“I’m not saying this to try to scare you, Natalie. We both need to do better than our best if we’re going to survive.”
If
they were going to survive?
Natalie didn’t like the uncertainty of that. “Do you really think they’ll come after us with a helicopter?”
“Cárdenas is the ultimate narcissist. We escaped from him, killed five of his men, stole arms, ammunition, and a car from him. His ego won’t be able to stand it. Hell, yeah, he’ll come after us with a helo. He’ll send ground troops. He’ll alert the cops and
federales
who work for him. By leaving the highway, we’ve bought ourselves some time. But his men are out there, Natalie, and they’re hunting for us.”
She pushed on the gas, nudging the needle past seventy.
Outside the window, drab, parched hills rose from drab, parched plains that stretched as far as the eye could see, stands of tall cactus and scraggly shrubs dotting a brown landscape that shimmered with heat. Other than the occasional jackrabbit that darted across the road, Natalie hadn’t seen any sign of life. It certainly didn’t seem possible that they were on the outskirts of a big city, but Zach insisted that Chihuahua wasn’t far ahead and that the only way to reach it safely was to take the back roads.
They’d been making good time on Mexico 45 when he pulled out one of the Zetas’ cell phones and called someone named Carlos, his Spanish sounding like gibberish to her—something about new houses, bridges, and goat horns. All he’d told her afterward was that they needed to get off the highway and ditch this car. Then he’d pulled out the phone’s SIM card, tossed the phone out the window, and told her to take the next exit.
Only later had it dawned on her that his phone call might have had less to do with getting her safely home and more to do with the stolen cocaine.
She’d been on the brink of asking him once or twice about the coke but had thought the better of it. She couldn’t afford to have him dump her by the side of the road out here in the middle of the desert. The landscape was every bit as deadly as the Zetas. And with nothing stronger than a promise to keep him from abandoning her, she needed his goodwill. She wouldn’t say anything.
Not yet.
“THIS ISN’T WORKING!”
Zach raised his head and glanced up to where Natalie was bent over a mesquite branch, trying to rub out the car’s left tire tracks, her hair tied back, the AK she’d insisted on carrying slung over her shoulder like an ugly purse. “Put more muscle into it.”
“Easy . . . for
you
. . . to say.”
It
was
hard work, and he supposed having two X chromosomes made it tougher. Then again, none of this had been easy for her.
You’ve been hard on her, too, McBride.
Yeah, he had been.
He’d done well enough when he’d been in chains and needed her help, but for the past few hours all he’d done was issue orders. But she wasn’t a SEAL. She wasn’t a deputy U.S. marshal either. And she sure as hell wasn’t an enemy combatant or a fugitive. She was an innocent civilian, a young woman who’d suffered more than her share of tragedy, who’d witnessed a massacre, who’d been kidnapped and assaulted, who’d been forced to kill. She deserved his respect—and some damned human kindness, if he could manage it.
Yet his first priority was getting her safely home again. And that meant staying focused on the objectives, which, at the moment, were evasion and escape.
Driving the Tsuru down into the arroyo had been a bitch. Zach had made Natalie get out of the car just to be safe, and for a few seconds he’d thought he was going to roll the damned thing or get stuck in the sandy, dry bottom. But the vehicle was now concealed beneath a concrete bridge, hidden from anyone who might drive by or fly overhead. Once its tire tracks were wiped out, it would take an expert in cutting sign to know they were there.
Or that was the theory, anyway.
He walked slowly backward, swishing the branch across the sandy soil as he went, careful not to fall down the steep bank as the ground became softer and less stable. He was about to warn Natalie to watch her step, when he heard her gasp. He looked up in time to see her tumbling toward him.
He reached out and stopped her fall. “You okay?”
She sat up, nodding. “I’m a little dizzy, but I’m fine.”
He took one look at her face and knew that wasn’t true. She was flushed, but she wasn’t sweating. “You’re dehydrated.”
She looked puzzled. “I’m not thirsty.”
Not good.
He’d seen men die from the heat in Afghanistan as medics struggled in vain to save their lives. He knew that dizziness and lack of thirst were
not
good signs.
“Let’s get you into the shade.” He drew her to her feet, slid an arm around her waist, and guided her over to the car and into the passenger seat, taking the AK from her. He propped the rifle against the car, then reached into the backseat for a bottle of water, ripped off the cap, and pressed it into her hands. Too bad there were no powdered electrolytes to go with it. “Drink. A few gulps, then regular sips.”
While she drank, he touched his palm to her forehead, and was relieved to feel that her skin was neither clammy nor feverishly hot. She was definitely dehydrated and on her way to overheating, but she didn’t have heatstroke. Not yet.
You pushed her too hard, you dumb shit.
She looked up at him. “Were you a paramedic in your past life or something?”
“No.” He dug through the crap in the backseat for the first-aid kit, then pulled out a cotton washcloth. “But I do know a few things about first aid.”
“That’s a good skill for someone in your, um . . . line of work.”
“You got that right.” He would’ve loved to hear what line of work she thought he was in, but this wasn’t the time. “Quit talking, and keep drinking.”
You’re giving orders again.
He grabbed another bottle of water and dropped to his knees beside her, then poured out enough water to thoroughly wet the washcloth and pressed it against her forehead and cheeks, hoping to bring down her core temp.
She sighed, her eyes drifting shut. “Oh, that feels good.”
A bolt of heat shot through his belly straight to his groin.
His mind knew her response hadn’t been sexual, nothing seductive intended, but his body apparently didn’t. He drew his hand back, knowing he was in trouble. But then she turned her head, exposing the side of her throat, and he couldn’t resist.
He pressed the cool cloth against that sensitive area, watched goose bumps appear on her soft skin. She sighed again, the sweet sound making his own temperature rise. Slowly, she tilted her head back to allow his hand to pass beneath her chin, then turned her face toward him, her eyes still closed, her mouth relaxed.
By the time she opened her eyes, his lips were almost touching hers. And for a single, slow heartbeat, he stayed that way, unable to speak, his mouth so close to hers that he could nearly taste her, his gaze fixed on hers.
What the . . . ?
He jerked back, dropped the wet washcloth in her lap, his brain searching for words. “I . . . You . . . You can probably handle this yourself.”
She looked up at him. “Thank you. For helping me.”
“I need to get back to hiding our tracks.” He stood and walked away, his abrupt retreat startling a few swallows out of the mud nests they’d built in the bridge’s life-giving shade. “Keep drinking.”
He walked back into the blazing sunshine, grabbed his mesquite branch and rubbed furiously at the tracks—which now included the soil disturbed by her fall down the embankment.
What the fuck was wrong with him?
That Zeta bastard must have shocked him one too many times, because only fried brain cells could explain what had just happened. He’d almost kissed a woman he was charged with protecting—while administering first aid, no less
.
That kind of mouth-to-mouth is against the rules, and you know it.
Okay, so he hadn’t technically been
assigned
to protect her, which meant that the rules didn’t technically apply. In fact, her being with him was purely coincidence and had nothing to do with this case. But he did
not
get mixed up with women while on the job. He did
not
develop feelings for them, and he certainly did
not
get physical with them. That wasn’t marshal service policy; that was his own personal policy. And he
never
broke his own rules.
Maybe it was just the situation—the two of them being thrown together like this, forced to work together to stay alive, sharing the dangers of a survival situation, his being injured, her being vulnerable. He knew from his years in combat how walking that line between life and death could make two people bond. A bit of pheromone had probably gotten mixed in with all the adrenaline. Simple enough to explain.
And how many of your SEAL teammates did you try to kiss?
Ignoring that stupid question, he stood back, his gaze moving over the embankment, searching for any sign he might have missed—a shoe print, an overturned rock, obvious swish marks. Satisfied, he walked backward under the bridge, rubbing out his footprints as he went and assuring himself that he’d done just as thorough a job of rubbing out any inappropriate impulses he might have had toward Natalie.
When he reached the car, she was sound asleep, her lashes dark on her cheeks, her lips relaxed, an empty water bottle perched in her slender fingers. A sensation of warmth spread inside his chest.
Oh, McBride, you are in such deep shit.
He slid quietly into the driver’s seat, felt her forehead and was relieved to find it cooler. Then he settled his rifle at his side, took the empty bottle from her, and, helpless to stop himself, watched her sleep.
HELL, YEAH, HE’LL come after us with a helo.
His men are hunting us. They’ll come after us in a helo.
Hell, yeah, he’ll come after us.
In a helicopter.
A helicopter.
Natalie jerked awake on a jolt of adrenaline, only to find that she hadn’t been dreaming. From somewhere overhead came the deep whir of chopper. And it was getting nearer.
“Easy, Natalie.” Zach sat beside her in the driver’s seat.
“They don’t know we’re here. They’re just coming in for a closer look.”
Heart thudding, she sat upright. “How do you know it’s the Zetas?”
“They passed over once already at a higher altitude. I can’t imagine anyone else wanting to circle back to get a closer look at this bridge. Time to move. Come on.”
Her mind fogged by sleep, Natalie had no idea what he meant. “Where are we going?”
“We’re getting out of the car and into position just in case they land.” AK-47 in hand, he climbed out, then retrieved a bag of gear from the backseat.
She followed him, scrambling up the embankment to where it met the underside of the bridge, crouching down beside him and watching as he opened the duffel bag and drew out weapons one at a time. He checked each one as he went, talking quickly, his hoarse voice taking on an almost businesslike tone.
“If they land, we’ll have no choice but to engage them. I’ll be at that side of the bridge, trying to take them out as they disembark.” He pointed to his right. “Your job is to stay here and keep an eye on the other side in case someone escapes my fire and tries to circle around that way. The objective is simple—shoot to kill. There could be as many as seven of them, so we’re outnumbered. But we have the tactical advantage.”
There wasn’t time to ask what he meant by that.
He handed her an AK-47 and a pistol. “The AK is on full auto. Just hold down the trigger and spray back and forth. And you remember how to use the pistol?”
Natalie stared down at the heavy weapons in her hands, a sense of unreality coming over her. Was this ever going to end? “Yes, but I . . .”
The helicopter seemed to beat down on them now.
Zach tucked a finger beneath her chin and lifted her gaze to meet his. “You didn’t bring this on yourself, Natalie, but you’re in it now. You’re going to have to stand strong if you want to get home again. Understand?”
There was no reproach in his eyes, only concern, his dark eyebrows knit together in a frown, his voice as reassuring as it had been when she’d been locked in that cell.
She drew a deep breath, tried to force her fear aside. “Go. I’ll be fine.”
But he didn’t go. Instead, he lowered his head—and kissed her.
It was barely a brushing of lips, and it lasted for only a second. But for that brief second the world disappeared. There was no helicopter. There were no Zetas. There was only Zach and the shock of his lips against hers. And then it was over. Astonished, Natalie stared after him as he hurried away, his head bent low, duffel bag in hand.
He kissed you, girl.
So she
hadn’t
imagined it earlier. When he’d been helping her to cool off, she’d opened her eyes to find him leaning over her, his lips so close to hers and . . .
But now the helicopter was on top of them, and there was time to think of nothing else. To her right, Zach got into position, lying on his belly, his head toward the top of the embankment, his legs spread wide, toes dug into the dirt. He adjusted something on his AK-47, another rifle at his side, spare magazines tucked in the back of his jeans.
The seconds crept by.
The metallic whirring of the chopper’s propeller.
The thrumming of her own heartbeat.
The cold weight of a gun in her hand.
Then the helicopter lifted into the sky, the deep pulse of its rotors disappearing into the distance.
CHAPTER 8
THE SUN WAS setting by the time Carlos finally arrived, the western horizon turning a pale shade of yellow. The pavement radiated heat from a day of relentless sun. In the distance, a pack of coyotes yipped and howled.