If their journey didn’t take any unexpected detours, or experience delays, they’d be back at the cabin before then.

  And there’d been far more to the conversation than that. He’d given several “okays” in response to whatever the bartender had told him.

  If it had been about the three men in the bar, she deserved to know what had been said. Had to know.

  She just wasn’t sure enough that she wanted to hear the news out in the dark with at least a couple of miles to go before they were safely on Devon’s land, to ask for it.

  And didn’t feel like engaging in any more first-date banter, either.

  At least one of the men who’d kidnapped her was close by. Drinking in a bar as though planning to hang around.

  For all she knew he was from the area.

  Maybe—most likely—somehow connected to whoever had followed them?

  And there she was walking through the desert as though she’d planned the outing as some form of entertainment.

  “The three men in the bar said they’re vacationing in the area. Hoping to catch some largemouth bass in particular.” Devon spoke as though relaying the plot of a boring television show. “They said they lost a crate of supplies off their boat during the storm. Asked Rachel if she’d heard of anyone finding it.”

  Kacey’s blood ran cold. “A case of supplies?” she asked, affronted. “You think they meant me? That I’m their case of supplies?”

  “I have no idea.” Devon didn’t miss a step, didn’t even glance at her as she stumbled, caught herself, and kept up with him.

  “Vacationing?” she said then, knowing she had to quit fantasizing and take her troubles head-on. “They aren’t from the area, then.”

  “If you believe them.”

  A generic you? Or was he being personal again? Doubting her, as well as the men in the bar from whom he’d just saved her? To the point of sinking his own, relatively new, clearly expensive truck.

  He’d done that for her.

  Or rather, for himself, because of her.

  “Do you believe them?” she asked then, having no patience or time for useless worries about what her host thought of her.

  “I don’t know.”

  Yeah, she didn’t know, either. Far too much.

  “You think they’re hanging around until my body turns up, so they know for sure I’m dead?”

  “Or maybe long enough to ensure that it’s not going to turn up.” He looked at her, then. “If you drowned, a century could pass without any body being found.”

  “With the missing person’s report, they could be waiting to see what sightings the public might turn in on you,” Devon continued with a glance in her direction.

  She met his gaze.

  And wished he’d stuck with his one-word replies. They’d been much easier to hike with.

  “Thanks to you, I haven’t been...” Her words cut off as Devon’s arm flew out in front of her, stopping her forward progress. He gave one short, succinct nod in front of them slightly to their right.

  And she saw what he’d seen.

  A family of javelina—at least eight of them, were staring right at them. The forty-pound pig-looking mammals weren’t necessarily dangerous to humans—but could be lethal if they attacked. If they felt threatened. By the stance of the squadron facing them, she and Devon were in trouble. During the hot season the animals were mostly nocturnal, looking for food, and out in the desert like they were, far from civilization, she and Devon would clearly be considered intruders.

  She started to back away, saw Devon take a step back as well. She heard the “woof” sound only a second before the entire squadron started to charge right at them.

  “Run!” Devon called, grabbing her hand and taking off the way they’d come, only to face another eight or so of the beastly mammals. “Toward the water,” he said then and she was right with him, step for step, as they headed for the river. The landscape had changed as they hiked. The shore was just yards away down a slight incline and Kacey ran like she’d never run in her life, diving into the cold river just one beat ahead of Devon.

  Kicking off her tennis shoes, she treaded water, making certain that he came up close by—watching for any sign that the potentially dangerous animals weren’t following them into the water. She saw the squadron stop several seconds before she could pick out Devon’s head above water and made it to him in record time. “Lose your shoes,” she shouted to be heard above the current.

  “Already done.”

  “How far can you swim?” she asked him, taking charge, as though she owned the water.

  “As far as I need to,” he told her, treading water beside her in the way-over-her-head water. “I’m a certified lifeguard. Part of the qualification to be a guide.”

  Without a word, she took off for the roughly two-mile swim, tired, feeling the sting of the water against her soaked bandages, and comforted to be in familiar surroundings, too. Thankfully they’d been upriver from Devon’s place and a large part of the trip consisted of staying afloat to ride the river, while guarding against any sudden thrusts that might send them up against rocks or crashing into the mountainside.

  In the dark, the feat was exhausting. Animals came down to the river to drink. Could be a bobcat, or worse, on the shore. She’d swum at night, many times, but only in the area whose shoreline she knew as well as her own backyard.

  With rocks and limbs looming, looking alive, she shook as she reached and pulled, kicking with the natural rhythm that generally helped to keep her calm in the water.

  Devon stayed right beside her. Matching her steady stroke for steady stroke. And when he glanced her way, his expression serious, she knew that she’d keep pulling for as long as it took if it meant that they lived to get out of that water together.

  Chapter 16

  His phone was waterproof. Her burner wasn’t. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about that. He had several more of those in the box in the shed outside his cabin.

  Scanning the shore as he swam, Devon pulled stronger, kicked harder as he recognized the riverbank he owned.

  He climbed out, ignoring the scrapes to his bare lower legs as he turned to give her a hand up only to see her standing a foot or so downriver from him.

  Pulling some bark, leaves and desert vine from the immediate vicinity, he fashioned footwear for her first, using the vine to tie the leaf-covered bark to her feet, and then repeated the process for himself. Dripping wet, their feet were bound to slide some, the hike wouldn’t be comfortable. “This isn’t going to be pretty, easy or all that effective, but it should help prevent either of us getting punctured by cactus needles,” he told her.

  “Thank you.” Her response was short. To the point. She hadn’t looked him in the eye since they’d reached land.

  Or complained about the trek ahead.

  She didn’t seem out of breath. Just quiet. He liked it better when she was talking.

  At least then he had a shot at knowing what she was thinking.

  He couldn’t look at her without thinking about the kiss he’d planted on her. After he’d told her she had nothing to fear from him on that score.

  He’d never done anything so asinine in his life.

  And...had she liked it? Anywhere near as much as he had?

  The hot Arizona night air dried his clothes, took away the chill, and fed his physical hunger to do more than just kiss Kacey Ashland.

  He couldn’t touch her sexually again.

  Had he offended her? Scared her off?

  Didn’t seem so.

  But then, if she was using him, she’d take a kiss in stride until she no longer needed him.

  Hadn’t felt like she’d just been going through the motions.

  More like spontaneous combustion on both their parts.

  Maybe just the circumstances. Life and death could do that to you.

  Who wouldn’t want to go out kissing a beautiful woman? Or celebrate not having died in the same way?

  Rachel had let him know during their brief phone conversation that Belen had left the bar shortly after Devon and Kacey had. He’d told Rachel he had a drive ahead of him but asked the bartender for a date later in the week.

  She planned to ask for a bigger score during that rendezvous.

  She’d also heard from the city lab in Phoenix. The drugs she’d scored and sent to them were the same lethal recipe as the ones on their radar.

  Finally, they had the proof that they were on a solid path.

  He had to hold on. Couldn’t let his compulsion to keep Kacey close until she was safe screw up the bust of a lifetime.

  Period.

  Too many lives were at stake.

  And that kiss...had he imagined how different it had been from anything else he’d ever experienced?

  A product of the circumstances, he reminded himself. Several times, as they stepped carefully, having to half drag their makeshift shoes, and stop to pull up new vines and retie them, too.

  The trek back to the cabin took twice the time it would have during the day with real shoes on their feet. With his surveillance screens up on his phone, Devon could diminish the constant worry of danger just around the corner, could see where wildlife was feeding and avoid the areas. And with a backtrack, he was assured that his property hadn’t been breached in their absence.

  He shared the news with Kacey.

  She nodded.

  Kept pace beside him.

  And he could no longer hold concerning thoughts at bay in the name of staying alive. “It seems pretty clear, since you’re certain that the voice you heard tonight was one of your kidnappers, and then my vehicle is followed, that they know I’m associated with you.”

  “Unless someone saw me during the split second I climbed from the floor into the doorway.”

  There was a chance. A minute one. But only if someone had been close by. Watching.

  The outside of the bar, maybe? Keeping a lookout while the three kidnappers were inside? Or at least one of them was?

  Another option, one Rachel had already mentioned during her call to him in the desert, was that Rachel was being watched by Belen’s people. Had she been made?

  Belen could have had someone outside the bar, a witness to Devon’s visit to Rachel’s apartment. A brief stop without even heading into the bar to see her. Something that had looked suspiciously like a drop-off or pickup? That had maybe put him on their radar, too?

  “I’m in the area all the time.” He told Kacey what was pertinent to her. “Today, for hours. And I haven’t been followed. But the night you identify the voice of a man inside the bar as one of your kidnappers, I’m suddenly tracked?”

  The theory held weight. A lot of it.

  “You think one of the three men who took me saw you rescue me?”

  It had been a theory all along. “Seems to make sense, don’t you think?”

  Kacey didn’t answer. She didn’t speak again until they were only about five minutes out. “What time is it?” She’d looked at her ruined phone once, shortly after they’d exited the river, and then shoved it in her pants pocket.

  “Few minutes before two.”

  She’d ridden on the floor of the truck, heard her abductor, jumped out of a moving vehicle, hiked, swam and hiked some more. Her feet had to be uncomfortable at the very least. Her ankles with their dirty sagging bandages sore as hell. All after a full day of fighting for her life in one way or another.

  And he hadn’t heard a single word of complaint out of her.

  He couldn’t help noticing. Admiring her fortitude. And remembering what she’d said about dealing with her father’s danger-filled absences growing up.

  Those words, it had been like she’d been inside him, seeing his own thoughts growing up. Thoughts that had led him to keep his feet firmly in every one of his father’s footsteps.

  Until the man had strayed from their family.

  One weekend.

  That had changed everything.

  Like his couple of days with Kacey seemed to be doing.

  Shaking his head as he unlocked the cabin, he held the door for her to enter before him. He noticed her backside, and instantly raised his gaze to the straightness of her back.

  The solidness of her shoulders.

  And then down to those bandages.

  He was in the throes of trying to help find out who wanted her dead and why. Once that was done, like any other case, he’d walk away.

  And anything he might be experiencing where she was concerned would fade with the memories that would one day just be vague images of a side case in his past.

  Conclusion firmly reached, while Kacey shut herself in the bathroom, he tapped his phone to log into the specially encrypted site that would allow him to view Rachel’s video, or stills, at the highest quality possible.

  “It’s here,” he said as his houseguest reappeared a short minute later, still in the same river, desert and sweat-covered T-shirt and new clothes she’d had on since he’d returned from work.

  She stood close to him, her breast pressing up against the back of his arm, as she leaned down to look at the screen he held.

  The image was a little grainy. Black and white only. Not bad for surveillance tape. He maximized the size, scrolled in to pinpoint faces.

  Looking at men who seemed to be just what they’d sounded like they were—regular guys, family men, longtime decent job holders, out for a fishing vacation. In shorts and short-sleeved shirts and tennis shoes, they appeared about as harmless as a group of men could get.

  “Do you recognize any of them as someone you might have seen before? Someone Kyle knew, maybe?” he asked, not moving lest his body start to show physical reaction to Kacey’s closeness. He just needed a few minutes, a few cold showers maybe, to let the memory of her mouth hungry on his fade some.

  “No.”

  And then, “Can I have the phone a second?”

  He pulled it back, quickly pushed to download the still images to his phone. Opened the gallery that usually only held still images of animals on his property, and then the files he’d just downloaded, and handed the device to her.

  She clicked, scrolled and gasped. Was visibly shaking as she enlarged some more. “Look at those shoes, Devon,” she said, handing him a screen with nothing but a pair of oddly striped tennis shoes visible.

  “Those are the shoes I saw. Maybe not the same exact pair, since I can’t verify the color, but ones just like them. The stripe was lime green.”

  Every sense in his body sharpened. Went straight to work. “What about the other pairs? You said you saw two pairs.”

  “The others were dirty white. Nothing I can remember distinguishable about them. Either of the two other pairs I see here could be them. Or not...”

  With a nod, he sent off a quick text to Rachel.

  Offered Kacey the shower first, while he awaited a response.

  And was waiting for her, on edge, feeling more emotionally torn than he should be, when she returned to the kitchen fifteen minutes later, dressed in his sweats again and the original T-shirt he’d given her. “I washed them this after...” she started in, but when she glanced at his face, stopped midsentence. “What?”

  “The stripes were lime green.”

  * * *

  Lime-green stripes didn’t mean the shoes were the same. Made by a popular brand, and closely copied by others, there were likely plenty of them floating around. But she knew the voice. Even if the shoes didn’t belong to one of her kidnappers, that voice had.

  Meeting his gaze head-on she said, “Can you ask Rachel which man made the comment about the redhead? Was the voice I recognized the man wearing the striped shoes? If not, we can pretty well assume that at least two of the three who kidnapped me were together in that bar tonight.”

  She wasn’t going to hide from the truth. To the contrary, she had to find it. There was no other way to get her life back.

  “Already done,” he told her. “The voice you recognized came from the corner stool.” He held out his phone, showing her the clearest image of the three another time. Gave her time to look at the face of the man whose voice she’d recognized. And to notice that he was not the man wearing the striped tennis shoes.

  At least two of her kidnappers had been in the marina bar that night. “They couldn’t have been the ones following us, though, right? Rachel would have known if they left the bar when we did.”

  “They left about ten minutes after we did.”

  “How soon did you know we were being followed?”

  “Less than a minute after I pulled away.”

  She’d seen him watching his mirrors. But he hadn’t mentioned anything...

  Because he still didn’t trust her? Had been trying to spare her? “In the future, if you’re aware of imminent danger, can I please be privy to the information from the onset?” She cringed as she heard her words. As though she was taking for granted that they would be continuing to fight the current battle together.

  “I sent the bar footage to Sierra’s Web to see if they can get identities on any of the three men. And I gave them as much of a description as I could of the dark truck that was following us when we left the bar. Since Arizona doesn’t require front license plates, and his headlights and the darkness pretty much blinded me to any identifiers, there’s very little to go on there.” He hadn’t given her any agreement that he’d abide by her request, but he’d basically just done as she’d asked.

  She knew that, as a lottery winner, he had the money to spend with the expert firm and was spending it on his own behalf because he believed Kacey’s kidnappers were after him, too. But Kacey’s heart still gravitated in his direction again.