Sentimental Journey (10 page)

He smelled of the desert, an odor of dry sand and even drier dust, mixed with musky male sweat, like he’d been running.

She moved her right hand slightly and touched his chest. There were metal zippers on his clothes and thick seams on a flap pocket that snapped closed.

He pinned her hand back onto the cot.

She could feel him shake his head at her before he turned to look back toward the door. She lay there on the cot, him half-crouched next to her, his upper body pinning her where she was.

Time crawled by.

“Okay,” he whispered into her ear. “I don’t think they heard anything. I’m U.S. Army Captain James Cassidy, and I’m here to get you out of here. Understand?”

She nodded.

“Good. I’m going to take my hand away.
Do not talk...”

She nodded again.

He took his hand away.

She took a good long breath. It was the small hours of the morning. She could tell by the temperature of the air.

“Get dressed.”

She’d slept in her slip, so she swung her legs over the side of the iron cot and grabbed her dress from the end of the bed. She slid her feet into it and stood, shimmied into it, then reached under the hem and jerked down her bunched-up slip. She started with the top buttons and worked her way down. The belt hung loosely from the belt loops at the waist, and she pulled it together and buckled it, then reached for her cotton stockings and girdle.

She wiggled into the girdle, sat down and rolled the stockings into her hands, then slid them over her foot and up her leg. She attached the garters, front and back. Less than a minute later she was done.

He was standing next to her the whole time, watching her.

She didn’t care. She just wanted out of here. She bent down over the edge of the cot and grabbed her scarf, then stuffed it down the neckline of her dress into her brassiere.

“Let’s go,” he whispered, then grabbed her upper arm in his hand and took a step. “Quietly.”

She froze, pulled her arm back, and shook her head. “My shoes.”

He stopped moving.

“Get them. Hurry!”

They were under the table at
two o’clock
, seven steps from the bed. She took two steps, then another. Her foot hit something soft. A cloth duffel or pack.

She stumbled forward.

He grabbed her shoulders from behind in a hard grip, then pulled her upright and steadied her, her back against his chest.

Her breath came fast. It scared her, almost falling like that. It made her feel lost and out of control when that happened.

He spun her around so she faced him.

She could feel him looking at her.

He released one shoulder. She heard his pocket flap snap; then he was digging around inside it.

A moment later a lighter clicked.

He held it up between them.

She could smell the lighter fluid before she saw the blurred light from its flame pass in front of her eyes.

For just a moment there was nothing in the air but a sense of dawning realization.

He swore viciously under his breath and said, “You’re blind.”

“I KNOW
NOW
”

J.R. flicked the lighter closed with a snap. He had the sudden urge to bust the chops of a certain colonel. There was no way HQ would not have informed him that Kathryn Kincaid was blind. This little piece of info was what had been behind Langdon’s snide smile.

J.R. crossed over to the table, picked up her shoes and put them in her hand. “There, you’ve got your shoes.” He slid on his gloves.

“No one told you I’m blind.” She put on one shoe, then the other.

“It doesn’t matter. Getting out of here does.” He took her hand. “Let’s go.”

He moved toward the window.

She moved toward the door.

“Not that way.” He pulled her with him. “We go out the way I came in. Through the window,” he whispered. “Listen closely. There’s a rope hanging out here. I’m going to climb out the window, grab the rope, and brace myself on the tower. When I say to, you’ll climb out, grab a hold of the rope, and clamp your legs around it, so it’s between your legs, and grip it tightly with both hands and slide down so you’re in front of me. I’ll be behind you the whole time.” He paused for a fraction of a second, then said, “Guess I don’t have to warn you not to look down.”

“No. You don’t.”

“Then you need to let go of the rope, put your arms around my neck, and I’ll take you down to the ground.” He paused. “Understand?”

“I think so.”

“Repeat it quietly.”

She did. Verbatim.

“Good.”

He slipped out the window, took the rope, swung out, and secured it, taut, then braced his boots against the stone tower.

He looked up.

She had already crawled out onto the stone ledge, her back to him. She was sitting there, waiting.

It was a good thing she couldn’t see the drop down. This old fortress was situated on a tall and rugged cliff high above the road. Going down it was going to be like rappelling the sheer face of a mountain.

“I’m ready,” he whispered. “Grab the rope with both hands.”

She waved her arm a little in the air. He realized she was feeling around for the rope.

He should have put it in her hand. He started to climb back inside but saw that her hand found the rope and she gripped it tightly, then pulled it between her knees.

“Cross your feet together around it.”

She did.

He moved up the rope. “Put your arms around my neck.” He took one hand to show her where his shoulder was. She locked her arms around his neck.

“Hang on, Kincaid.” He pulled her off the ledge.

“There is no way I’m not hanging on, Captain.”

“Good. Then here we go.” He began to slide down, a few feet at a time. It took time, tense minutes because they were in plain sight, with only the darkness in their favor.

“You’re doing fine.” With their combined weight, it wasn’t easy to take it slowly, to slide only a few feet at a time. He could feel the strain in his arms, shoulders, and back.

“Someone’s walking below,” she hissed into his ear. “To the west.”

He froze. He’d just heard the footsteps, too. How the hell did she know it was west? He scanned the area and saw a man at the far edge of the lower wall. He was facing away from them as he lit a cigarette.

It’s three in the morning and this guy wants a smoke.

J.R. watched the small orange cigarette glow brightly in the guard’s mouth before the man exhaled a foggy cloud, then rested his arms on the wall.

Great.

If the guard turned this way, he could see them, hanging by the rope about halfway down the stone tower.

J.R. looked down. He needed an out. Fast.

He had a hunch the guy was going to turn around any second.

What the hell . . .

He shoved off from the wall with about a hundred and thirty pounds of Kincaid’s blind daughter clinging to his neck.

They slid like a lit fuse down the rope. A good seventy feet. Friction from the rope burned right through his gloves.

He used the rope to brake their descent. They jerked to a stop, and hung there, now low enough to be partially hidden by some trees growing inside a stone wall that surrounded the central courtyard. With
Lalla Luck
on his side, the crowns of those trees blocked them from view.

J.R. looked down. The place was situated on a sheer cliff. They still had a long way to go.

He didn’t dare take them on down. He couldn’t take the chance that the guy would see the rope move. So they just dangled there. Someday, J.R. figured, he would joke to his buddies that he came out of this assignment well hung.

He had to give her credit. It had been a helluva drop and she hadn’t made a sound. She was so still she made his job easier.

Her right ear was near his mouth so he whispered, “Now you know how a yo-yo feels.”

She didn’t say anything. No sense of the ridiculous. After a minute more she asked, “How long do we wait?”

“Till he leaves. The trees are in the way, so I can’t see him.”

“Me either.”

She did have a sense of humor. Good. They were both going to need it.

Her breathing was soft and even.

It was quiet in these mountains. Not much in the way of sounds. Noise always carried in the dead of night. You learned to take your voice down real low when your life was on the line. She was a smart cookie. She always placed her mouth very close to his ear when she spoke and her whispers were barely a breath of sound. He figured she’d taken her cue from him and he gave her points for that.

“He’s leaving.”

J.R. couldn’t hear anything.

A moment later, a door closed.

He waited. There were no more sounds. “Okay. Here we go again. Hang on . . . ”

Her arms tightened around him, and he took them down, five feet at time, to the road below.

“CHEEK TO CHEEK”

The truck bounced so hard over a rut in the road that Kitty hit her head on the roof of the cab. She flinched, reached up and rubbed her head, but kept quiet because Cassidy did. She was wedged in between him and the driver, a man he only called Sabri, who smelled of garlic, turmeric, and sweaty cotton baked by the sun. Cassidy was sitting on her right and had a crumpled map spread open on the dash.

They had been on this road a long time. It was not the road she’d come in on. The grade was too steep and there were more hairpin turns. Without any warning they careened around a turn so sharp that she had to brace both hands on the roof to keep from falling into the driver. It felt like they’d turned on only the left two wheels.

There was a horrible pause, the kind that precedes imminent disaster. She waited for the truck to roll over.

The truck slammed down on the road so hard she felt it clear into her back teeth.

But no one said a word.

Sabri downshifted the gears a second later—the warning of another steep turn.

She slid right, into Cassidy’s arm. The map he was holding crackled. He just shook it out before they hit another rut and she flew off the seat again.

She hit her head so hard only a mute could have kept quiet.

“You say something, Kincaid?” he asked.

She could tell he wasn’t looking at her. His voice was directed toward the map. “I said forget the yo-yo. Now I know how a martini feels.”