Goldilocks Forever

Chapter 68

Walton, New York

August 2043

Anna rolled down both windows and let the air swirl around the car. She turned up the volume on the music and tapped her fingers on the steering wheel.

She wasn't due to arrive for another week, but she couldn't wait anymore. She needed to escape before the news of her deal with Ricardo reached Wes. Her gut tightened each time she dared imagine his reaction. So much money. Too much. He wouldn't like that she'd gone behind his back and acted without his authority, but the price, the obscene price--she cringed as she thought of it.

In atonement, she sat through all the debriefing and council meetings while he flew off to the Bahamas with his friends in his private plane. He'd only just returned that day, suntanned and smiling, when she burst his bubble by "abandoning" him.

"Just for a day," she told him. "I need to get to the cabin."

When he asked what was so important and why in such a hurry, she refused to say, which only frustrated him more. "It's personal," she finally said.

One corner of his wicked grin tilted up. "Are you finally going to put Toby out of his misery?"

She frowned, angry at her foolishness, angry she was the last one, the only one probably, not to know.

She pulled the car into the garage that also doubled as their work shed. Benches along the walls overflowed with gardening supplies and the random electronic parts Toby used when he tinkered. Tacked up to the inside of her tool box were the forbidden photos. Toby printed them and put them there for her. She passed the toolbox now, but went back and opened it to look at the photos.

Her family, she and Casey, aged eight in matching white dresses. Alex and Cleo's wedding photo. Alex and Beau, Beau in his uniform. She kissed her fingers and touched them to his laminated face before closing the tool box.

"Hey, Sunshine!" Toby called to her when she slipped in through the side door to the cabin. "I'm in the backyard."

She went through the sliding doors and found him reclined on one of the chairs, sunglasses on his face, and a computer on his lap.

He raised a glass of purplish juice to her. A similar glass stood at the table by his side. "Blackberry lemonade?"

She took it and sipped. "Did you pick these from our bushes?"

"Yup." He smacked his lips together as he drank. "That's why it's extra good. That and all the blood I lost trying to get those berries. Damn prickers." He swatted at his arm. "Mind the ticks." He brought it closer to his face. "I don't think so, you little bastard." He plucked the tick off and threw it onto the grass. "Ticks zero, The Infected, one hundred or so by now, I imagine."

She laughed and sat in the reclining deck chair next to him. He closed the laptop and laid his head against the pillow. "He's doing just fine. Surgery went well." He smiled at her.

"I know," she said.

"What's the problem, then? Wes giving you a hard time?"

"Yes, but nothing I can't handle."

His smile faded. "What is it?"

Her stomach fluttered. She tried to smile. She'd practiced it a million times, thought of little else for the past several months, and now her words escaped her. She reached over and gently pulled the sunglasses off his face.

"I want to see your eyes," she said. His face grew serious. "Stand up." She rose and extended her hand to him.

He put aside his computer and stood. "You're freaking me out," he said. "What's wrong? What happened?"