Authors: Kathleen Creighton
"What is this place?" Julie asked Chayne, bending to peer out the window. "Why are we stopping here?"
For a minute she thought they were still in Baja after all. The silvery moonlight illuminated a building of whitewashed adobe, a belfry rising with poignant and lonely dignity above its heavy wooden doors.
"It’s a
church
," Julie said incredulously, answering at least part of her own question.
"Abandoned," Chayne said briefly. "We’ll rest here till daylight."
"How in the world did you ever find this place?"
"Never mind. Are you getting out? I thought you were dying."
"Look at that—those walls must be three feet thick!"
They had climbed stiffly out of the truck and were both rubbing circulation back into cramped limbs. Behind them the terrorists were emerging from the camper and doing the same, talking softly as they followed Pepe up the short, steep rise to the dark, massive doors.
"There’s a creek down there, just over that bank. You can wash up. Or whatever. And Julie—" Chayne put his hands on her shoulders and waited until she raised her eyes to his face. In a curiously urgent undertone he said, "Don’t try anything stupid, huh? This time it might not be me who comes after you. Promise me you won’t run, Julie, or I swear I’ll come with you, and I won’t let you out of my sight."
"I promise," Julie lied glibly, not even bothering to cross her fingers.
Chayne studied her intently, then sighed and gave her a little shake. "Look," he whispered, "I suppose it’s too much to ask, but damn it, you’ve come this far with me. Can’t you bear with me a little longer? Please. Julie, don’t cross me up now." His head moved against the sky and his lips touched hers gently. And then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he returned with a low groan and a sigh to claim her mouth with a kind of restrained desperation. "
Promise me
."
She swallowed, then ruthlessly blocked out her trembling response to him. "I promise."
"All right, Julie." He lifted his hands reluctantly. She could feel his eyes on her as she made her way across the silvery ground to the creek bed.
Unlike most Southern California streams in August, this one had water in it. It chattered and chuckled, and its banks were cushioned by a thick carpet of oak mulch that deadened her footsteps. It was a chance—her only chance. If only her knees weren’t shaking so. If only she couldn’t still feel the warmth of Chayne’s mouth on her own.
God help me—I’ve got to do it. It all depends on me.
She hesitated only a fraction of a second more before moving swiftly and soundlessly down the ravine.
She hesitated longer when she came to the place where the creek crossed the paved road, flowing under it in corrugated pipes too small to wade through. She would have to cross in the open. If only it weren’t such a bright night. But it had to be done; she was committed now. Like a runner on starting blocks, she got ready…set…then darted across the pavement in a half crouch.
She was crawling under the barbed wire on the other side when she heard an exclamation in Spanish, an answering oath—Chayne’s voice—and heavy, running footsteps.
Julie had a head start and she was fast, but it was a long way across open pasture to those clustered rectangles of light, the windows of the ranch houses. She ran headlong, with grim determination rather than panic, and with all the speed and strength her years of conditioning had given her. But even without panic the sensation was nightmarish; she couldn’t feel her feet touch the ground, so she seemed to be flying in slow motion while the lights in the distance came no closer. Whistling wind and the thunder of her heart filled her ears, so she couldn’t hear her pursuers, and she didn’t dare waste energy looking over her shoulder.
Run. Just run. Don’t look back. Only a little farther now.
The lights were gone; there was a little hill between the pasture and the house. All she had to do was get over that hill. She had the strength. Did she have the time?
Oh, please, God, don’t let me stumble!
A barbed–wire fence loomed ahead in the moonlight. For one wild moment she wondered if she could vault it. But reason prevailed. With a whimper and a curse she dropped to her stomach and began to wriggle under the bottom strand.
A heavy weight came down between her shoulder blades, slamming her to the ground and crushing the breath from her lungs. Instinctively she tried to turn to face her assailant; the sneakered foot between her shoulders jammed angrily forward and she froze. A stream of appalling profanity poured from the dark silhouette looming against the sky.
"You had to do it, didn’t you?" Chayne spat the words between his teeth, sucking in air in harsh gulps. "Damn bloody little fool—I told you not to try it!"
"What did you expect—"
"
Shut up!
Shut up and lie still! I expect you to have some
sense.
To use your— Hell, I don’t know! Damn it, Julie, you try my resources. I’m running out of subterfuges to keep you alive."
His words were punctuated with little sounds of effort. Julie strained to see what he was doing, and went rigid with shock. He had reached into his shirt and pulled a gun from the waistband of his jeans. Julie recognized her own service revolver.
"No! Chayne—"
"
Shut…up!
For God’s sake, shut up and lie still!" He inspected the chambers and released the safety. Julie opened her mouth, but before she could even acknowledge terror it was over. The night exploded and echoed and reverberated all around her—and once again, inexplicably, she was still alive. Chayne had fired twice in rapid succession into the soft turf beyond her head.
While she lay dazed and numb with shock, he dropped swiftly to his knees beside her and rolled her limp body under the fence. Then, tucking the gun back into his shirt, he crawled after her.
"Chayne, what—I thought—"
"Yeah, I know what you thought." His whisper was harsh and bitter. "For the last time, keep your mouth shut. Play dead, damn it. Sound carries on a night like this. I don’t know how much they can see, either."
There were a million things she wanted to ask, but she swallowed all of them and forced herself to remain limp as Chayne bent and hoisted her body over his shoulder.
Why does he always carry me like this?
she thought with giddy irrelevance; it was so undignified, with her bottom in the air and her head dangling. But she couldn’t ask him that, either.
She had no choice but to do as Chayne told her and play dead, allowing herself to flop lifelessly as he strode rapidly, half running, around the base of the hill and into a grove of oaks that hid them from view of the church across the pasture.
Under one dark and spreading canopy he dumped Julie untidily onto the prickly, spongy oak mulch, then turned away from her, poised and listening. The gun, she noted, was back in his hand.
Half–drunk with fear and confusion, she heard her own voice like the sound track from a very old movie, high and tinny. "Why do you do that? I hate to be carried like that!"
"Hush." He was a shadow among other shadows. A panther crouched and ready to spring. After a long and suspenseful wait he moved again, turning back to her and tucking the gun away.
"I won’t be carried like a sack of beans!" Julie said in a childish quaver. She was close to real hysterics, but completely unable to do anything about it. She couldn’t seem to control what was coming out of her mouth.
Chayne dropped to one knee beside her, murmuring, "Easy…easy," in the tone of voice one would use to quiet a skittish horse. And then, in a calm, matter–of–fact voice, like a professor in a classroom, "I’m sure you know that’s the most efficient way to carry a dead weight, and it has the added advantage of leaving me with a hand free. Now—" His fingers brushed the side of her face. "Are you going to be able to pull yourself together?
"You sh–should have sh–shot me," she said jerkily. "I told you—"
"Julie, for God’s sake."
"I told you I’d keep trying. What are you going to do with me now? You know I’ll do it again. I’m going to stop you or die trying. I’m—"
His hands bit hard into her shoulders, and his mouth chopped off her ragged ramblings. She began to struggle for air, forgetting in her befogged state that she could still breathe through her nose. Blackness had begun to creep in around the edges of her consciousness before Chayne released her. She fell back limply, gasping and sobbing for breath. Chayne caught her shoulders again and gave her a violent shake.
"Now maybe you’ll shut up and listen to me. I’ll have to leave you here—you’ve given me no choice about that—and I can’t— Oh, hell." His hands dropped away and he sat back. Here under the trees it was dark, and he was only a darker shape. Faceless.
She wished she could see his eyes. His voice sounded so tired. Almost defeated.
"Julie. Why is it you always seem to drive me to violence? Every time you come near me I want to either strangle you or make love to you. Do you have any idea how you’ve complicated my life?"
She opened her mouth to make a sardonic retort and then closed it again. Something in his tone kept her silent. In the darkness his fingers found her face and traced it, like a blind person trying to memorize the face of a loved one.
"I suppose I have no right to ask this of you. I need you to trust me, Julie. Bear with me. Things won’t always be like this. There’s so much I’d like to tell you, but I can’t. Not now. Please. Julie?"
His fingers gauged her response. She closed her eyes tightly and pressed her lips together, holding herself rigid, holding her breath against the shuddering sob building inside her chest, and after an eternity his hand dropped away. She heard him whisper, "No. S’pose not."
And then, lightly, his tone wry, he went on. "Would it make any difference at all if I told you I love you?"
He’s mocking me. Of course he is. He has to be. Oh God, let him be joking…
"No," Julie said thickly, gulping down tears. "It wouldn’t."
"If you go to the police, you’ll probably cost me my life. You know that, don’t you?"
"If I don’t go to the police, you’ll cost hundreds of others!"
"Damn it, Julie, I’ve told you—stopping me won’t change that. Why can’t you believe me?"
"And why can’t you understand that as long as I’m alive, I’ve got to try to stop you?"
Chayne swore with eloquence and ingenuity. He hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her hard against him, so hard she felt the buttons of his shirt bite into her flesh, felt the rapid rise and fall of his chest betraying the suppressed violence in him. Felt the furnace heat in him running like wildfire along her own nerves.
"Strangle you or make love to you," he whispered, and kissed her with a barely restrained savagery that left her feeling bludgeoned. "Remember this while you’re dialing your station, Guerita."
His hand was on her neck, fingers tangled in the hair on her nape, thumb forcing her chin up while his mouth ravished hers. How quickly and ruthlessly he stripped away her defenses, pretenses, protestations. His body bore her against the steel barrier of his arm; his hand swept down, plunging inside the neck of her shirt to torment a hardening nipple. Julie heard the helpless whimper deep in her own throat and arched convulsively against him even as her doubled fists braced against his shoulders in a vain effort to push him away.
And then with shocking suddenness he tore her from him. Her breath escaped in a gasping sob of rage and anguish. "Oh—you monster!
You bastard
!"
Chayne’s only answer was his familiar mirthless chuckle as he stood and, in one swift moment, hauled her up and over his shoulder.
This time he angled up and over the little rise, her weight impeding him no more than if she’d been a hiker’s pack. His body was heated and damp with sweat, but it was more from emotion than exertion. And now, going downhill, he broke into a half trot as Julie hung on to the belt loops of his jeans and cursed softly when she bumped her chin on his back and bit her tongue.
Where in God’s name was he taking her? She had a vague impression of fences and dark buildings, of large moving shapes and some startled woofs and snuffles. A door slammed, and a few seconds later something cold and wet nuzzled her face.
Chayne muttered something that sounded like, "Down, Jack," as a woman’s voice called with tentative alarm, "Is someone out there?" And then, "Oh—my goodness!"
"Hello, Maddy," Chayne said.
"Chayne, what a surprise!"
Julie felt herself being lowered abruptly and set on her feet. Chayne’s hands steadied and turned her. She stood blinking in the light, disoriented, shaken and utterly bewildered.
They were standing on wide steps leading to a veranda, and on the veranda, silhouetted against an open doorway filled with warm yellow light, stood a slender woman in slacks, one hand pressed to her forehead and the other to the front of her shirt.
"What in the world?"
"Can’t talk now," Chayne rapped out, and taking Julie by the arms, pushed her ahead of him up the steps.
Can this awful night possibly get any more nightmarish?
It was all Julie could do to keep her balance on legs that had lost all sensation and substance. The dog kept crowding against her, trying to nuzzle Chayne’s hand; Chayne was thrusting her into a strange woman’s arms.
"Take care of her for me," he rasped, and planted a kiss on the woman’s incredulous brow. Then he ruffled the dog’s fur, snapped, "Stay, Jack," and was gone.
There was silence. At their feet the dog whined softly.
In a pleasantly musical voice, the woman said to the empty night, "Well, it’s always such a pleasure to have you stop by, dear. Do come again soon." She turned her attention to Julie. "Well." Dark eyes swept her from head to foot. "I won’t apologize for him. If you’ve had any association with him at all, I expect you’re used to his behavior—at least a little." The expressive mouth twitched with amusement; it reminded Julie of something, but she was too befuddled to think what. "Please, come inside, dear. You look like you could use something to drink." A surprisingly strong arm slid reassuringly around her waist. And that, too, was somehow evocative.