by Cindy Gerard
Jin nodded but looked troubled.
“Now tell me, dear wife,” he said in an attempt to allay her concerns, “about the linens you found in the market today.”
• • •
They’d been on the move again for over an hour when panic finally caught up with Val. She’d staved it off until then with sheer will. One foot in front of the other. Didn’t think about what had happened, what could happen, or why it was happening. She wasn’t defenseless like she had been when she was ten years old. She could only be a victim if she let herself become one.
That didn’t mean she wasn’t entitled to be good and mad. Why was this happening to her? She’d been working things out. She’d been living a sequestered existence the past month, exploring and discovering this magical country, rediscovering herself, finally coming to terms with the divorce . . . and bam. On her way back home, ready to resume her obligations, she’d fallen into this nightmare of gunfire and death.
And no matter how vehemently she fought the idea, this stranger who had saved her life was right: It looked like she was a target. A chill eddied through her. Men with guns were chasing her.
She didn’t know why. She didn’t know who they were. But she was forced to accept that they were dead serious. As Luke Colter had so bluntly reminded her, they’d killed an innocent, unarmed man to get to her.
Her stomach rolled at the memory, which triggered another—a long-ago nightmare of a big man with hard hands, and a dark, creepy cellar. She couldn’t let herself think about it; she’d succumb to a panic attack if she didn’t keep it together.
So she moved. One step. Then another, and another.
It didn’t matter that she was cold or that she’d lost everything—her ID, passport, money, even her poncho—when they’d jumped off the train. Didn’t matter that it was dark. Or that she was confused and scared.
So what if her knee ached from her tumble down the hillside? So what if the high altitude made her slightly nauseated, and the air was so thin it felt brittle and raw in her lungs every time she drew a breath?
And so what if she was in a foreign country? On the run. With a stranger. Who had just killed two men.
Okay. Enough. No point dwelling on the bad stuff. On to the good.
Her stomach rolled again. Oh, wait—there wasn’t any good stuff. Granted, she wasn’t on her own, but the jury was still out on this tall, lethal stranger who said he was one of the good guys and tried to make her laugh with an image of him wobbling around in red Jimmy Choos.
She kept flashing back to the image of a knife in his hand, slicing across a man’s neck, and blood pouring from the gaping wound.
Oh, God.
The world started spinning and she was that helpless little girl again, trapped in the dark with bugs and rats and . . . She stopped abruptly, planted her hands on her thighs and waited for the dizziness to pass.
“Hey, hey. You okay?”
He was right there to steady her. One strong hand tightened around her elbow, another gripped her waist.
She willed away the wooziness, and surrendered to a knee-jerk, self-protective instinct to pull out of his grasp.
She was suddenly and inexplicably angry. At her situation, at her own weakness, and at the resurrection of those old nightmares she’d thought she’d put to rest. She was even angry at him.
“You know what? I’m really not. I’m not one bit okay.”
Hysteria bubbled just below the surface, threatening to suck her under. She was far too familiar with what full-blown hysteria and anxiety attacks felt like, and she was heading straight for a monumental meltdown.
Why did this have to happen on the heels of the debacle with Marcus? What was it with her and men? She’d been young and stupid and gave in to her one and only act of teenage rebellion with Sean Gun. Sean was a wild, reckless rock star with a self-destructive bent that had eventually included a herculean effort to drag her down with him. She’d made an equally herculean effort to deny he had a problem—until the night he’d hit her, then wrapped his car around a tree with her in it. Amazingly they’d both walked away with scratches, but it had been the wake-up call from hell.
Marcus was supposed to be the calm after the storm. With his quiet dignity, his warm brown eyes and surfer-blond hair, and gentle disposition, he was supposed to have been everything right. And for a very long time, she’d thought he was. Only everything had ended up wrong. So very, very wrong.
She couldn’t think about that now. She could not let herself rehash the divorce. And she would not let Marcus’s actions turn her back into someone she hated: a weak-willed whiner who couldn’t take care of herself.
Right now she had to concentrate on keeping herself alive. To do that, she had to be the woman she used to be.
“Let’s rest for a few minutes, okay?” Luke suggested in a supportive, steady voice that begged her to believe he was everything he’d told her he was, with some Boy Scout tossed in to sweeten the pot.
Six months ago, she would have trusted him without a second thought—that’s how far she’d moved beyond the horrors of her childhood abduction and how secure she’d been in her marriage. She would have looked into his kind brown eyes, been charmed by his dimpled smile and rugged good looks, and fallen for any line he’d thrown her.
Six months ago, she’d thought her life was perfect. She’d felt protected and pampered and loved. Turned out it was all a joke.
So now she didn’t trust anything or anyone to be what they claimed to be. Not even this very competent, very capable stranger who had a little-too-perfect, cowboy-warrior-Indiana Jones vibe going on.
It was the hat, she decided, straightening and glancing up at him. It wasn’t a cowboy hat . . . it was closer to a fedora. Brown suede, well worn, and yeah, it looked like something Indy would wear, exactly the way Indy would wear it—pulled low on his brow, slanted at a rakish angle. And just like Indy he was sexy as ever-loving sin, especially with that heavy five o’clock shadow covering his jaw.
So the movies were old school. When she was in high school, Indiana Jones had been hot and so had Harrison Ford—for her money, he still was. Even though Colter put her in mind of both Ford and Jones with a little Jason Bourne thrown in, she could not let that sway her opinion of him.
She glanced up at him. Scowled. Could she really trust him? Or was he just pretending to help her, was in on the deal himself, and trying to win her trust so he could . . . what? What could he possibly want from her?
“Valentina? Hey . . . you still with me, Angelface?” Luke waved a hand in front of her eyes.
She batted it away, confused and unhappy.
“I’m fine,” she grumbled, because damn it, she needed to be.
She walked over to a big rock, dusted it off, and plopped down. When she looked up, he was still standing a few feet away. He’d cocked a knee, propped one fist on a narrow hip; his head was tilted at a belligerent angle.
Well, well. Cute cowboy guy was finally fed up with her attitude. Couldn’t say that she blamed him. She didn’t much like it, either.
“Was it something I said?” he asked, sounding pissed.
She looked away, feeling guilty.
“Or is this rescue just not going the way you’d hoped?” Clearly out of patience with her, he shrugged out of his backpack and dropped it to the ground. “Sorry I haven’t stumbled across a Hilton or a day spa for ya, Princess, but in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been a little preoccupied keeping you alive.”
She remained stubbornly silent. She didn’t even know why. Or why she was so angry at him.
“Not that you give a shit,” he continued, removing his hat and dropping it on top of the backpack, “but can I remind you that I didn’t ask for this gig? I could be happily on my way to Cuzco on the train by now.” He exhaled a disgusted breath, then muttered to himself, “But no. I had to climb up on my white horse and save her sexy little ass.”
That brought her head up. He moved closer, not exactly looming over
her, but it was close enough. “What is with you? I don’t expect you to fall all over me with gratitude, but couldn’t you at least pretend—”
“I’m sorry,” she snapped, then dug her most insincere smile out of her bag of tricks, because at least anger gave her some sense of control. “Thank you. I’m ever so grateful that you and your white horse saved my ass. Happy now?”
He snorted and forked a hand through his dark hair, shoving it back off his forehead. “Delirious.”
She really looked at him then, wanting with everything in her to believe he was on the up-and-up. His sarcasm was genuine; so was his flare of temper. And oddly, the fact that he’d lost his cool finally convinced her he was for real.
“Look. I get it, okay?” he said, clearly working hard to settle himself down. “You’re confused and you’re scared and you’re frustrated.”
She propped an elbow on her thigh and lowered her head to her hand. “Ya think?”
He joined her on the rock, forcing her to scoot over.
“You don’t know me,” he continued in an understanding voice, “and apparently you have issues with trust.”
It was her turn to snort. Understatement of the year.
Marcus had obliterated her trust. She’d come to Peru to move past it and to get over him, but it was more than that. She’d come to prove to herself that she could stand on her own two feet again. She’d been so stupid to let him become her life, to have relied on him for everything from dinner reservations to vacation getaways . . . to fidelity.
So this trip had also been about never again becoming that dependent on a man.
Wow. That had worked well.
She was right back where she’d started, relying on yet another man to keep her alive. It rubbed like sandpaper against a burn.
She sat up straight, dragged both hands through her hair, and made a decision. Bottom line, it was either trust him or drive herself crazy, and she already had enough going on in that area. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch.” She was done heaping Marcus’s sins on this man’s shoulders. “It’s just that I’m not—” She stopped, at a loss where to start.
“Not used to being shot at?” he suggested. “Not used to seeing men die? Not accustomed to jumping off trains? How about not used to running through the mountains in the dark and the cold?”
“Yeah. That works.
“Look,” she said, “I owe you. Thank you for helping me, okay?”
One corner of his mouth turned up in a charmingly crooked grin. “Okay. And thank you for trusting me.”
“You’re welcome.”
My, weren’t they being careful of hurt feelings all of a sudden? All seemed to be forgiven. How could she not like him for that alone?
He smiled at her then, a genuine, no-holds-barred, devastating smile. She let herself smile back before shifting her attention out over the shadowy landscape.
“So . . . do you think they’ll give up looking?”
He followed her gaze. “They went to a helluva lot of trouble to find you. I doubt very much that they’re going to give up the hunt now.”
She shivered. From cold. From fear. From adrenaline overload. “You figure they’re out there now?”
“’Fraid so.”
Tears stung her eyes, unexpected and embarrassing. She quickly looked away from him, concentrating on measuring her breaths when her chest tightened in the familiar precursor to a panic attack.
“Hey . . . hey. It’s okay,” he said softly.
She realized just how scared she was when she let him settle an arm around her shoulders and she didn’t pull away.
“It’s okay,” he repeated, and she let him provide the anchor she desperately needed to keep herself grounded.
And when he laid his cheek against the top of her head and enfolded her with his big, strong body, it felt right to move into him, to wrap her arms around his waist, lay her head on his shoulder, and indulge in the strength of him, in the heat of him, in the steady beat of his heart pounding against her ear.
Safe haven. She hadn’t known how badly she needed it. Or how much she’d missed the feel of a man’s arms around her.
God, there she went again, needing a man.
So what? Right now, she was too beaten down to care. Now that she’d committed to trusting Luke Colter, she realized how desperately she needed to believe in something good again.
Ten minutes ago she was ready to believe he was with the gunmen. Now she’d declared him hero material.
It showed how much she needed a good guy in her life.
Wait. Whoa. In her life? This was exactly what she’d come down here to escape. She was not going there. It was going to be a long, long time before she invited the kind of heartache that came with strong arms and a handsome face.
“It’s going to be okay,” he promised, stroking her back. “Take all the time you need to get yourself together.”
Since there wasn’t enough time in the world to make that happen, and since she didn’t want to get used to leaning on him, she finally made herself push away.
He let go with a gentle squeeze. “Better?”
She sniffed. “Yeah. I’m . . . good.”
“I know you are,” he said, smiling kindly.
“So.” She squared her shoulders.
“Now what?” “Now we head for Cuzco.”
She stared into the dark ahead of them. “How far is it, do you think?”
“See those shadows ahead?” He pointed to a break in the rock wall that opened up to a bank of shadows at the end of a gently sloping field. “That’s a stand of trees. We haven’t seen trees for a while, right?”
She’d been so busy trying to keep up with him and keep ahead of her panic that she hadn’t noticed. Now that she thought about it, though, he was right.
“Most of the land along the train route and main roads has been badly deforested over the years,” he added. “Until you get closer to Cuzco, it’s pretty barren.”
“So you think we’re fairly close.” Cuzco wasn’t much of a city by U.S. standards, but she knew that it was big enough to support some industry and an airport. Like him, she’d been headed there to catch a flight.
“Not as close as I’d like. But if we can find a road and hitch a ride, we can lie low in the city until I figure something out or until they get tired of looking.”
They. The bad men with the big guns. She shivered. “You don’t think they’ll quit, do you?”
“No,” he said with a grim look. “But they’re going to be damn sorry that they didn’t.”
5
Val suspected that Luke had meant to reassure her with his ominous statement, but she immediately flashed back to him slitting one gunman’s throat, then making quick, brutal work of the other.
“If there had been any other way to get you off that train alive, I’d have taken it,” he said quietly.
She nodded, wondering again what kind of man she was dealing with—a man who apparently read minds, among his many talents.
Talents that included the ability to kill without hesitation and then comfort her with uncommon gentleness.
“I really have no idea who they are,” she said because suddenly it was important that he understood that. “Or why they’re after me. I’ve sifted through it in my mind again and again but I just don’t have a clue.”
“It’s all right. We’ll figure it out. In the meantime, I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
She believed him. Didn’t make a lick of sense, but she believed him—this stranger who had come to her rescue, and managed to make her trust him.
“We’d better get going.”
She meant to say, “Okay,” but her gaze involuntarily stalled on his mouth. His utterly sensual mouth.
A rush of sexual awareness shot hot and deep through her blood. So hot, so deep, she felt the shock of it like a burn.
Embarrassed and mystified by her intense physical reaction, she quickly looked away. Since she’d found out the
truth about Marcus, her sex drive had plummeted to nonexistent.
And you pick here? Now? While you’re on the run for your life with a total stranger, to unthaw your libido?
Still in shock, she chanced meeting his eyes . . . and realized he’d caught her staring.
Oh, God.
She pushed up off the rock, determined to diffuse this embarrassing turn of events. But when she put her weight on her right leg, a jolt of white-hot pain shot through her leg. She sucked in a breath and sank back down; her hands flew to her knee.
“You’re hurt.”
She bit her lip and tried to work through the pain.
“You should have told me,” he grumbled, dropping to his knees in front of her. “Let me take a look at it.”
“It’ll be okay. It just stiffened up while we were sitting. It’ll loosen up after I walk for a while.”
“Could be, but I want to take a look anyway.”
She braced her palms on the rock and clenched her teeth as he tried to work her pant leg up her calf.
“This isn’t going to work. The legs are too tight. You’re going to have to drop trou so I can get to it.”
When she didn’t move, he looked up at her.
“Yeah,” she said with a slow shake of her head.
“That’s not happening.” If she’d been embarrassed before, she was mortified at the thought of stripping in front of him.
He parked his butt back onto his boot heels. “Okay, modesty is not on the table here.”
“You’re not the one undressing,” she pointed out. Or wearing only a thong beneath his jeans.
He laid a hand over his chest. “Medic, remember? If I wanted to do more than check out your knee, I’d have done it by now, don’t you think?”
He had a point. And when he undid the buttons of his shirt, then whipped it off and handed it to her with a clipped “Cover up with this,” her argument lost its steam.
That wasn’t all she lost when she was suddenly face-to-face with the lean, muscled breadth of his chest. Her power of speech took a hike as she sat like a mute and stared.