“Of course I’m not accusing you. You idiot. I’m telling you I love you.”
His fingers slowly relaxed and he let go of her. “Okay. All right. At least we have that clear. You love me. Shit.”
He raked fingers through his hair.
Lacey stared at him. Blinked. Waited. Nothing.
She watched him pace, long-legged strides, back and forth. He chewed on a knuckle. Stopped. Eyed her, then went back to pacing. She felt itchy, like there was a knife shoved between her shoulder blades or she was in the cross-hairs of sniper’s scope.
What the hell was the matter?
She’d given up her last secret to the man and all he said was “shit” and paced.
Lacey plopped her hands on her hips. “Well, aren’t you going to tell me you love me?”
He stopped pacing and glared at her. “I already did.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yeah, I did, when I said I couldn’t stand not being inside you. Sweetheart, I would never have made love to you without protection if I wasn’t in love with you. I’m not in the habit of running such risks. In fact, I’ve never taken such a risk. You knew what I was going to do and we both knew exactly the risks. I don’t think either of us cared.”
“So, what are you telling me?”
He swung toward her. “I only have two deputies left, my brother-in-law and my brother.”
“Oh.” Chills raced down her spine. “That’s not good,” she said quietly.
“Worse,” he replied. “My brother is my twin.”
“Shit.”
“That’s what I said. Worse still, he was out there the night you heard the gunshots.”
“Oh, shit.”
Easing down on the ground, Danger raked trembling fingers through his hair as he rested his shoulders against a large boulder. The strangled curses Danger growled were explicit, vulgar, and didn’t help a bit. “Dammit, I know he isn’t a murderer.”
A man with a badge. A killer with a badge. A murderer who looked like him.
Jesus Christ. Knowing this, it was a wonder Lacey had ever allowed him to touch her. She must have been terrified of him in the beginning. No wonder she’d wanted to escape. The man strongly resembled him. Thoughtful, Danger chewed on his bottom lip.
God, what a mess.
What was he going to do?
Coe was like an extension of himself, his right arm. He couldn’t imagine his brother murdering anyone. Coe was a prankster. He loved life. He loved women. There was simply no way he’d believe his brother killed a woman.
Then there was his dead deputy. Throat cut, scalped, body mutilated. He didn’t for one minute believe Coe did that either and certainly there was no way his brother-in-law murdered his own brother.
Two crimes, only hours apart and a local woman missing.
Were they somehow connected? Acts committed by the same perp?
He didn’t have the answers, so where did that leave him? Accusing Lacey of lying or making a mistake? She seemed so sure. She might not have told him all the truth in the beginning, but there had been little doubt she had her facts all straight. Hell, she was a photographer. Images probably naturally snapped in her brain and remained there. She had to have seen something more. Something she saw that didn’t fit. And that something would clear Coe, their brother-in-law, as well as himself.
“Sweetheart, I want you to go over everything you saw. Think clearly. Try to recall every little detail.”
She sat down beside him. “You believe me?”
“I do. But I think there’s something you’ve blanked out. Something that wasn’t important to you, so you haven’t mentioned it to me. I need to know what that something is.”
Lacey had revealed something very dangerous to him, dangerous to his peace of mind. Exasperation for her taking so long to reveal everything she knew clouded his mind. It was hard to get his thoughts together.
How could he think straight when all he wanted was to be inside her? Was this hunger for her ever going to be sated? He didn’t think so. If he’d thought one night with her would be enough, then he was wrong. He would never have enough of her.
How could she have believed he was a murderer?
She’d witnessed a heinous crime. A crime she’d suspected him of committing. Christ. Now he had to unravel and dig past what she’d told him and find the one single hidden detail that would clear him and the others.
Frustration gnawed at him as he listened to her story. Same damned tale.
“Again. Tell me again. Take your time.”
“I am taking my time. You don’t believe me.”
“Yes, I do. Tell it to me, again.”
He glanced at the darkening sky. Damn. It was going to start raining again. They needed to get out of here. He watched her pace. She chewed on a knuckle. He grinned and wondered if she realized her actions were a mimic of his.
He couldn’t get his fill of looking at her. He slid his gaze over her flat belly and felt his heart speed up a bit at the thought of his child one day nestled there.
He snorted. One day my ass.
As many times as he’d came inside her, making Lacey pregnant was a pretty sure bet, especially since she told him it was her fertile time. He didn’t care if he’d made her pregnant.
When had she become so damned important to him?
Where had these powerful needs come from?
He, who’d shut everything and everybody from his life a long time ago, needed her. It wasn’t just sex anymore. True, he’d needed the release of his body inside hers, but he also honestly liked her. He delighted in her raging temper, her challenges, her knowledge of the Native American people and their history.
He adored the lush brightness of gold that sparkled in her eyes when she was angry or hot with desire for him. Loved the little giggles she gave when she believed she shouldn’t be laughing. The tiny mole at the corner of her top lip drove him crazy. It was so minuscule he’d bet she wasn’t even aware it existed, but he wanted to nibble on it, lick it.
His cock twitched. Damn it, there wasn’t a thing about her that didn’t turn him on. He even admired her courage and the crazy things she did at the damnedest times, like throwing his gun at the rattler.
Danger sighed, tiredness suddenly swamped him. He’d never felt so many confusing emotions in his life. But it all came back to the fact that a woman had been murdered by a man wearing a badge.
A man with a badge.
She never skipped that part of her story or the fact the man had long, black hair.
“When he turned toward me in the dark, I caught a flash of his teeth. They were pointy.”
Danger stilled. “What did you say?”
“You know, sort of like fangs.”
“Lacey, I think your imagination must have run a little wild. Are you saying the man is a vampire?”
Pagan chose that moment to leap off the boulder at his back and give a low growl.
“We need to move on.”
“Why?”
“Pagan isn’t happy here.”
Lacey eyed him, then the wolf. “So?”
“Listen, sweetheart. If the wolf isn’t happy, neither am I.”
Danger freed the horses and swung into the saddle. He leaned down, stretching his hand out to Lacey to help her onto Diablo.
Crack.
The obscene sound of gunfire exploded around them, shattering the quiet.
Lacey saw Danger’s jerk of pain, heard the fierce hiss that whistled through his tightly clenched teeth as he held onto her wrist, and practically dragged her up in front of him. She twisted in the saddle. “Oh God, Danger, you’re hit!”
His arm encircled her waist, and he pushed her low over Diablo’s neck. “Stay down,” he gritted.
Suddenly everything went crazy. Shots echoed around them. The pings of ricocheting bullets bounced off the boulders. Slivers of sharp rock peppered them stinging like shavings of hot metal. Diablo danced wildly beneath them. Danger tightened his arm arou
nd Lacey’s waist.
“Hold on,” he instructed, “or we’ll both be on the ground.”
Muffled oaths escaped Danger. He dug the heels of his moccasins into the stallion’s soft flanks. Lacey squeaked and grabbed hold of the saddle horn as Diablo bolted, and they sped across the rocky ground as fast as it was possible.
Danger leaned over her in a protective gesture as bullets whipped past their bowed figures. Panic gripped her. She locked her fingers in Diablo’s tangled mane and held on tight. She could feel the warmth of Danger’s blood, warm and wet on her back and sliding down her bare arm.
She had no idea how badly he was injured.
Fear hammered away at her. Her heart thundered in her chest as the wetness on her back spread. He was losing a lot of blood. Fast.
“We have to stop, Danger. You’ll bleed to death if we don’t.”
“We’ll die if we do,” he said through clenched teeth.
Miles went by in a blur. No words passed between them. Danger’s breathing grew more ragged by the minute. She didn’t know how much blood he’d lost, but she knew he couldn’t remain in the saddle much longer. He leaned heavily against her back.
“You’re losing too much blood,” she shouted back over her shoulder. “We have to stop and let me look at the wound, see if I can get the bleeding stopped.”
He didn’t bother acknowledging her words but maintained their reckless pace.
“Danger, we have to stop. You’ll bleed to death!”
“I’m okay. It’s stopped bleeding.”
“That’s not true! I can fe —”
“Can it, Lacey,” he snapped. “We aren’t stopping. I don’t know where he is, but he could be right behind us. I’m not risking your life.”
“I’m not worried about me right now.”
“We aren’t stopping.”
She nodded. But sometime soon they had to stop and let her bandage his wound.
Danger guided Diablo across rocky ground with a recklessness that sent chills down Lacey’s spine, but it was worse when they hit the sheer cliffs on the side of a mountain. She didn’t know how they’d come to this place. Vertical cliffs and boulders the size of a football field hampered their progress. At last, Danger pulled back on the reins and slowed their reckless pace to a walk.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
He’d changed direction when they’d hit the higher elevation. They were headed north instead of east. Lacey wasn’t sure if Danger was still thinking straight or not.
“Do you know where we’re going?”
Leaning a little heavier against Lacey, Danger tried breathing shallow, but the effort hurt as much as inhaling deeply. His chest burned, as if red-hot needles poked his flesh. Swearing, he tried desperately to ignore the sharp, jagged pain that ripped through his right shoulder and chest. Nausea bubbled inside his stomach like oily slime. It combined with the sudden bout of dizziness and nearly sent him toppling from the saddle.
Christ, he couldn’t breathe. He felt so tired. He didn’t think he’d ever felt so exhausted.
Lacey twisted around. “Do you know where we’re going?” she repeated. “Oh, my God, we have to stop. You’re so pale,” she blurted.
“Don’t move around.” He clenched his teeth against the white-hot pain punching his chest.
She looked horror-struck at the notion she’d caused him pain.
“North,” he rasped. “We’re going north. Better shelter there.”
Perspiration slid down his face in rivulets. His shirt clung to his skin wet with blood and sweat.
A frown creased her forehead as she reached out to him. “You can’t keep moving and losing blood. I need to put a bandage on the wound. Please?”
Concern filled him. She was worried about him, yet he couldn’t let her fret. He had to reassure her. “It’s not so bad, Lacey. We need to find shelter before the storm hits. I can’t pitch the tent, honey, and I don’t want us caught in the cold rain. We’ll stop when we find cover and I’ll let you bandage it then.”
“Where are we going?” she asked huskily.
Danger frowned. Her voice sounded strained. Confusion knit a line of worry across his brow. He was tired, so tired. His arm seemed as heavy as a boulder and damn, it hurt.
Why was she so upset?
He couldn’t gather his thoughts and make any kind of sense of them.
“Danger?”
Her voice grabbed at him, dragging him back from the fog that clouded his brain.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Where are we going?” she repeated.
“Cave, maybe. Look for a cave. There has to be one.”
She looked back at him with troubled eyes. “A cave?”
Worry speared a dark path through her mind. He must be worse than he’d led her to believe because he wasn’t making sense. He leaned heavily against her back as if he didn’t have the strength to hold himself upright any longer. “I think we should stop and take our chances with the weather.”
“No.”
“Danger, please, if you bleed to death, you won’t do anyone any good. Please. Let’s stop for a few minutes.”
“No,” he replied weakly. “We have to find shelter and quickly. The weather’s changing for the worst. The temperature’s going to drop quickly. It might even start snowing this high up. If I get off this damn horse, I’ll never get back on it.”
“All right,” she said shakily terror striking her heart at the thought he believed he was too weak to get back on Diablo if he got off him. “Let’s find a cave.”
Another thirty minutes passed before she spotted what she thought might be the opening to a cave. A black hole gaped at them from a rise straight up some eighty yards, a mouth on the steep side of the mountain. An old trail scaled up to the cave, a surprisingly well-worn path, perhaps used by hunters when the weather changed unexpectedly. It was rocky, but doable.
Danger no longer tried to hold his head up or stay alert. She heard his labored breaths and terror whipped inside her as sharp and cold as the biting weather that approached.
As she nudged the stallion up the steep incline, she felt Danger start to slide. “No! Stay awake. Hold on to me. Hold on!”
“Try—ing.” His words sounded sluggish.
“You are not going to die on me, dammit. Your son needs a father.”
“Son?”
She felt his faint grin against her neck.
“Yes. Or daughter.”
“Son,” he whispered. “You’ll give me a son.”
And he slumped heavily against her, a sudden dead weight against her back.
A chill raced through her blood. Tears scalded her cheeks.
Don’t die. Don’t die. Please God, don’t let him die.
In The Arms Of Danger
Chapter Twenty-Three
Don’t go in if you don’t know the way out.
Cowboy Quotes
Montana Backcountry Mon. 3:00 p.m.
Lacey slid out of the saddle, touched ground with the toe of her boots and grunted. She didn’t think she’d ever felt so exhausted or her nerves so stretched to the breaking point, not even when she’d been running for her life.
She knew Danger was in a bad way. She had to get him inside the cave, build a fire and somehow convince him to let her take care of him. She led Diablo and the pack horses the last few feet to the entrance of the cave, then guided them inside.
The deeper into the cave they went, the darker it became, until there was barely even a hint of light reaching them from the mouth of the cave.
Lacey caught her breath at the rank smell of something rotting deeper in the bowels of the grotto and hoped whatever animal had stored food in there didn’t decide to return and claim it.
The cavern twisted off to the right and left in a ‘Y’ formation. She decided not to go any further but remain where they were. They were far enough back to stay warm and close enough to the entrance to hear anyone approaching. There were plenty of dried leaves
and twigs on the ground to build a small fire. She could boil water and heat soup. It would have to do for now.
The ceiling was bumpy with jagged, uneven ridges, but high enough for them to stand upright without fear of injuring themselves. Lacey scrutinized Danger. He clung to the saddle horn like a man clinging to the edge of a cliff. His chest labored with shallow, ragged bursts as he fought to draw in air. She didn’t think he was going to remain on the back of Diablo much longer.
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