by Penny McCall
“Are you jealous?”
He didn’t say anything, but she could feel him sulking.
“For crying out loud, he was only flirting with me so he could find out what I—what we were up to.”
“That’s not the only reason,” Tag grumbled.
“Fine,” she huffed, trying to ignore the jazzy little flip-flop her heart did at the notion of Tag being jealous over her. Hearts were stupid organs that ought to stick to pumping blood and stop inflating the hopes of women everywhere. Men couldn’t be trusted; Rusty Hale was a perfectly despicable example. “I’d bet real money he’s the one who got Jackass drunk.”
“And the only reason he wanted to keep you in town was the treasure.”
Alex rolled her eyes. “He’s married. Can we concentrate on escaping the real bad guy?”
“Why? All you need to do is come on to Junior and he’ll let you go—well, not let you go, but he won’t hurt you.”
“No, but he’ll hurt you.”
“I didn’t know you cared.”
“You’ve got the map.”
“Fuck the map,” Tag said.
“You’re the one who wanted it,” she reminded him. “You needed me to find out where he was keeping it, and that’s what I did. Why are you getting pissy about the way I did it?”
“We need to concentrate on getting out of town.”
“Typical man,” she said. “The minute the conversation becomes uncomfortable for you, you change the subject.”
“Escape?” he said, sticking with the typical man thing.
And since he had a point, Alex let him get away with it. “Turn left when you hit the street,” she said to him, “and head for the river.”
“I don’t remember seeing a bridge on that end of town.”
“That’s because there isn’t one. The snow in the mountains hasn’t begun to melt yet. The river is shallow enough for us to cross.”
“Nothing you’ve said so far is insurmountable to SUVs.”
“It’s the best chance we have,” Alex said. “If we can get to the trees, we’ll be all right.”
“Great,” Tag muttered in disgust. “It’s still not too late for you to trade sex for safety.”
“A fate worse than death? If I thought it would work, you’d still be knocking around town trying to figure out a way to get your hands on the map, and I’d be sleeping in a feather bed right now.”
Tag snorted. “You’re not the kind of woman who sleeps around.”
“Then apparently you think I’m just a tease.”
Before Tag could answer she stung his mount with the end of her reins. The mare took off, Jackass weaving along at her heels. They didn’t get far before they heard the roar of an engine behind them, followed by another and another. And then headlights appeared at the other end of the street.
Apparently that was all it took to sober Jackass right up. He took off, no urging. Even drunk he gave the mare a run for her money. They hit the end of town, splashed through the river where it was shallow, ice and water foaming up around them, three SUVs closing in.
By the time they reached the opposite bank they’d lost the Hummer, Junior choosing not to take up the chase. Probably he thought the Jeep and the Land Rover were more than capable of catching two map thieves on horses. Why get the expensive Hummer tires wet, let alone risk scratching the paint job?
What he hadn’t counted on was the tent city. The noise and lights brought men pouring out of the tents, most of them dressed in nothing but long underwear and cold steel.
Alex turned Jackass, heading right for them. Tag yelled something, wondering if she’d lost her mind probably. She didn’t bother to yell back. The men in the tent city didn’t know what was going on, but they would recognize the black vehicles and realize the hoity-toity foreigner who’d come to town that morning was involved. And they would take the other side.
Tag must’ve come to the same conclusion, because his mare fell in behind Jackass, following the path he wound between the tents. Some of them were barely far enough apart for one horse, let alone anything with four wheels. The Land Rover skirted the settlement. The Jeep, being smaller, followed them in, staying as close as possible without causing too much damage, property or physical. And it wasn’t shooting at them, either. Too many witnesses, Alex decided. Armed witnesses, who might shoot back.
But the tents didn’t go on forever. And the Land Rover was waiting for them. Still no shooting, still too many witnesses. But there were a lot of accidents that could befall a couple of horses on rugged land at night.
The pasture was flat, open country, but very rough, riddled with natural ditches where runoff from the mountains eroded its way down into the river. They couldn’t push the horses too hard. One of them could trip and throw the rider, or get a foot stuck in some hole and break a leg.
The SUVs didn’t have that problem. Tag and Alex split up, Tag cutting behind Alex so she was lost to the headlights just long enough for both vehicles to go after him when he veered sharply to the right. Alex didn’t know if that was his intention, and there wasn’t time for her to do anything about it because in the split second it took her heart to slam against her rib cage a couple of times Tag was past her and the SUVs had left her in their dust.
In the wildly bouncing glare of the headlights she could see Tag bent low over the mare’s neck, John Wayne, dusting his horse’s hindquarters with the ends of the reins so it would run flat out, no caution whatsoever. The Jeep was behind the Land Rover, and the Land Rover was behind the mare, her flying heels seeming so close to its headlights Alex cringed, waiting for one of her hooves to catch on the Land Rover’s bumper and take her down.
And then the Jeep driver seemed to realize there was only one horse in front of them. The Jeep fell back and cut left, coming after Jackass. Out of the corner of her eye Alex saw the Land Rover fly up over a little rise and then go nose down into a ditch. Water fountained into the air, and she heard the engine revving at about a million rpm. She got one last impression, like a camera flash, of the Land Rover’s wheels spinning wildly, and then the Jeep’s headlights found her.
She bent forward, her mouth next to Jackass’s ear, and said, “I’m sorry,” clapping her heels against his sides and pointing him for the trees. Jackass came through as best he could with ninety-proof blood, but her heart was in her throat, and with every hesitation, every tiny stumble, she was certain they were dead.
Fifty yards from the forest and she had to resort to zigzagging, Jackass managing to change directions just barely faster than the Jeep. Thirty yards and the Jeep was right on their heels, illumination from the headlights bouncing wildly on either side of their shadows in front of them. And then she spotted the deadfall off to her left, about grille high.
She aimed Jackass right for it, sent up a prayer, and dug her heels into his sides. There was a little “oh-shit” hitch in his gait and then she could feel him gather beneath her, muscles bunching as his front legs came off the ground and his powerful hindquarters sent them soaring over the tree.
There was a crash behind her and the Jeep’s headlights were snuffed out. Jackass dropped back to a trot but Alex kept him moving in case the driver had a gun and decided to use it. No shots rang out, but she saw movement coming in from her right and started to freak out because she knew Jackass had nothing left in him. And then she realized it was Tag and his mare coming up next to her.
Tag said something that didn’t register because she was still a little shell-shocked from the close call. And now that she wasn’t about to die, she noticed her leg was throbbing, and probably bleeding in a couple of places. Jackass wasn’t in great shape either. He’d done amazingly well running across country, but now he could barely walk a straight line.
“What’s wrong with Jackass?” Tag wanted to know the third time he stumbled into Angel.
“He’s still drunk,” Alex said.
“He didn’t have any problem running full out across the prairie back there. I think he’s doing it on p
urpose.”
Jackass bumped the mare again.
“Cut it out,” Alex said.
Jackass whinnied and flattened his ears, sidling over casually to snort in Angel’s ear.
She went wonky, bucking a little, starting and stopping abruptly, and catching Tag by surprise, enough surprise that he fell off.
Alex laughed. So did Jackass. The mare seemed pretty amused, too, tossing her head and nickering.
Tag picked himself up off the ground and went eye to eye with his horse. “That won’t be happening again,” he said to her.
“You’re talking to a horse,” Alex pointed out.
“She’s the one I thought I could reason with,” Tag said.
“You didn’t reason with her, you threatened.”
“Whatever works.”
———
THEY TRAVELED FOR A COUPLE MORE HOURS, RIDERS and horses moving mechanically through an exhausted stupor. Most of the snow had melted on the slopes with a southerly exposure. Alex was doing a damn good job of avoiding clear ground. The horses had to pick their way over obstacles hidden by the snow, their hooves slipping often enough to keep Tag in a constant state of uneasiness.
He didn’t notice Alex fidgeting in the saddle, didn’t think about the fact that her thigh must hurt like hell. But he perked up a little bit when she dismounted, and he would’ve had to be in his grave to miss the limp.
If he’d learned one thing about Alex Scott, it was that she detested weakness, especially her own. At the moment he didn’t give a crap.
He climbed down from the mare and let her struggle along for half an hour, only because he knew the horses needed a break. And then he put his foot down. “Get on the horse, Alex.”
“No.”
“Don’t be an idiot. You can barely walk.”
“You’re not doing all that well, either.”
“It’s been a while since I’ve been on a horse, but I’m just stiff. You’re in pain.”
“Jackass needs a rest. He’s not all that steady on his feet yet.”
“Then ride Angel.”
“We don’t have that much farther to go.”
Tag wasn’t wasting any more time trying to reason with her. He picked her up and dumped her on the mare, feeling barely a second of regret that he was rough enough to have her hissing in a breath and clutching at the saddle horn.
“This isn’t a whole lot better,” she said, but she swung her uninjured leg over the saddle.
Tag reached into his saddlebag, handed her a bottle of water and a handful of painkillers from the bar’s first aid kit, which he’d… borrowed. She peered at the pills, tossed a couple over her shoulder, and downed the rest of them.
“You should have taken them all.”
“Only if I want to fall off and break my neck.”
“Why would I go to all the trouble to save your ass back there if I was going to let you break your neck now?”
“You cut across behind me on purpose? To draw them off?”
“Yeah.”
“1 thought you were a bad rider.”
“It’s been a while since I spent any time in the saddle. Doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m doing.”
She snorted softly, her breath steaming in the dark. “Is that a metaphor, or are we both talking about horses?”
“At least I’m in a position to use it as a metaphor.”
“Oh, ouch. I’ll bet there are notches on your bedpost back home.”
“At least I never had to tie any woman in it to keep her there.”
“I imagine a woman never introduced herself to you by way of Smith and Wesson.”
“That was a Ruger, nine millimeter.”
“Sure, that makes all the difference. And you know the really stupid part of this?”
“That we’re arguing about the size of my gun?”
“That I saved your life to begin with.” She braced her hands on the saddle and twisted to look at him. It was too dark to see her expression, but the tone of her voice made “pissed off” a safe bet. “You stuck a gun in my face, and I saved your life,” she said. “Your friends in the plane came back and shot at you, and I saved your life. Then they brought in a helicopter and burned my cabin down, and I saved your life.“
“Hold on, that third time is stretching it.”
“Then I guess you’re the one who shot the snowmobile driver with a tranquilizer gun.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that.”
“And you were up to walking seventy-five miles in damp preppy clothes?”
“I repaid the favor—two of the favors,” Tag amended. “I’m not counting the third one, so that makes us even.”
“This isn’t about keeping score. This is about stupidity. And stubbornness. I’ve been blaming you for being in this mess, but it’s my own fault. You can’t help how you are, being manipulative and dishonest and—”
“Breaking your neck doesn’t sound so bad anymore. At least you’d be quiet.”
“And you’d have no hope of finding the treasure before Junior does.”
“We have the map, remember? I don’t think that’ll be a problem anymore.”
“Unless he made a copy.”
“If there’d been a copy it would’ve been in the safe.”
Alex huffed out a breath. “That wouldn’t be very smart. Jeez, you need to stop thinking like a treasure hunter and start thinking like a cop or something.”
Damn. Tag rubbed at the back of his neck, hating it that she was right. And that he hadn’t thought of it first. She kept making him crazy, and he kept losing sight of what was important. If Junior had a copy… If Junior had a copy… “If he had a copy, he would have shown that to you instead.”
“Not if he wanted me to believe it was authentic. I wouldn’t go out in the field with him for a copy. And even if there weren’t any copies, he could’ve memorized the original well enough to make a useful re-creation.”
“You’re a regular ray of sunshine, aren’t you?” Tag grumbled.
“Just being realistic,” she said around a yawn. “I’ve had enough surprises over the past few days to last me a lifetime. The last thing I want is to get out in the field and have Junior and his merry men waiting for us.”
“Let’s just take this a day at a time.” Or night, he thought, since most of their interaction seemed to come during the hours between sundown and sunup. “Where are we going?”
“A friend of mine owns a ranch not far from here. Her place will be safe.”
Her. That buoyed him up a bit. He was getting tired of Alex’s men. He was tired, period. “How far is it exactly?”
She pointed off ahead of them. “See that break in the trees?”
Tag squinted, making out the place where the treeline met the slightly lighter sky. “Do you mean that opening in the trees on the next ridge?”
“Yes.”
“The one across the really deep valley?”
“That’s the one.”
“That’s your definition of not far? It would be not far if we could fly.”
“I’ve seen you fly,” she said with a slight giggle. The painkillers were definitely kicking in.
“I didn’t fly, I landed.”
“Sounds like fun.” She made a “wheeee” sound, listing to one side then the other, well on her way to breaking her neck.
When she swung back around in his direction, Tag braced a hand on her shoulder and shoved her upright, then had to fist his hand in her coat to keep her from going off the other side.
Good thing she’d only taken half the pills. Even at that there was no way he could stay on the ground and keep her from falling off the mare. He contemplated the possibility of riding Jackass, for all of two seconds before he gave up the idea.
Jackass wasn’t in much better shape than his owner, plodding along, head down, barely able to drag his own carcass forward a step at a time. He probably wouldn’t put up a fuss, but Tag didn’t want to be the proverbial straw. Not that the mental
picture of Jackass on his belly with all his legs splayed out hurt Tag’s feelings, but Alex wouldn’t be too happy about it, and he needed to keep her happy. To whatever degree that was possible.
Falling onto her head in a drugged stupor would probably be contrary to that ambition.
Tag picked up Jackass’s reins, careful to keep as far away as possible, and climbed up behind Alex on Angel. He was braced for the inevitable insults and objections—or at least a feeble attempt to shove him off. Instead she sighed and snuggled back against him. Instant hard-on. Another reason he disliked riding. Not that he’d spent a lot of his time on horseback in this condition, but anything that put a man’s package in close proximity to a hard surface that was under the control of something with the IQ of a five-year-old was just wrong in his book.
Alex let her head drop back against his shoulder and said, “Ummmmmmm,” and things got measurably worse. And there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about it.
He wrapped an arm around her waist, tucked her head into a more comfortable position, and fought like hell to remember her whining and obnoxious instead of warm and sleepy and soft. He accomplished the first, but it didn’t come close to outweighing the second.
And for the first time since he’d crashed into Alexandra Scott’s life, Tag began to wonder exactly what he’d gotten himself into.
Chapter Eleven
TAG FOLLOWED ALEX’S VAGUE DIRECTIONS, WISHING the painkillers would solve his problem. In the interest of distraction—and necessity—he concentrated on keeping Alex’s break in the trees in sight. Kind of difficult, since they were traveling through heavy forest most of the time. He resorted to picking out a landmark and aiming for it. When he thought he’d arrived he repeated the process, always keeping the tallest mountain peak at the same general place on the horizon. Finally he topped a hill, and there spread out about a half mile below them was a flat, treeless plain, in the center of which were a ranch house, outbuildings, and corrals. Herds of animals he assumed were beef cattle dotted the pastures.
Even at that early morning hour there seemed to be a lot of activity. Jackass whinnied, seeming to perk up. Alex even stirred, pulled partially back to consciousness by the noise and the brightening light.
