
Archer nodded stiffly. “We’ll be back soon.”
Cannon gave her a nod of dismissal. “You can find your way back to the main part of the base?”
“Yes. Thank you.” She set off, following the sound of Archer and Rome’s footsteps that quickly faded and left her alone. As she wandered out of the corridor, she looked left and right, getting her bearings.
She located her room again and plunked down on the edge of the bed. Questions whipped through her mind like the wind back on that tower.
Where exactly was this base? The ride from the tower had felt short, but the hood had stolen her sense of direction, and now she wondered how Archer and Rome could gather new books for her and be back soon.
She had a feeling the answer would surprise her as much as the real silver cutlery and chafing dishes warming her food.
Passing time calmly was impossible when she was so worried about her siblings. Jake with his big smiles just like their dad’s and that lock of hair that never stayed in place. Tanner had been so lanky growing up, all arms and legs, but he’d grown into them and now he worked an IT job in the city.
And Lara. The youngest of the Simms family. After their parents died, she didn’t speak for two months. Now it was hard to shut her up. She’d graduated high school this past spring and just entered nursing school weeks ago.
Tears stung the backs of Jolie’s eyes. If Archer and Cannon weren’t lying, her siblings were informed she was safe. But safe didn’t mean they wouldn’t worry. She imagined them pulling together an emergency search budget instead of the adventure fund they’d surprised her with on her last birthday.
She folded her arms and looked around the room.
It was sparsely decorated with only a bed, table, lamp and desk.
The heavy coat she’d purchased for this trip hung on the back of the chair and her boots were lined up neatly beside the desk, and the box and suitcase she’d rummaged through in attempt to cobble together a wardrobe sat in the corner.
She stood up, paced to the door and back to the bed again. She looked at the door. She looked at the clothes. She waited and worried.
She worried about her siblings because it was muscle memory by now. Were they eating their vegetables? Were they taking care of themselves?
She worried about her job and her friend Stina at the restaurant, who had been on and off again with her boyfriend for months and had crashed on Jolie’s couch more than once.
She snatched up the sharing shirt and thought about forcing Archer and Rome into it when they returned, making them endure being locked together the way she’d made Jake and Tanner share one of their dad’s old shirts when they argued.
She wondered what books Archer and Rome might return with and why a military base had books at all, let alone such an extensive collection.
But one thing made her relax a little bit—if these guys were really dangerous, they would have harmed her by now.
Instead, they’d offered her cocoa and spare clothes and accepted a mission to find her books to keep her busy.
Two weeks felt like too long.
It felt like enough time for her life to change.