Reawakening Eden Read Free Page B

Rambo.
    He approached slowly, his movements silent and steady. Unhurried. Confident. She’d be confident too, if she was holding a freaking machine gun and packing enough artillery to topple a dictatorship.
    As their mystery guest got closer, her impression of size only grew. He had to be six-five and his build was massive, though some of his bulk could have been due to the heavy camo hunting gear he was swathed in head to toe. She couldn’t even make out his skin tone with the camouflage paint smeared across his face.
    He stopped ten feet away, his gun held casually but aimed squarely at Ben’s chest. His aim was a comfort, as his words had been, but Eden’s mouth still went dry with fear. Ben was the devil she knew. This man was a devil of a whole new variety.
    “This doesn’t concern you,” Ben snarled—clearly trying to sound as menacing as the Rambo Mountain Man and failing pathetically.
    “That’s far enough,” Rambo growled. The dog gave a short, snarling bark.
    Eden jerked and twisted back to face Ben. She hadn’t realized he’d begun creeping up on her back until the mountain man’s hard voice stopped him. With no success from threats and stealth, Ben switched tactics again, slapping on a lazy just-between-us-guys grin.
    “No need to get upset, friend.” He held up his empty hand in a look-how-harmless-I-am gesture, the one still clutching the handgun dangling oh so casually against his thigh. As if Rambo wouldn’t notice it there.
    “I’m not upset. Friend.”
    Eden believed that. Upset implied emotion and he didn’t seem to have any. Like the Terminator. But was this the first movie or the second? Was he there to kill her or protect her?
    “Look, this is a complicated situation,” Ben said calmly. “I can see how you would misunderstand, but trust me, I would never hurt this woman. I’m just making sure she gets home safe. That’s all I want.”
    His voice was so reasonable, Eden almost believed him herself. Ben must have been taking charisma and manipulation lessons from Jonah.
    Rambo didn’t budge. “If that’s true, let her tell me that and I’ll go.”
    Ben turned his charm offensive in her direction. “Tell him, sweetheart.”
    Her gaze flicked between the two men. Five minutes ago she’d wanted nothing more than to get rid of Ben, but if she admitted that, she’d be left alone with the Rambo Terminator. Out of the frying pan… He might be a Good Samaritan, just a helpful gunman on his way to ambush revolutionaries in the next valley, but after seeing the dog last night, she knew his presence here wasn’t a coincidence.
    She had no guarantee she’d be safe with him. Or that the children would.
    It was a gamble, and Eden had never been the kind of girl who got off on risk. Control. Order. That was more her speed. She was a librarian, for chrissake. Or she had been.
    Ben was a known quantity. He’d drag them back to Seattle where Jonah was waiting to make them the centerpiece of his twisted new religion. She hadn’t been watched before, but if they went back, she would be. She wouldn’t be able to talk Jonah’s minions into releasing her. You couldn’t reason with zealots.
    Jonah wanted power—and had actually started buying his own pseudo-religious bullshit. Ben was motivated by greed. But her rescuer, this behemoth in hunting gear, was a wild card. There was a chance he would help her. A chance he was the one good man who’d survived the epidemics. And she and Lucas still had their weapons, if it came to holding him off.
    In Seattle, there were no chances. So no matter how slight the chance that this mercenary-looking bastard with the ice-cold voice was really pudding and marshmallows on the inside, it was still a chance worth taking.
    “We don’t want to go with him.”
    “That’s all I needed to hear.” Rambo’s machine gun barely moved an inch, but suddenly it was poised for death. The wolfhound began a low, constant growl, circling to take a flanking