She glanced about for cover. The closest thing was a large rock, to the left by the water, but it was too close and still half submerged in cold water. Next was a second outcropping along the bank that was maybe fifteen feet away. She glanced up the incline to the road above them, and it seemed impossibly steep.
She slung Carter’s arm over her shoulders and tugged.
“Come on, Carter. Move!”
He groaned, and his arm tightened on her shoulders.
“Up, soldier! That’s a direct order.”
Another groan, but he swung his own legs out of the SUV and slid against her. His eyes fluttered.
“What happened?” He lifted a hand to his head.
“Later.”
“Yeager. Get Yeager.” Was he back in Iraq?
He slipped to a knee, and she had a sinking feeling that she’d never get him up again.
“Gas,” he said.
“Yes. Let’s go.”
He used her as a crutch, and the weight nearly buckled her knees as they inched past the rear of the smoking Subaru and along the rocky bank of the stream. She threaded them under an overturned juniper, which had toppled from the bank above and now hung precariously before them.
They had come only twenty feet. But it would have to do because Carter dropped, carrying her to the ground with him. The juniper branches, still lush and loaded with the tight gray berries, fell like a curtain between them and the Subaru. She feared it would be little protection if the vehicle exploded. She got him to his side, and he groaned again.
“Like getting kicked by a horse,” he muttered.
She picked up the sound of car doors closing and cowered. Was that help or the impostors coming after them?
* * *
CARTER’S EARS BUZZED as if he had just come from a rock concert. Dappled light filtered down on him with shards of sunlight so bright they seemed to slice the tissues of his eyes. His face hurt. His neck ached. He groaned.
“Quiet now,” said a soft female voice, and a small hand pressed to his shoulder.
Who was that? He forced his eyes open. There, lying beside him, was an unfamiliar woman who seemed to be covered in baby powder. For just a moment he thought he was dreaming as he looked on the sacred deity, Changing Woman, who brought rebirth to the land.
He lifted a hand to touch her cheek and found it warm and alive. Tear stains cut tracks through the white dust, revealing the soft brown skin beneath.
He glanced at his wrist, all red and raw skin, as if he’d been tied. Carter’s gaze flicked back to hers.
“Amber?” he asked.
He had never seen her like this, disheveled and lost. What had happened?
He rocked his jaw, wondering who had hit him as he moved his hand from her face to his.
Amber took hold of his hands and squeezed. The ache now moved to his chest. Only she could make his heart ache and his body come alive with longing.
He’d loved her as a girl and lost her when she became a woman. He’d tried to forget her. Carter admitted now that he never could. Not this one, because she still owned a piece of his heart. He knew this because that piece now bled with longing for her. The woman who’d left him. But worse, she’d left her family and abandoned her people.
“Amber,” he whispered, reaching up and cupping her cheek.
She smiled, and the powder on her face flaked at the corners of her eyes. Her hair was also powdered like George Washington’s and tucked up in a knot at the back of her head. She used to wear it down so that it brushed the waistband of her jeans and his thighs when she sat astride him as they made love.
Why? Why had she thrown it all away? Their future—a life together here where they both belonged? Why was she ashamed of who and what she was?
Now her bun had shifted. Tendrils had escaped and hung about her powdered face. Her Anglo blazer was streaked with grime and sand, and she’d lost the top two buttons of her blouse. He reached up and cupped her chin, his thumb brushing that tiny crescent scar at her mouth.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Hush. Someone is here.”
“Who?” he whispered and craned his neck in the direction she faced. That’s when he realized he was lying against a wall of dirt behind a fast-running stream. The sun that hit them full in the face did not touch the opposite bank. Afternoon then or morning. He tried to make sense of his surroundings.
It all came back to him, up to and including the air bag punching him like a prizefighter.
“Where are we?”
“About ten miles outside Pinyon Forks,” she whispered. Then Amber cocked her head. Now he heard the voices.
“Down here,” said a male voice. The way he spoke made Carter think he was Anglo, Southern.
Who? he mouthed. She shrugged. Then she moved up close to his ear and whispered.
“I called your brother. He’s coming. But the Subaru was leaking gas, and he told me to get you out.”
And she had. How the devil had this little woman moved him?
Her lips brushed his ear as she spoke again. “I have their guns. Those guys. But someone else is here now.”
“Jack?” he whispered.
“I don’t think so.”
From the top of the bank, seemingly right above them, came the voice again.
“Where is she?”
That one sounded Anglo, he thought.
Next came another voice, deeper, with a speaking pattern that lacked the Texas twang.
“They got away.”
“They can’t have gone far,” came the reply.
Amber flattened into the warm earth beside him, covering her mouth with one hand and retrieving a gun from the waistband of her slacks. She looked like she knew what she was doing. She rolled to her side and then reached behind and beneath her blazer, laying a second gun on his chest. He took it, and their eyes met. He saw no fear now. Only a cold determination and willingness to do what was necessary. She would have made a good soldier. His gut twisted, so damn glad she had not been there with him in the Sandbox.
“They’re right on our tails,” said the first voice. “We have maybe another two minutes.”
“But she’s right here!” said his companion.
Amber’s eyes widened. She was the only “she” out here.
“No time,” repeated the first man. “Get my brother. We’ll have to come back for her.
“Hurry up,” said the first man.
A car door opened, the metal groaning a protest.
The same voice again. “Let’s go.”
Carter looked at Amber. Her hand was pressed to her mouth again as if to keep from screaming. Her eyes were wide. Seconds ticked by, and then two more doors slammed and tires patched out on the gravel that lined the shoulder of the road.
Amber slid her hand away from her mouth. “Are they gone?”
Carter nodded. “I think so.”
“Should I check?” she asked.
He shook his head. There was no reason for her to see this. He could protect her from that image, the kind that stuck in your mind and