by M. L. Rhodes
What was wrong with her? Had Lionel's betrayal put her over the edge? Or had the kidnapping? Something must be wrong because there was no way she should be feeling the things she was feeling. How could she allow herself to experience anything at all for a man who was clearly a criminal, carried a gun, growled orders at her, and smelled like danger and intoxicating passion?
It was the intoxicating passion thing that did her in. And the way he'd shown signs of gentleness. That protective gleam in his eyes. And his comment that he never shared. Ever.
She tilted her head and gazed at Miguel out of the corner of her eye. When she looked at him, her body sizzled to life. Her breasts ached for his touch, her weeping cleft left her panties damp, and she imagined how those long fingers of his could pleasure her, how they'd feel sliding in and out of her, stroking her clit, leaving her writhing and sweaty and wanting more...
Stop, she cried silently. This wasn't healthy. Wasn't there a name for prisoners who were attracted to their captors? Some kind of syndrome? That had to be what was going on here. Or maybe she was so desperate to make herself feel better after Lionel had rejected her for another man that she'd latched onto the first bit of “feel good” excitement to come along.
"My kidnapper,” she whispered, letting the humiliation of it wash over her.
"I'm not your kidnapper."
Miguel's deep voice caused a shiver to skitter up Elizabeth's spine, and she was acutely aware it wasn't from fear.
"What would you call it then?” She turned to look at him.
"Ramirez and Christo took you from the bar. If I hadn't been there when they brought you back to the house, you'd be dead."
"So you think that makes you ... what? My rescuer?"
"In a manner of speaking."
"A manner of speaking.” A bitter laugh escaped her. “And your hideout, whoever this Galista is, however you're connected to him ... I suppose that's all legitimate and aboveboard, too? In a manner of speaking?"
"Something like that.” His hands tightened on the leather-wrapped steering wheel, but his eyes stayed focused on the road.
"Well, if that's the case, then I should be free to go. After all, holding me against my will would be illegal, and since you're so good at twisting things to make them seem legitimate, then you wouldn't want to do anything illegal, right?"
"You already know why you can't leave."
"Oh, right. Because Ramirez and Christo might rape me and kill me, and if they don't get me, then this Galista person will.” She gestured a hand around at the magnificent but empty landscape. “Gee, I don't see Ramirez, Christo, or Galista anywhere near right now. It'd be kind of tough for them to hurt me when they're nowhere in sight.” The last came out as almost a growl. Maybe the stress really was getting to her. She'd never growled in her life.
The Explorer slid to a stop, churning and spitting up gravel on the shoulder. Miguel hit the button with his left hand that unlocked the doors, then he turned to her. His face was a study in calm. “Get out."
"Wh—at?” Elizabeth stared at him, but her hand instinctively reached for the door handle.
"Get out. You can go."
She dragged in several shaky breaths. “What's the catch?"
He shrugged. “No catch. As you pointed out, all these people who want to hurt you are nowhere to be seen, which means you should be perfectly safe out here, right?” He picked up an elastic band from the dash, stroked those long fingers through the glossy thickness of his hair and pulled it back behind his head, forming a neat ponytail.
"Of course you realize ‘nowhere’ is the key word, yes? There isn't a town for sixty miles in any direction. And while you may stumble across a few houses or even an occasional vehicle on this road, folks out here usually live out here for a reason ... because they engage in activities they don't want to be observed. They aren't used to strangers, especially white strangers. And a white woman would be susceptible to...” He shrugged again.
"You're just saying all that to scare me."
"Am I?” His coffee-colored eyes glinted, but she saw no humor or dishonesty in them.
He reached across her, opened the glove compartment, and pulled out a map. He spread it open and laid it on her lap. His woody scent filled her senses, and when his hand brushed her leg, a deep pulse of desire speared through her and she almost gasped.
"We are ... here.” He pointed to a spot on the map that was, truly, in the middle of nowhere. “At least in this vicinity."
"I've never been outside Acapulco,” she said. “I'm not familiar with the rest of southern Mexico. For all I know you could be pointing out some random place."
"If you don't want to trust the map, use your eyes. Look around you. What do you see? By all means, if you prefer to take your chances on your own, if you think you can protect yourself, I won't stop you. You'll need this.” He pulled a bottle of water out from under the seat and handed it to her. “It won't last long out here, you'll have to find more quickly, but that's all I have with me."
Then he squinted toward the mountains. “A storm is coming. You'll need to find shelter from it. I would recommend heading for the mesa over there. There will probably be an arroyo on the other side where you can take cover. Stay out of the bottom of the arroyo, though—flash floods aren't uncommon. And the desert is home to many snakes and scorpions who find rocks appealing, so be very cautious of where you step and sit."
A surge of rebellion coursed through Elizabeth. She opened her door in spite of his words, and put one leg out. A rush of dry, ozone-smelling wind hit her, blowing the map off her lap and onto the floor. Her hair whipped around her face.
She stared out the door. Wasn't it better to take her chances out here and at least have her freedom than to stay with him? At least she might have a chance of finding help, of stopping another vehicle, of finding someone who could give her a ride back to Acapulco. Miguel might be saying all the stuff about people out here not liking strangers, and about how a white woman alone would be easy pickings, just to scare her. Just like he'd said all the stuff to scare her this morning, about how Galista wanted her dead.
But then common sense kicked back in. Who was she kidding? He was right, at least about the first part. She was here right now because she'd been a white woman alone in a small foreign town, very easy pickings for the two men who'd manhandled and kidnapped her. And if she managed not to get molested out here, she didn't have a clue how to survive in the wilderness.
Her damned, useless society life growing up hadn't prepared her for something like this. And even as an adult, after she'd broken free of her family's dictates, she had her books if she wanted to have adventures. She could tell you every scene in every adventure novel she'd ever read. But that didn't mean she had a clue how to do any of the things she'd read about.
Her heart tightened at the truth. Forced into the stormy reality of life outside her safe little plane of existence, she was useless. And, she realized with a heavy sigh, dependent on the man who sat behind her.
She dragged her leg back into the vehicle and slammed the door.
"You—"
"Don't say anything.” She slumped down in the seat and stared straight ahead.
She felt Miguel's gaze on her, and had the sudden urge to sob like a baby. She never had gotten the chance to have a good cry over everything. But she swallowed back the hot tears. Not here. Not in front of him.
The Explorer finally eased into motion, bumping from the gravel shoulder back onto the pocked pavement.
"Tell me about your life,” he said after several minutes had passed.
"Why? So you can snarl at me again like you did earlier today? Make assumptions? Jump to conclusions and believe everything you've read and heard?"
He was silent so long she figured he was pissed at her again. But he surprised her by finally saying, “Fair hit. I deserved that."
She glanced at him and was startled when he turned his head, met her gaze for a brief moment, then gave her a sexy half-
smile before looking back to the road.
She could barely breathe. The sight of his smile, so unexpected, so—
"Set me straight then. Give me the facts about Elizabeth Sandringham so I don't make any other wrong assumptions."
Elizabeth remained silent, not sure what to tell him ... what, if anything personal, she wanted to share. She'd already given him a laundry list of everything she'd done the past two days before the bar, so what more did he want?
"Come on,” Miguel coaxed. “Tell me something I would never expect about you."
She seized the first memory that came to her. “When I was a young teenager, I used to have this fantasy that a biker dude would ride up to my house on a big, rumbly Harley, pick me up like Richard Gere did Debra Winger in An Officer and a Gentleman, put me on his bike, and ride off into the sunset."
A low husky chuckle filled the interior of the SUV. “A biker dude?"
"Yeah.” A little smile tugged at Elizabeth's mouth. “I never dreamed of Prince Charming coming to carry me off to his castle because I already lived in a castle. At least that's the way it felt to me. And I hated it there. So my fantasy was that someone tough and dangerous—the complete opposite of a namby-pamby prince—would rescue me and take me away from all that."
Miguel grew silent. After a couple of minutes he asked, “You hated it there?"
Elizabeth sighed. “My mom died from cancer when I was seven. She was a wonderfully practical person, always had a smile on her face. This was before my dad made it big in the hotel industry. We lived in a little suburban house, and during the summer went to stay on the Cape with my grandparents. When she got sick, it happened fast, and then she was gone. I was devastated.
"During the next year my dad threw himself into his business and it began to take off. He started opening hotels all over the world, traveling a lot, and I stayed with a nanny he hired. Until one day, when I was ten, he came home with a new wife. Genevieve."
She huffed out a disgruntled breath. “Let's just say she very much liked the fact my dad now had money. We moved into a big mansion, suddenly had servants for every occasion, I was never allowed to leave the house unless I was dressed as Gen saw fit. She enrolled me in every dance, tennis, and etiquette lesson she could find, along with anything else she felt a proper young lady should know. I wasn't allowed to go to the public school with my friends any more, and instead had to attend a private school because Genevieve insisted it was ‘in my best interest.’ In short, everything in my life got turned upside down. So, yes, I resented it."
"How did your dad feel about his new wife reordering your lives?"
"In truth, I'm not sure he really noticed. He was gone a lot. Busy. When he was home, he was the same sweet dad I'd always remembered, but kind of out of touch with the home reality. The few times I tried to tell him I was unhappy, he'd pat my hand and say, ‘There, there, sweetheart. Genevieve just wants what's best for you. She wants you to look on her as a mother.’ He was pretty much clueless that Gen was nothing like my mom and I wasn't ever going to let her step into those shoes."
Elizabeth stared out the window, remembering that sick-in-the-gut feeling of missing her mom so desperately, yet having no one to talk to about it.
"Anyway, while other young girls dreamed of my life, all I wanted was to run away from it. As soon as I finished college I turned down the executive job my dad wanted to give me in the hotel business, moved out on my own, and basically turned my back on that whole lifestyle."
"Isn't your fiancé from a wealthy family?” There was an undercurrent of tension in Miguel's tone.
"Ex-fiancé. And I wasn't marrying him for his money if that's what you're getting at."
There was another long silence where she had plenty of time to regret rambling out so much of her history to him. Ramble, ramble, ramble. Maybe it was nerves.
Thunder rattled in the distance, and the sky darkened around them.
"So what do you do if you don't work for your father?"
She almost didn't answer. But then she figured she'd told him so much else already, what did it matter?
"I own a bookstore."
She felt his curious gaze on her. “What type of books do you carry?"
"Everything. Well, virtually everything ... it's a small place, but growing. I have fiction and nonfiction."
"New or used?"
"Both."
"Do you have a pretty good profit margin on the used books as compared to the new ones?"
"Better. Considerably better. Used books are my bread and butt—” She stopped in mid-sentence and looked at him. For a moment she'd almost forgotten where she was and who he was.
He glanced at her, his eyebrows drawn together as if to say, “What?” But then understanding settled over his face. “Shall we have another talk about making assumptions? But this time with you as the star of the show?"
Heat crept up her cheeks. “I'm sorry. I just..."
"Assumed that because you think I'm a bad guy I must also be dumb as a board?"
She shook her head. “I don't know what I thought. I guess you just caught me by surprise."
"As you have me on more than one occasion,” he murmured so quietly she almost didn't hear him.
"So ... where are we going?” she asked, steering the conversation away from her. “I mean, if it's allowed for me to ask that."
"Surveillance."
"Is that a fancy way of saying we're going spying?"
He didn't respond, but another one of those low chuckles came out of him, turning her insides to mush.
A few minutes later he pulled off the narrow highway onto a dirt road that led toward a canyon.
The distance was deceiving. She could see the canyon ahead, but as they bounced and jounced down the road, they didn't seem to be getting any closer to it. It was nearly fifteen minutes before the tall rocks began to encroach on them. Miguel made another turn, this time onto something that could barely be called a rut. A few trees poked out here and there, but the predominant terrain and life forms were still mostly desert.
Lightning flashed and a growl of thunder rumbled down the canyon walls.
Another turn, and a few hundred feet later, she spied an old barn tucked into a finger of the canyon. It was nearly hidden by the rocks—you had to be almost on it before you saw it. It looked solid, but abandoned.
Miguel drove up to it and through one of the doorways on the left-hand side.
"The people you're spying on live in a barn?"
He stopped the Explorer and turned it off. “No, but this is good cover so no one sees our ride while we take a little hike. Stay here for a minute.” He opened his door and got out. They were in a stall that, while not particularly small, with the SUV in it made for a tight squeeze with only a foot or two to spare on all four sides.
She watched Miguel peer through a door that led, she assumed, into the main area of the barn. Probably checking to be sure the place was empty. He closed it. “Let's go. If we hurry we can be back before the storm hits."
He pulled a small black nylon pack out from under the driver's seat, ushered her out of the barn, closing the big stall door behind them so the SUV couldn't be seen, and led her up and over rocks as they climbed toward a mesa.
Lightning flashed overhead and the wind had picked up speed. Elizabeth's hair blew around her face, into her eyes and mouth. She was quickly wishing she'd swiped one of Miguel's elastic bands. She huffed along behind him. He didn't check to see if she was following, but he always had that wiry alertness about him that told her even if she decided to try her luck and run, he'd catch her before she made it five steps. Of course she'd already established she couldn't take care of herself out here even if she tried to get away, so instead, she trudged along behind him, feeling the burn of her muscles from the climb.
Finally they neared the top of the mesa, but before she could pull herself over the edge, he motioned her with a hand to stop.
"Stay there. The fewer moving targets up here
, the better."
Moving targets? Good God, did he expect someone out here to start shooting at them?
"I'll be right back."
He sprinted across the mesa top to the far edge, where he knelt and fiddled with something in the rocks. She watched him open the pack he carried. He fiddled some more. What did he have out there? He'd said they were coming here to do surveillance. Was it some kind of hidden camera? But out here, what in the world was he recording?
Before she could think it through, he was back. And not even out of breath, which really ticked her off. She'd barely stopped gasping from the trek up here.
"Hurry.” His voice was urgent. “The storm's going to hit any minute and we don't want to be caught in it."
They descended back down into the canyon in silence. It took all Elizabeth's concentration not to get blown away by the vicious wind. Another bolt of lightning lit up the dark sky, and thunder roared through the rock walls like a train.
Back at the barn, Miguel held the door open while she bolted inside, then he shouldered it closed against the strength of the wind. With no windows, the stall fell into gray shadow.
"We'll wait it out here."
He opened the passenger door of the Explorer, stowed his pack again, and retrieved the bottle of water she'd left in the seat. He offered it to her and she gratefully took several sips before handing it back and he drank. Even in the dim lighting she was fascinated and oddly aroused watching the strong column of his throat as he tipped his head back and swallowed. In the tight space between the vehicle and the barn wall, he was so close she could feel the heat radiating off his body. His scent made her dizzy, and it wasn't because it was too strong. More like too damned sexy.
She wrapped her arms around herself. For protection, she supposed, although it was pretty silly. The truth was, she could so easily get drunk on him, and be damned happy about it.
No! You've got to stop this!
The heavens opened outside. There were no warning splatters that slowly built into a downpour. Instead, an angry torrent of water simply dumped from the sky to pound on the roof and walls. Wind raged through the canyon, shaking the barn.