Training Rain (7 page)

“While you are making sex between two people grandiose.
Jess, I’ll grant you, it was great sex, the best of my life, but it was just
one night. You’re the one who laid down the rules. You said you were turning my
case over to some other agent.”

Had he used those cold, heartless words? It sounded like
him. He didn’t get involved with women beyond the physical. So why did
everything she said twist his gut into knots and make him want to shake her? “I
can’t protect you. You’re a distraction for me. Can’t you understand that I
don’t want to leave you, but I also don’t want to get you killed?”

“That just sounds as if you’re a man making an excuse for
leaving me.”

Was it? Was she right? He grabbed another blanket from the
back of the couch and covered himself before sitting down. “You said that
Adianca rescued you. What did you mean?”

Rain’s eyes stayed focused on the dwindling fire. Jess got
up and added a few extra logs, and waited for them to catch.

He had almost given up on her responding. Her voice was even
and so low it hummed in the dark room and sent its vibration directly to his
soul. “My mother left when I was a child. My father did the best he could, but
I was a wild teenager. I got into some trouble and Adianca came to the house to
speak to me. I listened, but her words made no difference. I was angry. A year
later, my father died in a car wreck. It took them three days to find me and
tell me that my only family was gone and I was truly alone in the world. By
that time his body had been cremated. I never got the chance to see him or say
goodbye. The house was foreclosed on a few months later since I went right back
to my
friends
in the street.

“The day I turned eighteen Adianca showed up and told me it
was time to go. I never even questioned her. I got in the truck with nothing
but the clothes on my back and a dead heart. She brought me to Nevada and began
my education in the ways of the medicine woman and she made me finish school.”

He tried to visualize the woman next to him as a street kid
with no direction, but he couldn’t equate the two. “You must have been pretty
tough even then to have survived in the street.”

She turned fierce eyes on him. “I gave my body in return for
food and anything else I needed. I whored myself out for some drugs or booze. I
didn’t even like getting high and I sure as hell didn’t enjoy the sex. I just
didn’t want to go home and admit I’d been wrong.”

“I’m sorry,
cher
.”

She turned back to the fire. The light glinted on a tear
that rolled down her cheek. “Now you can take me down from the pedestal you
seem determined to keep me on. You can see I’m just a prostitute who managed to
get away.”

His brain was exploding with questions, none of which he
could ask her. She was too upset and there were other more important issues to
sort out. “You’re wrong,
cher
. I see a magnificent woman who overcame a
difficult past. It’s you who see the worst of yourself.”

“Then you must have blinders on.”

He leaned forward until his body pressed into her and she
was trapped against the arm of the couch. He brushed the tear away from her
cheek and slid his fingers around the nape of her neck so she was forced to
look him in the eye. “I don’t care about your past beyond the fact it has made
you the person you are today. Do you think you could have survived the last few
days if you hadn’t known hardship? Forgive yourself, Rain.”

Her face was a mask. She completely hid her emotion from
him. “You sound like Adianca. If you say that my father has forgiven me, I’m
going to think you are somehow channeling the healer.”

“If you are anything like your father, he probably blamed
himself for your life choices and so there was nothing to forgive.”

Her full lips bloomed into a sweet smile that actually had
his heart pounding. He’d held back, but now his mouth pressed against those
soft lips and took everything she was willing to give. Her tongue delved into
his mouth, swirling and battling with his. A moan vibrated against his lips and
his cock jumped to attention. He broke the kiss. “We are all whores of one kind
or another,
cher
. There is always a price. I want you to stay with me. I
want honesty about things you’re used to keeping to yourself.”

“You may be asking a price that’s too high.”

He pushed the blanket aside and covered her nipple with his
mouth, tugging hard enough to make her cry out.

Her breath was ragged. “What do I get from you?”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to finish what you started. I don’t want to be
pushed off on another unwilling psychic whom I won’t be able to trust.”

He ground his hips forward and his shaft rubbed the apex of
her thighs. She lifted to meet him. “You shouldn’t trust me either.”

She smiled. “Does that mean you’ll stay and finish my training?”

“We’ll leave the park tomorrow, but we’ll go together.” He
shouldn’t have been happy about being manipulated into changing his mind, but
his chest filled with elation at the knowledge that he wasn’t leaving her.

“Then why don’t you show me how fucking is different from
making love?”

His cock immediately agreed to her request, jumping and
pressing tighter between them. “It’s not going get you out of my system.”

“Prove it.” Her hips thrust up, making him groan.

The blankets had become unnecessary and inconvenient. Jess
tugged at them until there was nothing between his skin and her softness. “What
are you trying to prove, Rain?”

“Can’t a girl just ask for a good fuck without having an
ulterior motive?” A wicked smile played across her lips.

He devoured her lips, plunging his tongue deep inside and
meeting no resistance. At the same time, he reached for his pack where it lay
on the floor next to the couch and dug inside blindly. His fingers seized the
foil pack and he broke the kiss.

Pulling back from her warmth, he stood up, tore the packet
and rolled the condom on. Her eyes never strayed from the movement of his
fingers over his shaft. “Turn around and put your hands on the back of the
couch.”

She didn’t hesitate to comply. Her smooth, round ass faced him
and she lifted it enough so he could see the luster of wetness peeking out
between her thighs.

Jess’ entire body vibrated with desire. He ran his hands
from her knees to the swell of her hips where they settled as if she’d been
designed to fit him. One step and he was perched at her wet pussy. She leaned
back, taking in the tip of him. A whisper of a moan escaped her lips while he
held his own in.

His fingers dug in enough to hold her firmly, but not enough
to bruise her. He pushed forward hard and strong, sinking himself inside her.
She took every inch of him and cried out. He groaned as her warm, tight canal
embraced him. He tried to hold still and give her a chance to adjust, but she
immediately leaned forward, pulling away, and then forced herself back onto his
cock. It was too much. He couldn’t hold back anymore. Gripping her, he powered
forward over and over again. Her cries grew louder with each thrust. His balls
tightened and he knew it wouldn’t be long for his release.

Reaching around with one hand, he found her clit and rubbed.
Rain screamed and jerked after only a few seconds. Her pussy clutched at him
and he continued to piston inside her. His orgasm crashed down around him so
hard the pleasure was near to pain. His knees barely held him, quaking with the
release. His body tensed then went slack and he wrapped his arm around her
holding through the rapture.

She collapsed onto the couch, releasing him. Once he’d
disposed of the condom, he rested next to her and pulled her on top of him so
they could both lie on the small sofa. Arranging the blanket to cover them, he
kissed her as she watched him wide-eyed.

“For the record,
cher
, I already want more of you.”

She pressed her cheek against his chest. “For the record, I
need some sleep.”

He chuckled and closed his eyes.

Rain had dozed off immediately, but a couple of hours later
she found herself wide awake and in the arms of Jess McMean. Even in his sleep,
his left arm banded around her ribs tightly. Part of her wanted to slip out of
his embrace and sneak out of the cabin. She could be back in Nevada in just
over twelve hours. She could go back to her life as if she’d never stepped
away.

She snuggled in tighter and let his warmth create a cocoon
within the covers. Going back was not an option, it was a last resort. She
could live with it, but it was not where her destiny lay. Adianca had tried to
tell her that, but until the stampede, she hadn’t understood. She had skills
that would be wasted on the reservation. There were other people who could
train to take over for the medicine woman and spiritual guide for the people.
What Rain could do could not be taught. It was a gift to be used for good.

Piercing alarms shot through the silence and her thoughts.
Yas barked a half a second before the proximity alert sounded. She was up and
running for the bedroom in an instant. She pulled on jeans, a shirt and her
boots before grabbing a handgun and her shotgun. She tucked the handgun into a
holster with a strap that she slung over her head and shoulder. The strap
carried an extra magazine. Shoving a handful of shells in her pocket, she ran
back out into the living room.

Yas continued to bark at the loud noise. Jess was up,
dressed and holding a rifle while peering out the window.

Rain moved to the panel near the door and disengaged the
alarm with a quick four-digit code.

“Could be a deer or a raccoon,” Jess said.

Rain stretched her senses and searched the area. “No. I
never got a feeling that anything was near and I don’t sense a panicked animal
now.”

“Do you have the fail-safe codes?”

Her heart pounded. “You want to blow the place up?”

“We may need to if we’re going to create enough of a
distraction. Who knows, we may kill our pursuers in the process.”

“We don’t even know if anyone’s out there.”

A bullet crashed through the window to the left of Jess’
head. He ducked below the sill. Rain got low and pulled Yas down under her as
she crawled toward the other front window.

Dawn was a few minutes away. “Did you get the direction?”
she asked.

“Behind the shed.”

The earth glowed blue-gray with the first touches of
daylight. Rain leaned the shotgun against the wall and pulled out her handgun.
Movement in the trees to the left of the shed caught her eye. “I’ve got one in
the forest.”

“I see at least two behind the shed.”

“What do they want with us?”

Jess moved toward his bag and stuffed a few scattered items
inside. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say they want us dead. If they
wanted information, they’d be trying to get inside, not shooting us through the
window.

“I’m going to lay down some cover fire. Take the detonator
and go out through the bedroom window. Keep your eyes open. I’ll be right
behind you. Give me two minutes. Count it out. One, one hundred, two, one
hundred and keep on running. By the time you get to one twenty we should be far
enough away.” He crawled to her and held her face between his hands. “Don’t
hesitate. Blow this place to kingdom come. Understand?”

“Yes. I got it.”

He kissed her hard. “Go.”

Jess started firing from the broken window. Rain looked back
once as she ran through the cabin, grabbed her bag and pulled her coat on. She
had the detonator inside the bag. Joshua had told her to keep it close, but he
doubted she’d have a use for it. She opened the window, shotgun ready in case
they were surrounding the house. A shot hit the frame near her hand. She didn’t
think, she shot at the movement to the right. A man screamed and fell to the
snow. Hoping that Jess’ continued shooting was enough to drown out his shouts,
she lifted Yas out the window and then climbed out into the freezing early
morning.

Silently commanding Yas to follow, she counted and ran as
fast as she could. She cleared the ridge. She sensed the buffalo moving away
from the gunfire but not in a panic. There was no stampede. Her lungs ached
from the cold and she pumped her arms and legs as hard as she could, all the
while counting it out.
Sixty-two one hundred, sixty-three one hundred.

Had Jess really followed? She couldn’t hear the gunfire but
the trees were thick and could be blocking the sound. No, she would hear it.
She ran over the next ridge.
One hundred ten one hundred.
Sliding to a
stop in the snow, she tore at the pocket of her bag and pulled out the cell
phone given to her by the head of the Psi Alliance. She dialed the number she’d
been ordered to memorize.
One hundred twenty one hundred. Great Spirit, let
him be out of the cabin.
She hit call.

Several beeps sounded inside the cell phone. Rain pulled Yas
in close and covered his ears. The ground rumbled as an enormous explosion
rocked the trees. If she had not already been on her knees, she would have
fallen from the reverberation even at that distance. A plume of smoke pushed up
high enough that she saw it over the ridge.

Yas quaked, but he didn’t bark. She’d not given the dog a
command to stay silent, but he seemed to know how to behave.

Tucking the detonation phone away, she grabbed the bag and
continued to move away in the same direction, Yas tight at her heels.

The heavy sound of footfall behind her made her dodge behind
a large oak. She didn’t know if it was Jess or one of the people hunting them.
She tucked the shotgun tight against her shoulder. She knew her buckshot would
probably only wound a man at any distance. Still, it might buy her enough time
to get away. A low whistle made her heart slow. It was Jess’ signal that it was
him and to stay in place. She waited, and two seconds later he ran into view.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

“No. You?”

“Miraculously, we’re okay. How the hell are we going to get
out of here? I think I just blew up the four wheeler.”

“You most definitely did. Good job. Come on, we have work to
do. Those bastards got away. I saw them loading into a couple of big four-seat
ATVs. They’ll try to track us and with all this snow, it won’t be hard to do.”

He’d barely gotten the words out when they heard the sound
of an engine, and it was getting closer. The forest stretched out for a few
miles but it was an advantage to them to be on foot since the large all-terrain
would have to pick its way through the heavily treed area.

Slinging her pack over her shoulders, she took off at a run,
following Jess. Yas stayed close at her heels. The trees were topped with heavy
snow that in the bright sun dropped in large clumps from time to time. A
stream, which had probably gurgled happily in the other seasons, was stilled by
the months of below-freezing temperatures.

Rain looked for options to aid in their escape. She was not
panicked. That was perhaps the biggest surprise of all. A few weeks ago she had
been living a quiet life in Nevada and in the past week she had done things she
could not have imagined in her previous life. Yet, now she could see that all
the grueling training and mental focus Jess had tortured her with had been for
a purpose. In only the past twenty-four hours she had nearly hyperventilated
with fear, made love to Jess, decided to continue her training, shot a man and
blown up a cabin.

She was running for her life and all in all, she felt great.
If she’d had the breath to spare, she would have laughed.

Jess grabbed her hand and they jumped into the gully cut by
the stream. She watched silently as his eyes narrowed in the direction of the
approaching vehicle. A wad of snow fell in the space followed by a loud
cracking.

Her heart pounded as she watched as a long-dead oak crash to
the ground, blocking the path. The ATV had to swerve and ram a smaller tree to
avoid colliding with the newly felled tree.

“Did you do that?”

He nodded and grabbed her hand. “Come on, that won’t hold
them long.”

As soon as they climbed up the opposite bank of the creek
bed, gunfire followed them. They split up to draw off the fire. The gunmen were
shooting at Jess and she was free to run forward without much darting. As soon
as they were out of range they heard the engine gunning behind them. She could
hear them gaining on them in spite of their full run and the thick forest.

Jess ran toward her and pulled her behind a trunk large
enough to give them both cover. He pulled the rifle off his shoulder as he
spoke. “Listen,
cher
, we can’t outrun them. They’re already gaining on
us.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I didn’t want you to have to do this, but we’re going to
have to fight.”

Her heart raced with excitement and she leveled her shotgun
in the direction where the enemy would approach. It was clear to her now that
these men were not after her, but they definitely wanted to kill Jess. She
could not let that happen. “What do I do?”

“Wait for my signal and then fire.” He started to move away.

“What’s the signal?” She heard a quiver of panic in her own
voice.

He stopped and turned back toward her. Mischief lit his
eyes. “You’ll know it when you see it.”

Two seconds later he disappeared into the backdrop of snow
and trees. Yas whimpered and she sent the dog a message to be still.
Immediately he fell into a resting position and put his head on his paws.

The engine drew closer. The crunching of leaves and dead
tree limbs broke the silence. The enemy was getting close. Her finger rested
near the trigger and she found herself wishing she’d trained with a rifle. The
shotgun would not be as accurate but it would allow for a wide spread of
buckshot.

If only she could still her racing heart, but that wasn’t
going to happen as the green ATV came into view. Where had the other vehicle
gone? Was it going to roar in from behind them? Jess had said to wait for his
signal. They were getting too close. She could almost make the shot. Just a
little closer and she could take out the man in the passenger side. Jess’ words
made her hold her position but she put her finger over the trigger.

Where’s the signal?

So close. They were in range and the angle was right. A shot
rang out. The ATV hobbled. Another shot. Both tires on the passenger side must
have been shot out in quick succession because the ATV started to tumble away
from her. She couldn’t get the shot.

“Damn.”

The vehicle was upended and the men started to emerge. Rain
opened fire. Blood spread across the neck and chest of the front-seat
passenger. No time to think, she took a second shot just as she heard the rifle
fire off to her right. She hoped that was Jess and not the men from the other
ATV. She took a second shot. A second man crumbled to the forest floor.

Reloading distracted her from the silence that followed. It was
the loudest of her life.

A low whistle broke in and she waited for Jess’ blond head
to appear from behind the turned-over ATV. He gave an all-clear signal of three
short whistles. Rain did not approach the scene, though part of her knew she
should. There would be time enough to explore what she had done.

As soon as Jess joined her, they moved quickly to the edge
of the tree line. In front of them was more than a thousand feet of open ground.
At the far end of the clearing a large herd of buffalo dug at the frozen ground
looking for bits of grass to feed on.

The ATV came into sight in a gully between the buffalo and
their position.

Her heart had only begun to stop racing from the last encounter.
Now it beat again with renewed excitement.

“Rain, could you make those animals stampede?”

“What? Why would we want that? Have you lost your mind?” Her
thoughts raced. How could they get across this field before the enemy got
within firing range?

“Can you do it?”

“Yes. Probably.” It would only take making the animals
understand that they were in danger and needed to run.

“Do you think they would come this way?”

Trees surrounded them. The only open field was the most
likely path for the beasts plus she could make them think the danger was behind
them. “It’s the most likely path.”

The ATV climbed the ridge.

“Good. Do it now.”

She had a dozen questions, but she trusted Jess. She sent
the emotion as strongly as she could, to as many of the buffalo as she could at
one time. Only a second later tons of animal flesh careened across the land in
their direction. Yas stood between her legs and she stayed behind a large tree.
Jess took position close by and they watched their pursuers trying to turn away
from the pounding hooves. The driver took a hard left, running smack into a
large male bison. The vehicle stopped dead in its tracks while the animal
stumbled and fell. It huffed a few times, got up and continued on at a slightly
slower pace.

Rain sent out an apology to the Great Spirit for causing the
beast pain.

One man ran out into the snow. He tried to make it to the
trees. He actually managed to dodge one set of pounding hooves before falling
victim to the next. Rain shut her eyes against the sight of his broken body
tumbling unnaturally around the ground.

Jess reached for her hand. “Come on. They’re going to be
busy for a little while. We can make our way along the tree line. It’s only
five miles to where I left a car. We can make that distance.”

“Can’t we call for help?”

“I’ll call Josh once we can get a cell signal. The park has
towers but we have to get to higher ground. No one would get here before we are
either on the road or caught anyway. There’s no one in this area. We’re on our
own.”

“Yes, I suppose we are.” She expected to feel anxiety, but a
sense of calm at knowing Jess was there washed over her. He would die to keep
her safe and she knew she would do the same.
Strange.