In sight of the enemy, p.7
In Sight of the Enemy, page 7
Was he actually blaming this fiasco on her? Janet’s finger squeezed the trigger a fraction, thinking of how satisfying it would be to splatter the man’s brains against the window. “You had them in your sights, you idiotic fool. All you had to do was shoot the man, and we’d have had her. Only an imbecile could screw that up.”
Jack’s jaw went tight, and he slid a sidelong glance at the gun, before training his gaze on the rocky terrain ahead. “They were armed, and they both jumped me at once. What was I supposed to do? I still managed to get a couple shots off, didn’t I?”
She smiled, a humorless stretching of lips over teeth. “You can’t shoot any better than you can follow orders. Had you waited for me to get there we wouldn’t be in this mess.” Just the thought of Benedict’s reaction to this problem sent a cold sheet of sweat creeping across her brow. Her boss and sometime lover, Benedict Payne didn’t tolerate failure. Just the thought of calling him about this disaster had her mouth going dry. She might as well turn the gun on herself, because her life wouldn’t be worth a dime if she disappointed him.
“Listen, you’re acting like it’s over and it’s not.” A thread of worry had crept into Jack’s voice. Janet barely noticed it. How would Benedict arrange her own end? she wondered sickly. Would he dispatch one of his men to take her out when she was least expecting it? Or would he do it himself, choking the life out of her as she’d once seen him do to a chemist who had threatened disloyalty? There was a boulder-sized knot in her throat and she couldn’t seem to breathe. She could wonder about her death, but she couldn’t doubt it. Benedict didn’t tolerate failure any more than she did.
“They’re heading for the forest, we know that.” Slowly, the man’s voice registered. “They think they’ll be safe there, but they aren’t. We’ll just go in after them. I’m a pretty fair tracker. Learned it from my dad. It’s pretty damn hard to move through the wilderness without leaving a trace.”
She watched him emotionlessly. Chances were, he was lying, trying to save his miserable life.
“C’mon.” The truck jolted over an unseen rock, shuddered, then stalled. “I grew up in eastern Texas. Been in and around forest all my life. I can find them. If they take the horse into the wilderness, they’ll have to stick to some sort of trail. If they go in on foot, I can still track them.”
Janet released the pressure on the trigger and considered. The man was desperate, that was evident. Desperation led to all sorts of exaggeration. But if there was even the slightest chance that he could do as he said, she could afford to spare his life. For now.
“Let’s hope you’re even half as good as you claim.” She slipped the safety back on and lowered the gun. “Because if you fail again, I won’t use a bullet on you. That’s too easy.” She thought of the syringes in her pack and smiled unpleasantly. “I have something far worse in mind.”
She could read the relief on the man’s face and nearly laughed. She didn’t suffer fools easily and once he’d outlived his usefulness, he’d die, just as the one before him had. But first she’d see if he could lead them to Donovan. Once she got rid of the woman’s companion and had her safely injected, she’d take care of the man at her side. Resolve replaced the cold terror she’d felt earlier. Nothing would stop her from taking the woman back to Benedict. Each of them had his or her own unique fate.
And she was going to be the one to make sure that Cassie Donovan met hers.
Chapter 5
Shane and Cassie plunged into the forest as if the hounds of hell were snapping at their heels. It was, Shane mused grimly, an apt analogy. The darkness of the interior swallowed them up, in marked contrast to the bright moonlight outside. He handed Cassie one of the flashlights, retaining the other. They clicked them on simultaneously.
“I’ll need to use the compass to navigate the way to the cabin.” Cassie’s whisper sounded out of place in the quiet.
“Is it in your pack or mine?” he asked, sweeping the area with the beam of the flashlight. The forest floor locked like a tangle of underbrush, and for the first time he considered the trail they would undoubtedly leave. It couldn’t be helped, however. At least the darkness would make it difficult to follow them.
“Mine.” She turned so he could unzip the pack she had on her back and rummaged inside it until he found the compass. He handed it to her, and she held it under the beam of her light, expression intent.
He used the time to study her. If she was fatigued by their adventure, it didn’t show in her face. She had her bottom lip caught between her teeth, the way she always did when she was concentrating on something. His gaze lingered there, remembering all too clearly the softness of her lips, their fullness, the taste of them that had never failed to strip his mind clean.
It had been his unprecedented reaction to her that had allowed her to get so close to him so fast. He had a lifetime of experience keeping his defenses raised. But there had been something about her from the first time he’d seen her. He’d attended an excruciatingly dull hospital benefit, had been counting the minutes until he could steal away…and then he’d caught sight of her standing across the room, talking to his friend Simon. It had been her looks that had drawn him across the floor, the sound of her laugh that had kept him waiting, impatiently, for Simon to introduce them.
And once he’d gotten close enough to see that hint of sadness in those amazing grass green eyes of hers, he’d been caught. Neatly and irrevocably. He couldn’t have walked away even if he’d wanted to. And it had been months before he’d wanted to.
The memories had sharp edges. Deliberately, he looked away. “Are you ready?” His voice was more brusque than he’d meant it to be.
“Yep.” She shoved the compass into her coat pocket and began walking. “The cabin is northeast of here. I don’t even want to guess how long a walk it is, though. We’re pretty wide of the way I usually go.”
“Just as well.” He fell in behind her. “We need to steer clear of any well-traveled paths.” Not that he could see anything resembling a path ahead of them. The vines covering the forest floor almost seemed alive, swirling on the ground and clutching at his ankles with every step he took. “It’ll be slower going through the thickest part of the forest, but it’ll be just as hard for anyone coming after us. We want to move as fast as we can, while leaving as little trail as possible.”
Cassie looked over her shoulder at him. “You think they’ll try to follow us in here?”
He hesitated. The last thing he wanted to do was alarm her, but she was sharp enough to see through any false platitudes he could offer. “I’m pretty sure they will. They’ve gone to a lot of trouble to catch up with you so far.” It rankled that neither Cassie or he had a clue why. “Where is Hawk, anyway? What the hell is going on?”
“I wish I knew.” Cassie bent suddenly, and then straightened with a long stout stick in her hand. She began walking again, the stick stirring the leaves before her. His stomach clenched as he recognized her intention. She was checking for snakes. Texas had more than a hundred different species, four of them poisonous. And the majority of snakebites happened because people accidentally sat or stepped on the reptiles. He eyed the ground warily. He’d never been overly fond of the creatures.
“He left for North Carolina a couple of weeks ago.” Cassie set a good pace as she continued to talk quietly. “He wanted to… He decided to try to find our birth parents.”
The news was surprising. Shane had known that Cassie and her twin were adopted, of course. But though they’d talked often of their adoptive parents, now dead, he’d never heard either of them mention their birth parents.
“What brought on his interest?”
She hesitated, and Shane’s instincts sharpened. “Hawk had tried other times to find them, but he always met with a dead end. This time he was determined to follow through until he discovered the truth. And he was able to trace our birth mother. She died when we were infants.”
Cassie’s stride lengthened. She still didn’t know how to feel about the news Hawk had shared with her a few days ago when he’d called. Her adoptive parents had been dead barely three years, her father in a car accident and Mom of a heart attack barely four months later. She and Hawk still grieved. Al and Holly Donovan had never treated them like less than their natural children, and Cassie had rarely spent time wondering where she’d come from.
But discovering the date of their birth mother’s death had given the woman substance, made her more real somehow. It had also summoned all sorts of questions for which there were no answers, at least not now. Her brother had shared only a few details, even more reticent on the phone than he was in person, promising to tell her everything once he got home.
“We have another brother. He found out that much. And I look like our mother,” she said softly, the words slipping out without planning them. “Hawk found a picture. He’s bringing it with him.” Just the thought of seeing her real mother’s face brought a welter of emotion, none of it easily identifiable. What should she feel for the woman who had given them life, then given them up? Gratitude? Anger? Had she wanted them to have a better life, or had they been a nuisance she couldn’t be bothered with?
There was a tug on her coat, and she turned quizzically to meet Shane’s gaze. To her shock, he reached out, pushed her hair back, his fingers brushing her jaw with a touch that still sent a quiver of awareness through her. “Then she must have been exquisite.”
His words surprised her even more than his touch had. But it was his expression that stole her breath. The gleam afforded by his flashlight threw his face into relief. She could see that his features had softened, the way they used to whenever he’d held her. And although she couldn’t see his eyes, for just a moment she allowed herself to imagine that a familiar look had stolen into them. The one that said he’d found something infinitely precious, something he wasn’t willing to let go.
But he had let go. Shane had given up on her all too easily. In the end he’d walked away without a backwards glance. The stark memory had her eyelids snapping open.
Cassie turned, deliberately stiffening her knees, which seemed to have gone to water. With her fingers tight around the stick, she proceeded to make her way forward again. Because despite the new life they’d created, despite the danger that threatened, nothing between them had changed in the least.
And that was the fact she needed to remember when her heart went all mushy and soft from a single caress. Shane Farhold might be the father of her baby. But that was all he’d ever be to her. All he’d ever let himself be.
“I’m telling you, it’d be better to wait until morning.” Jack Nearling stubbed his foot on a rock and muttered a curse. It was stupid to be following this damn broad up the rocky slope after Donovan and the guy. Even dumber to think they could actually make any headway trying to trail them in the forest at night. Did she think he had frigging night vision? The bitch may be some sort of genius, but this plan of hers was plain stupid.
Sheridan whirled on him suddenly, and he couldn’t help flinching. He wasn’t scared of no broad, but this one… She was more viper than woman. He hadn’t mistaken the look in her eye when she’d held the gun on him awhile ago. She was capable of using it. Not only that, but she’d enjoy it. The hair rose on the back of his neck and he took an involuntary step back.
“I’m not willing to wait by idly while they get farther away. We have a flashlight. If you’re as good a tracker as you claim to be, that should be enough light to follow them.”
He snorted at that, then at her glare turned it into a cough. “Believe me, it’s a bit harder than that. And there’s no telling how long the batteries will hold out. How are you going to feel about traipsing through the forest at night without a light, huh? Texas has its share of wild animals, not to mention poisonous snakes.” He searched her face carefully, but her expression was as flinty as usual.
“We follow them now. I don’t want their trail going cold. And I don’t mind shooting snakes.”
Somehow he didn’t think she meant the slithering kind. There was that look in her eye again, the one that reminded him of a dog he used to have. Best damn hunting dog he’d ever owned, until it had gotten a taste for blood. After that it would tear the game to pieces before Jack could get to it. Sheridan had that look to her, as if she’d spilled blood before and would enjoy doing it again.
“Okay, just don’t blame me if we’re stuck in there half the night without a light.” Silently, they trudged up to the timberline. It occurred to him that he’d have Sheridan at his back once they hit the forest, and the realization didn’t sit well. She might pay good, but he didn’t trust her. Not one bit. Once they caught up with the couple and offed the man, he wouldn’t put it past Sheridan to try to double-cross him.
They’d reached the edge of the forest, and Jack turned on the flashlight, carefully searching for a clue to where the two had entered. Maybe it was time for him to change the game plan. His eye caught a clump of broken twigs and he went down on one knee to examine it more closely. Whoever Sheridan was working for seemed to have plenty of money. Probably wouldn’t much care who delivered Donovan to him, as long as he got the woman. He rose, the idea filling him with satisfaction. All he had to do was get Sheridan to tell him who her boss was and where to find him, and he was in business.
“Did you find something or just decide this was a good place for a rest?”
His fingers tightened around the flashlight at Sheridan’s caustic tone, fantasizing about smashing the heavy Maglite against her skull. “Something came this way.” He took several more steps, sweeping his beam around the area. Yeah, he could definitely do this alone. He was the one she was relying on to find the broad and the guy, wasn’t he? What the hell good was Sheridan now? Whatever she had in that bag she was guarding so closely, he was sure he could use it on Donovan just as well as she could.
Thinking of the woman they’d come to snatch, his plan began to sound even better. Donovan was a damn fine-looking woman, with that long black hair and green eyes. First time he’d ever seen eyes that color. She was shorter than he usually picked them, not as round, but there had been curves there. Oh, yeah. He felt himself begin to harden at the thought of having that slender, feminine body under his, all that long black hair wrapped around his fists as he pounded into her. He could shoot the man, grab up the broad and have his fill of her before handing her over to Sheridan’s boss, collecting the money himself.
He cast a careful eye at Sheridan. First, though, he’d have to get the information he needed from her. It shouldn’t be that hard. She wasn’t half as smart as she thought she was. And there wasn’t a female alive who could outsmart Jack Nearling.
Pressing his palm against his stiff member, he grunted, adjusted himself. Things were going to go his way for once. And when they did, he’d get to screw a hot woman and then make a load of money off of her.
Not a bad reward for a job well done.
Shane shone the light on his watch. He figured they’d been walking about four hours. The vegetation had thinned, at least for the moment, easing their way. They’d taken short breaks for water and to answer nature’s call, but they hadn’t really rested. Each time he’d mentioned it, Cassie had stoutly claimed to be fine and had forged forward again.
Despite her arguments to the contrary, her stride wasn’t as effortless as it had been and her shoulders weren’t as straight. She was carrying the lightest pack, but he worried that even it would grow heavy as her body grew fatigued. He was just as eager to put as much distance between them and the kidnappers as she was, but he wasn’t willing to sacrifice her health to do it.
He was just about to propose they stop, as firmly as he needed to, when she halted dead in her tracks, so abruptly that he nearly ran into her. “Good idea,” he murmured. “I was just about to suggest…” His voice tapered off as he became aware of the aroma in the air. The distinctive smell of fresh blood.
Looking over her shoulder, he finally saw why she’d stopped. There was a mountain lion not ten feet in front of her, staring directly at them. Tannish brown, it was a full four feet long, with a long, thin tail tipped in black. Beneath it was what looked like the remains of a freshly killed deer. They’d obviously interrupted the cat’s feeding, and the animal didn’t look particularly friendly.
A warning roar split the air. It didn’t sound friendly either.
“Put your hands in the air,” Cassie hissed.
“We’re surrendering to it?” he asked incredulously.
“No, it’ll make us look taller. Put them up!”
Shane racked his brain for what he knew about the animals, and came up with nothing. He was a transplant to the area. It wasn’t as if they had large wild cats running around the hills of Boston. “So, I take it these guys aren’t friendly.” He raised his hands slowly, the flashlight and rifle still gripped in them.
“Especially when a kill is interrupted. I’d heard there had been sightings in this area, but no lion population has been documented around here for years.”
The lion roared again, giving them a look at a mouthful of very sharp teeth. “I’m willing to document the existence of this one.”
“We’re going to back up now. Real slow.” Shane stepped aside so that Cassie moved even with him, then behind. “C’mon!” she growled, tugging at his pack. In tandem they moved slowly back. The lion didn’t appear especially mollified. Its head low, it continued making low, threatening noises and took a few steps forward, snarling.
“If it attacks, fight back. Mountain lions have been driven off by prey that stands and fights.”
“Good to know.” Shane took another step backward. “Believe me, I have every intention of fighting if it decides to eat us.”
“I could shoot it.” Cassie’s voice sounded steady enough. They continued their odd dance, the two of them moving backward as the cat stalked toward them, its tail twitching. “Hard to miss at this range.”
