Escape from Cabriz

by Linda Lael Miller

  “I suppose I don’t want to know what kind of egg that was,” she said as Zachary squired her back to her horse, strapped on her backpack and helped her mount.

  “You’re right,” he answered, giving her bottom a little swat before she plopped into the saddle. “You don’t want to know.”

  They rode on and on, it seemed to Kristin, up slopes as steep as the side of a refrigerator, through trees so dense that it was hard to pass between them. She thought with longing of her old chenille bathrobe and a cup of hot, strong tea, but she didn’t ask Zachary to stop. Her pride had taken enough of a beating that day.

  Finally, when it was not only dark but the moon was riding high in the sky, they reached another canyon, and Zachary instructed her to wait while he rode through the opening.

  The minutes that passed before he returned seemed like generations to Kristin, but she waited as she’d been told, grateful that he hadn’t left his pistol as well.

  “It’s clear,” he said, returning to the gap in the rock to take off his hat and lean slightly forward in the saddle. “Come on in, princess. This is the closest thing you’re going to get to luxury accommodations.”

  With a slight frown, Kristin rode through the breach and looked around.

  The moon seemed to be pouring its light into the canyon, where it collected in a silver glow. A spring or stream rippled in the background, but there were only a few trees.

  Kristin took off her pack on her own, once Zachary had lifted her to the ground, and headed straight for the water. There was something strange about it, though she couldn’t quite decide what it was.

  When she reached the pebble-strewn banks of the spring, she knew. It was as hot as bathwater, and steam billowed off the surface.

  She whirled, full of weary delight. “We can stay—can’t we? We can spend the night here?”

  He came to her, kissed her lightly on the forehead. “We can spend the night here,” he confirmed. “Go ahead and get a bath. I’ll build a fire and see what I can rustle up for supper.”

  Kristin’s eyes went wide as she looked at the spring again. “There wouldn’t be any leeches, or anything like that—”

  Zachary shook his head, grinning.

  With a little whoop of joy, Kristin shed her jacket and bent to untie her work shoes. Only then did she remember that she had an audience. “You’ll turn your back, of course?”

  Zachary was still grinning. “Of course,” he answered.

  She took from her pack the robe he’d gotten her that day, along with a bar of soap, and made her way to the edge of the spring. Once she’d taken off her jeans and T-shirt and climbed into the water, she looked back and found Zachary standing in exactly the same place she’d left him, staring at her.

  “You lied,” she called, but she couldn’t work up any real anger. Not when he’d done his best to look after her and had brought her to a place like this.

  She was mildly disappointed when he didn’t offer a comeback but simply turned and started gathering twigs for a fire.

  Kristin settled into the luscious water, soap in hand, and began to bathe.

  5

  “I thought we weren’t going to have a fire,” Kristin said, combing the tangles from her clean, wet hair as she approached Zachary. “Because of bandits and rebels and bogeymen.”

  He was crouching beside the small blaze, and his eyes wandered over Kristin’s gauzy yellow robe for several moments before rising to her face. “The campsite is sheltered by the canyon walls,” he pointed out, his expression solemn.

  Kristin glanced uneasily around her. The place was too perfect, too much like Eden or Shangri-la. There had to be a serpent somewhere, waiting to offer her an apple. “If you know about it, they probably do, too. And tonight there isn’t any rain to keep them away.”

  Zachary bent to take his miniature coffeepot from the coals of the fire and pour the contents into their mugs. He held one out to Kristin as he sipped from the other, then lowered it slowly from his mouth. “We’re as safe here as we would be anywhere else on the mountain,” he responded.

  “Which isn’t saying much,” Kristin speculated, hugging herself with one arm and tasting her coffee. “Maybe we should just have kept moving.”

  “You’ve been sick most of the day,” Zachary reminded her. “And you’re not used to this kind of life. You couldn’t have gone much farther.”

  Kristin took another sip of the coffee. Even though there were grounds floating in it, since Zachary always made the brew without benefit of basket or filter, it was delicious. “I should have asked you about those berries before I ate them,” she confessed with a sigh. “I’m sorry. This trip is difficult enough without my complicating it.”

  He approached her, kissed her lightly on the forehead. “It was an innocent mistake,” he said. And then he set his coffee mug down and ambled toward the spring, where Kristin had taken such a luxurious bath.

  She watched him toss his hat aside, shrug out of his jacket, kick off his boots. Then, realizing that she was staring, Kristin looked purposefully away.

  “How many more days until we’re out of Cabriz?” she called, her voice unnaturally loud even considering the distance between them.

  “Three,” he answered. “Two if we’re lucky.” She heard a splashing sound and envisioned him washing his hair.

  She poured the dregs from the coffeepot into her cup. “And then?”

  “And then we’ll go our separate ways,” he replied easily. “You’ll probably want to spend a little time recuperating at the embassy in Rhaos. You can look now, Kristin—I’m not exposing any relevant parts of my anatomy.”

  She realized how tense she was—silly, really, after giving herself to this man so completely the night before—and made a diligent effort to relax. She even strolled toward the spring and sat down on a log. The truce between them was comforting, and she wanted to maintain it. “You haven’t told me anything about your life. How’s the spy business these days—rescuing former roommates aside?”

  He had rinsed his hair and was soaping his armpits, the water reaching to his rib cage. “I wouldn’t know,” he answered. “I’ve been teaching at a junior college on the Washington coast ever since…well, for the last year and a half.”

  He’d been about to say, “since we broke up,” Kristin knew. The reminder hurt, and so did the knowledge that he’d resigned from the agency. Before their parting she’d begged him to do that so they could build some kind of sane life together, and he’d steadfastly refused.

  “You’re teaching,” she said in a small voice. “What’s your subject? Survival in the wild? Covert operations?”

  In the thin light of the moon she saw his lips twist into an expression that might have been either a grimace or a smile. “Political science,” he answered. “I also do the occasional seminar on Asian culture.”

  Kristin scraped her lower lip with her teeth. “I’m surprised,” she said evenly, still grappling with the unexpected pain. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d ever want to do anything as tame as teaching.” She wouldn’t have thought he’d reveal so much about himself so easily, either. She wondered if it was too much to hope that Zachary was loosening up a little.

  He was splashing away the lather from his chest and underarms. “People change, princess,” he said. And then she felt his eyes move over her, assessing, finding her wanting. “At least, some of us do.”

  And here she’d been thinking charitable thoughts about him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re still impulsive,” he said in a totally objective tone of voice. “And you still can’t make up your mind what you want to do with your life. You go to this college, you go to that college. You take a job, then you give it up to marry a prince. After that, you decide maybe that isn’t such a good idea….”

  Kristin’s cheeks were hot. She started to speak, then stopped herself. It galled her that she couldn’t deny Zachary’s charges.

  “You seem to have a serious problem
with commitment,” he finished. “Maybe you ought to get some counseling or something.”

  Kristin gave an angry hoot. “That’s a good one, coming from you! If I remember correctly, you were the one who didn’t want to be ‘tied down’ to an everyday job—”

  He stalked out of the hot spring before Kristin had a chance to prepare herself and stood there before her, gloriously naked, glistening with mineral water and moonlight. Reaching down, he caught hold of her robe and wrenched her to her feet. “My life is in order,” he said in a ragged, angry whisper. “But you’re still running, aren’t you?”

  Kristin tried to pull away, but his hold was too firm. “Running? I was practically abducted!”

  “Abducted, hell. You could have stayed in the palace if you’d wanted to and you damn well know it.”

  She whirled, and this time he let her go. When she looked at him again he was dressed, except for his jacket, hat and boots. He used her comb, then tossed it back to her, and there was a dismissal in the gesture that stung Kristin to the quick.

  She busied herself looking through her pack for something to eat that hadn’t been dried, and came up with a small can of chicken and noodles with a pop-up lid.

  “Do you regret leaving him?” Zachary asked, and her hand tightened around the can.

  “Jascha?” Kristin paused, considering. “Yes, in a way. I miss the man I thought he was.” She opened her supper and set the can carefully in the embers to heat.

  There was an awkward silence, then Zachary said, “I saw your picture on the cover of that magazine.”

  The engagement photograph of her and Jascha. He’d worn his official uniform for the shoot, and someone had found a rhinestone tiara for her. Kristin smiled sadly, mourning the pretty dream.

  “You looked like a real princess,” Zachary added, and his voice was hoarse.

  She raised her eyes to his face, wondering what he’d thought and felt, looking at that picture. Had there been any pain, any remorse for all the two of them had lost? “Thanks—I think.”

  He grinned, strapping on his shoulder holster, then busied himself for a few minutes wiping down the barrel, cleaning the chamber. Then he spun the chamber once with an expert thumb. “Your noodles are about to burn,” he pointed out.

  Disappointed, yet not knowing what she’d expected from him or even hoped for, Kristin carefully removed the can from the fire, using the T-shirt she’d worn that day as a pot holder. “Expecting trouble?” she asked, spooning a bite of food into her mouth and nodding toward the pistol. The noodles tasted smoky and good.

  Zachary shrugged, pulling on his jacket. “It wouldn’t hurt to have a look around,” he answered, then he raised a finger. “And Kristin—”

  “I know, I know,” she interrupted. “Stay here.”

  She told herself it didn’t make her nervous, having Zachary leave her alone in camp. She finished her supper, disposed of the can and washed her spoon in the spring.

  Then, because Zachary still wasn’t back and inactivity was unbearable, she took out her sleeping bag and unrolled it next to the blaze. Tonight, with the fire and the warm spring nearby, there wouldn’t be any need for them to sleep together.

  By the time she’d finished the task, Zachary still hadn’t returned.

  Kristin brought out her toothbrush and paste and attended to her teeth, using water from Zachary’s canteen in lieu of going to the spring. After that there was nothing more to do.

  Kristin looked at the high, invisible walls of the canyon, at the V of stars visible in the cleft overhead. Zachary was probably right, she concluded. They were as safe there as they would be anywhere on the mountain—which meant they were in mortal danger at every moment.

  Telling herself to be brave, Kristin pulled back the top of her sleeping bag and climbed in, still wearing the yellow robe. It was soft and comfortable, and it made her feel a whole lot less vulnerable than she had in Zachary’s T-shirt.

  She had just snuggled down, her eyes on the hypnotic, dancing flames of the camp fire, when Zachary returned. She was so glad to see him that she sat bolt upright and blurted out, “Did you see anybody?”

  “No,” he answered with a sigh, taking in the single sleeping bag without a noticeable reaction, “but that doesn’t mean a damn thing.”

  “Maybe one of us had better sit up and keep watch,” she ventured.

  Zachary grinned and took off his hat and jacket. The firelight gleamed on the pearl handle of the pistol. “Good idea. If anybody comes into camp, princess, you just interview them. Promise them a spot in People magazine.”

  “Funny,” Kristin replied, swallowing. Something had been troubling her all evening, just beneath the surface of consciousness, and now it bobbed to the top with brisk clarity. “If you’re not with the agency anymore, what are you doing here in Cabriz?”

  In the dim light of the fire and the moon, Kristin couldn’t read Zachary’s expression. He was a long time answering. “I have a specialized knowledge of the country,” he finally said. “You know that.”

  A tiny flame of crazy optimism flared in Kristin’s heart, and it made her bold. “And no one else does?”

  He drew nearer, crouching beside her, taking her chin roughly in hand. All hope died when she saw the cold expression in his eyes. “The current administration probably would have left you here if it hadn’t been for me,” he said. “Their reasoning was, ‘she made her bed, let her sleep in it.’ And under any other circumstances, I would have agreed with them.”

  Kristin felt painful venom spread through her veins, made up of shame, frustration and pain. She looked away, and Zachary finally let go of her chin. She lay down and turned her face toward the darkness so he wouldn’t know how much she was hurting.

  It came as a total surprise when she felt her sleeping bag being unzipped. She sat up, her heart hammering. “What are you doing?”

  He attached his bag to hers with such practiced deftness that Kristin was filled with searing jealousy, imagining him lying in such close quarters with another woman. “I think that’s fairly obvious,” he answered, kicking off his boots.

  “You’re not sleeping with me!”

  “You’re right. I don’t plan on sleeping.”

  Kristin was furious, not because she thought Zachary would force her but because she knew he could change her mind in the space of one kiss. She started to scoot backward, out of the sleeping bag, but that only made the robe bunch up around her thighs.

  He unbuckled the holster and set it carefully aside, and before she could pull down the hem of her robe he was lifting it over her head, tossing it aside in a billowing cloud of softness. She was naked, shivering in the heat of his gaze.

  “Stand up,” he said quietly. “I want to look at you.”

  Kristin shook her head, already falling under his spell, using all her strength to break the enchantment. “No.”

  He reached out, cupped her breast gently in one hand. The nipple went taut as he stroked it, and Kristin gave a little moan and let her head fall back.

  Zachary chuckled and leaned forward to drink languidly from her breast, and in that moment she was lost. Try though she did, she couldn’t summon the words to put him away from her.

  Once he’d taken nectar from both her nipples, he again asked her to stand, and this time Kristin complied.

  She trembled, knowing what was coming, and made a soft whimpering sound as he parted the silken veil to taste her. “Zachary—”

  He teased her with nibbles, with darting flicks of his tongue. “What?”

  Kristin moaned. She was exhausted from riding all day; every muscle in her body ached. And yet a treacherous energy was gaining strength within her, holding her up for Zachary’s pleasure and her own. Her fingers were entangled in his hair. “I want it to happen when you’re inside me. Please.”

  To her surprise, he lowered her to the sleeping bag, laid her gently on the flannel. The backs of her knees rested against his shoulders while he opened his pants.

&n
bsp; He found the velvet passageway and entered with a forceful thrust, his hands gripping Kristin’s ankles as she arched her body to receive him.

  “That’s good,” she whispered. “So good—”

  Zachary took her fully, then retreated almost to the point of withdrawal. His chuckle was raw with any emotion but humor. “And tomorrow—you’ll say you would have responded the same way—to anybody.”

  “No one,” Kristin half sobbed, because the pleasure was already too much for her. She couldn’t bear it. “No one else—oh, Zachary, fast—hard—”

  He didn’t change his pace at all. He held her legs where they were and moved in and out of her with excruciating slowness.

  She tried to writhe but he wouldn’t permit that, either. He glided in and withdrew and she felt the friction in every nerve, and gloried in it.

  Kristin arched her neck and groaned through clenched teeth. “Please.”

  “No,” he answered, pushing her legs forward slightly so that his penetration was deep.

  The stars blurred against the dark sky as Kristin climbed toward them, hand over hand, her breathing fast and harsh. Her feet rested against the sides of Zachary’s head now, and he held her tightly around the thighs, moving with more speed as his own body began to make demands that would not be ignored.

  With a broken cry, he slammed deep and stiffened against her, and in that moment Kristin went wild. She was a woman untouched by civilization, and she was not simply making love—she was mating for life.

  Later, when she lay still in Zachary’s arms and the last aftershocks had finally subsided, she faced facts. Although what had just happened was of profound significance to her, there was no reason to think anything had changed for Zachary.

  She turned her face into the bare flesh of his shoulder, holding back weary tears, and a tremor moved through her.

  In response, Zachary held her closer, pulling the top of the sleeping bag up so that it covered them both comfortably. “Cold?”

  Kristin shook her head. “Scared.” She couldn’t add that it wasn’t Jascha, or the rebels, or even the bandits that frightened her. It was the thought of going back to a life that didn’t include Zachary and trying to pretend seeing him again hadn’t awakened all the old feelings.