* * *
She couldn’t believe it. She was lying flat on her belly, on cold mountain ground with the sun barely coming up on that cool January morning, and there below her, were two men—one gun visible, but she assumed they were both armed—standing at an open mouth in the earth.
Even more miraculous was that the man holding the gun was Odin Rogers. She had him.
She could take him out right then and right there. He’d never know what hit him. She could say it was self-defense.
She could...
Never do such a thing.
No way was the thug stealing her life away from her.
She’d found his mine.
She had him in her sights.
And now she had to figure out a way to get him in her cuffs.
“If we circle around down the other side of this peak, we should come out to the left of them. We could then circle back to come at them from behind. The advantage is ours because we know where they are and they have no idea where we are.” Rafe’s breath tickled the back of her neck as he lay beside her, leaning over to whisper close to her ear.
Probably no need to whisper, but the way sound traveled down, especially echoing in the mountains, she knew the call was a good one.
Never mind the shiver his breath sent through her. It kept her energized. Alive. Ready to move.
His idea was a good one. Except... “I don’t think they plan to be there that long,” she said. They were talking at least half an hour of hiking. Probably more. “Clearly Odin wants his thug to go down in the mine. Probably to stay down and guard the weapons. He wants them safe until he gets us off his trail. No way he could move them knowing that we’re out here. And that we’d have called for backup.” She’d understood the plan as soon as she’d seen them.
“Otherwise they’d be out looking for us,” she finished. “Either he thinks that SUV is drivable, or he has another way out.”
“Lavinia said they use off-road vehicles,” Rafe said, as though reading her mind. “Could be they have one or two stashed out here.”
Made perfect sense.
“And they’d be close to that mine,” she said, searching the landscape for a sign of any place that could house a vehicle or two. The terrain was rough, but four-wheelers were made for that. If she could get down to the road, wait until the thug was safely underground and then confront Odin when he was trying to drive off...
It could work.
It would work.
“We’ve got to get down there,” she said, pointing toward a curve in Mustang Mountain Drive just under where Odin and his man were standing. She couldn’t actually see the drive from their vantage point, but she knew it was there.
Around a curve slightly on the other side of a mountain peak. They could be there in twenty minutes tops. She might not have that long.
She had to try. Checking for service, she saw one bar and handed her phone to Rafe. “Call the chief. Speed dial two. Let him know where to meet us. I’m starting down. You stay up here and watch my back.”
She didn’t wait for his reply. Didn’t look at him, or consider the fact that she might not ever see him again.
She had to go.
* * *
Rafe watched Kerry get farther and farther away as he waited impatiently for her phone to connect. She’d left without even looking at him. Without a kiss for luck. Or a promise that she’d be fine. She’d left without telling him to be careful or stay safe.
She left without telling him she loved him—or letting him tell her.
It was like what they’d shared—the searching they’d been doing these past few days—hadn’t mattered at all. Just like she was trying to get him to believe that the past didn’t matter anymore. She’d just walked away.
Put the job above all else.