“Whoa. It could collapse. Stop!”
She ignored him. The metal bent. She hit it again. A rumbling. She stopped. The ground shifted. Dirt poured down and across her face.
Shaking her head and blinking, she looked back up. She had a moment of confusion, but then her mind put words to images.
A snuffling muzzle, sharp teeth, scratching paws. An animal. It dug at a wild pace, expanding the opening, inching toward her. Dirt continued to sift down across her. Coyote or wolf, she couldn’t tell, but its paws moved with fury.
Dada scurried back to Sion. “Coyote. Coming.”
“Digging down?”
“Yep.”
He panted. “Good. God.”
She nodded. They shimmied backward down the tunnel. She held the shovel as a weapon, ready to fight as best she could in the tight space.
“If it makes it….” He trailed off.
“Yes,” she said, understanding. This animal could dig past the beam, free them. Then, of course, they’d be stuck in a tight space with a wild animal.
Long minutes later, they heard the animal burrowing down through the tunnel. Hoping to scare it, Dada let out a, “Get out!”
Sion pounded on the ground. Actions that cost their beleaguered bodies.
The animal kept coming. If anything, it came faster.
Lying on her stomach, Dada hooted and whistled and held the shovel blade pointed toward the opening. Sion had inched ahead of her and grabbed a sharp, broken bit of wood.
The truth was, the space was too tight. They were in no condition to battle a wild animal. And if there was more than one?
Whining, snuffling noises echoed down the tunnel. The air seemed to grow less dense.
Dada’s shoulders dropped and she focused on the round hole amid the slope of caved-in dirt, her senses ready.
The animal broke through in a mad rush of galloping limbs and heavy panting. Dada cried out as it charged past Sion toward her.
Madness. She dropped the shovel, and used her hands to fend off the attack. The dog barked, licked, sniffed her, moving around her in an excited bout of joy. Leaving her, perhaps not getting the frantic appreciation it wanted, it ran over to Sion.
Sion petted the groping, wet muzzle, whispered, “Good lad.”
A dog. A dog was here. Darting between them. Begging for love.
“It has a tag on its collar,” Sion said.
Sion shone his flashlight at it. The dog closed its eyes, looked away, kept licking at them blindly. At least he was friendly. “There’s no name, but there’s a phone number and an address in Texas.”
“Texas!” Dada slapped a hand to her mouth. The owner of the property maybe? Or whoever had buried the bodies. Perhaps they were more sophisticated than Dada had thought and had a device here that let them know the explosion had happened so they’d sent a dog down?
Sion shimmied forward. “Might be dangerous up there. Let me go.”
A shake of her head that reminded her how exhausted she was. “No, I will. I’m experienced. I’m…”
“Woman, give me this. Let me follow Tex out.”
“Tex?”
“Short for Texas.”
“You named this dog?
Chapter 16
His bum leg leaning against the dew-covered edge of his car, the headlights of a pickup truck illuminating him, Sion once again shook the hand of Manuel Arturo Peña, the man who owned the chocolate lab who’d rescued them.
“Are you sure I can’t offer you a reward, Manuel? You and Tex, uh Gambit, saved our lives.”
Kneeling by the car, petting Gambit, Dee added, “We’d much prefer to give you something.”
Manuel, a Mexican man with a Texas twang and matching cowboy hat, said, “No, sir. You guys were lost in the desert and had a hell of a night. ’Sides, Gambit did his job and rescued you both. That’s what he’s meant to do.”
Though they’d told Manuel they’d been lost and trapped, they hadn’t filled him in on the gory details. During the walk back, Manuel—who’d been combing acres in his pickup looking for Gambit—had pulled up. He’d given them some water and a ride to their car, and also bandaged Dada’s head.
Manuel tipped back his hat. “Don’t want to alarm you or put you off on hiking, but you should stick to known trails next time. Rumor says this area is owned by a trafficker.”
Dee stood. “Do you mean Walid Grimale?”
His eyebrows rose. “I was never given any one name.”
There was a beat of silence in which Sion felt that Manuel very much reevaluated them.
Dee, perhaps feeling it too, bent again to Gambit, who licked her face. “He’s going to make a great search-and-rescue dog.”
“That’s the hope, ma’am,” he said, turning toward his truck. “If y’all are okay, we’re going to get going.”
“We are. Thanks,” Sion said, kneeling with a groan to thank Gambit one last time. The chocolate lab licked his face like they were old friends.
Manuel whistled, holding the door open for Gambit, who darted away and into the cab of the pickup.
The trucked backed up, turned around, and drove off. With the headlights no longer shining on them, the area seemed foreboding. Dee was already slipping into the car, so he joined her.
Sion glanced at Dee. “I’d thought your luck was a made-up thing, but it’s been verified by circumstance.”
“Being rescued by a runaway dog is irrefutable proof?”
He reversed, turned the vehicle around, then headed down the moonlit desert road. “A runaway dog being trained for search-and-rescue. Yes. Definitely.”
All the pieces that had to come together floored Sion. Manuel lived in Texas but was having difficulty training Gambit. He’d brought him here for extra training from his cousin, an expert, who lived in a village outside of Oaxaca.
If the dog hadn’t been having these issues, Manuel wouldn’t have brought him to Mexico. Moreover, if he’d been fully trained, Gambit wouldn’t have run after a cottontail and away from his owner, and he wouldn’t have dug his way down to them. That was a bit of hot luck Sion could barely contemplate.
As they bumped down a dirt road back to Oaxaca, Dee glanced his way. “Perhaps, one day, I can tell you a truly remarkable story about my luck.”
“Truly remarkable? Hard to imagine a story that outdoes this one. Go on, then.”
The invitation to tell him that story fell flat and the silence of the car along the unpaved road seemed deafening.
A sudden tense awareness descended over them. Until this point, they had been riding the high of
rescue, enjoying their luck, playing with Gambit, and telling Manuel a cleaned-up version of events.
Now, all that had happened underground—the tears, the scorching hot kiss, the truth that she wasn’t a nun and he wasn’t a forger, the vulnerability of the near-death experience—left something heavy, expectant between them.
“Maybe when you do tell me that story, you’ll also give away who you work for.”
She swiveled her head toward him, tilted it.
For a moment, all he could feel was her eyes taking him in. His body grew warm. Alert.
“Undoubtedly. Since they are tied together. But for now, trust my motivations are good.”
He glanced at her. Dirt soiled her shirt, pants, and was smeared across her face. She was so lovely.
And not a nun.
Warmth suffused his body. His heart accelerated. He cared. More than cared. He needed her to trust him.
He turned onto a paved, empty highway. “Trust me. You can tell me who you work for. Whatever you’re doing, I’ve got your back. I promise, Dee. I promise.”
She grasped her leather bracelet. A habit he now realized was tied to stress.
“Even if my name isn’t Dee?”
Bugger. That hurt. Then again, she only knew his by coincidence. “Even then.”
A troubled frown spoiled her forehead. “Even if what I do isn’t legal?”
Was she kidding? “It doesn’t fucking matter. We didn’t meet on the beach in Cancun. Or at a local gym. Or through an online dating app. We’re here in the middle of something awful. The rules are different.”
The luck lifesaving. The risks deadly. The feelings accelerated.
Hands flexing on the wheel when she didn’t respond, he swung over to the side of the deserted road. He turned the car off, twisted in his seat to look at her. “Even if you never tell me your real name or who you’re working for, as long as I know what you’re going to do will stop horrors like what we saw tonight, I’m in.”
She gaped at him. Such a look, so open and raw and filled with want that his body flushed with desire. He watched as she licked her lips, stared at his.