She started to rise, hesitating as the skirt slid off her legs. Her eyes emanated desperation. “Take me with you,” she said.
“No, that’s out of the question. You’d never make it.” God, but she tugged at him with her soft yearnings. She pulled at his gut, his heart, every damn vital organ in his body. “You’re not exactly dressed to scale cliffs,” he said, regarding her clothing with barely veiled contempt. “That skirt would end up wrapped around your neck.”
“That’s not a problem. I can shorten it.” She pulled the skirt off, apparently intending to begin her alterations immediately. “Look, I’ll rip off the bottom tier.”
Johnny took a deep breath and sent up a prayer to the gods of willpower. She didn’t seem to have any idea that she’d just exposed most of herself to his eyes—silk panties, hips, and bare, shapely legs. Everything but her breasts, he thought grimly, and that was probably coming next if he complained about the blouse she was wearing.
“You’re not coming with me.” His gaze was scathingly hot as he raked it over her body, climbing up her naked limbs to the startled expression on her flushed face. “We have a deal, remember? You agreed to do what I ask. Anything I ask. So if you don’t want me to start asking right now, then you’d be wise to cover yourself up and quit arguing.”
She set her jaw as though fighting a wild desire to defy him. “That will teach me to make deals with arrogant bastards,” she mumbled, yanking the skirt over her legs.
Johnny’s faint smile revealed none of the hunger that was building inside him. His blood was rushing, pooling in dark male places. One day soon he was going to take her up on their deal. He was going to ask, and she was going to give. Anything he wanted. Everything she had. He wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less. One day soon, he told himself.
Seven
“A FRESH KILL,” Johnny murmured, kneeling for a closer look at the carcass he’d found on the bank of the creek he’d been following for the past half hour. The animal wasn’t much bigger than a large rodent, probably a pack rat, and it was unlikely that the predator who’d killed it had satisfied its hunger with such a meager meal. There was a good chance the big animal was still in the area, still hunting.
Johnny touched the top of his moccasin, reassuring himself his knife was still there. He would have to stay on guard. Perhaps the puma he’d seen the night before hadn’t been a hallucination. But even if it was, there were plenty of other predators known to inhabit the area, including wolves and bobcats.
He scanned the woods around him and rose to continue his climb. The rock-studded creek provided a natural clearing and a ready source of fresh water, but the trail ahead presented a problem. The babbling brook turned into steep cliffs and a spectacular waterfall. He would have to take a detour through the trees.
He stopped for a moment in the dark, cool shade of the forest, breathing in the earth’s natural, fertile musk. The smells triggered memories of the more pleasant aspects of his early childhood, when he would escape to the hills and pretend that the Apache still ruled these mountain, forests, and rivers with the same freedom they had in earlier times. As a boy, he’d taken pride in the fact that the Apache were the fiercest warriors in the Indian wars, subdued only because the white soldiers had pitted Apaches against each other. In many cases captive warriors were turned into scouts and forced to search out their own kind, the “invisible enemy” hiding in these very mountains.
A rustle of leaves pricked Johnny’s senses, bringing him out of his reverie. He went still. Even if an animal had picked up his scent, it wouldn’t see him unless he moved. The faint sounds were coming from behind him, from lower down the slope, and he thought they were made by a surefooted cat moving through the brush. Humans were clumsy and noisy.
As the rustling continued, nearing him, he drew his knife and turned into the trunk of a huge spruce. He crouched soundlessly. The forest was dark and mysterious, alive with shadows. It was difficult to see, but if the animal was close enough and Johnny was quick enough, he could come from behind and sever its jugular before it even sensed his presence.
His heart was pumping in quick, hard jerks. This was the first time he’d used his military training since he stopped doing recovery work for the Pentagon, and the adrenaline that had flowed through his veins then was surging now. He quieted his mind and his senses, listening, waiting.
His knife blade glinted, hit by a laser of sunlight.
A tree branch snapped explosively.
Johnny lunged as a shadowy form moved into his line of sight. He knocked it off balance with a body blow and pinned it to the ground with his weight. Reacting out of instinct more than training, he grabbed a fistful of hair and jerked the creature’s head back, pressing the knife blade to its soft throat.
Soft throat?
His hand froze as he realized he had a human being underneath him, a female human being! He sat up and rolled her over roughly, quickly, without releasing her. The knife that was locked in his fist still hovered near her throat.
Johnny’s blood roared through his veins as he stared down at Honor’s terror-stricken expression. “I could have killed you,” he said, his voice trembling with fury and disbelief. “I was a muscle twitch away from killing you!”
She was rigid with fear, apparently unable to speak.
Johnny was astonished at the violence coursing through him. He could barely control the impulse he felt to shake her senseless, to punish her with all the brutality in his soul for her idiocy in coming up behind him that way. It enraged him to think that she would have taken such a risk.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
She shook her head, apparently unable or unwilling to speak with the knife blade at her throat. He kept it there anyway. To hell with what she wanted. The only perverse satisfaction he got from this woman was in frightening her, and that was damn little compensation for the horror she’d just put him through.
Straddling her, he brought her arms over her head and locked her wrists to the ground with one hand. Adrenaline was still pounding through him as he bent low over her body, pinning her down with his forearm, his face inches from hers. The knife was right where he wanted it, at her pale, trembling throat.
“I asked you a question,” he said, his voice a menacing whisper. “What are you doing here?”
She spoke with great effort, her voice so hoarse she couldn’t finish the sentence. “Th-there’s a mountain lion—”
“Mountain lion? Where?”
“D-down at the camp. I couldn’t stay there.”
“Why the hell didn’t you yell or do something to get my attention?”
“I couldn’t.” She swallowed against the knife blade. “I was afraid to yell for fear it would attract the cat. I found your trail along the creek and followed it. Then I lost you.”
A tremor shook her body as Johnny drew the knife back slightly. Her throat caught in a dry sob of relief, and she began to shudder like a woman snatched from certain death. Johnny knew it was a delayed reaction to the horror of what had nearly happened, but he didn’t release her. Nor did he apologize for his fury, even though it was clear she hadn’t been playing games or trying to catch him off guard.
She moved beneath him, her hips bumping the inside of his thighs. “Can I get up now?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, but he didn’t move. He’d suddenly become aware of the shape of her body beneath his, the warmth. He could feel the deepening beat of her heart and the thrust of her breasts against his bare chest. As more and more signals began to fire in his brain, he realized the arm he was holding her down with was pressed against the side of her breast, nestled into its melting fullness. At that moment nothing on God’s earth could have induced him to move.
He told himself to get up, to break the physical connection before it was too late. If he’d meant to scare her, he’d done it. If he’d meant to teach her an object lesson, he’d done that too. She would never creep up behind him again. There was no reason in
hell for him to keep her pinned to the ground underneath him. No reason except that he wanted her that way.
He wondered angrily how she could be so beautiful when she was such a mess. Twigs and leaves were caught in her hair, and soil smudged her face. But he was as drawn to her dishevelment now as he had been to her dreamy perfection years ago. His heart began to thud noticeably. He wanted to taste the sooty marks near her chin, the dirt on her lips. He wanted to kiss her until they both forgot who they were and where they were.
“Johnny?” she said as he bent toward her.
He caught himself a second before their lips met, caught himself like a drunk about to fall off the wagon. He cursed, his voice edged with disbelief. “This is no way to be climbing a mountain.”
She flushed and moved beneath him again. “I’ve never had a conversation at knife-point either. Except with you.”
He glanced at the weapon in his hand, heaved a sigh, and stuck the blade in the ground.
“Are you going to let me up now?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” he answered, quite truthfully.
She smelled subtly of violets, moss, and river mists. He might have been picking up the scents around him and attributing them to her, except that he remembered those same scents from their youth. She had always smelled that way. And the river had always been her favorite place for secret meetings.
Memories began to filter through his consciousness, glimmers of their walks by the water’s edge, the creaky wooden footbridge they’d once braved, the calico kitten they’d rescued from a sycamore tree. Honor had wanted to keep the kitten, but her father wouldn’t permit it.
“You were a strange kid,” he said, knowing better that to open up their past to conversation. “You always insisted on taking off your shoes and wading in the river as if it were some kind of ritual. Why did you do that?”
“I don’t know. Probably the same reason you were always skipping stones across the water.”
“But I had a good reason for skipping stones. I was into intellectual pursuits.”
She began to laugh, and the sound of it was so infectious, he found himself smiling. She searched his face with her eyes, as if she were trying to remember what had gone wrong between them. “How I missed you after you left,” she said suddenly, her voice full of heartache. “I couldn’t talk to anyone but you. No one understood.”
He felt as if she’d taken his own knife and pierced him through the heart with it. No one understood. She could have stolen those words from some dark, mangled place inside of him. As a kid, he’d fantasized that he and Honor were exactly alike except for the shade of their skin, that they shared the same pain and fears. Two misfits, two kindred souls. It was a simple thing, pure. They were friends. She understood him, and she was the only one who ever had. That was what made what she’d done so damn unbearable, so unforgivable.
The pain inside him twisted like a serrated blade, turning in the most tender part of his heart. It was beyond his ability to control, or to endure. With a harsh sound he pushed away from her and sprang to his feet. He wrenched his knife from the ground, and not knowing what else to do, he fired it at the nearest tree, grimacing as it stuck fast.
If she’d meant to give him an object lesson, she had. This was why he couldn’t dwell in the past, why he couldn’t let himself get close to her. Why he shouldn’t even be on the same mountain with her!
“My test isn’t this mountain,” he said. “It’s you. Honor. My grandfather sent you because he knew if anything could defeat me, it would be you. Like some demented sorcerer, that old man reached into the darkest part of my soul and pulled out my worst nightmare.”
He walked to the tree and freed the knife, sheathing it in the buckskin cuff of his moccasin. “Now I’m going to climb this mountain,” he said savagely. “And I don’t give a damn what you do, as long as you stay out of my way. If you cross my path again, you’ll be crying bitter tears.”
Honor pushed to her elbow and watched him start up the forested incline. Bastard, she thought, choking off a throaty sob. Anger churned inside her, the heat of it overriding all her other emotions, even her fear of him. Every time their past came into the conversation, he turned into a snarling beast. But she hadn’t brought it up this time, he had!
She struggled to her feet, dusted off the blue chintz camp dress she’d altered, and started up the same rise he’d taken. Her movements were stiff, her gait awkward from aching muscles and the sting of abrasions. She was bruised and scraped from being knocked to the ground, but she wasn’t going back to camp and lick her wounds like a whipped dog. That was an option she wouldn’t even consider.
The outrage simmering inside her had been building for days. She was damn tired of being threatened with knives, insulted on a regular basis, and blamed for everything that had ever happened in Johnny’s miserable life. She was more than willing to take responsibility for her mistakes, but he couldn’t even discuss the situation rationally.
She continued climbing, shoving away the branches that snagged at her clothing as she tried to find her way back to the creek. To hell with him, she thought. Despite what he might think, the mountain was plenty big enough for both of them, and she intended to climb it too. It wasn’t just about proving to him that she could do it, although she wanted that satisfaction badly. It was a personal thing, she realized, an inner call to arms, as if she were mobilizing to do battle with her own fears and insecurities.
She didn’t question the wisdom of a woman in her unremarkable physical condition trying to make such a difficult climb. She had more immediate problems to worry about, such as not getting hopelessly lost in the woods and dying of exposure, as Johnny had predicted. Fortunately he’d left her a crude trail to follow with the broken branches and undergrowth he’d cut away. And when that trail led her back to the creek, she was greatly relieved. She even got a glimpse of him once, well ahead of her and moving nimbly alongside the rushing water, his powerful body gleaming in the sun, the red bandanna glowing against his black hair.
The sight was enough to make her stop and watch silently until he’d disappeared from view. He’d looked like an incarnation of the warriors and prophets who had roamed the Arizona landscape a century ago, Cochise and his son Natchez, even the dreaded outlaw Geronimo.
Johnny was as magnificent as they were in some physical way, and he was also as unpredictable and dangerous, she reminded herself, resuming her own assault on the mountain. As she followed the seemingly endless path of the creek, she began to appreciate the cool shade of the forest, especially as the air grew thinner and the sun hotter. Her breathing quickly became labored, and she had to stop frequently. The icy creek water she splashed on her flushed face cooled the heat temporarily, but the way the sun was bearing down, she knew it must be burning her to a crisp. Her calves and thighs ached with a fatigue that made her want to moan aloud.
Eventually she was slowed to a halting pace, reduced to the concentrated mental effort of putting one foot in front of the other. As every fiber of her willpower was drawn into that painful process, she began to realize she wasn’t going to make it. She wasn’t a trained climber, or even a hiker. She wasn’t used to the altitude.
Somehow she kept going, one leaden step at a time, until finally the exaggerated slowness of her progress began to develop into a rhythm that was almost meditative. The screaming muscles in her legs went silent, numbed by overuse, yet lifting and falling as though on automatic pilot. Her respiration dropped to a level so instinctive she hardly seemed to be breathing at all, and still she kept on.
Johnny splashed his face with cold water from the creek, then cupped another handful and drank deeply. He shook his hands, dried them on his bare legs, and rose, glancing down the clearing. There was no sign of her and hadn’t been for some time.
He wasn’t surprised she hadn’t made it this far. White Mountain was a killer of men, not to mention foolhardy debutantes. When Johnny was living among the Apache, he could remember plenty o
f weekend warriors who’d thought to brave the mountain’s face and who’d been quickly brought to their knees. He’d been running several miles a week since his military service, but he had no altitude training, and he was feeling the effects of the climb himself.
The last mountain he’d conquered had been one of the peaks of the Andes range in Peru over six years ago. He’d been on a recovery mission to liberate some Americans taken hostage by Peruvian guerrillas. During the mission one of his partners, Geoff Dias, was taken captive by the rebels, and it had fallen to Johnny to rescue Geoff. Fortunately he’d succeeded.
The memory reminded him that Honor was supposed to have contacted Geoff about some surveillance work. Aware that he might be seeing his buddy again soon, he turned and gazed up, calculating the pitch of the steep rise ahead of him. It culminated in a very nearly vertical sheet of granite that would have to be scaled. Worse, a rock slide had all but obliterated the trail. Honor would never make it, he realized as he began to plan his own ascent up the cliff. She couldn’t possibly.
He glanced back down the trail, torn. Should he head for the peak? Or play Saint Bernard to a debutante? God, how he wanted to forget she existed and finish his climb. He wanted to forget the woman’s existence, period. But he didn’t have it in him to leave anyone stranded on a mountainside with a hungry mountain lion on the loose. Damn her anyway. He was going to have to rescue her and take her back to camp.
He hadn’t gone more than fifty feet down the trail when he spotted a blue speck coming up. He halted in disbelief, waiting until he could see the climber more clearly. He was looking for some evidence of long blond hair when he realized that it was Honor. She’d draped the blue chintz tier from her skirt over her head like a veil, and she was laboring badly, but she kept going, inching up the mountain. She looked like Mother Teresa! A very young and beautiful Mother Teresa, but the martyred saint aspect was definitely there.
The Stealth Commandos Trilogy Page 27