His hunch proved correct when she climbed the steps to the command center and went inside. Seconds later a slew of lights blinked on. He imagined her starting the coffee with her hair tangled, her face sleep-flushed, and her body warm and soft. When his stomach tightened, he wasn’t sure which image had sparked the response—the thought of piping-hot black coffee . . . or her tangled hair and soft, unpainted lips.
It took far more effort than it should have to wrench his attention away from the lodge, or—if he was honest—the woman inside it, which sent a frisson of alarm through him. All told, he’d barely spent an hour in the woman’s company. Not nearly long enough to have forged this intense connection with her, even if that connection was—strictly speaking—physical. The decision to back off may have been for the wrong reason, but it would put things back in perspective.
Grimacing, he settled into the hollow he’d dug between the tree trunks. The sleeping bag was surrounded by earth on three sides. That, along with the pine boughs overhead, had shielded him from the crisp air as the night wore on and the temperature dropped. Even without a fire to warm him, his camp had proven surprisingly cozy. Hell, it would have been downright comfortable if it hadn’t been haunted by a vengeful troll of a ghost.
Long before Pachico had reappeared, Rawls had grabbed the sleeping bag from his bed in the cabin, stuffed several water bottles and his jacket into a rucksack, and climbed out his bedroom window. The window escape had been a precaution. If Faith, or anyone for that matter, came looking for him, they’d come to the door.
His bedroom was on the opposite side of the compound, and right next to the tree line, which made it easy to slip in and out via the window while using the forest for cover. It was a tactic he’d been using since his arrival to avoid his teammates.
Pachico hadn’t been impressed with his ingenuity. Instead, the ghost had been furious to find himself banished from camp. Unfortunately, Pachico’s attempts to enforce his agenda had graduated from annoying to excruciating. Each time the slimy bastard drove his transparent hand into Rawls’s shoulder or chest, a tightlipped white-out of agony followed. Luckily the torture didn’t last long, seconds at most, and then Pachico would blink out and disappear. After the third incident of teeth-clenching, stomach-rolling pain, followed by a blessed twenty minutes of relief, Rawls had reached a critical realization. Each time Pachico plunged his arm into Rawls’s body, he depleted his energy stores a little more. Or at least he disappeared for longer periods of time.
The knowledge had made it easier to grit his teeth and withstand the seconds of volcanic agony. Hell, maybe the bastard would eventually wear himself down to nothing and disappear for good.
At some point during the night, his ghostly stalker must have realized he was depleting himself for nothing, because he’d switched back to the singing. Regrettably, the noise factor didn’t seem to require excess energy, which meant the bastard didn’t vanish. Still, Rawls had been able to block him out enough to get some actual shut-eye now and again. Not enough, but it was a start.
“Look,” Pachico said from somewhere outside Rawls’s shelter. “I promise to leave your gal alone. I swear on my mother’s life. I don’t know what else will convince you.”
Since nothing would convince him, Rawls ignored the question. From his behavior, Pachico had obviously realized that he had no leverage if Rawls kept them out of camp.
“So you’re just going to ignore me, you asshole?” When Rawls remained silent, Pachico’s voice took on an ugly undertone. “You can’t stay away from people forever, you stupid fuck. Sooner or later someone is gonna stumble into range, or you’re gonna have to return to camp.”
Rawls grimaced. He’d already come to the same conclusion. Unless Wolf had some mystical Arapaho remedy to turn the situation around, he—along with whomever happened to be within range of his vengeful hitchhiker—was well and truly screwed for the foreseeable future.
Apparently his continued silence infuriated Pachico past reason, because volcanic, burning agony plunged into Rawls’s back and penetrated into his chest. Locking a groan behind clenched teeth, Rawls closed his eyes and waited the attack out. It lasted five seconds. Five endless, agonizing seconds, and then the pain vanished as suddenly as it had struck.
Shaking, his stomach rolling, and nausea climbing his throat, Rawls slowly relaxed in his sleeping bag. He wasn’t certain why the attacks on him were so much shorter than the one on Faith. Or why Pachico hadn’t attempted to walk inside his body, like he’d done to her. Maybe it was a simple matter of energy reserves. If Pachico was depleting his energy at a faster rate than he was replenishing it, he wouldn’t have the power necessary to penetrate a body fully, or even partially, for an extended period of time.