Blind Seed Page 2

  “What in the entire blue blazes are you doing out here and why are you looking for me?”

  “To protect me.”

  “Nope,” he said, trying to walk away but his truck was parked in the mountains, at least five miles away. He wouldn’t make it before nightfall, and it was getting dark. He sure as hell didn’t plan to stay in the woods all night with the fish stealer. “Listen Chatty Cathy...”

  “It’s not Cathy, but Charlotte Worthington,” she told him.

  “Like the track star...out of Idaho,” he said, and stopped.

  “One and the same,” she said, sitting down by the fire and crossing her legs lotus style and taking a piece of the fish and a slice of bread from the Ziploc bag he had. “Sorry, it has been a long day, like Ulysses starting the Odyssey long.”

  “I’m losing patience with you. Start talking,” he damn near shouted.

  “Falling Rocks,” she said, using his technician handle. “The Archangel sent me to you to protect me and guard my body.”

  “The Devil and the Archangel are both liars! I’m not a body guard and I see no reason why I have to do shit,” he said.

  “Oh, come now, good sir. There is no reason to use that langued in the presence of a lady,” she said, leaning forward to flip the fish in the pan.

  “You can shove a pinch of snuff up your lady ass and spit it in the fire to cool the embers, but I’m not your body guard and soon as I get in cell phone range, I’m going to call the Archangel and get you to where you go next, but it’s not with me!”

  “Sorry, but you’re stuck with me for a minute,” she said. “I don’t know how long, or why, and at this point, I’m too tired to care. I was flown here in a cargo plane, full of cargo mind you. Then I rode part of the way through the poorest Appalachian region in the whole strip of mountain range in the back of a pickup with a sheep and a pig with diarrhea. I’m hungry and need some sleep. I have a sleeping bag, and I’ll take the ground inside of the tent tonight, then when we get back to your place, we can figure out the rest.”

  “You’re not going back to my place. You’re not going anywhere with me and I’m not going to serve as your protector. And there ain’t a damned thing you can say that will convince me otherwise.”

  Falling Rocks said it with such bravado that she almost felt sorry for him, almost, but right now, she was feeling sorrier for herself. The time for arguing was over and she wanted to brush her teeth, take a pee, and sleep. Nothing more, nothing less.

  “I’m waiting,” Falling Rocks demanded, his arms hanging low at his sides. The meat hammers he called hands fisted. The long, dusty blond hair billowed in the wind giving him an almost mountain man appearance, with the scruffy beard.

  “My mother is Annabelle Hoyt,” she told him, “Mr. Exit is her brother, which makes him my uncle.”

  She waited for a bead for him to compute what she was telling him and it was going over his head. Exhaling, she added the fish to the plate, and passed it to him. The woman made a point of not touching the bread, as she shook out two slices onto the plate, and smiled as she added the last filet to the oil to cook.

  “Jeez dude, you’re slow on the uptake,” she said. “Charlotte Worthington is the name the Archangel gave to me when he put us in like witness protection years ago. My birth name is Cady Slanecki.”

  He stared at her. “You’re Rami Slanecki’s daughter?”

  “Yep, you gonna eat that fish or not?”

  Chapter One- A Pip

  The quiet that filled the yellow two-person camping tent eased an eeriness into the space. The cot belonged to him, and after nearly two weeks of sleeping on the hard ground, his back wanted no more of the same tonight. He didn’t care if she was a woman; it was his cot; he bought it and earned it, and he didn’t plan to give it up.

  “My back is bothering me,” he grumbled under his breath. “I was on the ground for nearly two weeks, and tonight I’m using the cot; not being an asshole, but I’m not giving it up.”

  “It’s cool,” she answered, not really making eye contact. “Thanks for sharing the food.”

  “Hmm,” was all he growled as darkness from the night closed in around them.

  In his backpack, Falling Rocks had a small flask of dark blood warmer, but he didn’t think it was a good idea to imbibe in his nightly ritual with a lady present in such tight quarters. One, he couldn’t tell how old she really was, although he knew she had run for the Idaho State track team, but that was a few years prior. Somewhere he’d read or couldn’t remember where he’d heard, she was trying out for the Olympic team in the 5,000 meters, but as far as he knew, nothing came of it. The last thing he needed was to have her on edge believing him to take to his cups, then take it out on her. That kind of thing wasn’t his style. They only had to get through the night, then he’d get home, shower, have an actual meal, and get on with it.

  Hopefully, once he got to his truck and was a lot closer to civilization, he would call the Archangel and make sure nothing came of the current situation as well. There was no room in his way of life for a lover, a wife, or babysitting the daughter of a notorious psychopath. He also planned to make that clear to the lady so there would be no misunderstandings of who he was and his intentions. He had no intentions other than getting rid of her.

  “Nine times out of ten, the child of a psychopath is also a psychopath,” he muttered under his breath.

  She didn’t look up or say a word to him in response as she rolled out a thin camping mattress, which looked more like a yoga mat. The green Army style jacket she wore came off, revealing a slender form. Squatting down like she was about to reduce her body of a load of waste, she unlaced the boots she wore and leaned upside down against the backpack, which would serve as a pillow. She used the jacket as a blanket, throwing it across her body, and just as if it were an everyday thing, the woman lay back, closed her eyes, and let out a sigh, and it appeared as if she’d fallen asleep.

  Falling Rocks sat, staring, waiting for her to move or blink, or shift, but she didn’t. He knew, because he watched her for twenty minutes before his own eyelids protested at his desire to keep them open. Slowly, he gave in, leaning back on the cot after also removing his boots and turning them upside down. The way the boots smelled, he probably should have placed them outside of the tent, but he hadn’t asked for the company. He’d also eaten a second helping of beans, praying that the gas monster would make a late-night visit since a closed-in tent was the perfect conduit for a Dutch Oven.

  Thinking better of being sealed inside of a gas chamber that would get loaded with methane, he unzipped the tent a bit for some air flow. The last thing he ever wanted was to be found dead from his own noxious fumes, inside a tent in the middle of nowhere with the daughter of a crazy man. He turned his head once more to look at her, and still, she hadn’t moved.

  “Shit, I hope she’s not dead,” he mumbled, giving in to sleep. Tomorrow was a new day. Tonight, he saw no need to pick a fight with the woman, especially since his plan was to be rid of her as soon as he could.

  At least, that was his plan. The rest, they say, is for the history books.

  THE EARLY MORNING SUN heated up the tent, and Charlotte stretched her legs and crawled outside. Falling Rocks wasn’t inside the tent when she awoke, but she spotted him at the lake, bringing in a string of fish for breakfast. She wouldn’t complain, but her mind was more or less on scrambled eggs with cheese, onions, bits of green pepper and a couple of thick slices of bacon. Today, she also needed some carbs in the way of pasta, drizzled with olive oil and a smattering of dried herbs. Sighing loudly, she reached high to the sky, extending her back and giving her bodyguard a peek at her belly button from under the edge of the shirt.

  “Good morning,” she said. “how far away is your vehicle?”

  “Five miles that way,” he replied, using his head to point in the direction to which he referred. “Morning to you too.”

  “Is it a straight path to the vehicle?”

  “Prett
y much; it’s parked alongside a ranger station,” he told her.

  She was looking him over. He stood at about six feet, maybe an inch or two above, was lean but muscular with a narrow waist, wide shoulders, and a permanent scowl on his face. His sandy blonde hair was affixed at the nape of his neck with a leather strip to hold the shoulder length hair in place. Green eyes watched her closely, as the lady’s brown eyes took him all in.

  “You keep staring at me like that, you’re going to have to ask me out,” he said, squinting his eyes.

  “Nope, not my type,” she whispered. “Where are your keys?”

  “Why?”

  She stared at him again, watching the taut form bending to his knees, which were uncovered in the pair of hiking shorts he wore. The nice calves said he was athletic, but he was also easily, pushing a solid 220 pounds of manliness. A five-mile hike with him would take nearly two hours, and she needed a shower, some bacon, eggs, and pasta for dinner.

  “I can run, get the truck, and be back in less than a half hour. By the time you skin and clean the fish, I can be back in time to eat and enjoy all your hard work,” she said, looking at him with no warmth in her eyes.

  It was the first time he was getting a good look at Charlotte Worthington. On camera, she appeared warm and cordial to the press when interviewed. In person, she was altogether something different. Her eyes made him pause. Had he not been looking at her, he wouldn’t have seen the quick adjustment in her demeanor as the eyes softened and she provided a practiced smile.

  He didn’t have anything else to say. Falling Rocks passed her the keys. “Straight up, five miles; the Ranger Station is on the right. It’s the black Ford F-150.”

  Again, she gave him the shitty smile as she crawled back inside for the backpack and pulled out a pair of running shoes. She put on thick socks and slid her feet into the shoes but stopped. Her eyes went back to him.

  “I need to hydrate and possibly water that tree. Do you need me to dig a hole to tinkle in, or can I just go with the flow?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t care.”

  He expected an argument. He expected a bunch of lip. He got neither. Charlotte walked around the tree, and he heard the sound of her zipper, followed by the sound of her body evacuating the unwanted fluid. Falling Rocks listened closely to the sound of plastic being unwrapped, followed by quietness then the zip of the pants. Charlotte came around the tree, her hand extended for the bottle of water. Falling Rocks passed it to her, and she slipped it into the side pocket of her pants.

  “Thirty minutes,” she told him, then pointed in the direction he told her. “Any mountain lions, bears, or anything bigger than me I can’t outrun?”

  “Not in these parts,” he told her. “So...you’re doing a four-minute mile?”

  “Three and a half, but who’s counting,” she said, giving him the forced smile again. “Be back.”

  The dark ponytail bounced as she took off, jogging up the trail and through the hills. He looked at his watch and set the timer. At the two-minute mark, she was at the top of the hill and moving at a clip. It wasn’t often that he got impressed by people, but so far, she had his attention. Once more he looked in the direction she’d run and saw no sign of her. For the oddest reason, he felt uneasy and began to worry.

  “Clean the fish, cook the fish, break down the camp,” he said aloud, making himself a mental list of what had to get done.

  An odd, pungent smell wafted to his nose and he realized sadly that the smell was him. Now he had to ride thirty miles in a closed in truck with the lady, smelling like a bear that had shit himself and couldn’t get the dingleberries out of its fur.

  “Get a grip. Get to work. Get this done,” he said aloud and set about the tasks.

  The fish, fried to a nice golden brown, were plated with a couple slices of bread alongside his last two eggs and he’d broken down the tent. He’d removed them from the truck yesterday when he had hiked down to the lake. He’d looked forward to his morning hike back to the truck but having a half hour to gather himself without her around worked out even better. Just as he folded the cot, he heard the sound of an engine, along with the beep of his watch.

  She’d made it back. Normally, he didn’t allow anyone to drive his truck and a fleeting thought had entered his mind. What if she had taken my truck and left me out here stranded? It would be a day or two before the Ranger would come to check on him, but she’d returned.

  She parked the truck, cut the engine and climbed out. Instead of heading for the food, she picked up the tent and carried it to the truck. Charlotte lowered the tailgate and began to load in the rest of his equipment. Once the truck was loaded, including her backpack which she put in the front seat, she reached for her plate.

  “Thanks for cooking. May the Lord make us truly thankful for this which we have received,” she said, taking the plate to the tailgate of the truck. She used the tailgate as a table, and she ate her breakfast quietly. When she finished her four fish fillets, she looked over at him. “How far away do you live from here? I need a shower to wash off the smell of those beans that escaped your butthole last night. You ate that second helping on purpose.”

  “Yeah, I did,” he said, almost smiling at her. “I had to crack the tent to make sure we didn’t suffocate from methane poisoning.”

  “Not cool, man. Not cool, but it was your tent, so I had no choice,” she told him. “That’s the thing about this life. There are people who have all the choices in the world, yet all they do is bitch and moan about what someone else has or what someone else is doing. People like us don’t get a lot of choices in life and we have to make do with what we’re handed.”

  “True, and what do you feel you’ve been handed, Charlotte Worthington?”

  “Don’t you find it odd that out of all the Directions on your crew, he chose you? The Archangel picked you, and flew me across the country, dropped me in the middle of nowhere, with no money, a prepaid phone with only 30 minutes on it, and what I could put in this backpack,” she explained. “The real question, Falling Rocks, is what have you been handed?”

  “I truly don’t fucking know, and you make me all kinds of uncomfortable,” he said. “I saw what you did before you left...with the eyes.”

  “My mother always told me there is a face for your friends, and there’s a face for your companions; I also should never mix the two,” she said, locating a small trash bag for the waste. “Either way, we find a groove or avoid each other until he tells us what’s next.”

  “Can’t avoid you if you’re in my house eating my food,” he said, “and using my toilet.”

  “You only have one toilet?”

  “I can put you one outside if you’d like.”

  “And you can go shit in a hat, Mr. Falling Rocks,” she said with no expression on her face. “Tell me your name, because I am not going to live with a man I have to call by his code name.”

  “For the time being, you’re Charlotte Worthington and I’m Falling Rocks. When we get within range, I’ll call the Archangel for further instructions. If I can’t get rid of or unload you, then I’ll tell you my name,” he added.

  “Fair enough,” Charlotte added and gave him the shit-eating smile.

  He didn’t like that smile. He didn’t like it one bit because that smile was the one, she gave to her companions. For the darndest reason, he wanted her to consider him to be a friend. She seemed as if she needed one and having someone to talk to wasn’t a bad idea. He just wasn’t sure he wanted it to be her.

  “Saddle up, Charlotte, and let’s ride,” he said, adding his trash to the bag and climbing into the driver’s seat.

  BY HER OWN PERSONAL accounting, this was the third, no fourth, or maybe it was the fifth time in her 27 years her life had been completely uprooted; and now this. She was just turning fifteen when her mother decided she wanted a better life for them both and joined a cult where all the members wanted to be vampires. Then, when that didn’t work out, her mother moved them to a farm in Ohi
o with the worst lot of men she’d ever seen. However, they were luckily saved by the Archangel. Years had passed, but her mother’s tastes in men had never improved, and one thing Charlotte Worthington learned about the male species is that they weren’t really interested in a woman who liked other women.

  That’s the line she took around men when she couldn’t read them. She couldn’t read Falling Rocks. At times, when he looked at her, she saw pity in his eyes. The last thing she needed from a big lug like that guy was his pity. Other times, he stared as if he were attempting mentally to take apart all of her defenses so he could watch her cry.

  Charlotte Worthington didn’t cry.

  She didn’t balk.

  She didn’t react to the fires blazing around her or show any fear when having to walk through a lion enclosure wearing pork chop scented panties. Falling Rocks was a lion. If she’d didn’t want her panties or anything else eaten by the muscle-bound hitman, she needed to get her act in order.

  He was looking at her now. She looked back at him, giving a bit more attitude than she should have. Trust, like anything else in the world, needed to get earned. So far, his plan was to drive her to Ohio and dump her on the Archangel. She, on the other hand, had learned a few things over the years.

  The Archangel didn’t do anything unless it had a purpose. Falling Rocks was going to learn that the hard way. In the meantime, she would stay small, bide her time, and seize whatever opportunity came her way. One thing she was certain of, and she would make it perfectly clear to all involved, Charlotte Worthington had no plan to return to Idaho.

  Chapter Two- Come to Daddy

  Falling Rocks had learned, in his line of work, that the details always mattered. One detail that he couldn’t help but notice was the woman barely moved. It was as if she made a concerted effort to be unnoticed. They were ten miles into a thirty-mile trip and she had barely flinched, just sat looking ahead like a half comatose person. He wasn’t one for small talk but she unnerved him.