by L. E. Harner
“Shit.”
Uriah’s eyes snapped open at the other man’s oath. Gabe was watching them, his knees spread wide, his cock heavy with need. Uriah blinked as Gabe began to stroke faster.
Slide, glide, rub. Uriah thrust faster, Diane’s breathing was harsh, Gabe’s hand quickened.
“Feels so good, feels so good…oh…so close.” Diane’s nails dug into his thighs, as she met him, thrust for thrust.
Gabe pushed his legs out in front of him, the muscles looked like chiseled marble in the moonlight. He dropped his head back, the tendons in his neck standing out in stark relief. His hand moved faster. Slide. Stroke. Twist. Hips pumped. Then Gabe shifted so Uriah could see his face. Even in the filtered moonlight, he could see the dark brows, scruff of beard, the strong jaw, and he knew…fucking knew…the bastard would taste so damn good. He held the woman of his dreams and watched another man jerk off. This time, when their gazes locked, he couldn’t look away. Gabe’s mouth curved in sinful smile and his tongue sneaked out to moisten his lips again. In a whisper that caressed like a lover’s touch, Gabe said, “Now, Uriah. Come for me. Now.”
“Fuuuck,” Uriah cried. The word was torn from his throat, all semblance of control stripped away. Diane spasmed around his cock. Her shuddering orgasm, his pulsing heat, and Gabe’s hand full of his own jizz.
It seemed much later when Diane shakily climbed free of his lap to collapse beside him on the mattress. “Jesus,” she said. Her breath was still coming fast, her voice low and sultry in the moonlight. She draped an arm over her eyes, and he wondered if she was already regretting what they’d done.
Still watching Uriah, Gabe plucked his T-shirt from the pile of clothes by his feet and wiped his hands. “You’re so beautiful together.”
Uriah gave a noncommittal grunt and found his shorts. Dressing quickly, driven by a need to put some distance between himself and the others, he tore his gaze away from Gabe’s.
“Uriah, you don’t need to leave. I’m not going to…you and your wife were—“
“She’s not my goddamn wife,” he interrupted. Self-loathing poured through him. What the fuck did I just do? Oh Jesus. He thought he might be sick. He stood, slipped his feet into his flip-flops, and stumbled to the door.
“She’s my brother’s wife. His widow. And I killed him.” Then Uriah walked into the night.
Chapter Five
You had to hike early in the day or late into the evening to stay alive when hiking in the Grand Canyon in the summer. So Gabe had tucked himself into a small patch of shade near the canyon wall and dozed while he waited for the bitch to burn herself out. She’d be back tomorrow, but he wasn’t worried. He was bone tired and the heat of the day pressing down was oppressive, close to one hundred and twenty-five degrees, but he wasn’t far from his destination. Another two or three hours of hiking, at most. He’d pressed hard and turned his planned two-day hike into one long-assed day. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and other people as possible. He would wait until the evening shadows from the canyon walls covered more of the trail. Meanwhile he would eat and replenish his body’s fuel.
He shifted his pack and moaned at the stiff muscles in his legs and back. The combination of long hike, late night sex, and too little sleep the night before had him wincing and downing four ibuprofen with his water. That had been some sex. Not that he’d gotten to do everything he wanted to, but there was something so fucking hot about watching two beautiful people make love. Still…he’d have liked to bend the goddamned sexy Uriah over and tap that fine ass. Especially if he could be balls deep while Uriah’s heavy cock filled Diane. He could just imagine her long, lovely legs wrapped around the two of them, her low, sultry voice whispering a sweet fuck-me.
Shit. It was time to start walking before he had to whack himself off just thinking about the two of them. Gabe lifted his pack, shifted it around until it was as comfortable as it was going to get on his tender shoulders, and started out. He allowed himself to wonder where the other two were. He knew they had backcountry permits, but not where they were hiking. He’d planned to ask them, but when he heard them whispering in the dark this morning, he’d remained quiet.
“Diane, get up. We need to go.”
“Time is it?” she’d mumbled.
“Two-thirty. Let’s go.”
Gabe had opened his mouth to speak when Uriah’s next words stopped him.
“The packs are already outside. I want to get out of here before Gabe wakes up. I don’t want to see him. I can’t—”
Uriah’s whispered voice had hidden any trace of emotion, but his words cut.
“Jesus Diane. I’m sorry. I fucked up again. I’m sorry…sorry. I’ll be…I’ll wait outside.”
The door had closed quietly then, as Uriah stepped into the dark. Gabe had remained silent, unmoving in the dark, and listened to the rustles as Diane finished dressing. When the door snicked closed behind her, Gabe felt as alone as he’d ever been.
Now, he took a long drink, then readjusted his straps and lengthened his stride. To hell with slow and easy in the heat. He suddenly just wanted to be at his base camp. He pushed all thoughts about the sexy duo from his mind, and focused on the vast expanse of the canyon. Nothing quite like being alone in the bottom of a ten-mile wide, one-mile deep, and two hundred seventy-seven mile long canyon to make a man realize that his hurt pride was pretty damn insignificant in the overall scheme of the world.
Two hours and many checks of his GPS later, Gabe was within a quarter mile of his destination. He navigated a little more to the southeast, his mind filled with nothing more complex than moving one foot in front of the other. He let the pounding rhythm of the Colorado River set his pace, driving him to where he could finally shed his pack and settle. Four days of complete solitude, of time to get his head on straight, to decide the direction his life needed to take. Four days of complete peace and relaxation.
Craaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!
Jesus! That sounded like gunfire… Muscles that had been too tired to move just a moment before were suddenly re-energized. Gabe ran in a zigzag motion toward the red rock cliff wall that was the last barrier between him and his destination. He didn’t know if the shot was from someone just screwing around or an illegal hunting expedition, but he didn’t want to get hit by a stray bullet from some crackpot.
Another shot echoed through the canyon, followed closely by the short, sharp scream of a woman. Sounds in the canyon were hard to track, but he thought he heard a muffled curse and the scrabble of boots against stone, but the noise seemed to come from somewhere above him.
The Colorado River roared by, cold, fast, and completely impervious to his plight as he pressed against the canyon wall. Should he go around the outcropping? It was his planned destination. If he did, was there someone with a gun waiting one the other side? He sure as hell couldn’t go back. Even if he was willing to risk walking back across the open trail, it would be dangerous to keep going after his twenty-mile hike in the heat. There was supposed to be a sandy beach, a sheer cliff, and a small cave just on the other side of the outcropping. Patti had helped him select the spot for its isolation. Too small of a beach and too close to the rapids for the river runners to bother with, it was a great location for those who were adventurous enough to hike well off the beaten trail. Help might be a long time coming, but as long as he stayed in this vicinity at least one ranger knew where to find him.
The sound of a woman’s curses mixed with choked sobs brought his attention back into focus. That scream—fuck, he was a doctor. It really didn’t matter what his gut wanted to do, he had to see if someone needed help. Gabe tried to move from boulder to stone, skirting the currents of the river. Water slapped cold against his skin, as his boots slid and skidded against the river rock. The current was swift, but he wasn’t in the whitewater, just along the bank of a damn big river. A river that had been carving her path across the surface of the earth and claiming the edges as her own for millennia.
“
Hello? Can you hear me? Is everyone okay?”
“No, help…someone’s been hurt.” A woman’s voice, high and tight. Stress, shock, injury. Jesus. This was turning into some vacation.
Gabe stood on a boulder, just above the rushing water, only a few feet from the sandy flat shoreline. With a small leap, his left foot landed on the flat smooth stone that was his final step in the river. Then the stone tilted and Gabe went down hard, cracking his knee on something hidden under the roiling water. He grasped at the rocks, and they tumbled free from the sandy bottom. The cold stole his breath and made it nearly impossible to move. Water swirled, pulling him under, rolling him over, until he was as helpless as any rag doll. The Colorado River was tossing him with a careless implacability that left no doubt about his unimportance in the grand scheme of the world. Nature was a force that would not be denied her sacrifice.
He threw his arms wide, grasping desperately for any purchase, his hands clutching, grabbing nothing but water and sand. Polished stones tumbled under his palms, smashed his fingers. Each a false promise of stability that gave way at the first test of strength. When his head met a submerged boulder, Gabe had a moment to wonder if this was his time, his place. With a wrenching sideways lunge, he wedged his ankle between one boulder and its neighbor.
Slowly he pushed himself up, fighting his sodden pack, ignoring the screaming pain in his knee. He scouted each foothold before he left the last, unwilling to surrender another inch to river. Not this time, bitch.
****
“God, move,” Diane begged the unconscious Uriah, even as her hands scrabbled over his face, brushing at the strands of black hair that clung to his blood-streaked and sweat-dampened skin. No time, no time, no time…the phrase played in her head, and she forced herself to stop fussing over the head injury. However bad it was—it would wait. Had to wait. She needed to get them out of the line of fire. With a grunt that was suspiciously close to a sob, Diane pushed at the massive shoulders, trying to move the big man the last two feet she needed in order to get him completely under the overhang in the cliff wall that created a protective shelter. Maybe not quite deep enough to call it a cave, but it should work.
“Wake up and move. Jesus, Uriah…come on, honey.” Diane swiped at the hair on her sweaty forehead with her arm and shifted to push at his legs and hips. The fact that he’d gone down so fast and so hard at the sound of the second shot scared her to death. Oh god…to death. Not that. He's alive, he's breathing. But damn the blood. So much blood.
Even as she continued to try to move the two of them into the protective shelter of the cave, thoughts raced through her mind. Where the hell was the man who’d offered help? She could really use a good strong back right about now. Unless he was the one with the gun…no, the shot had come from above them. Uriah had definitely been looking up when he’d shouted the first warning, just before he’d grabbed her around the waist and started running toward the shelter. She looked toward the river again, but no help appeared. Maybe the gunman had already found the good Samaritan.
From her knees, she angled her shoulders against Uriah’s back and shoved. The big man rolled, his body loose, limp. His face mashed against the course sand, but she’d managed to get him as close as she could to the rock wall of the canyon. Now to figure out how bad he was hurt.
The good news was the bleeding seemed to have slowed. The bad news was she couldn’t do much without water, and although their packs were a mere twenty feet away, they might as well have been twenty miles. With a long look, Diane knew it wasn’t worth the risk of exposing herself to gunfire. Uriah needed help, and she would have to make do with what was on hand at the moment. She pulled her shirt over her head and began to brush at the sand and pebbles matted in the mass of his black hair, obscuring the real wound.
Movement caught her attention and she stifled a scream as she saw a man staggering toward her from the river. It was a long moment that had her already thudding heart threatening to leap from her chest before the shape became familiar.
“Gabe! Oh my God, what happened to you?” she asked as she stood and ran to help him. She pulled him so that they both hugged the cliff wall as they crouched and ran toward where Uriah lay, still unmoving.
“Give me this,” Diane said and pulled his heavy pack from his shoulders. He grunted in apparent relief but seemed to be focusing on breathing and moving at the same time. Everything about Gabe was dripping wet, as if he’d fallen in the water. She noticed a long gash on his temple, and a pronounced gimpiness in his walk. “Are you okay? Jesus, I’m glad to see you,” she said, and pulled him along. “Hurry, Uriah’s been shot. I don’t know—“
“Where?” Gabe gasped. “Fuck.” He started running, despite the limp. “Get my water, and in my bag there’s a first aid kit. And a clean T-shirt.” His words were terse, and he knelt bedside Uriah, reaching first for a pulse, while his eyes scanned the other man for signs of trauma.
“Okay, pulse is strong. Obviously we have a head injury, anything else?” he asked. Gabe lifted each lid, then ran his hands quickly over Uriah while she spoke.
“Just the head I think. He came down on top of me. It was the second shot. I heard it, but we were both running toward the cave, trying to get out of the open. Our packs are still out there. I should—“
“No! You stay here. We still don’t know who was firing or if they’re still there. Hand me the water.”
Diane passed the water bag to Gabe and held the folded T-shirt where he could reach it. He worked silently his long fingers probing around the wound. He carefully washed away the sand and pebbles, until he found the crease oozing blood, just below Uriah’s hairline.
“There you are,” he murmured. Then he looked at Diane. “It really is just a flesh wound. It will ooze for a while, but there shouldn’t be any further blood loss. The more immediate concern is whether there is trauma to the brain. I don’t feel any other bumps or knots. How did he fall? Did he land hard on his head? Hit it on the canyon wall or stones?”
“No. He landed on me. The rest of the scrapes are from me dragging him out of the way.”
“Okay, good. He’s been unconscious since the first shot?”
“Second, but they were really close together. Is he going to be all right?” Diane was more than a little afraid of the answer. Gabe put his arm around her shoulder and gave a squeeze.
“He’ll be okay, Dee. From what I saw, Uriah has a hard head.” He smiled when he said it, but she saw the worry on his face, despite the reassuring words.
“S’damn straight,” Uriah murmured.
****
Gabe forced himself to maintain his professional detachment, as far as he could, but there was no denying the relief he felt went deeper than a casual acquaintance or than was appropriate for a doctor and patient. He checked Uriah over once more, now that the big man was able to answer questions, he shone the pen light from his first aid supplies and made Uriah’s eyes cross as he moved his finger from left to right in front of his face.
“Okay, Uriah. Everything seems to be working fine, but you’re going to stay right here for a while.”
Uriah immediately started to struggle to sit up and ask questions. “What happened? Did somebody shoot at us?” His hand started to travel to his head, but Gabe stopped him.
“Hold tight. Just stay still for a minute. Diane? Don’t let him move. Sit on him if you have to. I need to take a look around—“
“What? No,” Diane protested. “Someone’s out there with a gun. Gabe, just stay here. He can’t get to us from under the stone over hang.”
Gabe’s gaze met Uriah’s for a long moment, and it was as if some silent communication passed between the two of them.
“Uriah, please. I’ll be right back. You know I have to look,” Gabe said quietly. “Dee, don’t worry. I know what I’m doing. I’ll be careful, and I’m not going to go far. Just enough to look and see if this nut job is still out there waiting for target practice. Gabe thought long and hard, then went to hi
s pack and removed his gun from the zippered compartment on the back. As far as guns went, this one would do the job if the guy was close, but it was useless against a long-range rifle with scope.
Gabe hadn’t liked the idea of bringing a gun into a National Park, but Marcus and Michael insisted. Part of his practice involved providing medical care for the employees at Enwright Security. He’d been involved in a few of the their covert operations over the last couple of years. Graeme, the company’s chief of security, insisted that made Gabe a potential target for retaliation. When Gabe had scoffed at the ridiculous thought, Graeme had looked pointedly at his own leg and his cane. It was message enough. Sometimes there was no logic, except in the mind of a mad man.
So, Gabe had trained and was reasonably proficient with his Sig and with basic hand-to-hand, if absolutely necessary. He staggered as he got to his feet, but didn’t slow down, even as Dee tried to reach out to stop him. He had to keep moving, because he knew his body was hovering on the brink of exhaustion. Bloody, bruised, scraped, scratched, and sprained probably covered it. Unless he was concussed from the blow to the head.
****
Uriah turned his head so he could see Diane, then followed the direction of her gaze as she watched Gabe move along the base of the cliff wall. Her face seemed to have aged since this morning. Despite the oven-like daytime temperatures, she was pale, causing the smudges under her eyes to stand out. A little frown line had appeared between her brows that hadn’t been there yesterday. All of this on top of her grief. He should have taken better care of her, but how was he to know someone would take a pot shot at them?
The gunman was probably just some stupid punk off the reservation. He hoped that’s what it was; wanted to believe it was completely random. Because the alternative was someone took a shoot at them on purpose. There was no way to tell if the shot was aimed at him or at Diane, but he couldn’t imagine a reason to shoot at either of them. Gabe wouldn’t find anything. Especially if Gabe was behind the attack.