Chapter Seventeen #3
McCrae made a deep grunting noise that could be satisfaction or something else. For all she knew, the Neanderthal only knew a few words.
The forest was darker, but her eyes were accustomed to it after so many days on the trail. So when she spotted the black maw of the mine, she jerked to a halt.
Her stare immediately scraped over the ground…and she saw the dark blotches where the two mercenaries Hawk shot had died. Obviously the Black Heart Security team had collected them, but their ghosts seemed to walk over her senses, and she shivered.
McCrae issued another noise, close to a laugh. “So this is where the men I hired met their end.” He chuckled now, and Sinead’s stomach twisted at his brutal disregard for life.
He shoved her between the shoulders, and she lurched forward, almost falling, but she managed to right herself as he propelled her fast toward the mouth of the mine.
She had to step over another dark, dried stain in the doorway.
Blood.
Hawk’s blood this time, soaked into the dirt where he’d taken that bullet meant for her. Her knees nearly buckled at the sight of it. She breathed through the nausea rolling thick in her stomach.
McCrae pulled out a flashlight and switched it on. The beam sliced through the dark.
She had to live, and that meant giving up any information he asked for.
“I know exactly where the gold is. I can show you.”
He studied her, suspicious. “Now you’re willing to help me?”
“I don’t want to die over some rocks.” She forced her voice to steady with a calm she didn’t feel. “You can have it. All of it—the land, the mine, the gold. Everything. I’ll make the legal arrangements immediately. Just let me walk out of here.”
The expression in his eyes wavered, greed warring with suspicion, and she took the window of opportunity.
“This way. I’ll show you.” She led him deeper into the mine, toward the crates they’d found days before. She prayed desperately that the sound of another helicopter would throb through the air before this went any further.
Inspiration struck. Her mind came into sharp focus.
She reached into the nearest crate and closed her fist around a nugget. She let McCrae catch sight of her movement and twitched her hand toward her pocket.
“What are you doing?” His voice sharpened.
“Nothing.” She closed her fingers tighter around the nugget.
“You’re taking something.” He grabbed her wrist. “You claimed you’ll give me everything, but you think you’re keeping a piece for yourself?”
She had to play the part, look greedy. “It’s just one nugget—”
“Give it to me!”
She yanked her hand back, heart slamming, and hurled the nugget as hard as she could toward the black mouth of the drop-off deeper in the shaft.
He lunged after it on pure reflex, greed overriding every ounce of caution, and his boots hit loose rock at the exact wrong angle. He pitched forward, arms windmilling, and disappeared over the edge with a short, terrible cry that went on far too long.
Silence closed in on her.
She stood frozen, breath ragged, and that was when she heard it—the distant, unmistakable thud of helicopter blades, growing louder, closer.
She ran.
She burst out into the open air just as the chopper arrived, and Hawk was already moving before the skids fully touched ground, sprinting toward her with an expression of raw fear and fierce determination that made her knees actually give out beneath her.
He caught her before she hit the dirt, arms locking tight around her. The Black Heart guys swept past them into the mine, and a few anxious minutes later, one called back grimly.
McCrae was dead, his body visible at the bottom of the shaft. His greed had pushed him to his own end.
“He went after a nugget I threw,” she mumbled against Hawk’s chest, voice shaking.
Hawk let out a rough, disbelieving laugh, pressing his forehead to hers. “Damn. Here I was, ready to be your hero.”
She lifted her head, meeting his eyes. They were filled with fear and more.
“If I pretend I have a sprained ankle, will that make you feel better?”
“No.”
“A concussion? My vision’s a little blurry. You should probably carry me.”
He swept her up into his arms without hesitation, burying his face in her hair. “I’ll carry you anyway.” His voice came out so gruff, she suddenly knew her kidnapping had cost him as much as it had her.
She let herself melt into him, trembling but finally, truly safe. “You did save me, you know. My big strong hero.”
He dipped his head and kissed her, slow and fierce, right there in the dirt outside the mine that had nearly cost them everything.
As she kissed him back, tears spilled down her cheeks. She would have given up all of it without a second thought, if it meant walking away with her life.
But she’d known with a deep instinct that McCrae never would have let her live no matter what. His hate had become a poison, trickling through generations of McCraes until he finally took action after her father died.
And she’d known something else too.
If she hadn’t found a way out herself, Hawk would have died trying to save her.