Risen To The Top

CHAPTER 12

Alex walked at a steady pace as he watched the back of Joanne’s dark head. She defiantly fit in to the crowd. a few heads turned when she walked down the street and men had seemed to fall aside with their tongues wagging. 

At least that’s what he imagined. She had that effect on men, kind of like the coyote in the cartoons when steam shot out of its ears, and its eyes did the slot machine spin.

Okay, so it wasn’t that bad. If he wanted to be totally honest, that’s the way he’d felt when he’d first seen her. She’d walked across the room in a hot red outfit even though she looked sad, he’d lost control of his wits. Not only had his temperature risen, well … he shook his head and cleared the image from his mind.

They’d been walking for almost an hour and already he could tell she was slowing down. So far they hadn’t run into any trouble. When Joanne stumbled, he reached out and took her arm. She yanked it free and glared at him. He smiled at her in return, which only caused her to frown. The small crease between her eyebrows caused him to smile even more.

“Would you stop doing that?” She turned her head away from him. When he smiled, she felt her insides melt. He had a lopsided smile and she could just make out a small dimple to the right side of his mouth, not to mention the small cleft in his chin. It just screamed to be kissed, and it upset her that she was thinking along those lines. Especially since her dad had just been died and she was helping a criminal sneak out of the state.

“Fine, next time I’ll let you fall on your pretty face.” He shrugged his shoulders.

“Not that!” She adjusted her backpack for the hundredth time.

“What then?”

“Smiling. You look like an idiot when you do it.” She frowned at him again. He couldn’t help it, he laughed out loud. He was happy to see a small smile form on her lips.

“If the bag is too heavy, I can carry it,” he said after she adjusted her bag again.

“It’s not. I just didn’t think we’d be marching at such high speeds.”

He almost laughed again. “Princess, we haven’t even begun to march. Wait until we hit the outskirts of town. I’m sure there will be plenty of men looking for us there and we may have to actually do some running.” He looked around and realized they were less than three blocks from the edge of the city. “We’d better eat lunch and rest here, just in case.”

He walked over to a small shop and sat on the bench next to the doorway. Here, on the outskirts of town, the walls and shops were covered with graffiti. The buildings were crumbling and the roads were used and old. There was trash everywhere, covered with the musty smell of mold and cooked food.

Joanne walked over and sat next to him and watched as he removed a small brown bag from his pack.

“Here.” He handed her a small baggie of cheese and crackers, then he took out one of the many sealed bags of beef jerky and handed it to her.

She sat and ate the food in silence. He’d expected her to complain about the food, or maybe her feet. But instead she just watched people walking by and silently ate everything he’d given her. Then she pulled out a bottle of water and downed half the contents.

“What were my father's last words?” she asked again. He’d gotten out of answering it before when Marshall had come in. They’d left shortly after he’d reported everything he’d experienced with the old man.

Alex nodded his head and finished drinking his own water. Then he turned to her and noticed her frowning.

“If it helps, he didn’t know any of this was going to happen.”

“If he didn’t know this was going to happen, then why did he talk about you everyday? What else is going on that I would need Argon to save me from?”

He smiled. “Is he still calling me that?”

Joanne frowned even more. “He thinks you are some sort of missing piece in his plans of bringing down the Connery family.”

Alex thought about it. Her father had been intentional at the time he’d saved him,he must have had everything planned out ,which made him grateful now.

“He'll surely be happy in heaven right?” He smiled.

Joanne laughed. He enjoyed the rich sound and the way her eyes lit up.

“He started two years back. He has quite the collection of friends. He actually protected his friends from the law by taking all the blame and going to jail for it.” As she continued to talk about her father, Alex noticed how she relaxed and looked like she was enjoying herself. He could plainly see that she cared about her father.

He remembered when he’d  found his older half-sister, Loretta. She’d been adopted as a baby by her biological father and raised under the name of Roberta. He’d run into her at the Portland hospital a few years back while he was on a job. When he had seen her he’d done a double take. She looked so much like a younger version of his mother, he knew instantly that he had found his missing sister. He’d followed her and broken into her place just to confirm his intuition. After being satisfied that she was Loretta, he’d left her a small clue he knew she could easily follow back to him. After all, he’d found out that she was a top  detective at the time.

Roberta found the clue and less than a month later tracked him down, finally coming face-to-face with her only family.

He’d attended her wedding to Ric Derby shortly after that and less than two year later had been at the baptism of their daughter, Rose.

They'd travelled to Canada after that, he knew she must have not heard anything from him for the past two years.

“Are you listening to me?” Joanne interrupted his thoughts.

“Yes. You said your mother and brother always had a field day with your dad whenever he returned from his trips back then, and wouldn’t let him leave the house for almost two months.”

 He smiled when she frowned back at him. He was thankful for his great memory, something he shared with his sister, Loretta. Maybe that’s what made them both suited to do the jobs they were in. Since getting married, Roberta had retired from the police force and was head of security for her husband’s large art galleries, a move that had caused Alex to second guess his life. He had retired from the academy and gone into computer engineering for himself shortly afterwards.

Thinking about the past always brought his thoughts back to Sarah.

He had been trying to leave her memories out of his past but she was everywhere and his past was incomplete without her.

.

“It should have been me.”

“What should have?”

“Instead of my brother. I was just there. I had just left. If I had—”

“Stop!” He turned to her and took her shoulders into his hands. “It’s called survivor’s remorse, Joanne, and you’re too smart to fall into the trap of what if’s.”

She looked at him as tears slid down her face. He wanted to gather her up and hold onto her, promising her that everything would be okay. But the look on her face told him it was too soon. She didn’t trust him, yet.

“I know. I understand it, but you can’t deny the fact that I’m to blame.….”

He shook her shoulders lightly. “If you hadn’t done the needful, you’d be lying in the grave next to Mark.”

The shocked look on her face told him that he was heading down the right path to snap her out of her guilt. He knew he was being harsh, but he needed her at full mental capacity. He knew what was lying ahead, and he couldn’t drag her physically or mentally the entire way through the jungle. She needed to take the steps and judging by the anger in her eyes now, she was on a fast track to recovery.

Looking around, he could see they had taken enough time. The next few hours would be a lot harder than the first half of the day. The steep hills and paths they were going to take were just plain torturous. He’d actually had to use this pathway once before, and could remember every sore muscles after the few days of hiking. He kept this information from Joanne, thinking that if she knew ahead of time what he was about to subject her to, she’d change her mind about trusting him.

“We’d better get going.” He stood and pulled her to her feet. He pulled her closer then he’d intended and enjoyed the spark of desire that crossed her face. Interesting. He closed the distance between them by pulling her closer and noticed her eyes softening. Very interesting, he thought. Maybe the hike through the hills wouldn’t be so bad after all.