Raw Talent

by Debra Webb

  “I think it would be best if we stayed put until dark.” Before she could protest, he added, “But I’ll see what I can scrounge up in the way of eatables.”

  She rolled her eyes. Great. Mr. Survival was going to capture dinner and bring it back to the cave.

  “I guess you’re the boss,” she muttered since he apparently waited for her to make some sort of response. On second thought, she amended, “for now.”

  “Stay out of sight. And whatever you do, don’t go anywhere. We can’t risk running into those guys in the daylight. We’ll make plans when I get back. I won’t be long.”

  Gabrielle hugged her arms around herself. God she hated the way this cave smelled. She shuddered at the idea of what sort of critters were likely hanging out in the dark with her. Staying in here any longer than necessary wasn’t exactly appealing, but it beat the hell out of getting shot.

  What was she doing letting him make all the decisions?

  She should just get out of here before he came back. That way she wouldn’t have to do anything she knew she would regret. She liked Braddock. Shooting him wasn’t something she looked forward to.

  Since he might not feel the same way, her best bet was not to put him to the test.

  A.J. STAYED LOW, keeping his head below the level of the underbrush. He had no desire to play the part of bobbing duck in a shooting gallery.

  No sign of the enemy.

  As he’d tracked Gabrielle today he’d noticed a number of plants he recognized, several were edible. The wild strawberries and potatoes were the best. If he couldn’t locate either of those, he’d settle for the tubular roots of golden grass. Not nearly as tasty, but readily available.

  While he was out he wanted to attempt to get a fix on where the enemy had gotten to. He wasn’t fool enough to believe they would give up this easily. And even if they seemingly did, they would likely watch his SUV and Gabrielle’s Jeep. Walking back to Florescitaf or in the direction of Chihuahua wasn’t something A.J. wanted to do. Transportation would be preferable.

  Though he’d done so earlier today, he checked his cell phone again. No service. Not that he’d really expected any, but he could hope.

  After following the tracks the scumbags had left, he decided they’d headed back down the mountains. Probably hoped to head him and Gabrielle off before they reached their vehicles.

  A.J. surveyed the jagged topography. If he knew the area better he might attempt another way out of here. But he didn’t. The possibility of running into serious trouble with no supplies to lay low for the long haul would be suicide. Berries and roots would only go so far.

  When he’d gathered what he could find without venturing too far, he headed back to the cave. It would be dark in an hour, maybe less. Even if the men had the vehicles covered, he and Gabrielle could attempt to reach Sloan’s residence by foot. But if Sloan had returned home, that might not be the best move. Amy should be in place by now. If they reached the base of the mountain, cell service should be available and then he could give Amy a call and get the status of the situation.

  Satisfied with his plan of action, he entered the cave slowly, giving his eyes time to adjust to the extreme darkness.

  A.J. stopped. Listened. Allowed the sensations inside the cave to wash over him. The darkness, the moldy air, the emptiness. He didn’t have to wait for his eyes to adjust to the lack of light.

  She was gone.

  He sighed. Maybe on some level he’d known she would make a run for it. Maybe he’d even wanted her to…if her plan was to get the hell out of Mexico.

  But she wouldn’t do that. She had a score to settle and he wasn’t going anywhere until she did.

  He was going soft. There was no other explanation.

  He’d let his personal feelings override his good sense. She’d saved the lives of those children. That was supposed to count for something, but it wasn’t supposed to make him go stupid.

  Back to square one. He encountered the water bag she’d left and dropped his bounty next to it, then headed out to correct his mistake. He would find her and he would take her back. And this time she wouldn’t make him second-guess the rightness of his assignment. He didn’t analyze why she’d left the water for him.

  “Did you find dinner?”

  She sauntered into the cave as if she hadn’t done exactly what he told her not to.

  “I told you to stay put.” It was all he could do not to grab her and shake her. Didn’t she understand how dangerous their situation was? Or was she just so reckless she didn’t care? Maybe she had a death wish but he didn’t.

  At least he wasn’t going to have to hunt her down again.

  “I never was very good at following orders,” she said blithely. “Just ask the guards at my last place of residence.”

  She walked around him and he pivoted to follow her movements as best he could in the near darkness.

  “What is this stuff?”

  She crouched and scooped up a handful of the goods he’d gathered.

  “Consider it a salad without the dressing.” He moved closer, dropped into a squat to help her sort through the offerings. “Wild potatoes. A few wild strawberries and roots. The roots could be exotic carrots.”

  She crunched into a potato. “Tastes like dirt,” she commented between chews.

  “A little dirt never hurt anyone.”

  “Just so you know,” she told him before taking another bite, “I’m only eating this because I’m famished. If it makes me sick, you’re in trouble.”

  A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “It won’t make you sick.” He ate slowly, careful to chew well. Not bad in a pinch, he decided. Like Gabrielle, he could have done without the dirt, but they couldn’t afford to waste the water to wash the food. He didn’t doubt there would be springs around here that offered good drinking water, though he couldn’t be sure if they would stumble upon one.

  As if reading his thoughts she said, “Would you like some water?”

  “After you.”

  She took a sip, licked her lips. “This is why I came back.” She passed the water pouch to him.

  “For dinner?” He knew that wasn’t what she meant but he didn’t want her to know that.

  “I didn’t want to leave you out here without water. Then again I didn’t want to go thirsty myself.”

  There was a sincerity in her tone that affected him far more deeply than it should have. Especially since it wasn’t as though he was lost in the desert. He could be back at Sloan’s property in two or three hours unless the enemy drove him deeper into the mountains.

  He drank, careful to remember rationing was a good idea if not absolutely necessary at this moment, then passed the water back to her. Settling onto the ground, he decided to take a stab at getting the truth from her. “What’s the real reason you came back?”

  A moment of awkward silence throbbed between them before she relaxed into a sitting position. She exhaled a heavy breath. “One of the men is hanging out on the ridge about fifty yards from here. He was using binoculars to scan the landscape.”

  “They’ve split up,” A.J. assessed out loud. “Two went south, probably spread out from there.”

  Another round of loaded silence told him she was still holding out on him.

  “You understand that getting through this is largely dependent on our working together.”

  Another of those deep sighs.

  “I really wasn’t worried about the guy on the ridge,” she admitted. “I could have gotten around him. But I overheard a call he made. He had a walkie-talkie. I could hear both sides of the conversation, not that he was taking any pains to keep it quiet.”

  A.J. didn’t push, just let her talk. He had a feeling that she’d been pushed around far too much in the past.

  “Whoever he reported to said he was sending in eight more men. They don’t want us to leave this mountain alive, Braddock. And even though I couldn’t understand every little thing that was said, it was more than clear that they want t
he children real bad. I don’t think this is about white slavery or some random act of kidnapping. This is specific. This is about Sloan.”

  If half a dozen or more men were coming, it would be impossible for Gabrielle and him to take them all on. A.J. wasn’t worried about getting caught and giving away the location of the children. He could handle any kind of interrogation techniques they tossed his way. He’d had training in every imaginable anti-interrogation technique. But the same couldn’t be said for Gabrielle.

  If she were captured, she would be a liability to the children’s safety.

  She ran her fingers through her hair. “I’m going to tell you straight up, Braddock, I don’t give a damn about Sloan. In fact, I came here to put a bullet in his head or die trying. That goal hasn’t changed.” She fell silent again, as if she needed to compose herself before she said the rest. It was too dark now for him to read her expression with any accuracy.

  “But those kids,” she went on, “they didn’t ask for any of this. They aren’t guilty because of who and what their father is or has done. My—” Her breath caught and then he knew how difficult saying all this was for her.

  He slid closer, reached out and rested his hand against her arm. “I know your childhood wasn’t easy,” he said softly. “You don’t have to explain.”

  For the first time in her life Gabrielle wanted to believe the words she heard. She wanted him to hold her and to promise her that this would all work out. But how could she trust him? She’d never been able to trust anyone. Not even her own mother. How the hell could she trust this guy?

  She cleared her throat and forced herself to say the rest. “She didn’t protect me.” Her fists clenched at the memory of how she’d barely escaped rape twice when her mother would pass out and leave one of her numerous boyfriends still wanting. But that was only part of it. Gabrielle took all the flack from impatient landlords and cops who wanted to take her mother to jail for public drunkenness or for writing a bad check. It was always Gabrielle who’d had to make everything right. She’d started handling adult problems when she was ten. It hadn’t been fair.

  “No one protected me,” she reiterated. “I’m not about to walk away and let those sorry bastards use those kids for pawns or worse to get at their scumbag father.”

  Struggling for calm, she forced back the unpleasant memories. Right now was not the time to lose it like this. Her life was what it was. It could have been worse. She didn’t go around feeling sorry for herself because her mother and father hadn’t been there for her. But her experiences did make her keenly aware of situations like the one Mark and Josh found themselves in just now. Keeping them safe had moved into top priority on her list of things to do in Mexico.

  A.J. watched her wrestle with her emotions. It wasn’t so much what he could see in the near total darkness, it was what he could feel. She needed someone to believe in her. She needed to do this for those boys. But a part of her battled with that decision. The part, he surmised, that wanted—needed—revenge.

  Considering that inner turmoil, now was not the time to go into who and what her father had been. Her emotions were far too raw.

  “This changes things considerably,” he admitted. Protecting the children was priority one. To that end they couldn’t risk being caught, which meant they had to stay on the run and keep their hunters guessing. Eventually they would give up. Arriving at that point would damn sure be a lot easier if he and Gabrielle were prepared. Food and water were essential.

  “I need time to think,” he said. “We should stay here for the night. They won’t come back here looking for us. That stroke of luck will buy us a little time to rest and regroup.”

  “I don’t have a better plan,” she admitted. “But we can’t stay here forever.”

  He wouldn’t argue that.

  “Why don’t you try to get some sleep first? I’ll wake you if there are any developments.”

  “You have any idea what sort of insects or animals might be in here?” She hugged her arms around her knees.

  “The usual I suppose.” Being too specific wouldn’t help. Besides, whatever life forms this cave supported apparently didn’t care for humans since he hadn’t noticed anything attempting to latch on or creep in next to his skin.

  Gabrielle wondered if that answer was supposed to give her comfort. “Thanks, Braddock, that was helpful.”

  She rested her head against her knees and tried to put the idea of insects or worse out of her head. Sleep was necessary to optimal physical performance. Being able to run like hell if need be was necessary to survival.

  Her lips felt dry and there was still grit in her mouth from the dinner Braddock had scrounged up. At least her tummy had stopping rumbling.

  To her surprise sleep started to drag at her. She wondered vaguely as she drifted off what he thought of her. It was a dumb thought. She knew the deal. A.J. Braddock was the kind of man who could make a woman believe in fairy tales. And she, Gabrielle Jordan, knew without question that fairy tales did not, in any form or fashion, exist.

  True love was a myth. One made up by desperate women who remained ever hopeful when cynicism would serve them better.

  She was smarter than that. No man would hold that kind of power over her. She would keep it clean, uncluttered. When she needed a physical fix it would be about sex, not love.

  Six months, some wicked brain cell reminded. Six long months since she’d had sex. And that lackluster encounter had been about needing to make sure she was still alive after eighteen months in prison. She hadn’t wanted to be with anyone since.

  Until now.

  But A.J. Braddock was not a good candidate for a roll in the hay. He wasn’t the type.

  The last thing she remembered before drifting off was making a mental list of all the things he was…like caring….

  BRADDOCK FELT CERTAIN she’d finally given in to the exhaustion. She’d stopped shifting her position and her respiration had evened out.

  He leaned back against the cool rock wall and tried to relax. He couldn’t risk going to sleep but he did need to ensure his body rested. The weakness he felt was likely more related to the day’s exertion than anything else. But he couldn’t be certain.

  His eyes closed and he let the memories come flooding back. He rarely allowed that anymore. But right now he needed to remind himself of what was real and what wasn’t.

  Permitting this attraction to loom further into dicey territory would be a monumental mistake. His future was too uncertain to rely upon, much less allow anyone else to.

  He remembered the day, even the hour it happened. He’d cornered the enemy. It was the last day he would spend in Afghanistan, but he didn’t know that then.

  They’d raided a lab where experimental drugs were being developed. The setup was far too advanced to be an Afghani operation. It hadn’t taken long to figure out it was just another attempt by international terrorists to create a virus that would wipe out the intended target: Americans.

  He hadn’t known that the enemy he’d cornered was infected. The man had fought wildly yet he was unarmed. Unable to bring himself to shoot an unarmed man, A.J. had battled him hand-to-hand and he’d conquered him. But not without injury. The fool had bitten him. Symptoms had emerged within twenty-four hours.

  He hadn’t been able to eat or sleep. Concentration had failed and then came the hallucinations. After weeks of enduring those debilitating side effects of the virus, the pain started. Fierce, unrelenting, accompanied by general malaise.

  Eventually the symptoms had disappeared. A.J. had thought he was well, but additional blood work had shown the virus still present in his system. Additional research had discovered that the virus was not contagious beyond seventy-two hours. Just his luck that the guy who’d bit him had only been exposed forty-eight hours earlier. The only up side was that, like lupus or some forms of cancer, the virus would go into remission. He’d only had one relapse in the past two years, which had prompted him to get on with his life.

&
nbsp; He could either sit around waiting for another relapse or he could live his life and take sick leave like any other working man when illness struck.

  Unfortunately the end result was not known, which was the downside. The virus was inactive, but that could change at any time, constituting a constant threat to his immune system. Whether or not he would live out a normal life span was unknown. Truth was, not much at all was known.

  Only that there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. He was totally at the virus’s mercy. When it struck, he’d be bedridden for the duration.

  Whether or not he could pass it on to offspring was unknown. Every test indicated sexual activity was safe, but he refrained just the same.

  It wouldn’t be fair to risk another person’s health or heart.

  His gaze instantly sought Gabrielle’s sleeping form in the darkness.

  No way would he introduce that kind of pain into her life. She’d had more than her share already.

  What he could do was try to get her out of this alive and do his best to convince her that Sloan wasn’t her enemy. That her father wasn’t the man she’d been raised to believe he was.

  A big job any way he looked at it.

  But someone had to do it. She deserved to have a chance at a real life without all the baggage from the past.

  The chance that someone else would be willing to look past all that attitude and sass was slim at best. He was her best shot at happily-ever-after.

  Ironic, he mused. He was the last damned man on earth who had anything to offer and yet he was the only one who understood what she needed.

  Trust. Acceptance. Understanding.

  Chapter Eight

  Gabrielle jerked awake. Her heart pounded so hard she could scarcely catch her breath. Her skin felt clammy and cold.

  Where the hell was she?

  Dark. Cold. The cave.

  “Do you always snore when you sleep?”

  The husky sound of Braddock’s voice made her shiver uncontrollably. Or maybe it was the cold. She frowned. “I don’t snore.” She stood, stretched her legs and then her arms. Sleeping while hugging her knees to her chest had seemed like a good idea in theory. She extended her neck from side to side to work out the kinks.