by Ellie Danes
I leaned there sobbing and gritting my teeth in anger. My emotions crashed all over the place until, finally, they started to ebb. My head fell heavier on his shoulder, and he started to rub my back.
“We’ll make it out of this, Bree, I swear,” Nathan said.
“How are you so sure?” I asked.
The sun dropped below the horizon and left us with a fading orange light. Nathan let the last rays of warmth linger on his face before he looked down and kissed me.
“The only reason I’m sure is because you are still with me,” he said.
Without another word, Nathan stood up and held out his hand. I let Nathan pull me to my feet. Then we walked on into the darkness together.
Chapter Eighty-Seven
Nathan
The first town we came to didn’t do anything to improve Bree’s optimism. It was no more than one dusty strip with a gas station, a windowless bar, and a few shops that may or may not have been open in the last decade. Luckily, because the town was on the fringes of the border, there were a lot of people like us just passing through.
“Look,” Bree said with an expression close to a smile.
I followed her nod and grinned. “The Sunset Motel? Really?”
“Were you looking forward to a night under the stars?” Bree asked.
I glanced up and almost said yes. The stars were a bright scattering. It was a new moon so the tiny distant lights stood out even brighter. The desert would provide a good cover.
Then I looked at Bree. Her attempt to smile had faded, and she looked deadly pale. The only warmth I saw in her exhausted face came from the orange neon of the motel sign.
“Let’s get a room,” I said. “Why break with tradition now?”
Bree’s shoulders relaxed an inch, and she led the way through town. Our only other stop was a small bodega, the entrance glittering with hundreds of twinkle lights. I lifted a dozen strands up so Bree wouldn’t catch her hair. She gave me a tired nod and passed by.
The little town had forged a truce between us.
Inside, Bree listlessly walked up and down the tight aisles. I nodded to the clerk, grabbed a basket, and piled it high with the fresh peppers, tomatoes, and cilantro that had obviously come from a nearby garden. I found a can of black beans and a bag of fresh-made tortillas.
Then I cleared my throat. Bree looked at me, confused. “What?”
“You have the cash, dear, remember?” I asked.
The clerk was not too bored to notice the large stack of bills Bree pulled from her pocket. I ground my teeth. If the cartel hadn’t already put out an alert on us, every opportunistic criminal in a five-mile radius would hear about us now.
I added an avocado and a bottle of tequila to our basket and plunked it on the counter in front of the clerk. He tore his eyes off Bree and the stack of cash only long enough to ring us up.
“Would one of those bills help you forget our faces?” I asked.
Bree sucked in her breath, worried that my comment had made us stick out too much. She shoved the wad of cash back into her pocket and held out just enough for the groceries.
The clerk nodded to me, his eyes on Bree’s pocket. I reached over and plucked another bill out and handed it to him.
“Have a good night,” he said. The bill was folded and gone before I could stuff our groceries into a brown paper bag.
Checking in at the new motel was easy because of the driver’s licenses and passports the cartel had given us. By the time we unlocked the door and dumped our groceries on the table, I could feel the tension leaving my body. I knew it would leave me exhausted, so I stretched out on the bed.
“Why don’t you shower first?” I told Bree.
She nodded and disappeared into the bathroom. Minutes later, she reappeared, wide-eyed and dripping wet.
“Something I can help you with?” A warm spark of hope ignited inside me.
Bree shivered. “Every time I put my head under the water, I think I hear footsteps coming to the door.”
The motel room door was on the opposite wall as the bathroom, but I knew what Bree meant. Her body and mind couldn’t stop looking for signs of danger. It would be weeks, maybe even years, before the stress wore off.
“I could shower with you,” I said.
I expected Bree to roll her eyes and stalk back to the bathroom, insulted, but she just shivered and nodded. I followed her into the steamy bathroom and stripped off my clothes.
Bree was already under the hot stream of water when I joined her in the tight motel shower. Her breasts brushed against me as she reached up to scrub shampoo into her hair. She didn’t even notice the effect the light touch had on me.
She rinsed her hair and turned around to scrub her face. I put my hands on her shoulders and started to rub in deep, circular motions. Bree moaned and stood transfixed by the relaxing massage. I flexed my hands and dug out every tense pocket of her shoulders and back.
When her sounds changed from exhausted relief to pleasurable sighs, I left off the deep massage and stroked my hands up and down her back. Water sprayed down the front of her, running in rivulets between her breasts. I looked over her shoulder, my excitement becoming apparent as she leaned back against me.
Bree settled against my chest, and I let my hands circle around to stroke her belly. Very slowly, I let my hands drift up, cupping her firm breasts, rubbing the tips until she squirmed against me. Her breath came and went in passionate pants, and she leaned back to allow me more access to her body.
I let one hand slip down to her hip, pulling her back as my hard arousal pressed between her backside. Bree liked it and propped one knee to the side to let me slip farther between her legs.
The triumph of surviving our day turned to lust, and I had to fight myself not to bend Bree over and ride us both up and over the edge too quickly. Instead, I took a deep breath and turned her around.
Bree slicked back her wet hair, her nipples brushing my chest as she did. This time, her eyes widened as the motion sent bolts of excitement down through her body. I cupped her backside in my hands and savored each tremor.
“Thank you,” Bree said. She wrapped her arms up and around my neck. “Thank you for not giving up on me back there.”
“I could never give up on you,” I told her.
Bree kissed me, long and slow until I thought I might burst. Then she leaned back just far enough to look me straight in the eyes.
“Why? Why can’t you give up on me? You might be better off,” Bree said.
I kissed her, drawing her steamy, wet body to fit against mine. “I don’t want to be better off. I just want you.”
Bree teased us both by slipping one foot around and up the back of my calf. The movement opened her right where my body throbbed, looking for entrance. I nudged her opening and felt a shiver of pleasure run through both of us.
“Why?” she asked again. She held her hips back, teasing me.
I caught her lips and kissed us both dizzy. “Because I love you.”
The words sluiced away with the shower water but I could still feel their mark between us. Bree was still and then her arms pulled me closer.
“I love you, too, Nathan.”
Her leg slipped higher, and I couldn’t hold back any longer. I lifted her up, hands gripping her thighs as I pressed her to the shower wall and drove deep inside her. Bree cried out, a triumphant mix of survival and ecstasy.
We had made it. We’d escaped the cartel and survived the desert. The only thing left was to survive our own all-consuming passion.
It overtook us and dragged us to new heights, and when we crashed down, we came together.
Chapter Eighty-Eight
Bree
We had tried our best to wear off all the excess adrenaline. After making love in the shower, we did again in the squeaking bed. Nathan was content to stay where I left him pressed in between the pillows, but I couldn’t sit still.
“Why don’t you get us some dry towels?” he joked.
&nb
sp; During our hot shower, Nathan had accidentally pulled down the shelf that held the towels. Some had fallen into the shower and blocked the drain while we finished while others fell to the floor and soaked up the water we’d already sprayed all over.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
Nathan nodded, his face sleepy and content. “They’ll be looking for someone on the run. Not a woman who looks like she’s been in a motel bed for hours.”
I threw a wet towel at him and eyed my dusty jeans. “We should have kept our clothes on in the shower, that might have rinsed off one of these layers of dirt.”
“No, no, no,” Nathan grinned. “No more clothes. Skip the towels and just come back to bed.”
I laughed and shook my head. “No, I’m not tired yet.”
“Who said anything about sleeping?”
I plucked a rough terry cloth robe from behind the bathroom door. It had an enormous sun emblazoned on the back, and I admired it as I tied the belt tight. The robe was big enough to cover me entirely, and I headed for the door.
“I’ll be right back,” I said.
I was only twenty steps from the door when I knew I should have listened to my initial instincts. Two men combed the motel parking lot and when the taller man looked up I recognized him from the warehouse. He was the guard who had tossed us our breakfast that morning.
I should have kept walking and acted as if nothing was wrong, but my body wouldn’t respond. Fear tightened every muscle, and my movements were all stiff and jerky. The edges of my vision dimmed, and I knew I was on the cusp of complete panic.
I turned and ran back to the motel room.
“Changed your mind?” Nathan joked. He held open the bed covers. Then he saw my face and sat bolt upright. “What happened? Did they see you?”
“I don’t know, I don’t think so.” My teeth chattered. I ran for my pile of dirty clothes and started pulling them on as fast as I could. “We have to go now. Now!”
This time, Nathan followed my directions. He leaped out of bed and was dressed in a flash. Then he grabbed my arm and pulled me into the still steamy bathroom. I panicked as he pulled me toward the small square window.
“Nathan, I can’t,” I said.
“Open your eyes, Bree. You can do this,” Nathan said.
I pried one eye open and saw that the bathroom window opened onto the flat roof of the first-floor lobby. The low lobby ran about eighty feet to the huge semi-circle sun sign on the end.
We could climb down the rays of the sun to the parking lot at the opposite end of where the cartel men searched. I hitched myself up and through the window, then pressed against the wall as Nathan squeezed out next to me.
He peeked over the edge and then nodded. We ran as lightly as we could over the lobby and ducked down by the sun sign. The cartel men wove through the parked cars on the opposite side of the motel. Nathan nodded and held my hand as I kicked a leg over the roof and started to climb down.
The clerk must have heard us trampling overhead because he poked his head out of the lobby doors just as Nathan dropped to the ground.
“What’s going on?” the clerk called.
His voice drew the cartel men, and we spun around the corner of the building just in time. Nathan grabbed my hand, and we sprinted across the street to the parking lot of a shabby bowling alley.
“Look for an old car, one I can hotwire,” Nathan said.
I pointed to a baby blue Oldsmobile at the end of the row and Nathan nodded. I slipped my fingers through the door handle and heard the first shout.
We’d been spotted.
The two men from the motel parking lot were not the only cartel thugs out looking for us. Two more appeared from the front doors of the bowling alley and caught sight of us before we could duck down.
“Three cars down, the black pick-up,” Nathan said. He pushed me down, and we started to crawl.
My mind went blank with fear but then I heard an echo that saved my courage.
Nathan had said he loved me.
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Nathan
The men ran straight for the blue Oldsmobile, but Bree and I were already crouched against the bumper of the black pick-up truck. As soon as they pounded by, I inched Bree around the other side. We had seconds before they spotted us.
“What are you doing?” Bree whispered.
I peeled my shirt off and wrapped it around my elbow. “I’m going to break the window,” I told her.
Bree shook her head.
“It’s the only way, Bree. Now move!”
Bree pushed back against me and shook her head again. Then she reached up and yanked on the door handle. The truck was unlocked, and the passenger side door opened.
I dove inside and pulled her up behind me. Bree leaned back out the pick-up truck door and snagged my shirt as I fumbled with the ignition wires.
The men banged on the bed of the pick-up truck and thought they had us blocked in. Then the truck roared to life, and they all stepped back. Bree ducked as soon as she saw the first gun barrel, but this time we had the upper hand.
I cranked the truck into reverse and barreled backward, forcing the men to dive to the pavement. Then I shifted into drive and gunned it over the edge of the parking lot and down the embankment to the road.
We were a block away before I saw the first gunman stumble into the road. He raised his gun and then lowered it. We were too far away for his shot to do any good.
Bree clung to my shirt, her knuckles white, until we flew out of the small town and into the darkness of the desert road. When she looked all around and saw nothing but long stretches of darkness, her fingers relaxed little by little.
“Can I have my shirt back?” I asked when the little town had disappeared from the rearview mirror.
Bree laughed but the sound was edgy and raw. She handed over the shirt and then rubbed her arms. “There’s only one road. How soon do you think they’ll catch up?”
I was more worried about who they had called and how soon we would run head-on into more cartel men, but I tried to comfort her instead. “I don’t see any headlights. If they aren’t following us now, they won’t.”
“Because they’ve already told someone we’re coming,” Bree said.
She peered forward into the darkness and waited for the next insurmountable obstacle. It didn’t come, and her eyelids grew heavy. Bree nodded off and then snapped awake with terrified eyes.
“Where are they?” she asked.
I couldn’t lie to her. I pointed to a ridge up ahead. “There.”
“We’re just going to drive past them?” she asked.
“See that glow up ahead, just past the ridge? That’s Ciudad Juarez. Recognize that part of town?” I asked.
Bree squinted into the darkness and then brightened. “That’s where Maggie and I crossed!”
“Exactly.” I pressed on the gas.
“But they’ll be following us, trying to run us off the road. How are we going to make a run for it?” Bree asked.
I grinned. “Who said anything about making a run for it?”
Bree laced her fingers through the handle above the passenger side door and hung on tight. She didn’t even flinch as we flew past the row of black cartel cars and their bright headlights flashed into the pick-up’s cab. I pressed on the gas and headed toward the border.
The three cars roared up behind us and ran too close to our bumper and back wheels. I dodged the pick-up truck back and forth, narrowly avoiding their attempts to knock us into a skid.
Bree hung on as we rammed one car into a ditch. The others had to fall back as we careened between the warehouse buildings and headed to the open field that ran parallel to the border.
“See? They think they have us. They’re dropping back,” I told Bree.
She nodded, stiff and determined even as fear etched her features into a wide-eyed mask. “There are more gunmen ahead.”
“Then we’ll just have to take a little detour.”
&nb
sp; I cranked the wheel hard to the right, and we bounced over the chipped curb. The last remnants of a chain-link fence burst open against the pick-up truck’s bumper and flew over the cab. A sharp crash behind us roused Bree from her frozen state.
“The fence cracked their windshield,” she said, glancing behind us.
I was glad she wasn’t looking out the windshield as I aimed us straight at the dry culvert. I rammed the gas pedal all the wall down and hoped we’d have enough speed to clear the concrete chasm. The pick-up truck bounced up the lip of the culvert and afterward, the wheels didn’t touch anything else but air.
Then we crashed down on the other side of the field and went careening across the border. Blinding lights kicked on and illuminated a road block straight ahead.
“Holy shit, you were right. The FBI is here,” I told Bree.
She wrapped both hands around the upper handle as I turned the wheel and slammed on the brakes. We skidded to a stop, ten feet in front of a dusty town car.
“What about the cartel?” Bree asked.
A helicopter buzzed overhead, its searchlight illuminating the field we had torn up.
“They’ll disappear before the helicopter spots them,” I said.
“So, we’re safe?” Bree asked. “We’re free?”
“You are under arrest. Exit the vehicle with your hands on your head. I repeat, you are under arrest.” Border security closed in around us.
Bree pried her hands off the handle and put them in the air. I followed suit, raising my hands and looking at her one last time.
We burst out laughing just as the officers ripped open the pick-up truck doors.
Chapter Ninety
Bree
“You do understand why you are being detained, don’t you, Miss?” The border agent leaned both hands on the table and frowned down at me. “You are a suspected drug runner.”
