Boneyard Ridge (3 page)

“I’m not going to hurt you,” the man’s voice assured her.

She didn’t believe him.

Sliding her hand into the pocket of her purse, she closed her fingers around the small canister of pepper spray she made a point of carrying.

“Don’t do that,” the man warned, a hint of steel in his deep voice. “We don’t have time.”

Even as the words rumbled from the gathering gloom, Susannah heard the growl of a car engine starting nearby. She saw the shadowy figure shift attention toward the sound, and she took the opening, kicking off her high heels and running toward the lights of the hotel behind her.

She didn’t get three steps before he grabbed her from behind, wrapping her upper body in a firm grip and lifting her off her feet so quickly she didn’t even have time to scream before his hand clapped over her mouth.

She tried to pull the pepper spray from her purse, but his hold on her was unshakable. She could barely flex her fingers.

The roar of the engine grew closer, and she started kicking backward against her captor’s legs. Her only reward was pain in her own heels as they slammed against what felt like solid rock.

“For God’s sake, stop fighting me!” He was running with her, ignoring her attempts to get away as he loped across the parking lot toward the woods beyond. “I’m on your side.”

The sheer audacity of his growling assurance spurred her fury, and she clamped down on his hand with her teeth.

A stream of curses rewarded her effort, but the man didn’t let her go. He just kept running, an oddly hitching stride that tugged at her memory until she realized where she’d heard that low, cavernous voice before.

The sad-sack maintenance man.

It’s always the quiet ones....

Suddenly, a loud stuttering sound seemed to fill the air around them, and her captor shoved her to the ground and threw himself over her body, pinning her in place. Her purse went flying, pepper spray and all.

The least of her worries, she realized as her rattled mind finally identified the sound. Gunfire. Her pulse started whooshing like thunder in her ears as she held her breath for the sound of more shots.

The engine noise she’d heard before faded, followed by the unmistakable squeal of tire on pavement. They were turning around and coming back for another go, she realized, her breath freezing in her lungs.

The man on top of her pushed himself off her, giving her a brief chance to flee his grasp. But she was too paralyzed with shock to make a move, and then the moment had passed. He grabbed her arm, dragging her to her feet, and started running.

As she stumbled behind him, she realized she had only two stark options—run with him or put up a fight that would give whoever had just tried to gun her down another chance to finish the job.

Her heart hammering wildly in her chest, she ran.

Chapter Two

Night had leached all the warmth from the hills, leaving behind a bitter, damp cold that bit all the way to the marrow. The collection of bone fragments, steel plates and screws holding his left leg together joined forces in a cacophony of pain, but Hunter ignored the aches and kept moving.

He wasn’t sure what the men with the guns would do once they realized he’d spirited their target away, but he knew whatever punishment they chose would be brutal and deadly.

Not getting caught was the only option.

A hiss of pain escaped Susannah’s lips, but he couldn’t let her stop running. Not yet. He could hear the sound of pursuers crashing through the woods behind them, a stark reminder of the consequences of being captured.

“Please,” she groaned, tugging at his hand until he slowed the pace, sparing a second to look at her.

In the faint moon glow slanting through the canopy of trees overhead, Susannah’s dark eyes gazed up at him in pain and fear. “My feet,” she whispered.

He looked down and saw she was barefoot. Blood stained her toes, and he thought about the hard, rocky trail they’d just crossed.

Damn it.

Scanning the woods around them, he spotted a rocky outcropping due east. “Get on my back,” he said.

She stared back at him, her mouth trembling open. “What?”

“You either run on those feet or you get on my back. Or you stay here and let those guys back there catch up with you.”

Her jaw squared. “Who are they? Who are you?”

He tried not to lose his patience, even though the sound of the chasers behind them seemed closer than ever. “They’re the people shooting at you. I’m the guy who’s offering to be your damn mule if you’ll just shut up and get on my back.”

Her mouth flattened to a thin line of anger, but she limped toward him as he bent at the knees, grimacing at the strain on his bad leg, and let her climb onto his back. He grabbed her thighs to hold her in place, surprised and annoyed at how the feel of her firm flesh beneath his fingers sent a sharp, undeniable arrow of lust straight to his groin,

Not the time, Bragg. Really not the time.

She wasn’t a featherweight, but running with a heavy load on his back wasn’t exactly a new thing to Hunter after two tours of duty in the Army. He’d been looking for a test of his reconstructed leg, hadn’t he? Here it was.

It was lucky the rock outcropping was only a half mile distant, he reflected once they reached it and he put her down to rest for a few seconds while he searched the granite wall for any sign of a nook or alcove in the rock face. He found it seconds before he decided to give up and started back toward where he’d left Susannah, only to find that she was a few feet behind, her eyes wide and haunted.

“What are we doing?” she asked in a hushed tone.

“Hiding,” he answered succinctly, sweeping her up into his arms.

She made a soft hiss of surprise but didn’t resist as he carried her through the dark opening into a cold, black abyss.

* * *

N
O LIGHT.
No sound but that of air flowing in and out of their lungs, fast and harsh in the deep, endless void. After a few seconds, even that sound settled into the faintest of whispers, easily eclipsed by the roar of Susannah’s pulse in her ears.

A sliver of deep gray relieved the darkness after a few moments, as her eyes adjusted. The narrow mouth of the cavern, she realized. The only way out. Or in.

If she weren’t so bloody terrified, she might find a spot of bleak humor in the idea of being curled up in the hard-muscled arms of a man she knew only as “the sad-sack maintenance man,” her bare feet bruised and bleeding, while they hid in a cave from unidentified gunmen.

It was like one of those movies her grandmother liked to watch on cable, the ones where the women were all beautiful, noble victims who inexplicably spent years being treated like garbage by the men in their lives before they finally found their backbones and fought back.

To hell with being a victim,
she thought. “What’s your name?” she whispered. Because he clearly wasn’t the sad sack she’d thought. And if he was just a maintenance man, she was the Queen of England.

“Hunter,” he answered after a moment.

“Susannah,” she whispered back. “I guess you know that already, though.”

“Yeah.” His grip on her tightened convulsively, as if he was about to drop her. She grabbed his shoulders in reaction, her fingers digging into an impressive set of muscles.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

“You can put me down.”

He eased her down until she stood upright, her sore feet flattening on the cold rock floor of the cave. “What happened to your shoes?”

“I kicked them off to run from you. I thought I’d be crossing nice flat concrete, not rocky soil.”

“Sorry,” he repeated.

He sounded as if he really was sorry, she realized. Of course, maybe that’s what he wanted her to think. Maybe he was trying to lull her into being a docile captive.

But two could play that game. If he thought she had decided to go along agreeably, he might drop his guard sooner, giving her a chance to make a break for it.

“You really don’t know who those people out there are?” she asked, not believing it for a second.

He didn’t answer. Now that she was on her feet, he’d moved slightly away, although she could still feel the furnacelike heat of his body close by, helping cut the biting cold of the cave.

A few seconds later, when it became clear he had no intention of answering her previous question, she asked, “How long before they give up?”

“They don’t,” he replied.

She’d been afraid of that. “Then how do we get out of here?”

He didn’t answer right away, and she felt more than saw him move toward the cave entrance.

She followed, noting with some dismay that while the pain in her feet had lessened, it was mainly because the cold had begun to render them numb. He edged over, giving her an opening to look outside with him, and she slid into the narrow space, her arm brushing his. He really was very muscular, she thought as she peered into the misty gloom.

Scudding clouds gathered overhead, blotting out most of the moonlight filtering through the trees. The darkness outside loomed like a physical entity, threatening and impenetrable.

“Rain’s comin’,” Hunter whispered, his drawl pronounced. Definitely a mountain native, she thought.

“Is that good or bad?” she asked.

He gave a little shrug, his shoulder sliding against hers. Heat slithered down her arm into her fingertips, catching her off guard.

Good God, woman,
she scolded herself silently, inching her arm away from his.
He’s your captor. And not in a good way.

“I don’t see anyone out there,” he whispered after a few minutes. “I think if we go a little deeper into this cave, we might risk a light.”

“A light?”

“Flashlight,” he said softly, tugging her with him away from the cave entrance. She stepped gingerly after him, less from pain than from the fear that her numb feet wouldn’t know it even if she were walking across a field of broken glass.

A few seconds later, a beam of light slanted across the damp cave walls, illuminating the tight space they occupied. The cave was narrow but surprisingly long, twisting out of sight into the rock wall. Hunter swept the light across the visible space, as if reassuring himself they were alone.

“No bears?” she whispered, quelling a shudder.

“Not at the moment.” He flashed an unexpected smile, baring straight white teeth and a surprising pair of dimples high on each cheek. A flutter of raw female awareness vibrated low in her belly, and she jerked her gaze away, appalled by her reaction.

His hand brushed lightly down one arm, scattering goose bumps where he touched her. He closed his fingers around her wrist, his grip solid but gentle. “Let’s take a quick look at your feet.” He tugged her with him toward a shelflike slab of rock jutting out from the cave wall. “Sit.”

She complied, wincing as the coldness of the rock blasted right through her skirt and underwear to chill her backside.

“Sorry. Didn’t bring a seat warmer.”

But he had brought supplies, she saw with growing alarm, as he reached into the pocket of his jacket and withdrew a soft-sided zippered bag that contained a compact stash of first-aid supplies.

Had he known beforehand that he was going to need to treat a wound?

He ripped open a packet and the sharp tang of rubbing alcohol cut through the musty odor of the cave. “This is gonna sting,” he warned a split second before he wiped the alcohol swab across one of the jagged scrapes on the bottom of her foot.

“Son of a—” She clamped her teeth shut and gripped the edge of the outcropping doubling as her seat.

“Sorry.” Once again, he sounded sincere, making her feel off balance.

He worked quickly, efficiently, as if he was used to offering aid. Hell, maybe he was. Maybe he was some sort of psychotic cross between Dr. McDreamy and Hannibal Lecter. Emphasis on the McDreamy, she added silently as she watched the muscles of his back flex visibly beneath the thick leather jacket he wore.

He couldn’t conjure up a new pair of shoes from his little first-aid kit, but he did wrap her feet in a liberal amount of gauze. As footwear, the gauze didn’t have a chance of lasting through another wild hike through the woods, but for the moment, the gauze was bringing her numb feet back to tingling, aching life.

She was beginning to wish they were still numb.

With her feet safely bandaged, Hunter turned off the flashlight, plunging them back into icy blackness. The shocking change from light to dark sent another hard shiver through Susannah’s chilled body.

Then warmth washed over her as Hunter settled on the rocky seat next to her, his hip pressed firmly against hers. She felt his arm wrap around her shoulder, and even though she wanted to pull away from his touch, the sheer relief his vibrant heat offered her shivering body was too much of a comfort to rebuff.

With a silent promise to grow a backbone as soon as she could feel her fingers and toes again, she nestled closer to his heat.

* * *

H
E’D LOST HIS
cell phone. In the greater scheme of his present troubles, it wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened to him out there in the woods, but it was bad. How was he supposed to call in the cavalry—assuming Quinn could assemble one—if he didn’t have his phone?

Beside him, Susannah Marsh had finally stopped shivering, her soft curves molding themselves to the hard planes of his own body. He’d felt her tighten up when he’d first slipped his arm around her, but she was a sensible woman. Even if she thought he was a crazy kidnapper—and really, she’d be an idiot not to—she surely saw the wisdom of letting him keep her from sinking into hypothermia.

“I’m not a crazy kidnapper,” he whispered, feeling foolish but unable to stop the words from slipping between his lips.

She stiffened beside him. “What proof can you offer in your defense?”

“I wasn’t the one with the guns?” Well, technically he did have a gun, a subcompact Glock 26 tucked in an ankle holster. But if he told her that—

“No, you’re the one who accosted me in the parking lot, dragged me barefoot through the woods and told me I had to run or die.”