Desert Ice Daddy (8 page)

“Sorry. Forgot about that. I just—” She raised her gaze to his.

And he understood. Her mind had been elsewhere. On her son. And she’d been in a hurry to get to him. “Let’s see how bad it is.” He peeled the sock back.

Her heel was raw, her feet small and dainty in his palms. She shouldn’t be out in the middle of Hell’s Porch. His anger intensified against the kidnappers. He gritted his teeth, forcing his focus away from that. There would be time when he caught up with the bastards.

He turned her foot over. Pale skin, a pronounced arch, perfect round toenails done in gold. He had to shake his head at that. “I’ll do the best I can.” The kit was fully stocked. He hadn’t had occasion to use it much.

His first instinct was to wrap her up and take her to safety, away from all danger, to protect her, to take care of her. But he knew how much she hated it when Flint tried to do that.

“I
am
going to protect you,” he told her, just so there’d be no confusion about what she should expect.

“Fine and dandy,” she said, looking behind his back. Her flippant tone belied the way her face turned white for a second before she gathered herself. And the next moment, the corner of her eyes were crinkling with resolution, a slow smile tugging up one corner of her mouth. “But I’m going to have to protect you first. Don’t move a muscle.”

He froze. Not only because he, too, could now sense danger, but also because at this very moment she was the Taylor of old, before that bastard ex-husband of hers
had come along. She was taking the situation in hand with her old self-assurance.

“Okay, you can move the muscle that’s needed to slide your gun over.”

He did as she asked. She didn’t look like she was joking.

“Notice how I’m trusting you,” he said.

“What? I don’t have trust issues.”

“Mmm, hmm.”

She fitted in a glare before she raised the gun and took off the safety. Flint had taught her how to shoot. Even Akeem had done some target practice with her back in the day. He had no worries there.

They were both still and silent. He was about to ask what she was doing when he heard the rattler’s warning, coming no more than inches from his back.

T
AYLOR HAD A CLEAR
view of the rattler’s head. She would get one chance only. She needed to shoot a bullet an inch over Akeem’s shoulder as he held his body half-bent to her foot, aim an inch from his left ear.

Knowing she could do it and actually pulling the trigger were two different things, however.

“I trust you,” he said again in that steady, sure voice of his.

God, she had missed that voice. She hated what their friendship had become. Hated that she’d been the one to ruin it with that stupid crush of hers. He’d been staying away from her, and lately away from the ranch because of her.

But now he was here.

And keeping him here—alive—was up to her.

She closed her left eye, lined up the target and pulled the trigger.

The force of the bullet punched the snake back a couple of paces. She looked at the writhing, bloody mess on the stone behind Akeem and shivered.

“I’m glad I can still do this.” She set the gun down with trembling hands, as all bravado was leaving her.

Akeem straightened, looked back to the snake before turning again to her. “You mean you haven’t been practicing lately?”

“Not since Christopher was born. Not enough time to do everything in a day.”

He made some noise, then, with a strange look in his eyes, stepped around her.

Probably needed to walk off the tension. But he stopped abruptly.

“Taylor?” he asked from behind her, then turned her before she had a chance to turn on her own.

His tanned hands held her by the shoulders. The focused look that had been in his eyes before morphed into swirling dark heat. She barely had time to catch her breath before he hauled her up, dipped his head and kissed her.

Slow. Tender. Thorough.

Oh, my.

Akeem Abdul never did anything halfway, at least that was what they said about him in the business arena, and she was getting her chance to find out firsthand.

His lips brushed over hers, warmed them, caressed,
nibbled. She opened to him without thought, slipping into her girlhood fantasies. Oh, but reality was so much better than anything she could have imagined.

She felt as if she’d been made for this man’s mouth, for this man’s arms. She gave herself over to the kiss, to oblivion, to Akeem. He tasted her over and over again, claimed her. Branded her. Her body flooded with pleasure. Which he ended too soon.

“Sorry.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, ran his thumb over his left eyelid. “I mean, thank you.” He looked endearingly frazzled when his eyes opened. “Sorry about the kiss. Thank you for the snake,” he clarified as he stepped back.

She was about to tell him that he could drop the sorry part, when the phone rang. Fear spiked through her, instantly erasing the last of the pleasant sensations that still lingered.

“Are you ready to pay attention this time?” the voice asked when she opened the cell phone and pressed it to her ear.

T
HE SECOND EXCHANGE
attempt had been set up at a rock formation one mile east of the original, for the next morning. Except that they were marching in the opposite direction.

Taylor kept her eyes on the ground as she walked behind Akeem, keeping in his shade as he had instructed. “Are you sure about this?”

“Not nearly sure enough, but it’s the best chance we have at this stage. I’m pretty sure the pickup tracks that
we’ve been following were leading us to the closed-down refinery that’s out this way.”

The refinery her grandfather had worked at one point in his life. She’d heard tales about that, but had never been all the way out here. There were far more pleasant places to ride around Flint’s ranch.

Unfortunately, the whirling gusts of wind that had swept through after lunch had obliterated the pickup tracks.

“I’ve ridden through here before. I should be able to find the refinery by instinct,” Akeem told her. They could have been going around in circles, for all she knew. She’d become disoriented a while back. She was filled with doubts and she hated every one of them.

Taylor put one foot in front of the other, trying her best to trust him, but trust didn’t come easily to her. She’d trusted Gary so innocently, so thoroughly. Then he had turned into a monster she no longer knew. And then he had hurt her.

Maybe, if she was the only person at stake, she could trust Akeem more fully. Maybe. But her son…She couldn’t trust Christopher to anyone just yet. Not after she had trusted him to Jake Kenner. Because Jake had been one of Flint’s men and Flint always treated his employees as family and they had always loved him back and had been fiercely loyal. All but Jake.

She had gotten lulled into a false sense of security, thinking she’d be safe because she’d gotten away from Gary and she was with Flint. But Christopher hadn’t been safe. She couldn’t make that mistake again.

Tomorrow,
the voice had said.

Which meant that Christopher would have to spend one more night with those criminals. Almost another whole day in which anything could happen. She could hardly bear the thought; it wrung her heart out, leaving her empty.

“Why are they making us wait? This is driving me crazy,” she snapped.

“That’s why,” Akeem said without turning. “They want you scared and compliant this time. They probably figure we can’t have many resources left. They prefer us hungry and dehydrated.”

“Weak,” she said, summing it up. She did feel that already, listlessness interspersed with periods of murderous rage that someone would do this to her son. That rage gave her the energy to go on.

Although Akeem had come prepared, he hadn’t expected to spend days in Hell’s Porch. They had one bottle of mineral water left between the two of them, and at least another twenty-four hours to go. If they were lucky. If they were going in the right direction.

She didn’t know how she could possibly put all her hopes in the hands of Akeem Abdul, a man she’d barely seen in the past couple of years. But a man she knew to be true and good, nevertheless, she reminded herself.

She wasn’t going to think about what it had felt like to spend the night in his strong arms. Not now.

His skin was soft, stretched over hard muscles that came from hard riding. Akeem was a formidable horseman, and he’d seen her at Flint’s plenty of times with
the wild mustangs Flint bought from the government each year to introduce to his breeding program.

His lean but powerful thighs had been pressed against the back of hers for most of the night and—

Good thing she hadn’t yet known how well the man could kiss.

So much for not thinking about him. She bit back a groan, looked up at the sun and wiped her sweat-beaded forehead. “The heat is definitely back today.” The cooling effect of last night’s rain was long gone, the ground as dry as if it had never happened, the only sign of recent moisture the plants that stood straighter and looked greener than the day before.

“We’ll stop for another break soon. The refinery shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours from here,” he said.

But he was wrong.

Either he’d remembered in riding distance—much faster than walking—or they were seriously slowing down due to their insufficient rations of food and water. The sun was ready to retire for the day by the time they rounded a dip in the landscape and came upon a higher point and she could see the refinery up ahead in a shallow bowl of rock and sand.

The complex looked deserted, no vehicles in sight. No sign of life whatsoever, no matter how carefully she looked, eyes squinted, her hand over her brows to block the sun.

Her heart dropped to the bottom of her grumbling stomach.

They had gambled everything on Akeem’s hunch. If they’d made a mistake by coming here, Christopher was in big trouble. Because there was no way to get back to the kidnapper’s assigned meeting point by tomorrow morning.

“Keep low.” Akeem crouched to stay below the waist-high brush that covered most of the landscape.

She followed his example, and another hour passed before they reached the first fence. Her thigh muscles were about ready to explode. Walking in a crouch for this long had put the worst boot camp–style exercise program to shame. “And now?”

“We go in and look around.” He was already moving toward a spot where a clump of larger bushes had grown close against the fence. He was unraveling the chain link by the time she caught up with him.

They squeezed through only to realize that the second fence was much sturdier than the first, with barbed wire on top and EPA notices every hundred feet or so warning everyone to keep out. The strip between the two fences had scarce vegetation, not much to hide behind. Anyone from the refinery could see them if they were looking.

Akeem signaled toward what looked like a beat-up guardhouse. He walked over, peeked in through the glassless window before going in.

“What are we doing here?” She followed him and closed the door carefully behind her.

“Waiting for the night to get a little darker. Getting some rest. Giving anyone who might be in there—” he
indicated the refinery “—time to fall asleep.” He shrugged off the duffel bags, banged around a little to scare the snakes and scorpions out, then sat.

She did the same. Her shoulders and back ached from carrying the two briefcases all day. Even her blisters had blisters. The muscles in her legs throbbed. She was an active person, but her job required her to spend considerable time behind a desk. She hadn’t been on a multiday hike since Christopher had been born. Riding out to the south pasture once or twice a week hadn’t prepared her for this. She hoped Christopher was here, because she wasn’t sure how much farther she could go.

She pushed that thought aside. Nonsense. She would walk as far as necessary, even to the ends of the earth.

Akeem watched her as she stretched her fingers, then tightened them into a fist a couple of times, then rolled her shoulders. “Sore?”

“I’m so far past sore, I can’t even remember it. I think my muscles have set themselves on fire in protest.”

He smiled in the dim space, leaned against the wall, spread his legs. “Come over here.”

Her heart beat out a staccato rhythm.

The awareness was back between them with full force, and she wondered for a moment if this would always happen when they were in close proximity. Heaven help her if it did.

He waited.

She gave up pretending that she could have resisted.

When she scooted over to him, he turned her and pulled her closer. She would have been grateful for a re
assuring hug, for the slightest offer of comfort. But he placed his long fingers on her shoulders and began to work them. For the first second or two, all she felt was more pain, then she relaxed as tension leaked out when he pressed the heel of his hand against her spine.

“God, that feels good. Where did you learn to do that?” He was a surprise and a half. Akeem Abdul, prince of the desert, as a trained masseur?

“Horses,” he said behind her.

Of course.
She rolled her eyes, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. He was treating her like a horse. But she wouldn’t have moved an inch. What he was doing felt way too wonderful.

When he was done with her neck, he moved to her shoulders, then to her back, her lower back, then back up again to her arms. Tingles galore. When he was done with the arms, he turned her sideways in the bracket of his legs.

She was really hoping for a kiss. Pitifully so. But instead, he took her left hand, worked through each individual finger, joint by joint, then her palm. When he was done, he did the right hand. “Lie down,” he said after that.

She did so, thinking they would be going to sleep, getting ready to fight down the heat that had spread through her body, to ignore the needs he’d awakened inside her. But instead of lying down to rest, he positioned himself at her feet.

Oh
.

She wasn’t sure if she could handle that. “You don’t have to—I don’t think—”