by Julie Miller
But satisfaction was brief. Something about his unblinking stare made her suddenly conscious of how vulnerable she was.
“You are my ticket to freedom and…revenge.”
“What?” For a few breathless seconds, she pitied whoever had been foolish enough to cross him. He spoke so matter-of-factly, as if he had already planned his enemy’s death a thousand times, in a thousand different ways.
And then she began to wonder just who his target for revenge might be. Montana Confidential? Her family?
Whitney sank back into the chair, unable to ward off the chill that assailed her. Every bruise and scrape on her back and arms cried out, each wound a tiny little voice reminding her of who she was and what she was supposed to be. Gerald MacNair’s little girl. She was simply a pawn in this madman’s game. Not Whitney. Not a woman. Not even a human being.
A pawn.
The first sting of tears pooled in her eyes. She turned her chin into her shoulder, not wanting to give Chilton the satisfaction of seeing her succumb to his taunts.
But he held all the cards. She could hide nothing from him. When she heard his footsteps on the dry, warped floor, she quickly blinked and tried to erase any signs of crying.
With the tip of his finger he touched the point of her chin and traced a line around the curve of her jaw. She cringed at the provocative touch. Violence encased in butter-soft leather was still violence. Her chest rose and fell in quick, panicked breaths. She felt the skin at the top of her breasts burn beneath his knowing gaze. “Is something not to your liking?” he asked.
Standing this close, she could smell the smoke and pine on him. She even detected a hint of musk and sweat. He’d been living outdoors for a few days, away from anything resembling soap and a shower. She gritted her teeth against the smell, and tried not to squirm beneath his scrutiny.
Whitney searched for an appropriate comeback, one that would make him remove his hand and gaze and smell without triggering his anger. Since she couldn’t very well ask for her freedom, why not try the next best thing? Escape. But she had no chance unless she could get herself free from this chair. The full discomfort in her bladder suddenly felt like a blessing.
Her heart still pounded, but now a surge of hope instead of fear spurred it on. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
He took his hand from her face and gestured around the cabin. “Do you see any facilities here?”
“I’m not too proud. I can go behind a bush outside.”
“Not too proud?” He laughed, a mocking, derisive sound completely at her expense. “I never thought I would hear that from an American. Very well. I will take you.”
He pulled a long, slender knife from inside his boot and slipped it between the bottom of her right wrist and the chair. With just the slightest shift in position, he could slit her veins wide open. Whitney sobered a moment. She wasn’t free yet.
But in a swoosh of gentlemanly style, he flicked the blade neatly through the tape, releasing her arm. As she flexed her fingers to bring circulation back into her hand, he snatched the loose end of tape stuck to the top of her arm and ripped it off, taking hair and skin with it.
“Ow!” she screamed, instinctively dragging her arm into her chest to protect herself from further pain. Purplish red welts immediately popped up on the top of her wrist.
“I’m sorry,” he mocked. “Did I hurt you?”
“You bastard,” she seethed.
But his dark eyes danced in gleeful retribution above the marks of pain she had inflicted on him. “I have been called worse. You may call me worse before our time together is done.”
With that ominous promise to dull her temper, he repeated the sadistic release on her other arm. Her leather boots protected her ankles from a similar fate, so she was able to stand without much difficulty. Walking out the door ahead of him proved a greater challenge. With the knife slipped neatly into his boot, he pulled the gun from beneath his coat. Square-angled and lethal-looking, it fit the length of his forearm and tucked into his armpit. With its snub-nosed tip jabbing Whitney between the shoulder blades, she lurched to the door and stumbled down onto the gravel that passed for a front porch outside.
Regaining her balance, she followed the point of his gun to a nearby bush. Once outside, she could see that the dilapidated cabin had once been a pioneer’s homestead or a miner’s shack. An area around the house had been cleared of the towering lodgepole pines that surrounded them. Over the years, brush and smaller trees had grown into a wild garden of sorts, covering any path or road that might indicate the way off this small rise.
Whitney rubbed her hands up and down her arms, adjusting to the damp morning chill, and made an easy decision. Anyplace was better than here. When she got the chance, she would simply take off. It couldn’t be more than twenty yards to the woods. She could easily lose Chilton in there. Then, once she was beyond the range of his knife or fist or gun, she would worry about finding her way back to the Lonesome Pony Ranch.
“Do you mind?” she asked, turning her back to him and unhooking her belt. He had stopped her at a shoulder-high stand of scrub pine.
“Yes. I know what you’re thinking. I will not take my eyes from you.”
The blood rushed from her head down to her feet. Whitney wondered if her shock at the accuracy of his guess reflected on her face. So much for escape. Holding on to what little dignity he’d left her, she dropped her jeans and took care of business, feeling the blush of embarrassment flood heat into her cheeks.
But while she zipped her jeans and tucked in the hem of her jewel-necked sweater, a new opportunity presented itself. The pocket of his coat chirped with a telltale ring. A cell phone! And if it was ringing they weren’t as close to the middle of nowhere as she originally thought. They had to be near a cell tower for Chilton to be receiving a call. Whitney slowed her movements and took great care to snap her jeans and fasten her belt.
“Yes?” The other party seemed to be equally brief and to the point. “I have her.”
Whitney snuck a peek over her shoulder, as if seeing him on the phone would help her understand his conversation.
“You’ll make the arrangements, then?” What arrangements? she wondered. She watched his nostrils flare with an impatient breath. Sensing his growing distraction, Whitney quickly finished dressing. “Fine. No. I’ll call you.” With the next pause, she sized up the shortest route into the trees. “We have an agreement, you and I.” Chilton’s voice rose with tightly controlled anger. “Don’t cross me in this.”
The instant he turned his face into the phone to make his point, Whitney took off running. She dashed through the bushes and clambered up and over a pile of rock before she heard the rapid fire of bullets behind her. She dropped to her haunches and scooted off the other side. Either he was a lousy shot, or he hadn’t been aiming directly at her. She doubted the first was true.
“Stop her!”
Chilton’s command made no sense. But she’d hit the low brush now. She hurdled a shrub and lengthened her stride, closing in on the treeline. More shots jarred her eardrums. The bullets slapped the earth beside her feet. Whitney stumbled, touched her fingers to the dirt and righted herself.
She pulled up short as another man, taller and thinner than Chilton, emerged from the woods, holding the same type of boxy gun, pointed directly at her.
Whitney heard her own startled breath rasp in her lungs. She shifted direction, splitting the distance between the two men, and ran the way she had in high-school track. She pulled away from her pursuers, hearing the static of bullets, coming close but never hitting her, like shouts from the crowd, urging her on.
She could see the big trees now, rushing closer. She put her hands up in front of her face and shoved her way through a stand of baby pines.
And smacked into the unyielding chest of a third man. Short and stocky. Dressed in black and armed like the others.
Feeling the burn of muscle in her thighs now, she backed up into the pine branches, spun, and r
eturned the way she’d come. Five strides. Ten.
Another man in black rounded a granite boulder and blocked her path.
Four men!
Her abductor was not alone in his abandoned hideout.
Tears of shock and unwilling surrender mixed with her panting gasps, making deep breathing impossible. She turned. The stocky man walked through the pines. She jerked another ninety degrees. The tall man. One more turn and she faced Dimitri Chilton.
The circle closed in on her. Whitney’s gaze darted from one man to the next. Helpless as a rabbit trapped in a snare, she could only wait for her inevitable demise.
With a wall of men surrounding her, Chilton snatched her under the jaw, lifting her up onto her toes. His hard fingers dug into her cheekbone on one side, while his thumb left its bruising imprint in the other side.
“I grow tired of your defiance.” The refined breeding she’d noticed in his voice earlier was eclipsed by the thick accent of his native tongue. “I am not always a patient man.”
He threw her to the ground. The wrench on her jaw and the impact of dry, hard dirt left her ears ringing.
“Tape her and gag her.”
Whitney gathered her senses long enough to realize what was happening to her. She was aware of every hard touch and unkind word. One man bound her wrists, another taped her at the ankles. The third shoved a handkerchief into her mouth, thrusting her tongue back and pinching her lips against her teeth. He rolled her face into the dirt and tied the handkerchief behind her head, catching a few strands of hair in the knot and plucking them from her scalp.
“Wait.” Chilton punched in a number on his cell phone and knelt beside her. He ripped the gag from her sore mouth and pressed the phone to her ear. “Say hello to your father.”
Fearing some kind of trick, but brutally aware of the four guns trained on her, she obeyed his command with a dutiful whisper. “Daddy?”
“Whitney? Is that you?”
Hope surged through her at the sound of her father’s voice. “Daddy!”
But hope was snatched from her as quickly as it was given. Chilton shot to his feet.
“Mr. MacNair. It’s so nice to finally meet an American powerbroker like yourself. I think I have a deal you will be interested in…”
With a succinct hand signal, Chilton walked away, carrying all thoughts of rescue with him. Before Whitney could make a plea, the gag was shoved back into her mouth.
Without the blessing of unconsciousness, she endured the gut-wrenching dizziness of being tossed over the stocky man’s shoulder and carried back to the cabin. Inside, he dropped her with an unceremonious plop onto a dusty mattress in the corner.
Moments later, Chilton filled the doorway, an ominous shadow blocking out the sunlight. He snapped shut his cell phone and smiled at her in a way that made her skin crawl. “Your father sends his best.”
Then he looked to his men. “Return to your post.” Chilton gave the word and they disappeared into the vast and varied camouflage of Beartooth Mountain.
More fearful than ever, too confused to do otherwise, Whitney didn’t move away when Chilton knelt on the floor beside her and spoke. She decided she preferred his anger over this deceitful guise of civility.
“Now, if you are very good, and do not defy me again, I will give you water at sundown and take you outside to relieve yourself.” She closed her eyes against the hateful caress of that soft glove on her cheek. “But, if you make a noise, if you move without permission…I will kill you.”
Whitney nodded her understanding. When he slammed the cabin door behind him, she turned onto her side and buried her nose in the moldy ticking. She curled up into a fetal position, and let her own silent tears keep her company.
Chapter Two
Though she hadn’t expected it, Chilton kept his word. As the sun faded and darkness claimed the cabin, he came to Whitney and helped her sit up. He loosened the gag and let it hang around her shoulders like a necklace. While she worked her jaw to restore feeling to the muscles in her mouth, he opened a canteen.
He held it up to her lips and let her drink her fill. A slop of excess water dribbled down her chin and pooled on the front of her sweater. But Whitney was too smart to mind. She’d had an entire day to do nothing but think. Chilton had to ransom her sometime. He had to trade her for his freedom or revenge or whatever purpose this kidnapping served. But she intended to keep her strength up. She intended to be ready and able to run again, in case he changed his mind about letting her live.
“Rashid will take you outside.” The short, stocky man she’d seen before materialized like a shadow in the creeping darkness. Chilton freed her feet, but left her wrists bound together. Before she left, he whispered one last warning. “Do not provoke him.”
Though she could speak, she chose a submissive nod to answer him. Rashid and his gun escorted her to the far side of a pile of ancient rocks. She made no effort to ask for privacy. She allowed him to undo her belt buckle and zipper, then turned her back to him and dropped her pants.
She heard a thunk and a shuffle of feet behind her. Either Rashid was impatiently shifting from foot to foot, or he was angling around to get a better look at her derriere. Though she could feel the heat creep into her face, she bit her tongue to stifle the crisp retort she had in mind for his blatant voyeurism.
Whitney pulled up her panties when she was finished, but with her hands bound, her jeans proved to be more of a challenge. She could pull them up over one hip, but when she’d reach for the other side, the weight of her belt would make them slip. She tried twice, and ended up with the denim pooled around her knees.
Swallowing what bit of pride she had left, she turned back to Rashid. She blinked twice, and looked again.
Not Rashid.
Though this one, too, was dressed in black from head to foot, the man who stood guard over her now held a different gun. Something sleek and compact that fit into his fist. So Chilton had called in another thug. In the dawning light of the moon she could see his black eyes, the shadow of black stubble on his jaw, the short, shiny crop of inky-black hair that molded to his head.
The thing that frightened her most about this man was his size. He stood bigger and brawnier than any of the others. Well over six feet tall, the breadth of his shoulders strained against the leather jacket he wore. He fit the dimensions of the mountain itself. Even his legs, encased in black denim, looked as solid as the pine trunks that towered around the cabin clearing.
She definitely didn’t want to cross this one. Whitney raised her hands in surrender. “I’m not trying to escape this time, I promise. I just…” She didn’t want to say the wrong thing. She’d been warned not to speak at all. But necessity dictated taking this risk. “I need some help with my pants.”
“Ms. MacNair?”
His deep, raspy voice held no trace of the accent the other men shared. He buried his gun inside his jacket and closed the distance between them. She was too stunned by what she’d just heard to make any protest when he reached down and pulled up her jeans.
With swift, spare movements, he zipped and snapped, and buckled her belt. With him standing so close, she had nowhere else to look but at the controlled flex and give of his broad chest beneath the jacket and a wool turtleneck. He smelled different than the other men. Clean. Leathery. She tipped her chin and looked him in the eye. “Who are you?”
From somewhere behind him he pulled out a switchblade knife and punched it open. She recoiled from the razor-sharp point. But he grabbed both her hands within one of his and pulled her to him. He slipped the knife between her wrists and slit the tape. He’d freed her. Whitney’s confusion must have reflected in her face. He closed the knife right before her eyes so she could see he didn’t plan to slit her throat as well.
“Relax, ma’am. I’m here to rescue you.”
“RIGHT. And I’m the tooth fairy.” Vincent narrowed his gaze and watched the changing emotions play across Whitney MacNair’s upturned face. Her creamy skin refle
cted the moonlight, revealing fear, distrust, anger. But not once did the classic contours of her oval face soften into anything resembling joy or relief. “I’m tired of playing these games. Just take me back. I won’t run away. I promise.”
He knew an uncharacteristic moment of indecision when she walked around him and headed for the open ground of the clearing. Few things surprised him, yet her straight-backed refusal to accept his help did.
But he wasn’t a man to let anything rattle him for long. Before she reached the end of the rocks and the sight line from the cabin, he snatched her by the belt and pulled her up against his chest. He backed them both into the shadows. “Where are you going?”
“Back to the cabin.” The crown of her hair barely reached his chin, but she squiggled in his grasp as if she had a chance of escape.
His grip held firm. “You can’t.”
“I can and I will.” She reached back and swatted at his hand. “I won’t have your boss take away what privileges I have left. Now let me go.”
Vincent knew of hostages who became attached to their kidnappers, who became loyal to the keepers who terrorized them if they stayed together long enough. But Whitney MacNair had been held for fewer than forty-eight hours.
Maybe she hadn’t understood him. She might be injured or brainwashed or just too frightened to listen. He spun her around and clasped her by the shoulders. “I’m Agent Vincent Romeo. I’m here to take you home.” He scrunched down to her level and looked her straight in the eye. “Do you understand?”
In a shadowy trick of the moonlight her eyes appeared colorless. Gray, her file had said. But much paler than he’d imagined, as airy and light as quicksilver.
The expression in those eyes was unmistakable, though. Simmering anger. Pure rebellion.
Her wide mouth tilted into a sarcastic line. “Romeo, hmm? Romeo, ‘Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?”’
