by Cindy Dees
“It’s not that,” Mac answered, grinning reluctantly. “Dutch is down the valley doing surveillance on our visitors. I need to go set up a few traps, but I don’t want to leave you alone in camp. If Ruala moves on us, Dutch might not be able to get back here fast enough from his current position to pull you out.”
“So take me with you.” It seemed like a perfectly simple solution to her. Except Mac tended to treat her like some porcelain doll in constant need of protecting.
He looked hard at her. His gaze strayed down to her leg. “I dunno…”
She winced as liquid shame pooled in her gut. “I try not to let it stop me from doing much,” she said quietly. She would not beg. And she would not argue. Not with a killer waiting for her just over that hill.
He gave her a long, assessing look and then finally nodded slowly. “Okay, then. You’ll go with me.”
Wonderment wiped her brain blank. He’d said yes? He was letting her go with him to do his work? In spite of being a gimp? “Great!” she said brightly to cover her utter amazement. “It’ll be fun. I’ve always wanted to know how to lay a booby trap.”
He frowned. “This isn’t fun and games. People will die tonight if anyone gets stupid. You could die.”
She met his worried gaze head on. “I know, Mac.”
He looked away first. And sighed. “Why don’t you go check the horses while I get my bag of tricks and radio Dutch.”
She was annoyed he wouldn’t let her carry any of the gear until she lifted his pack by one of the shoulder straps a few minutes later. It weighed a ton. “Good grief! What’s in this thing? Bricks?”
Mac crouched in front of her, surveying a waist-high pile of rocks by the side of a natural path. Without looking over his shoulder, he replied absently, “Explosives. Detonators. Wire, batteries, pliers, timers, det cord…”
Susan gulped. She watched, fascinated, as Mac fished around in his pouch by feel with one hand. He came up with a gob of gray putty. He rolled it into a cone shape and wedged it carefully between the rocks. He poked a blasting cap into the putty and ran an olive-green, gossamer-thin wire across the path about twelve inches off the ground. He secured the far end of it on the other side of the trail.
“What is this going to do?” Susan asked.
“I’ve put just enough of a directional charge in there to make those rocks roll down into the path. They’ll knock down whoever trips this wire and make a lot of noise.”
“What if an animal hits the trap?”
Mac grinned over his shoulder. “Never fear, Miss Greenpeace. There’s too much fresh scent of humans here for critters to wander around this valley tonight. They’ll stay well away from the area.”
In a matter of minutes it became clear to her that Mac was a veritable artist at his work. None of his traps were lethal, and they were all set up to look like natural occurrences. A branch snapping in someone’s face, a cactus popping up under foot, rocks sliding down in the path. All of it sure to annoy and hinder whoever encountered it, however. She was beginning to understand what Dutch had meant earlier when he said they’d be playing games with Ruala and his men, tonight.
As hard as she wished for the light not to fade, the heavens went from twilight gray to dark blue to black, and the first stars began to shine. The vast emptiness above sent shivers down her spine. “Isn’t it about time we headed back to camp?” Susan asked nervously.
“We’re not going back to camp,” Mac answered as he balanced rocks on top of a log that was set to roll down a hillside.
“We’re not?”
“Certainly not. It’s the first place the thugs will go. Besides, while you were checking the horses, I trapped the bejeezus out of the whole place.”
“Where are we spending the night, then?” She felt stupid for asking, but her mind wasn’t coming up with any mental images of where they were going to sleep. Or at least hide.
“Out here.” Mac gestured around him.
She’d been afraid he’d say that. “It’ll get cold,” she protested weakly.
He grinned at her. “Cold is when you spend six hours swimming in fifty-degree ocean water to a beach landing.”
“That’s practically ice water!”
“Keep your voice down,” he admonished. “Yeah, it’s cold.”
“You guys are nuts!” she mumbled.
He chuckled. “So I’ve been told. I had a little extra room in my pack, so I tossed in a blanket for later. We’ll be plenty warm.”
One blanket. Singular. That they’d share. Susan gulped at the memory of what had happened between them last night. Would there be a repeat tonight? Her heart beat faster.
“The fun should begin soon,” Mac commented, interrupting her train of thoughts. “I brought a radio for you, Suzie. That way you’ll be in the loop with what Dutch and I are doing.”
She looked at the jumbled wires he held out to her. “How do you put it on?” she asked around the tightness in her throat.
Would he run his hands up under her shirt like she had his when she helped him don a microphone? Shivers of anticipation raced across her skin, and her cheeks felt hot all of a sudden.
He stepped so close she felt the warmth radiating from his body. One of his hands eased under the edge of her shirt and settled on her waist. His fingers slid up her torso, counting ribs and threading cool wire across her skin. His palm slid around to the front, and continued upward into the warm valley between her breasts. His touch was hot, exquisitely gentle.
“I’m sorry, honey,” he murmured.
She wasn’t. Oh, no. Not at all. His fingers traced higher, approaching the hollow above her collarbone. And then his other hand traced her shoulder to the neck of her T-shirt, sliding across her throat in a dangerous, delicate caress. His fingers scooped down into her shirt, meeting his other hand. The heat of them scalded her skin and sent her heart racing.
His fingers encircled her neck as he guided the throat mike into place. He reached under her hair to her nape. His thumb ran from her hairline down to the base of her neck, sending wild sensations cavorting across her skin.
Then his nimble fingers attached the Velcro closure, and threaded an earpiece into her right ear. His fingertips ran around the sensitive shell of her ear, then trailed down her neck as if reluctant to retreat.
His voice was a bare whisper of sound. “You activate your mike by pushing the button here.” His fingers entwined with hers, guiding her fingertip to a flattish button at the base of her throat. His palm cupped her hand, swallowing her flesh in his heat and carefully restrained strength.
“Or you can go hot mike, where everything you say gets transmitted automatically,” he murmured, his mouth close enough to her temple for her to feel the warm humidity of his breath.
Her skin felt hot to the touch, her pulse beat rapidly under her fingertips where he held them against her neck. Blood rushed through her ears, made louder by the earpiece she now wore. Or maybe that sound was her breath rushing in and out of her suddenly constricted lungs.
“You slide this button up to go hot.” He guided her fingers to her ear, showing her a tiny switch.
How wrong he was. All she had to do to go hot was think about him. She was imagining him running his fingers all over her body in just the same way he was doing to her ear right now. Her breath rasped loudly as he slid the little switch up. She was huffing like a racehorse.
Mac looked down sharply at her. “Are you okay?”
How in the heck was she supposed to answer that? Of course she wasn’t okay! “Uh, yeah, sure. It just makes me a little…nervous…being out here in the dark with Ruala and his men out there somewhere.”
Mac slid the hot switch down to the off position, and the sounds of her racing breath went away.
“Don’t worry about Ruala and his men,” he murmured. “Dutch is keeping an eye on them. He’ll let us know when they start moving. Until then, there’s nothing to worry about.”
Nothing except keeping herself from leaping on
top of Mac and tearing all his clothes off.
“Relax, sweetheart,” he murmured. “There’ll be plenty of reasons to get nervous later.”
The promise in his voice was thick and hot and made her insides melt. One blanket, huh? Hoo, baby.
“Come on, Suzie. Let’s go find a spot to watch our handiwork.”
“Uh, right.” She followed him on wobbly legs as he picked his way up a steep hillside. Whenever the terrain got rough, he stopped and put a hand under her elbow. Little did he know that when he touched her like that, he put her in grave jeopardy of her legs collapsing right out from under her. At one point they stopped before a wide patch of loose shale and gravel.
“Suzie, when you walk across this stuff, set your feet down slowly. Test the gravel roll under your foot by moving it side to side before you put your full weight down. Can you do that?”
She nodded, watching closely as he took a few steps.
He started across the treacherous terrain, and she followed, very slowly. It wouldn’t have been so bad if there weren’t a sheer drop to her right, maybe ten feet away. Worse, the patch of shale sloped toward the cliff. If she slipped the wrong way, she could slide right over the edge. She risked a peek into the abyss. And froze.
The gully fell away into blackness. She could see a good fifty feet down the opposite cliff face before it was lost in the dark.
“Suzie,” came Mac’s voice very calmly. “I need you to take another couple of steps.”
She turned back toward his shadowed form, which loomed ahead of her on the far side of the pale patch of shale flakes. She put her right foot down and took a step. And then her left. She began to feel light-headed and realized she was holding her breath. She stopped to breathe for a second.
“Just a little bit farther, honey,” Mac coaxed.
She reached out with her left foot and moved it side to side the way he’d shown her. There was an ominous little wobble beneath the ball of her foot, but she was too terrified to stop moving. She was going to keep going until she reached Mac.
She put her weight on the foot, and it shot out from under her. Her knee collapsed and there wasn’t a chance she could stop herself from going down.
A scream escaped her as she fell. She crashed onto her left side, sliding feet first toward the beckoning ravine. She picked up speed as she scrambled for a toehold or a handhold. Anything to stop her from going over that cliff!
And then her left arm was all but yanked out of its socket. Her death slide was halted abruptly. Her feet were hanging in midair.
“I’ve got you,” Mac grunted.
She looked up, and saw him sitting on his behind, his heels dug into the gravel, both powerful hands wrapped around her wrist in a painfully tight grip.
“Don’t move a muscle, Susan. Let me do all the work. Got it?”
“Yeah,” she panted.
“Okay, here we go.” He wiggled his heels into the gravel and pushed backward gently. She moved maybe an inch. But it was an inch away from the edge of the cliff. Gradually he eased them higher, away from the ravine. It took several minutes, and Susan was sure her arm was being torn off before Mac gave a final heave.
He let go of her, and she realized she was lying on solid rock once more. And then his arms went around her as he gathered her into a fierce hug. “God, that was close.”
Way too close. He’d saved her life. “Thanks,” she whispered.
One of his hands pressed her head tight against his shoulder. He murmured raggedly, “What would I have done if I’d lost you?”
Susan froze. She pushed away from his chest far enough to look up at him in the scant moonlight. “Would it really have mattered to you that much?”
He stared back at her, his eyes dark, unfathomable pools within the black night around them. He looked at her for a long time before he finally answered.
“Yeah, it would have mattered.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Susan stared hard at the midnight shadows cloaking his face, trying to make out something, anything, of his expression.
Yeah, it would have mattered. His voice hadn’t given away a thing. Did he mean it would matter to him personally if something happened to her, or did he mean it mattered in general because she’d been classified as nonexpendable? Did she dare believe he was saying he still had feelings for her?
Her mind tumbled, disoriented. Did she return those feelings for him? Should she allow herself to feel anything at all for him until she knew for certain what he’d meant? But how was she supposed to figure that out?
“Mac, we need to talk…”
He cut her off abruptly. “Not now.”
“Why not?”
“Didn’t you just hear Dutch?” he asked impatiently.
“No,” she answered, confused.
His hand touched the side of her head, and she jumped. His fingers traced her ear quickly. “Ahh. You knocked your earbud out in your fall.” Quickly he replaced the small device.
“Come on, Suzie. We’ve got to get out of here. Dutch called a minute ago. Ruala’s on the move. Probably heard you scream.”
“Sorry about that—” she started.
“Don’t worry. You did a pretty fair imitation of a mountain lion,” he retorted gruffly.
He helped her to her feet. Her left side felt mauled and her knee was already beginning to swell, but fear of continuing the treacherous ascent drowned out her aches and pains. She’d nearly died, and the dangerous stuff hadn’t even started yet.
“Mac, I’m scared. Tell me this path gets easier.”
“This path gets easier.”
“Don’t humor me, dammit!”
“Keep your voice down,” he murmured sharply. “Sound travels forever in terrain like this. I’ll go first. Grab on to my belt and don’t let go. You’ll be fine. I promise.”
He turned his back to her, waiting for her to do as he said. She could seriously do without making like a mountain goat anymore tonight, but if she had to do it, hanging on to his belt was better than nothing. The hard, vertical bulges of his back muscles flexed as he took each step. It was mesmerizing.
“You okay back there?” he asked after a minute of climbing.
“Uhh, yes.” Please let him think that breathless sound in her voice was fear, or maybe exertion. She’d die if he realized how disconcerted she was at the mere touch of him.
His voice caressed her. “Tell me if I’m going too fast.”
“Okay,” she panted.
“Promise?”
“Yes, already,” she grumbled at him. “Thanks for your concern, but I can still walk.”
“Yeah, I noticed.” Humor infused his voice. “You’ve still got that sexy cat walk that used to drive me crazy.”
She tripped over her own feet and barely managed not to fall on her face. She righted herself hastily. He thought her walk was sexy? Her entire brain tripped over the concept.
They worked their way steadily higher. Dutch gave them occasional progress reports on Ruala and his men as they moved toward the valley. They’d reached the rough terrain and had to abandon their vehicles and proceed on foot.
Listening to a play-by-play description of armed killers stalking her nearly undid Susan. Dutch’s terse descriptions conjured images she could do without. Six men. All armed. Semiautomatic weapons. Radios. Headsets. Night-vision goggles.
These guys were the pros Howdy had predicted they’d be. Hunters. And she was their prey. Oh, Lord. Her hands shook, and her knees actually trembled. It made walking that much harder than usual. Were it not for her death grip on Mac’s belt, she’d have fallen down a half-dozen times already.
The path opened out into a level, rock-strewn summit.
“Stay low,” Mac commanded.
Awkwardly, she tried to mimic his crouching stance as he eased forward. She couldn’t do it. Her knee locked up on every step and it was agony to forcibly flex it each time. She panted. “I’m really sorry, Mac, but I can’t crouch and walk. Isn’t there someth
ing else we could do?”
“We could crawl,” was his dry reply.
That sounded even worse.
“We’re almost there, Suz. Just a few more seconds. Try bending over at the waist but walking with your legs straight.”
She tried it, and the clumsy posture worked. Barely. She gritted her teeth and leaned on his belt, letting him pull more of her weight as her strength drained away. It didn’t seem to slow him down at all.
Her forehead bumped into something firm yet resilient. Startled, she looked up. Oh, dear. She’d just plastered her face against Mac’s rear end. He whirled around to stare at her. Thank goodness it was pitch-black out, or he’d be seeing possibly the worst blush of her life. Horribly embarrassed, she mumbled, “Uh, sorry.”
He grinned. “No apologies required.”
Desperate to distract him, she looked around. Waist-high boulders littered the summit. “Now what?” she asked.
“Well, either you let me plant my face in your behind now, or we go set up our surveillance.”
“Say what?” It was Dutch’s voice over her earpiece.
She closed her eyes, mortified.
Mac chuckled. “Nothing, Dutch. We’re at lookout point two and setting up. We’ll be in place in sixty seconds.”
Susan whispered to Mac, “Could you please go off hot mike if you’re going to say things like that?”
A bit of moonlight peeked through a wisp of cloud and illuminated his wide grin. “I’ll try to contain myself.”
She looked through the infrared binoculars he passed her, and the hill jumped out at her in lime-green relief. Plants and rocks were clearly visible, and nearly white blobs moved here and there. She guessed they were jackrabbits, but the indistinct outlines were hard to identify.
She took a sharp breath when Mac stretched out on the ground beside her, his body pressed full-length against hers. His warmth seeped through her clothing. The more aware she became of him, the more details registered. Like how his flexed bicep was large in comparison to her slender arm. Like how his hip bone was hard against hers. And how his thigh rubbed against hers with shocking intimacy. She counted his breaths as his ribs moved against hers.