Then sweet relief flooded his system. "Thank you, Jesus; thank you," he breathed.
She stumbled to a halt and threw up her hands to block the light from her eyes, and rage exploded in his gut when he saw the cord binding her wrists together. But before he could react or even open the door to go to her, a look of pure panic flashed across her face. And, pivoting on her nylon-stocking-clad foot, she plunged off the road into the woods.
Chapter 25
LILY HAD SEEN TOO MANY SLASHER MOVIES.
When the car lights found her by the side of the road she was so unnerved that the first thing to pop into her mind was the standard plotline of those films—woman gets hacked/slashed/chainsawed by resilient, utterly invincible killer. Fresh adrenaline roared through her and, since she'd already done the fight thing tonight, flight seemed the better choice.
And the worst of it was, it was her own darn fault. It hadn't taken five minutes alone in the dark, after her escape from Miguel, for her to realize just how badly she'd screwed up. Rather than taking the car keys to prevent the young thug from gunning for her the moment he regained consciousness, she should have just shoved him out of the car and taken the vehicle for herself. This pockmarked, rock-strewn, pitch-black wilderness was no place for a city-bred woman—particularly not one whose hands were bound and whose feet had been shod in her highest pair of heels until she'd fallen flat on her face trying to run in them down the goat-path that passed for a road.
Of course by the time she'd figured out her mistake, it had been too late to go back and rectify the matter. For all she knew Miguel might have already come to, and she hadn't wanted to be anywhere in the vicinity if that were the case. But after her second tumble to the rough ground, she'd started to rethink even that —until the vehicle with the blinding lights had slammed to a halt in front of her.
That's when her fantasy of taking over Miguel's car with its sturdy, lockable doors vanished, and the young man—who in her mind had been growing increasingly more easily conquered—suddenly morphed into a monster with foot-long steel blade fingernails. Dear God, he'd found her! Gripped by terror, she didn't stop to wonder how he'd managed to get the car started or why he was approaching from the wrong direction. She simply turned tail and ran.
Hearing her name called as she crashed through the underbrush unnerved her even more, but it was the sound of pursuit that really shot her panic up into the stratosphere. Ignoring the branches snagging her clothing and catching at her hair, she battled her way through the foliage, and when some small gleaming-eyed creature suddenly scurried in front of her before just as abruptly skittering out of her way, a sob pushed its way past the lump of terror clogging her throat.
A rebounding branch she'd turned loose too quickly whipped back and thwacked her left elbow, and a battalion of pins-and-needles charged down a pathway of nerves to her fingertips. One of her shoes tumbled to the ground, but she didn't dare stop for it. Instead, she desperately tightened her grip on the remaining one. She didn't have a clue how effective it would prove as a weapon now that the element of surprise had been removed. But it was all she had to defend herself, and she wasn't about to lose it, too.
The trees and undergrowth suddenly thinned, and her heart lifted at the prospect of picking up her speed—only to drop crashing to her stomach when she pushed into a small clearing and found the way in front of her blocked by an almost vertical rocky cliff. Whirling to the right, she discovered that avenue obstructed also by an impenetrable thicket of brambles and young trees.
Breath sawing in and out of her lungs, she swung around to examine her options, and found there weren't any. So she turned back to face her pursuer, whom she could hear rapidly closing the distance between them. When a nocturnal bird suddenly screeched on the bluff above her, she screamed.
Trembling as she teetered on the slippery slope of hysteria, she tried to regulate the speed of her breathing. To keep herself from tumbling into an abyss from which she feared she'd begin to scream and scream and never stop, she sucked air deep into her lungs and held each inhalation as long as she could before exhaling it. Then, her breath still coming too fast but feeling marginally more in control, she raised her shoe with its spiked heel out, ready to swing the makeshift weapon the moment anyone got too near.
That's how Zach found her, hair wild, eyes ablaze with equal amounts of terror and determination, her nyIons in shreds, her clothing snagged and streaked with dirt. Blood was a black trickle down her right leg from an abrasion on her knee, and her hands and face sported a number of welts and scratches. She looked one scant nudge away from a total meltdown, but still she stood like a rookie up to bat, her stiletto-heeled shoe gripped between her bound hands, ready and willing to inflict damage on anything that came within reach.
Aw, man. And he'd actually thought he had a prayer of not loving this woman?
"Stay back!"
"Lily." He inched nearer, wishing he'd thought to grab the flashlight so she could see his face. "It's me, sweetheart. It's Zach."
"Stay away from me, I said!" Her voice wobbled and she adjusted her stance, lifting the shoe a fraction higher. "I cold-cocked you once, buster—don't think I won't do it again."
"It's not Miguel, honey; it's me. Shh, shh, shh, now," he crooned. "It's all right. You're safe and nobody's gonna hurt you. I just want to get you out of these woods."
It was the latter, he suspected, that finally got through to her. He watched as she blinked and then leaned forward, eyes narrowed, to peer suspiciously at him through the meager illumination provided by the fingernail moon drifting in and out of the clouds.
"Zach?" She took a tentative step forward, but didn't lower the shoe.
"That's right, baby, it's me." He eased toward her. "You're safe now, Lily. Let me take you back to the car."
The stiletto heel tumbled from her grasp. Her arms dropped, and she seemed to sag where she stood.
It only took him three strides to cover the ground between them, but even as he reached for her, she rallied. Her posture snapped erect, and she swung her clasped hands at his chest, connecting with a solid thump. "You wretch! You scared me to death—I thought you were him ." Then she threw herself into his arms.
He held her tightly, aware of the rapid drumming of her heartbeat against his abdomen.
She rocked her forehead back and forth against his chest. "Of course, I also thought he was Freddy Kruger. I guess both assumptions were pretty stupid." A wild laugh exploded out of her throat. "Stupid seems to be the order of the night. I can't believe I lost it over my shoes , of all things."
He didn't have a clue what she was babbling about and didn't particularly care—he was just grateful to have her back safe and sound. He tucked in his chin to peer down at her. "Are you all right? Escavez didn't hurt you, did he?"
"No. I'm shook up, isall." She pressed closer. "Just hold me."
"Oh, yeah; I intend to." He'd forgotten how tiny she was without her four-inch shoes, and being reminded caused him to hunch over her protectively, tightening his hold. But her bound hands between their bodies kept him from enfolding her as closely as he'd like, and with an exasperated murmur, he swept her up off her poor abused feet and turned to stride back to the road.
Teeth chattering, she burrowed against him on the short journey to the car, and stayed close when he set her on her feet.
He grabbed a knife out of the toolbox and cut the cord that tethered her wrists together, then watched helplessly as she rubbed the skin where the ligature had chafed. Guilt and love welled up in him and, reaching out, he gently smoothed back her hair, plucking bits of flora from it. "God, Lily, I am so damn sorry I got you involved in this mess. The instant I knew Glynnie was safe I should have checked up on Escavez's whereabouts. If I'd called the base sooner you could have been spared all this."