In This Together

He made quick work of building a fire. Despite recent rain, there was plenty of dry wood to be found. He couldn’t find any stones the right size to place around the fire, but he cleared enough space so nothing close by would catch. He used his pocketknife to slit the can labels and remove them, and the knife’s can opener to open the chili and the beans.

The beans were ready first, steaming and burbling. He set the beans on a large, flat rock in front of Elena. “Ladies first. Be careful—the can is really hot.” He pulled his pocketknife out and extracted the spoon, but he hesitated before handing it to Elena. “Please don’t get ideas about stabbing me. It would make me grumpy.”

“Duly noted. What else does that knife do? Does it have a parachute? Maybe a bicycle?”

“It has all kinds of things—a screwdriver, a saw, a nail file—”

“Well, that’s useful.”

“Scissors, tweezers, toothpick, corkscrew—”

“If only we had a bottle of wine.”

“I could go for a six-pack myself.” Of course she was a wine drinker. Judith had tried to get him to drink wine, but after hours of instruction, he still couldn’t tell a fine Bordeaux from a cheap Merlot.

Elena held out her hand.

Reluctantly, he handed her the knife. If she went for the blade, he could get to her before she could fold it out, but he really didn’t want to go there.

She gave him a knowing look. “You’re never going to let go of that wrench episode, are you?”

“Not until the scar heals.”

He enjoyed the playful conversation way more than he should have. It was almost as if they were on a first date...flirting. With each snippet she revealed about herself, his admiration for her grew. How many women in her position would have the smarts and the gumption to fight back the way she had?

He suddenly fervently wished he had met her at some other point in his life, instead of this desperate moment. When was the last time he’d flirted with a woman? Had to be Judith. That women had soured him on the entire fair sex. Before her, he had loved women. Couldn’t get enough of them. After his spectacularly short and bad marriage, he had only interacted with women long enough to get them into bed, satisfying an occasional urge to feel human again.

Had he ever even known what it felt like to simply enjoy the company of a woman, to appreciate her beauty, her wit and those feminine ways that were so different from his own, so yin to his yang? He’d spent his youth staying alive, keeping his brother on track. Then there was the army, prison, his business...and Judith. Nothing about his ex-wife had been simple. Every encounter with her had been fraught with the stress of trying to meet her expectations.

His heart ached unexpectedly with what could never be—not with Elena and probably not with anyone. By the time he got out of prison, he’d be an old man, and Elena would be married to someone else with a houseful of children, even grandchildren.

“Do you ever want to get married?” he asked impulsively.

She looked at him curiously, her face a work of art in the flickering light of the fire. But she answered. “I hope I will someday. I have memories of when I was little, having these big family get-togethers with my older brothers and my parents, grandparents, ten or twenty cousins. Here, we have very close friends that we treat as family. So family is very important to me. My parents would be so happy if I gave them a dozen grandbabies. But I wouldn’t get married just to have babies.”

“You’re holding out for love, huh?”

“It makes sense, right?” She spooned up some of the beans and blew on them. “Who wants to spend fifty or sixty years with someone they don’t love?”

“The problem with marrying for love is feelings change.”

“You sound as if you speak from experience.” She took a bite of the beans, chewed, swallowed and nodded toward the can. “These aren’t too bad.”

He supposed he had let a note of bitterness creep into his voice. He’d thought he was over being angry about the Judith thing, but maybe this reminder about all he didn’t have—would never have—had stirred up some old, buried feelings. Ridiculous, really.

“I married for love. Felt like love, anyway, at first. But she thought I was someone else—or that she could make me into someone different, someone better. I guess I was a pretty hard case, because she gave up, moved on to greener pastures. I kept trying to make her happy, and, meanwhile, she was lining up her next project.”

“I’m sorry. I guess it must be hard to believe in love after an experience like that. But I’ve seen real love, lasting love, so I know it’s out there. My parents have been married more than forty years, and my mother’s eyes still light up whenever my father walks into the room. He still gives her flowers for no reason, just because.”

Travis must have looked skeptical, because she added, “What about your brother? I know it ended tragically, but didn’t he love his wife?”

“He did, and I used to think she loved him, until I realized she was cheating.”

“Oh. Right. You mentioned that.” She returned her attention to the baked beans.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in true love and happy endings; it was just that such perfect pairings were exceedingly rare. Certainly didn’t happen for his mother. His father hadn’t even stuck around long enough to see Eric born.

The temperature was dropping. The chili was steaming now, so he used a folded T-shirt from his car as a pot holder, took the can off the fire and set it on the flat rock.

Elena offered the spoon to him. It seemed oddly intimate, sharing one spoon. But he could see she hadn’t eaten much.

“I’ll wait until you’re done.”

“No, really. I’ve had enough.”

He accepted the spoon and then dug into the chili. It wasn’t too bad. “This stuff reminds me of childhood. You know, that chili they served in school cafeterias?” The school lunch programs had provided Eric and him at least one good meal a day.... Sometimes the only meal they got.

“I wouldn’t know. I always brought my lunch.”

She’d probably had a lunchbox with some Disney princess on it. He smiled at the thought. “Want to try it?”

“Sure. Might as well broaden my horizons.”

When he presented her with the can of chili, like a waiter at a four-star restaurant presenting a sirloin steak, she took the spoon and helped herself to a hefty bite.

“So, you never eat canned food?” Though Travis knew how to cook, these days he seldom bothered with anything more elaborate than a can of soup or tuna fish.

“Daniel doesn’t allow canned food in his house. Everything is made fresh. And my mother cooks everything from scratch.”

“Something about being out in the woods makes even canned stuff taste better. When you’re hiking or canoeing, a peanut butter sandwich can be ecstasy.”

She was staring at him. He turned away from her self-consciously.

“You’re very handsome when you smile. You should do it more often.”

“Don’t have much to smile about lately. You about done with that?”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot for a moment that I’m hogging the only spoon.” She handed the utensil back to him. Now that her hunger was satisfied, she might have more incentive to threaten him with the knife, so he was relieved she didn’t try anything.

Elena surrendered her spot next to the rock, and Travis took it over. The ground was still warm where her bottom had rested, and he enjoyed the sensation, the secondhand contact with such an attractive part of her body.

Wow, he was obviously hard up.

He finished up the chili and the beans and set the cans aside. There was no trash bag, but he would carry the trash out when they left. Just because he was a desperate felon was no reason to litter.

“You want dessert? The canned pumpkin might be tasty. Or I have some granola bars.”

“No, thanks. I’m full. I have to, um, use the bathroom.”

He’d been dreading this moment. Once out of his sight, she could run. It might seem the smart thing to do, from her angle. But they were a long way from help. She might find her way to the road in the dark, but he would catch up to her if she did that. And if she went deeper into the woods she might elude him, but she risked wandering all night and becoming hopelessly lost. With no jacket, no proper shoes and no water, she could come to harm.

But what else could he do? He wasn’t going to stand over her while she peed behind a bush. The situation would be humiliating for both of them, and her friendly, cooperative mood would come to an abrupt end.

“Don’t go far.”

“Can I take the flashlight?”

“Nope.”

“Great. You better hope a snake doesn’t get me.”

“Snakes are hibernating this time of year.”

With a backward malevolent glance at him, she stalked off into the darkness. Travis took a couple of bites of the pumpkin, but it had a chemical aftertaste—too many preservatives, or maybe it simply tasted of the can. He listened to the sounds of the woods at night. It was peaceful here, just him and Elena and the crickets.

And the coyotes. A long, mournful cry drifted on the night breeze—a coyote seeking its mate. Soon another cry joined the first, then a third. They weren’t too far off; maybe a mile.

Elena hurried back to the campsite, her feet crunching noisily in the leaves. “What is that?”

“Uh, coyote?”

“It’s enough to chill my blood.” She looked around fearfully, as if carnivorous monsters might appear from any direction at any minute. “They sound close.”

He opened his mouth to reassure her that they were safe, that the coyotes were just calling to each other and wouldn’t bother them. Humans were far too big to be prey for a small critter like a coyote unless the animals were really desperate.

But then he realized he could use her fear and ignorance of the woods to his advantage. If she was afraid of coyotes, she was less likely to wander off in the night and try to escape.

He looked around, feigning worry. “They are close. And they sound hungry. They howl like that when they’re hungry.”

“Do you have a gun?”

“A gun? No. Why would you even think that?”

“Well, you’re a kidnapper. I just thought you might have a gun.”

“No. But they won’t bother us so long as we keep the fire burning. Coyotes are afraid of...wood smoke.”

Elena scurried back into the clearing, standing close to the fire. “Do we have lots of firewood? Should we collect more?”

Travis eyed the meager pile of deadwood he’d collected, most of which had been lying around within twenty or thirty feet of their campsite. He’d been planning to let the fire die down; it wasn’t so cold that they really needed the warmth. But after the whopping lies he’d just told, he was going to have to keep it burning. Well, he hadn’t intended to sleep much tonight anyway.

“I’ll go get more.”

She picked up one of the smaller logs and held it, club fashion. “Don’t go far. If I see anything move, I’ll scream.”

Now he felt a little bit guilty for making her so afraid. She hadn’t shown that much fear toward him, and he had the capacity to do her a lot more harm than a scrawny coyote.

Travis spent about ten minutes collecting more wood, occasionally checking on Elena to make sure she wasn’t pulling another fast one, using the distraction of the coyotes to get him out of the way so she could make a break for it. Then he moved the tarp to the ground closer to the fire and spread the sleeping bag on it again. “You can sleep here. It’s not the Ritz, and you’re probably used to a feather bed and silk comforter at Logan’s house, but it shouldn’t be too bad.”

She shrugged. “I’ve slept in worse places.”

“Really? When?”

She sat cross-legged on the sleeping bag and pulled one end of it around her shoulders for warmth. “How about in the bottom of a leaky dinghy?”

Yes, that sounded worse. “When did you—”

“Never mind. I shouldn’t have brought it up. It’s something I don’t think about often, let alone talk about.”

Now he was consumed with curiosity. She’d dropped a few hints that she hadn’t always lived a privileged existence, but now he wondered how bad it had been.

“Elena, how did you learn to pick pockets?”

“It’s a gift.”

A pat answer. “So, you don’t want to talk about that, either?”

She shook her head. The coyotes howled again, and she shivered.

“I promise not to let the coyotes get you, okay?”

Elena nodded, but she looked as if she didn’t completely believe him.

“Is there anything you do want to talk about? It’s kind of early to go to bed.”

She hesitated, staring at him intently as if seeking to see beneath his skin. “Why are you willing to exchange places with your brother, to go to prison for him? Isn’t your life worth saving, too?”

So, she didn’t want to talk about bad times in her life, but his life was fair game? He supposed he could say no. But he didn’t. “Look, I don’t relish spending the next few decades behind bars. But Eric... You’d have to know him. He was a special kid even before he could walk and talk. He had this wild, curly blond hair and inquisitive eyes, and as soon as he could talk, he wanted to know everything. His curiosity knew no bounds. He was smart, too—absorbed everything like a sponge. You’d tell him something once, he’d remember it. You’d show him how to do something and he’d pick it up immediately, and pretty soon he’d be doing it better than you. I taught him how to tie his shoes in five minutes.

“He made straight As in school. The teachers loved him. The other kids loved him. Yet nothing ever went to his head. He was exceptional in every way, and he knew it, but he still managed to somehow be humble.

“The girls were all over him, but he always treated them nice. He had a few different girlfriends over the years, but he was loyal to each one while he was with her.

“He got a full-ride scholarship to Stanford, and then he went to law school. He was courted by some pretty big law firms, but he didn’t want to leave Houston, so he went with a smaller firm. He could have been a very successful trial lawyer—he was something to watch in the courtroom. But he chose real estate law instead because he didn’t like the confrontational aspect of the courtroom or the unsavory nature of dealing with criminals. He’s basically too nice to be that kind of lawyer.

“When he met Tammy, he was positive she was the one. They seemed to be the golden couple living the perfect life. They had a gorgeous home, and when MacKenzie was born it was the icing on the cake.

“Eric didn’t have a malicious bone in his body. I never once in my whole life saw him lose his temper. Which is why it’s so ludicrous that he would kill Tammy.

“We used to go fishing as kids, but I noticed that Eric never baited his hook right. He was hoping a turtle would steal his bait so he wouldn’t have to catch anything—so he wouldn’t have to clean it. That was how much he hated knives. Can’t see him picking up a knife and stabbing someone.”

“Did you testify at your brother’s trial? As a character witness?”

“No. His attorney was afraid I’d do more harm than good, seeing as I’m an ex-con. He thought I would have no credibility.”

A wariness came into her eyes. “Oh. You’ve been to prison?”

“Assault. It was self-defense, but I couldn’t prove that, so I pled out. Did eighteen months.”

“Excuse me for saying so, but Eric’s lawyer was an ass. If a jury had heard what you just told me... Well, let’s just say it would have made them think.”

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