Deadly Promises (26 page)

Eight

Kelsey stumbled over the rocks, not knowing if her next breath would be her last. Her right hand hurt from gripping her pistol. Her left hand hurt from gripping Gage’s belt. And her ankle was pretty much on fire.

“Where are we going?” she asked and heard the quiver in her voice. They’d hiked a long time without a word. It had seemed like hours, but maybe it had been only minutes. That last burst of machine-gun fire—so close it had made her ears ring—had wiped out even the slightest capacity to think.

Gage halted and gripped her arm.

“What?” she whispered.

“Listen,” he said in a voice she could barely hear.

She listened. She heard nothing. Just like she saw nothing. She had no inkling of anything around her, with the exception of Gage. He was a giant, rock-hard presence beside her. And somehow, miraculously, he seemed to have an unerring sense of where they were going.

“What do you hear?” she whispered.

“Nothing. That’s good.” He pressed her hand against his waist, making sure her fingers were still hooked around his belt. “Let’s keep going. I’m pretty sure we’ve lost them.”

They moved forward again, and Kelsey tried to breathe. She willed her heart to slow down.

The ground beneath her feet grew steeper. The air felt lighter. A breeze stirred. She still couldn’t see but she knew somehow that they were coming out of the ravine.

“Where are we going?”

“West, around the mesa.”

“But isn’t the camp north
east
?”

“I don’t want to go back the way we came. We’ll skirt the mesa, then go straight north, then cut east as soon as I’m sure our tail’s clear.”

Kelsey’s mind reeled. Walking around the mesa could take hours, and that was in daylight. The thought of hiking so far in the pitch dark, over this treacherous landscape, seemed impossible.

But Gage said they needed to do it, so they’d do it. He was the SEAL. She was the lab rat who’d gotten caught up in some horrible game of cat and mouse, and she was by no means confident she was going to make it out alive. At least not without help.

“How’s the ankle?”

“Fine.” How had he known about that? She hadn’t uttered a word of complaint.

“You need me to carry you?”

Yeah, right. “It’s fine,” she said. “I don’t think you could, anyway. I’m not exactly a featherweight.”

“Doesn’t matter. If it starts to hurt I’ll carry you.”

“It’s
fine
,” she said. They were running for their lives from armed thugs, and yet that tiny insult made her eyes sting with tears.

She was definitely losing it. She needed to get a grip on her emotions. With every painful step, she told herself to just keep moving, to just keep up with him. Forget about everything else and just get back to safety.

“Interesting place for a tunnel,” Gage said. “Not a major urban area within a hundred miles.”

“Maybe that’s the point.”

“Interesting tunnel, too.”

“How do you mean?”

He glanced back at her over his shoulder. “It’s clean.”

She scoffed at him. It had smelled like car exhaust. And if her knees and palms were any indication, the place was filthy. “By what standard?”

“By illegal border tunnel standards. I’ve done some ridealongs with Border Protection in San Diego. The tunnels there are tagged up with graffiti, littered with trash, crowded with warring gang factions.”

She waited for him to make his point.

“This one was different. Quiet, clean, hidden. Almost like it’s privately controlled, probably even guarded. I don’t think it’s any accident those guys walked up on us.”

“You think they heard us pull up?”

“That or they could have a surveillance system. Anyway, it explains some of the violence going on around here. This route is probably controlled by a cartel that doesn’t want outsiders around.”

Gage stopped and stood still for a few moments. She’d learned to get quiet when he did this. “I’m pretty sure we’ve lost them.”

“Okay.” She wanted to feel relieved, yet she sensed a “but” coming.

“But we can assume they have night-vision goggles,” he added. “So it’s possible they could spot us, even if we don’t see them.”

Her blood chilled at the thought. “Why do you think they have night-vision goggles?”

“I heard a vehicle, earlier, but there weren’t any headlights, which means they were driving blind again. That’s how you do it.”

“And you know this because… ?”

“I’ve done it, running desert patrol. You mark the roof of your vehicle with glint tape so friendly planes don’t mistake you for the enemy. Then you kill the lights and go.”

Of course. Simple as a trip to the minimart.

Kelsey glanced around at the inky blackness, then edged closer to Gage. The warmth of his body was the only comforting thing in her universe right now. That and her Ruger. But the gun wasn’t really that comforting because she couldn’t see worth a damn and her hands were shaking. She tucked it back into her holster, where at least she wouldn’t accidentally shoot herself or Gage.

They trudged on through the darkness. He moved with confidence, as if he knew exactly which way to go, even though it was black as tar. Kelsey didn’t talk. She didn’t complain. She didn’t say one word about the terror swamping her, but she knew Gage sensed it. He kept touching her hand, as if to reassure her, while he guided her every step.

She wouldn’t think about it.

She wouldn’t think about Dylan, her student. A young man she should have been responsible for.

She wouldn’t think about Gage, who’d been shot at and had his truck stolen while trying to protect her.

And she wouldn’t think about the memories those gunshots had triggered, memories she worked hard to keep locked away. She wouldn’t think about the panic churning inside her, and how even now—probably an hour since the last sputter of gunfire—she still couldn’t stop shaking.

Gage would understand, probably. He’d been in a war zone. But her nerves were raw, and her fear was choking. She couldn’t talk about it now. All she could do was walk and hold on to him and hope that they’d make it out of this.

A brief flash, then a rumble of thunder. Kelsey glanced up at the sky. Not a star in sight. No moon either. At sunset, the clouds had been thick and ominous. She knew if their current luck held, at any moment the sky would open up.

Another flash of lightning, and then it did.

K
ELSEY WAS SOAKED
to the skin and limping, and Gage’s last offer to carry her had been met with a snarl. The woman was stubborn, and two hours of hiking through the rain on an injured ankle hadn’t dampened her resolve.

He stopped to look around and she bumped into him. He checked his watch and, in the dim green glow of the dial, he glimpsed her face. She looked wet and ragged and in dire need of a hot shower. Plus, she was shivering, probably less from the rain than the still fresh fear of being chased by men with machine guns.

“I’m going to carry you now. No arguments.”

Without waiting for a response, he gripped her waist and scooped her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

As expected she went ballistic.

“Stop it!” She pounded on his back. “Stop it right now! I can
walk
, damn it!”

“We’re going up a hill,” he said, carefully balancing his load as he made his way up the steep terrain.

“Put me
down
!”

“Quit squirming unless you want both of us to fall off this mountain.”

She went still, thank God, and Gage adjusted her weight. He felt the backs of her knees under his hands, and her breasts pressing into his back was making it seriously hard for him to concentrate.

Finally they reached the top of the steep incline. A few more steps and they were under the protective shelter of a rock overhang.

Gage set her on her feet and her shoulders quivered.

“You okay?” he asked.

A shudder moved through her and he heard her teeth rattle.

“Here, you’re freezing.” He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against his chest. Even soggy and cold, she felt incredible, and he tried not to focus on her body as he shared his heat with her.

“This is so stupid,” she muttered. “It’s probably seventy degrees out.” Her arms went around his waist.

“We’re wet. And you’re in shock. Getting shot at can do that to you.”

“Does it happen to you?” She tilted her head back and he could feel her breath on his neck.

“I’m used to it.”

“I thought I was used to it, too, but maybe I need more practice.”

He took her by the shoulders and eased her away from him. “When have you ever been shot at before tonight?”

A quiet sigh. “In northern Iraq.”

“That’s one of the most dangerous places on the planet. What the hell were you doing there?”

She drifted closer and her arms went back around him. “Excavating mass graves. Not everyone was glad for us to be there. We ended up needing an armed guard just to get our work done.” She rested her forehead against his chest. “I still have nightmares.”

She shuddered again and his grip tightened instinctively. His few objective brain cells were screaming for him to let go of her, but she felt too good. And she smelled too good. And the realization that she
wanted
this kind of comfort from him was a perverse turn-on. This was the one woman he could
not
have, and yet he’d never wanted anyone more. What the hell was wrong with him?

She tipped her head back. “Where are we?” she whispered.

“At the petroglyphs.”

She pulled away and glanced around. “I didn’t realize we were so close to camp. Why’d we stop? Let’s just go.”

He pulled her behind a rock before switching on his flashlight. No sense broadcasting their whereabouts with a lantern. “I want to look at this ankle.” He shrugged out of his rucksack and crouched at her feet. “What’d you do, sprain it?”

“Cut it, going through that hole. Then landed on it wrong.”

He shined his flashlight on her leg and pushed her sock down.

“Ouch!”

“Sorry.” The swelling wasn’t bad. The sock was saturated with blood, though, and he gently pulled it away from her skin. He reached into his pack for a water bottle and doused the cut. It was about three inches long but not too deep.

“We need to get this cleaned up back at the lodge,” he said.

“Do you have any alcohol in your pack? Maybe some hand sanitizer?”

“I’ve got some Super Glue for emergencies,” he said. “But a butterfly bandage should do it for something this shallow. You had a tetanus shot recently?”

She didn’t answer. He shined the flashlight up at her and he saw she was gazing down at him with the strangest expression.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she whispered. “Nothing, I just…” She lifted her hand and combed her fingers into his hair and the jolt of lust nearly knocked him over. He switched off the flashlight and rose to his feet. Another hand in his hair, then his heart gave a kick as her cool fingers curled against his scalp.

“Kelsey—”

She pulled his head down and kissed him.

S
HE FELT HIM
hesitate for maybe a half a second. And then his arms wrapped around her and he melded her body against him as his tongue swept into her mouth. For days, she’d had romantic fantasies about kissing him, but she’d been wrong. There was no romance here, just a fierce hunger that thrilled her right down to her toes.

An ache spread through her and she pressed against him, loving the taste of his tongue and the hardness of his body and the surprising softness of his hair between her fingers. He eased her back against a rock, protecting her head with his hand as he held her in place and continued to kiss her as if he’d never get enough, as if he couldn’t stop. Something had snapped in him. And she realized that cool disinterest he’d shown her these past few days had been an act. He’d been burning, just like she had. She wished she’d known. She wished she could see his face. She wanted to see the fire in his eyes as he finally let her in on this secret he’d been hiding.

She slipped her hands into the pockets of his jeans and pulled him closer, as close as she could get him. She ground her hips against him and heard the low groan deep in his chest.

He pulled back. “Kelsey—”

She rose up and kissed him again, just in case he was crazy enough to put the brakes on. Something about her uncle. Or her honor. Or some other such bullshit that she didn’t want to hear right now.

He pulled back again. “Kelsey, we can’t.” His voice sounded strained.

“Why can’t we?”

He slipped her hands out of his pockets and eased back. “Look… I like you.”

Her blood went cold. “Don’t say it.” She turned away. God, if he used the word “friend” she was going to scream.

“If circumstances were different—”

“Let’s just go.”

He took her arm and she shook him off. Then she walked away from him, as far as she felt comfortable. It would be just her luck to take a wrong step and tumble off the cliff. She felt mortified.
Look, I like you
. Who was he trying to convince?

“Can we get back, please?” she asked. “I’m freezing here.”

In the darkness, he muttered a curse. He walked over to her, hooked her hand onto his belt as it had been before, and set out for camp.

K
ELSEY WAS STILL
shaking when she whipped her battered Chevy Suburban into the parking lot of the Madrone Hunting Lodge. Fear, embarrassment, anxiety—plus a major dose of adrenaline—were knocking around in her system, making it nearly impossible for her to focus on the task at hand. After enduring an extremely awkward car ride, she now had to relay tonight’s discoveries to the sheriff. What had she been thinking? She couldn’t have come up with a worse, more inappropriate time to throw herself at a man.

“Aw, shit,” Gage said—his first words in half an hour.

The night manager was just switching off the light above the reception desk as Kelsey pulled into a space. Before she’d even parked Gage jumped out of the Suburban and rushed for the door.

Kelsey collected her overnight bag from the backseat and cast a worried look around the full parking lot. Dr. Robles had left a note saying he’d be staying here, and she hoped to hell he hadn’t gotten the last room.