She had never before been kissed so… contentedly.
He was aroused; she could feel the hard bulk of his penis against her. She expected to feel his hips move, but he remained still except for his tongue and those soft, soft lips. Warmth glowed to life within her, pushing away her fear, her anger that he would take such a risk when they were hovering on the verge of something that felt so wonderful she could scarcely believe it.
Leaving her mouth, he pressed kisses on her cheek, her temple, her eyes, then went back to her lips for more.
If he made love as leisurely as he kissed—oh, dear God.
“We should go back inside,” he whispered against her mouth, then rested his forehead against hers. “I have a lot to do.”
She pulled back and looked into his blue eyes. They were as calm as always, but now she recognized the steel core of this man. He wasn’t dramatic; he wasn’t someone who demanded attention—because he didn’t need it. He was supremely certain of himself and his capabilities. He would risk his life for them without a moment’s hesitation.
She would have stayed out there and argued until they were both drawing their social security checks, but he turned her and somehow herded her back into the basement. A lot of smiling, knowing looks were directed their way, but that wasn’t a surprise, considering how he’d acted last night, and that they’d just now been kissing outside the door. What did surprise her was that no one, absolutely no one, seemed surprised. Apparently, she was the only one who was having trouble coming up to speed on this, but then, she was the only one who had deliberately worn blinders.
In the irritating way that most men seemed to have, he’d already reverted completely to business mode, gathering with Creed and the other men. Creed even had a notebook and was mapping out something with swift strokes of a pen. Everyone crowded around to hear what was being said.
“The bridge is out,” Cal was saying. “That was the explosion.
The electricity went out right before that, which means they cut the wires. The phones are out, too. From the way the shooters have positioned themselves, their intention is to keep anyone from going for help through the cut in the mountains. They wanted to cut us off and hem us in.”
“But why in hell are they doing all this? And who are they, anyway?” Walter growled, running his hand through his thinning hair in frustration.
“I haven’t seen anyone, but my guess is those two guys from last week brought in reinforcements, and as for what they want—” Cal shrugged, “I’d say they want me.”
“Because you got the drop on them?”
“And bashed one of them in the head,” Neenah added. She was sitting on the cold concrete next to Creed. She hadn’t strayed far from his side since the night before.
“I didn’t say it was reasonable,” Cal said. “Some people let their egos get involved, and they turn vicious.”
“But this—this is so far over the top, it’s insane,” Sherry protested. Seven people were dead. This was way beyond squashed egos. “If they’re that mad, why didn’t they just catch you out somewhere and stomp your ass?”
“I’m hard to stomp,” he said mildly. “Maybe this is the mob way of saying, ‘Mind your own business.’ I just don’t know.”
“Mob? You think it’s the mob?” Milly put in.
That question earned another shrug. “I’d have to say it’s possible.”
“The geography works against us,” Creed said, pulling the conversation back on subject. He indicated the map he’d sketched. “The river makes it impossible to operate on this side. The current is too fast to ford the river anywhere around here, and those rocks would bash any boat to pieces in seconds. Upriver is a vertical canyon that you can’t go around, so that direction is a no-go.”
“The land peninsula Trail Stop is on is shaped like a paramecium,” Cal continued. “The bridge was at the tail, and on this side of the tail is the river. We have no land there to work with, and the river is a natural barricade. Right here’”—he touched Creed’s sketch—”are mountains only a goat can negotiate. So that funnels us down this side of the paramecium, toward this cut in the mountains, and they’ve sealed that off with shooters. They have thermal scopes, which work best at night, but during the daytime they don’t need the scopes to see. I’ll have to wait until night, and go into the water to dissipate my heat signature.”
“How long would it take you to get through the cut?” Sherry asked.
“I don’t have to go through the cut. All I have to do is get by one of the shooters, then I’m behind them and can follow the road.”
Cate sucked in her breath with an audible gasp. She wasn’t a tactician, but she knew how cold he’d been last night, how close to hypothermia. And the water hadn’t gotten any warmer since then. Who knew how long heel have to stay in the stream, waiting for the right moment? Then he’d have to walk miles in those cold, wet clothes, and he’d be losing more body heat every moment. And if he was seen by any of them on the other side of the stream, they would be hunting him as if he were an animal, and he would be too cold to evade them. Why wasn’t anyone saying no, this was too dangerous? Why were they so willing to let him risk his life?
Because, as he’d pointed out, there was no one else. Creed was hurt. Mario was dead. All the others were middle-aged and out of shape, or elderly and really out of shape.
Except for her.
“No,” she said, because no one else would. “No. It’s too dangerous, and don’t try to tell me it isn’t,” she said violently when Cal opened his mouth to do just that. “Do you think they won’t be waiting for someone to try that? You could barely walk last night, you were so cold from being in that water. And what happens to us if you get killed?”
“I imagine they’ll go away, since I’m the one they want.”
His calmness made her want to scream, to grab him and shake him for daring to be so casual with his life. She stood with her fists clenched while all those damned men stared at her as if she just didn’t understand. She understood, all right, and she wasn’t going to live through that again.
“You don’t know that. We don’t know for certain who they are or what they want. What if it has nothing to do with you? And even if it did, what makes you think they’d just pack up and leave? They’ve killed seven people, and we’re all agreed that’s a drastic action to take just because you got the better of them. It’s something else, it has to be. We just don’t know what.”
He regarded her thoughtfully, then nodded. “You’re right. It has to be something else.”
“Can you guarantee you’ll make it past them without being spotted?”
“No, I can’t guarantee it.”
“Then we can’t risk losing you, Cal. We can’t. We aren’t helpless, but we ate cut off, and they have the upper hand.” Desperately she searched for inspiration, some way out that didn’t involve Cal risking his life against odds that were weighted against him. He was right, in that the most direct way was through the shooters. If they could somehow go up and over—
“We can’t just sit and wait,” Creed said. “We aren’t prepared for a siege, and that’s what this is—”
Cate felt as if her voice were coming from outside her. “There’s another way,” she heard herself say. Everyone shut up and looked at her, and she found herself moving forward. Deep inside her a panicked little voice was saying no, no, but somehow she couldn’t stop her feet from moving as she pushed her way through the knot of people to jab her finger hard on the mountains Cal had judged goat-worthy. “I can get up those mountains. I’ve been up those mountains. I’m a climber, you know that, you saw my gear. It’s safe when you tie off”—that wasn’t quite the truth, but she was going with it—”and they won’t be expecting us to try that route, so they won’t be watching. No one will be shooting, no one will be sticking his neck out like a sacrificial lamb.”