Chapter 7
SEVEN
Selah woke up with North in her brain.
North, in her brain and charging into a remote village to save her life. Because of course the trauma of the past few days had lit up the dark corners of her memory to relive that event that had sent her running.
Hiding.
So as she woke, as she stared at the ceiling in the B&B bedroom, in the brass bed covered in quilts, listening to rain plink on the roof, all she saw was North’s gaze as it landed on her in the village.
After he’d shot the man about to…Well, she didn’t like to think about that.
She’d somehow managed to fold away that moment even as her mind refused to let go of the horror of the violence.
Of the sight of the dead young man, his glassy eyes, his blood muddying the ground.
No wonder she trembled, acid in her chest.
You didn’t have to kill him!
Her words. And as she sat up, pulling the fluffy robe around her, they reverberated back to her. Along with North’s look of fury as he ran up to her.
What are you doing here?
She stood up and headed to the bathroom. He would probably ask her the same thing today, and frankly, she didn’t have good answers. One thing led to another?
She splashed water on her face, brushed her teeth, and found clean clothes in the hallway outside her door.
Oops. She’d forgotten them in the washer. Her gaze went to the room at the end of the hall, stirring up the memory of James secreting away that canister last night.
She closed herself into her room.
Get to York’s house. Ham’s words from last night. He’d promised to send her the address. And James had promised to take her there.
And then, then she’d figure out what was next.
But behind her eyes, she saw the image of North charging into the village, garbed in so much body armor and fierceness it had ripped right through her.
He wasn’t a safe man.
And maybe that was the core of the issue between them.
She dressed in the clean clothes and followed the scent of banana muffins down to the dining room, where Josephine had a buffet of sausages, eggs, bacon, muffins, and fruit spread on an old dark-walnut hutch anchored by a few rounded glass frames of ancestors who watched her dish up her breakfast.
Josephine came into the room with coffee in a silver service. She poured Selah a cup and then set down creamer next to her. “I was able to charge your phone.” She offered a smile. “Oh, by the way, your friend already ate. He said he’d be back.”
James left? “Thanks,” she said and opened the phone.
Full battery, but…no service. The phone showed no bars. Huh. She turned it off, then ate her muffin as she waited for it to power back on.
Still no bars of reception.
Maybe it was the storm.
She pocketed the phone and finished breakfast.
Josephine came back in and sat at the table. “How are you doing this morning?”
She sighed. “I’m ready to go home, I think. I’m tired of…not being safe, I guess.”
Josephine put a hand on hers. “What is safety, really?”
Selah looked at her.
“I’m just saying that safety means different things to different people. But to those who believe in God, safety is bigger than a place. It’s a state of being.” She squeezed her hand. “I noticed your necklace.”
Oh, the simple cross she wore. “Yes, I’m a believer.”
“Then you know you can be safe even when the world is in chaos around you.”
True. “Thank you for your hospitality. How should I pay you?”
“Your friend took care of it.” She got up, then glanced out the window. Her mouth opened. “Oh my. Well, I guess it’s better than an ATV.”
Selah turned and stilled as a Winnebago stopped in the driveway. James got out of the driver’s door.
“What? Where did he—”
“There’s an auto shop down the street. Perhaps he found it there? They sometimes put abandoned cars up for sale.”
But an RV?
Selah went upstairs to get her backpack, and when she returned, James stood in the front hall.
Although the drizzle had dampened his dark hair, he wore clean clothing too, so maybe he’d been the one to put her clothes in the dryer. She didn’t know how she felt about that, but she met his smile with one of her own. “Morning.”
“I found us some wheels.”
“I saw that. It might be a little overkill.”
“I got a deal. Thanks, Josephine.” He held the woman’s hand, then leaned down and kissed her leathery cheek. “You’ve been a shelter in a storm. Literally.”
She laughed and stepped away. “Nice to meet you both.”
Selah gave her a hug and walked out to the RV with James. “My parents had one of these when we were kids.”
“Mine too,” he said, and she glanced at him.
He seemed almost provincial, as if he might not be so different from her.
She climbed up into the passenger seat. Tweed, and it turned on its axis to face the back. The RV’s interior was vinyl, of course—beige walls with hints of turquoise, plaid curtains, an old refrigerator. The table looked resurfaced. A curtain was pulled across the entrance to the back bedroom.
“Can you pull up the coordinates from your phone?” James was turning around in the driveway.
She shook her head. “My phone doesn’t have any signal. I don’t know why…”
“Okay, well, I sort of remember, and once we get to town, we can ask around.” He pushed in a cassette tape that had slipped out of the player, and just like that, John Denver’s smooth, easy tones filled the cabin.
Rain pattered on the windshield, and he turned the wipers on as he pulled out onto the gravel road. “Reminds me of too many road trips I took as a kid with my dad.”
She glanced over at him. He easily maneuvered the RV.
“Where did you grow up?”
He glanced at her, back at the road. “Kansas.”
Huh. Certainly someone from Kansas couldn’t be…well, whatever name she’d attached after his strange behavior last night. Thief? Spy? Villain? Probably she gave people the benefit of the doubt too much.
“How’d you go from Kansas to big-city mergers and acquisitions?”
He laughed. “Oh, that’s a long story.”
“We have time.”
He glanced at her, then shook his head. “Boring, really. Business school. Then I worked for an international company. Left abruptly and sort of had to strike out on my own.”
“Did you learn Russian in school?”
His mouth closed, and for a second, darkness flitted through his eyes, then a half-cocked, almost wry grin curved his face. “Da.” He laughed. “Actually, I took private lessons. I had a good teacher.” His mouth made a grim line then, and he sighed.
Interesting.
She said nothing, and they passed through the outskirts of Wenatchee and turned north.
She tried her phone again. No bars. “This is so weird. It’s as if it’s not getting a signal.”
“That’s what we get for buying cheap burner phones,” he said.
“Yeah. I guess so.” She dropped the phone into her backpack.
“So, once you get to your friend’s house, what will you do? Off to that camp?”
Right. “I don’t know. Maybe. Or…” She leaned back in the seat, put her foot on the dash. Looked out the window.
Ham’s voice found her, reverberated through her. North is looking for you.
“I think I probably need to have a conversation with someone first.”
James nodded. “The guy your friend mentioned?”
“North. His real name is Nolan, but North was his SEAL name, so it stuck. And frankly, it fits, if you think of north as a sort of moral heading. He’s very…black and white.”
“A lot of operators are. They’re trained not to ask questions.”
“Well, I mean…he’s a good man. Patient. And he’d do anything for someone he was charged to protect.”
“Or someone he loved?” James glanced at her, gave her a smile.
She frowned. Had she mentioned they were in a relationship? Maybe. But, “Yes. For sure.”
“What’s with the sigh?”
Oh. “I just…I’m more of a gray-area girl. I want peace, even if it costs something. And I see both sides, so…we’re sort of at an impasse.”
“Could be he has good reasons for what he does,” James said, his eyes on the road. “Maybe there is more to the story than you think.”
She frowned at him again. “North grew up as a pastor’s kid. He’s very moral, very right, and isn’t afraid to say it when he needs to. When we first met, I thought he was quiet and shy. He is quiet…but more in a contemplative way. And he’s very much not shy. At least, not when it matters.”
James shot her a look.
“A few years ago, I was taken captive in Nigeria by the Boko Haram. He and a few of his team came in and rescued us. I was so relieved to see him, it took me a second to think about what he’d had to do to save me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Kill people.”
“The people who took you.”
“Yes.”
“Who were going to…what, rape you? Kill you?”
She swallowed. Shrugged, with a nod.
“Feels like there’s not a gray area there.”
“Maybe not. But see, it’s…I guess…”
“You didn’t want to see it.”
“No. I don’t know what I told myself. He was a sort of bigger-than-life hero until a few months ago when…well, my humanitarian aid team was attacked and I saw what he did.”
James nodded. “And you wish you hadn’t.”
“I don’t know. Yes. No. I mean, now I know who he is.”
“That’s just one part of him. I don’t know him, but most warriors section off their lives. They can see the bigger picture. This is just one piece of it.”
“It’s a pretty significant piece. Feels like there are alternatives to violence.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on who’s perpetrating the violence. Sometimes the violence walks up, and all you can do is react.”
Funny thing for him to say. And maybe he knew it from experience. He glanced at her. “Or maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about and I’ve been reading too many Jack Carr books.” He smiled then.
Okay, see, she’d totally overreacted. Maybe…
“He sounds like a man who is just trying to figure out how to make the world a better place.”
She made a hum of agreement. Yes, he probably was.
And she was on that mission too.
They wove into the mountains, up hills and into valleys, while John Denver sang about country roads and sunshine on his shoulders, and finally she spotted the outskirts of a small town, the sign for Shelly on the shoulder.