“C’mon, you bastard,” Rocky said, working the controller. I wanted to yank it from his hands and slam it into his face.
The drone dipped and buzzed, spun around the bear’s head like a giant bee, until it pushed him into a run again.
“You got him now,” Dalton said with a whoop.
“He’s a trophy, girl,” Rocky grunted. “Get ready. All nine hundred pounds of him are headed this way.”
The drone zoomed from left to right, keeping the bear on a path straight for me. The poor thing didn’t have a chance. What the hell kind of hunt was this? How could anyone think this was fun?
“Get him in your sights,” Rocky growled.
I leaned over the gun and looked through the scope, my heart pounding. The bear was moving closer, and fast.
“Shoot!” Rocky pushed. “Hundred fifty yards, take him.”
All fur and muscle, bearing down on me. Brown eyes, enraged and angry. I aimed, blinked, holding my breath. I pulled to the side and above his head, and fired.
The sound of the rifle ricocheted off the hills, echoing in the distance.
The bear skidded to a stop fifty yards away.
Rocky dropped his hands to his sides. “You missed? Really?”
The bear huffed and snapped his jaws, swinging his head from side to side, white froth dripping from his mouth.
I tried to reload, but my hands were shaking like crazy.
The bear lowered his head and charged. Dalton stood up to his full height, raised his arms, and shouted at the bear. About twenty feet from us, the bear threw his weight and turned away.
I let out my breath. It was a bluff. Run, bear, run! Run away!
Kaboom! Boom, boom, boom! Rocky was beside me, his sidearm raised, unloading the clip into the bear. The big bruin staggered sideways and collapsed on the ground with a grunt.
I was shaking so hard I couldn’t get words out.
Dalton was there. “What the hell, dude? He turned. You could have brought him back around again.”
Rocky holstered his gun, swung around and locked on me. “You choked.” He shook his head, disappointed, then something shifted in him. His demeanor changed, the way he stood. His eyes turned glassy and seemed to pass right through me.
Dalton got in his face. “Hey, give her a break, man.”
Rocky took a step closer to me, not just ignoring Dalton, but passing him by as though he didn’t exist. “It’s too bad,” he said, his voice like gravel. “I hoped you’d be different than all the rest.”
Dalton stepped between us. “Hey, I’m talking to you. What the hell is your problem?”
Rocky lifted his eyes to meet mine. They narrowed and shifted into focus. “What a disappointment.” He curled up his lip in disgust. His eyes traveled down my body, then slowly back up and I felt ripped bare. “You don’t even realize it,” he growled as he took a strand of my hair in his hand and twirled it through his fingers. “If it wasn’t for me, you’d be dead.” His eyes darkened. “Out here, it’s kill or be killed.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dalton wedged himself between me and Rocky. “Dude, back the hell off already!”
Rocky blinked his eyes and blinked again, then hung his head, the shy outcast returning.
While Dalton and I exchanged uncomfortable glances, Rocky rummaged through his pack for tools to skin the bear. “The scent of blood will bring ‘em running,” he said to Dalton, shoving his rifle at him. “Cover me. I’ll be quick about it.”
He warily approached the bear, then kicked it with his boot to make sure it was dead. I turned away but couldn’t escape the sounds as he sawed at the skin and ripped open the hide.
“It’s all right, Sis. You’ll get one next time,” Dalton said, his eyes scanning the hills. “You got buck fever, that’s what you done. Happens to lots of people.” He grinned. “Except me of course.”
One thing about Dalton: he could stay in character.
He gave me a reassuring wink. “I bet Rocky here can keep a secret,” he went on. “We don’t have to tell nobody you choked.”
“I didn’t choke,” I said. “I just—I just missed. Okay.”
Rocky’s hands were covered in blood. He had the two front paws sawed off of the bear and was working on a foot.
I glanced at Dalton, my head still spinning from Rocky’s bizarre behavior. I managed to get my thoughts in order. We were poachers. Unethical, greedy poachers. “I guess that’ll still make a nice rug.”
“Now you’re talking,” Dalton said with a nod.
Rocky paused, but didn’t look up at me. “Too late,” he muttered and went back at it.
“Well, what, that’s it then?” I said. “Will I get another shot? Will you find another bear?” God, please say no.
“Dunno,” Rocky said, dropping the severed leg and lifting the last one to remove the paw.
“What are you doing there, anyway?” I asked even though I knew. Bears paws were worth a fortune on the black market. In Korea, they have been considered an exotic delicacy since the ancient dynasties, reserved only for the elite. A bowl of bear paw soup can sell for as much as one thousand dollars.
“Taking my pay,” he said. He plunged his knife into the bear’s gut, made a slice, then reached into the entrails and pulled out the gall bladder. He didn’t have to fish around. He knew exactly how to get to it. He’d done this many times before.
A gall bladder was worth more than the paws on the black market. Some believe the bile can cure all kinds of ailments, though modern science proves otherwise.
“Open my pack and get some water to rinse my hands,” he said to me. There was no please.
I doused his hands, trying not to look at the gall bladder. He stuffed it into a Ziploc bag, along with the paws, hefted his backpack, and said, “Let’s go.”
“That’s it?” I asked. “What about the carcass?” The bear lay there, his blood soaking the ground, his vacant eyes staring at nothing.
He jerked his head toward the forest. “Something’ll eat it,” he said, turned his back to me and walked away.
Once we arrived back in camp, Rocky got a fire going and hung a pot of water to boil for coffee. The guide once again.
A cold, drizzly rain fell like mist. I sat down on the tarp next to the fire, holding my hands to the flame, trying to get rid of the chill and at the same time keep them from shaking.
Rocky dumped a spoonful of coffee grounds into the pot, then slung his rifle over his shoulder. “I’ll be back to get dinner going. Gotta check in.”
“What? You’re leaving us here?” I said, getting to my feet.
“You’ll be fine. The fence is on.” He looked at me from under his cap. “I just forgot the satellite phone in the plane is all.”
Something about his tone was off. He was trying too hard to be cordial. “Oh, yeah, okay,” I said with a smile. “We’ll be here.”
Dalton and I watched him in silence as he trudged down the hill, then disappeared on the other side, then reappeared as he crossed the river on the log bridge.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” I whispered to Dalton, even though Rocky was more than five hundred yards away by now. “He didn’t leave the phone in the plane. I’m sure he’s had it with him all along. Shit, what if we’re blown?”
Dalton, calm as can be, said, “We stay the course.”
“And what the hell was that all about after he shot the bear? This guy’s a serious head case.”
Dalton nodded in agreement, concern in his eyes.
“I know this is an important case, but I don’t think I can spend another day out here with him. He’s giving me the creeps.”
“I don’t like him either. That’s why I’m not going to leave your side.” He flashed me a smile and his gaze dropped to my chest, ever so briefly. “So try to enjoy it.” He turned away abruptly, as though catching himself. His eyes swept over the landscape. “It’s gorgeous out here.”
I took the opportunity to enjoy his backside, how his h
iking pants fit snugly over the nice curve of his ass. As he turned back, my eyes snapped to the lake. “It is beautiful, but Rocky’s ruined it all. Do you think he’s really calling Townsend and he just didn’t want us to hear the conversation?”
I could see Dalton’s mind turning over the possibility. “Maybe.”
“We’re blown. That’s what it is. I blew it.”
Dalton looked me in the eyes, strong and steady. “We stay the course.” He waited for me to nod confirmation. “There’s nothing to indicate our cover is blown. People choke and miss all the time.”
I nodded. “You’re right. He’s just so…weird.”
“Well, there’s that. But Poppy—” he gave his full attention to our conversation “—we’re going to stay the course. You with me?”
I inhaled and blew out my breath with a sigh. “Yeah. I’m with you.”
The campfire popped and crackled. Dalton used a stick to give it a stir and stuffed another log under the hanging pot. He stood up and ran his fingers through his hair, all curly from the misty rain.
I chewed on my fingernail. Yep, I needed to figure out what to do. Being with Dalton like this, damn, it was going to get me in trouble. But then again, maybe it wouldn’t matter. I was probably going to be fired anyway. This op was going nowhere, and as soon as I got back, I had to face an investigation. There was nothing I could do now but power through this and keep my cover—
“Shit, Dalton.” I threw my hands up. “He’s suspicious. That’s what it is. He’s going to tell Townsend. I should have—”
“We don’t know that.” He shook his head as though something wasn’t adding up. “Listen. If he suspected us, why would he still take the paws and gall bladder? Right in front of us?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s cocky and thinks the evidence to corroborate our story is being devoured by ravens and wolves right now.”
Dalton rested his hands on his hips and stared in the direction Rocky had gone. “But being caught with the bear parts would be enough for a conviction. He’d know that. So why’s he going to the plane? To stash the goods? And why did he anchor the plane out where he could see it instead of leaving it on shore? What’s he worried about?”
“Good question.” I scanned the landscape around us. All hills and forest. No sign of humans save for the aroma of our fresh coffee in the air. “We are literally in the middle of nowhere. No one is going to come along and steal the plane. They’d have to arrive by another plane to do it.”
Dalton spun around. “The radio.”
“You think he’s using the radio on the plane? To call another plane? Maybe to pick up the bear parts?” I looked out at the plane floating on the lake. Rocky should be almost to it by now, but it was getting too dark to see anything on the surface of the lake.
“I don’t know,” Dalton said, hands on his hips again, his eyes traveling to the storage box. “It doesn’t really make sense.” He turned to face me. “Maybe he’s planning to make a call on the sat phone, but not to Townsend.” He shrugged. “Or maybe he really forgot the phone. Maybe it’s legit.”
“I don’t believe anything’s legit with that guy.” All I could think about was the bear, charging toward me, then turning, scared, and him firing away. I gnashed my teeth together. “Kill or be killed. What an ass. That bear turned away. It was running away.”
“He had it pretty aggravated.” Dalton’s attention was on me now. “We don’t know what it would have done.”
“Don’t tell me you’re defending him. There wasn’t an imminent threat. It was clearly a bluff. The bear had turned.”
“I know,” he said, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “I’m just saying that it was a dangerous situation, like we talked about. If it would have turned back again, and headed toward you, we would’ve had only seconds. If that happened, I would’ve—”
“But it didn’t.” I pressed my lips together, trying not to get emotional. “That bear had already backed down. To kill it like he did was…”
Dalton smiled at me, his eyes lingering on mine.
I frowned. “What?”
“You.”
His expression changed, unexpected. He wasn’t arguing with me or trying to convince me. He was—I don’t know. “Me what?”
He stepped toward me. The way his eyes held mine made my pulse jump. “That bear was twenty feet away, in a rage, and you still believed, right up ’til the last second that it was a bluff charge. You truly are an optimist.”
“Optimist. Ha!” I turned from his gaze. “That’s what gets me in trouble.”
“I wish I could be more like you.”
“Don’t mock me.” I didn’t need another lecture right now.
“Never,” he said, putting his hands on my shoulders and gently pulling me toward him. “Look at me.”
Something in his tone, a softness, made me give in. I turned toward him and raised my eyes to meet his.
“Don’t ever lose that. You don’t see the predator, like everyone else does, as a mindless killer.” He took my hand and held it between his warm hands. “You see the beautiful being within.”
“You think I’m naive.” I pulled my hand away. “Don’t talk to me like I’m a child.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head and taking my hand again. This time, the feel of his hands on mine, the look in his eyes, stirred a fire inside me, one I ached to give in to. “Not at all. I’m saying I’m trying, trying not to always see the bad, the dark, the evil in everything. I wish I could see the good, the beauty in things, like you do. But when you’ve seen what I’ve seen, you think only in terms of survival, how you’ll live to breathe another day.” He smiled, a soft, resigned smile. “Then someone like you comes along.” His eyes were clear, honest. “And you make me feel like life’s worth living again.”
“Well, I…” My cheeks flushed pink. Damn cheeks!
“I mean it, Poppy. Honest. It’s what I…it’s what I love about you.”
My insides tingled. Did he just say what I think he said? His eyes on me felt so comfortable, so right.
The fire sparked. The pop made me pull back with a jerk, but Dalton held onto my hand, gentle yet strong. A warm electricity radiated from his hand to mine. He wasn’t letting go.
A tiny dimple creased his cheek, enhanced by the light from the fire, as he smiled at me, his eyes locked with mine. He leaned toward me. A little closer. My heart raced and my hand felt tingly.
“Dalton, I don’t think—”
“We have time.”
Standing so close to me, I could feel his desire, like sparks shooting through the air between us. But he was off-limits. But god, he would be so worth it. But no, he was off-limits.
“We need to be careful. This op, my job—”
“Yeah and I could get fired just for what I’m thinking right now,” he said with a mischievous grin that made my insides flush with heat, firing up places that shouldn’t be fired up.
He stepped closer to me, so close I could feel his breath on my face. Our clothes were the only thing between us, the only barrier. Wow, it was hot out here. Like the heat stirred up from a tropical hurricane. And I was in the center of it, in the eye of the storm.
He cupped my cheek in his hand and his gaze lingered on my lips as his finger traced my jaw. I couldn’t breathe. His eyes made their way back to mine as the tip of his finger lightly brushed my lips.
Then he paused. Was he having second thoughts? Pulling back? The corner of his mouth was still turned up into that irresistible grin. Was he amused? Already feeling regret?
Shut up, brain!
He’d dropped his gaze back to my lips and his breath came in short puffs.
I couldn’t take the anticipation anymore. I surrendered to it. I reached around his neck, pulled us closer, and kissed him. He responded to me with the same passion, slipping his hands from my hips to my lower back, pulling me tight against him. His lips, his warm tongue, the feel of his stubble, rough on my face, sent shivers of desire
up and down my spine. I pushed my fingers through the curls at the back of his neck, holding on.
I couldn’t get enough, couldn’t get close enough. I wanted him. Passion rippled through me like wildfire. I tugged at his shirt.
“Ah, well, isn’t this interesting.” A voice behind us.
I flung myself away from Dalton, my chest heaving.
Rocky stood there, a strange grin on his face, his sidearm in his hand, pointed at Dalton.
“Well, well, well.” He moved toward us.
Shit! Our situation, the op—Dalton’s supposed to be my brother. We’re blown! Oh shit! Oh shit! I tried to move but my knees turned to rubber, like I was fighting quicksand. How did he get inside the wires without us noticing?
Dalton side-stepped away, putting space between us—textbook procedure for one assailant. At least he had his wits about him.
Rocky’s eyes were locked on me, but he managed to keep the weapon trained on Dalton. “I admit, I wasn’t expecting that.” His eyes narrowed. He was thinking, considering some idea. The firelight flickered on his face, making him seem even more menacing. “Can’t blame you,” he said to Dalton. “She is one hot little tomcat. I plan to have a little fun with her myself.” He turned his head toward Dalton and raised the gun to aim. “But you’d be in the way.”
No! I lunged forward and kicked the boiling pot into the air. Hot coffee splashed in his face. He reared back, yelping, stumbled and fell. As he hit the ground, flat on his back, he fired blindly into the air.
“Run!” I yelled.
CHAPTER NINE
I spun toward the gate. It was open. I ran so fast I couldn’t believe my legs kept up with me. Dalton was right behind me, hollering, “Go, go, go!”
Shots fired in the air. I ducked. Adrenaline surged through my veins and spurred me on. I zigged left, heading for a copse of alders for some cover. One stride, then another, then another and I plunged into the brush, my heart hammering in my chest, branches slapping me in the face.
Poppy McVie Mysteries: Books 1-3 (The Poppy McVie Box Set Series) Page 45
