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They set out again. Determined not to hold him back any more than necessary, Angie did the same thing she’d done when she’d first injured her ankle and was crawling down the mountain: She put the time and distance out of her mind, and concentrated on simply moving. She concentrated on the rhythm of step, walking stick, step; she’d read somewhere that when you were using a single crutch or a cane you held it on your strong side, but that didn’t make sense to her, so she held the walking stick in her right hand and used her upper body strength to take pressure off her ankle. Whether or not her system was as stable as holding the walking stick in her left hand, she couldn’t say, but her object was to keep her ankle from swelling up more than necessary.
Step, walking stick, step. She didn’t let herself flag, didn’t falter. Step, walking stick, step. She kept moving.
If he could have, Dare would have carried her. Did she have any idea how she looked, with her dark eyes so focused and intent, yet at the same time the expression in them was so faraway he doubted she’d hear him if he spoke? She wasn’t going to stop, she wasn’t going to give up.
This was how she’d come down the mountain during the storm, with everything else pushed to the side except what she needed to do; at least this time she was walking instead of crawling. She soldiered on, regardless, with the kind of resolve that the most hardened soldier would be proud to have.
His heart pounded hard, just watching her. There were millions of sweet, regular women in the world he could have fallen in love with, but he’d chosen her, a woman with grit in her gut and steel in her spine. When they fought—and they would fight—she wouldn’t back down an inch if she thought she was right. There might be some hard living in the days and years ahead of him. Hell yeah! He could hardly wait.
Not that he’d even breathed the word “marriage” yet, because he didn’t want to spook her until she was a little more settled with the idea of them being a couple. She was still brooding over the idea of him being her boss, which told him it hadn’t even occurred to her that the situation might be the other way around, that she was thinking about a semiprofessional relationship instead of a one hundred percent personal relationship in which she’d definitely have the upper hand, because, hell, she was a woman.
What was it with her? Weren’t women supposed to be the ones so focused on relationships and shit like that? She’d made one mistake, she’d had the balls to make sure that one mistake didn’t go one inch further, but then she’d beat herself up for not caving and pretending everything was all right, and staying with someone who she knew didn’t love her the way he should. Dare had the feeling Angie didn’t do anything halfway; from the very final and definite step she’d taken to get rid of the man who’d disappointed her, she was willing to go the distance—and beyond—to make her point.
He had to be crazy to be so crazy about her, but there it was, and damn if he wasn’t happy about it … now. Three days ago, he’d thought he needed his head examined, but even as bad as the night of the storm had been, since then he’d recognized what an opportunity God, or fate, had handed him. He’d made the best of it, too. Last night had been damn good. They fit together, physically, temperamentally, even their personalities. They made each other laugh. Even as solemn as she could be sometimes, he’d seen her eyes light up, seen her face relax and her lips curve and damn if she didn’t have some fuckable lips—
He wrenched his thoughts from that direction, because hiking with a hard-on could get damn uncomfortable.
After they’d been walking for two hours, he called a halt to let her rest, and for them both to drink some water. They hadn’t started out until close to nine o’clock, so he figured there was no way they’d reach Lattimore’s before dark, but they’d be okay. They were experienced in the outdoors, and they were prepared.
Angie sat on a rock while she sipped from a water bottle, her gaze sweeping over the rugged valleys opening up before them. Dare sat beside her and studied the same vista. Down below, the flood-swollen creek curved away to the left, but some distance ahead it swept back to the right, and somewhere, somehow, they would have to cross it. He could hear the creek even from this distance, a dull, distant roar as the rushing water tumbled over the rocky creek bed.
He pictured the topography, planning their route. He didn’t want to go all the way down to the creek, because there were rock formations that covered acres, and Angie couldn’t handle crossing them. In some places, going around them would be even more hazardous than crossing the rocks, so their best bet was to stay high enough to bypass the creek bank entirely. There was one place where they might—might—be able to cross the creek, and he’d check it out when they reached the area, but his plan right now was to go far enough south to pick up the road. That would take
longer, but ultimately be a lot safer.
What the hell. He didn’t mind spending another night with Angie before they got back to the real world.
Progress was slow. Chad thought he could head east, but a swollen stream kept forcing him farther and farther to the south, till finally he was going in the right direction: down the mountain instead of cutting across it … at least for now. Time after time, just when he thought he was making some real progress, he ran into something that forced him off his chosen direction. He had to backtrack and go around obstacles so often he kind of lost track of how far he’d traveled, and that worried the hell out of him. What if he didn’t make it to Lattimore’s today? As cold as the weather was, he’d freeze his ass off tonight if he had to sleep out in the open.
Common sense told him he hadn’t traveled that far out of the way, that it was his impatience making every delay feel like hours when in reality it hadn’t been that long. The horse wasn’t making great time, but it was still faster than if he’d been on foot. Angie had mentioned that the camp had been almost ten miles away from Lattimore’s ranch, which wasn’t a great distance, so with any luck, he’d be on the road in a couple of hours, four at the most—hooray and hallelujah. His stomach growled, but he didn’t want another protein bar; he wasn’t that hungry yet. When this was over with, he hoped to hell he never had to see another protein bar in his whole life. After he crossed into Canada there’d be time to stop for a good, hot meal before he caught the next flight out to Mexico.
He could almost see it, could almost taste the freedom. Another name, more money than he knew what to do with … and he was so close …
He guided the horse along the tree line of a meadow, studying the land falling away below him, trying to figure out exactly where he was and where he needed to go, when something far down the meadow caught his eye.
He’d grown so accustomed to seeing nothing before him but mud and trees and blessed blue sky, it took him a moment to focus on and identify the movement down and to his right.
People. Two of them—a man and a woman. They were still a good distance away, and unless they turned around and really searched for movement, they wouldn’t see him, because he was still under cover of the trees. They were in a large clearing at the moment, unprotected by the trees that shielded Chad.
He didn’t have binoculars with him, but he did have the scope on his rifle. Moving carefully, he lifted the rifle to his shoulder and peered through the scope; at first he didn’t see anything because the field of vision was so narrow and he had to “acquire the target,” as the man he’d gone to for lessons had called it. Using small movements, he swept the scope back and forth until he found them, then adjusted the focus. Davis had made fun of his scope when he saw it, because it wasn’t one of the fancy brand names, but who was laughing now? Chad hadn’t seen any point in spending a thousand dollars for a scope he didn’t intend to use other than for show. He was pleased now that the scope worked just fine.
The man below was a big son of a bitch, but Chad didn’t recognize him. He identified Angie right away, though: the dark hair, her height, her shape—not that he could see her shape, because she was wearing that heavy coat, but he knew the coat. She hobbled along, with occasional help from the big guy. She’d been hurt after all, somehow, but not badly enough to stop her. He couldn’t begin to imagine how she’d met up with someone else who was also on foot; what were the fucking odds of that?
They both carried rifles slung over their shoulders, and they were on the path Chad needed to take in order to get off this damn mountain. He wasn’t going to waste a minute trying to go around them. Damn it, they were in his way.
Chad dismounted, said a couple of soft words to the horse, and looped the reins loosely over a branch. Rifle in hand, he sighted in on the couple below, but he couldn’t hold the weapon rock steady and at that distance even a tiny waver meant he’d miss his target.
No, shooting from this far away was too risky. He couldn’t be certain he’d hit his target, and he didn’t want to give them any warning. Rapidly he formulated a plan. Kill the man first, before they suspected that they weren’t alone. Not that Angie wasn’t a good shot, but she wasn’t very mobile, and he could outmaneuver her if by chance he couldn’t take her down, too, before she could react.
He’d practiced with both the pistol and the rifle, and he was a good marksman, but shooting downhill was a bitch at the best of times and his targets were moving—slowly, but moving. He had to get closer, but getting closer meant leaving the cover of the trees and exposing himself to view if they should happen to look behind them, not to mention return fire. And if he didn’t manage to get both of them, there would be return fire; he had to plan on it, choose his position accordingly.
The long downward sweep of the meadow was heavily dotted with rock—slabs of rock, boulders big and small, some barely jutting out of the earth and others sitting there like huge lumps. There was a lot of cover to be had, if he could get to it without being noticed.
He took notice of the wind. It had been swirling all day, coming first from one direction and then another, but now it was blowing straight into his face. Marksmanship was mathematics, taking every little factor such as wind and drop and bullet velocity into account. He’d focused more on the pistol, knowing that was how he’d take down Davis, but he knew the basics of distance shooting. This didn’t qualify for true distance shooting, because they were no more than a hundred and fifty yards away at the most, but considering what was at stake he didn’t want to risk a shot that might miss.
They were moving at a snail’s pace, which was to his advantage, but he couldn’t delay too long or they’d reach the tree line below and he’d lose them. With the wind blowing sound away from them, they weren’t likely to hear him. Chad moved to his left, putting one of those big boulders between him and his targets, and headed for the boulder at a half-run, crouched low.
He was getting excited. It looked as if he’d get his hunt, after all. This was the wild, and in the wild survival of the fittest was the rule nature and man—and woman—lived by.
