Chapter Three
R io thrust the sleeping bag up with one fist at each corner, his arms locked straight out. He held it as high as possible, tent-like, over their bodies. Becca didn’t question him, didn’t move. Her heart pounding, she froze into stillness.
The helicopter’s engines whined overhead. Louder. It sounded like the chopper sailed directly over their tiny cabin. The beating rotors thundered, shook the small shack. Time stalled.
Somehow Becca knew that Rio had gritted his teeth. In their dark cocoon, she couldn’t see him, she just knew. As though his concern leached unease into the very air, Becca experienced a new dread flowing through her. Jammed beside his big body, she pressed herself to him. With her fingers, she clutched his shirt, and could feel the warmth of his skin. She heard the thudding of his heart. He smelled of the wind, blowing through a mountain forest. Her face in his neck, his beard stubble rasped against her cheek. She was afraid to move a muscle.
One part of her wondered how covering them with a cheap sleeping bag could be effective. How did hiding from the boogeyman like frightened children beneath bed covers help them?
At last, the helicopter’s noise grew faint and disappeared. Rio let out a breath and flung off the sleeping bag. He got to his feet. “I don’t know if the cartel’s helos are outfitted with FLIR capability. The roof and overhanging trees will mask some of our heat signatures, but I wanted to make sure.”
“FLIR?”
“It means Forward Looking Infrared. It’s thermal imaging. The sleeping bag will mask our heat, but only for a couple of minutes. Once our body heat transferred to the fabric, we’d be visible to them.”
She felt her mouth form into an O . “That’s why you held it up off our bodies.”
He nodded. “Like I said it only works for a minute or two. If they hovered over us for long, and if they were looking in the right place, we’d be sitting ducks.”
Now it made sense. She felt a little foolish. “What is this place?”
“Just a hidey hole. I’ve used several of them across Mexico. I was here this morning. Left that light on.” He gestured at the battery lamp. “Lucky for us the cantina where I grabbed you is fewer than fifty miles off. The next cabin’s two hundred miles farther south. We’d have had a lot longer ride.”
She tried not to gape. What sort of person maintained hidey holes across a foreign country? Bewildered, she shook her head to clear it. “Where are we?”
“Chihuahua State, partway up the Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range.” He refolded the sleeping bag and placed it back at the end of the bed.
So far away , she thought in dismay, from the ambassador’s house, up north by the U.S. border in Matamoros. Again, she imagined forming an escape plan, of somehow getting away, getting to safety. No sense in letting him know that. Attempting to sound innocent, she asked, “How long should we stay here?”
“Depends on how close those bastards are, how bad they want you. We may leave at dawn. We may stay put. I’ll decide tomorrow.”
She blinked at him. “Who are you? Did my father send you?” It could certainly be possible.
“In a roundabout way,” he answered.
A small measure of relief crept through her, instantly followed by a new suspicion. “So, my dad didn’t actually hire you?” Quickly she sifted through possibilities. “The government got involved.”
He gave her a pained look. “Of course. The US of A can’t tolerate having American citizens kidnapped from a foreign dignitary’s residence. Especially from an ambassador’s house.”
“And it puts a black eye on the Mexican government.” She thought about this. “I work for my father’s San Antonio business, a hubcap distributorship. With my dad’s close ties in government, he’s politically connected.”
His glance was considering this. He picked up a water bottle and brought it to the small table next to the bed. Beside that, he positioned his handgun.
She watched him. “So ... you’ll be making money off me.”
He met her gaze squarely. “A lot of money.”
“From who? Who’s paying you?”
“How about you answer my questions. What else do you know? Why you? Why’d the cartel grab you, Becca?”
Her energy reserves waning, Becca wished she had all her mental faculties to continue demanding answers from him. But the exhaustion overtaking her was too strong. Her mind felt like sludge. “I don’t know anything else,” she said. “I wish I did.” Again, she felt her eyelids droop.
“We’ll talk in the morning. Move over.” Rio pointed to the opposite side of the bed.
Momentarily, she revived. “I told you, you’re not sleeping here—”
“Move or I’ll move you.” He waited, once again with a strangely dispassionate demeanor, as though it didn’t matter to him what she did. She knew that if she didn’t make room for him, he would physically set her aside. He was getting into the bed with her no matter what.
Grudgingly, she scooted toward the wall, where the bed and wall met. Rolling tensely onto her side, she faced away from him. As he lay down on his back beside her, she felt rather than saw him place his forearm over his forehead.
Outside, in the black darkness of the forest, she felt certain that those men— the cartel , Rio had called them—were relentlessly hunting her. Naturally they’d be eager to recapture her. The idea of returning to the imprisonment of that awful truck, to possible death, horrified her. She wanted nothing more than to go home to her condo in San Antonio, Texas, to her nice, quiet life, to her ordered existence, to her family and friends. If only this harrowing interlude would end.
As her eyes drifted shut, she drew her knees up to her stomach. Her leg throbbed. Exhausted, she tried concocting an escape plan. She didn’t know whether she could trust this Rio guy. So far, she’d been unable to stop any of these events from happening, all of them crashing down on her. With everything out of her control, she felt off-kilter and unbalanced. Normally in charge of her own destiny, she abhorred the feeling. “Rio?” she asked.
“What?”
“You’re supposed to get me back home?” She whispered the question.
“Correct.”
Maybe , she thought. And maybe he was just pretending in order to keep her compliant. After a long moment, she asked, “Who are you really?”
“I’m Rio,” he said. “And I’m here to save you. That’s all you need to know.”
“You’ll save me?” she whispered again, this time softer. She didn’t want it to be a dream, a fairy tale. She wanted it to be real.
“I swear it,” he said. “It’s my job.”
****
W hen Becca awoke, she was alone in the bed. Her eyes popped open and she experienced a moment of disorientation. In the next instant, her predicament came back with a terrible rush.
Sitting up, clutching the covers to her throat, she glanced around the cabin. The gun Rio had carefully placed on the small table was gone. Where was he? Had he abandoned her, out here in this wilderness? Would he come back?
Her thoughts frantic, she tried to figure out what to do.
Should she take the opportunity to run, to get away from him, find people—some sort of country home—and implore the residents to help her? She spoke excellent Spanish. She hoped she could come across nice people who were not in cahoots with the cartel.
That seemed the best plan. Her pants still hung on the rafters and she imagined they’d be close to dry by now. Perhaps her socks and shoes were as well. With no idea how far she’d have to run or how long it would take her to find someone, she figured she’d need food and water. No doubt there would be supplies in the cooler. The sweatshirt Rio had given her would serve her during the day, but if she were stuck out at night, it would not be enough. She glanced down. Lugging along several of the quilts wouldn’t be easy, but she had no choice. She had to get away.
Beneath the bed covers, she shifted her legs and was instantly reminded of her injury. Her leg still hurt. A lot.
Abruptly the door swung open and Rio filled the doorway. A frigid blast of air flowed inside. His head covered in a knit cap like the one he’d given her and wearing a sheepskin-lined coat, he appeared huge. Last night, Becca hadn’t fully realized how tall, how burly he was. The man was big .
He slammed the door and stamped his feet. White material flew off his shoulders and boots onto the floorboards. “Snowing out,” he said. “And I saw some good sized tracks nearby. Mountain lion.”
Becca’s hopes sank. Now that he was back, she didn’t suppose she’d be able to get away. Maybe it was a poor idea anyway. With the change in weather, she wouldn’t make it even a mile. If it were snowing, no bundle of quilts would keep her warm.
She’d need the scooter.
Before he’d closed the door she’d spotted the telltale outline of its shape, covered in tarp and netting under the wild oak. And she remembered now that he’d gassed it up. As a teen, she’d had her own scooter, and knew how to operate one, no problem.
She’d wait, and watch. Maybe she’d get a chance. Becca huddled into her covers, pulled the cap down over her ears. She sniffed. Her nose felt a little runny. In the opposite corner of the room, she spotted a tiny fireplace with a tiny mantle. “Can we have a fire?”
Taking off his coat, Rio cast her an incredulous glance. “Smoke can be seen for miles. We’re trying to hide, not send out a beacon.” He hung his coat on a hook beside the door.
“Where did you go? Is the cartel nearby?”
“Spotted them twenty miles south. They’re sending out patrols, canvassing the countryside in a search grid. Right now, they aren’t close, but they’re on the move.” He set down a pack she hadn’t seen before.
“They aren’t close?” she breathed.
“No, but it won’t be safe to move today. Here.” He withdrew a thermos from his pack. “I rode in the other direction, stayed out of sight, went to see some people I know.” He handed her the thermos.
Uncapping it to the aroma of freshly brewed hot coffee, she sighed in pleasure. Sipping the delicious drink, she said, “You must speak Spanish.”
“Yeah. And Arabic.”
She peered at him. Arabic? The two languages didn’t seem particularly alike. Strange.
It was time she got some answers. “How much are you being paid to deliver me back to my father?”
“A bundle.”
“How much?”
“You don’t need to know, Buttercup.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?”
“Cause your hair smells like little yellow flowers.”
“Don’t,” she said, frowning. It sounded far too intimate and she didn’t like it. “Don’t.”
“Don’t, what?”
“Don’t go smelling my hair ... or my ... anything.”
“Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “In this place, we’re sorta up close and personal. Can’t really help it. Hungry?” Once again, he held out a blueberry muffin. While it looked tempting, she had a more immediate need.
“Actually, I, uh, need to answer nature’s call.”
“Gotta pee?”
She frowned. “Yes.” Did the man have any social graces at all?
“Put on your pants and shoes. I’ll take you outside. You’ll go in the trees.”
She sighed. Indoor plumbing, it seemed, was only a dream, a luxury. “Great.” Just what she wanted to do, go in the trees .
The air outside was even colder than she’d imagined. Drifting snowflakes landed on her sweatshirt, on her nose. The ground was more than lightly dusted. A good four inches crunched under her loafers. Her toes already felt like ice cubes. The shivering began instantly.
In the light of day, she noticed the shack had been built in the middle of a dense copse of trees, making it unrecognizable from only yards away. If one didn’t know where it was, the hut would be nearly impossible to find. At least that was comforting.
Rio led her some thirty yards away, pointed at a thatch of underbrush, and strode off. As quickly as possible, Becca did her business and hurried back to him. All she wanted now was to climb into bed again and warm up. From the activity, the wound on her leg ached. She limped the last few steps through the snow.
Back inside, and behind her, Rio barred the door. As Becca resumed her place on the bed, the sound of the heavy wooden latch swinging down held the bang of finality. She clutched her coffee. In a very real sense, she was trapped in the middle of a frozen forest, inside this small room with an unknown entity. She eyed him nervously.
Before facing her, he shrugged out of his coat again and placed the gun back on the table. His fingers went to the hem of his t-shirt and he pulled it over his head.
Becca gasped. Now half naked, he was even more intimidating. His shoulders, pectorals, and abdominal muscles were developed and sculpted. A thin line snaked over his belly, a scar. Heat and power emanated off him in waves.
He returned her gaze. His expression held no humor, no emotion. His blue eyes pinned her. “Scared?”