CROSSFIRE (10 page)

In the hour since Hawk had left, the temperature had steadily dropped. Not much sunlight squeezed through the thick undergrowth. The only warmth came from the leather of his jacket, which she'd shrugged into the second he'd turned from her. The scent of musk mingled with that of pine and mud.

Somewhere beyond the thicket, needles crunched.

Relief blasted through her, kicking her heart rate into fast forward. Two years ago she'd never wanted to see him again, but now she couldn't imagine wanting anything more than to see him pushing through the undergrowth.

Seconds dragged into minutes, minutes into a sharp reality that prompted her to lift the Derringer and tighten her fingers against the grip. She waited, each quiet breath burning low in her chest. Her heart shifted from frenetic to slow motion.

The silence turned deafening.

Everything would be okay, she told herself for the hundredth time. Zhukov's men would not find her. Hawk wasn't dead. He'd return any moment, maybe with a search team. He denied having a plan, but she knew better. His denial sprang from his ridiculous desire to keep her off balance. No man embarked on a mission like that without a plan. No man who wanted to live, that was.

The thought stopped her cold. Did Hawk Monroe want to live? During the six months he'd been assigned to her, when she'd listened to him talk of his time in the Army, she'd often wondered if he'd harbored a death wish, but when she'd broached the subject, he'd turned her question into a challenge.

What's the matter, sweetness? Worried about me?

Wesley, I'm serious.

Trust me, doll. You don't want to know what a man like me wishes.

The memory washed over her, tightening her throat. For some reason she'd never figured out, the man thrived on playing with fire. He deliberately walked too close to the edge. The bigger the chance, the gamble, the more it appealed. He lived for the adrenaline rush. So far he'd always landed on his feet, but
Elizabeth
knew firsthand you could only tempt fate for so long before the grande dame decided to have some fun.

Learning that truth had robbed her of a fundamental piece of herself, a piece she could never get back.

Letting out a jagged breath, she winced at the sharp pain in her rib cage. She didn't need a primer. She was grateful for the way he'd skillfully brought the plane down, but that's where she drew the line. There was no room in her life for a man who thrived on coloring outside the lines in big, bold strokes.

The man might have a death wish but she did not.

A loud crack destroyed the stillness. For a punishing heartbeat she went very still, then lifted the gun and spun around.

The fading sunlight practically blinded her. Sharp rays slanted in through the canopy of pine needles, casting an indiscernible army of shadows. They shifted and blurred, merged. She squinted against the optical illusion, her heart slamming so hard she almost missed the gentle coo of a dove.

He emerged from behind a massive ponderosa pine, tall, battered, lifting his hands like a hostage taker in surrender after a lengthy standoff. His amber eyes were hard, his shirt torn, his faded jeans covered in mud.

"Wesley."
His name left her throat in a painful rush. She started toward him, forced herself not to run. She could have shot him. The awareness of how close she'd come staggered her. Alone in the middle of nowhere, there would have been nothing she could do to help him, except hold his hand as he bled to death.

"Did you find them?" She forced herself to focus on the matter at hand. Now was not the time, nor was Hawk Monroe the man, for emotion. "The men in the helicopter? Was it Zhukov?"

He didn't move, didn't so much as breathe.

She stopped inches from him, so close the heat of his body washed against hers. She could see the readiness of him, the animal-like hum of energy. She'd grown used to that, had even found comfort in his readiness. Stillness, however … stillness disturbed in ways she didn't understand. "Wesley? Are you okay?"

Slowly he reached out and curled his fingers around the barrel of the Derringer, then lowered it toward the ground. "Women with guns make me nervous."

She couldn't help it. A laugh slipped out all by itself. "I didn't think anything made you nervous."

His expression sobered. "You'd be surprised."

The invitation dangled, but she refused to accept. The last thing she needed was another Hawk Monroe surprise to distract her. "The helicopter? Were you right? Was it Zhukov?"

His eyes met hers, and in those swirling butterscotch depths, shone a glimmer of awareness. He knew. He knew she'd sidestepped his dare, and in doing so she'd somehow stung him once again.

"There were three of them," he said flatly.

His tone, more than the actual words, chilled. "Were?"

He took her hand and led her toward the thicket. "They're no longer a threat."

Horror shuddered through her. She glanced at his torn shirt, at the stains she didn't want to identify. "You killed them?"

He turned toward her, stood entirely too close. "Would that bother you?"

The question tightened around her chest like a vise. Hawk
Monroe
was a dangerous man. She'd always known that. He was a soldier. He was trained to take life with his bare hands. And yet, she'd rarely seen him in commando mode. Most of their time together had been idle, routine. Now the thought of him taking the lives of three men to protect hers lashed against something deep inside.

"Life is precious," she said quietly.

"Which is exactly why I couldn't let those men get their hands on you. Zhukov wouldn't think twice about using you to torture your father."

She swallowed hard. "Is that what they wanted?"

He lifted a hand and smoothed the hair from her face. "They wanted you, Elizabeth. Dead or alive. For Zhukov."

The rough-hewn words chilled, but she refused to let the reaction show. She didn't want Hawk to feel compelled to comfort her. It was bad enough his fingers lingered against the side of her face, that she absorbed their warmth like a benediction. She didn't need him drawing her into his arms, holding her against his chest. She didn't need to hear the steady thrumming of his heart.

"They told you this?" she asked with a calm that would have done her mother proud.

"In a roundabout way, yes."

Her throat tightened. She didn't want to know exactly how he'd procured the information, nor exactly what Zhukov's men would have done with her. She knew enough about the coward. Because of him, her sister had almost lost her life.

"What now?" she asked.

Hawk glanced toward the west, where brilliant slashes of gold and crimson streaked from behind the mountains. "We find somewhere to stay for the night."

Soon, darkness would cover the land, and with it, the cold would penetrate more deeply. She'd hoped a search party would find them before she had to spend another night alone with Hawk Monroe. She could barely draw a breath without a white-hot poker of pain searing through her rib cage. Soon he would notice.

And then he would insist upon inspecting.

"What about their helicopter?" she asked. "Can we use that?"

Frowning, he slid his hand from her face to his shoulder, where he rubbed. "Already tried. They must have hidden the keys."

"What about the radio?"

"Too risky. There's no telling who might intercept our message. Our best bet is to find shelter for the night and wait for a search party."

Resolve nudged against a bone deep instinct for self-preservation. Wrapping her arms around her middle, she hugged his jacket to her body and fought the automatic wince. The desire to feel
his
arms around her instead made absolutely no sense. Thrill-a-minute Hawk Monroe was the last man she should depend on.

At the moment she had no choice.

* * *

"It's not the Airport Inn, but it sure beats the Grizzly Motel."

The darkened cave opened before
Elizabeth
, small, cool, no bigger than her mother's closet. Neither of them could stand upright, but after more than an hour of hiking through steadily dropping temperatures, the damp rock formation beckoned like a virtual paradise. Each step had sent a spear of pain through her side. She couldn't have gone much farther.

Hawk skimmed the light of his kerosene lamp around the rocky room, revealing ledges but no other occupants. "Looks like we'll have it all to ourselves."

She dropped the small bag he'd allowed her to carry and slid down against a wall, ignoring the rocks jabbing into her back, the chill oozing through her jeans. "Thank God for small miracles."

He settled across from her and reached for his bag. His knees brushed hers. "Personally I was hoping for an abandoned cabin with
a
stocked kitchen and flannel sheets on the beds."

Her mouth tilted all by itself. "I was holding out for a chalet."

He laughed. "Ah, like
The Shining."

She thought about kicking him, but it would have taken too much effort. "More like
The Sound of Music."

His lips twitched. "Figures."

But this was real life, she reminded herself, and God knew real life never worked out as tidily as the movies. The fact that she had to spend another night with Hawk Monroe bore testimony to that. They couldn't even light a campfire, at the risk of the smoke drawing unwanted attention. They had only the kerosene lamp for light and a small wool blanket for warmth.

"Hungry?" He pulled out a plastic sack and dumped its contents between them.

Over twelve hours had passed since the fast-food breakfast they'd shared on the way to the airport. Focused on survival, she hadn't thought once about food. Until now. Ravenously she stared at the pile of energy bars and bottles of purified water he'd insisted upon picking up before their flight.

The rumble of her stomach echoed through the cave, answering for her.

He pushed two of the four bars toward her. "Eat up. You'll need your strength in the morning."

She didn't hesitate. She took a bar and peeled back the foil wrapper, bit into the tart lemony taste. Her mouth watered with gratitude. "Aren't you going to have any?"

He unscrewed a bottle of water and drank deeply. "Maybe tomorrow."

She swallowed the last of the first bar and looked at the second sitting at her feet. "Don't tell me you're not hun
gry—"

"I'm fine."

Through the flickering light of the kerosene lamp, she just stared at him. Cuts and dried blood streaked across the wide cheekbones of his brutally handsome face. A nasty bruise had started to form beneath his left eye, as though he'd caught a fist he'd not told her about. His shirt was torn, his jacket around her body.

She didn't want him sacrificing for her, damn it. She didn't want him blurring the lines like that. "Don't be ridiculous, you have to eat."

A strange light glinted in his eyes. "I'm trained for situations like this. I've gone days without food. You haven't."

Her throat tightened. She knew he spoke the truth, but hated the reality he'd lived. "Just because you've done it before doesn't mean you have to do it again. We have food. I don't need all of it. You know you want to eat."

He stretched out his long legs. "Ellie, Ellie, Ellie. I want a lot of things, that doesn't mean they're right or smart or that they should happen. Don't tell me you haven't realized that by now."

She stiffened, but could do nothing about the memory. The images flashed sharp and hard and vivid, sending her heart into a low thrum. Vividly she saw Hawk standing on the stage of the smoky, dimly lit bar, doing a mean Mick Jagger impersonation. The crushed-velvet voice of his had seemed directed solely at her as he'd sung of not getting what he wanted.

He'd gotten what he wanted that night, all right. Sometimes she still couldn't fathom how she'd lost control so completely. Alcohol, she wanted to think, but knew one beer was not enough to make her throw inhibitions aside and treat Wesley to a dose of his own medicine. A woman didn't need beer or wine or even whiskey around Hawk Monroe. He emitted his own elixir, and once
Elizabeth
had succumbed to curiosity enough to sip, the thirst had consumed her.

For seven mind-blowing hours.

She looked at him now, sitting not two feet away, and imagined she could feel the warmth of his body roll over her.

"This isn't about wanting," she said quietly. Because he was right. Wanting was a surefire prescription for disaster. "It's about survival," she reasoned, knowing the exact angle to play. "Zhukov could have more men out there—"

"Fine," he bit out, grabbing a bar and ripping off the wrapper. He shoved half of it in his mouth and chewed thoroughly, then polished off the remainder. "There. Is that better?"

She smiled. "Much."

His scowl deepened. "Zhukov's men are not going to lay one hand on you."

The fierce words sent an unwanted sensation twirling through her. She'd played dirty by dragging his job into the argument, but she'd known that was the only way to break through his stubborn self-sacrifice.