by Linda Howard
He’d left the tent only when he had to, to see to the horse. He wasn’t a great animal lover, but he needed that horse to be in good enough shape for him to ride it down the mountain. If anything happened to the horse he’d either have to walk out or try to make it back to where he’d left the other three horses, and hope they’d still be there. Just taking care of the horse that was here seemed like the easiest course of action.
He walked around outside the tent, testing the footing. Frost covered everything, making the footing even more slippery. Damn, it was cold! He wasn’t wild about slogging through the mud, but he had no choice. The day would probably get warmer, and the longer he waited the more the flash floods would recede, if he could afford to wait it out. But he couldn’t. He had to assume that Angie was alive and that she was also setting out now that the rain had stopped. The one thing he couldn’t do was let her get down the mountain ahead of him.
Chad closed his eyes and mentally pulled up the map he’d studied for hours in preparation for this trip. If he’d known about the difficulties he’d encounter he would’ve packed the damn map, as well as a handheld GPS, but he hadn’t wanted to pack anything that Davis could possibly see that would have made him suspicious, so he’d taken the chance. That particular decision hadn’t paid off.
He had an excellent memory, though, and a sharp eye for detail: two more qualities most people didn’t expect him to have, which suited him just fine. It had come in handy to have some hidden talents, to be constantly underestimated.
He pictured the path he’d planned to take, the path he’d tried to take, and then he let the image in his mind expand, moving east and west, north and south. He needed to move in a direction that would take him away from the creeks that had swollen to an impassible level, and from there find his way down. It would be a longer trek, but considering that the way shouldn’t be impeded by rushing water he’d likely save himself some time.
He needed to go south, he figured. From what he remembered, the land became a little less rugged the farther south he went, but if he went too far he’d overshoot Lattimore’s place and have to double back, which would cost him precious time. He’d go a few miles and then try to cut east, down the mountain. If that didn’t work, he’d go a little farther south and try again.
Going off plan, again, did bring up the potential for unknown obstacles. The thing about unknown stuff was that he couldn’t anticipate problems beforehand and already have the solution figured out. What was the most likely problem he’d run into? That was probably Angie, because they were heading to the same place; therefore it was at least feasible that at some point he’d overtake her. He had to be prepared for that.
What else might stand between him and his way out? There could be people stranded at other camps, guides and hunters who’d been trapped by the weather. It wasn’t like this mountain was a mecca for vacationers, but he couldn’t discount the possibility. There were other guides in the area, he knew from his research, and then there were hunters who might rent a camp and go out without a guide.
But they wouldn’t know what had happened; they wouldn’t be keeping an eye out for him, unless somehow Angie had stumbled across another hunting party when she’d made her escape. If that had happened, he had to assume that anyone he came across would know about him, and they’d have to be eliminated. They wouldn’t expect him to just start shooting, which would give him the upper hand, something he’d need if he had to take out an entire party of hunters. If his surprise tactic didn’t work, then he’d rather go out in a blaze of glory than give up after all he’d been through to get here. He sure as hell wasn’t going to lie down and surrender.
He hoped with everything he had that Angie Powell was dead. The odds of that were at least fifty-fifty. There was so much that could have taken care of her: hypothermia, that fucking bear, falling off a cliff, getting washed away by the flood waters. He didn’t care how she went, he just wanted her out of the picture.
He prayed that she was dead, but was prepared for her to be alive.
No matter what, he couldn’t let himself get caught. He wouldn’t last a week in jail. Even if he did survive—which was unlikely because Davis’s bosses had people everywhere, even in prison—the confinement and the class of criminal he’d be forced to deal with would kill him, one way or another. He knew how he looked, like a total pushover, knew how prison tough guys would assess him. He’d rather be dead.
That thought spurred him on. He checked his weapons—rifle and pistol—stuffed a couple more power bars into his pockets where they’d be easily accessible, and put on his boots, lacing and tying them tight. He got his heavy coat, his gloves, his slicker, and some water. He thought about taking his duffel, considered the pros and cons. He might be able to use the supplies he’d then be able to take along, but anything more than that would also weigh him down. Not only that, leaving the duffel here might lead searchers to think he was still in the vicinity. He had to commit to this, because there was no coming back. Time was running out for him.
With his new route in mind, he walked to the corral. The ground was soaked, muddy, so his steps were cautious. The horse was moving around restlessly, its eyes rolling a little. He stopped, his hair standing on end as he remembered how the horses had acted when the bear was prowling around the camp. Holding his rifle at the ready, he looked all around, but didn’t see or hear anything. After a few minutes he shrugged and set the rifle aside. Maybe the damn horse was just tired of standing around.
He saddled the chestnut, talking softly to it to settle it down. He was a little excited himself, now that the end of the ordeal was right in front of him. A few hours—maybe longer, depending on what conditions he ran into and how much he’d have to detour—and he’d be free.
He’d come too far, done too much, to consider anything less.
He mounted and turned the chestnut’s head toward the south. A light wind was blowing, the sun was bright. The chestnut didn’t make great time, but the footing was already a little more firm than it had been two days before, and after a few minutes the horse settled down. Chad’s spirit rose. Just being able to do something was a relief.
Half an hour later, the bear cut across his scent trail.
Chapter Twenty-eight
“How’re you doing?” Dare asked, an hour into the trek. They hadn’t talked much, because both of them had to pay close attention to their footing. The ground was mushy, with a thin layer of ice on top; a misstep like the one she’d made the night of the storm could cause a real emergency.
“I’m okay. The boot’s helping a lot.” The snug lacing and the elastic bandage provided much-needed support, helping stabilize her ankle.
“Are you hurting?”
“It’s kind of a dull ache, that’s all. I’m good.”
Dare kept the pace slow, his eagle eye measuring her progress and the amount of effort she was making. Angie just walked, not making any effort to camouflage her limp; if she had, he’d have known and that would have concerned him more. She was deeply appreciative of the walking stick, which gave her support over the uneven footing and took a lion’s share of strain off her ankle. Tomorrow her arm and shoulder might be sore from the effort, but big deal.
In an ideal situation, she would be sitting on a sofa or recliner with a pillow under her foot and an ice pack on the joint, but “ideal” was dreamland, and reality was that she had to walk. If they’d been moving across flat ground she wouldn’t have had much of a problem, but they weren’t. Downhill, uphill—the angles put a lot of stress on her ankle. Dare tried to mitigate that by moving at a diagonal as much as possible, but the hard reality was that they had to go down.
The mountains weren’t completely tree-covered; there were thick stands of trees, but there were also meadows, rock formations, outcrops, and steep drops. The meadows looked as if they would be the easiest to navigate, but they were so rocky that every step was uneven and her pace slowed to a crawl. They reached one section where there simply was
no secure place for her to step. Dare held up his hand. “Wait right there.” He laid his rifle and the saddlebags aside, then returned to grasp her waist. Without noticeable effort he lifted her and swung her over the treacherous part to more solid footing.
She didn’t analyze the moment, she simply put her arms around his neck and kissed him. His size and strength made her feel more feminine than she’d ever felt before in her life, but that paled in comparison to the way he made her feel … treasured. Without hesitation he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in tight, hungrily taking her mouth, kissing her as deeply and thoroughly as if they had all day, as if his plans included pulling off their clothes right there and pushing inside her. Even if that was what he wanted, she didn’t know that she’d object. Her body knew him now, knew his taste and touch and scent, the weight and heft of him, the sounds he made when he came, and she responded to him on what felt like a molecular level, a calling of like to like.
But then he lifted his head and his narrowed blue eyes glinted down at her. “Not that I’m complaining, but what was that for?”
She had to swallow, hard, but she said honestly, “For treating me as if I matter.”
He lifted her off the ground, holding her so their gazes were almost level. His voice went even more gravelly than usual. “You matter to me; you matter a hell of a lot.”
“You matter a hell of a lot to me, too,” she said, and kissed him again, reveling in the moment.
After a minute he pulled his head back, sucking air, his hands kneading her butt cheeks as he worked her back and forth against his erection. “We either stop now, or you’re going to be feeling the wind on your bare ass.”
“If my ass gets bare, yours does, too,” she teased, then rested her face against his and sighed. “But I suppose we’d better keep going. I’m sorry I’m so slow; at this rate, we won’t make it to Lattimore’s before dark.”
“If we don’t, we don’t,” he replied, unperturbed.
Being the cause of their slow pace bothered her, though. At a brisk pace, a person could walk a mile roughly every fifteen minutes; she had no doubt Dare could handle that speed without breaking a sweat if the terrain hadn’t been so rough. She estimated they were moving no faster than a quarter of a mile every fifteen minutes, probably less than that, so not counting any stops to rest or eat they were traveling at less than one mile an hour. What would have been about a four-or five-hour trek for Dare, traveling alone, would take them eight to ten hours because of her, and that wasn’t taking into account any rest stops. There would be places where she could increase her speed, but in the end that wouldn’t be enough to make much difference, especially if they had to take any detours that cost them a lot of time and distance.
They set out again. Determined not to hold him back any more than necessary, Angie did the same thing she’d done when she’d first injured her ankle and was crawling down the mountain: She put the time and distance out of her mind, and concentrated on simply moving. She concentrated on the rhythm of step, walking stick, step; she’d read somewhere that when you were using a single crutch or a cane you held it on your strong side, but that didn’t make sense to her, so she held the walking stick in her right hand and used her upper body strength to take pressure off her ankle. Whether or not her system was as stable as holding the walking stick in her left hand, she couldn’t say, but her object was to keep her ankle from swelling up more than necessary.
Step, walking stick, step. She didn’t let herself flag, didn’t falter. Step, walking stick, step. She kept moving.
If he could have, Dare would have carried her. Did she have any idea how she looked, with her dark eyes so focused and intent, yet at the same time the expression in them was so faraway he doubted she’d hear him if he spoke? She wasn’t going to stop, she wasn’t going to give up.
This was how she’d come down the mountain during the storm, with everything else pushed to the side except what she needed to do; at least this time she was walking instead of crawling. She soldiered on, regardless, with the kind of resolve that the most hardened soldier would be proud to have.
His heart pounded hard, just watching her. There were millions of sweet, regular women in the world he could have fallen in love with, but he’d chosen her, a woman with grit in her gut and steel in her spine. When they fought—and they would fight—she wouldn’t back down an inch if she thought she was right. There might be some hard living in the days and years ahead of him. Hell yeah! He could hardly wait.
Not that he’d even breathed the word “marriage” yet, because he didn’t want to spook her until she was a little more settled with the idea of them being a couple. She was still brooding over the idea of him being her boss, which told him it hadn’t even occurred to her that the situation might be the other way around, that she was thinking about a semiprofessional relationship instead of a one hundred percent personal relationship in which she’d definitely have the upper hand, because, hell, she was a woman.
What was it with her? Weren’t women supposed to be the ones so focused on relationships and shit like that? She’d made one mistake, she’d had the balls to make sure that one mistake didn’t go one inch further, but then she’d beat herself up for not caving and pretending everything was all right, and staying with someone who she knew didn’t love her the way he should. Dare had the feeling Angie didn’t do anything halfway; from the very final and definite step she’d taken to get rid of the man who’d disappointed her, she was willing to go the distance—and beyond—to make her point.
He had to be crazy to be so crazy about her, but there it was, and damn if he wasn’t happy about it … now. Three days ago, he’d thought he needed his head examined, but even as bad as the night of the storm had been, since then he’d recognized what an opportunity God, or fate, had handed him. He’d made the best of it, too. Last night had been damn good. They fit together, physically, temperamentally, even their personalities. They made each other laugh. Even as solemn as she could be sometimes, he’d seen her eyes light up, seen her face relax and her lips curve and damn if she didn’t have some fuckable lips—
He wrenched his thoughts from that direction, because hiking with a hard-on could get damn uncomfortable.
After they’d been walking for two hours, he called a halt to let her rest, and for them both to drink some water. They hadn’t started out until close to nine o’clock, so he figured there was no way they’d reach Lattimore’s before dark, but they’d be okay. They were experienced in the outdoors, and they were prepared.
Angie sat on a rock while she sipped from a water bottle, her gaze sweeping over the rugged valleys opening up before them. Dare sat beside her and studied the same vista. Down below, the flood-swollen creek curved away to the left, but some distance ahead it swept back to the right, and somewhere, somehow, they would have to cross it. He could hear the creek even from this distance, a dull, distant roar as the rushing water tumbled over the rocky creek bed.
He pictured the topography, planning their route. He didn’t want to go all the way down to the creek, because there were rock formations that covered acres, and Angie couldn’t handle crossing them. In some places, going around them would be even more hazardous than crossing the rocks, so their best bet was to stay high enough to bypass the creek bank entirely. There was one place where they might—might—be able to cross the creek, and he’d check it out when they reached the area, but his plan right now was to go far enough south to pick up the road. That would take longer, but ultimately be a lot safer.
What the hell. He didn’t mind spending another night with Angie before they got back to the real world.
Progress was slow. Chad thought he could head east, but a swollen stream kept forcing him farther and farther to the south, till finally he was going in the right direction: down the mountain instead of cutting across it … at least for now. Time after time, just when he thought he was making some real progress, he ran into something that forced him off his chosen directio
n. He had to backtrack and go around obstacles so often he kind of lost track of how far he’d traveled, and that worried the hell out of him. What if he didn’t make it to Lattimore’s today? As cold as the weather was, he’d freeze his ass off tonight if he had to sleep out in the open.
Common sense told him he hadn’t traveled that far out of the way, that it was his impatience making every delay feel like hours when in reality it hadn’t been that long. The horse wasn’t making great time, but it was still faster than if he’d been on foot. Angie had mentioned that the camp had been almost ten miles away from Lattimore’s ranch, which wasn’t a great distance, so with any luck, he’d be on the road in a couple of hours, four at the most—hooray and hallelujah. His stomach growled, but he didn’t want another protein bar; he wasn’t that hungry yet. When this was over with, he hoped to hell he never had to see another protein bar in his whole life. After he crossed into Canada there’d be time to stop for a good, hot meal before he caught the next flight out to Mexico.
He could almost see it, could almost taste the freedom. Another name, more money than he knew what to do with … and he was so close …
He guided the horse along the tree line of a meadow, studying the land falling away below him, trying to figure out exactly where he was and where he needed to go, when something far down the meadow caught his eye.
He’d grown so accustomed to seeing nothing before him but mud and trees and blessed blue sky, it took him a moment to focus on and identify the movement down and to his right.
People. Two of them—a man and a woman. They were still a good distance away, and unless they turned around and really searched for movement, they wouldn’t see him, because he was still under cover of the trees. They were in a large clearing at the moment, unprotected by the trees that shielded Chad.