Page 24 of The Heat is On

Skye was running over to them. He didn’t want to ask where she’d come from—probably some lookout perch—but she was grinning, her face innocent, curious. She’d taken off her helmet and left her pack behind, and the sunlight turned her long braid to gold. “Are we starting to mop up?”

It only took her a second, but ten feet away from them, her expression changed. And it wasn’t hard to see why. They’d all turned, and Rio knew even he wore a sort of horrified expression.

Then March raised his gun. “Stop.”

She gasped, halted, and put her hands up. “Please—!”

March advanced on her, five determined steps, and set the gun against her head.

“Stop—stop!” Rio’s brain shut down, and sheer reflexes propelled him across the rocks. “March—don’t!”

“She’ll run back to camp and warn them,” March said.

Skye’s breath shuddered out, her hands quivering. “No—no, I won’t—”

“Shut up!”

Rio wasn’t taking any chances. He walked right up to Skye and without pause simply put his arms around her. Turned her in one quick motion.

And March’s gun barrel was now shoved against his spine.

“Shh,” he said, his mouth against Skye’s ear. And he had to give her credit for not moving, not screaming.

“You shoot, and everyone in the camp will wake up,” Rio said, glancing over his shoulder. “She’ll come with us. We need a hostage if things go south.”

The moment he landed on the wordhostage, Skye jerked. But he tightened his arms around her.

One second. Two.

Rio’s eyes fell on Thorne, whose gaze hung on March, as if sizing him up.

As if he might have Rio’s back.

“Fine,” March said. “But the minute she doesn’t keep up, she’s dead. And so are you.”

March stalked away, and Rio’s breath released. He looked down at Skye. Her eyes were wide in his, and she swallowed hard.

And oh, he wanted to tell her—well,everything.But they had no time, and if she knew who he was, who was to say that she’d be able to keep the secret?

Knowing Rio was FBI would definitely get them killed.

So he grabbed her hand and because he couldn’t stop himself, let out a low, guttural, “Trust me.”

Then he took off after March.

The minuteshe doesn’t keep up, she’s dead.

Those words kept Skye’s legs moving. Skye glanced at Rio’s hand in hers, tight enough to pull her along, not so tight that he hurt her.

She could hardly wrap her brain around the fact that a fugitive, a prisoner, a man who looked like he could kill her with his bare hands, just saved her life.

Except for Rio’s word.Hostage.

And, clearly, he meant it because he hadn’t let go of her hand for the last hour as they’d jogged down the ridge, working their way through rutted mountain trails toward a valley that stretched out like no-man’s-land, a golden wasteland as the sun took full repossession of the sky.

But Rio hadn’t hurt her. In fact, he kept looking at her with something confusingly like concern in his amber eyes, and that only dragged up into her thumping heart his softly spoken,Trust me.

Maybe.