by LENA DIAZ,
The man McKenzie had handcuffed was still cuffed. But he was leaning against a tree another ten feet beyond the ranger and the other gunman. His face bore an angry, impatient expression as he watched the standoff.
McKenzie shifted slightly, revealing some bloody cuts on the right side of his face. She drew a sharp breath. All three men jerked their heads toward her. She pressed a hand to her throat, belatedly realizing she must have made a sound.
“Nice of you to join us, Jody,” the handcuffed man called out, his earlier cocky grin back in place. “Stay right where you are. Remember what I told you.” He half turned, looking over his shoulder at the other gunman as he flexed his hands. “Owen, just get the dang keys already and get these things off me. Officer Mayberry can wait.”
Jody swallowed, his earlier threats running through her mind. Somehow he’d gotten it into his head that she had something he wanted. And he was using Tracy as leverage. It stood to reason that she could do the opposite, couldn’t she? Leverage whatever he thought she had in return for Tracy’s safety? If she helped McKenzie, wouldn’t the bad guy have to keep Tracy alive until he got what he wanted?
She curled her nails against her palms. Why was she even debating with herself? It wasn’t like she could just run away. No matter what, she couldn’t ignore the fact that Adam McKenzie was right here, unarmed and outnumbered, with a gun pointed at him. He needed help. She had to do something. But what could she do?
The man named Owen had keys in his left hand now, keys that he must have taken from McKenzie. His gaze stayed on the ranger as he trained the pistol on him and backed toward the tree.
McKenzie’s gaze locked on Jody. He glanced to the right, toward the curve of rock wall and subtly jerked his head. Clearly, he wanted her to run up the path, to escape while she could.
She shook her head, even though she really, really wanted to give in to her cowardice and do exactly that—retreat, run, hide. But she’d just had this particular argument with herself. And lost.
His jaw clenched. He obviously wasn’t happy with her response. He jerked his head again.
Ignoring his unspoken command, she studied the other two men. The one with the gun was fumbling with the set of keys. Their attention was temporarily diverted. McKenzie must have realized the same thing. He edged toward her. One foot. Two feet. When he was about ten feet away, he took off running toward her.
A shout sounded behind him. He grabbed Jody’s arm and yanked her around the corner as more shouts and curses sounded.
“The cuffs, the cuffs! Hurry!” The handcuffed guy was apparently ordering Owen to remove the cuffs before they took off in pursuit.
“Go, go, go!” McKenzie’s fingers tightened around her upper arm, pulling her up the trail. When a downed tree blocked their way, he lifted her up as if she weighed nothing and leaped over the tree. He set her on her feet and they took off again.
The clomp-clomp of boots pounding up the path sounded behind them. She looked over her shoulder. The first gunman didn’t have his hands cuffed anymore. The short delay of removing them had given her and McKenzie a head start. But their lead was dwindling.
“Come on.” McKenzie pulled her around rocks, over branches, at an impossibly fast pace.
“I’m trying,” she gasped, struggling to match his long strides. She already knew she couldn’t outrun the man behind them going uphill. She’d tried once and failed. Keeping up with the tall, long-legged McKenzie was impossible.
“Stop or we’ll shoot!” the man named Owen yelled at them.
She started to look over her shoulder again. But McKenzie tugged her forward.
“Don’t look back. It’ll only slow you down.” He yanked her around another curve in the trail.
A shot rang out. Jody instinctively ducked. But McKenzie was already pulling her under some thick branches from another downed tree. He came out the other side, hopped over more branches, then lifted her over.
A bullet whined past them. She let out a startled gasp and pressed a hand to her galloping heart. Good grief, that was close. McKenzie didn’t react at all. Was the man used to getting shot at? He pulled her behind a huge boulder that was clustered with several others and pushed her down. He scanned the area around them, up the trail, out toward the open vista of mountains that alternated between blackened bald spots and new spring greenery poking up through the ashes.
The twin peaks of the Chimney Tops, two of the higher mountains in the park, stood out in stark relief from the destruction around them. She’d never even been in the park before, other than sitting in a car looking out the window as her adoptive father wheeled and dealed for yet another parcel of land. The only reason she recognized that particular landmark was because a new client had shown her pictures of them a few weeks ago and was considering hiring her to take new ones for a tourist brochure. What she didn’t understand was why McKenzie was looking at the Chimney Tops. It wasn’t like they had a helicopter and could magically fly to them and escape.
His gaze flicked back to her. “I need to know whether I can trust you.”
The cuts on his face had guilt flooding through her. “I could have run when you told me to. But I didn’t leave you behind. Isn’t that proof enough?”
He seemed to consider that, then shrugged. “For now, you’re going to have to trust me.”
She gave a nervous laugh. “Well, I certainly don’t trust the guys shooting at us. Where are they?” She tried to peek around the largest boulder. He stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t. They’ve hunkered down behind the last tree we jumped over, about forty feet back. I imagine they’re waiting to see if I’m going to pull a weapon from my backpack, since they made me toss my pistol into the ravine and took Tattoo Guy’s pistol away from me.”
Hope unfurled in her chest. “Do you? Have a backup gun?”
He shook his head. “I’ve got a hunting knife. But you know the saying about bringing a knife to a gunfight.”
“I’m really good with a knife. I could throw it at them. All I’d need is some kind of diversion to get one of them to stand up and give me a clear target.”
As soon as she said it, she realized she’d made a mistake. He was looking at her with open suspicion again.
“In college,” she rushed to explain, “I hired a guy who ran a gun range to teach me to defend myself. He taught me to shoot. But he also taught me how to throw a knife.”
“Ever thrown a knife at a real, live person?”
“No, of course not, but—”
Bam! Bam!
They both ducked at the shockingly loud sound of pistol fire.
She drew a shaky breath. “Well?” She held out her hand for the knife.
“I’m not giving up my only weapon just yet.”
She dropped her hand. “You have a better suggestion?”
He looked toward the Chimney Tops again. “I’m considering a few possibilities.”
“Is one of them to crouch down and use these boulders to block them from seeing us retreat up the path, back the way you came? We might be able to get pretty far up the trail before they realize we’re gone.”
“That’s a good suggestion, except for one problem.” He shrugged out of his backpack and unzipped the top. “The trail straightens out after that next curve, with no cover of any kind for about three hundred yards. It’s also unstable. There’s a lot of debris but nothing sizable enough to hide us from view. The odds of us making it that far before those guys work up the courage to storm our little hideout are too low to make it worth the risk.” He pulled out a length of white nylon rope and the knife he’d mentioned earlier.
She was about to argue with him, but the rope made her pause. “What’s the rope for?”
“So we don’t die.”
It took several seconds for her to realize he wasn’t going to expand on his cryptic answer. I
nstead, he shoved the knife into a leather holder and tucked it into his backpack. After slipping the pack onto his shoulders, he connected some extra straps on the pack that he hadn’t bothered to fasten earlier. One went over his chest. Two more attached the pack to his belt loops with metal clips. She thought they might be called carabiners, like she’d used when Tracy had badgered her into going on a zip-lining trip in Pigeon Forge to celebrate Jody’s new, second job at Campbell Investigations.
“What are you doing?” she tried again.
He picked up the length of rope that he’d cut. His fingers fairly flew as he tied knots and created loops.
She watched him with growing frustration. The gunmen could be creeping up on them this very minute. So why was he tying knots? She hated being kept in the dark. Her life was on the line just as much as his.
And Tracy’s.
He pulled on one of the loops as if testing it, then let out a few more inches, making it larger.
“Are you going to tie them up or try to lasso them or what?” she snapped, unable to hide her frustration any longer.
For the first time since he’d appeared on the trail with a goofy, dumb-as-a-rock grin, he gave her a genuine smile. It lit up his eyes and made him look years younger than the thirty-one or -two that she’d assumed him to be. Maybe he was only in his late twenties?
“Lasso them? Can’t say that’s ever been part of my law enforcement training. Might be a good skill to learn, though.”
He continued to work the rope through the metal clips. “Hypothetical. We figure out a way to get Owen or Tattoo Guy to stand up and give us a clear target. You do a Wonder Woman move and take him out. That leaves the second thug with two pistols, and potentially other weapons we don’t even know about. We’re left without even a knife to defend ourselves. What would we do then?”
“Maybe I do another Wonder Woman move and lasso the second guy.”
His lips twitched as if he was trying not to laugh. He looped the rope through one of the backpack’s metal clips.
She curled her fingers against her thighs. It was either that or shake him. She closed her eyes for a moment and drew deep, calming breaths. Their lives were on the line and this man was pushing all her buttons. What she needed to do was calm down and think. There had to be something they could do instead of just waiting here playing with a rope. She opened her eyes again, then frowned. “What are you doing?”
He swept the ground between them clear of debris, scattering several broken pieces of branches and twigs, then motioned for her to move toward him. Exasperated, but curious enough to see if he actually had some kind of plan, she scooted toward him on her knees. He closed the distance and slid the rope through one of the belt loops on her shorts.
“McKenzie. What are—”
“Give me a minute.”
She blew out an irritated breath and held her hands out of the way as he threaded the rope through all the loops on her shorts. When he was done, he tied the end of the rope to another metal loop on his backpack, effectively anchoring them to each other, with just a few feet in between.
“McKenzie?”
He tilted her chin up so she was looking into his eyes. “Is your name really Jody?”
She swallowed, her whole body flushing with heat when she realized just how close her breasts were to his chest, her lips to his. “Y...yes. Jody Vanessa Ingram.” She hated that her voice came out a breathy whisper.
“Pretty name.”
“Vanessa was my biological mom’s name.” Why had she said that? It didn’t matter one bit under the circumstances.
He smiled. “Well, Jody Vanessa. We’re about to explore one of those possibilities I mentioned earlier. And I think it’s time you called me Adam. Don’t you?”
His deep voice and cool blue eyes seemed to cast a spell on her. She couldn’t think with him this close, could barely even breathe.
“Come on out from behind that rock and we won’t kill you,” Owen shouted. “All we want to do is talk.”
She blinked. The spell was broken. Thank goodness. “McKenzie... I mean, Adam. What’s the plan here? Why did you—”
He tugged the rope, pulling them even closer together. “This is where that trust part comes into play.”
She licked her suddenly dry lips. “I’m not sure what you—”
He grabbed one of the short, broken pieces of branch that he’d swept out of the way earlier and tossed it over the top of the boulder.
Boom! The stick exploded into sawdust.
Jody ducked down, even though she was already behind the boulder.
Adam winced but didn’t duck. “They’re better shots than I’d hoped. This is going to be close.”
“Close? What are you—”
He grabbed her around the waist.
She read the truth in his eyes and suddenly realized what he was going to do. The rope. The fact that he’d tied the two of them together. Him staring out at the Chimney Tops and telling her she needed to trust him. Her stomach lurched, and she pushed against his chest, to no avail. He didn’t budge and the rope wouldn’t have let her move very far anyway. “No. No, no, no. Please. I can’t do this. I’m too scared. I can’t.”
Sympathy filled his gaze. He brushed a featherlight caress down the side of her face. “Then I’ll just have to do it for both of us.” He grabbed two more sticks and threw them high into the air. Shots rang out. He yanked her forward, clasping her tightly against his chest as he raced in a crouch behind the boulders toward where the trail disappeared over the edge of the mountain.
“No!” she cried, desperately pushing against him. “Please!”
The gunmen shouted.
Adam yanked her forward. She screamed as they tumbled over the cliff.
Chapter Four
They hit the ground hard, a tangle of arms and legs flopping end over end. Jody’s head snapped against Adam’s chest. Blood filled her mouth. She was too busy trying to grab a tree, a root, anything to stop their out-of-control roll down the steep mountainside to even cry out in pain.
“Hold on,” his voice rumbled next to her ear as his arms squeezed her against his chest.
She caught a glimpse of another steep drop, then sucked in a startled breath and closed her eyes. Shots rang out from somewhere above them as they plummeted into open space again.
We’re going to die.
Strong arms clasped her so tightly she thought her body would break in two. Then she hit something hard—or he did, because she was on top of him. Their entwined bodies bounced several more times and slid a heart-stopping few more yards. Then, just as suddenly as their wild flight had begun, it was over. His chest rose and fell beneath hers, his ragged breaths fanning against the top of her head. But other than that, and her own gasping breaths, the world was blessedly still.
We didn’t die.
Yet.
Her eyes flew open. Miraculously, her glasses had somehow survived the tumble down the mountain and were still on. Which gave her a startlingly clear view of a pair of brilliant blue eyes staring directly into hers from just inches away. It was only then that she realized just how intimately she was pressed against him. Her breasts were crushed to his chest, her cleavage straining the top of her lacy bra, her blouse having surrendered several buttons. Her right thigh was sandwiched between both of his legs, pressing against a very warm spot that left little to the imagination about just how well-proportioned he was to his taller-than-average height. Her cheeks flaming, she tried to scramble off him.
“Hold it, wait.” His harsh whisper had her going still as his hands tightened on her arms. He tilted his head back and looked up the mountain they’d just tumbled down, apparently searching for the gunmen.
Her gaze followed his. She didn’t see anyone. But what she did see had her shaking again. How they’d managed to fall so far through such rough terrain without
being killed was a mystery. As she noticed the deep skid and slide marks down the grassy and rocky terrain, and the broken tree branches that marked their path, she realized that maybe it wasn’t such a mystery after all. Her benefactor had rolled and tugged and pulled her to him the entire ride down. That was the only thing that explained how they hadn’t crashed into boulders and trees and been killed. He’d done that. He’d protected both of them.
Or he’d protected her, at least.
Her eyes filled with tears as she realized just what his noble actions had cost him. Blood was drying on his face from his earlier cuts, likely from an altercation or ambush by the second gunman, the one named Owen. More blood streaked his arms and neck. A long gash marred his left biceps, blood trickling from a wound that was smeared with dirt. A black shadow was already darkening on his forehead where he’d obviously smacked it against something. And her? Other than a bitten tongue, dirty and torn clothes, and a few stinging minor cuts on her arms and legs, she was unharmed.
“You’re hurt,” she said. “I’m so sorry. Do you have a first-aid kit in your backpack? I can dress your wounds.”
His gaze shot to hers. “Are you okay? You’re crying.”
The concern in his voice as he reached a hand toward her had shame and guilt flaring up inside. She jerked back to scramble off him but slammed down against his chest because of the rope that still connected them.
“Sorry, sorry. Dang it.” She wiped the tears away and tried to tug the rope free.
“Here, let me.” His deep voice was soft again, gentle, as he pressed the carabiners on each side of his pack. A few quick tugs on the knots and they seemed to magically unravel. Another yank and the slick nylon rope pulled free from her belt loops.
She pressed against the ground on either side of his chest and pushed herself up off him, then sat back on her heels and yanked the ends of her blouse back together to cover her bra.