CHAPTER TEN
CODY CROUCHED AT the junction of stream and river, watching colors seep into the landscape after the gray dawn, long enough to be satisfied their stalker wasn’t lying in wait. If Cody was doing the sniping, he’d set up in that dip between the boulders on the far bank, in that clump of ferns upriver, on that rocky bluff.
The concrete sky sagged. The forest drooped with dew, as if salivating at the promise of rain. Far away one of Shane’s dogs barked, the echo bouncing around the valley. Cody turned his head to one side, listening. More barking. They were still a fair distance upriver but it was time to push on. He stood, rolling his shoulders. Time to wake Tia. He’d packed everything in the kayaks except the bedding.
He followed the stream back up, rubbing his nape. He’d hardly slept, but when did he ever? Having Tia naked in his arms was enough of a recharge. He’d lain there thinking too much, listening to the piercing calls of night birds, the hoot of a tiny owl that swooped in and out of a tree, the trickle and rush of water, the odd scraping and shuffling that had him on alert.
At the clearing, Tia sat studying the map, crunching into the apple he’d left for her, along with a nut bar and water. The sleeping bag, mat and tent were neatly stowed. She’d pulled back her hair, and her face was fierce with concentration. It was true what he’d said—she wasn’t like any woman he’d met. Tough and passionate. It’d take one hell of a man to count as her equal—and not a guy who’d spent six years on the run. You can’t shovel that shit while you’re swimming in it. Was that his problem? He was counting on time and distance to heal him, but the farther he ran from his guilt and grief, the heavier it got.
Tia looked up, rubbing her lips together as she spotted him. How would this go? It wasn’t your usual morning after. They’d crossed a line last night, and not just a physical one. The last couple of years he’d watched his best buddies hook up with the right woman at the wrong time. Never thought it’d happen to him.
And it wouldn’t happen. It wasn’t happening. Like she’d said, this was a fling between a local and a tourist, the kind of thing that happened every day—had probably happened that very day to a thousand people, from Kenya to Manhattan. Two people pairing up, having a good time, moving on. Happy blips. The what-if moment was inevitable but you pushed on through.
“We’ll need to bust a gut to get to the falls,” she said, snapping her gaze back to the map. “There’s a river crossing right before it—a swing bridge. I’ll feel better when we’re past that.”
He crossed the clearing. So that’s how it’d be—they’d forget it ever happened. Well, he’d never forget, but he could pretend, if that’s what she wanted. He’d also be good with stripping naked and resuming where they’d finished up last night, but maybe it was lucky they couldn’t.
“A bridge,” he said, catching up with her words. “Does that mean there’s a track?” Another escape route?
“Yeah, but it’s rough. An old hunting track that goes nowhere to nowhere, slowly.” She stretched her legs out. The dressing was soaked with blood. “The river’s still our best bet.”
“Want me to change that?” He nodded at her leg.
“Nah. It’s holding. We should go.” She went to push to her feet and stopped, wincing. He held out a hand. “I’m fine.” She tried again, smacked onto her ass, swore.
“It’ll take a while to loosen up again, after a night’s...rest,” he said.
Sighing, she clapped her hand into his and he pulled her up. He liked the weight of her. He liked that they were nearly eye to eye when standing. And he liked it even more when she gave in to a shy smile, pulled him closer and kissed him, as tender and intimate as sex had been last night. Is that what a relationship with her would be like—hot and fun but calming and fortifying, too?
Way too soon, she pulled away. Her smile faded, her eyes turning down in the creases. Laid bare and uncomfortable with it. “Thanks,” she whispered. “Last night was... Thanks.” There was a finality in her tone. Officially sealing the experience into the box marked One-Night Stand.
He should say something profound that would convey how much more it’d meant, without suggesting they had a future. He said the first words that came: “My pleasure.”
He felt like a jerk, but what could he say? I’ll call you. Let’s do this again sometime. Run away with me because you’re the hottest—and coolest—woman I’ve ever met. And then what? A woman couldn’t join the legion. And what would he do in Nowheresville, with too much time and space for dark thoughts? A few days in a year of days was cool, but any longer and he’d drown in the silence. Even if they went somewhere new, somewhere busy, his regret and heartache would come, too. She deserved better.
She stepped back and turned with a clumsy hop. “Right. Let’s get on the water.”
And there it was. The End.
Their awkwardness lifted after they pushed off, with rapids to force their concentration, and hard paddling in calmer waters. Her leg impeded her more than the day before, not that she complained. Hard to use the force in your arms without a solid anchor in your legs. After half an hour a light drizzle settled, more mist than rain. Icy drops trickled down his nape. Below Tia’s helmet, her hair glistened like a spiderweb beaded with dew.
The forest was noisy with birds—bells and whistles and coos and clicks and warbles and screeches and rustling that had him itchy with nerves. The hunter whistling? The clunk of a bolt sliding home? The rustle of dogs?
As he rounded a sharp corner approaching rapids, a parrot with a rust-red belly swooped across the river, screeching. He flinched. It barreled into foliage and disappeared.
“Kaka,” Tia said behind him. “I’ve never seen one up here. There used to be thousands.”
“Let me guess. Before humans?”
“Yep. We suck. Seriously, the world would be a better—”
He glanced over his shoulder. She was frowning at something ahead, on the right bank. He followed her gaze. A wire trailed downriver, attached to a tree root. He paddled into an eddy, skimmed his hand through the water and picked it up. It was no random piece of rubbish—someone had knotted it tight.
“Any good reason for this to be here?”
She eddied out behind him. “Look,” she said, nodding at the far bank. “Straight across. Another wire.”
It was tangled in scrub on the water’s edge. “The other end of this one? Why would you string a wire across a...” He blinked. “Shit. He clotheslined a kayaker?”
Cody yanked and the wire pinged free, the root splashing into the river. He coiled it and stashed it in his kayak.
“Cody.” Tia’s voice was flat and urgent. She pointed downstream. Something red was caught in a sieve, under a tree canopy. A paddle. “He boasted about setting traps for humans, about hunting women. Maybe this was him trying to get a woman off the river, force her into the bush where his dogs could catch up.” Tia scanned the ferns along the banks, backpaddling. “So where is she now?”
“Maybe the kayak overturned. Maybe she bailed. If we find her kay—”
A bark, low-pitched and husky. A shout: “Shut up!” Close behind. Shit, Shane had caught up fast. Cody kicked into gear, pulling hard into the current.
“Tia, I want to find her, too. But right now we gotta stick to the plan, stay ahead of him.”
She nodded curtly, her lips thin.
“We get past the waterfall, we’re home free.”
Another nod.
The next rapid was short and brutal. No more sign of kayakers. Then the goddamn river began to meander, just when they could have used a solid patch of straight water to pull ahead. Every bend, every cliff, every bay, Cody expected to see camo gear, hear the zing of a potshot. The dogs had silenced—under control, on the hunt? The rush of the rapids turned into a roar, the roar into thunder. Mist billowed around an upcoming blind bend. The waterfall. A sudden scream cut overtop.
Tia charged up alongside him. “Hear that?”
“Yep.”
“It was close—just through there.” She nodded at a strip of stony beach on the right bank.
“Tia, we gotta get to the waterfall before he does.”
“It could be her.” Another scream, indistinct. “I can’t not...”
His gut churned. Fuck.
“You go ahead,” she said, paddling for the beach. “I’ll check it out.”
Dammit. He followed, ripping off his spraydeck as his kayak skimmed to a halt behind hers. He jumped out with a crunch and pulled the boat under a clump of ferns as she did the same.
“You have to keep going,” she said, stepping out of her spraydeck. “Stick to the plan.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
She unclipped her life jacket and tossed it on the kayak. “This is about your brother, isn’t it?”
“Don’t bring him into this. It’s about you.” He nodded into the forest, trying not to shout above the crashing water. “It’s about her.”
“I can look after her—and me. Best thing you can do is raise the alarm. You’re not thinking straight because of what happened before.”
“Don’t tell me what I’m thinking.”
“We don’t have time to argue. Staying is a bad decision. Go.”
Another scream, almost inhuman. He frowned. There was something odd about it. His ears couldn’t get a fix on it over the roar of the falls.
“Cody, go.” She scrambled up a mud bank.
Leaving made sense. Of course it did. He dragged his palms down his face, slick with mist and sweat. But, fuck it. Maybe staying was a bad decision, but it was the only one he could live with.
He caught up with her in a dark gully where the forest muffled the waterfall to a bass boom. She shot him a disapproving look, then started.
“Hear that?” she asked.
A snorting, ahead. Not dog, but he’d swear it wasn’t human. He overtook her—and froze. Farther down the narrow gully, a monster of a black boar tottered and swayed to its feet, curved tusks glowing white in the gloom. Holy shit. Grunting, it lowered its huge matted head—and charged. Cody reared and smacked into Tia. She yelped. An instant of weightless panic and then he landed on dirt, taking her out on the way down. The boar barreled toward them, getting bigger by the second. It threw up its head and squealed. Then its legs buckled and it thudded to the ground, the impact shuddering like a quake. It slid to a stop so close that Cody could feel its hot breath.
“He’s bleeding,” Tia whispered, pointing past Cody to a deep, dirty gash in its flank, oozing with fresh and dried blood and yellowy gunk. Behind it, on the leaf litter, was a long red smear. “The dogs must have had a go at him—a while back. He’s dying.”
“Jesus, a lucky break for us. Let’s go.” He shuffled off her legs and pushed to his feet. “You okay?”
“We can’t leave him like that,” she said, hopping to her feet. “That knife still in your pocket?” She held out a hand.
“Ah man.” They were sniper fodder and she was stopping to be humane? “I’ll do it.”
“I can do it.”
“Tia, I would totally be cool with watching you take on a wild boar. Hell, I’d buy tickets. But you’re injured.”
She pressed her lips together. Her skin had paled, her freckles standing out. He’d landed right on her leg. Fresh blood stained her bandage. The pig squealed, the sound digging into his brain. A dog barked, the echo masking its location.
“Make it quick,” she said.
The exhausted beast didn’t give much of a struggle. It’d had enough of fighting. Still, it stung Cody in the chest to watch its life end, with a twitch and a slump. I’ve had enough of death, Tia had said. Cody’d had enough of death seven years ago. You go mad or you go numb. Which way was he headed? He felt warm pressure on his lower back, under his life jacket. Tia. She jerked her head the way they’d come, her face grim but back to normal coloring. He nodded.
A few steps from the beach, Tia stopped, grabbing his arm. Something was churning through the undergrowth, still out of sight but coming their way. The ferns carpeting the gully remained still.
“Run,” she whispered.
He pushed her ahead but she stopped short, forcing him to sidestep to avoid taking her out. A dog flew off a bank and landed in front of her. Squat and white with pink-rimmed eyes. It advanced with a rumbling growl, saliva dripping from bared teeth like some demon hound. The growl grew into a bark, then another. A whistle answered—from downriver. Shit, the shooter had gotten ahead of them. Cody drew out his knife and flicked it open.
Tia cursed. “Shane must be on the swing bridge, above the falls. Waiting for us to round the corner in the kayaks.”
“We almost did.”
“We need to lure him away.” She straightened. “I have an idea. Sit, Jaws, sit,” she commanded.
“Was that your idea? It ain’t working.”
“No, that’s me giving it a chance to cooperate. Take off your life jacket. Wrap it around your arm.”
Cody blinked. “Holy shit, for real? I liked your first plan better.”
“When Shane told me about training the dogs to go after humans he held out his left arm, like this.” The dog snapped as she raised her arm, elbow wide. She pulled it in. “That’s what he trained the dog to go after. If we get it to latch on, we can contain it long enough to leash it. And shut it up in the meantime.”
“You make it sound so simple.” He unclipped the life jacket and slid it off. “Is this the dog that attacked you?”
“Yep.”
“It went for your leg, not your arm.”
“You have five seconds to come up with another plan. Four, three—”
“Ah, fuck it. You take the knife, just in case.”
He placed it in her nearest hand, wound the jacket around his arm and jumped in front of her, offering his forearm.
“Jaws!” she said, her voice low. “Attack!”
“Whose side are you on?”
The dog pulled back slightly, scrabbled on dead leaves and jumped. Cody winced. Its teeth locked around the jacket. Holy shit, the pressure... He clenched his teeth so hard his jaw clunked.
“Hold on,” Tia said, limping toward the beach.
“You talking to me or the mutt?” Its canines pierced the jacket, scratching Cody’s skin, but the pressure was the bigger problem. Any second he’d pop like a balloon. “This thing must weigh sixty pounds.”
“I’m more of a kilograms girl.”
She returned with the towline and clipped it to the dog’s collar. It rolled its eyes back, trying to figure out what she was up to. Me, too, mutt. Another whistle from downriver. The dog whined.
“It has an attachment problem,” Tia said. “Well, a detachment problem. Doesn’t know how to let go.”
“You tell me this now?”
She hoisted its hind legs, easing the strain. It twisted, eyes rolling back, paws scrabbling in air, like it wanted to turn and take out her instead but didn’t know how. “Walk inland. To the pig.”
“You’re not tying it up?”
“Got a better idea.”
“I’m not really warming to your last idea.”
His body was chilling with panic, his nerves screaming at him to do something. His medic’s Scottish brogue landed clear in his head: “Suck it up, Princess.” Tia had done this without the armor.
After forever, they reached the dead pig.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Sorry, that’s as far as my plan went.”
“What?” Another whistle. Closer. The shooter was on the move.
“I’m kidding. Let’s lower the dog.”
Bad idea. As soon as its paws hit dirt it yanked, trying to drag its prey down. Tia leaped to a tree and tied the towline around it.
“Jaws, release,” she hissed.
It didn’t.
She scanned the ground, grabbed a stick and caught the dog around its middle, which triggered more head thrashing. She angled the stick up and tried to wedge it into the corner of the mutt’s mouth. With the jacket and Cody’s arm stuffed in, there wasn’t room.
“Hold tight,” she said.
“Again, me or the dog?”
Cody braced as she shoved the stick. The dog released and dropped onto its spine with something between a cough and a bark. Tia grabbed Cody’s good arm and they stumbled away. With another cough-bark, the dog lunged. The towline snapped tight and yanked the mutt back. It whined and shook its head, then found its voice, barking to burst an eardrum.
Ah, now he got it. Not only were they just out of reach—so was the pig. Dog goes bat-shit crazy at pig, shooter thinks it’s guarding Cody and Tia and leaves the bridge to come find it, they get over the falls. Genius.
Tia shoved Cody. “Get the kayaks ready. If I’m not back in two minutes, go without me.”
“What the fuck? He’s coming!”
“Go!”
“I’m not leaving you behind, if that’s your pl—”
“It’s not. Trust me. I can’t waste time explaining. I’m a soldier, too, Cody—show me some respect and go.”
She was right. He wasn’t her bodyguard—they were a team. He’d give her two minutes but no way was he pushing off without her.
He’d just gotten the kayaks to the water when she leaped down the bank. Blood everywhere—her shorts, her jacket, a smear across her forehead.
“Shit, Tia, what happened?”
She held up a couple of dripping slabs of meat, hairy black skin still attached. “Ham steaks happened. He keeps them hungry. If we have another encounter...”
She zipped them into her jacket pocket. Shee-it, this could well be love. As they pushed off, stretching their spraydecks on, he ran through instructions for clearing the waterfall. “Only thing you gotta remember—you have to hit it from the left. You go down in the middle, you’ll get caught in the suckback. Too far right, you’ll hit a nasty undercut ledge.”
“The left. Okay.”
“Coming up to it, the current will push you right, so be ready. You gotta shoot out of that left-hand corner with nose straight and as much momentum as you got.”
She nodded, her face locked in calm focus. Show me some respect. Man, that’d stung. He had total respect, total faith in her, like he had in his commando team, like he’d had in Zack. Like Zack once had in him...
Cody rounded the bend in the river, his hull scraping a submerged rock. The current was already forcing him right. A stream of sunshine lit a rainbow in the curling mist. Fifty feet ahead, an old rope-and-wood bridge swooped low from bank to bank. Beyond it the water vanished over a crisp, smooth line, like his folks’ infinity pool, and reappeared much smaller far down the valley. Merde. Was this a waterfall or the fucking Hoover Dam? He pushed away from the rock and corrected to avoid the wake of a fallen tree splitting the current. One hell of a sieve trap. He glanced back to warn Tia—and caught movement on the stony beach they’d just left. The beach drifted out of sight but he knew what he’d seen. Camo gear.
A gunshot. Tia cried out, her boat rocking. Crack. Her paddle splintered, leaving a stump in her hand. Her gaze met his, eyes wild. A bullet had ripped the side of her kayak open. The current pulled her into a spin, going downstream fast. Another gunshot. The bullet smacked into the water behind her. She was using her half paddle as an oar, desperately pulling herself right—to the sieve. He veered violently and caught a branch of the fallen tree with one hand, his biceps straining to steady the kayak against the charge of water.
She was out of the hunter’s sights, but her nose was dipping, threatening to flip the kayak end over end and send her down the falls belly-up. Not a fucking thing he could do but watch her fight. And man, was she fighting, her cheeks blown up with the effort of feeding oxygen to her overworking muscles. She leaned hard to the right and the kayak swung—and wedged neatly between the tree’s upended roots. Good plan but it wouldn’t hold her long. His kayak lurched. The branch slipped from his grip. She thrust out her paddle, and he caught it with one hand while backpaddling with his other hand and wrangling the current with his hips and abs. Not sustainable.
“Go!” she shouted. “Get help.” He could hardly hear her over the thunder of two hundred smashing cumecs.
“Not leaving you.”
She glanced at the bank, her eyes huge. “He won’t kill me straightaway. He’s doing this for sport. He’ll draw it out, hunt me.”
Cody’s boat shot forward, his glove slipping down the paddle. “Tia, pull me in!”
“You’re good at running and I’m good at hiding, remember? We play to our strengths. I’m letting this go. You’d better be ready because I sure as hell don’t want to search for your body.”
“No!”
“If something happens to me, don’t blame yourself or I swear I’m coming back to haunt you.”
“Tia...”
“Three. Two.”
“Tia!”
“One.” She let go and the current took its chance, sweeping him downriver. “Don’t come back without the army, Cowboy.”
Fuck. He swiveled, tossing her broken paddle and gripping his. He was too far right. He paddled hard. The current swung him sideways, accelerating on approach of the drop, shooting him under the bridge. His abs burned. The watery horizon was coming up fast. He was going down sideways, smack in the middle.
Not a great time to find out he was scared of death, after all. No way was this gonna beat him. No way was that freak gonna win. No way would he abandon Tia like he had Zack.
His kayak fell away under him, yanking him down. Weightless. White water, rocks coming up fast. Screw the death wish. Turned out he did have something to live for.
Someone to live for.