The distance felt like miles. The sound of the helicopter drew closer. Gasping for breath, still clutching each other’s hand, the two of them finally reached safety beneath the sheltering canopy of the trees. Alex’s legs folded and she crumbled to the ground in relief.
“Don’t stop. We have to keep going!” Nate yelled, almost yanking her arm out of the socket as he dragged her deeper into the woods. “C’mon, sweetheart, you can make it.” He pushed her ahead of him through the thick undergrowth, protecting her face from the tall ferns and thick brush that slapped and tore at both of them.
Fighting for air, Alex gasped, “I’m not your sweetheart!” She barely heard Nate’s bark of laughter before he suddenly pushed her through a thick tangle of ferns and shoved her to the ground behind a massive downed cedar.
She heard it then, in rhythm with the pounding of her heart, the
thrump, thrump, thrump
growing louder as the helicopter cleared the rim of the plateau. The noise moved closer, a throbbing beat she felt internally, as if it echoed deep inside.
The craft hovered close against the edge of the forest, just beyond the trees where she and Nate lay hidden. A sob caught in Alex’s throat. She pressed herself against Nate’s broad chest, welcoming the comfort of his strong arms and the steady beat of his heart against her cheek.
The helicopter hovered, suspended directly in front of their position. The wind from the blades whipped the branches and filled the air with dust and debris. Then the blast of air stilled as the engine powered down and the blades rotated without power. A few seconds later the forest went silent.
Nate held his breath. Alex’s entire body trembled and he was painfully aware of her shuddering attempts to control each gasping breath.
“This is the only place they could be, Duke.” The guttural voice apparently belonged to the third man. The unmistakable sound of a shell sliding into a rifle chamber punctuated his words. The predator stood just on the other side of the log, a few feet from their hiding place. A moment passed, and then he glided silently through the forest.
Alex’s trembling increased. Her eyes went wide and her terrified gaze locked on his. Her face was flushed, her skin damp with fear. Nate slowly raised his head, just in time to see the shadowy figure of the cowboy step into his line of vision. The man appeared to be moving parallel to their hiding place, though he remained partially hidden in the undergrowth on the far side of the log.
Alex flattened her body against Nate’s chest. Her eyes glittered with barely controlled hysteria.
A sudden crash of breaking branches and shouted curses drew a low moan from Alex’s throat. Nate pressed her face tightly against him, hoping to muffle the sound.
“What is it?” The cowboy pushed through the heavy undergrowth not four feet from their fallen log, moving in the direction of the disturbance. Nate exhaled a long sigh of relief, thanking whatever forest creature had bolted noisily through the trees.
Another set of footsteps paused near the far side of the log.
“No sign of ’em. Must’ve been a deer. C’mon. I wanna get the rest of the weed loaded, grab a few more of those pots. We can close up camp and be outta here in a couple of hours. They’re probably a couple of dumb tourists. It’ll take ’em at least a day before they can get to a phone, whoever they are. By then we’ll be long gone.”
“Right, Ed. Probably just tourists.”
“Let’s hope so, Sidney.”
A cowboy named Sidney? Nate held his breath as the voices moved closer.
“I think I spotted a tent when we circled around to come up here. We outta check it out.” Nate recognized the voice, the man in camouflage. The one with the assault rifle.
“Good idea, Duke. Get the chopper warmed up. No stupid tourists’re gonna screw me out of a haul like this. C’mon.”
The footsteps moved away in the direction of the helicopter. In the silence that followed, Nate was suddenly aware of the heat where Alex clung to him, the rapid flutter of her breath against his throat. Softly he brushed her hair back from her fear-darkened eyes, and his gaze was drawn to her parted lips, to the tiny beads of perspiration above her mouth, the smudge of dirt just to the left of her nose. In that instant, his entire existence spiraled down into the space between her lips.
Without any conscious thought at all, Nate closed the gap between them, softly pressing his lips against hers, thrusting his tongue into the tiny cleft that opened on her sigh to admit him.
Her eyelids flickered closed against his cheek, and the trembling in her body eased when their tongues met and touched and explored, oblivious to the danger on the plateau.
The rational part of Nate’s brain insisted on dissecting the kiss, commenting on the concept of danger as an aphrodisiac, and offering congratulations for coming up with such a terrific idea to calm Alex.
The rest of him was quickly moving into sensory overload.
Suddenly, Alex’s eyes flew open and she pulled out of his arms. She rolled away from him, looking shocked and disoriented, and Nate shivered at the unexpected abandonment.
Nate gave Alex’s shoulders a quick squeeze, wondering briefly at the rigid set to them, then eased up over the log to see if the men had gone. Alex’s taste was still on his lips and tongue, and he had the irrational desire to stand up and ask everyone to hurry up and leave so he could kiss her again.
But the men’s voices still carried through the dark woods and the helicopter waited silently at the forest’s edge.
Chapter 6
Nate moved silently back to Alex’s side, stretching out so close beside her she could feel his touch at shoulder, hip, and ankle. Avoiding his eyes, she listened for the sound of the departing helicopter. Finally she heard the engine cough to life, then the frighteningly familiar sound of the chopper rising and then hovering over the plateau. The noise slowly faded and finally disappeared altogether.
Alex touched her swollen lips with the tips of her fingers, not certain whether to be angry with Nate or to thank him. Never in her life had she been so afraid. That kiss definitely had taken her mind off the danger.
She still felt a heaviness deep in her belly, a warmth that even fear couldn’t chill. She wondered if Nate had been as affected by the kiss as she had. Before she had time to think about it, she asked him. “Why did you kiss me?”
“I don’t know. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.” He didn’t look at her. Taken at face value, his answer seemed flip, but his voice sounded unnaturally husky. “If I upset you, I apologize.”
She thought about that a minute and decided she didn’t really want his apology. But she didn’t think she wanted him to kiss her again either. His kisses confused her too much. “You don’t have to apologize. You didn’t upset me, but please don’t kiss me again. It never happened, okay?”
Nate’s agreeable nod and soft “okay” let her know he agreed, and the tension that had been building around them eased. Still they waited, not looking at each other, hesitant to leave this place of quiet and comparative safety. Finally Nate broke the silence.
“Do you want to go back to camp or try to make it cross-country to the ranger’s station?” He asked the question as if he were giving her a choice of a walk through the park or a trip to town.
Alex realized she had no choice. “I think we need to stop them. We can’t let them take the pots. Somehow we have to return the pottery to the mountain.” Now where did that come from?
Nate turned to look at her. He was so close that when he spoke she felt his words against her cheek. “You’re crazy, you know. They’d kill you in a minute. These guys aren’t just playing around. Drugs are big business, big money. Artifacts make it even bigger.”
“I know. But what they’re doing is wrong.” Alex shrugged and pushed away from him. She felt oddly disoriented. Nate had to be the cause. After what had happened between them she needed distance, a sense of control. She sat up, brushing twigs out of her tangled hair.
Nate watched her, fighting his desire to help, but he held back, unwilling to make her angry when he figured she was already on the edge. He knew any offer of assistance, no matter how slight, would shake her up. Irritate her. Especially now. He wondered if he’d really blown it by kissing her.
“Alex, I want to go back to camp. I know they spotted it, but they might have missed the radio. If it’s still there, we’ll call Roger, then maybe we can do something to slow them down until he gets here. I’d feel better knowing we had help on the way.”
Without answering, Alex grabbed her pack and looped the heavy straps over her shoulders. Nate reached over to help her. He recoiled at the stains of her fresh blood on his hands.
“Were you shot?” He stretched out her arm to look for the source of the bleeding.
“No.” Shook her head and explained, “Just scratched from the rocks. When the bullet ricocheted.” She looked down at her arm, where blood oozed from a dozen tiny cuts.
As she turned back to Nate, he noticed the bleeding along her cheek and high on her forehead for the first time. Tiny spots, not painful to her, but frightening to him.
“God, Alex. You’ve got blood all over you.” He grabbed his handkerchief, poured water on it from his water bottle, then swabbed at the drying blood on her face and arm. She winced. He forced himself to move slowly, to calm the frantic motion of his hands.
He eased her pack off her shoulders and set it to one side, out of the way. Some of her cuts were deep, shards of splintered stone still imbedded. He cleaned them out carefully, wondering how he could have missed seeing them when he kissed her.
“Do you think you can make it back to camp?” He held her arm firmly, wiping at the blood, trying to staunch the flow from the deeper wounds.
He’d had no idea. None at all, but she was hurt. There was blood everywhere.
Alex shrugged, aware of an unfamiliar tension in her shoulders. “Yeah, I’m okay.” Looking around, she felt even more disoriented in the aftermath of danger. A dull ache remained in her midsection, a reminder of the intimate link she’d experienced earlier to the petroglyphs.
She’d have to think about that another time, when her mind was working, her thoughts clear. Now, nothing was clear. Nothing at all.
She tried to pick up her pack without pulling away from Nate’s firm grip. Why did his hands feel charged against her skin?
Absently, she pulled her arm out of his grasp and rubbed the stinging, tingling flesh. She was ready. Her gear was packed. All she had to do was pick it up. It was time to head down now, while she still had the strength.
“We’ve got all your stuff.” Nate looked around, then looked again. “I don’t see mine anywhere. I guess I didn’t grab it when we ran over here.” He shook his head. “It’s amazing, the effect gunshots have on an otherwise civilized man.”
He reached for Alex’s pack, still chuckling, and threw it over his shoulder. When she protested, he ignored her. They started down the hill.
Alex soon fell a few steps behind. She was completely exhausted, her adrenaline spent. Their camp suddenly seemed a long way down the mountain.
It took them longer than it should have, but a little over an hour after the attack on the plateau they slipped quietly through the heavy woods only a few hundred yards from the campsite. Alex was desperate for a chance to sit. She sighed and rested her back against a huge fir tree. In spite of using the rest of her strength to remain upright, Nathan stared at her, as if daring her to object to his help.
With her legs trembling and her mind spinning, she let him help her sit with her back against the tree.
Damn, but she looked ready to fold. Nate knelt in front of Alex and rested his hands on her shoulders. She turned her head away, refusing to look at him.
“Look, Alex.” Nate touched her hair, then the side of her face where more blood had dried. Slowly he drew her chin around so that she was forced to look him in the eye. “I’m not trying to put you down or tell you what to do, but you’re hurt, and I know you’re exhausted. You’ve burned through whatever reserves you might have had. Just stay here. I’m going to go into camp, see if they found it, if they’re there.”
She shoved his hands away and quickly struggled to her feet, but he stopped her protest.
“I promise to be careful. Please.” Once again he grasped her chin, forcing her to look at him. “They could be there. We’re unarmed. What they could do to me is nothing to what they would do to you.” He looked away for a moment, gathering strength, controlling his emotions. This possessiveness he felt, the desire to protect, surprised him.
“I just want to see if the radio is intact. If it isn’t, I’ll come back and get you and we’ll get the hell out of here.”
Alex didn’t say a word, but she let out a deep breath and then surprised him when she actually smiled.
Surprise turned to shock when she leaned forward and kissed him.
He wasn’t sure what she intended, wasn’t certain he even cared, but the instant their lips touched he could have sworn that everything between them sort of settled into place. Whether it began as a sweet gesture, a thank-you, or maybe just a
glad we’re still alive
kiss, it quickly grew into something that threatened to swamp whatever rational thoughts he might have.
It was so natural, the way his mouth moved on hers, the way her lips responded. It was soft, questioning, a gentle exploration of the taste and texture of her lips.
As she tasted his in return, one hand reached for him, and he felt her fingers in the tangled hair at his nape and her lips moved over his, then parted, allowing his tongue to gain entrance.
He tested the softness of her lower lip, touched his tongue to her teeth, tangled gently with the tip of her tongue, the inner recesses of her mouth.
He felt as if he was crawling inside, becoming a part of her, all through a simple kiss. His mind spun as he plundered the secrets of her mouth with his lips and tongue and the contours of her body with his hands.
She didn’t stop him when he pressed his palm firmly against her back and his fingers traced each vertebra along her spine. No, instead she leaned close and groaned softly when he slid his hands low, cupped her buttocks and pulled her tightly against him. He was hard as a rock, and he lifted her against him, letting her know in the simplest, most explicit way possible just how much he wanted her.
Needed her.
She kept kissing him, her mouth moving over his, her lips soft and damp, and he slipped his hand beneath her shirt and trailed his fingers along her side, cupping her breast in his palm, kneading the silky skin and circling the taut bud of her nipple.
His balls ached, and it was the sweetest pain he’d ever known. His senses were filled with Alex, with her taste, her textures, her scent. He kissed her again and again, and knew at the most profound level that he would never be the same again.
She was drowning in him, losing herself in waves of primitive desire that threatened her last remnants of control—becoming desire, becoming the touch of lips and tongue, of mouth on mouth, of hand to breast and flank.
She was losing control.
As the reality of what they were doing, how deeply they were submersing themselves, one into the other and the two of them into desire, Alex knew that Nate was reaching the same conclusions as she.
Too far, too fast.
The kiss ended by mutual consent. Nate pulled away as awareness returned to her, and the two of them lost themselves, each in the eyes of the other. Alex was the first to break contact, glancing away briefly over her shoulder, then pulling out of his arms. When she looked back, he was grinning at her, a lopsided smile formed with lips swollen from their kiss.
“You don’t have to apologize,” he whispered, diffusing the moment by mimicking Alex’s earlier statement. “You didn’t upset me one bit.”
There was no way she was going to get out of this gracefully. “Well . . .” She fought to control a smile, pinching her lips between her teeth. “Don’t do it again.”
“Me?” He flashed her a wide-eyed, innocent look. “I didn’t do a thing.” Then his expression turned serious. “I’m going in.” He held her face in both his hands. “I’ll look for the radio then get the hell out. Wait for me here.”
“I’ll wait.” Were those her words? Her skin felt very cold. Already it was happening, the subtle handing over of her life. Nate was making the decisions, expecting her to agree without question, and she, fool that she was, did exactly as he expected.
The kisses they’d shared, the kisses she’d instigated and had enjoyed more than any kisses from any man ever, suddenly felt threatening. Alex shuddered, realizing how close she had come to giving everything to Nate, to giving him control.
Nate disappeared into the thick underbrush. “Good luck, be safe,” Alex whispered, knowing he wouldn’t hear. She meant the words, but the passion that had burned her moments before was now a cold, empty lump under her heart.
Minutes later he was back. She heard movement in the undergrowth and suddenly Nate appeared, pushing the heavy brush aside. Alex breathed a ragged sigh of relief.
“The radio’s gone. They busted the damned thing into a million pieces.” He suddenly looked tired, discouraged, and totally frustrated by this turn of events.
“Then we need to go after them ourselves.” Alex knew there was no other choice.
Nathan looked at her like she was crazy. “What we need to do is get out of here and get to a phone somewhere, or at least to a place where we can get a decent signal for our cell phones.” He was already putting her pack over his shoulder and preparing to leave, not even looking to Alex for confirmation.
“I’m not going with you.” Her eyes narrowed; she held her body rigid. When Nate reached for her, she pulled away.
“By the time you get to a phone, they’ll be gone. The pottery will be gone. They won’t expect us to come after them.”
“And do what?” Nate exploded, grabbing both of Alex’s shoulders as if he wanted to shake her, or kiss her, anything to make her see reason. “They’re armed, remember? Big gun, lots of bullets? What are you planning to do? Order them into submission?” Shaking his head, he let go of her and reached down to grab her camera bag.
She pulled it out of his hands. “I’ll think of something.” Damn, that sounded stupid. Her eyes burned. Unshed tears, anger, it didn’t matter. What she wanted never seemed to matter.
Just like when she worked with her father. It was always the man’s choice, his decision that counted. She took a deep, steadying breath.
“Look, we’re wasting time.” She fiddled with the clasp on her camera bag. Open, closed, open, not wanting to look into his eyes, afraid of what she would see. “If I could get photos of their camp, identifying numbers on the helicopter, anything else to help catch them, to convict them, that would help, wouldn’t it?”
Nate didn’t answer. His silence infuriated her. “Look. If you were out here with Roger Dalton and this happened, you wouldn’t hesitate to go after those jerks. Right? Don’t insult me by basing your decision on my gender. I deserve better than that.” Now she did look at him, gauging his reaction.
To her surprise, he actually appeared to think about what she’d said.
He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, all the while staring at Alex, as if he were weighing her abilities. Finally, she could tell he had reached some sort of decision, one that didn’t seem to make him particularly happy.
“By the time we find help, they’ll probably be long gone, along with any of the artifacts they’ve found. I’d give anything to stop these guys.”