been gone. He laid his hands flat on the center of her back, applying slight pressure. He let the warmth of his hands settle into her body before moving them slowly up and down her spine, gently pushing the heels of his palms into the tauter muscles. He dug his thumbs into her neck and shoulders until she sighed with relief.
“Let me feel your skin,” she whispered. “Lie beside me and hold me. I’ll be asleep in minutes.”
Dillon curled in behind her, slid an arm under her pillow to hold one hand, and found her other hand to hold against her chest. He pulled her into his body and tucked his bent knees into her own. He kissed her shoulder and rested his head above hers on the pillow. Her body melted into his, her attention fading with the knowledge that she was happy and safe and content.
ELEVEN
By noon, the temperature was triple digits. The two-day reprieve had made life more tolerable, but the heat was back like a furnace on full tilt. The Bishop watched the waves of heat radiating up from the desert floor and let the sun bake his skin. He stood on the back veranda of his home and listened to his elderly uncle drone on. Familial obligation dictated that he allow his uncle a place to live out his remaining days with family. His uncle had moved into his home a month ago and begun telling the Bishop how to run the family business.
“If you do not gain control of this now, the future of this family is as sure as tomorrow’s sunrise. We cannot show this weakness. The Americans have slapped us into submission. Your father would never have allowed this.”
The Bishop turned to face his father’s older brother. He sat in a wheelchair under the awning with a light blanket covering his emaciated legs. His body tilted to one side, like a knickknack askew on a shelf, and the Bishop found himself torn between pity and revulsion. Once king of the world, his uncle was now relegated to drool and impotence and a colostomy bag. The Bishop paid little attention to his uncle, but had already come to the same conclusion regarding the Americans. He needed no guidance. The small-town police had made a mockery of his organization.
“It is taken care of,” he said.
His uncle laughed, a wet gurgle from deep in his lungs. “You lost a trailer of explosives. How is that taken care of?”
“I’ve sent two men to the police chief. She will pay the price for her arrogance. She will learn what happens when you don’t play by our rules.”
* * *
Josie woke disoriented, her head heavy with sleep. She felt Dillon’s leg draped over her own and tried to figure out what day it was without opening her eyes. She lay on her back and moved her fingers lazily over his chest and allowed the drama from the night before to filter back into her thoughts as if through a deep fog. She thought she smelled a cigarette and imagined her mother sitting out in her living room, chain-smoking, and waiting on her to get out of bed.
She heard a noise and the scrape of a boot against the wood floor just before she opened her eyes. Two armed men stood at the end of the bed. Instantly awake, her body was rigid with fear. The room was dim, but she could easily distinguish that they were two males in their twenties, one stocky with a short military cut and a bushy mustache, the other taller and wearing a camouflage bandanna around his head and a long gold earring. The stocky man held his gun at his chest, removed the cigarette from his mouth, and dropped it on the floor, grinding it into the wood with his foot.
She forced breath into her lungs and pulled the sheet up, clenched it between her fists at her chest. Take me, she wanted to say. Leave him be. She wanted to stand with her hands in the air and surrender. Walk out of the bedroom with them as Dillon slept on, undisturbed. He did nothing to deserve this. But her body was frozen, her eyes unblinking, her mind barely able to separate dream from reality.
“You made a big mistake,” the man with the bandanna said, and Dillon jerked awake beside her.
“What the hell?” he said, his voice confused.
Under the sheet, Josie squeezed his forearm but kept her eyes on the two men.
“You