Her Last Defense (6 page)

“I suppose you’ve always known you wanted to be a Texas Ranger. Life never threw you any curves?”

“Until recently.”

How could she have forgotten? She’d sat here wallowing in her own misery as if his life—or death—didn’t hang on a simple blood test to be performed in the morning. Without thinking she reached out and took his hand. His fingers were warm. There was heat inside him, after all. She wondered if there was passion, as well, beneath the stoic exterior, then chastised herself for the direction of her thoughts.

Wrong man. Wrong place. Wrong time.

He eased his hand from hers, but when he walked away, his back seemed more rigid, his gait stiffer. She wished she could reassure him everything would be all right, but she couldn’t be sure it would. Besides, he obviously didn’t want her comfort.

Deciding not to poke the wounded bear, she sighed,
dug through her footlocker for the playing cards she always carried on field missions, and laid out the first of many hands of solitaire.

Clint twitched at the sound of every voice outside the tent. Jumped at every footstep that sounded as if it might be coming his way.

The sun had come up an hour ago. Dr. Attois’s assistant, Susan, a large-boned woman with a wide mouth, had taken blood samples from both him and the doctor shortly thereafter. The tests should be done any minute.

“Pacing isn’t going to bring Susan back any quicker.”

She was still sitting on her cot playing solitaire. Said it relaxed her.

He hadn’t said so, but he found her choice of distraction sad. She shouldn’t need to play card games alone to relax. Wouldn’t need to, if she was his woman.

But she was not his woman. Never would be. Not in this lifetime.

However long or short that might prove to be.

Dragging his hand through the roots of his hair, he started back across the tent that seemed to be shrinking by the minute, then whirled when he heard the zipper on the outside tent flap open. A tall, blond guy in a full environmental suit stood outside the clear interior tent flap, which was still secured.

That couldn’t be good, could it?

Dr. Attois unfolded herself from her cot and hurried over. “Curtis?”

“Just wanted to let you know that Christian and I
have finished screening all the workers. None of them are showing any symptoms, and their blood is still clean. They’re good to go.”

“Excellent.”

“Still no sign of José, but the military dropped a hundred traps baited with fruit into the woods last night within a three-mile radius of where you saw him. He’s got to get hungry. We’ll get him.”

“Good,” Dr. Attois said. Was Clint imagining it, or did her voice sound strained?

“Yeah,” the man she’d called Curtis said, and turned to leave. “It is.”

Two steps away, he stopped and looked back at them. “Oh, I almost forgot. Susan asked me to tell you she finished your blood work.” He peered at them solemnly through his face shield, then cracked a wide grin. “No virus. You’re in the clear.”

Dr. Attois’s breath shot out of her chest. She charged the door, grabbing for her gas mask. “Curtis Leahy, I’m going to kill you when I get out there!”

But she was smiling as she threatened him. He just laughed and strode away with a wave.

She dropped her mask back onto the table and turned, nearly running into Clint. He put his arms out instinctively to balance her. She wrapped hers around his back and squeezed.

“We’re clear. Did you hear? We’re clear! I knew everything would be all right.”

At the moment, Clint was anything but all right. The news that he and the doctor both had dodged the ARFIS bullet had his heart in high gear. That, and the press of
her plump breasts against his chest, the friction of her thighs scraping against his as she hopped up and down on her toes in joy, had his blood roaring, his hands wandering from her shoulders to her back, then lower, and his mind conjuring up crazy possibilities about the two of them. Right here. Right now.

What better way to celebrate life?

She tipped her head back to look at him through the corkscrew locks of dark hair that shuttered her seductress’ eyes, to smile at him, and—

Oh, hell.
Stifling a groan, he lowered his lips to hers. Kissed her. Tasted her. Memorized the shape and texture of her.

And realized that he’d dodged one bullet this morning, only to have another, in the form of a sexy, sassy little doctor, strike him dead in the heart.

M
acy’s body softened like warm wax under the Ranger’s onslaught of a kiss. Her senses were overwhelmed with his woodsy smell, the feel of hard muscles and heat. Had she wondered if there was heat in him? There was fire inside this man. Molten lava, bubbling, unseen but felt, just below the surface of that stoic exterior.

How did he hide it so well?

Why did he hide it at all?

What was she doing thinking when there was so much to
feel,
to experience? To enjoy.

She stretched up onto her toes to give him fuller access. His hands slid down her back, pulling her closer, leaving her skin tingling along their trail. His hips surged forward, tantalizing her with an intimate impression of him against her thigh.

Oh, my.

“Macy, we need to know what you want to tell—Oh. Ahem.”

Macy jumped away from the Ranger, dizzy. Her thoughts whirled. Her senses shorted out for a moment at the sudden loss of the high-voltage charge they’d been receiving only a moment before.

Susan stood outside the clear plastic tent seal, her cheeks as red as strawberries behind her face mask. “Sorry to interrupt.”

Gathering herself, Macy tugged her sweater down and cleared her throat. “You weren’t interrupting. We were just— That is—” She looked over her shoulder for help, found none. “We got a little carried away with the good news. What is it you said you needed?”

Susan’s gaze jumped from Macy to the Ranger and back. “Umm—”

“It’s okay. Whatever it is, he can hear it.”

“We need to know what you want to tell the workers. Some of them are asking about going home.”

Macy studiously avoided looking back at the Ranger. “Ask them to be patient a little while longer.”

Susan nodded as she backed away. “Yeah. Sure. Okay.”

Macy could feel the Ranger behind her. The air vibrated with his presence. Or maybe that was her, shaking in her tennis shoes.

“You’re not going to let them go, are you?”

A moment ago, she would have given this man her body, if he’d asked. The least she could do now was give him the truth. “I can’t.”

“You can’t keep them here forever.”

“Just until we catch the monkey.”

“
If
you catch the monkey.”

“We’ll get him. But we can’t let the men go back to town until we do.”

“Because they know the truth,” Clint said.

“They’ll start a panic.”

“Maybe you should have thought about that when you decided to lie to the public, to tell them you were out here looking for a
rabid
monkey, to begin with.”

“I didn’t lie to anyone. I put my career on the line, trying to help you get the truth out, if you remember. And besides, I’m not just keeping them here because I don’t want them talking in town.”

His eyelids flickered, almost imperceptibly. It wasn’t much, but she interpreted it as intrigue. He wondered what she was up to, she realized, and took some small measure of satisfaction in the fact that she recognized it.

Maybe the Ranger’s control wasn’t so iron-clad after all. He showed his emotions, if subtly. A girl just had to pay attention, and know how to read them.

She was learning.

“You said they were good men,” she answered his unspoken question. “They know these woods. They know how to hunt, to track animals. I’ve got a bunch of city boys out there, and we’ve got a hundred traps to check, and keep checking until we catch that monkey. If we pair them up, they’ll make better time, cover more ground.” She looked at him through her lashes. “I need their help. Assuming your guys are willing.”

“You give them protective gear, they’ll be willing. This is their town that monkey has put at risk.”

“We’ll give them gear, but I won’t lie. There are still risks. Comes with the job.”

“Some things are worth the risk. I figure their town, their families fall into that category.” He trailed along on her heels, watching her gather her gear. “You’re going out there, too, aren’t you?”

“I wouldn’t ask my people—or yours—to do anything I wouldn’t do myself.” She pressed her lips thin. “Besides, it might be their town, friends, neighbors and families, but it’s my damned monkey. My virus.”

He picked up his respirator and followed her to the door. “Then I guess you’re going to need a partner, too, partner.”

She turned and looked up at him, her heart going soft and slushy. “Fate’s smiled on you twice. You sure you want to test her again?”

“I’m a Texas Ranger. I live to test fate.”

“Is that why you kissed me,
Ranger
Hayes?” The words popped out before she could stop them. Mortified, she stared at the ground.

He lifted her chin with a finger. She hadn’t realized how close they were. How large he was. How daunting.

His pupils dilated a fraction. His lips parted and she thought he might kiss her again, but instead he said, “No. But since we do seem to have moved beyond the handshake and formal greeting stage,
Macy,
maybe you could call me Clint.”

He dropped her chin. She wanted to ask why he had
kissed her, if it hadn’t been to test fate, but she couldn’t seem to form the words. Could barely think coherently.

But she did remember one thing. Under the table behind her sat a plain stainless-steel bucket with a plastic lid that sealed airtight. The gas pellets should have done their sterilization trick by now.

She picked up the bucket, opened it and pulled out his badge and then his gun with her thumb and forefinger. “If we’re going to be partners, Clint, then I guess you should have these.”

“Thank you.”

The corners of his mouth crinkled a fraction as he took them.

She took that as a Texas Ranger smile.

Yesterday’s sunshine and blue skies were gone. As Clint followed Macy’s lead into the woods, titanium clouds weighed as heavily on his shoulders as his mood. He was grateful to her for giving his gun and badge back. For reminding him he was still a Ranger, if only for another day. For as long as he carried it, he had a duty to the badge. A duty to the people of the state that gave it to him.

He had no business letting himself be distracted by a woman.

The problem was, as surely as Macy had reminded him he was still a Ranger, she had also reminded him he was still a man. It had been a long time since he’d even noticed a woman, much less thought of one as anything more serious than an entertaining way to spend an evening, or let off a little steam.

But Macy Attois had gotten deeper under his skin
than most. She had him wanting to do outrageous things just to see her warm coffee eyes widen in surprise. Wanting to protect her from any and all comers, microscopic or otherwise.

If he really wanted to protect her, he’d leave her the hell alone. She had enough on her plate without adding a down-on-his-luck, soon-to-be-ex-Ranger.

He actually considered warning her off. Telling her he was damaged goods. That he wouldn’t be a Ranger, wasn’t sure he’d be much of anything, once this nightmare was over, the monkey caught or found dead, and he got back to Dallas so he could sign his resignation. Trouble was, he suspected telling her would only draw her to him more.

Big-hearted as she was, he’d bet she couldn’t pass by a three-legged dog on the side of the highway, either, without stopping to pick it up.

His bad shoulder aching, he straightened up and leaned on the machete he’d been swinging. The underbrush was nearly impenetrable in this part of the forest. The going had been slow, as they’d taken meticulous care through the gauntlet of thorns and trip vines, knowing their furry little friend could be waiting for them on the next tree limb or behind the next tangle of scrub.

“How much farther to the next trap?” he asked, wishing he could mop the sweat off his forehead. With the clouds had come an almost stifling rise in the humidity.

He settled for sliding the CDC supply pack that carried the basics—water, first-aid kit, flashlights—off his back and rolling his neck to work the kinks out.

Macy frowned at her GPS. “About three hundred yards.”

He suppressed a groan. Might as well have been three hundred miles, as thick as it was out here. They’d set out shortly after eight this morning, yet it had been nearly noon before they’d reached their first set of assigned coordinates to find an empty trap. After that they’d hit about one an hour. Of the four they’d checked, two had been empty. One contained a seriously pissed-off possum and the last was in several mangled pieces. Clint wasn’t sure if it had been broken when it was dropped from the helicopter, or some critter had smashed it for the food inside.

A javelina could do that. The wild pigs had been known to raid campgrounds and leave nothing behind in one piece, including the campers.

Macy peered upward through the boughs overhead. “It’s going to rain, isn’t it?”

“Yep.”

Her sigh cut straight through him. “José was raised in captivity. I don’t know what he’ll do if he’s caught out in a storm.”

“You’re worried about the
monkey?
”

“I’m worried about
catching
the monkey. Whether he decides to hole up and ride it out, or panics and makes a mad dash for who-knows-where, it makes it harder for us to find him.”

Of course. He should have realized that.

“We’d best get back at it, then.” He hefted the machete over his shoulder and made a hacking cut at the wall of growth before them. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find him before we all get drenched.”

They didn’t.

The thunder rolled in first, then the wind turned
around out of the north, bringing a chill and kicking up bits of leaves and dirt. When the rain finally came, it came in sheets. The pitiful ponchos included in their supply packs did little to protect them. They were soaked to the skin and shivering within seconds.

Reaching back to help Macy over a rotted tree trunk downed in their path, Clint thought he felt her shiver. It was hard to tell for sure, since he couldn’t see anything of her except a blurry swash of color. Apparently they didn’t make gas masks with windshield wipers.

“We need to find some cover,” he shouted over the drumming rain.

She shook her head and passed him by. “We need to keep going.”

But even as she said it, she stopped. She swayed slightly, then took a step back. Clint leaned around her shoulder to see a twenty-foot ravine so steep it might have been the edge of the world. A rush of runoff water careened through the bottom of the gorge, twirling broken limbs and clumps of debris in its currents.

“Great,” he said.

“How do we get across that?”

He wished he had an answer for her. “You wait here. I’ll scout out a crossing.”

“No, wait.” He had already turned to leave. She reached out for his arm. “We should stay togeth—”

She tripped over a low vine and the ground beneath her feet gave way. As if it was happening in slow motion, Clint saw her arms flail, her legs shoot out from under her.

Then a flash of lightning blinded him. He yelled, but the thunder obliterated the sound.

Wildly, he grabbed for her. Caught a bit of cloth, then lost it. Felt an elbow scrape by his palm. And finally latched on to one thin wrist.

Concentrating on the feel of each fragile bone crushed in his grip and not letting go, he opened his eyes and found that some time in the last half second, he had landed on his belly in the mud. He lay at an angle toward the ravine, his legs pointed more or less toward safe territory, his whole right shoulder dangling over the precipice.

In between gusts of wind and the splatter of rain against his face shield, he could hear Macy’s terrified gulps of air. He tried to snake backward, to pull her up, but he couldn’t get enough purchase on the slippery bank.

“Hang on,” he told her. Ordered her. Demanded her. “Goddamn it, you hang on!”

But her hand was small. Her fingers weren’t even long enough to reach all the way up around his wrist in a solid grip.

And his hand…his hand was trembling.

He tried to stop it. He begged. He pleaded to God to stop it.

And then he watched helplessly as she slid out of his weakened grasp and tumbled over the rocks and roots into the water below.

Macy’s hip collided with something hard and sharp. Her foot caught in something momentarily while her body continued to tumble forward, sending her flying facedown toward the foaming white water below. The
GPS she’d been holding slipped away, shattered on a rock. Macy held her breath, knowing she was about to hit bottom.

Cold, dark water closed over her head. Entombed her. She fought the instinct to gasp, to breathe. She had to wait. Wait until she bobbed back to the surface.

But her clothes were heavy. They weighed her down. Her boots had already filled with water. She could feel the liquid pressure against her face mask. The seal wouldn’t hold. It wasn’t made for swimming.

With panic shooting streams of fire into her veins, she fought the coldness. The dark. She kicked her legs. Kicked her boots off. Waved her arms, hoping she was propelling herself in the right direction. Looking for light, she turned her head, and her temple struck a heavy limb. Her mask slipped sideways, then was swept away. The current grabbed her, too, pulling her down and under. She grabbed the limb, which wasn’t floating, but wedged against the bank somehow, and followed it to the surface, climbing it like it was a live tree.

She’d probably only been underwater for seconds before she surfaced, but she coughed and sputtered all the same. She tasted brackish water. Her arms and legs were numb.

Teeth chattering, she looked back upstream to see what had happened to Clint, but he was nowhere in sight. How far had the current carried her?

It didn’t matter. He would find her sooner or later. Right now she had to get out of this water.

Cautiously she edged along the tree limb toward the bank. It was too steep for her to climb, but maybe Clint
could lower something down to her, pull her out when he found her.

She’d pulled herself along about half of the five-foot tree limb when her knee bumped something hung up on one of the smaller branches below the surface. A piece of white material billowed in the current. Macy reached out to push the debris out of her way, and the something turned. A human face stared up at her out of the water.