HIS TENDER TOUCH

by Sharon Mignerey

  He squeezed her shoulder and brought her more fully next to him. The squall caught up with them. Thankfully, it was just a gentle drizzle. Audrey shivered and snuggled into Gray's abundant warmth. She noticed he had put on another jacket, which looked old and ratty compared to the one he had given her.

  "I know this is gonna sound stupid," she said, "but I'm starved."

  "That fine guest-ranch hospitality again," he said, his tone dry.

  She chuckled. "I don't think I can blame Mary or Hawk for this. And Richard hadn't struck me as the outdoors type."

  "He's not," Gray confirmed.

  He leaned his head against the rock wall and closed his eyes a moment before shrugging out of a backpack. Unzipping the top compartment, he pulled out a pair of candy bars and handed one to Audrey. She studied the open pack and had the feeling she had just caught a glimpse of Mary Poppins's magic satchel.

  "I don't believe it," she said with appreciation. Her stomach rumbled, a reminder she had been hungry before she left Puma's Lair. She unwrapped the paper around the Hershey bar, and the candy's sweet smell filled the air. "You're a saint."

  She took a bite, savoring the taste and texture of the chocolate against her tongue.

  His attention remained focused on the terrain they had just covered. "When I tell you we've got to get going, you'll think I'm a real bas—"

  "I'll still think you're a saint," she interrupted, glancing at the gray clouds above them. "I've already figured out that if we can move under the cover of rain. Without being seen, the guy with the rifle can, too."

  Gray nodded. "That's right."

  "And since this outcrop is the only thing bigger than one of those bushes out there, it won't take a genius to figure out where we are."

  "Smart girl."

  She took another bite of her candy bar. "What next?"

  "I'm going to climb up to the top of the rock and see if anyone is coming. If it's clear, we're going to take off for that set of foothills."

  "The ranch is that way," she said pointing in the opposite direction.

  "Yeah. And there's not enough cover between here and there to hide a jackrabbit." Gray stood up. "When I give you the high sign, take off at a good brisk walk. If you see anybody besides me, drop down and lay flat against the ground."

  "What if they see me first?" She wished her question sounded flip instead of scared. Audrey had never felt so out of her element. This wouldn't have been fun even if somebody weren't shooting at them.

  "They won't." He caught her glance. "It'll be okay. You don't have to run, but this isn't a Sunday stroll, either."

  She rubbed her side where the stitch still ached. "Unfortunately, a Sunday stroll is about my best speed."

  He patted her arm. "You're doing just fine."

  Gray slid out from beneath the makeshift stone shelter and climbed up the face of the boulder. Audrey's stomach clutched as she imagined what he might see. She still couldn't believe someone was actually shooting at them.

  "It's clear, Audrey," Gray called. "I want to keep an eye on things for a while longer. Get going and I'll catch up with you in a bit."

  "Define ‘bit,’" she said.

  "When you've got enough distance between here and the bluff by the creek that we can make it safely across the valley."

  She slipped out from under the stones, immediately feeling the mist against her face. At least it wasn't raining hard the way it had been before, she thought. She tipped her head back and peered up at Gray. His weight was supported in one of the fissures of the big boulder, and he held a pair of binoculars to his eyes.

  Flexing his shoulders, he pulled his arms back, and his jacket opened. Tucked in the waistband of his jeans was a black, lethal-looking gun. Audrey stared, and Richard's taunt echoed through her head. He killed a man, you know.

  She swallowed, unable to look away from the gun. And someone was trying to kill her. Don't trust anyone. If she'd ever been around anyone besides a cop who carried a weapon, she hadn't known it. The whole business frightened her far more than she wanted to admit. Especially that this man might be willing to use his gun.

  "Get going, Audrey."

  She lifted her gaze to his. He looked the same.

  Of course he looks the same, you ninny, she scolded herself. She understood why he wanted her to go ahead. The pistol didn't have a rifle's range, and staying here while she walked ahead gave her a better chance if the guy with the rifle showed up.

  Dear God, what had she gotten herself into?

  "Audrey?"

  She rubbed her temple. One part of her wanted to argue with him, say that if he stayed, so did she. Another part of her was completely baffled.

  "You think it's best I go alone?"

  "You won't be alone, hon— Audrey, I swear it. I just want to make sure we get a good head start."

  "Toward those foothills, right?"

  "Yep. Make a beeline toward those cottonwoods. And don't forget, if you hear anything or see anyone besides me, drop down and lay flat. Got it?"

  She nodded.

  "And Audrey?" He paused until she looked up at him. "Don't worry. You'll be okay. It may be a while before I catch up with you, but I will."

  She believed him. If he had anything at all to say about it, they would be safe. Which led her thoughts straight back to the gun. She remembered her brother had once told her there was no point in carrying a gun unless you intended to use it.

  She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her jacket and began walking toward the line of cottonwood trees.

  The farther away from the road she got, the harder packed the ground became, which made walking easier and faster. She stopped and picked up a small flat stone to scrape the excess mud off the soles of her shoes. That, too, made walking easier, though she would kill for her Nikes and a pair of warm socks.

  Kill. The word echoed through her brain, and she doubted she would ever again be so cavalier about the word. Had Gray really killed a man? Sensing he would kill to protect them if he had to, she was no longer so sure about her earlier conclusion that he couldn't have killed anyone.

  The cottonwoods looked an impossibly long distance away, so she picked a landmark much closer to walk toward—a bush several hundred yards ahead. When she passed it, she found another small landmark and walked toward it. After the fifth or sixth time, she turned around and looked at the boulder. Gray was still braced in the narrow crack.

  Audrey focused on the next marker and counted off the paces until she reached it.

  Who would be shooting at them? she wondered. Despite Richard's comments last night, she couldn't imagine him wanting her dead. Of course, she couldn't imagine anyone she knew plotting murder, so what did she know? Even so, the image of Richard climbing a hillside in the rain to shoot at her just didn't compute. He'd get those expensive Tony Lama boots all muddy.

  Her thoughts shifted to Hawk. She found it easier to believe Hawk capable of cold-blooded murder, but she suspected that was mostly because she had watched too many Westerns while she was growing up. And why would he shoot at her, anyway? Even though he had promised Richard he would take care of it if need be. It. There it was again, she thought. Figure out what it was and maybe she'd know who was shooting at her.

  Cold realization washed over her. Someone had been shooting at her. Not her and Gray together, but her. For an instant, she thought she might throw up.

  She tried to imagine what her brother's advice would be in this situation. As a Navy SEAL, she knew he courted danger, and she often suspected his world was so far removed from hers she would barely comprehend it. Until today, her personal experiences with danger had been no more risky than deciding whether to ride a roller coaster.

  Trust your instincts, he'd probably say. That sounded good, but she had always found her mind to be far more reliable than her hunches.

  After that, her brother would tell her to figure out who had the best resources she needed, then stick like glue. No doubt about it—Gray was far better equipped
to get them out of this fix than she was.

  Gradually, she realized the rain had stopped, and the clouds seemed to have lifted some. She glanced at her watch, wishing she had remembered to do that before she started walking. The time was just a few minutes past four. She had no idea how long she had been walking. She turned around and looked at the boulder where she had left Gray.

  It was far behind her. Her attention became focused on walking as fast as she could. She glanced over her shoulder occasionally, trying to judge the point at which the trees were closer than the boulder. For a long time, she felt suspended between the two landmarks. Finally, when the trees seemed marginally closer, she saw Gray moving across the plain. He ran easily, covering the ground in a fraction of the time she had.

  Knowing he was on his way lifted her spirits. She analyzed that, deciding no single thing accounted for the feeling. She was attracted to him. And she trusted him to do his best to keep them safe and get them out of this mess.

  A little while later, she heard the sound of a car engine, and she stopped to look back in the direction she thought the road was. Worse, she didn't see Gray anywhere.

  Then she heard him shout. "Audrey, get down. Damn it, Audrey, lie down!"

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  « ^ »

  Obeying Gray's command, Audrey dropped instantly to the ground, lying flat. Against her cheek, the soil felt sandy, cool and damp. She could feel the rumble of a vehicle, as well as hear its engine. Peering through one of the spindly bushes that dotted the valley, she tried to see Gray. A hundred yards behind her, she saw him on the ground, belly-crawling toward her.

  When he was fifteen yards away, he repeated, "Just stay put, honey. Our shooter has a Jeep and he's left the road looking for us."

  "Do you think he saw us?" she asked.

  "Nope. He would have fired by now if he had."

  Again, she heard the engine. Gray didn't turn around to see where the vehicle was, so Audrey resisted the urge to look herself.

  "I'll say one thing for this guy," Gray noted when he reached her. "He's persistent."

  "Just before you yelled at me," she said, "I saw a gully a little ways ahead. That's better than staying here, isn't it?"

  "Sure is," Gray agreed. "Lay low, honey, and lead the way."

  On hands and knees, she crawled between the sparsely placed bushes toward the ravine. When Audrey reached it, she groaned. It wasn't better at all. Six or seven feet deep and about that many feet wide, the gulch zigzagged across the valley. Water stood in the bottom of the ditch, and the sides had crumbled away under the onslaught of all the recent rain.

  "This is perfect," Gray said.

  "Perfect is a room at the Marriott," she muttered.

  "You'll get no argument from me. Room service and a hot shower are sounding better by the minute," he said. "But once we get to the other side, it's going to be real difficult for our friend back there to cross over. All we have to do is get there without leaving any obvious tracks."

  "If he hasn't already spotted our tracks."

  "He might not," Gray argued. "The rabbitbrush provides pretty good protection, and the soil was packed hard enough that your tracks weren't real obvious. If I hadn't known where you were headed and if I wasn't keeping a close eye out, I might not have seen them."

  Audrey smiled. "Thanks for trying to make me feel better, Gray, but the bad guys in the movies are always expert trackers."

  "Yep," he agreed. "And nine times out of ten, good prevails and justice is done. Only, life isn't the movies."

  They crawled along the bank of the gulch another hundred yards before Gray found a spot he liked. He took his backpack off.

  "When was the last time you rode piggyback?" he asked.

  "Years," she said.

  "C'mon. You can carry the pack for a minute, and I'll carry you."

  "I don't think so," she murmured. "You walk. I walk."

  He reached for her deck shoes, which he easily slipped off her feet. "You walk in the mud in these, and you'll lose them in ten yards."

  "We're not going to walk in the mud for ten yards," she reasoned. "As soon as we get across—"

  "We're not going across," he interrupted. "We're going to walk along the bottom of the gully for a while—it's our only hope of staying hidden until our guy gets tired and leaves." He put her shoes in the pocket of his jacket. "I'm walking, and you're riding."

  "I can walk," she insisted.

  He gazed at her, noting the bruised-looking smudges beneath her eyes. Without adequate protection for her feet, the chill from the mud would seep into her. If they had to make a run for it, she wouldn't have enough energy left to battle a feather.

  "Gray—"

  "No more discussion." He rose up, again checking the location of the Jeep. "He's headed back toward the road. Now's our chance."

  He helped her put the pack over her shoulders.

  "What do you have in here? Bricks?"

  "Dinner," he answered. "And a few other odds and ends."

  Audrey climbed on his back, and he grasped both of her legs, holding her thighs next to his sides. Layers of clothes separated them, but she was acutely aware of him. Against her legs, his body felt incredibly warm. His damp hair rubbed her cheek, smelling of rain, soap and the underlying scent that was uniquely him.

  They descended over the edge of the gully in a rush. She looped one arm around his shoulders and grabbed on to his jacket with the other hand.

  Gray's focus remained on the sound of the Jeep crisscrossing the valley as he trudged through the mud. The gully was barely deep enough to conceal them. As the sound of the vehicle ebbed and flowed, he could feel Audrey's tension. Did she realize she was the quarry?

  Though he had been through his own life-and-death crises, never once had he been the hunted. If it scared and worried him, it must be terrifying for her. For the first time in his life, this was an insight to how his mother must have felt when she had fled his father's wrath.

  The Jeep sounded much closer. Gray felt Audrey twist around on his back, looking behind them.

  "See anything?" he asked.

  "No," she said. "Nothing but the gully."

  "Then he can't see us, either."

  "Somehow that doesn't make me feel better."

  It didn't make Gray feel better, either. Hidden as they were, they would be trapped if they were discovered.

  The sound of the Jeep engine grew louder, worrying Gray more by the minute as he realized the gully was gradually becoming shallow, and they would soon be visible. He headed for a precarious-looking overhang that would shield them from view.

  The water had worn away a wider course at the bottom of the gulch, leaving an overhang of four or five feet. From the top, the gulch would look no wider than it did anywhere else. He wouldn't give two cents for the ground above not collapsing, but it was better than being a sitting duck for the man chasing them.

  Who the hell was he, anyway? And what had Audrey done, what did she know that would make her a target for murder?

  The Jeep engine sounded directly above them, its tone changing as the vehicle slowed. There was a squeak of brakes, and a door slammed.

  Gray eased Audrey off his back and edged deeper beneath the overhang. Pulling her to his side, he wrapped an arm around her and put his fingers to his lips. Her eyes wide, she nodded.

  There was a whisk of footsteps directly above them. The edge of the overhang crumbled, and muddy clumps of earth splashed into the water in front of them. Directly above their heads, Gray saw a crack in the earthen roof, a crack that seemed to widen as he watched. He glanced at Audrey, her attention focused on the sounds above them, her head cocked slightly to the side.

  Next to him, Gray felt Audrey tremble. He gave her shoulders a reassuring squeeze.

  There was another brush of sound accompanied by footfalls, and a second later the car door closed. The engine revved and gears ground. The crunch of tires became more faint, and within a few seconds more, the
sound of the engine had faded to a drone.

  Easing out from beneath the overhang, Gray scrambled a couple of steps up the side of the gully. The vehicle was still close, and he ducked without taking his eyes off the driver. The man was bare headed, blond. Tall, judging by the way he sat behind the wheel. A red-and-silver lightning bolt was painted on the side of the vehicle, a design that was somehow familiar. From this distance, Gray couldn't read the plates, but they had the distinctive green and white of Colorado's. He had begun investigations with less to go on. He felt Audrey beside him, staring at the Jeep.

  She shivered.

  "I know who it is," she said, a quaver in her voice. "I've ridden in that vehicle."

  She closed her eyes, and Gray noted the blue tinge beneath the surface of her skin, reminding him of all she had been through today.

  "Howard Lambert." Her eyes blinked open, and she gripped his hands tightly. "My God, I should have figured this out sooner. All the signs were there, but I didn't want to—"

  "You're sure?"

  Audrey nodded.

  "And I know why." She met Gray's eyes. "Right before Howard sent me down here to do the audit, I was working on a deal for a resort he's buying in Tucson. And I discovered a bunch of irregularities with water and mineral rights on one of his other properties. He had sold the rights to raise cash for the new resort. Only trouble was, he sold one set of rights to two different buyers—we're talking millions of dollars here."

  "And you asked him about it."

  Audrey nodded. "I was sure it had to be some kind of mistake. It had to be. That's deliberate, going-to-jail fraud."

  "And you told him that, too."

  "It came up, more jokingly than anything, but yeah. He told me he was sure there had been a mix-up and not to worry about it."

  "Then what happened?"

  She frowned. "He came back to talk to me before he left that night, and I told him my concerns. He said not to worry about it—he would take care of it. The next morning, he dumped a pile of files on my desk and told me to get down here. Which was strange."