Reawakening Eden Read Online Free PDF Page A

interrogate him. They were in the middle of nowhere…
    Eden’s heart stopped beating for a moment, then restarted at a hare’s pace. How had Ben found them?
    He’d worked for Microsoft. Computers. Electronics still functioned when they had the electricity to power them. Generators and solar cells were still going strong. Satellites were still in orbit.
    “Shit.” The curse was loud and involuntary, and the children looked up at her, frowning their confusion. Eden barely noticed. She rushed over to the pack she’d dropped earlier and yanked it open.
    Could a tracking device of some kind still function? Had Ben somehow given himself a leg up on other bounty hunters by tricking her into bringing one with her?
    Their few precious possessions quickly littered the forest floor as Eden ransacked the pack. Would she even know what a tracker looked like?
    “Lucas. Hannah Rose. Bring me your packs.”
    The bags appeared at her side and she grabbed for them, only belatedly noticing it was Connor who held them rather than the children. “You okay?” he said under his breath, a slight edge of stop-freaking-the-kids-out in his voice.
    “He found us.” Eden was breathless as she dumped the contents of Hannah Rose’s bag onto the ground. “He knew exactly where to look. How could he do that?”
    “You think he tagged you.” His calm voice was an odd counterpoint to the pounding panic in her veins.
    “He must have.”
    Connor knelt at her side and picked up the empty nylon of her bag. He ran it through his fingers. She was tempted to snap at him that she’d already checked that one, but bit her lip on the impulse. Of the two of them, he seemed a much more likely candidate to know what the hell a tracking device looked like.
    When he went still, Eden found her own hands stopping as well. He reached into one of a dozen pockets on his camo suit and pulled out a small black hunting knife. Eden flinched back, but before she could even think about panicking and running for the hills, Connor carefully slit the seam he’d been testing and used the knife to pop out a tiny disc that looked a little like a watch battery.
    Her breath left her in a whoosh. “Is that…?”
    “Looks like. Pretty damn impressive it still works.”
    “Impressive,” Eden whispered. “If I just smash it…?”
    “That’ll kill it.”
    Faster than the thought to do so, she snatched the disc out of his hand and pulverized it with a rock. The tentacles of panic that had squeezed around her fell away as she brushed away the microchip dust. “Thank you.”
    He nodded and pocketed the knife.
    He was close, hunkered down beside her, but his size wasn’t threatening. More a wall of comfort than a force of intimidation. She wanted to lean into him, to touch him. The men at the commune had made her skin crawl, but this one was a breed of masculinity she’d never met—even before the plagues. She’d thought his type only existed in action movies. But he was real, beside her, and damned if he didn’t smell good.
    Eden found herself swaying toward him. He gave a little grunt and rose abruptly to his feet, striding away until several feet separated them. She knew she should be relieved, but she missed his bulk at her side.
    Eden flicked a glance to where the children were still fawning over Precious. And winced sympathetically. “Hannah Rose, don’t climb on her back like that. She’s not a jungle gym.”
    A twitch of a smile almost got hold of Connor’s lips. So he isn’t made of stone after all…
    “Boise, huh?”
    “I have to get the kids as far south as I can before winter hits.” Eden looked at him, trying to keep the naked pleading off her face. She needed his help but was all too aware that when he looked at them all he would see was more trouble than it was worth. She’d never been very good at wheedling and persuading. Maybe I should get Hannah Rose to ask him .
    Connor looked down at the kids lovingly harassing his extremely tolerant dog.