The clouds overhead resembled swollen black bruises and made her think of the female diner owner’s injured eye. Men could be bastards sometimes. But not always, she reflected, with a glance back at Ryder.
Tall, dark, hot, and good with a gun. As bodyguards went, she could do a lot worse.
Which left them where? She wondered. Not involved, that’s for sure. Certainly not for any length of time. Sex—assuming they got that far—would be better if she let her feelings weigh in, but the truth was, neither of them could afford to get tangled up in emotions that would have nowhere to go once Helene’s murderer was apprehended.
And wasn’t that a depressing thought?
Looking around, she noticed that the trees between the shed and the edge of the swamp no longer moved. Nothing did. Even the gator she’d heard earlier had lapsed into silence.
On the road ahead, a white SUV rolled to a halt. A state trooper climbed out, smiled and strolled toward her.
“You part of this ruckus I’ve been hearing about nonstop on my radio?”
“More of an unwilling participant.” Mia caught her reflection in his mirrored sunglasses and sighed. Her hair looked like she’d been standing in a wind sock. Using her fingers, she combed it into place. “You’ll want to talk to Ryder and Deputy Hogg. They’re back at the diner.”
The trooper’s smile broadened. “Bet they’re not as pretty as you. I’m having a pisser of a day.”
She scanned the darkening sky. “It’s not going to get any better either, weather-wise. Rain’s coming.”
She searched her purse for a brush as she spoke. If she hadn’t had her head bent, she might not have noticed his gloved left fingers–—or rather the ring finger of the glove that had no actual finger inside it.
Slippery knots formed in her stomach. Her heart struggled to beat, and her mind threatened to go blank.
In spite of that, she said, “I must have left it in the truck. Brush,” she added. Her breath hitched as his smile slipped away. “There was a scuffle in the diner—Damn!”
The teeth that appeared were bared and feral. If she’d been a microsecond slower or jumped in the other direction, he’d have caught her arm. Instead, when he lunged, his hands closed on air.
Whirling, she ran. She eluded his outstretched arm. Unfortunately, the momentum of her sudden flight caused her bag to swing out far enough that he was able to grab the weighty end.
“Ry—!”
Helene’s killer cut her off, yanking her back against his chest and clamping a hand across her mouth. “Not a sound, sister,” he snarled. “Let the white knights congratulate themselves while you and I take a little walk.”
When she fought him, he wrapped his forearm around her throat and clenched his muscles. Hard.
“Left my knife with the rest of my gear, lady, or I’d do you right here. You make this difficult, and I swear to God, I’ll peel you like a ripe Georgia peach. Won’t kill you doing it either. You’ll be alive and screaming when I feed you to the first alligator that crawls out of the water looking for a snack.”
She could bite the side of his hand, Mia realized. Through a leather glove though? Could she penetrate that?
Ignoring his threat, she squirmed against him, contorting her body and digging her heels into the mud.
He dragged her into a stand of trees. “Wildcat bitch,” he spat. “Keep it up, and I’ll be obliged to rape you before I peel away that soft flesh.”
She made an unintelligible sound and brought the heel of her boot down on his foot.
The arm around her windpipe tightened until she saw spots. “You’re asking for extra pain, lady, you really are.”
She heard the deep-throated rattle that spoke of an alligator in the vicinity, and she stilled her struggles for a terrified moment.
The killer inclined his head to whisper. “That didn’t sound healthy now, did it? Water’s close, and I’m betting not all those bumps poking through the surface are rocks.”
The ground underfoot had grown boggy enough to slosh. The alligator bellowed again. The killer chuckled. “Wish I could follow through on that rape, sugar, but the local gator sounds hungry. What say I just feed you to him and be done with it?”
He gave his muscles a final hard clench before relaxing the pressure on her throat. A mighty shove sent her stumbling forward into the water. Although she saved herself from falling, a quick spin brought her face to face with the killer’s gun.
Smiling, he raised it and shrugged. “Or we could do it this way and be sure.”
Mia barely had time to draw a breath, let alone think about how to react. One second the man was there, and the next he was flying sideways into the swamp.
She fought a spate of momentary dizziness. “Ryder…” she breathed. “Thank God.”
Everything tilted at that point. Or more accurately, it took on the aspect of a bad dream—feet rooted to the ground, thoughts in slow motion, movements even slower. Yes, she could hear the sound of a fight in progress, but all she could see were shadows on the nearby tree trunks. Eerie and strangely mesmerizing.
Very slowly, the scene righted itself. It occurred to her that she should be helping Ryder. Yet when she tried to lift her foot, it wouldn’t budge.
Looking down, she discovered she was standing ten inches deep in thick muddy water. The mud sucked on her boots as she struggled to extricate herself. Worse, it seemed determined to pull her in deeper.
Using a mossy sycamore branch and all her strength, she succeeded in freeing one foot. She was searching for solid ground when she spied something and stopped moving altogether.
Directly in front of her, dangling from a limb six inches higher than the one she held, was a snake. Dark brown diamonds ran along its back. While the rest of the swamp reptiles went about their business, the snake simply hung there. Silent, unblinking and deadly.
CHAPTER SEVEN
He had the bastard. All he had to do was hold onto him long enough to either knock him out or put a bullet in his head.
Ryder followed a hard kick to the crotch with a right hook that slowed, but failed to bring down his adversary. Instead, he wound up taking a fist to the jaw. The rabbit punch that caught him in the kidney just pissed him off.
Rain fell in long, steady drops. He’d hoped it might wash away the mud and reveal the killer’s features, but after a grapple in the weeds and sludge, all it did was make them both look like swamp creatures.
An elbow to the jaw snapped his opponent’s head back, slamming it into a large sycamore. Ryder heard the crack of bone on bark and felt his adrenaline give an extra little pump. Then he took a foot to the stomach and damn near went down himself.
Spotting Mia in his peripheral vision, he shouted at her to run. It irritated him that he’d have to tell her something so obvious, but fear elicited different reactions in people. Maybe her steely composure had reached its limit.
An unexpected left jab almost connected with his throat. Dancing sideways, he spun and kicked the other man’s ribs.
Impatience spiked. “Get the hell out of here, Mia,” he shouted again.
But she still didn’t move.
“Bitch is gonna get you killed, pal.” The killer’s grin turned nasty. “All the better for me.”
Ryder considered going for his backup weapon. Fake a move and break the guy’s kneecap, or maybe slam a fist into his teeth. Then dive, roll, grab the gun—done. He was sizing up the initial blow when he spotted the snake.
Hip-deep in water, the killer did a double take as well. After following Ryder’s line of vision, he backpedaled, chuckling. “Oh, yeah, now that’s rich.” Swiping blood from his mouth, he moved off to catch his breath. “Classic damsel in distress.”
Ryder knew he screwed up glancing at Mia again. In that split second of time, the killer snatched a broken branch from the mud and swung it at Ryder’s shoulder. He’d probably been going for the head, but training and good reflexes allowed Ryder to partly deflect the blow. Even so, he wound up on hi
s stomach, spitting dirty water and swearing at his lack of foresight.
He heard the bastard running, plowing through overgrown weeds and reeds until he reached the open water.
But the splashes were background sounds at that point. Ryder’s gaze, like Mia’s, was locked on the snake whose coils had begun to tighten around the sycamore branch.
Rolling to his knees, he whipped the backup gun from his boot. “Don’t move,” he said softly and fired as the rattle on the creature’s tail shook.
The snake’s head exploded. Its coils unwound. Very slowly, the body—all six feet of it—plopped into the slimy green water.
Ryder reached Mia before her knees gave out. Trembling, she leaned into him. She shuddered when she spied the blood on her arms and clothes. “He got away, didn’t he?” She drank in air to steady herself. “He got away, and now he’ll think we can both identify him.”
Ryder eased her away just far enough to brush the hair from her cheek. Fear was acceptable; he’d deal with the guilt that slithered alongside it later. “I didn’t see him,” he told her. “Not clearly. We landed in the mud and started punching.”
She met his eyes. “But he won’t know that, will he? And now he’ll follow us wherever we go.”
“He’ll try.” Unable to quash the war raging inside him, Ryder ran his thumb over a drop of snake blood on her chin. “Who knows, he might even succeed.”
Any lingering terror evaporated as she shoved away from him. “Well, my God, you could be a little more encouraging. Either one or both of us could have been killed a moment ago. Still might if he circles back and finds us standing here.”
Ryder shook his head. He wished like hell none of this mattered to him, but it did, or was starting to, so he trapped her chin and stared down at her. “He won’t be back in a hurry, Mia. He dropped his gun when I tackled him, and he ran into the swamp to escape. We’re between him and the road, and unless he’s a complete idiot—unlikely—he won’t try to reuse a stolen police vehicle.”
With obvious reluctance, her lips curved into what Ryder thought of as her trademark Mia smile. “In that case,” she said, “it’s possible we’ve seen the last of him. Look to your left, Ryder. Ignore the rain and focus on those twin ripples moving side by side across the river. Those are alligators. I spotted their heads a few seconds ago.” She pushed his dripping hair aside to whisper, “They’re coming from the same direction our killer ran. And I think I saw one of them smiling.”
* * *
“You realize how close those gators actually were, right?” Back at the diner, Ryder slammed the passenger door of the ancient Dodge Ram that Deputy Sheriff Hogg had insisted they borrow. “I swear to God, Mia, I felt one of them bump my leg while we were slogging out of that muck.”
She laughed. “They didn’t get that close, and the fact that they were cruising rather than swimming makes me think they’d just polished off a nice, big meal. I wish I thought they’d chowed down on a fleeing murderer, but I don’t. It would take more than five minutes for a pair of gators to devour a human.”
Climbing in, Ryder shot her a dark look. “Maybe they like leftovers.”
“We can hope.” She regarded the diner ahead of them and sighed. “The owner’s wife refuses to press charges against her husband for spousal abuse. I talked to her, but she won’t do it. Only the armed robbers are going to jail.”
“You can’t get involved in their problems.”
She folded her arms. “I’m not involved, I’m concerned. There’s a difference. Roll down your window.” At his frown, she pointed past his shoulder. “We have company.”
“Great.” Ryder lowered the window so a breathless Bud could lean in.
“Sorry, sorry. I just wanted to say goodbye is all. And thank you for, you know, pushing me and Tina to the floor. I expect we’ll be leaving right after you.” Worry pinched his narrow features. “You don’t think there’ll be more phony-baloney troopers out there, do you?”
“Pretty sure the one who showed up here was it for a while.”
Nervous relief had the other man pushing off from the door and taking quick stock of the old truck. “That’s good to know. Real good. Well, hey, I best not be holding you up. Tina and me, we’re still looking to enjoy our first Cajun meal. Jambalaya’s high on my list.”
“Jambalaya’s a Creole dish,” Mia said. She shrugged at Ryder’s questioning glance. “For the record, so’s gumbo.”
“There’s a difference? Between Cajun and Creole, I mean?”
Mia smiled. “Cajuns can mostly trace their roots back to French-speaking Acadia—that’s the Canadian Maritime provinces. Creoles are the descendants of the colonial people who settled in Louisiana. Catholics primarily. They’re a mix of French and Spanish. Sometimes African and Native American as well.”
“Like a potpourri of people,” Bud remarked.
“Yeah, like that.”
“Okay. Well then. Sets me straight I guess.” Bending, he gave the front fender a slap. “Tire tread’s a mite thin, but it’s a sound model. Real sound.” He offered Ryder a military salute. “I hope you have a nice trip, wherever you’re headed. You find yourself near Tulsa, you be sure and look us up. Bud and Tina Boyce.” With a bob of his head, he turned and hurried toward his van.
Mia stared after him. “Odd man.” She transferred her attention to Ryder. “So. Where exactly are we going in almost-full darkness on a back road in the bayou, with the full and frightening knowledge that a killer, who probably wasn’t an alligator’s dinner, will very likely be hot on our heels?”
Although he looked at her, Ryder seemed preoccupied. Mia doubted he’d even heard her question, much less had any intention of answering. So it surprised her a little that, instead of coaxing the forty-year-old engine to life, he turned and wrapped the fingers of his right hand around the back of her neck. “We’re going to another place and time. Listen, Mia, I thought…” But he gave his head a faint shake. “Doesn’t matter. I was wrong. And seeing as the mistake’s on me, the fix is my responsibility as well.”
Mia knew he’d been talking, but she had no idea what he’d said. And right then, she didn’t care. How on earth could a simple touch, an unreadable stare and a tingle low in her belly that had to be anticipation tangling with desire, make her want to grab the man and ravish his absurdly sexy mouth? To throw caution and killers aside, crawl across the seat and straddle his lap for a kiss that might lead to truly stupendous sex? Probably would in fact, unless the killer returned, knife in hand, and…
She stopped the fantasy before it derailed. Taking a deep breath, she refocused—and drew a blank.
“You were saying something, weren’t you, before I zoned out? Something about mistakes.”
“Yeah.” He kept his eyes on hers. “I’ve made a few.”
Faint humor rose. “Why do I feel a Sinatra song coming on?”
“Elvis.”
Her amusement deepened. “We’ll put that down to personal preference. I’m a ‘Strangers in the Night’ kind of woman.” Because he was still holding her in place, she raised a finger to his lips. “You have an amazing mouth, Ryder. Not soft, not hard. Just compelling,” she decided.
“Interesting word.” Drawing her forward, he lowered his eyes to her lips. “As it happens, I’m feeling strangely compelled myself.”
Mia figured they could dance around this all night. She’d done it before, played clever games to heighten the mood. But since she doubted she could go much higher than she already was, she slid her finger aside, leaned in and took.
Or was it Ryder who did the taking? Either way, her mouth was on his, and every scrap of common sense she possessed was sucked into a vortex like a spinning wisp of dust.
This was no cautious testing of the water. This was heat and need, and a hunger for more that might have alarmed her if she hadn’t been so thoroughly steeped in pleasure.
Tiny shivers shot straight to her nerve ends and made her gasp even as her fingers curled into the front of
Ryder’s shirt. He tasted like sin. Forbidden fruit with a sizzling bite.
Hauling her across the seat, he changed the angle of the kiss and shot those electric flames into her bloodstream. Mia smiled against his mouth before easing her head back and giving him access to her throat. “It’s gotten very hot in here very fast, Ryder.”
“Noticed.” He glided his lips up the side of her neck to her ear.
She was sure her eyes rolled. Her head certainly did and elicited a satisfied purr. “You’re shredding my defenses. I shouldn’t let you do that.”
He nibbled the skin of her jaw. “Tell me to stop, and I will. Otherwise…”
Capturing her mouth again, he feasted on her. The drumbeat in her head might have been rain, but all she could think about right then was voodoo. Spells and heat, and the deep dark magic of the swamp, swirling together in her mind. The fingers that gripped his shirt fisted in his hair to drag him closer. At least they did until sound of a horn—probably Bud’s—intruded.
Giving Ryder’s lower lip a sharp nip, Mia drew back. Her eyes sparkled into his. “You know this is completely crazy. The diner’s right there, less than a hundred feet away. There’s a murderer at large, the sheriff’s gone, and who knows what Bud and Tina are doing in that van of theirs.”
“Probably the same thing as us,” Ryder said. Then he chuckled. “Not a picture I want in my head, actually.”
“The word ‘uncomfortable’ springs to mind.”
“Good as any.”
With a last regretful taste, Mia used her teeth on his bottom lip. “You’re a really good kisser, Ryder.”
“Only good?”
She smiled. “I’ve had better.”
But when he covered her mouth again, it was several seconds before she could collect her thoughts sufficiently to admit, “Okay, better in my dreams, not in reality.”
“I’ll take that.”
“You should, and be flattered. I have Creole blood. My dreams are wickedly sensual.”
“On that note….” He kissed her hard one last time. “We ride. Because your murderer-still-at-large reference presents a damn good argument for us not having sex in a borrowed vehicle like a pair of horny sixteen-year-olds.”
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