Wood, Fire, & Gold

by Jackson, Pam

She thought about what he had just said to her: “ … how much I’ve fallen … “ What was he saying? And why was she secretly hoping he was falling for her? This wasn’t Andie; she was decisive and methodical, not wild and reckless, especially when it came to her heart. It was true, in the past she had used her beauty and attitude to get what she wanted or needed, but that was just flirtation and sexuality. With Clay, none of that worked—he saw right through her facade and cut down her defenses. And yes, she was falling, too. But why didn’t he finish his sentence?

  She heard the clink of a bullet bouncing off the track of their snowmobile. This could be the sound that would send her into a catatonic state if Clay didn’t squeeze that throttle lever soon. “Please, Clay, I don’t think I can take much more of this!” She tried squeezing the throttle herself, but her small, delicate hand—bandaged and still bruised—was no match against his powerful hand controlling the throttle lever.

  “Andie, do you trust me?” He spoke near her ear; she could feel his lips, warm and full, against her wind-burned skin. It came out as a low growl, full of confidence—a primal voice that was enjoying this deadly chase way too much, and she swore she could feel a rock hard erection against the small of her back.

  She didn’t say a word—she just stared ahead as the wretched swamp came closer into focus.

  “Answer me, darlin’. I need you to answer me.”

  “Yes.” She answered with hesitation, but she did mean it.

  “Can you feel me, Andie, do you see what you do to me? Hard and ready for you.”

  Oh hell, no! He’s turned on by all of this!

  Either he was the sexiest son of a bitch on the planet or he was absolutely insane. Maybe both.

  “Hold on tight, girl, we’re going for a ride. Hellz yeah!”

  She felt the buck of the engine accelerating; the swamp was close now, and Andie could see the sinewy, dead limbs of the small cedar trees eerily swaying in the cool wind. She heard the chasing snowmobile close behind them, and she turned to see which assassin was hot on their trail. Oh, God, no. It was Eberstark, a diabolical grin on his face. He was enjoying this testosterone vortex just as much as Clay, and he was taking aim with a sleek, black pistol. Andie prayed that the bumpy snow pack would throw off his aim.

  “C’mon, you mother fucker ... just a little closer,” Clay ground out from behind gritted teeth.

  Yep! Andie was sure of it—Clay was crazy. He actually wanted Luca Eberstark to catch up with them.

  The swamp was just feet in front of them, and she could make out the outline of the snow-covered path that led to that awful place where Sean had drowned.

  “Don’t let go, Andie. Okay?” She felt Clay’s strong thighs squeeze her ass tightly, and under more pleasurable circumstances, she would be in pure ecstasy. But fear gripped her insides as he turned the speeding machine onto the wide path. He accelerated, and the snowmobile lurched forward, moving them into the swamp. With a hard right turn, Andie felt the snowmobile lift off one of its skis and then slam down with a jolt against the packed snow. She was grateful that Clay had her tightly wedged between him and the control panel; otherwise, she surely would’ve fallen off. They straightened out, and Clay squeezed the throttle with such force that she swore the handle would crumble in his large hand.

  “Drown you asshole—just die,” Clay grunted, followed by a sinister laugh.

  Andie looked back to see Luca Eberstark and his snowmobile sinking quickly in the dark water of the swamp. Ice chunks were swirling and bobbing at the surface from the force of his crash into the stagnant water. Eberstark was flailing his arms as he and the snowmobile went under.

  “Don’t break out the champagne yet, darlin’. We have one more sonofabitch to deal with.”

  Clay was right. There was one more mercenary left, and he was gaining on them.

  The high-pitched sound of the last assassin’s blaring engine was close, and Andie thought she might pass out from the surge of adrenaline coursing through her veins.

  She was grateful that Clay wasn’t using the brake lever during this pursuit—he was doing the opposite. He had the throttle pinned and was picking up some serious speed past the swamp and onto a small deer trail. He weaved in and out of small, sickly pines and around the occasional boulder, but Eberstark’s last man was still on their tail.

  Then she saw it—the ridge where Clay had rescued her the day before. She knew there was no easy way down into the valley. She remembered the slant of the cliff, and after the craggy rocks surrounding the mineshaft, there was a straight fall into a turbulent river. She was going to die! Going mach ten, with a rock hard erection against my ass ... lovely!

  “When I say jump, I want you to hurl yourself off the Polaris. But you have to jump to the right—to the right. Okay? Tell me you understand,” Clay demanded, determined that Andie would follow his directions this time.

  She didn’t understand. Because why would she want to hurl herself off a speeding snowmobile with the possibility of either getting shot or plummeting hundreds of feet to her death? What could she say? She prayed that she had enough strength in her jittering legs to push herself off the speeding snowmobile. She nodded her head to let Clay know she understood.

  “No, Andie, I need you to say you understand. You don’t follow orders very well, so I want to hear you say it. Promise me. Say you understand.” His voice was coarse and gritty from shouting over the roar of the snowmobile engine, and she knew she’d better answer him the way he wanted.

  “I understand,” she said, barely managing to get the words out from the fear of what was about to go down. She hoped he wasn’t going to make her repeat it.

  “I will be right behind you, we’ll do this together. I swear it!” She believed him—and this time, if they made it out alive, she promised herself to kiss him again and again. Well, maybe.

  He reached down to his thigh holster and without removing his shaded eyes from the tree-lined terrain, he quickly removed a five-inch, spear point, folding knife from a secondary magazine pouch. He opened the blade with a quick flick of his wrist and transferred the knife to his other hand.

  “There is no way this machine is going to stop after I do this, so make sure you jump on my word. Got it?”

  Andie nodded but didn’t speak, because of her fear and because the back of her throat was as dry as sand paper. The clearing was coming up fast, and she knew in a few moments the edge of the ridge would be in front of them. The engine of the pursuing snowmobile was revving close behind. She could hear the screaming torque of the motor and couldn’t wait to be out of this impossible position.

  She watched as Clay squeezed the throttle again and banked to the right. They were moving parallel to the ridge, and she could see the precarious ledge where she had struggled with death earlier. It was rugged place, with brown boulders surfacing from the snow. She saw the same sharp lamina that had sliced through her tender flesh, and she winced with the memory.

  With a swift, fluid motion, Clay jammed the slim knife between the handle and the throttle lever. A small yellow spark erupted as the knife hit the throttle cable, and the engine lurched forward with a high-pitched scream. She felt him reach into the waistband of his jeans and pull out the 9mm she had brandished earlier.

  ###

  “Ready darlin’?” He gave her hips a quick squeeze with the insides of his thighs. “Remember, to the right, or it’s over the cliff. So let’s not fuck this up! Okay, on me—one, two, THREE—NOW JUMP!” He let go of Andie and the steering bar, rapidly firing at the assassin punk as he threw his body from the Polaris.

  Clay saw all the action in slow motion. His years of training and his constant alertness made this possible. Every movement of his body had meaning, and every bullet was placed precisely where he wanted it to go.

  He watched as the amateur shooter overcorrected his steering, sending the snowmobile into an uncontrollable fishtail. Clay hoped that before the shooter could snap out of the spin, he would be sailing over the cliff.<
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  As Clay’s body hit the packed snow, he looked at Andie with horror. She was fastened to the out-of-control snowmobile bolting toward the ledge. Her right leg thrashed in all directions as if she were caught on something. His mouth opened to scream for her, but he could hear nothing but the hiss of air escaping his lungs. The fear had gripped him so hard it felt like a straight shot to the chest. Terrified, he watched the crawling, slow-motion movement of this horrific scene as his brain processed his dread. He was viewing it frame by frame, and there was nothing he could do.

  His pulse quickened as his legs moved with furious speed—he was running even before he could lift himself from the snow pack to chase after her.

  His heart ached like nothing he had ever felt. This will kill me.

  Chapter 11

  “Clay!” Andie screamed. “Oh, shit! C’mon ... no, no, no! Let go!” She was going to die off this ledge after all. She kicked her right leg wildly. Her boot lace was snagged under the running board of the snowmobile. She glared with horror at the giant rocks that were scattered on the ledge, emerging like pyramids from the snow—jagged edges waiting to tear her apart. “No way, not without a fight!” She tried her usual tactic of boasting herself out of an impossible situation. She prayed it would work now.

  Her eyes darted rapidly at her surroundings; first glance was her boot anchored to the running board, then the seat and the gas tank, and then her heart leaped as her eyes flashed to the steel blade compressed between the handle and the throttle. She pulled at the knife’s rubber-gripped handle, but it hardly budged. The ledge was just feet away, and the Polaris began to fishtail erratically as she yanked at the steering bar. With a final, forceful pull, she managed to free the blade, and in a split second she cut her lace from the running board. She could hear the roar of the other snowmobile behind her, with the last of the assassins chasing her down. The hired killer had managed to correct his fishtail spin and was only a stone’s throw away from Andie and her snowmobile.

  To the right. She could hear Clay’s voice echoing in her head. With her last ounce of energy, she flung herself off the doomed snowmobile.

  In an instant, she felt the harsh, cold snow hitting her face like BBs blasted from a gun—and never had she been so happy to feel such raw discomfort. She lifted her head slightly to see Clay’s snowmobile and the punk assassin atop his own snowmobile sailing over the edge and into oblivion.

  She could hear Clay’s muffled shouts coming toward her. She was lying face down in the thick slush. Her eyes were closed, and her limbs felt like bricks. Her bone-dry tongue found the moisture of the snow refreshing as she swallowed it down with a gulp. Exhaustion in the wake of her adrenaline rush hit her, and she felt faint. She thought she could lie here forever—well, at least until the moisture from the snow penetrated her hiking pants.

  ###

  “Andie! Oh, Christ, Andie. Please, no ... don’t be ... oh fuck, no!” Clay’s voice was hoarse from shouting.

  He pushed his legs through the deep snow until they burned. The numbness followed quickly, and he could feel his blood pulsing hard against the healing wound in his leg. He forced his body past the pain. He fell to his knees a few feet from her motionless body and crawled to her like a wounded dog. His hands fell on her back. He rolled her over and placed them on her cool, colorless face.

  “C’mon, wake up, baby. Wake up, please!” he pleaded, gently rocking her head in his large hands. Her skin was wet and cool but as soft as fine silk.

  Her eyes opened, and she blinked, trying to remove the snowflakes that had attached themselves to her long lashes.

  He found himself smiling and laughing like a deranged lunatic. He removed his sunglasses and flung them aside, and without hesitation, he leaned down and kissed her forehead, then her nose—but he suddenly stopped within a hair of her full lips. He stared deep into her hypnotic green eyes and brushed his thumbs across the outline of her cheekbones as he fought an overwhelming desire to kiss her. His cock stirred and began to throb against the constriction of his jeans. All he wanted at this moment was Andie—to take her and hold her, right here in the frigid snow on this terrible piece of rocky hill, where only yesterday he had first looked so deeply into her eyes as she struggled to save herself from a fall into the frigid river below. A moment ago he’d thought he might lose her, and that thought raised countless questions that he simply couldn’t answer about himself. He was too damn close to her, and way too soon. This is how the innocent die. He needed a clear head that wasn’t clouded with visions of sex and flesh and this phenomenal, thrilling feeling of holding her in his arms. Andie was different. If it were only a sexual attraction between them, he would’ve charmed her pants off by now and just gotten the fucking out of the way—that way he could focus on protecting her instead of obsessing over her great ass.

  No!

  He couldn’t keep her alive if he let his emotions take over, and he wouldn’t go through that pain ever again. He’d been down this road before with someone he’d let get close to his heart, and that had ended very badly. He remembered a sing-song Eastern European voice pleading with him to take the pain away. Please ... kill me. The evil vision filled his mind. The smell of burned flesh combined with the fumes of an oxyacetylene torch inundated his senses. He swallowed hard, tightening his lips to fight the horrid memory that had plagued him for all these years. Back off, man. Do the job and walk away!

  He grunted like a caged animal and closed his eyes with the grief of knowing just how close Andie had been, again, to losing her life. She was a stubborn pain in the ass!

  Rage surged through him; white-hot anger flashed in his skull and made his lips curl. How could she be so goddamned difficult? She took too many chances, completely disregarding the consequences and disobeying him at every turn. He knew her caught boot lace had been an accident, but damn it! She shouldn’t have been here.

  ###

  Andie watched the expression on Clay’s face turn from desire to anger. Good lord, this man needs a psychiatrist. She hesitated for a moment, but then figured that if she spoke, maybe he would snap out of this demented funk.

  “Clay, I’m all right. Though next time, I’ll drive ... you were a bit shaky around that last turn.” She hoped to break his sour temperament with a light-hearted tease.

  He didn’t break his dark stare or crack a smile at her joke. He pulled himself into a sitting position and grabbed at her arms to bring her up with him.

  “You want to discuss my driving skills, Andie? What the hell do you call that maneuver you pulled back at the grove? I gave you an order to hightail it back to my house, and you blatantly disregarded it. What was that?”

  His clenched jaw muscles ticked as he waited to hear her excuse.

  She couldn’t help but smile as the words came out of her mouth: “Shock and awe.” She knew what she’d done was stupid and reckless, but she didn’t care.

  It was for him.

  She was not leaving him alone, and she definitely was not leaving this mountain without finding Claudius’s cave.

  He bit his lip and shook his head with disbelief. “Freaking army brat! ‘Shock and awe?’ Really? You’re unbelievable!” he barked out. “I ... I don’t even know what to say to that!” A slight smile crested at the edge of his mouth, and he broke out into uncontrollable laughter. “Oh Christ, Andie.” His laughter finally subsided. “Woman, you absolutely wreck me.”

  She smiled with a rush of happiness. She knew it would break her heart if he were to remain angry with her. “C’mon tough guy, help me up. There’s work to done.”

  She pushed her slim legs against the packed snow, and with a gentle pull from him, she was standing again. All in all, she felt pretty damn good for a woman who had just recreated a scene from a Fast and Furious movie.

  She took a shaky step forward and felt his arms pull her toward him.

  He gazed down at her and reached for the soft curve of her jawline. He splayed his long fingers and ran them tenderly against her ear
and into her disheveled hair. He pulled her in tighter with a hot, hungry motion and placed his other hand beneath her jacket at the small of her back.

  “Where’s your helmet?” His voice was low and raspy. “I love that helmet, Andie. I can’t believe you lost it.” His eyes focused on her lips, his mouth in a sexy curve as he teased her.

  She could feel his warm, sweet breath against her cool flesh, and a blanket of goose bumps formed on her neck. He lingered there, so close to her pouty lips, but he did not kiss her. She couldn’t respond; she was breathless, motionless—time had stopped, and maybe her heart had, too. He enjoyed the tough guy part of his power-play game; she could see that now. He had his control back, and for the moment, she would let him win.

  “Andie, I would’ve gone insane if you were hurt today,” he murmured. His lips brushed hers, but still no kiss. “Promise me you’ll stay close. Don’t leave my side for a moment. No one will hurt you. Never again will anyone scare you. I’ll crush them if I see that again.”

  The last few words were strange for him to say. Never again will anyone scare you. But she didn’t care what he was saying; all she wanted was to feel his searing kiss, and he was torturing her with his games. His tantalizing, seductive stare bored into her soul, only to deny her the pleasure that she dreamed he would give her.

  He tore away from her, leaving Andie weak and intoxicated. His luscious smell of lavender and pine appeased her senses, and she felt she could sleep a month nestled in his strong arms. He turned and started for another deer trail that led back into the forest.

  “C’mon, we gotta go. I would like to get there before sunset.”

  “Wait. You want to walk back up to the grove and search for the cave before it gets dark?” She wanted to go back to the grove, too, but she was dead tired after her own personal snowmobile race with the devil.

  Her stomach roared; she squeezed it so Clay wouldn’t hear the Sasquatch noises of hunger emerging from her. She didn’t have the urge to eat, especially after everything they’d just been through, but she realized her body had probably burned all its available calories just by thinking about staying alive, never mind what she had been through actually doing it.