Thank you to YukonNights for editing this chapter.
I appreciate the hard work.
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When Michael returned to the house, he didn't feel appreciably better than when he left. In some ways, he felt worse. His anger toward Mariah had faded, but his disgust with himself had grown. He still viewed his decision to move forward with the transmitter as the appropriate response to her headstrong recklessness. He wished he had handled it much differently, though. If he had been more patient, she might have come around.
Allowing her to goad him into performing the procedure himself had been a terrible mistake. If she refused to see reason, he ought to have made her stay in her room until she agreed to take the sedative and let Nate administer an anesthetic. Had he kept control of the situation, the device would have been implanted safely in the comfort and privacy of her room. She wouldn't have had a chance to run off after the procedure. He wished he had at least stayed with her afterward so that he could make sure she had everything she needed and that she didn't do anything that might tear her stitches.
His biggest regret was the ugly, ridiculous threat he made afterward. Thinking about it now, he couldn't understand why it ever seemed like a good idea to tell her that the implant included a device that could be triggered to kill her. It disturbed him that he made the threat, but it bothered him even more that such a thought occurred to him in the first place. He hoped she knew he would never do such a thing, but he had to be sure. He had to tell her, even if she didn't want to talk to him.
He hesitated outside the door to her room. The last time he had barged in, it hadn't gone very well. He tapped on the door and got no response. He eased the door open. The lights were off, but the twilight from the windows was enough for him to see she was in bed. She was laying on her stomach, and all he could see of her from the door was her dark hair against the pillow and her arm tucked up next to her face. He took a few steps into the room to try to see her better, but Henry started snarling at him. He backed out quietly and retired to his own room for a restless night.
When he opened the door between their rooms the next morning, Mariah was already sitting up in bed.
"Michael, you said that door could be closed when I wanted privacy. I would like some privacy."
He closed the door without a word. He went to the kitchenette and made coffee. He thought about bringing some to Mariah, but decided against it. It would only give her another opportunity to tell him to go away. He felt awful about what happened the day before, but he couldn't fix the problem by letting her constantly pull his strings.
He decided to spend the morning in the gym. Maybe she would be more agreeable after she was left to her own devices for a while. She didn't have a way to work on the project without him. She might be more appreciative of his company once she had time to realize that.
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Mariah woke to a damp pillow. She flung it away in disgust. It had been years since she had cried in her sleep, and this was a lousy time to relapse. She hadn't had the chance to make sure her face was dry when she heard Michael opening the door between their bedrooms. Without looking in his direction, she asked for privacy. When the door closed, she breathed a sigh of relief and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
Her back still hurt and the muscles in the area around the incision had gotten stiff, but it didn't feel like any cause for concern. A shower would feel good, but she needed to find a way to keep the incision dry. She splashed her face with cold water to wash away any evidence of tears before she ventured out to the kitchenette. The only sign of Michael was the still-warm carafe of coffee. She poured herself a cup before she turned to finding what she needed for a bandage cover.
When she finished her coffee, she constructed a waterproof bandage cover using plastic wrap, paper towels, and waterproof tape from the first aid kit. What kind of weird rich guy bought a warehouse full of plastic wrap when the economy went off the rails? It seemed like an odd choice. She took an extra bandage from the kit, too. The fat cat who bought up all the first aid kits made a better investment, in her opinion.
Once she taped paper towels to the plastic wrap, it had enough body that she could tape it to her back without the plastic curling over on itself. It wasn't her best work, but it was good enough that she could take her shower. Even though she had to avoid allowing water to hit the bandage cover directly, the warmth of the shower was relaxing. When she took the bandage cover and bandage off after her shower to check the incisions, everything looked fine. She could see the incision she made, but the bruising around the area camouflaged it. Michael didn't know to look for a second incision, and she was confident that he would not notice. After she applied a new bandage, she sewed a pocket in another bra for the transmitter.
After she got dressed, she knocked on Michael's door. She wanted to ask him about the schedule for the day. He didn't answer her knock, so she took Henry outside and had a nice romp in the backyard. When they came back in, Michael still wasn't answering his door.
There was a writing desk in her bedroom, and she found stationery in the drawer. She made a list of people she knew who used to work in construction. The list included notes about each person's immediate family and anything that might affect their suitability to come into the compound. When she finished, she tried Michael's door again. Unless he was in there ignoring her, he must have already left for the morning. Either way, she guessed his purpose was to teach her a lesson. The lesson he intended to teach probably wasn't that he was unreliable when he was angry, but that was what his behavior taught her.
She decided to visit the garden. If she could find Seth, he might teach her about natural pest control methods. She hoped he would let her help with the gardening, too. It would feel good to do something useful. The walk to the garden was enjoyable. The sky was a vivid, cloudless blue and the sun was warm against her face. The sun had dried the dew from the top of the grass, but droplets still clung to the dense growth near the ground. Since the weather patterns had changed, May at the foot of the Rockies in northern Colorado had been marked by prolonged flooding. This year, the floods ended sooner than they had in recent years, and by early May, most of the standing water was gone. Now, at the end of May, the hills and meadows were carpeted in the lush growth that followed the rains.
She had been able to replant her own garden in mid-May, and the new plants would only now be coming up, too late for a full growing season. That was another thing she hoped to learn from Seth. The plants in his garden were already beginning to produce. Even if he started them in the potting shed, or even the greenhouse, how had they survived the flooding? He couldn't have planted them after the flooding. The plants would have been too old by then to transplant without shocking them. He must have transplanted them before the flooding, and found a way to drain the water-logged soil.
Seth was happy to see her. If he thought anything was odd about her showing up by herself, he didn't mention it. He let her help him plant marigolds between the cabbages and other leafy green vegetables to keep the cabbage worms away. After that, he explained his drainage system. The most important feature was the natural geography. The garden was planted on a gentle slope, about 900 feet uphill from a creek running through the bottom of a steep ravine.
French drains were buried beneath the garden. The water they collected was funneled into a single pipe that ran below ground and exited the side of the ravine. The garden was protected from flowing surface water by a large, semicircular berm built uphill of the garden, and by angled ditches dug along the sides of the plot. The ditches weren't even visible now that the grass was tall, but they were enough to guide the flow of surface water away from the garden. It was an ingenious setup, but it couldn't be applied to a spot that didn't have similar physical features. It would be important to plan the new gardens and buildings around geography that was conducive to a similar drainage system.
After Seth explained how the drainage system worked, they went through the rows of the garden to pick anything that was ripe. He had started the seedlings in the potting shed at the end of March, so there were already some tomatoes, summer squash, green beans and lettuce ready to harvest. The first radishes, onions and beets had been collected a couple of weeks ago. Cucumbers, peas and okra would be ready soon. They were just picking the last of the ripe green beans when the radio on Seth's belt beeped. It was Michael, asking if anyone had seen Mariah. Seth looked at her before he responded. "She was here earlier. I think she's on her way back to the house for lunch."
She gave him a quick smile. "I guess I'd better be going. Thanks for your kindness and your company this morning."
"I was glad to have the help, and the conversation. Do you want to use the cart I've got here to get back to the house?"
"No thanks. I'll take a shortcut through the field."
She didn't want to get Seth in trouble, so she hurried back. She came in through the entrance in the west wing, and Marcus saw her when she passed the kitchen on the way to the stairs.
"Mariah! There you are!" Marcus was all smiles, but she saw the signs of worry around his eyes.
"Hi, Marcus."
"Michael's looking for you. He asked me to radio him when you got here."
"Okay. Would you mind if I make a sandwich while you do that?"
"A sandwich? Are you sure you don't want anything else? Everyone else had tapas for lunch, and I've got lots left over."
"That must have been good. Have you ever just really wanted something simple, though? I'd really like to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."
Marcus smiled. "I know exactly what you mean." He found the bread and peanut butter and jelly for her and let her make her own sandwich. He even poured her a glass of milk. He waited until she was eating her sandwich before he radioed Michael.
One of the drawbacks of living in a ridiculously large house is that it takes a long time to get anywhere. By the time Michael arrived in the kitchen, Mariah was licking the peanut butter and jelly from her fingers. Not very ladylike, she realized, but do you really have to be ladylike when you eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? She finished her milk while she waited for Michael to say something. He didn't look happy.
When she put her glass down, he beckoned her to follow him. She supposed he meant it to seem ominous. So, she trailed behind him like a wayward child being escorted to the principal's office. He didn't say anything until they got back to his private wing. Henry came running up for his hug and kiss, but instead of running off afterward, he stuck close to Mariah. He wasn't growling at Michael anymore, but he was keeping an eye on him.
Michael escorted her to her bedroom and closed himself in with her. She wondered if he was going to try to lock her in. He looked angry enough to do something like that.
"Sit down."
She sat. It would have been ridiculous to do anything else.
"Where were you?" Michael demanded.
