Part 56 (1/2)

”What in the name of G.o.d are you doing?” she shouted.

They both stared at her as she pointed the hose away from them and adjusted the stream of water to a trickle.

”I came to get Lance's help,” Logan sputtered as he pulled away from his brother.

”Well, you sure have a funny way of going about it,” Savannah observed.

He scrubbed his hand over his face, wiping off the water, then shot Lance an embarra.s.sed look. He was relieved to see that his brother looked just as abashed.

”Sorry,” he muttered.

”Yeah,” Lance responded.

”You were going to tell us why you're here,” Savannah suggested.

”Yeah. Right. I...” He started to explain what had happened and suddenly became aware that he didn't know what he wanted to say. Rinna had told him... told him...

He blinked, and in that terrible moment, he understood that Rinna had tricked him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

RINNA'S HEART POUNDED in her chest as she circled high in the sky, high above the patch of woods. Off to the left and the right she could see houses among the greenery. Houses sitting out in the open, unprotected. There might be guns in this world, but the people felt safe enough to live outside a high fence. That simply wasn't true back home. Only the desperate lived without protection.

Finally she could also see a tent in the distance. Falcone must have set up camp.

It was so tempting to take her chances here and just keep flying-away from Falcone. Away from danger. But that would leave Logan in serious trouble. She had to follow through on the plan she had devised. But now that she was back near Falcone, the thought of landing made her insides churn.

Still, she had no choice. She had known that in the back of her mind as soon as she had seen Haig and Falcone and the soldiers marching through the woods.

Maybe she had even known what was going to happen when she'd landed beside the detective. Maybe a premonition had prompted her words to him.

She knew she was stalling.

But the thought of facing Falcone as a naked woman made her stomach roil. So she widened her circle, flying over the houses, her sharp eyes searching for one of those lines where people hung clothes to dry-right out in the open where anyone pa.s.sing by could take them.

She was beginning to think she would have to find an empty house and break in when she finally spotted what she needed. Of course, the line was near the windows, and now it was broad daylight. Well, too bad!

She flew down, landing directly on the clothesline, a.s.sessing her choices. She saw men's s.h.i.+rts. And pants that probably belonged to a woman. They were wider than the men's slacks. But the legs were short.

Praying that her luck would hold, she pulled the pins from a long-sleeved s.h.i.+rt, then went after a pair of pants.

But before she was finished, the back door opened, and a blond-haired woman wearing a shapeless dress came out of the house, brandis.h.i.+ng a broom and waving it angrily at the bird on the clothesline.

At least it was a broom, not a gun, so Rinna kept working frantically to free the pants.

”Get away, you d.a.m.n thief. Get away,” the woman shouted as she advanced with the broom.

Rinna plucked at the clothespin and finally managed to pull it loose, then dodged as the broom came down next to her, thwacking the line and making her almost lose her balance.