by Janzen, Tara
“Do you know something I don’t?” she asked.
“Not about Cardena.”
“Then let’s go with my gut feeling and try to find out if he knows what’s happening in Sulaco.”
“Let’s not.”
And had he always been this stubborn? “Why?”
“For starters, I told him we were going to La Rosa, and if you don’t mind, I’d rather not be exposed as a liar, as a journalist, or as Joshua Rios. So let’s go with my gut feeling and skip breakfast.”
“We’ve already accepted.”
“You accepted,” he corrected her. “Change your mind. You’re good at that.”
Now what in the hell is that supposed to mean?” She threw her hands up in the air in frustration. “Lord, Josh! Did we always fight like this?”
“Yes,” he said curtly.
“Then how did we ever get the stories out?” she asked, truly perplexed.
“Desperation,” he replied, a grin twisting his mouth. “It was either work or starve.”
Despite her best intentions, Nikki felt an answering smile touch her lips. “Well, it doesn’t get much more desperate than this. Can we call a truce?”
“Only if you let this story go and leave with me now.” Neither his tone nor his countenance left any room for compromise.
“Okay,” she said recognizing a total defeat when she suffered one. If he had known all the reasons she wanted to question Luis Cardena, she might have persuaded him to stay. But compared to the advantage of possible updated information on Delgado, the risk of alienating Josh was too great. Besides, she thought, she’d manipulated him into being anxious to get to Sulaco. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, she pushed away from the table.
Silently, he rose with her, and together they made their way back through the wide hallway. Cardena’s voice coming from one of the side rooms brought them both to a halt. Nikki started to make their presence known, but Josh’s hand on her shoulder stopped her.
“Yes,” Cardena said into the telephone, his back to the door. “I have both of them here. I’m sure it’s him. He gave his name as Juan Alonso, but he fits the description, and they seem very close. . . . No, my friend, it was not luck. Your men did their job last night. There are only two tracks out of the river road. They were bound to run into me or the men I stationed at the other outlet.”
Josh had heard enough, more than enough. They had been herded like sheep to the slaughter last night. The realization galled him to the core. Sliding his hand down her arm, he urged her to go forward, but she balked. His eyes widened meaningfully. Now was not the time for indecision, bickering, or hanging around.
Gas, she mouthed, adding emphasis by lifting her eyebrows.
Well, he was damn sorry they didn’t have any gas, but the tightening of his fingers told her he didn’t think this was the place to get it.
But Nikki knew they wouldn’t get very far without it, and she for one was willing to play Cardena along for a while to get it.
Josh wasn’t. He pushed her forward with a force that brooked no argument.
Softly and quickly, they slipped down the hall to the front door, Josh propelling her all the way. He’d rather take their chances on foot in the forest than sit around waiting for Cardena and his friend to make their decisions for them.
The creak of bootsteps on the wooden porch sounded through the screen door, and Josh pulled her to a stop. He slid his hand inside his satchel and pulled out a gun. Nikki’s heart plummeted.
Josh sneaked up to the door and peered around the jamb. When he caught a glimpse of the ranch hand descending the steps, he felt the first glimmer of hope he’d had since he’d jumped back into Nikki’s life and landed in a pile of trouble. Armando had left the gas can sitting on the porch. Josh waited a few more seconds, counting the other man’s strides away from the house. When he figured it was as safe as it was going to get, he opened the door and whispered, “Run.”
Nikki bolted across the porch, heading straight for the forest. Josh grabbed the gas can and ran up the driveway, pocketing the gun and pulling out a knife. He ducked behind the far side of the pickup truck and slashed two of the tires, buying them precious time. Then he lit out behind her, legs pumping, the gas can bouncing against his thighs and straining the muscles in his arms.
Grunting with exertion, he caught up with her at the last ranch building. His instinct was to reach out and take her arm, but he knew she’d be faster on her own.
“Alto!” The cry to stop came from behind them, followed by the slamming of a door and a gunshot.
Cardena missed. Josh swore. “Pick it up, Nikki!”
She was already flying, her feet flattening tufts of grass, her arms working like pistons. But at his command, and with the powerful incentive of the rifle’s report ringing in her ears, she found an extra burst of speed. She passed him in a blur of khaki legs and streaming blond hair.
Josh let her hold the lead and would have given a year’s wages for any kind of break in the austerely flat landscape, a hill, a ditch, anything they could drop out of sight behind or in. He heard the truck engine fire up.
A grim smile flickered across his mouth. He focused his concentration on the line of trees ahead and tried not to remember how long it had been since he’d run a mile. His chest hurt. His muscles burned. The gas sloshed back and forth in the can, threatening to throw him off balance with every footfall.
I can make it . . . I can make it. The litany ran ceaselessly in Nikki’s mind, convincing her long past the time when her legs and lungs told her to throw in the towel. Huffing and puffing, a stitch in her side, she jogged the last few yards into the forest and collapsed against a tree.
Josh kept going, afraid to lose the momentum he’d gained. Within the protective shadows of the forest, she’d be safe until he got the car started. Then what? According to Cardena there was a welcoming party waiting for them at the end of the other road out of there, wherever that was. They must have passed the junction in the dark. Not that it mattered. He wasn’t going back for anybody or anything. They’d have to take their chances crossing the ranch again.
Great, he thought, thoroughly disgusted with the whole situation and with himself for letting her drag him into it. If they got out of this alive, he was going to . . . going to . . . Hell, he didn’t know what he was going to do, but he could guarantee she wasn’t going to like it.
He dropped the can at the rear of the car and fell gasping over the trunk, his fingers twisting the gas cap off. She wasn’t going to like anything from there on out, because this was his show now. He’d had enough of mystery, of men with guns, of running his guts out. The gas glugged into the empty tank. When the last drop fell, he tossed the can into the trees and stumbled into the car.
Nikki heard him coming, fast and furious down the rutted track, driving her little Chevy as if it were a tank. She pushed off the tree, keeping one arm wrapped around her waist. He lurched to a stop, barely giving her time to get in before he took off again. The forward motion of the car whipped the door closed behind her.
Biting her lip against the pain and not caring what he thought, she flipped the glove compartment open and grabbed the bottle of antacid tablets. When she had three in her mouth, she slumped back against the seat and silently prayed for relief.
Josh glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She looked awful. Sweat beaded her brow and ran into her hair, turning the golden strands dark. Her skin was pale, her facial muscles tight.
“Buckle up,” he ordered, getting angrier with each passing second. Dammit, she should take better care of herself.
With hands made weak by a trembling nausea, she did as she was told, wrapping the safety belt across her shoulder and waist.
The car bounced and flew down the dusty track. True to its name, the road followed the river, skirting the far reaches of the ranch. Up by the house, Josh saw Cardena and Armando double-timing the tire changes, but he knew they couldn’t work fast enough to catch him an
d Nikki. Not the way he was driving—heedless of every rut, skimming the obstacles, sliding through the curves—like a man with nothing left to lose but his life.
Ten
“Where are we now?” Josh asked.
Biting back a smart remark, Nikki checked the creased and folded map in her hands, then looked out the window at the landscape slipping into shadows drawn by the setting sun. The savanna was long behind them, replaced by the forested mountains of northern San Simeon.
“About ten or fifteen miles from Sulaco,” she replied, forcing a helpful tone into her voice.
Josh glanced at the gas gauge. “We’re not going to make it.”
She pressed her lips tighter together. If he expected her to be surprised, he was in for a rude awakening. Any fool could have figured out his bit of news. Hell, she’d known it for at least the last half-hour.
They’d bartered for fuel at one of the small villages they’d passed earlier in the day, but in a country made up of wandering back roads and meandering byways, a tank of gas didn’t go very far. Especially if someone insisted on wandering and meandering along those self-same byways.
“We should have taken the highway,” she muttered under her breath, unable to hold her frustration in any longer. For emphasis, she snapped the map with a loud crack.
Josh’s jaw went tight. “Let’s not get into it again . . . please.”
Their truce had gone down in flames the first time he’d ignored her directions. She didn’t know what he was up to, but she knew he had something up his sleeve. He’d been too quiet for too long. Not once had he asked her for anything other than directions he didn’t bother to follow. She should have been grateful. Instead she was sinking into surliness under the weight of his silent treatment.
“Now where are you going?” she asked in exasperation as he turned onto a road even worse than the one they were on.
Josh checked the sun, his watch, the gas gauge, and decided to tell her the truth. “North.”
“North?”
He nodded and raked a hand through his hair, sweeping it back behind his ear and over his collar. He looked beat, she thought. A fine layer of dust dulled the stripes in his shirt and clung to the hairs on his forearms. Faint smudges of weariness darkened the skin below his eyes. Nikki felt awful knowing she was the cause, but she wasn’t about to tell him so.
“There’s a lot of north up ahead. Could you be a little more specific?”
He shot her a quick look. “The border.”
“The border?” Her brow furrowed with a bad premonition. “We don’t have to go all the way to the border. Sulaco is five miles in.”
His continued silence confirmed the worst. He had no intention of going to Sulaco, hadn’t had any such intention since they’d left the ranch. No wonder they’d been switchbacking the countryside like a mule with a burr under its tail.
“You’re making a big mistake,” she said, quelling a burst of panic and reaching for her antacids. “A big mistake. We have to go to Sulaco.” Brazia wouldn’t care what side of the border they were on if he caught up with them. And Josh, she knew, wouldn’t go quietly. She popped two of the tablets into her mouth and ground them to a paste.
“No, Nikki. You’re the one who made a mistake. If you want to tell me about it, maybe”—he cocked a brow in her direction—“maybe we can work out a compromise to get you back to your boyfriend.” The lie slipped out smoothly, devoid of his instinctive urge toward sarcasm. He’d decided what he was going to do with her, and nothing was going to stop him. Once before he’d tried to get her out of the country and failed. He wasn’t about to fail this time, not when everyone in San Simeon seemed to want a piece of her.
But neither did he want to delve too deeply into his reasons. He might concede a quirk of masculine pride. He refused to acknowledge the possibility of love. The last twenty-four hours had beaten that stupid notion out of him. No sane man would love a woman who put him through what Nikki was putting him through—a wringer of danger and deceit.
Still, when he looked at her, nervous and overwrought, chewing those damn tablets as if her life depended on them, he knew he cared. And when she kissed him, he still wanted her with a fierce possessiveness he’d never felt for any other woman;
Certifiable, he thought, letting out a heavy breath.
They were on the verge of getting lost again—Nikki tasted it in the air, felt it in her bones—and this time they would run out of gas for good. She kept well to her side of the seat and tried to figure out what to do when the Chevy gasped its last drop of petrol. She made a point of ignoring his offer of compromise. Her plan, however messed up it had gotten, had no room in it for compromise. Arriving in Sulaco alone would get her nothing, not her mother’s freedom, not Josh’s safety, nothing.
“That’s it,” he announced as he steered the car to a stop under the tangled branches of an overgrown tree. Dirt and gravel crunched beneath the tires with ever-lessening sound until the dusk’s silence fell completely about them.
They sat listening to each other breathe, Josh with his hands on the steering wheel, his arms straight and stiff, his, shoulders up around his ears, Nikki with her fists clamped around the map, both or them staring out the windshield.
One way or the other, whatever it took, she had to get him to Sulaco.
And he was taking her to the border if he had to hog-tie her and drag her there.
“We—”
“You—”
They had both spoken at once, not much, just a single word apiece, but enough to cause her to reconsider her hastily formed demand. She wasn’t in a position to demand anything of him. She’d have to think, use her head and probably part of the truth to get him to Sulaco.
“We can’t stay here,” she said, gathering up her stuff. Any step forward was still a step in the right direction until they passed Sulaco, which she was determined not to do. She’d think of something. She always thought of something.
“Don’t forget your Life Savers.” He lifted his hips and shoved the car keys into his back pocket. Then he reached behind them for his satchel.
His arm brushed her shoulder. Their eyes met for an instant before she quickly glanced away, chiding herself for foolishness and an oversensitivity to his touch. She leaned forward an unnecessary degree to retrieve her antacid tablets from the glove compartment.
Josh swore silently and dragged the satchel into his lap. She didn’t have to worry about him touching her. He’d learned his lesson the night before. Every time he touched her crazy things happened, things they didn’t finish, and things he couldn’t forget. No, he was better off keeping his hands and his foolish thoughts to himself.
Little was said as they transferred supplies from the trunk to his satchel and her duffel bag. They’d prepared for a hundred camping trips in much the same manner. Nikki took the food and the sleeping bag, and Josh took the bottles of juice and beer, and a poncho to use as a ground sheet. Neither commented on the lack of a second sleeping bag. They’d make do. They always had before without any problems. Of course, that had been when they were both more wrapped up in any story they were investigating than in each other.
The forest began to thicken twenty feet off the road and continued to thicken until Nikki thought somebody should mention the fact.
“I think we should stick with the road.” She slapped back at a leaf slapping her.
“I don’t.”
Okay, she thought, and tried another tack. “It will take us days to get through this stuff.”
“One night and one day,” he corrected her.
A twig caught in her hair, jerking her to a stop. She swore and snapped it off, leaving a piece tangled around a few sweaty strands of hair. “You’ve got all the answers, haven’t you,” she muttered.
He whirled around so fast, she bumped into him. “No, Nikki,” he ground the words out and jabbed the air with his finger. “You’re the one with all the answers, and until you give them to me, we’re doing things my way. So
either start talking or save your energy for walking!”
She stumbled back a step, startled by his tirade. He dragged a hand through his hair, shaking his head and swearing through closed teeth. Then he turned on his heel and crashed forward, breaking tree limbs and stomping foliage into the mud.
Nikki watched him, catching her breath and nervously wiping the back of her hand across her mouth. She was going to have to tell him the truth, and soon. One more lie, one more evasion, and he’d walk right out of her life.
The sun hung in the sky, holding back the night and any chance she had of dropping with exhaustion. They’d been trudging through the tangle of undergrowth for only an hour, but little sleep, less food, and a heavy burden of guilt were taking a toll on her waning reserves of energy. Following his advice, she wasted none of it on talking.
She crawled the last few yards up a crumbling limestone shelf to the top of a hill. Josh lay flat on his stomach, perusing the landscape through his binoculars.
“Glad you could make it.”
“I bet,” she gasped, dropping to her knees beside him. Either he’d burned off his anger with the strenuous hike or it had been sweated out of him by the same heavy, wet heat drenching her skin and making her head pound. She pressed her hands against her thighs, her fingers clenched, her chest rising and falling with shallow breaths.
Even without the binoculars, she could see the village of Sulaco, nestled into a curve of the valley bisected by the river. Makeshift barracks spread across part of the valley floor, surrounded by transport trucks and the occasional decrepit jeep. Delgado’s stronghold was still intact. She wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but was too busy breathing period.
Josh rolled over to check behind them and swore softly. He was no tracker, but a child could have followed the trail they’d left. Suddenly, he swore again, but loudly.
“What’s the matter?” She scooted closer, narrowing her eyes and peering into the far distance.
Low-hanging clouds scudded across the sunset colors of mauve and purple dipping down to meet the lacy treetops rising from the mountainous terrain. Past the forest, the savanna stretched eastward into dusk and darkness, a rippling plain of burnished grass. She scanned the view, looking for and not finding whatever had triggered his anger.
