Linda Howard: Prey

But then he lifted his head and his narrowed blue eyes glinted down at her. “Not that I’m complaining, but what was that for?”

She had to swallow, hard, but she said honestly, “For treating me as if I matter.”

He lifted her off the ground, holding her so their gazes were almost level. His voice went even more gravelly than usual. “You matter to me; you matter a hell of a lot.”

“You matter a hell of a lot to me, too,” she said, and kissed him again, reveling in the moment.

After a minute he pulled his head back, sucking air, his hands kneading her butt cheeks as he worked her back and forth against his erection. “We either stop now, or you’re going to be feeling the wind on your bare ass.”

“If my ass gets bare, yours does, too,” she teased, then rested her face against his and sighed. “But I suppose we’d better keep going. I’m sorry I’m so slow; at this rate, we won’t make it to Lattimore’s before dark.”

“If we don’t, we don’t,” he replied, unperturbed.

Being the cause of their slow pace bothered her, though. At a brisk pace, a person could walk a mile roughly every fifteen minutes; she had no doubt Dare could handle that speed without breaking a sweat if the terrain hadn’t been so rough. She estimated they were moving no faster than a quarter of a mile every fifteen minutes, probably less than that, so not counting any stops to rest or eat they were traveling at less than one mile an hour. What would have been about a four- or five-hour trek for Dare, traveling alone, would take them eight to ten hours because of her, and that wasn’t taking into account any rest stops. There would be places where she could increase her speed, but in the end that wouldn’t be enough to make much difference, especially if they had to take any detours that cost them a lot of time and distance.

They set out again. Determined not to hold him back any more than necessary, Angie did the same thing she’d done when she’d first injured her ankle and was crawling down the mountain: She put the time and distance out of her mind, and concentrated on simply moving. She concentrated on the rhythm of step, walking stick, step; she’d read somewhere that when you were using a single crutch or a cane you held it on your strong side, but that didn’t make sense to her, so she held the walking stick in her right hand and used her upper body strength to take pressure off her ankle. Whether or not her system was as stable as holding the walking stick in her left hand, she couldn’t say, but her object was to keep her ankle from swelling up more than necessary.

Step, walking stick, step. She didn’t let herself flag, didn’t falter. Step, walking stick, step. She kept moving.

If he could have, Dare would have carried her. Did she have any idea how she looked, with her dark eyes so focused and intent, yet at the same time the expression in them was so faraway he doubted she’d hear him if he spoke? She wasn’t going to stop, she wasn’t going to give up.

This was how she’d come down the mountain during the storm, with everything else pushed to the side except what she needed to do; at least this time she was walking instead of crawling. She soldiered on, regardless, with the kind of resolve that the most hardened soldier would be proud to have.

His heart pounded hard, just watching her. There were millions of sweet, regular women in the world he could have fallen in love with, but he’d chosen her, a woman with grit in her gut and steel in her spine. When they fought-and they would fight-she wouldn’t back down an inch if she thought she was right. There might be some hard living in the days and years ahead of him. Hell yeah! He could hardly wait.

Not that he’d even breathed the word “marriage” yet, because he didn’t want to spook her until she was a little more settled with the idea of them being a couple. She was still brooding over the idea of him being her boss, which told him it hadn’t even occurred to her that the situation might be the other way around, that she was thinking about a semiprofessional relationship instead of a one hundred percent personal relationship in which she’d definitely have the upper hand, because, hell, she was a woman.

What was it with her? Weren’t women supposed to be the ones so focused on relationships and shit like that? She’d made one mistake, she’d had the balls to make sure that one mistake didn’t go one inch further, but then she’d beat herself up for not caving and pretending everything was all right, and staying with someone who she knew didn’t love her the way he should. Dare had the feeling Angie didn’t do anything halfway; from the very final and definite step she’d taken to get rid of the man who’d disappointed her, she was willing to go the distance-and beyond-to make her point.

He had to be crazy to be so crazy about her, but there it was, and damn if he wasn’t happy about it… now. Three days ago, he’d thought he needed his head examined, but even as bad as the night of the storm had been, since then he’d recognized what an opportunity God, or fate, had handed him. He’d made the best of it, too. Last night had been damn good. They fit together, physically, temperamentally, even their personalities. They made each other laugh. Even as solemn as she could be sometimes, he’d seen her eyes light up, seen her face relax and her lips curve and damn if she didn’t have some fuckable lips-

He wrenched his thoughts from that direction, because hiking with a hard-on could get damn uncomfortable.

After they’d been walking for two hours, he called a halt to let her rest, and for them both to drink some water. They hadn’t started out until close to nine o’clock, so he figured there was no way they’d reach Lattimore’s before dark, but they’d be okay. They were experienced in the outdoors, and they were prepared.

Angie sat on a rock while she sipped from a water bottle, her gaze sweeping over the rugged valleys opening up before them. Dare sat beside her and studied the same vista. Down below, the flood-swollen creek curved away to the left, but some distance ahead it swept back to the right, and somewhere, somehow, they would have to cross it. He could hear the creek even from this distance, a dull, distant roar as the rushing water tumbled over the rocky creek bed.

He pictured the topography, planning their route. He didn’t want to go all the way down to the creek, because there were rock formations that covered acres, and Angie couldn’t handle crossing them. In some places, going around them would be even more hazardous than crossing the rocks, so their best bet was to stay high enough to bypass the creek bank entirely. There was one place where they might- might -be able to cross the creek, and he’d check it out when they reached the area, but his plan right now was to go far enough south to pick up the road. That would take longer, but ultimately be a lot safer.

What the hell. He didn’t mind spending another night with Angie before they got back to the real world.

Progress was slow. Chad thought he could head east, but a swollen stream kept forcing him farther and farther to the south, till finally he was going in the right direction: down the mountain instead of cutting across it… at least for now. Time after time, just when he thought he was making some real progress, he ran into something that forced him off his chosen direction. He had to backtrack and go around obstacles so often he kind of lost track of how far he’d traveled, and that worried the hell out of him. What if he didn’t make it to Lattimore’s today? As cold as the weather was, he’d freeze his ass off tonight if he had to sleep out in the open.

Common sense told him he hadn’t traveled that far out of the way, that it was his impatience making every delay feel like hours when in reality it hadn’t been that long. The horse wasn’t making great time, but it was still faster than if he’d been on foot. Angie had mentioned that the camp had been almost ten miles away from Lattimore’s ranch, which wasn’t a great distance, so with any luck, he’d be on the road in a couple of hours, four at the most-hooray and hallelujah. His stomach growled, but he didn’t want another protein bar; he wasn’t that hungry yet. When this was over with, he hoped to hell he never had to see another protein bar in his whole life. After he crossed into Canada there’d be time to stop for a good, hot meal before he caught the next flight out to Mexico.