She kept some distance between them as they made their way back to the truck.
Upon arriving at the vehicle, however, she immediately noticed something out of whack. The truck was listing deeply toward the driver’s side.
“You didn’t park on soft ground, did you?” she asked, unable to remember anything unusual.
“Crushed shell and gravel.”
They drew closer.
Even in the dim light of the parking lot, she could see that the problem lay with both driver’s-side tires. Simon swiftly approached the truck and stooped down near the rear wheel to check it.
“Two flats?” she asked.
“Two slashed tires.” His tone was grim.
She trembled inside as she asked, “But...how... who...?” And why? “What reason would anyone have to play such a nasty trick on you?”
Or had the trick been on both of them?
Bubba?
“Maybe whoever it was just didn’t like my looks.”
Simon straightened and slowly inspected his surroundings as if he expected to zero in on the guilty party.
Phoebe followed suit.
The skin along her spine crawled. She felt as if the night had a thousand eyes, all aimed their way. Anyone could be watching them from the dark.
“I’m going to need new tires,” he said, breaking her concentration. “And that’s not going to happen before morning.”
“But we’re in the middle of nowhere!” she croaked. “What do you suggest we do?”
“Start walking.”
“Back to Marco?”
Was he crazy?
Opening the driver’s door, he said, “To my place,” then reached inside.
“You live around here?”
He pulled out and tested a flashlight. It worked, for which she was thankful. “More or less.”
“Which is it?” she persisted. “More? Or less?”
“That would probably be more.”
“How much more?”
Simon slammed the truck door and strolled toward her. “If you want, you can go back inside and call a taxi. I’m sure one will come...eventually.”
Inside. Where the perpetrator of the nasty prank might be expecting them.
“You’ll wait with me, right?”
“I’m walking.”
He was. Straight past her. Phoebe was appalled. And caught between a rock and a hard place...or rather, between Simon and the men inside the Osprey Nest. Including whoever held the grudge.
She only took a second to wonder which option would prove the more dangerous—
“Wait up!”
Phoebe scrambled after him as she was certain Simon knew she would. He didn’t even shorten his stride to accommodate her. Her imagination heightened, she felt as if someone were watching them now.
“Bubba?” she said aloud.
“What about him?”
She peered over her shoulder between vehicles and into the dark beyond. Her gaze swept in every direction but she didn’t see so much as a hint of movement. And yet, the sensation of being watched lingered.
“He did disappear pretty quickly after leaving the table,” she reminded Simon. “Do you think he’s the one who took a knife to your tires?”
“Why would he?”
“You tricked him into giving you information.”
“I paid him. And well, at that.”
Simon stopped dead in his tracks and focused on a stand of trees to their left...
Pulse immediately surging, she stopped, too, and whispered, “What?”
“Shh.” He tilted his head slightly, as if listening to some sound she couldn’t hear. After a moment, he muttered, “Nothing,” and moved on.
“Don’t scare me like that!”
Realizing that Simon was every bit as wary of their surroundings as she was didn’t reassure Phoebe in the least. But it did keep her close to his side.
Their arms brushed, the contact shooting a further thrill through her, albeit one of a very different sort. On edge again, she attempted to conquer both fear and attraction with logic. She resumed her train of thought.
“You set Bubba up with the pool game to get to him,” she said. “He doesn’t seem like the type who would tolerate being played with.”
“Probably not...if there was nothing in it for him. He came away with his pocket three hundred heavier.”
After leaving the bar’s parking lot they were walking in the dark, and Phoebe wondered why Simon didn’t switch on the flashlight.
“Who else, then?” she asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
Vance was the only other name that came readily to mind. Had her brother-in-law somehow figured out the purpose of her visit? And that Simon had been with her?
“Could Vance have been following us all day?” she wondered aloud.
“Unlikely...but possible.”
“Then you didn’t notice anyone keeping up with us on the way here.”
“Not a soul.”
But he was looking behind them now as if he expected someone to pop out at them. A thought that made breathing normally difficult.
The area around them was suddenly bathed in a pale light as a vehicle swept down on them. Simon pulled her off the road. A moment later, a truck raced by.
“We’d better stick to the shoulder.”
“What there is of it,” she muttered, unhappy with the uneven, sometimes squishy footing. Walking along the side of a narrow road like this could be treacherous in full daylight. “How in the heck can you see where you’re going?”
“Experience.”
Living in the swamp equipped him with night eyes? Night hearing, too, she guessed. She, however, having lived her whole life in more civilized surroundings, was not so blessed.
“If you’re not going to use your flashlight, I’ll gladly take it.”
“Here.”
Simon placed it in her hand. The brush of his fingers against her palm distracted her for a moment... made her catch her breath...
“Are you going to carry it around like a makeshift weapon or use it so you can see where you’re going?”
“Oh.”
That he sounded amused brought warmth to Phoebe’s cheeks. At least he couldn’t see that in the dark.
She snapped on the flashlight and stared down at the ground, keeping one eye open for ankle-twisting stones or mud holes, the other for anything that slithered. She couldn’t help wondering what she was doing hiking in the middle of nowhere, practically in the middle of the night. She had to be out of her mind.
“Why are you making me come to your place with you?” she asked, her displeasure with the situation growing with each step she took.
A car swept past them, moving in the opposite direction, while another set of lights shimmered in the distance.
“I didn’t make you do anything.”
“You left me with no choice.”
“If you didn’t have taxi fare, you could have said so.”
Something about his tone got to her.
Vaguely aware of another vehicle behind them traveling in their direction, she refused to be distracted from this debate. “You were counting on my not wanting to go back inside alone. Why?”
“Why should I have thought you would object?” he countered smoothly. “You were set on storming the Osprey Nest alone in search of Bubba if I didn’t take you.”
“That’s before I knew what the place was like...” Her sentence faded as his intent crystallized. “Wait a minute. Is that what’s going on here? You forced me to walk to who-knows-where in the dark because you needed to hear me say you were right?”
“That’d be a pleasant change,” he muttered as the vehicle behind them roared closer.
“Hey, how fast is that guy going?”
Phoebe glanced over her shoulder only to be blinded by high beams. Shading her eyes, she blinked and squinted against the bright light...
Just as it swerved directly toward them!
Using a full body tackle, Simon flung Phoebe out of the path of the speeding vehicle with mere seconds to spare. He rolled them both over a slight embankment even as a dark four-wheel-drive truck careened by them with a roar and a spew of mud and decaying plant matter.
They landed several yards from the road, limbs tangled, him on top. The moon had come out from behind the clouds and its light revealed Phoebe’s face, frightened and muck-splashed. She lay still beneath him, trembling, and for once, speechless.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
He drew his gaze away from her, automatically seeking out the bastard who’d almost run them down.
“I—I g-guess,” she said. “What the devil was that person th-thinking?”
Simon connected with the road. Red lights glowed in the distance.
Brake lights.
“Nothing good for us.”
As much as he would have liked to remain exactly as they were for a while—the feel of her body under his again something he’d been imagining since their first encounter—Simon knew better than to waste precious seconds. Untangling himself gingerly so that he wouldn’t hurt her further, he shot to his feet and helped Phoebe to hers.
“Can you stand on your own?” Even as he asked, the vehicle made a U-turn, tires squealing.
“Yeah. I’m just a little shaky.”
“Good.” Not trusting the driver’s intentions, he grabbed her hand. “Then let’s get going.”
He’d had a feeling those slashed tires had merely been a diversion. A means to a bad end...for them.
That’s why he’d been determined to keep Phoebe at his side. Thank God, he’d been able to trick her into coming with him.
“Wait a minute.” She stood fast. “Where’s the flashlight?”
“It must have gone out when you tossed it.” He started pulling the stubborn woman away from the road whether she wanted to go or not. “I don’t need it and neither do you...unless you want to be a moving target.”
“What?”
“The vehicle’s heading back our way.”
“The driver probably wants to make sure we weren’t hurt.”
“That’s one possibility,” he said tersely.
She stopped resisting. “I don’t think I want to hear the other one.”
Sure enough, the four-wheel-drive slammed to a stop near the spot where they’d taken their nose dive. A moment later, a brilliant beam flashed along the ground.
If only the driver really was trying to make certain they’d come out of their nosedive intact...
Not believing that for a moment, Simon headed straight for a nearby cypress stand that would give them cover. Behind them, the searchlight began skimming an increasingly wide area...advancing fast... nearly catching up to them.
“Hurry!”
For once, Phoebe didn’t challenge him.
They ran, quickly reaching the initial scattering of dwarf cypress trees sprouting out of small pockets of water. No matter that they moved as swiftly as the uneven terrain would allow, the beam of light intercepted them.
Her turning to look back slowed them a bit. Glancing behind them as well, Simon realized the driver had spotted them and the vehicle’s powerful engine revved to life.
“Come on!”
Simon tugged at Phoebe to make her move faster. Instead, she slipped on the muck underfoot and went down to her knees with a splash. She almost brought him with her. He resisted the fall, caught her around the waist and dragged her straight toward the heart of the cypress dome.
“He’s gaining on us,” she croaked.
The roar of the engine closing the distance behind them made him move faster than he would normally with someone unfamiliar with the territory in tow.
They were crashing through thigh-high saw grass immersed in inches—sometimes a couple of feet—of water. And as the distance between the cypress trunks narrowed, they had to fight hanging Spanish moss that whipped them in the face and chest. Phoebe was having trouble keeping her footing over the knotted roots. She didn’t complain, but Simon found himself half-carrying her.
What choice did he have?
The all-terrain four-by-four would soon be upon them, unless they made it to the denser center of the dome, where the water was deeper, allowing the cypress trees to grow not only taller but closer together.
Too close for any vehicle to squeeze through.
With the instinct of a swamper guiding him, he flew along, knowing that once their pursuer couldn’t go any further except on foot, they would be safe. This was his territory. His home. He could travel through it blindfolded.
Not so whoever sat behind the wheel.
It didn’t take a genius to guess the driver’s intentions. The bastard would run them down and leave their carcasses to rot in the swamp.
And Simon didn’t fancy being alligator bait.
PHOEBE THOUGHT her lungs might explode before Simon slowed. Of course, he really had no choice. While they’d raced through arduous territory for what had seemed like hours, but had really been only minutes, the terrain had become nearly impossible to negotiate.
Ears attuned to the slightest sound, she could hardly hear the engine anymore.
“I think we’re losing him,” she gasped as she sank to mid-thigh in the murky water.
“That’s the idea.”
A hiss to their left made her jump but didn’t even slow him. “Alligators?”
“This is their natural habitat,” he agreed.
Because he didn’t sound too worried, she asked, “Neighbors of yours?”
“Could be, though I don’t know them all by sight.”
She shuddered in response. He pulled her closer. Her heart lurched...as if it hadn’t had a good enough aerobic workout already.
“Do you know where we are?”
“A general idea.”
“You mean we’re lost?”
“I mean the swamp doesn’t exactly have road signs.” He pointed overhead to a blissfully clear sky. “But we do have the stars to map our direction.”
“So you can get us out of here, right? Soon?” she emphasized.
“Soon enough.”
A moment later, they’d risen to higher ground. Wet, mucky peat lay beneath their feet, but at least they weren’t wading anymore.
“When I get home, I’m going to throw away these sneakers,” she vowed, feet squishing in them.
“Or you could use them as decoration with those swamp creatures that inhabit your house,” Simon suggested in a serious tone. “They’ll serve as a reminder.”
“Of what?” she asked. “This is one night that I’m not likely to forget.”
No doubt he meant as a reminder of her hardheadedness at insisting on going to the Osprey Nest.
But all he said was, “Stop a minute and catch your breath.”
Glad to do as he ordered, Phoebe propped her back against a cypress tree.
He let go but didn’t move away.
Even so, she regretted the break of contact. For some odd reason, Simon’s hanging on to her had been more than physically necessary. It had been comforting, as well.
“You all right?” he asked, close enough that his breath warmed her already overheated face.
“Uh-huh,” she lied.
She might be intact physically, but she’d never been so frightened. Then again, she’d never had anyone try to run her over before.
He ran the back of his knuckles along her cheek, making her catch her breath.
“You’re trembling.”
“Not used to the exercise.”
“Liar.”
He was crowding her, still touching her with one hand, while his other flattened the tree trunk beside her face. Though his body was inches from hers, she imagined them clinging together...naked.
Vaguely remembering the reason they’d been forced to run, she whispered, “Don’t you have anything more productive to do than hassle a woman who’s too exhausted to defend h
erself properly?”
“Well, then...”
His head dipped slow enough that it gave her time to duck if that’s what she wanted to do.
She didn’t.
Willingly, she raised her face to his. Her heart hadn’t yet settled, and when their lips touched, it pumped double time. Gladly, she parted her lips and invited him in.
For a moment, she floated, her mind wandering to places drawn by passion, painted by ecstasy.
For a moment, she knew exactly what it would be like to be taken by this man and to take in return.
For a moment, she was unresisting.
Until the kiss ended. Too brief, she thought, too tender. That he didn’t move away made her self-conscious.
“Simon...”
She tried to make her hands do what she bade them, to push him away, but they wouldn’t cooperate.
“Phoebe,” he murmured in return, rubbing his face in her hair.
His lips trailed a path down the side of her neck, found the sweet spot at the juncture of her shoulder. His tasting her was the most erotic sensation...
And then he pulled away.
Now she felt truly naked.
Vulnerable...
And remembered the reason they were on the run.
What if they were playing into the villain’s hands by stopping at all?
“Do you think he’s close behind us?” she asked, not understanding how she could be so torn between two different instincts.
Survival... and sex.
That the person who’d tried running them over was still after them wasn’t even a question in her mind.
“I’ll find out.”
“Wait!” Her cry as he moved away fell on deaf ears. “Simon,” she hissed, “don’t leave me here alone.”
“Stay put!”
Within seconds he became one with his swamp.
Leaving Phoebe to the dark and the dangerous creatures who roamed it...
She’d barely taken a few easy breaths and now her chest was tightening up again. Every sound seemed laced with menace.
A scrabbling like that of a raccoon made the skin along her spine crawl.
A splash pressed her hard into the tree trunk.
A slither would send her right up the damn tree!
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