by Cindy Gerard
His black T-shirt was as tight as a second skin and nicely showed off the trim, toned abs and the buff, tough body of a man who knew his way around a gym—or a minefield.
She was no stranger to beautiful men. She’d made a living posing with the hottest, most sought-after male models in the world. She’d married a man who routinely made People magazine’s “100 Sexiest Men” list.
And she knew all too well that beauty was often merely a pretty package disguising an ugly truth.
So she should absolutely not have been affected by his stunning physique. Yet she was.
She was clearly bordering on certifiable.
“Now put it on, Angelface. Please,” he prompted, with enough insistence in that she finally shoved an arm into the sleeve.
The dark blue shirt was a made of heavy fabric, almost like canvas but much softer. It still held his body heat when she reluctantly wrapped the shirt around her.
It smelled like him. Masculine and dangerous and a little bit spicy and, God, she had to focus.
The sleeves hung well over the ends of her fingertips; the tails hit her about mid-thigh. It was huge on her, which was oddly comforting. And he was, she admitted again, astonishingly sexy as he sat back on his heels, his biceps straining beneath the sleeves of his T-shirt, his thighs bulked up beneath his worn jeans and that lethal-looking gun tucked into the waistband near his hip.
Both disgusted and disturbed that she was still thinking about him that way while he was clearly all business, she reached up under the shirt while he reached for his backpack. Using his shirt like a cape, she stood with her weight on her good leg, undid her belt buckle and the snap on her jeans. Then she wiggled them down her hips, shoved them below her knees and, self-conscious, sat back down. The boulder was cold as ice beneath her bare cheeks even through the shirt, and for the first time in years she longed for a pair of granny panties.
She’d posed for hundreds of photo shoots in bikinis or lingerie that constituted little more than three wisps of fabric and some flimsy pieces of lace, yet she still felt overexposed in front of him.
Not that he seemed similarly affected; he was in pure medic mode as he gently probed her knee.
“It’s a little puffy,” he said, thoroughly examining her knee with the help of a flashlight he’d dug out of his pack. “Tell me if this hurts.”
She bit back a yelp when he manipulated her kneecap. “A little.”
“You can go to hell for lying, you know.” He shot her an admonishing glance. “We need to get you off of it.”
“More than we need to make it to Cuzco?”
“Good point.” He turned back to his pack and pulled out a large, well-worn nylon bag.
“You don’t do things halfway, do you?” She recognized the mix of medical supplies inside the biggest first-aid kit she’d ever seen.
“Go big or go home,” he said with a tight smile. “I’ve had this surgical kit since my Navy days. Any medical issues I need to know about? Diabetes? Heart issues?”
She shook her head.
“Any medications, or allergies?”
“No. Nothing.”
Apparently satisfied with her answers, he uncapped a bottle and shook two tablets into his palm and held them out to her. “Grunt candy.”
“What?”
“Ibuprofen,” he clarified, handing them to her along with a bottle of water. “They’ll help with the pain and inflammation. I’d give you Toradol but we’re short on water and I don’t want to risk kidney damage. This bottle and one other are going to have to last us until we get out of here.”
Wondering how long that might be, dreading the possibility that they might be here long after the water was gone, she sipped lightly and forced down the pills as he deftly wrapped a wide elastic bandage from mid-thigh to mid-calf.
“How’s that feel?”
He held out a hand to steady her when she stood and then tested his handiwork by putting weight on her leg. “Better. Thanks.”
“Best I can do for now. If it starts giving you too much trouble, I want to know, okay?”
She bent down, pulled up her jeans, and zipped up as he repacked his surgical kit and stowed it away in his backpack. “And you’ll what? Carry me out of here?”
He shot her a look. “If I have to.”
She believed him. The look in his eyes and the conviction in his voice assured her that he could do it. She’d read stories about Navy SEALs, knew what hell they had to endure to make the grade.
When he stood, she started to take off his shirt to return it to him.
“Keep it.” He stopped her by tugging the placket back together over her breasts.
“You need it,” she insisted, her mouth suddenly dry when he shoved her hands away and started working the buttons through the holes.
She knew she should object but was totally distracted by his careful attention to his task. There was something oddly mesmerizing about his concentration and single-minded focus. Something graceful, yet endearingly awkward about his big fingers maneuvering those buttons through the holes.
Val was tall—five foot nine—but he was taller by at least a head. His shoulders were broad, his hands big and so very, very capable as he painstakingly worked one button after another through each buttonhole until she was tucked in tight from neck to knee.
“You’ll get cold.” She tried one more time, even though she understood she would not win this battle.
“I’m from Montana, remember? And you know what?” he asked after a quick glance around. “These mountains actually remind me a little of home. Big sky. Big peaks. High plains.
“Anyway, it’s always cold in Montana,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “The blood acclimates. I’m fine.”
He stood where he was, inches away, holding her gaze for a moment that pulsed with anticipation of something she couldn’t discount as anything but awareness on his part now, too.
Oh, my.
Her breath caught on a little hitch when he reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. His fingers lingered on her cheek before he let his hand drop away. And when his gaze continued to hold hers just a moment longer, she wished she could ascribe the shiver that coursed through her body to the chill in the air. Yet the cold didn’t cool the burn where his fingers grazed her cheek. Or douse the heat he generated low in her belly with that long, probing look from his dark-brown eyes.
Then he took her hand in his and her breath caught. His palm was warm. His fingers calloused. Her gaze slid back to his mouth . . . full and soft and yet so firm as he lowered his head.
He was going to kiss her.
Her heart stampeded.
He was going to—
Oh.
He was going to roll up the shirt sleeves so they weren’t hanging over her hands.
Oh. Well.
Good.
Good thinking.
“Ready?” he asked after adjusting the final fold on the cuff.
Yeah,” she murmured, feeling a little bereft and wanting to slap herself for it. “I’m ready.”
She’d lied. She wasn’t ready for any of what was happening to her. She wasn’t ready to accept that she was being chased by men who wanted her dead. She wasn’t ready to accept that she might not get out of the Andes alive. And she really wasn’t ready to dissect and process her hyper-acute awareness of this stranger who had her contemplating any number of reckless actions.
Like letting him kiss her.
She would have. If he’d tried to kiss her a moment ago, she would have let him. It was a very titillating yet depressing realization.
Was she really that desperate, was her ego really that deflated, her heart that broken, that she was ready, willing, and wanting to throw herself at a total stranger?
Not just any stranger, her pride protested. Not just any man.
He’d saved her life.
She glanced at him as he shrugged into his backpack and settled his hat on his head. He was all broad shoulders and n
arrow hips, this Indiana Jones clone, former Navy SEAL, former Montana cowboy, current all-American hero, expert medic, volunteer humanitarian aid provider, and giver of shirts.
Now? she asked herself again, on a burdened breath. Her bruised and battered libido had to pick this place, this time, this dangerous situation, to lurch to life like an accident victim awakening from a six-month coma?
Chemistry, the rational part of her brain reasoned. Sensory overload. Fear plus adrenaline plus confusion equaled arousal. Go figure.
At least now she knew how her system reacted to very real, very acute danger. Along with adrenaline, her body mass-produced pheromones.
Oh, joy.
“Let’s move.” He slung the rifle strap over his shoulder and headed away.
For one brief moment she considered turning and walking in the opposite direction, because deep in her gut she knew that no matter how this played out, that way lay danger. Bad guy danger. Good guy danger.
“Valentina?” He glanced over his shoulder, regarding her with concern from beneath that damn sexy hat brim. “Are you with me?”
“Yeah,” she said, finally walking toward him. “I’m with you.”
Before she had a chance to figure out just how “with him” she was, the sharp crack of a rifle shot shattered the silence.
She screamed and watched in horror as he dropped, face first, to the ground.
6
Luke spit dirt, then snapped his head around and looked over his shoulder.
Jesus. Valentina stood totally exposed in the open, frozen in fear.
“Get down!” he roared. To hell with playing dead. He pushed himself into a fast roll toward her, wrapped his arms around her thighs, and dragged her to the ground just as another bullet zipped into the dirt near his shoulder.
“I thought you were dead,” she panted, scrambling alongside him on all fours toward the shelter of a boulder.
So had he, and for a second there it had almost seemed like a relief to think he’d dodged his last bullet.
“Apparently I don’t die that easily.” He made sure she was tucked out of the line of fire, then rose to his knees beside her. “These guys are really starting to piss me off,” he muttered as another bullet ricocheted off the stone near their heads.
But he was even more pissed with himself. He hadn’t been paying attention to business and he’d almost gotten himself killed. Again. And almost gotten her killed! What the fuck was wrong with him?
He was on the run with the woman of his dreams—and yes, goddamn it, it was juvenile and he should have grown out of his crush years ago, but for God’s sake would you look at her? He’d defend to the death his reaction to this woman. She’d always been the unattainable dream, and he’d just held her in his arms. Hell, he’d almost kissed her!
Well, he wasn’t a eunuch, damn it, although he’d sure as hell done his best to act like one. When he wasn’t acting too stupid to live.
Christ. He felt like he was watching himself in one of those old cartoons, with an angel sitting on his right shoulder praising his virtue and a devil perched on his left, egging him on to do her, stupid. What are you waiting for?
An invitation would have been nice. And for a moment there, he’d thought she was going to give him one.
But he was going to have to come to full terms with that later. Right now, they were in a boatload of trouble. She flinched and ducked lower when another bullet pa-zinged off the front of the boulder. He glanced to the east. A faint, thin halo of sunlight rimmed the horizon.
Perfect. They were under fire and about the only thing they had going for them, the cover of darkness, was about to give way to dawn.
“What are we going to do?”
Yeah, jackass, the devil prodded, what are you going to do?
He looked north. Nothing but shadows against the jagged line of stone monoliths. To the south were the bad guys. He couldn’t see them but judging from the sound and the trajectory of the rifle fire, he had a pretty good idea where they were. And how many there were. He was guessing two. Even if there were more, they would have split up into pairs. And if there were more in the detail, the gunfire was sure to draw the rest of them like gnats to horseshit.
He had to make something happen before the odds tilted even more in the shooters’ favor.
He looked west. Blinked. Then blinked again. “What do you see?” He notched his chin in that direction.
She followed his gaze, squinted, then cocked her head. “Horses?” she ventured uncertainly.
She’d just given him corroboration that the silhouettes against the uneven terrain weren’t figments of his very hopeful imagination.
“Close enough,” he said, taking stock of the small herd of mules. “There are farms scattered all over this mountainside. We must be at the edge of a pasture. Come on.” He gripped her elbow and, crouching low, scuttled toward the herd of a dozen or so animals. “If we move low along that rock wall, it’ll take them a while to realize we’re gone.
He dropped to all fours, then started belly crawling toward the herd. She hung tight right behind him. Her knee had to be killing her but she didn’t make a sound. Tough cookie.
They managed to move within twenty yards of the mules, who stood in a loose circle, heads down, dozing. If the gunshots had bothered them they didn’t show it, but he wasn’t going to count on that lasting forever.
“So, where do you fall on the Annie Oakley scale?” he asked as she peeked at the mules from behind the wall.
She shot him a narrow-eyed look. “Annie Oakley? Wasn’t she some kind of a cowgirl?”
“Some kind, yeah,” he said with a grin reserved for those who were criminally uneducated in western folklore. “Let me rephrase. Do you ride, Angelface?”
Her eyes turned wary. “Cars. I ride cars.”
“Well, get ready to broaden your horizons.”
She stared at the mules, looking scared but resolved.
“Just like riding a rocking chair,” he told her
Spunk, he thought again, unbuckling his belt and tugging it out of the loops. Guns and bullets and bad guys were as foreign to her as a week without a pedicure. She had more than enough reason to fall apart, but look at her now. Scared, yeah, but she was holding it together. And he admired the hell out of her for it.
“Let me have yours.” He gave her more points when she removed her leather belt without asking why he wanted it and handed it to him.
“I don’t suppose you’ve ever fired a gun?”
“I don’t suppose so, no,” she confirmed in a worried tone as he shrugged the rifle sling off his shoulder and hunkered down behind her.
He showed her how to hold the rifle, then gave her a quick point-and-shoot lesson. “Just in case,” he added in warning and hoped, for both their sakes, she didn’t have to use it.
“Stay here and stay down. Don’t even think about pulling that trigger unless you see something to shoot at, and then don’t even think about shooting unless you want what you’re shooting at dead. Got it?”
Her nod told him that she did.
He squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll be right back with your new ride.”
As he started off toward the closest mule, he thought he heard a softly murmured “OhmyGod.”
Luke moved in a crouching run, keeping his profile low, trying not to spook the mules. He had to make this fast. The bad guys had been quiet for too long, which meant they were trying to move into better firing positions.
“Good luck with that,” he muttered under his breath.
He planned to be long gone before that happened.
Knowing he had to relay a sense of calm so he didn’t scatter the herd, he drew a deep breath, retooled, and stood, counting on the rise of the hill between him and the gunmen to provide cover. Forcing himself to walk slowly, he approached a tall, leggy bay that had come awake and was watching him with big, sleepy eyes. His chest was narrow, his backbone spiny. Luke cringed. His “boys” were never going to be the same af
ter a ride on that bony back.
“Couldn’t have been a herd of Pasos, could ya?” he crooned as he closed in on the rough-coated mule.
Peruvian Paso Finos were known not only for their long manes and flowing tails, but for their smooth gaits. If he’d been wishing, however, it would have been for a solid, dependable quarter horse like the ones he’d grown up with on the ranch.
Not that wishes counted for jack shit, he lamented as he neared the mule with a soft “Whoa now, fella” that he crooned in a sing-songy drover’s voice he’d perfected over years of herding cattle as a kid.
Very near the now-wary animal, he kept his tone the same but switched to Spanish, and then to one of the few Quechua words he knew because he’d used it so often on the village children.
“Easy,” he said over and over in Aymara, until he reached the mule’s side, and then scratched the sweet spot under his jaw.
Before the big guy knew he’d been had, Luke had slipped a belt around his long neck and tugged the end through the buckle, making a loop for his improvised lead rope. Then, keeping the mule between him and the rest of the herd, he singled out another animal. His years of wrangling horses paid off and he quickly had another ride in tow—a little gray mare that he hoped was as docile as she looked.
“Valentina,” he whispered, leading both mules back toward her.
When her head popped up from behind the rock wall, he motioned her over.
“I have managed to avoid sitting on an animal’s back my entire life,” she muttered as she reluctantly joined him.
He relieved her of the rifle and laid it at his feet. Then he patted the bay’s neck to settle him. “Not an animal lover?”
“If they’re bigger than me, I prefer to love them from a distance.”
“So, just think of this little girl as a pussy cat.”
The look she gave him told him that wasn’t happening, but there was no time to ease her into this.
“Follow my lead, okay? Nice and easy.” He showed her how to grip the gray mule’s mane, then made a stirrup with his hands.
“Left foot,” he coached and encouraged her to put her foot in his cupped hands. “Hurry. Up you go.”