Wild Encounter (3 page)

And the best should be able to multi-task. Get the assignment done while minimizing collateral damage. Human and otherwise.

He moved down the back stairs to the house, ignoring Corby’s surly regard.

As he stalked across the dusty, nighttime compound with her soggy clothes in his hands, he suppressed an unbidden mental picture. Not of her standing defiantly in the bathroom, her perfect, lush body dripping wet—although he’d keep that one handy for later. It was the image of her gazing up at him with bottomless brown eyes, pleading for someone to tend to those damn dogs.

Chapter Two

Clare spent the better part of the night painstakingly working two of the glass louvers loose from the aluminum slots in the window frame with bound hands. Years of fine dust, desiccated insects, and the occasional rain had glued them in hard. She’d waited until the moon was three quarters of the way across the sky, terrified every noise would bring one of the men, along with certain punishment.

The first louver was troublesome, but once she’d achieved one, she knew how to approach the others. She’d need to remove three, better yet four, in order to squeeze out through the window, and she’d have to do it in the small hours of the morning to ensure the men would be asleep but dawn wouldn’t be far off. The last thing she was equipped for was a barefoot dash through the pitch-black bush. Though it galled her to admit it, Alpha was right; a vehicle was the only way she was getting out of here safely. That left her with the ancient bakkie or the giant transporter. She’d drive either if she had to. But the keys were almost certainly with the men, and she had no clue how to hot-wire a vehicle even if she could get to it unseen.

The dust-glue gave a distinct crack as the fourth louver came free. She coughed belatedly to disguise the noise, and waited, her heart thumping, for the sound of approaching feet.

Nothing. Adrenaline fled her body fast as it had come, leaving her wobbly and breathless. She took her time, slowing her breathing. She’d been working hard to keep the fear at bay, channeling the natural chemicals pumping through her to keep her responses acute. She hadn’t wanted all that norepinephrine wasted on hysteria. Time enough for losing it later, once she was safe.

She eased the narrow pane of glass out of its housing as she had the other three and then carefully replaced it, surveying her progress. All four louvers looked unchanged despite now only sitting loosely in their housings.

The door lock rattled, and Clare’s heart exploded to action in her chest. She whirled around and lurched closer to the bed, crouching defensively. A moment later Alpha pushed through, dragging a chair and carrying a plate of steaming food. She failed miserably at not staring at it, but she’d be damned before she’d take one step toward it.

Or him.

Her stomach betrayed her by gurgling.

He held the food out. “You’re hungry.”

“You’re filth,” she spat back.

He smiled and set the bowl of stew on the lumpy mattress, then spun the chair into the corner to straddle it. “Here I was worrying you’d be traumatized from yesterday’s bathroom incident.”

His size, the way he owned the room just by being in it. It was compelling and infuriating all at once. “I might have been if it wasn’t so obvious.”

Twin creases appeared between his brows. “You think I set you up?”

“You think I can’t spot a good-cop, bad-cop routine when I see one?” Bravado came rushing up from somewhere welcome, deep inside.

His eyebrows lifted. Clare looked away. The relentless morning chorus of bush insects filled the uncomfortably long silence that followed.

“Eat.”

She glanced at the bowl he’d placed on the mattress, then back to him. “Aren’t you going to leave?” Her voice sounded every bit as vulnerable as she felt.

“Nope. Why, you hoping to tunnel out of here with your spoon?”

“I can’t. This shirt…” It may have been extra wide, but Alpha’s T-shirt barely covered her when she was standing. Sitting down respectably and eating with her hands bound was going to be a challenge. His eyes flicked to where the fabric ended, high on her thighs. They both knew she was naked beneath.

A sick feeling built in her stomach.

Wordlessly, he stood and then walked out of the room, leaving the door ajar. She knew better than to try to make a break for it—that was probably exactly what they wanted, running tended to excite predators—so she sat while he wasn’t watching. He was back within moments, and placed a neatly folded pile of clothes and some other items on the bed next to her.

Underwear! Might be an illusion, but the thin fabric was as welcome as chainmail. She vowed in that moment not to let it out of her sight again, no matter what. She picked up her green cotton tank-top, pressed it to her face and breathed in the scents of wild sage and morning. It practically choked her to do it, but she thanked him.

“I thought it better for everyone that you stay fully dressed.”

She would dress—the moment he wasn’t watching. For now she just laid her cargos across her naked thighs and looked at the other items he’d delivered—a crime novel, a pre-loved comb and a box of tampons. Her momentary optimism evaporated. The idea that she would be here long enough to finish a book or get her period…

Unthinkable.

His eyes drifted to the windows, and two new lines appeared between his brows. Was he trying to puzzle out what was different? Had he paid enough attention when he thrust her in here to notice? Her pulse hammered and she scrabbled for the first thing at hand.

“Crime novel,” she blurted to cover the screaming silence and distract him from her overnight handiwork. “Getting some tips?”

His gaze came back to her. There was almost warmth in it. “I thought a book might give you something to do with your time other than hatch crazy escape plans.”

She forced herself not to look at the windows and hunted around for something further to keep his attention diverted. She held up the tampons. “A full-service abduction, then?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “We keep them just in case.”

“Just in case you kidnap a woman at the wrong time of month?”

He locked eyes with her. “Just in case one of us gets shot. They fit bullet wounds perfectly.”

The dismal image snapped her back to reality. If she got out of here at all, who knew what she’d be escaping into? They could be in the middle of a war zone.

Her eyes went to the window. To the bush stretching to the horizon beyond the yard fence. “Where are we?”

He sighed. “You’re not very good at following instructions are you?”

“Not a specific location. I just wondered about this place. It must have been somebody’s home once?” She looked around the old room.

“A lot of families have abandoned their farms. What does it matter who once lived here?”

“It’s less scary thinking ordinary people once had ordinary lives here,” she said. “That children grew up and…that good things might have happened here, too.”

Something indefinable flashed briefly behind his eyes but he said nothing more. She twisted away from his gaze, her mind tripping over its crowded thoughts. They must still be close to the border if Zambian farmers were fleeing their land. The couple of hours she’d spent squashed on the bakkie floor bore out that notion. They couldn’t be more than a hundred miles from where the convoy had crossed over from Zimbabwe.

Still a mighty big area, but thinking about concrete things like locations and crossings and distances gave her a boost. Just enough to keep her spirits up. She worked hard to look annoyed, knowing he wouldn’t believe half-warmed leftovers were bringing the excited flush she could feel glowing in her cheeks.

But he wasn’t buying it.
Naturally
.

“Do I need to remind you of the dangers you would face outside this compound?” He leaned forward. “I’m sure you know more than I do about African predators, since you were having afternoon tea with a truck full of them. But there’s also disease in this area—yellow fever, typhoid, malaria—all waiting for a defenseless, underdressed woman to happen past. What are you doing coming into Zambia so poorly prepared, anyway?”

Clare bristled under his condescending gaze. “Perhaps if you had also been kind enough to hijack my luggage I’d have a selection of clothing more to your liking. Would you care to see my list of inoculations?”

“You may have resistance to typhoid but you have no money, no vehicle, no passport, no visa, no weapons, no shoes, and no suitable clothing for days in the bush. I want to be sure you fully understand your predicament.”

“You doubt I’ve given thought to how much danger I’m in?” she shot back.

His lips thinned. “Just concentrate on staying alive
in here
. Leave fantasies of escape where they belong. In your head.”

She turned her glare to the bowl on the mattress. She twisted sideways toward it and managed, after a struggle, to pick up the spoon with her bound hands. But loading it with food and getting it to her mouth turned out to be almost impossible. She spilled most of her first attempts onto the mattress already stained with god-knew-what. Every different angle caused the tight cable-tie to slice further into her already tender wrists.

Alpha stood and walked over to the bed. Taking the spoon from her stew-sticky fingers he placed it back in the bowl. “I can feed you,” he offered, “or cut the ties so you can do it yourself, but you have to behave. Your choice.”

Clare raised her bound wrists by way of answer. It was galling enough to have to accept food from this man. She would not be spoon fed.

“At the first sign of trouble, they go back on.” Reaching to the back of his belt, he loosened a knife from its sheath and deftly cut through the plastic binding her wrists. His hands were softer than they looked and they brushed her tender skin above the binds. Her eyes filled, welling just short of spilling over as the release of pressure sent a wave of pain and blood thrumming into the welts on her skin.

Frowning, he turned her wrists over to reveal their lacerated undersides. Contrite gray eyes rose. “I didn’t realize the ties were so tight. You should have said.”

“Right. It’s my fault.” She flexed the circulation back into tingling fingers.

Regret turned to flint. “Eat your breakfast.”

He moved the chair in front of the door and sat heavily, a human road-block. She picked up the bowl. It was tinned stew, not very inspiring, but it was hot and it filled the void in her belly. She thought of her dogs, wondering if they’d been given food and water yet, but one glance at Alpha’s unyielding expression and she thought better than to ask again. For a second she considered not eating, but would any of them really care if she wasted away in this filthy room on a hunger strike?

Besides, she needed sustenance for what she had in mind.

“Why were you in the truck?” he asked as she shoveled spoon after spoon of food into her mouth. “Have you got a death wish?”

Not answering was an option, but it occurred to Clare that he was handing her a golden opportunity to build some kind of rapport. It would be harder to kill someone you’d had a conversation with, right? She quelled a stomach lurch at the thought.

“It’s my job. I work for a conservation organization—”

“WildLyfe. I know,” he said.

Of course you do
. Armed men didn’t just stumble upon the transporter while out strolling. She measured her words. “They’ll be looking for me.”

“They’ll never find you.”

The food turned to paste in her mouth and she flat out exhausted the defiant courage she’d managed to scrape up from somewhere until now. “Please,” she appealed to him, her voice urgent and low. “I will pay you anything… Double what they’re paying you. Whatever it takes. Just let me go.”

Demeaning herself seemed to make him as uncomfortable as it did her. He couldn’t hold her eyes. “The wildlife industry must be looking up if you can afford to make that kind of promise.”

She had no intention of following it through—she had nothing to follow through with—but she had to try. “My boss will find the money. He could make you rich.”

God, she hoped that were true. Artie Lyfe knew all kinds of cashed up people. One of them would surely give her a loan to save her life.

Surely.

He glanced down at his faded jeans and battered boots and Clare forced her eyes not to linger on the hard thighs beneath the worn denim.

“Do I strike you as a man interested in wealth?” he said.

What else was trafficking about if not money? “Then what will it take?”

Her voice cracked on those words and he turned his frown to the window, leaving her staring at his defined profile. His dark blond hair hadn’t seen scissors in a while, but the shaggy length broke up a broad, smooth forehead. Those startling gray eyes were set back under a strong brow, but he needed more sleep judging by the puffiness beneath them. Two days of growth defined an unyielding jaw but didn’t quite disguise a scar beneath his full lower lip. He smelled clean after his own wash and his damp hair was oddly reassuring. It was stupid to draw comfort from that, as if a bad guy got any better just for being well groomed and nice looking.

Okay, good looking.

She fought her appraisal. She had no business appreciating anything about this man. Unless it was how good he looked being led away in handcuffs by the Zambian police.

Without warning, his gaze returned, locking on hers. He reached into his pocket and pulled out her watch, glancing at it briefly.

Hope warred with a sudden pang of anguish. “Can I have it back?”

“No.”

She bit back her emotions. The he-man thing was starting to grate. Maybe time-deprivation was supposed to keep her off balance but she refused to give in to his torment. “Fine. Keep it.”