Safe in His Arms (24 page)

“Listen before you start saying no. That dog, you hear that?” he asked and waited until she reluctantly nodded. Her grey eyes were so light against her flushed face they looked blue today, he noticed, then wanted to kick his ass for noticing.
Mind on the game, Wolf.

“That dog is not going away. They train them to find people. And it will, sugar. But that’s okay, because I’m better trained. So, here, in these trees, we wait. They’ll come across the field, we aim, and we kill.”

She swallowed hard, opened her mouth, then closed it, looked at the field, then back over at him. They could both hear the dog going crazy. The Gonzales bred Presa Canarios, claiming they were
commodores de carne
, flesh eaters. The breeds came over to Mexico to protect cattle, but they were incredibly powerful and possessed a complete lack of fear. They weighed upwards to two hundred pounds and if one caught a man without a gun he was going to die.

Mac unbuckled his pack, squatted down, and opened it. He’d packed an extra side arm in a waterproof pouch along with ammunition. He knew Mandy was watching him, but she remained silent. He had no time to think about what he was forcing on her, but he thought about it anyway. Would she hate him? If she had to kill a man, would she blame him? He didn’t know. All he knew was he wasn’t leaving her unarmed.

He freed the gun, gathered up the ammo, loaded the clip, and handed Mandy the Glock and an extra two clips of ammo. She took it all silently, simply looked down at them in her hands. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. He needed her alert and ready for this.

“You remember how to use that Mandy? I trained you on the same gun. It’s reliable. It won’t lock up. It’s going to kick, so you’re going to be here, on your stomach. You shoot two shots. Don’t aim. Don’t even try to aim. Shoot up at the sky for all I care, but you shoot to trick them into thinking there are more of us, okay?”

She nodded quickly.

“Good, good, then you move two feet west, two more shots, move west ten feet, then wait a full minute and move back east. I want you to go back and forth from west to east.”

“Okay.”

“Baby, if anyone breaks free of me, you shoot their ass off. Aim for the biggest part of their bodythe chest.” The sound of barking grew and, with it, he heard shouts. The Spanish came through loud and clear.

Mandy exhaled heavily, took hold of the gun the right way, and nodded. She put the extra ammo in the pocket of her BDUs and tugged her curls out of her eyes. Her nose and cheeks were slightly sunburnt, he noticed.

“We survive this and make it to town, hide there, okay? Make some calls. Get the hell out of Dodge.”

She swallowed and nodded.

Her silence, and one-word answers freaked him out, but he tried to keep his head. She needed him.

Through the tree line, he saw them, first the dogs, their massive black heads and upper bodies fanning out the meadow grasses as they shoved through. The men behind came two at a time. First two, then two more off to the left then the last two over on the right side, looking wary but confident. Strength in numbers.

“There they are. I’m going to kill the dogs first, then the two on the left. You hit the area with fire and I’ll take care of the rest.”

Some men would never allow a woman to see them kill. He knew that, and it pissed him off. He wanted to protect her, coddle her, and hide this side of his nature from her. Life wasn’t allowing that. Everything was blowing up into the open between them. And when the dust settled, he feared she might look at him in horror rather than with love.

“Mac—” She shivered and he dragged her close, dug out his stocking cap from the thigh pocket of his BDUs, and shoved it over her curls. He grabbed a handful of dirt and rubbed it over her pale face, even spreading it over her sunburned nose. She winced but stayed silent. When she was dark enough, he pulled out his extra shirt, made sure there wasn’t any glass on it, and tugged it over her head. She stayed silent but he saw her trembling.

“Be careful. Move but stay here, on this side of the jungle. If I’m shot, you run. Circle around, get their truck and head to the nearest town.”

The dogs let out a wild explosion of barking, and Mac bent his head, taking her lips in a quick kiss, tasting her too fiercely before he turned her and pressed her down over by a fallen tree. “Start as soon as the dogs die.”

Mandy nodded. She looked frightened.

The question was—of him, or the situation they were in?

“Just stay close, baby, just keep yourself safe.”

Chapter Twenty

Mandy’s skin crawled. Trembles kept her busy, worrying her so badly that she dug her boots into the ground and straightened her legs to prevent her body from shaking her arms too badly.

If Mac got killed, she’d never survive. She couldn’t. Not without him. She’d been so worried she’d done something wrong she’d stayed silent. All that time walking she could have been talking to him more about his life, what he’d been doing, where, with whom. All those things she wanted to know, but hadn’t asked when they were having wild sex. Or curling up in each other’s arms. Or walking with a boat load of worry she’d done something wrong when all he’d been thinking about was protecting her.

Sweat dripped in her eyes and she lost sight of the dogs. The men, though, oh, man, she saw them. Big, wild-looking men dressed in black and dark, dirty-looking jeans. They all had black hair, swarthy complexions, and huge guns. One wore a leather vest with no shirt and leather pants. Who did that? He scared her the most. He carried a short assault rifle. The thing looked deadly. Heck,
he
looked deadly.

The dogs bounded into view and at the same instant two sharp blasts of gunfire ripped through the jungle. The fierce, snarling dogs fell before the sound had died. She bit her lip and fired twice right at the men, forgetting that Mac told her to aim at the sky until she’d pulled the trigger. Nothing hit. Her hands shook so badly she almost dropped the gun. While she watched, one man jerked backwards and fell. She swallowed a cry, flipped the safety on so she didn’t shoot her own foot and scrambled up to run quickly to her left, keeping hunched over. Tree branches hit her in the face, but she thrust her way through a denser part of the jungle, terrified at the sound of guns going off.

No bullets made it near her. She dived onto her hands and knees, crawled under a thicker patch of red-berried shrubbery, and prayed that no creepy snakes or spiders were waiting for her. As soon as she settled on her stomach, she shoved the bush out of her way and spotted the men standing and aiming at the tree line. They fired in waves back and forth. The whole thing looked like a
Rambo
movie gone nuts. She slipped the safety off but, as she watched the men, a red spot blossomed on one man’s forehead and he went down. She fired more out of fright than anything and managed to forget to fire her gun only twice.

More gunfire hit, this time destroying the greenery around her. She curled up in a tight ball and prayed like she hadn’t in years. Leaves and bits of bark showered down on her, but, after what felt like forever, the tree stopped exploding. As soon as it stopped, she scrambled back out of the mutilated shrub and raced back towards where Mac had left her. A man screamed and more shouting reached her over the pinging of weapons. Then silence.

Her breathing sounded too loud with the sudden lack of gunfire. She tried to dodge the trees, look back over her shoulder, and still run at the same time but stumbled over a tree root and landed hard on her front.

Shit!
Mac needed her with him, not falling all over her own two feet. Her knees hurt but she crawled to another fallen tree and shoved out through the undergrowth to see the man in the leather vest nearly at the tree line. He ducked under fire from Mac and shoved his way through the jungle. No one else remained in the field.
Had Mac killed them all?
She held her breath. Fear pounded through her body and turned her into a shivering mess. Her heartbeat was erratic, but at least for once her breathing wasn’t the only thing messed up.

She covered her mouth when a laugh tried to break free. Holy moly, she was useless, wasn’t she?

The greasy vest guy crashed through the undergrowth, and it took her several scary minutes before she realised his noise had got farther from her rather than closer to her. Just as she was about to relax, a bullet ripped into the tree right above her. Another followed. She curled up with her knees against her chest, head buried under her arms, trying to get as small as possible.

Nothing else happened. No more shots. No crashing sounds. Even the crazy birds were quiet. A breeze fanned her sweaty body. She itched where Mac had rubbed dirt on her face. Gradually she released her arms and peeked up around her hiding spot. Nothing, just gorgeous-looking paradise.

How long did Mac want her to wait?

Minutes went by and nothing. Not a sound of pursuit, nothing.

What if he was shot and hurt? Or, worse, killed? How would she know?

He was out there, somewhere, possibly dead. Fear rushed through her veins, and all the things she’d wanted to tell him dimmed compared to the one thing she should have said.

She loved him.

Tears burned her eyes and throat. She should have told him. She should have told him she wasn’t letting him go after those guys alone, either. Like she would have been any help at all. But still, she should have offered.

Minutes ticked by, seeming to last forever. She watched a bird start to circle and realised that it must be a vulture. More joined until there was a lazy pattern of them against the blue sky.

Where was Mac? Should she go and see if he was out there? Oh, God. What if he was out there? What if he was hurt and needed her? She tensed to stand, sure she had to go find out when suddenly a dark shape materialised next to her. She screamed and scrambled back, gun out.

“Mandy, sugar, it’s me.”

Oh, God
. She dropped the gun next to her leg and dived into his arms, hugging him tight around the waist. He grunted and wrapped his arms around her. He smelt like Mac—wonderful. Sweaty, and kinda spicy.

“We gotta go.”

“You got them? All of them?”

He pulled her back a little but she kept her arms around him. She just needed to feel him, warm, hard, safe. Mac. He grimaced and she moved back to see a spot of blood on his T-shirt.

“Oh, God, oh, God. You’ve been hurt!”

“It’s nothing, just a graze.”

She frowned at him. He was lying. To her. “Look, Mr Macho, don’t. Just don’t. Tell me you have something in that bag of wonders you lugged all over the place for wounds.”

He cracked a painful grin and eased his pack off, and by his tense expression, it hurt. She helped slide it down his arms, soothing him with a soft kiss to his stubborn jaw. As soon as she had the black bag off, she gently pushed him to sit instead of crouching on his haunches. “Just sit down, would you?”

Eying her sceptically, he slowly sat with his back against the tree. He exhaled heavily, leant forward and reached back to pull his shirt off in one quick move.

Her breath left her lungs in a rush. Right above his left elbow blood oozed down his arm adding to the already alarming amount dripping onto the jungle floor.

“In the bag, there’s a clear, sealed pouch. You’ll find everything in there.”

She jerked the pack to her, happy to stop looking at his wound. He grunted and stretched his long legs out. “They were alone. I went and checked the truck. We get this fixed up, take the truck, and head to the nearest town.”

“How did this happen?” she asked, not impressed with his even tone. He hurt, she could tell.

“What?” He met her eyes with a frown. “This?” He shrugged at his wound, glancing down at it for only a second before meeting her eyes steadily. “This is nothing, sugar. Now come on, clean it out, and wrap it.”

“Clean it out? And that’s it?”

He nodded. She exhaled wearily and pulled out a bottle of water, the white roll of bandages she found, and some heavy-duty-looking medicinal cream in a white tube. He tensed when she poured water over the wound but didn’t say anything.

“How are we going to get away from these people, Mac?”

The more water she poured on his arm the clearer the jagged cut became. Not wanting to cause more hurt, she lifted his arm and lightly patted the sides to clean it.

“We’ll get away, they can’t have more here yet. Those guys were lucky, that’s all. Just put a gob of that cream on it, wrap it and we go.”

“Are you sure? Shouldn’t I clean it a bit more?”

“It’s good, sugar. Now, hurry up.”

He rubbed his other hand over his short hair and frowned at her. “I got a phone. We call Ace as soon as we get service.”

“So you…took a phone? And we take their truck to town?” she asked, applying the medicine to the wound. The glob, as he put it, was clear and smelt medicinal, but she used a lot, covering it completely before she had him raise his arm so she could wrap the firm muscle.

“Yeah, it will be easier than walking. Besides, we need speed. The guys I took down will be missed. When they’re missed, that’s when they’ll send more.”

“Oh, great. That’s great.” She met his clear gaze and tied off the wrappings carefully. He didn’t even wince. “All done.”