Chapter eleven. Did you say 'outside Boston'?

Pete, Helen, Debra and the children climbed into the Aspen SUV. Ray took the morgue van. Hardy drove the white Honda and Drew got into the Chrysler 300. They all disappeared down the road when Mr. Green, Jordan and Woody climbed in the helicopter.

Mr. Green sat beside the pilot, leaving Jordan and Woody in the back seats. They were asked to wear the same kind of knitted masks Jordan had used before, so they wouldn't know where they were going. Jordan put it on her head, and although she was tired of wearing it, she still wanted to cooperate with Mr. Green's plan. Woody put it on his head because Jordan compelled him to do so. It was a given.

Once they were inside the helicopter, Mr. Green got into a lively discussion with the pilot, who he referred to as JJ, about the Jets football team. They discussed the team's new quarterback acquisition, Mark Sanchez, and speculated about how he would compare with Joe Namath. Oblivious to the passengers sitting behind them, they talked for well over an hour about various players and their statistics.

Meanwhile, Jordan and Woody were terribly quiet, each lost in their own thoughts. Although neither of them had slept all night, they were both wide awake, probably from all the adrenaline brought on by the excitement of the past several hours. It was impossible for either of them to rest.

Woody had been wondering about the peculiar behavior Jordan had displayed toward him during all they had gone through that bizarre night. The questions he was posing in light of all that had happened to them were always the same:

Was Jordan's concern for him a sign that she thought of him as more than a very good friend? Did it imply that she loved him? Or that she was at least close to it?

It had appeared to him that she was extremely disturbed when he was injected. His dream of heaven could very possibly have some real ingredients. Like the 'I love you' part and the kiss. It had been so oddly vivid that he was having trouble believing he had just made them up.

Even Debra had told him that 'his girlfriend' loved him very much. Why would she have said that? She must have known something.

In the past, he had experienced some awfully unpleasant moments when he had interpreted Jordan's attitudes as being on the same wavelength as his own. One of his talents was an exceptional ability to read other people, a quality that helped him immensely in his work as a detective. However, when it came to Jordan, he was a complete disaster. He couldn't read her any more than he could read a Chinese newspaper. Yet, tonight she had been so loving and supportive, he couldn't help but believe it was worth one more try.

So, there were they, secured to their seats in the back of an helicopter, blinded by the mask they were wearing, without knowing where they were headed. Woody knew Mr. Green's team didn't represent a real threat to them anymore, but he still had to follow their whims, because Jordan wouldn't have it any other way, and he always ended up doing what she wanted, even though he wasn't convinced it was the best thing to do.

He had the feeling that the place they were going to be released was somehow inaccessible; it was the only explanation for why Mr. Green had bothered to travel in a chopper rather in his car.

Assuming Mr. Green could be trusted, their friends and co-workers would be notified of their whereabouts after his people were safely away. Still, a rescue effort could take days, during which he would be alone with Jordan in a remote, secluded location outside of Boston, with no cell phones or any other way to contact the outside world. Now that he thought about it, Mr. Green could just be doing him an enormous favor. Jordan would have no place to go; she would have to talk to him. That is, if he could gather the nerve to finally demand some answers from her. But what if they weren't the answers he wanted to hear? He really wanted it to work out this time. He'd be crushed if he tried again and she didn't feel the same way he did. His enthusiasm swiftly became dread as he realized he might be setting himself up for a world of hurt--again.

Meanwhile, Jordan's thoughts had led her to pretty much the same conclusion that Woody's had.

She had put herself in such a predicament once more!

Every time she and Woody had been taken away from Boston, something had happened between them. It was like a curse.

It wasn't that she wished any of those wonderful moments in the past hadn't happened; some of those times were almost magical. But when it came time to return to Boston, to go back to their 'real' lives, neither of them could seem to recognize what they had shared while they were away. She had herself to blame for the majority of those neglected memories...and feelings, but Woody had destroyed some of them, like what they had shared at The Lucy Carver Inn.

She had turned down JD in such a painful way and Woody's answer was moving on with Lu.

Woody had been growing on her since she first met him. All their bantering had been their one and only way of flirting with each other until she found herself completely, madly in love with him. He had been her best friend, her companion in distressing moments, the person who, in a way, had come to know her better than she knew herself. It was that last thing that was so irritating at times that all she wanted to do was run away from him, just to find him again in the end.

She had admitted to herself that she loved him after the infamous moment that punk shot him in the guts. She had been so close to losing him… and it had been so traumatic when he had rejected her. She could only say she was reaping what she had planted in him.

However, when they came to friendly terms again, she gave in once more when they were snowed in up in Littleton Village, and he still didn't want her after that. She wasn't about to risk her heart again with him. It could destroy her. They had been functioning perfectly well as friends--until now. She had survived her mother's murder, her father's lies, JD's death and even being accused of his murder. She had survived brain surgery for Christ sake! That's what she needed to keep doing. Surviving was what she did best.

At that moment, she felt his hand moving slowly across her left thigh.

Her heart stopped for a second in surprise.

When she recovered, she asked, "What are you doing, Woody?" She struggled to keep her voice neutral, but her amazement betrayed her and it came out sounding like a scolding.

Woody felt like a little kid caught doing something wrong. After he dared to act in result of his reflections, he found himself searching for her hand. With the mask on his head, he was making some risky movements with his hand on her. The unforeseen outcome infuriated him, and he took the mask off of him as he answered angrily, "I just wanted to hold your hand! I wanted to know if you were OK."

'Strike one!' he thought, as he pulled his hand back and put it on his chest. He sat still in his seat after that.

"Oh...," she said regretfully. When her heart rate had stabilized, she said calmly, "I'm OK, Woody. Give me your hand." She lifted her hand in search of his.

He smiled, recovering from his ranting. He took her mask off, feasting his sparkling eyes on her lovely face as she struggled to focus her own eyes in the blinding morning light. 'What?!' she blurted out.

While she blinked, she realized that Woody had taken her hand in his, and she finally could see his grinning face.

"We're far enough, Jordan. Let's forget about the masks, OK? Besides, it's not like I could do anything up here. Look!" He signaled with his free hand toward the chopper's window and Jordan turned to see an amazing view of a huge, endless forest.

"We're somewhere on the way to the Great North Woods, New Hampshire, or the White Mountains," he informed her while he let go of her hand but encircled her shoulders immediately after, leaning his head into her side in order to have a better picture of what she was looking at.

He was suddenly too close to her, his warm breath caressing her ear, and she shivered with pleasure. His embrace left her confused, her head spinning from his scent, her heartbeat racing furiously.

What the hell did he think he was doing?

She was mad at herself. Two tiny moves from him had turned her upside down in a second. How was she supposed to fight the curse of 'outside Boston' if she couldn't handle a little innocent hug?

"What do you think of this, Jordan?" he uttered in a low, inviting voice. His mouth almost touched her ear, and even though he was still focused on the view, she could sense a deeper meaning in the way he had spoken.

Jordan was torn between the urge to kiss him, for obvious reasons; and the urge to snap at him, for making her feel so vulnerable and weak. In the end, she didn't do either. She pulled herself together and answered, "We certainly are far away from my city life, Woody. I don't know how to cope in the wilderness, so I hope you really are the Boy Scout I always believed you were, huh?"

Because she was smiling, he couldn't fully understand what she was implying with her comment. Did she want him to behave properly, in a 'keep-his-hands-to-himself' sense? Did he have to consider that as 'strike two'?

His heart sank. He took his hand off her shoulders quickly, lifting his arm to rest upon the seat's back, and masked his abrupt move with a new tease. "Well, city girl, I could teach you everything you've always wanted to know about surviving in the wild with a hungry bear."

He was back to square one with her. They still had a lot of time alone together, but he wasn't sure when he could gather courage again to make another move, if ever. It was frustrating, as it had been with her since day one.

Jordan regretted what she said the minute she sensed his warm body going away from her. What did she really want? Two more seconds and she would have planted that kiss on him that she had fantasized about a moment ago. And now, she had nothing of him. Oh, well, it was probably for the best.

Out of the blue, she heard Mr. Green's voice informing them, "We've arrived." He turned to look at them with a wide smile on his face. "I promise the place is beautiful. It would be like going on vacation." The old man didn't know, but he had just saved Jordan from more self inflected torture.

The chopper descended slowly until it landed in a small open field surrounded on all sides by dense forest. To one side, hidden among the trees, was a small cabin and nothing more.

Twelve hours of rush had led them to that place. They had shown how good they were to deal with adversity, with danger, with death fear, how to face life-threatening events, how to sympathize to whom needed a friendly hand. However, what they were facing now had to do with something they really didn't know how to manage. The fears they hadn't been able to confront, inner demons, hidden love, a history of denial, self inflected wounds, and the damage they had done to the person they needed the most.

Let's watch if they can overcome it while they're waiting for help to arrive!

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A/N.- A night of frantic events ends here. However, there are still some loose ends I want to explain. For example, what is happening in the morgue while Jordan and the bodies she was supposed to be delivering are missing; what happens to Bloom; who is this mysterious Mr. Green? But I bet you've already guessed that what really charms me, is telling how Jordan and Woody are going to manage to hide from each other in a place where they can't escape.

The sequel it's already in the oven and it's going to be entitled 'Waiting for Help to Arrive'.

I want to thank moviemom44 for being a wonderful beta reader. You know that help from an expert is always appreciated, but when English isn't your mother tongue, the same support, added with a lot of patience and extensive explanations, is better than welcome. Wendie, I hope some day I become as good writer as you are.

Thanks to my readers. You know, when I hit my 'Story Traffic' and see that people from such different places of our cyber-planet are reading my story, my heart bumps excitedly. I love you all!

And finally, thanks to my reviewers. When I open my mail and I find a 'Review Alert' in my Inbox I'm the happiest woman on earth, like if I were five again. Thanks for reminding me how it feels to be that young.

To Be Continued…