by LENA DIAZ,
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I only saw them a couple of times. But they were nice, especially your mom. I just felt, out of respect for her, that I had to say something.”
With that, he jogged to the passenger side of the pickup. He tossed the boots in the back, then hopped inside and slammed the door.
Beside him, Colby could sense Piper watching the trailer as it faded in the distance. Her heart was probably breaking watching her beloved horse disappear. But Colby couldn’t worry about that. He had to worry about keeping Piper alive.
Palmer’s men seemed distracted by the trailer, too, watching it go down the road.
It’s now or never.
Colby grabbed the hilt of his knife, whipped it out of Piper’s jacket pocket and sent it hurtling at his target in one swift motion. Piper let out a shocked gasp. The hilt of his knife was buried in one of the gunmen’s throats. He made a gurgling sound, then sagged to the ground. The second man jerked toward them, his face contorting with shock, then rage.
Colby dived at Piper, pulling her with him behind the fallen log. The crack of a rifle boomed through the clearing. Wood splintered up in a cloud of sawdust and rained down on them.
Boom! Another round plowed into the log, inches from the tops of their heads. Piper squeaked in terror, her whole body shaking beneath Colby. He scrabbled in the dirt, found a rock, threw it off to the right. He peered through a hole in the log and saw the gunman jerk toward the noise. This was their chance. Colby grabbed Piper around the waist and yanked her up and toward the woods. In his peripheral vision he could see the rifle swinging back their way. He shoved Piper down behind a tree and scrambled after her, just as the rifle cracked again. The bullet ricocheted off another tree a few feet away.
“Two more,” Colby muttered.
“Two what?” Piper whispered, sounding out of breath.
“Shots left in his magazine.” He looked around, twisting back and forth. A short thick piece of branch was a good foot away. Could he make it?
“How do you know how many bullets he has left?”
“His rifle. It comes standard with five in the magazine. I’m sure he’s got more ammo, unless he’s a complete idiot—which I’m not betting on. But if I can get to him while he’s reloading, and he’s not very fast—”
She grabbed his upper arm. “He seems fast to me. I’m not letting you do something foolish and risk your life even more because of my stupidity. I never should have tried to steal my own horse. I should have listened to you and we wouldn’t be in this—”
Colby clamped his hand over her mouth.
A twig snapped somewhere behind them.
Her eyes widened.
He very slowly pulled his hand down, then held a finger to his lips.
She nodded, her gaze flitting past him.
Another twig snapped. Leaves crunched. The gunman was closer now, much closer. Colby glanced around, weighing their options. They hadn’t made it very far into the woods. The tree they were hiding behind was the only one thick enough to hide them. It didn’t take a genius to figure out where they must be. Most of the other trees were too small to provide good cover.
But if he and Piper stayed put, they were as good as dead.
He pointed to his left, since the sounds seemed to be coming from the right, somewhere behind them. Then he pointed to her and held up three fingers. He folded one down.
She shook her head no.
He frowned and nodded yes. Another finger down.
She frowned, obviously not liking his plan. But then she nodded and gathered her legs beneath her, watching him, waiting.
He couldn’t reach the piece of wood he’d been eyeing without giving away their location. Instead, he dug into the ground beside him and managed to scoop a handful of half-frozen dirt, his equally frozen fingers screaming at the effort. He listened for something, anything, that would tell him the location of their pursuer.
Crackle. Crunch. Someone had just stepped on some dried leaves.
He glanced at Piper, then tossed the dirt clod to the right while dropping his remaining finger. The rifle cracked, firing toward where Colby had thrown the dirt while Piper took off to the left toward a clump of trees and fallen logs. Colby whirled to his right, just as the rifleman swung his gun toward Piper.
The man’s eyes widened in shock to see Colby so close. He swung the gun back toward Colby. Colby lunged at him, crashing down on top of the gunman and landing with a teeth-rattling thud on the frozen ground.
The rifle skittered away. Colby reared back and slammed his fist toward the other man’s jaw. But the man twisted sideways and Colby’s fist grazed off his shoulder, throwing him off balance.
The man scrambled away on all fours. Colby swore when he saw how close the rifle was. He shoved himself up and after the other man, jumping on him as the man grabbed the gun.
Boom!
The fifth shot in the magazine whined harmlessly overhead.
The man swore and shoved the rifle, throwing Colby off balance again. He fell onto his back, blinking to try to make everything focus. His head was throbbing and nausea coiled in his stomach. The blood loss and earlier hits he’d taken to the head were catching up to him, making him sluggish, slowing his reactions. Or it might have been the cold or the combination of the two.
Either way, he was in serious trouble.
He shook his head, desperately trying to make two of everything become one again. His vision suddenly cleared. His prey was reaching for a rifle. Not the empty one. The one with a full magazine. The one that belonged to the dead man.
Colby scrambled to his feet, forcing his legs to move even though the world was still spinning around him. He made it to the cover of trees and kept going. A crashing noise sounded behind him. The gunman was in the woods, too, not far behind. Colby zigzagged from tree to tree as wild shots pinged against the bark or hit bushes inches from him. All he could think about was luring the man in deeper, away from wherever Piper was hiding.
He lurched around another tree and peered around the other side. The rifleman had stopped a good ten yards back and was listening intently. He must not have seen Colby in the deep gloom. The sunlight was having a hard time reaching him through the thick branches overhead and the darkness was providing him cover.
The gunman cursed, then sprinted back toward the clearing.
“Where’s he going?”
The whisper had Colby whirling around in surprise to see Piper, hiding behind a tree ten feet away. The realization that he’d led the gunman toward her, instead of away from her, had his insides going as cold as his throbbing feet and hands.
The sound of an engine erupted from the clearing.
“The truck,” they both said at the same time.
Colby took off in a wobbly run. He couldn’t let the man take the moving truck. It was their only way out. He raced into the clearing, then skidded to a halt, catching himself against the same log where he and Piper had hidden just a few minutes earlier. Taillights disappeared around a curve as the sound of the engine faded in the distance.
He slid to his knees and punched his fists against the ground. He knew what this meant. It didn’t matter that the gunman hadn’t shot them. By abandoning them in these woods, he and Piper were as good as dead.
“Colby?”
He squeezed his eyes shut, breathing deeply as he struggled for control. When he felt more composed, he looked up. The raw fear in her eyes had him fisting his hands against the ground again and wishing those hands were wrapped around Palmer and his men’s necks for hurting her like this.
She rushed forward and dropped to her knees. “Are you okay? He didn’t shoot you, did he?”
He shook his head, unable to speak. Once again this woman had surprised him. He thought she was terrified to have been abandoned, stranded in the woods with temperatures that were rapidly
dropping into the freezing range. But she wasn’t worried for herself. She was worried about him, a cop she’d only met a few hours ago. A cop who’d essentially taken away the one thing she obviously cared most about—her horse. He’d never felt more like a jerk than he did in that moment.
Forcing a smile that he hoped was reassuring, he shook his head. “I’m fine. The bad guy is gone.”
She smiled, looking ridiculously relieved. “That’s good, right? Now we just have to follow the road...” Her smile faltered. “I don’t see a road anywhere. But there has to be one close by, right? They couldn’t have made it into these foothills without a road close by. We just have to follow their tracks and find it. Come on, Colby. Get up. We have to get moving or we’ll freeze to death. Let’s hurry while we’ve still got half a day of sunlight ahead of us.”
He wasn’t sure if she believed what she was saying or if she was in denial. But he didn’t have the heart to dash her hopes. He’d let her think they were going to make it out of here alive just as long as he could. Maybe she was right and they weren’t as far from civilization as he suspected and they could make it out of here. But he didn’t think so.
The gunman wouldn’t have risked leaving them if he thought they could survive. He wouldn’t want to face Palmer’s rage if Colby and Piper turned up again later, alive. Still, he didn’t want to be the one to destroy her hope. And maybe he could borrow a piece of it himself. As long as there was hope, there was life.
“Half a day ahead of us, huh? That might be enough to get out of here. How long do you think we were in the back of the truck?” He took her offered hands, allowing her to help him to his feet. Truth be told, running through the woods had taken its toll. He was far shakier than he would have expected.
She pulled his left arm around her shoulders and put her right arm around his waist. “Just a couple of hours. They didn’t seem to be going very fast, probably so they wouldn’t attract any attention. They also stopped several times. And I bet they stayed to the back roads to avoid the police. We could still be in Blount County, or just a few counties over. We’ll find a way out of here before the sun goes down. Count on it.”
He faked a smile and motioned toward the trees. “Now that we’ve gotten away from Palmer and his thugs, I can’t help remembering another urgent situation we were both suffering earlier. I know I’m still suffering, so you have to be, too.”
A pretty pink flush colored her cheeks. “Yes, well, I suppose we could both take a few minutes to, ah, regroup. Then meet back here.”
“How about five?”
She nodded, then took off in a run to the cover of trees. As soon as she disappeared, he hurried to take care of nature’s call himself. Then he rushed over to the dead man on the far side of the clearing. A quick jerk, then a couple of swipes of his blade against the man’s jeans and he had a relatively clean knife. He shoved it into his waistband, then eyed the man’s shoes and jacket. They were far too small for him, but they might work for—
“Don’t even think about it.”
He turned to see Piper’s pale face, her gaze averted from the man lying on the forest floor.
“I’m not wearing a dead man’s clothes. There’s blood all over them,” she whispered.
“But it’s cold out here. Your feet—”
“I don’t care. I’d rather freeze to death than wear a dead man’s blood. Please. Don’t ask me to do it. Just...don’t. I can’t.”
He wanted to argue, but the pleading look in her eyes was impossible to resist. He stepped away from the corpse.
“Ready?”
She nodded and they both started off in the direction where the truck had disappeared.
Chapter Seven
Piper stared at the ground as they walked through the woods. She couldn’t deny the facts no matter how hard she looked.
They hadn’t found a tire track in a very long time. The hard, frozen ground just didn’t reveal much.
She rubbed her hands up and down her freezing arms and risked a quick glance up at Colby. As if he could feel her gaze on him, he stopped.
“What’s wrong?” His gaze swept her up and down as if searching for injuries. “Did you get cut on a tree branch or something?”
He put his hands on her shoulders, his fingers gently sliding down each sleeve of her jacket, testing for rips. If she’d been the crying type, she’d have been a puddle on the ground by now. When he didn’t find any holes in the fabric, he put his hands on her shoulders again.
“Piper? What is it?”
“There aren’t any more tire tracks to follow. We’re utterly lost. I’m so, so sorry, Colby. I think I’ve killed us both.” A sob burst from her and she covered her face with her hands. So much for not being a crier.
His arms crushed her against him as he rested his cheek on top of her head.
“Shh, it’s okay,” he whispered. “None of this is your fault. It’s okay.”
She shamelessly allowed him to comfort her for one long, selfish minute, reveling in the feel of his strong arms around her. If only they could have met some other time. There was no telling what they could have become to each other.
No, that was a useless thought. She had her ranch, the people who depended on her. He had his job, his friends, his roots here in Tennessee, hours from her home. It never could have worked. But it was a nice fantasy, if only for a moment.
Her moment was up far too soon. But at least she’d had one, magical hug to take with her to the grave. She reluctantly pushed out of his arms and took a step back.
“None of this is right. It’s my fault that you’re out here. And it’s definitely my fault that you don’t have a jacket. I should have let you put that dead guy’s coat on me. It was stupid of me to refuse. But that was my mistake, not yours. And you shouldn’t have to pay for it. I’m freezing with a coat on. I can’t imagine how miserable you must feel without a coat at all.”
She reached for the zipper. His hand was suddenly on her hand, his fingers wrapping around hers, stopping her.
“I’m not taking it,” he insisted. “And I’m not letting you die of hypothermia by walking around in your bra, as much as I would enjoy the view.” He punctuated his statement with a grin and an outrageous wink, just like the one he’d given her in the tent at the fair.
She let out a burst of laughter, then sobered. “I’m serious, Colby.”
“You think I’m not?” He stepped closer, until the tips of his toes brushed hers. He wiggled his feet and winked again.
He was standing so close that his chest brushed against her breasts. Even through the jacket she felt that delicious pressure, and her pulse kicked into hyperdrive. Her breathing hitched, and he must have heard it because his teasing smile faded. His gaze dropped to her lips. His nostrils flared like a stallion’s scenting a mare. And suddenly his mouth was on hers.
His lips were cold at first, shockingly so. But his breath was warm, so incredibly, deliciously warm. She breathed him in, molded her mouth to his and kissed him back.
He groaned deep in his throat, and then his arm was beneath her bottom, lifting her. She instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist, and he turned, pressing her against a tree while his mouth did crazy, wonderful things to hers.
When his tongue swept inside, she knew that she’d died and gone to heaven. Nothing had ever felt better. Or hotter. It was as if she’d found her very own furnace in the middle of the mountains, and he was igniting her like a flame.
The kiss went on and on until she was whimpering against him, so hot that all she wanted to do was pull off their clothes. She slid her fingers down his face without breaking the kiss. And then she was pulling at her zipper, desperate to get the jacket off.
“No.” One word, husky, strained, and then his hands were around her waist, pulling her off him.
She dropped her legs and he stood her up, his body s
till pressed against hers, which was a good thing because she nearly fell over as soon as her feet touched the cold ground. They were tingling as if a million icy needles were pricking her skin.
“Ouch, ouch.” She shifted from foot to foot. “My feet feel like they’re burning.”
He chuckled and stepped back. “Mine, too. I think we figured out how to get our blood circulating again. What do you think? One kiss every ten minutes? That ought to keep us alive for a while.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her after him through the woods again.
She rushed to keep up, then looked at him in shock. “Are you kidding me? You got me all hot and bothered back there just to get me...hot?”
He grinned. “I wouldn’t put it that way exactly. I wanted to keep you from taking off your jacket and did the first thing that came to mind. Taking your jacket off now would defeat the purpose. You’d be freezing cold in a matter of minutes.”
All her guilt came flooding back. He didn’t have a jacket. He was probably already freezing cold again while she was only half-freezing. She reached for her zipper.
“Don’t,” he warned without stopping. “If you try to take off your jacket, I’ll just kiss you.”
She laughed. “That’s not exactly a deterrent.”
The corner of his mouth quirked up but he kept his gaze on their surroundings, leading them both around obstacles in their path.
“My point is that I’d just have to distract you, which has the added benefit of warming both of us. But the downside is that we still don’t have shelter from this weather. If we’re stuck up here without shelter once the sun goes down, we won’t have a chance. We need to keep moving.”
“But—”
“But nothing. Keep an eye out for a cave or an old shed or barn. There are tons of abandoned structures all over the Smokies, leftovers from a hundred years ago. Finding a dilapidated lean-to could save our lives.”
Probably about forty-five minutes later, Colby’s fingers slipped from hers and he fell against a tree.