by Vicki Tharp
He hadn’t slept, and he wasn’t going to anytime soon. He was in pain, and the nausea grew, but that wasn’t what kept him up. Admitting that he might have a problem weighed on him; Sidney had been right to be cautious where he was concerned.
With care, he slid out from beneath her arm and the blanket he’d pulled up when their bodies had cooled. He dressed easily in the dark, having left his prosthetic by his jeans and his jeans within reach. When he bore full weight on his prosthetic he grunted with satisfaction. The ACE bandage had taken up enough space, preventing the end of his stump from bottoming out in the socket.
At least one thing was going better.
He grabbed his holster off the horn of the saddle, strapped it on, and fastened the thigh strap. Then he stoked the fire, added more logs, and did a quick weapons check by the firelight. Full magazine. Chambered round. He re-holstered and stepped to the edge. Donkey gave a soft chuff, then settled back down. The horses didn’t move.
He leaned a shoulder against the wall. The scent of rain lingered and the way the wind gusted, they may not have seen the last of the wet.
Going back to the ranch at first light because of him was a pill even more bitter than the Vicodin.
Was he really going through withdrawal?
He pulled his shaking hand from his front pocket. Hell. Just give him a tambourine and he’d give Stevie Nicks a run for her money.
The truth was, a man couldn’t drink as much as he had, for as long as he had, and not have it affect him.
Didn’t make admitting it any easier on the ego.
And it didn’t mean he had to let it affect Sidney. Two more days. That’s all he needed to get through, then he could address the problems with his ill-fitting prosthetic, with his drinking. With the drugs?
He pulled the vial from the front pocket of his jeans, thumbed off the lid, and tossed a couple pills into the back of his mouth. Then added an extra one, for insurance.
Two for the pain, one for the alcohol.
He’d see how he was when the sun came up and make his decision then.
Like the horses, he cocked a hip, then rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes.
He startled. He didn’t move anything except his eyelids, staring out where the ink-black of the night had given way to the first shades of dark gray. Dawn approached. How long had he been dozing?
Without moving, he took a mental inventory. Something had woken him. What? The wall jabbed into the side of his head, his good leg was stiff and half asleep, and the skin on his knees stung like it was raw.
Carpet burn. Or should he say, cave burn? He smiled, remembering the night before, with Sidney beneath him, her heat, her body clamped—
A twig snapped. Knowing he was in the shadows, he righted himself, rolled his stiff shoulders, and silently un-holstered his Glock. He looked behind him, found Sidney’s silhouette beyond the fire. He didn’t want to take the chance that she had somehow managed to leave to go to the bathroom without waking him and have her be a victim of friendly fire.
Behind her, he scanned the dark recesses of the cave. If there was someone or something back there, he couldn’t see them, but he seriously doubted anything deadly could have slipped past the horses, and especially Donkey.
A rock tumbled nearby. Donkey snorted, his long, hairy ears rotating back and forth on top of his head like an AWACS radar.
Boomer hadn’t imagined it.
He slipped out and melted into the vegetation, careful that his own steps didn’t give him away. It could be an animal. Or a falling rock. But animals and falling rocks didn’t make his scalp tingle or the spot between his shoulder blades ache like someone had hammered a big, fat, neon target onto his back.
He held his Glock out in front of him, searching the darkness in front of his sights as he crept forward. His head swam and his depth perception played tricks with him. Trying to chalk it up to little sleep and having just woken up wasn’t working for him. A branch stabbed him in the forehead. Shit.
He knew the truth.
He was impaired.
He’d been taking one, sometimes two Vicodin for so long it didn’t seem to affect him anymore, but adding the third made a difference. Could he still hit a target at fifty yards? Fuck yeah, he could. Even slightly impaired, he didn’t doubt his ability to be accurate. He’d fought on much less sleep, under much more stress, under constant threat and fire. Did he have his normal edge? His normal focus? His—
Donkey brayed. Boomer froze. That wasn’t Donkey’s give-me-a-carrot voice.
The target between his shoulders burned like a hot brand. Then he smelled something over the mud and ozone, not the burning flesh of the imaginary branding, but a thick, pungent odor that reminded him of hot barracks and too much sun and not enough water for showers.
Man.
He spun as the jab of a gun barrel hit his ribs. He cocked his elbow, a battering ram to a nose, a face. Even as he did that, he knew he was a fraction of a second too late.
He connected with something hard. A shock of pain radiated up his arm, but with the hot rush of adrenaline he easily ignored it. A grunt, not a howl, as the blow glanced off bone, Boomer’s momentum carrying him through instead of the hard connection that would have stopped him as he’d planned. His boot slipped in the mud. He fought to regain his balance. Then, a crack on the back of his skull.
He heard it before he felt it. Probably the drugs. Stars danced in front of his eyes, then the pain bridged his brain’s muddled synapses. He opened his mouth to yell a warning to Sidney, but the ground came up to smack his face, and the words died on his lips.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Donkey’s bray woke Sidney from a sound sleep. Even before she reached her hand out she knew Bryan wasn’t there. She reached anyway. The cold blanket beside her told her Bryan had been out longer than the time necessary to relieve himself.
She shifted and groaned as she glanced around the dark cave for him. Every muscle she owned was stiff and sore. Especially those muscles she hadn’t used in way too long. She smiled at the memory of sex with Bryan—no, it had been more than sex. Sex was what she’d had when she’d dragged those two guys home from the bar. Sex then had served a purpose, scratched an itch.
Whip, whir, thank you, sir.
And sleeping with her boyfriend. That had been…well, nice.
What she and Bryan had shared could never be described with a word as bland and cottage-cheesy as nice. Their time together had been much hotter than that. Like an Indian red curry after the chef dumps in an extra bit of black cardamom for the added kick. Her stomach grumbled. Now wasn’t the time to think of food. Or even sex, for that matter. Even if it had been hot and messy and remarkable.
Then she heard a thud about twenty or thirty yards away, like a sack of potatoes hitting the ground. One of the horses startled.
“Bryan?”
Nothing.
She threw off her covers and felt around for her clothes. Where was that bra? “Bryan!”
Still nothing.
Something was wrong. Screw the bra. Sidney dressed, stepped over to the saddle, and picked up the rifle.
The horses shuffled, and one of them let out a whinny that rang and echoed in the cave like church bells ringing in the dead.
Eerie silence cloaked her.
Far away, another horse answered. Her heart stopped, blood pooled and crystalized. If there were riders on this trail, in this weather, this early in the morning, she didn’t think they were anyone she wanted to meet. At least, not without a gun.
The Remington weighed heavy in her hands. She flipped off the safety and cocked the hammer. She almost called out for Bryan again, but thought better of it.
Even though she tried her hardest to move quietly, her boots scuffed on the stone underfoot with each step. It probably wasn’t that loud, but when there was no othe
r sound besides the huff of horse breath or the occasional scrape of a hoof, it couldn’t be missed.
She flattened her back against the wall and made her way to the entrance, stopping every few steps to listen. Her blood must have thawed, because it thrummed through her ears and each breath rasped in and out like a three-pack-a-day smoker.
At the mouth, she stopped again. There was a grayness in the east, signaling the rising sun, but it wasn’t coming fast enough. Donkey hee-hawed and the far-off horse answered again. It didn’t seem like it was any closer, but it could be tied up, which spiked her concern.
She brought the rifle to her shoulder and stepped out, careful to keep her finger on the trigger guard. She didn’t want to shoot Bryan by accident if he came back unexpectedly. The hair on her arms rose as she swung the rifle left. Out of the corner of her right eye, something moved.
A stone rolled and clattered near the fire. She whipped around as her stomach dropped south and her heart jumped north. The moment she saw the rock she knew she’d made a crucial mistake.
Too late.
Three men poured into the cave. Another grabbed her from behind and stripped the rifle from her hand.
She screamed out, but no one was coming. Bryan wasn’t coming. If he’d been able—
As in, not dead?
Slapping a mental hand over Practical Sidney’s mouth, she double-dog duct taped it closed. What did her alter ego know anyway?
What these men wanted, she hadn’t a clue, but she damn well wasn’t going to wait around to find out what that was. She stomped on the instep of the man behind her and jammed an elbow into his ribs, but he was holding her to his body too tightly for the blow to do any real harm. She wriggled and struggled and tried to pry his hand from around her waist, wrenching his middle finger back.
“Pendeja!” he hollered. She understood the gist, if not the correct translation.
For a fraction of a second, his grip loosened, but then he tossed the rifle to one of the other men. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked back. She yelled. Hot tendrils of pain shot through her scalp. If he had lit her head on fire it wouldn’t have burned any less.
He pulled her back against him, then rewrapped his arm around her waist, the other across her shoulders. She bent at the waist, trying to break his hold, and stomped on his heavily booted feet, kicking at his shins. Her breath came in big, gasping, ineffective breaths and her strength quickly faded.
With one last burst of power, she slammed her whole body back into him, trying to ram him against the wall. He hit it, the force not even enough to make him grunt.
“Basta ya,” he said. “Quit.”
Still she struggled. His erection poked at her backside and she instantly froze.
All her wriggling, all her fighting, all she was doing was getting him off.
He chuckled and leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “Sí, señorita.”
A man like him, she’d expected his breath to be as foul and fetid as his soul, but she was surprised by the sweet scent of apples and peppermints, like he’d feasted on the horse treats himself.
“What do you want?” Sidney forced a bravado into her words. The last word shook.
He threw his head back and laughed, and his men, though hesitant, laughed with him, as if they didn’t understand the joke but were afraid to let him think they were too stupid to understand.
“The list is long, señorita.” His voice was smooth, and some women might have thought his accent sexy if it didn’t ooze evil the way a slug oozes slime.
One of his hands roamed and squeezed her right breast. Pain shot through her, radiating up her shoulder and down her arm. She hissed in a harsh breath but swallowed the grunt. She refused to give him the satisfaction, though her heart pounded beneath his forearm, giving her away.
Then he spewed words in Spanish so fast she couldn’t catch a word of it, but that wasn’t saying much. She’d pretty much slept through two years of Spanish in high school. Ms. Markle was right: she should’ve paid more attention.
Whatever it was he’d said, it was some kind of order, because the men broke out of their half stupor and scattered in all directions like cucarachas, cockroaches, when the lights came on.
Maybe she’d picked up more Spanish than she’d thought.
The eastern sky pinked up, throwing enough light into the cave that the men didn’t need flashlights to halter the animals and bind her hands behind her back. When they’d finished, they dumped her in a heap on the blankets.
One of the men grabbed a saddlebag, dumped the contents all over the ground, and pawed through it like a starving dog. Mint Breath hollered something and the man started putting everything back.
“Where is—” Bryan, she was about to say, but Sidney cut herself off. Maybe Bryan was okay. His gun and holster were gone. Maybe he was planning his move, waiting for some sort of advantage.
Maybe he’s dead.
Tears stung the back of her eyes as she used a whole roll of mental duct tape around and around Practical Sidney’s lying mouth.
“What?” Mint Breath asked. “Your hombre?”
Hombre. Man. She knew that much. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m alone.”
He walked over to her. His jeans looked stiff with grime. His once-black jacket wasn’t any cleaner and it had faded to a dark gray. Crouching in front of her, he thumbed the brim of his sweat-stained cowboy hat. Thick tendrils of oily hair lay plastered against his forehead. His eyes dark and hard. She looked away.
“You think I am stupid man?” He tried to put a finger under her chin. She jerked away. He squeezed his hand around her jaw, his fingers digging into her skin and grinding her flesh against her jawbone.
Men like him never want to hear the truth, so she said nothing. If he wanted her to look at him she would. She would look at every pore, the moth-eaten beard, the flat nose, the half-inch scar by the corner of his right eye. Every. Freaking. Detail. There wouldn’t be a problem picking him out of a lineup.
“If you are waiting for your man to come save you…” He brushed his thumb across her bottom lip, then into her mouth.
Instead of choking on her disgust, she bit the pad of his thumb and shook it like a terrier with a mouse. He howled with pain and indignation. The backhand across her face came quick and hard. It knocked her over, her head bouncing off the ground with a dull thunk. Pain radiated around her head, down her neck. Her face stung and she tasted blood.
Mint Breath grabbed another fistful of hair. It hurt like hell, but her scalp was so traumatized from the first time that at least it didn’t reset her scalp on fire. He grinned like this was all unexpected fun. Like a trip to Disney his parents hadn’t told him about. His teeth were straight and bright white. A sharp contrast to his clothes. Like a well-cared-for dog kicked out onto the street and left to go feral.
There was a commotion behind him, but she didn’t dare look away. Blood and saliva pooled in her mouth and she spat it in his face.
He smiled at her in a way that liquefied her guts. “I like a woman with fire. They’re a hot fuck.” He cranked her head back. A vertebra popped. “Or I could as easily snap that pretty little neck. Comprende?”
Yeah, she understood.
He shoved her head aside and some of the men dumped something on the blanket in front of her. It landed hard, with a grunt then a low groan.
“Bryan?”
He made a noise in the back of his throat, but she wasn’t sure if he was answering her or if he was making nonsensical sounds. She tried to sit up, to see if he was in one piece, but sitting up with her hands tied behind her back was a lot more difficult than she’d expected, so she inchwormed herself over to him, shoulder-butt-legs, shoulder-butt-legs, until she could lay her head on his shoulder.
Vaguely, she was aware of a lot of activity and loud talking around her, but her w
orld had shrunk to her and Bryan’s existence. They were what mattered.
“Bryan, can you hear me? Are you hurt?” Tears filled her eyes and he got all blurry. “Bryan.”
He groaned again. Then his eyes fluttered open. He blinked hard a few times, as if trying to bring her into focus. “Fuuuck.” The word came out in three low, long, laborious syllables.
“You okay?”
“Fucking fabulous.” He coughed, spitting out blood-tinged fluid. “You?”
“Never been better.”
His skeletal laugh brought on another coughing fit.
“Yeah, you sound freaking terrific. What did they do to you? What—”
“Hey, hey—”
“Bryan—”
“Look at me. Look. At. Me.”
She sucked in a deep breath, let it out, then met his gaze. There was a softness there that she recognized, but there was also a hardness she hadn’t seen before but somehow immediately recognized as Boomer the Marine.
“Boom...”
“No talking!” Mint Breath hollered across the cave.
Boomer ignored him and smiled. Blood stained his teeth. “Yeah, Irish?”
“What do we do?”
“I’m going to get you out of this, I prom—”
A boot landed in the middle of Boomer’s back. His jaw muscles clenched and his back arched, but he gave no other outward sign he’d been brutally kicked.
* * * *
Boomer shook his head when Sidney opened her mouth to say something. No telling what would come out of her mouth, and with the heel of a boot planted firmly over his kidney, chances were he would be the one to take the brunt of the man’s anger. As it was, the stomp to his kidney would probably have him pissing blood for a week.
He glanced down at his thigh holster, more out of want than anything. No way they wouldn’t have taken his weapon from him. Fat lot of good it would do him anyway, with his hands tied behind his back and his feet trussed up like a pig for the feast. All they lacked was an apple in his mouth and a roaring fire.