Page 25 of The Heat is On
Oh, she should have just stayed put. Because she’d watched them climb down the ridge from the back side of the fire, and her overactive imagination assumed that Tucker had left her out—again. That he’d taken the team around the fire to assess the mop-up and hadn’t bothered to tell her, trying to keep her safe, and a fury had erupted inside her.
She’d jumped to her feet, scrambled down the rocks, and was halfway across the ridge to them when she realized…
Theprisoners. Not Tucker. Not Seth. Not Riley or Romeo or even the Zulies.
But by then she’d opened her big mouth, and March—she heard Rio call him that—rounded on her so fast her heart simply stopped.
She froze.
Oh, she could have done something. Run, maybe. Scream.
Anything but stand there and let March push a gun to her head, the cold barrel digging into her skull.
She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, and then—well, Rio’s movements happened so fast, one minute her bones were turning to liquid, the next, he had his arms around her, pulling her tight to his chest.
Taking the aim of the gun against his body.
She’d stood with her ear pressed against his chest, listening to the wild thunder of his heart, her own heart clinging to the gentle,Shh.
As in,Everything’s going to be okay.
She’d closed her eyes. Somehow Rio had talked March out of blowing a hole through him—them, really—but now…
Now she was on the lam with a bunch of prisoners.
The gang had dwindled by three, however, because she’d looked behind her not long after March took off, and the three younger men had vanished.
Probably off on their own escape trajectory.
The older man and the pudgy redhead were in front of her, but the other man—the taller one with the quiet demeanor and dark eyes—hung to the back, and she half expected him to duck behind a boulder and fade into the wilderness next.
She’d said nothing about the disappearing entourage, but Rio had definitely noticed, his gaze casting back, his mouth a tight line.
And that’s when March had stopped, also glancing behind him. Swore.
Then he leveled the gun at Skye.
Rio yanked her behind him, held up his hand. “I don’t know where they are, man. It’s not her fault.”
She’d barely noticed March at the camp. He looked like…well, like someone she might see on a ski hill, or afterwards, hanging with the après-ski bunch. Clean cut, save for the three-day whisker growth, he wore his brown hair short and even a little stylish, if it weren’t covered in ash and grime. Gray eyes—piercing almost, but she suspected that in a crowded bar, he might stand out when he set his gaze on a girl.
If she were given a multiple-choice quiz on the guy most likely to hold her hostage…well, it would be the man she currently held hands with.
“We gotta keep going,” Rio said now to March.
“Ahead of me,” March said, and Rio didn’t hesitate. He nodded and tugged her along, his strong hand tightening in hers.
She couldn’t make a run for it if she wanted.
They worked their way down a cliff side, slow going, and at the bottom, stopped to catch their breaths. The older man bent at the waist, breathing in hard. The redhead leaned in the shade against the granite wall.
The sun had risen, pouring light into the meadow ahead of them. Dotted with wildflowers and white reindeer moss and long grasses, it could be exactly where the US marshals picked them off.
And maybe March knew that because he stared out at the expanse, his jaw tight.
“How far to the campground, Archer?” He directed his question to the older man.
“Five miles, give or take, south. Past the river for sure.”