They moved slowly, stopping often for Scott to use his phone to snap photos and enlarge them for both of them to study for any sign of a trap on the other side of the brush.

  By the time she could see the end of the brush, and flat land, ahead of them, she was starting to believe, for the first time, that they had a better chance of getting home than she’d let herself imagine.

  Mostly thoughts of being free had been suspended. They brought emotion that would get in the way, cloud her mind to what had to be done in the moment.

  But as they drew closer to sunshine in the distance, she let hope flourish. The first ray of brightness nearly blinded her because she’d been looking upward, wanting the sense of freedom that blue sky up above used to give her from ground level.

  Scott was the one who’d stopped.

  It took her only a second to realize that his focus was on the ground.

  At first, she just saw darker-than-dirt color in places. Some kind of plant life. But when one, and then another part of the small field started to move—to slither—she gasped.

  “Rattlesnakes,” she hissed on her last bit of air. Backing up.

  Scott did as well.

  Far enough away for them to determine that the snakes weren’t looking to follow them.

  “It’s a trap,” he said. “Those hunters I thought I saw...one was carrying a snake. I realize that now. The gunfire was aimed up into the mountains, as I first thought. I only heard one hit because they were probably shooting at different areas. Trying to lure us out, a warning to us that they knew we were up there. And the snakes...the men knew the direction we were moving. Knew, with the retaining wall blocking us on the other side, our route would would lead us here...”

  “So we go back,” Dorian said, as though the thought of it didn’t take every bit of strength she’d ever dreamed of having. And she was healthy. Scott, with his leg...another trek all the way up...he might make that. And then what? The baby wasn’t going to be well on a cactus juice diet for long. The diapers were only going to last for another day or two, if there were no major loose stool episodes, which the cactus juice would likely cause.

  “We can’t go back up,” Scott said then, his voice barely above a whisper. “They’ve chased us down to this. They’re fully prepared for us to retrace our steps. I can pretty much guarantee you someone is at the retaining wall right now, waiting for us. Or above it, waiting to shoot us from above. They still want the baby.”

  It was the thought of the killer ever touching little Michael, ever even looking at him again, that cleared Dorian’s mind.

  “Then we go forward,” she said, and grabbed hold of Scott’s hand.

  * * *

  Scott stood his ground. They’d had a rough three days. He could understand Dorian’s panic. But there was no way he was going to walk them into...

  “Rattlesnakes are by nature solitary creatures. They’d only be there if someone had planted them as you say,” she said, looking him straight in the eye. “The only time they gather is during mating season, which doesn’t start until late July.”

  She continued to hold his gaze. “They aren’t an aggressive snake,” she told him. “Unless they feel cornered. And from what I could tell there were fewer than twenty of them immediately at the entrance.” He saw a shudder pass through her, or thought he did, but she continued. “And they seemed to be moving on their way. McKellips might have planted them there to stop us, but they don’t know that and certainly don’t have a share in his plan.”

  She still didn’t look away. At which point, Scott laced his fingers through hers. He knew a bit about snakes, too. “You’re suggesting that we step carefully, walk through them slowly, and...”

  He’d seen what had looked like a wheat field just beyond the end of the forest of brush they’d come through. They could lay low in that long enough to plan from there, if they made it that far.

  “Worst case is we get bit,” she told him. “You might not have noticed antivenom in that kit you stole, but I saw it there. And I’m fully trained in treating snake bites. Beyond that, I’d much rather risk the mouth of a rattler than a killer’s bullet.”

  They could end up with both. He didn’t bother saying so.

  Nor did he tell her, when they made it back to the edge of the brush, facing the small clearing, that he was going to pick her up—baby and all.

  He just did so and started walking.

  * * *

  “What the hell!” Dorian unleashed her fury on Scott the second he put her down, on her butt, in the wheat field. “Let me look at your legs,” she said in the same breath, her gaze trying to take in every inch of both legs from the knee down at once.

  “I’m fine,” he repeated for she’d lost count of how many times. Once for each step he’d taken in that quagmire. “Look, see?” He lifted his pants legs. “You get bit by a rattlesnake, you know it.” When the man had the audacity to put his finger under her chin, lift her gaze to his and then grin, she almost bit him herself. “I’m feeling better right now than I have since I was shot,” he told her. “What a rush...something like out of Indiana Jones, wouldn’t you say?”

  He was sweating. Carrying her and the baby had taken too much toll on his leg. But it was hard for her to stay angry with a man who was feeling so good about himself.

  Most particularly one who didn’t find himself worthy of fathering kids.

  “We need to keep moving,” he said then. “They’re only going to wait so long for us on the other side. And a snake or two could have followed us.”

  “One could have come in ahead of us, too,” she pointed out, irritably, but with a keener eye on the ground around them. “And McKellips, or whoever is in charge, has to have planned for the chance that we’d have continued forward through the snakes.”

  “Not necessarily,” Scott said, sounding sure as he crawled along in front of her. “He’s going to assess from his own perspective, figuring out what he’d do. I was ready to turn around.”

  “No way you would have walked back there into a barrage of bullets.”

  “No, I was going to get you safely ensconced, and then go hunting. In either case, we’re going to hang out in this wheat field until we find a way out of it without being exposed. And pray that it isn’t watering day. If this field is watered normally, we have a one in fifteen chance of getting drenched, but since it’s past late afternoon, I’m giving us a fairly good shot.”

  She crawled silently for what seemed like hours, but was probably only thirty minutes. Watching the ground, and Scott. Keeping her movements as small as possible so if someone was watching the hay, any movement would seem normal with the slight wind that was blowing.

  They’d lucked out on that one.

  But then a valley, at the mountains...most days there was at least a breeze. Hot as it might be.

  After a while, the snakes weren’t such a concern anymore. And Dorian found herself staring at Scott’s butt in front of her.

  Remembering sitting on the front side of that body...

  And forced her thoughts to the baby tied to her chest. He was going to need to eat again soon. Glancing down at him, she was surprised to see him wide awake. Watching her. It was the first time she’d seen his eyes fully open.

  She smiled at him. And continued to crawl.

  A few minutes later, as dusk was falling, Scott stopped. They were in a middle of a row, where a couple of plants didn’t mature, giving them some space, but one that wasn’t obvious to anyone looking out over the field.

  “You plan to wait right here until dark,” she guessed, what she should have already figured.

  “It’s about time for Michael to eat.”

  He was right. She took the diaper he handed her, before passing off the dirty to Scott and then took the bottle. From the outside looking in, one could be forgiven for thinking they were seasoned parents.

  At the thought, a longing hit Dorian. Hard. One she’d never let past her defenses in the past.

  “As long as we’re surrounded here, anyone coming after us is going to be detected before they get to us,” Scott said, his timing perfect for getting her out of a hell of her own making, and back into the one they had a hope of escaping. “If that happens, you head away as quickly and low to the ground as possible,” the FBI agent continued. “And I engage with however many bullets it takes.”

  There were holes in the plan. If he was hit...

  Silently, she stared at him.

  “We’re in a pickle here, Doc,” Scott said then. “You got a better plan?”

  She tried to find a plan. Any plan at all.

  And only came up with one.

  Leaning forward, she pulled him over, leaned forward and kissed him full on the lips.

  Long and hard.

  Like she’d wanted to do in the past—had started to do, before she’d come to her senses, shocked at herself—and had pulled away.

  That late afternoon, with no easy way out, she didn’t pull away.

  She held on.

  And on. And on.

  Chapter 21

  Scott broke the kiss, but he didn’t move away from Dorian. Sitting side by side—him facing one side of the row, her the other—their thighs almost touching, they could each keep an eye on an opposite side of the row, maintaining cover of all four directions.

  He remembered the night before, instead. The way she’d frozen him out after they’d had sex. As though he’d taken advantage.

  When she’d made the first move.

  And beyond that, their situation absolutely did not support any activity that took energy away from that which they were going to need to save their lives.

  Nor could he afford the distraction.

  They’d both stipulated, openly, that they weren’t looking for, or even open to, any kind of relationship flourishing between them or with anyone else, so there should be no hurt feelings.

  And yet...the way she’d turned from him the night before...had rankled.

  Not hurt exactly. You couldn’t hurt when your heart wasn’t involved. But...he’d admit it. To himself. He’d been put out.

  And told himself, as he prepared to pose a question to her, that he was going to ask just to pass the time until it was dark enough for them to make a run for their lives.

  He queried, “I know why I’m doing life alone, not shared, so...why are you?” Not quite the words he’d intended, but they sufficed.

  With a sigh, she looked down at little Michael, sleeping as though he hadn’t a care in the world. Scott was pretty sure he’d never been that peaceful. Not even in the womb.

  Almost as though she could read his thoughts, Dorian looked up at him. “You want the short version?”

  “Is there a long one?”

  Her shrug said little.

  “The long version,” he opted. With nothing but stalks of hay and hard dirt to look at, he figured he could use the diversion.

  “My parents were both gifted in their fields,” she told him, and he got that he was getting a longer version than he’d envisioned. Way longer. But with nothing better to do, wasn’t averse to listening. “I was an only child, born to them in their early forties. They taught me from my first memory that I was to use my mind to better the world. Didn’t matter what I was good at, just be my best at it. I was to do, not be done upon. To act, not react. To keep my head about me.”

  From what he could tell, the woman she’d turned out to be must have pleased them immensely.

  “I met Brent when I was two and he was four. Our parents were all members of a local group sponsored by an international organization for people with higher-than-average IQs. The group’s quest was to use their minds to serve others. As Brent and I grew up, we also became members of the group...”

  Brent, her fiancé. He wasn’t sure, suddenly, how much more he wanted to hear.

  He didn’t stop her, though.

  “We started dating, officially, our freshman year of high school, though we’d been telling each other since we were five that we were going to get married someday.”

  Yep, he should have stopped her. Thoughts of Lily came pouring back. The only child with a close-knit family with close-knit friends. Scott’s advent into her life in high school had messed everything up. Until, ultimately, she’d chosen to dump Scott and marry the family friend...

  When Scott realized his thoughts had had time to spiral on him because Dorian had quit talking, he looked over at her. Prompting, “And?”

  When her eyes pinned his, he swallowed hard, but didn’t turn away.

  “We were engaged when I met you.”

  That was it. As though that explained everything. It didn’t.

  “And?”

  Dorian glanced away, shook her head. He thought she was done talking, until she burst out with, “My emotions are not in sync with my mind. They’re... I don’t know...immature...is the best way I can think of to describe them. I ended up not only breaking Brent’s heart, but hurting his parents, and mine, too.”

  “How? What did you do?”

  “The things I felt around you...they were based on nothing. We weren’t even friends. They made no sense.”

  She’d felt things, too. He’d wondered. So many times.

  Knowing that it made no difference to the outcome. She’d done the right thing, getting away from him.

  She’d fallen silent again. He offered no prompts.

  The conversation had grown...difficult.

  He left it there.

  * * *

  She couldn’t just leave him hanging there. It wasn’t fair. Not after he’d explained his own life choices. She’d yet to fully explain hers.

  Not in any way that would lead him to her reality.

  Glancing off, down her end of the row, seeing again that there was no light, no movement, coming at them in the near darkness, she glanced back to see the baby still asleep and said, “I’d never felt anything like it for Brent. I told him so, hoping that we could work on it, do something to, I don’t know, spruce things up. We’d known each other forever. We just needed to see each other in different ways...” She’d done her research before having the conversation. Had a list of possible actions to take.

  Hadn’t even made it to number one.

  “He said that if I felt that way about another man, and not for him, then our relationship was doomed before it began. Feeling horrible about myself and my wayward emotions, I offered his ring back. He took it. And when my parents still supported me, and his did him, sides were taken, and a lifetime of friendship slowly eroded.”

  “So, you didn’t love him...”

  Her gaze shot back to Scott when she heard his words. “I did love him!”

  “As a very good friend.” His gaze was barely visible and seemed to glint truths.

  “A brother, even,” she admitted. “Not quite, but pretty close.”

  “You were ripe for any guy who paid attention to you, or you found good-looking and had cause to contact you physically, to show you that. It’s certainly no reason not to trust...”

  Shaking her head adamantly, Dorian cut him off before he could finish.

  “He wasn’t the first person I hurt,” she told him, ready to get it all out so they could move on away from her, with her choices firmly established, just as his were, between them. “The first was Faith, the woman who was with me when we were kidnapped last year. I was her soul mate. Her rock. She had a really rough life, to the point that we had rescue codes. And when she was ultimately taken away from her mother to live in another state, I just let her go. Never tried to find her. To let her know that I was still there for her...”

  “Childhood friends slip away, Dorian. You have to know that. It’s a natural part of life when families move.”

  Pressing her lips together, she told herself to just rip off the bandage. “Sierra was my best friend. I knew something wasn’t right with her, but because she was a private person, because I needed her friendship and was afraid I’d piss her off, I didn’t push. Had I done so, she wouldn’t have been murdered. My emotions steer me wrong, Scott. They’re unreliable. Immature. I can’t trust them. And I won’t let my lack hurt anyone else. End of story.”

  “Sierra?” His tone had changed. Softened. Like he was on her side.

  Which was ridiculous as there were no sides.

  “Sierra’s Web,” she said. He’d said he was familiar with the firm. The story of Sierra was right on their website. And often mentioned in news stories.

  “You named your firm after your friend whose murder you blame yourself for?”

  She’d hoped to be done. It was getting dark. The baby would need to eat again, and then they had to be off. Hopefully to the blacktop, a passing car and maybe even home before dawn.

  It was either that, or not make it.

  To get things moving, she gave him the quick rundown she’d thought he already knew. “We were all friends with her. All had noticed things, different things, and when she went missing, we took our collective thoughts to the authorities. Our information led police to her rapist and his bookie killer.”

  “So you aren’t the only one who noticed things...”

  “No, but if I had followed my professional code, pursued the facts sooner, I could have saved her life.” She couldn’t say more about Sierra’s clinic visits. But there was no doubting the facts.

  And the fact was, it was time for them to move on.

  From the conversation.

  And the hay field.

  * * *