Vickie Taylor - The Renegade Steals A Lady

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he groused. “We’re losing time.”

A shudder scuttled up her spine. “We?”

He scooped her into his arms, answering that question. “You didn’t think I’d just leave you here, did you?”

She pushed against his left shoulder and he flinched. A weak spot, she noted. Maybe one she could use against him, later. She was going to have to wait for the right time, and opportunity, to have any chance of escape.

“I think you’d better,” she said, forcing herself to be patient. “Or you’re going to be facing kidnapping charges.”

“Not if they don’t catch me.”

“There are fifty cops out there looking for you. How do you think you’re going to get away?”

He flicked his dark gaze down at her. “You’re going to help me.”

Her breath stopped cold. “Like hell.”

“You’ll do it.” He headed into the woods at a quick walk. “We’re going back to your car, and you’re going to drive me out of here.”

“I’ll scream my head off at the first cop I see.”

He stopped. His breath crystallized in front of his face like miniature storm clouds. “No you won’t.”

Shifting her weight onto one arm, his good arm, with the other he raised the pistol he’d taken from her to her cheek. The gun’s gleaming steel barrel chilled her flesh. She tried to turn away, but that put her face against his chest.

She preferred the gun.

“You won’t scream,” he continued in a voice more suited to seduction than intimidation, “because you don’t want another cop to go down with a bullet from your gun. The gun I took away from you.”

She almost laughed hysterically when she realized she’d been about to say that Marco wouldn’t shoot a cop.

He’d shot her, hadn’t he?

Damn him. Losing a gun, someone else getting hurt with it, killed with it, was every cop’s nightmare, and he knew it.

She gulped in a mouthful of air as sharp as knife blades, glaring at nothing over his shoulder. “I don’t need another cop to take you down. I’ll do it myself, when the time is right.”

He put the gun away, hefted her securely against him and set out at a jog. “I’m sure you’ll try.”

Marco had been running for nearly an hour and still couldn’t find a shred of rhythm. Each step landed harder and jerkier than the last. His lungs burned under the ribs Tomas Oberas had pounded. The forearm Bravo had bit throbbed. Paige’s weight in his arms, slight as it was, drove needles in and out of his bad shoulder.

Since he’d been a teenager, he’d used running as a way to leave the physical pain behind, the way his friends in Oklahoma had taught him. By concentrating on the exertion and the hypnotic beat of his step, he could go outside his body, outside his troubles, and more recently, outside the prison walls.

Yet tonight, when he tried to picture the red rock canyons of Oklahoma he once ran with his friend, Toby Redstone, and the other Caddo Indian boys, all Marco could see was Paige’s head lolling against his chest. When he tried to visualize a thunderstorm gathering over the tall grass of the plains, he saw only her hair fanned across his shoulder. Hair that reminded him of warm honey.

She’d cut it since he’d seen her last. A multitude of intriguing layers now fell around her cherubic face, curling in at the ends to cup her high cheeks and support her fine-boned jaw.

He definitely approved.

And the smell…

He breathed deep. Her hair smelled just the way he remembered. Like he’d dreamed about. Pure, clean baby shampoo.

Every night these last six months, he’d buried his nose in the single, thin pillow allotted for his bunk, inhaled a breath that shouldn’t have held the scent of anything except industrial detergent and the odor of too many men in too close quarters, and smelled baby shampoo instead.

Sometimes it infuriated him that he couldn’t get her out of his head. Sometimes he was glad to have the memory to hold on to. Either way, sleep was lost in the wanting and the regret.

He’d learned to live on the edge of exhaustion, which was a good thing, because he was beyond exhaustion now.

One foot in front of the other, he told himself. Inhale four beats. Exhale four beats. Focus on the rhythm.

But no amount of concentration blocked out the constricting pain in his gut when he felt her shiver in his arms.

She was cold. He held her closer and forced himself to evaluate more than the proud rise of her cheekbones and her perfectly pitched eyebrows. Her eyes were closed, but he knew she was conscious.

She just didn’t want to see him.

He supposed he couldn’t blame her.

She was pale, but not deathly so. Instead of their usual red-wine color, her lips were light pink, and parted slightly as if she wanted to be kissed.

The urge to do just that took him with the force of a freight train. He could put some warmth back in those lips. Color back in her cheeks.

His heartbeat tripled and blood surged to the center of his body. The sharp pangs of regret troubling his gut softened to sweet hunger. Then he stumbled, caught himself and cursed, his breath sawing harshly through the quiet night air.

He should be watching where he was going, not eating up the sight of her like a starving man at a king’s banquet. She hadn’t wanted him even before she’d caught him stealing drugs from her bust. She surely didn’t want him now.

What they’d had was not to be repeated, regardless of any false hopes rising in his traitorous body. In fact, if she got her hands on her gun anywhere in his presence, he might never have to worry about that particular discomfort again.

She was a good shot, and she had reason to hold a grudge.

Up ahead, an engine came to life. Paige’s eyes snapped open. Her body tensed in his arms, but she said nothing as he pushed on.

Beyond the tree line, radios crackled. Hurried footsteps scuffed across gravel. This was it, the search command center.

In the fog, the parking lot looked like a sea of cop cars. Dozens of vehicles, many more than he had counted on, were strewn in front of him in no particular order. County Sheriff, Department of Corrections, City Police, Texas Highway Patrol—they were all in attendance.

All looking for him.

He couldn’t see Paige’s truck, but it must be nearby.

Throwing her a warning glance, he zipped out to the closest car and ducked behind the rear bumper. Bravo followed like a ghost, the slight click of his toenails on rock the only proof he was more flesh and blood than spirit being.

Zigging and zagging from vehicle to vehicle, the three of them crossed the lot. Marco chanced a look over the hood of their latest hiding place, reorienting himself and searching for Paige’s canine-equipped Ford Expedition.

“Where did you park the thing, New Mexico?” he grumbled.

He spotted her truck before she could answer. Not that she would have answered, anyway. Apparently she found satisfaction enough in glaring at him.

A few yards closer, and he could see the wire barrier behind the front seat that sectioned off the dog’s compartment.

Good.

He glanced cautiously at the mutt. Bravo hadn’t offered him any trouble since their showdown in the forest, but Marco would feel better when he got that animal and its fangs back in a cage. The arm he’d bitten hurt like a—

A car door slammed to Marco’s right. He hit his knees behind the front wheel well of a highway patrol souped-up Ford. The trooper was close.

Too close! Jesus, he could see the man’s shiny black shoes on the other side of the car. The feet were broad and the steps sluggish, like a man overweight and out of shape.

Marco flattened himself against the car door, holding Paige to him tightly. He did the best approximation of the “down” hand signal he could manage. Thankfully, Bravo dropped to the gravel despite Marco’s limited command of doggie sign language.