Giving her the benefit of the doubt, he released her. She stumbled back a step in her haste to get away from him. Her heel caught and she staggered backward. Her arms flew out like twin windmills, but her left foot hit on the same impediment and her balance was lost. She landed with a soft thump on her backside.
On top of the man he’d taken out two minutes ago.
Dazed by the proof of his mission, she touched her fingers to the dead man’s face. His skin would still be warm, but his lack of a response to the woman sitting on his chest should clue in even her stubborn brain to the truth.
Vincent checked his watch while she studied the man. He scanned the clearing for signs of the other guards when she looked up at him. He unholstered his gun when she looked back at the corpse and met her questioning gaze when she looked up at him again.
“Is he…?”
“Dead.”
She scrambled to her feet with reflexes rivaling his own. In an instant she was behind him, her fists gripping handfuls of his jacket.
He had her full attention now.
She poked her head around his shoulder. “Did you do that?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“You don’t need to know.”
He could feel her chest expand and press into his back as she dealt with the shock. The pictures he’d seen of Whitney MacNair had given him the initial impression of a woman of above-average height who needed to put some meat on her bones.
His introduction to her tonight, though, had provided an unexpected glimpse of a nicely rounded bottom. And the stretch of her body against his back indicated an athleticism to her build that decried her klutzy maneuvers thus far.
“Let’s go,” he ordered, setting aside his awareness of her physical attributes. When he turned toward the high ground, he expected her to follow.
But what else had gone as he expected tonight?
Whitney moved in the opposite direction, back toward the terrorist’s body. “You jerk.” She kicked the body’s crumpled legs. “You hurt me.” She collapsed to her knees, grabbed the front of his jacket and shook him, as though his ears could still hear. She raised her voice to a level that would certainly catch the attention of any living ears. “And don’t think I didn’t see you look…”
“He’s dead.”
Vincent wrapped his arm around the waist and lifted her clear off the ground. He clapped his hand over her mouth to stifle her startled yelp and carried her back to the cover of the rocks. She beat at his arm with her fists and writhed within his grasp.
The gun he still held in his hand made it difficult to keep hold of her. Persistent as a fish on a hook, she nearly slipped free. He twisted around and pushed her back against the boulder, trapping her there with his body, absorbing the force of her blows until her energy was spent.
Until he felt the drop of hot moisture hit his hand where it covered her mouth. Oh no, he prayed. She wouldn’t do this now. She couldn’t.
Great. Maybe the reason MacNair had shuffled his daughter off to Montana was because she was crazy. An absolute dingbat without a single survival instinct in her bones.
But she had the most unusual eyes. Sad eyes, he thought. Wounded eyes that seemed to catch and reflect even the dimmest light without allowing anyone to see inside. Right now they brimmed with tears that spilled silently down her face. Vincent peered through the shadows and saw the bloodstain on her cheek. Acting on instinct, he shifted his hand to touch his thumb to the injured spot.
“Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, stirring her cheekbone beneath his touch. The blood came away on his thumb, revealing unblemished skin. She must have put up one hell of a fight to draw someone else’s blood.
Somewhere inside, his confusion shifted and was replaced by an old familiar calling. To protect. Crazy lady or not, Whitney had been taken by force, degraded, and possibly even abused. She had a right to cry. A right to pummel the corpse of a man who had terrorized her. She needed a kind of emotional help that wasn’t in his power to give. But he could keep her safe. He could get her home in one piece.
If she’d let him.
“If I take my hand away, will you be quiet?”
She took a deep, steadying breath and nodded. Slowly, watching for any sign of verbal protest, he removed his hand. He stepped back to put some physical distance between them, and thought through the next series of moves he had to make. The light brush of her hand on his chest diverted his attention.
“I thought…I’m sorry.” Her voice was little more than a husky whisper. “You look just like the others.” She pointed to the dead man. “The black outfit… Do you have some ID?”
Vincent allowed himself one choice succinct curse.
He supposed her initial distrust was justified. With his dark coloring he could pass for one of Chilton’s men. But hadn’t he identified himself already? Hadn’t he gotten to her when no one else could? Didn’t she have a lick of common sense?
He dropped his face down to her level and articulated each word so she would understand. “We are twenty yards from Dimitri Chilton and his hired help, and we have to be at the rendezvous point in less than ten minutes. Do as I say right now, or you won’t get the opportunity to ask another question.”
She puffed up like some wounded debutante who was about to run off and tell Daddy what the mean old man had dared to say to her. Vincent stared her down. His menacing silence brooked no argument. After a charged moment, her shoulders dropped and her chin fell to a subdued angle.
Finally, she’d do as he said.
She followed his lead and crouched behind him when he moved to the edge of the rocks and knelt down to spy through the brush and locate the other two patrol guards he’d spotted earlier.
But the silence was too precious to last. He felt a tap on his shoulder before her warm breath whispered in his ear. “What about Montana Confidential? Does Daniel Austin know I’m here? And Jewel? Did she get home okay? What about my horse?”
He looked over his shoulder and stared at her in disbelief.
“There is a time to run, a time to fight and a time to shut up.”
Vincent held her gaze until he was sure she understood which time this was.
Though he was quickly learning not to trust her silence, he couldn’t afford to waste any more time. He had to get them out of there. Now.
He shifted his weight to the balls of his feet and held the gun with both hands in front of him. He stilled his breathing and concentrated on the sounds of the night around them. The darkness would be their ally. He had to time their dash across the open terrain with the sweeping currents of cloud cover. The moon would be hidden for only a few seconds, but that would be all the time they…
The snap of a twig jarred him. He pushed Whitney back against the rock, shielding her body with his, automatically covering her mouth with his hand. He held his breath and waited for the guard to pass by.
The man walked past at a leisurely pace, indicating no alarm about his missing comrade or the length of Whitney’s trip to relieve herself. Vincent considered taking this guard out, too. He could do it in a matter of seconds. He could do it without making a sound.
But he couldn’t trust Whitney to keep her mouth shut or to follow his orders without an argument.
When the sound of footsteps faded, Vincent eyed the sky and counted off his own internal clock. The time to move was now, or they’d never reach the old mining road where his Washington contact was due to arrive soon. The driver couldn’t park and wait for fear of detection. And with the short turnaround time necessary for a hostage