But if that wasn't enough, word had gotten out to other smugglers that tortoises worth $50,000 each were somewhere out in this wilderness, waiting for the right person to strike animal gold.
It was Adam's job to find the tortoises before the other guys. Then it was Adam’s job to get the tortoises to their final destination.
There'd be a big payoff at the end, if he succeeded. Plus, he’d save his own life, and the lives of his cousin’s family.
If he failed, it would mean jail, or even death. Illegal wildlife smuggling was the fifth largest black market in the world.
"So what brings you into the forest?" Anna asked, interrupting his thoughts.
Adam grimaced. He didn't like questions. He didn't like people. He barely liked his cousin. And after all this–if they all survived it–his cousin would be all but dead to him.
"Like I said," Adam said. "Thought I'd help out. Missing child, right?"
That was the other thing. If having other smugglers searching the forest for his tortoises wasn't enough, now every forest ranger and search and rescue handler in the area was coming in tonight to carpet the forest with their eyes and ears to look for a missing child. Some 10-year-old boy on a hike who had wandered off and didn't come back when his mom called.
Kids these days.
When he’d grown up with his cousin on their grandfather’s turtle farm, they could wander around acres and acres worth of forest without anyone bothering to even call them in. His parents figured he'd come back when he got hungry enough.
And he always did.
"On foot?" Anna asked. "Do you have like infrared goggles or something? Super secret night vision? Echolocation superpowers?"
She laughed.
The sound should have grated on Adam’s ears. Instead, her laugh was like a waterfall, bringing him to attention and somehow releasing a small knot of anxiety.
While making the knot in his jeans harder and bigger.
He shifted and almost groaned at the tightness at his crotch. What the hell? His life was on the line. He had a long night ahead of him, but just sitting next to this woman in her truck while she made fun of him gave him a hard-on?
"So? What is it?"
Adam realized he was too busy thinking about his erection and hadn't answered her joking questions.
He thought about flirting with her. He had a dazzling smile, so he'd been told. He believed it. It got him into a woman's bed often enough for his liking.
But something made him hesitate.
Maybe because his fucking life was on the line and he couldn't let himself be distracted by a pretty search and rescue handler and her cute dog.
"Do you really think this is the time to be making jokes?" Adam said. He made sure his voice was stern, even harsh.
The dog, Sanchez, whined in his crate.
Adam used to have a dog. It had been the love of his life. He knew that because his ex-wife had made sure to take the dog in the divorce. Losing that dog had been worse than losing her. Of course, she’d taken everything else too, which was why he hadn’t resisted that much when his cousin informed him of the tortoise situation.
"There's a child missing out there. He could already be dead. I mean, it's nice and all that you and your dog are going out to pretend to do some sniffing around, but do you really think that's going to help? You should probably leave this to the professionals."
The car slammed to a stop.
Adam was thrown forward. The seatbelt dug into his chest and smashed down his hard-on. Pain, that he knew he well deserved, made him furious. "What the hell?"
She turned blazing eyes on him. The laughter those blue eyes had held had evaporated. They were as dry as a desert.
Even though he knew it was for the best, his heart sank.
She was a distraction. He couldn't afford distractions. Not tonight.
"We're here." Her voice held a controlled fury. "So you can go ahead and get your ass out of my car and save this child from imminent death and all that while my dog and I wander around a bit, getting in peoples’ way, just sniffing and fucking shit up.”
He opened his mouth to apologize and then clicked it shut.
Undoing the seatbelt, the pressure release made him almost groan again. He wrangled his way out of the truck and shut the door with a slam. Stalking up to the little cabin that acted as a sort of headquarters, Station 6 they'd called it on the radio, he gathered himself, going through his story one more time, and put Anna out of his mind.
He needed to look at the maps and their search zones. He knew as soon as he could see the lay of the land, he be able to spot the likely places where his cousin would have setup the two tortoise transports. Plus, knowing tonight’s search plans before he went out was the key for avoiding trouble.
He planned to head out as soon as he got the information he needed, leaving any distractions behind—no matter how pretty those distractions looked on two legs.
* * *
That's the end of the sample, but it's definitely only the beginning for Anna and Adam.
Read for FREE in Kindle Unlimited and find out what happens next.
Smuggled Wonder Page 9