After a moment he said, “Yes. I just hope you really believe I wouldn’t do that, Ty.”
She almost slumped with relief at the shortened version of her name. “I—I do.” She managed a twisted smile, looking at him finally. “And I won’t be able to use that as a weapon again, will I? You’ll know it for what it is—a bluff.”
“There’s always your knee,” he murmured.
Tyler matched his tentative smile, but her heart sank momentarily when his face abruptly went hard. Within a few seconds, though, she heard the faint sounds that had alerted him.
“Take the rifle,” he said softly, rising. “Move about twenty yards downstream and wait for me. If that’s our gun-happy friend, he’s going to stop right here.”
She rose, as well. “But, you’ll need—”
“Move, Ty! Go on. I’ll be fine.”
There was no time to argue; the sounds were getting closer. She snatched up the rifle and moved swiftly and silently downstream, tense and worried.
Alone, Kane dropped the backpack behind the fallen tree, annoyed with himself because he hadn’t thought to have Tyler take it with her. He wore a hunting knife on his hip, and loosened it in its sheath now as he moved across the tiny clearing and got behind a shielding thicket of low-growing bushes. He could just barely see the clearing, and fixed his eyes at the point where he expected to see their visitor emerge.
But what burst through the underbrush a few moments later was hardly what he expected to see. It was a woman, her long black hair flying around her face in wild tangles, her brightly colored peasant blouse torn and her jeans filthy. She looked absolutely terrified, and Kane moved almost instinctively toward her, drawn by the helpless fear in her big black eyes.
For once, all his survival instincts failed him.
She was babbling incoherently in Spanish, her eyes widening even more when she saw him, and though Kane understood the language he couldn’t get a word of hers. He stepped toward her, making soothing noises, removing his hand from the haft of his knife when she backed away shakily. He wanted to reassure her that he meant her no harm. But then, in the blink of an eye, a curious transformation took place. She straightened, smiling, and the fear in her eyes became a sultry wickedness.
Bemused, Kane’s instincts were just that fraction of a second slow in reacting. And that was all it took. The cold male voice came from behind him, speaking steadily in all-too-understandable English.
“No sudden moves, señor. I have a gun.”
Kane turned very slowly, hoping that someone besides Tyler was well-versed in the art of bluff. The hope died a small, resigned death. It was no bluff.
TYLER WAITED FOR ten minutes, tense and uneasy. She had heard voices, at least one of them speaking Spanish—a feminine voice. It had definitely been a man shooting at them yesterday, she knew. She hesitated, worrying. Then, silently marshaling arguments in case Kane got mad, she crept back upstream until she reached the clearing. The deserted clearing. She found the backpack, but no Kane.
She had taught herself years before never to give in to panic in a crisis. There was, after all, time for that once the crisis was past. So she didn’t panic now.
Her mind went still for an instant, then began working coolly. She searched the clearing, foot by foot, her eyes trained on the ground. There was little to see, few signs available. But Tyler had learned to follow tracks as a child, and she knew what to look for. It took nearly half an hour, but she was finally able to distinguish a faint trail leading from the clearing.
North.
KANE VERY NEARLY found the situation amusing. He’d been caught off guard, pure and simple, and both the woman, Valonia, and the man, Silvio, were delighted that their trick had worked. Kane was almost amused because a pair of black eyes might well have sealed his fate.
They talked freely as Silvio’s gun nudged Kane through the woods to higher ground. They were bandits, they explained, hiding in the hills after their last raid in Bogotá. And boredom had nearly driven them mad. Happily they had heard Kane passing not far from their shack and had followed him. Clearly they hadn’t realized he was not alone.
This ingenuous explanation might have disarmed another man, but Kane wasn’t about to let his guard down twice in one day. The gun in his back was damned real, and Silvio had the lifeless eyes of a shark. And if Kane was any judge, Valonia was a woman who would definitely castrate a man who had betrayed her. Or even one who had annoyed her.
Kane had heard of recent raids in Bogotá and other areas, and those accounts came back to him as he was herded through the forest. There was no romantic Robin Hood myth clinging to these bandits; reportedly they were educated and well-off, and simply raided because they enjoyed it. They didn’t bother to spout political or social rhetoric; they merely attacked in cities, towns and remote villages, destroying property, stealing whatever they fancied and killing anyone who got in their way.
Comforting thoughts.
This wasn’t the first tough situation Kane had found himself in and, as always, his mind was working, seeking a solution. He had an ace up his sleeve in the shape of Tyler; he doubted she’d abandon him to his fate. She was adept at tracking, and would likely be able to follow them. What worried him was that Tyler was apt to jump into danger with both feet and damn the consequences.
He had to get himself out of this before Tyler could act. The thought of what cruel men could—would—do to her didn’t bear thinking of. But he did think of it, of course, and his guts clenched in a tight knot of fear for her. It never occurred to him to think along those same lines regarding himself, but other possibilities did present themselves.
Torture. They’d maybe torture him just for fun. Or curiosity. See how much the guy can take. What’ll make him scream? How do you break a strong man?
Something like that had happened to him once before, and he still bore the scars to remind him. If he’d needed reminding. He didn’t. Bile rose in his throat as he remembered. Still, he had survived. It was something to keep in mind.
When they emerged from the forest, Kane realized that these bandits had been here for a while. Three crude shacks had been thrown together and looked it. In front of one, three men were restlessly playing cards on a rickety table, and all looked up with brightening faces when Kane and his escorts approached.
Kane kept his own face immobile, his eyes roving constantly as he measured his opponents and looked for a means of escape. He barely listened as Valonia and Silvio explained how they had captured him, the laughter of the men rolling off him easily because he didn’t give a sweet damn what they thought. But when they began discussing ways and means of enjoying their captive, he paid a bit more attention. An argument broke out over the subject, one man holding out for slow torture while another was determined on more exotic pursuits.
Stalling for time and only dimly hoping for success, Kane told them in fluent Spanish that he was on the trail of a vast cache of treasure, and if they’d only come with him—
It didn’t work. He hadn’t really expected it to. These bandits didn’t give a damn about riches even if they had believed his tale. They just wanted to have fun.
“I want him,” Valonia told the men.
It seemed the lady was the leader of these bandits, for her statement instantly halted the arguments. Even Silvio, his shark eyes blank, nodded obedience.
Recklessly Kane directed a few exquisitely polite and choice obscenities toward the woman. Spanish was such a wonderfully fluid language, filled with lots of pretty flowers—and lots of sharp thorns. He was clubbed beneath an ear for his trouble, and there was red-hot pain for an instant before blessed darkness claimed him.
He woke with an aching head to find himself tied securely to a narrow cot. He was alone, and he lay there for long moments just trying to clear his sluggish mind. Once that had been accomplished, he attempted to free himself and found it impossible. He was tied with leather thongs and the cot’s frame was stronger than it looked. Flat on his back, he
couldn’t get enough leverage to wrench himself free. He was trapped and helpless. For the first time he truly understood what Tyler had done earlier in the day, and why. It was an unnerving feeling, helplessness, and one he wasn’t familiar with.
He wondered, then, if she would come after him. Why should she, after all? She wanted the chalice, and “losing” him would remove at least one rival for it. Certainly Tyler wasn’t afraid of possible trouble; she didn’t need a man for protection. The lady could take care of herself, in all honesty. And she’d survived twenty-some-odd years without his help. Of course, North Africa might well have ended her career if he hadn’t been there. But if he hadn’t been there, she never would have fallen into that pit while trying to steal the figurine back from him.
She didn’t need him.
It was a curious, unwelcome shock. Not that she didn’t need him, but that he minded. Kane avoided emotional baggage in his life, and his thoughts of Tyler looked suspiciously like just that. But it was absurd, of course. He was only thinking about her, regretting that he’d never see her again in all likelihood, because she had never, however briefly, belonged to him.
During the past occasions when they’d fought each other for antiquities, he had been always conscious of her as a woman. He would have had to be blind and senseless to have not been conscious of her that way. Kane was neither. And he had wanted her. In the midst of bitter arguments, he had wanted her. In the midst of trickery, he had wanted her. In triumph and defeat, he had wanted her. But Tyler was . . . Tyler. Different from any woman he had ever known. Somehow beyond his reach. And desire was all the more strong and bitter-sweet because of that.
Last night in the sleeping bag, he had ached with wanting her. And unfastening her bra, slipping it off beneath her shirt while she had murmured pleasurably, he had very nearly gone out of his mind.
But she was Tyler. Sometimes enemy, sometimes partner and even friend. A fiery hellion who would fight at his side or guard his back with that intriguing explosive determination of hers. A woman who was a woman, one hundred percent feminine; yet she had a bedrock-solid core of strength and clearly felt no need to prove herself to anyone, man or woman.
Tyler. He wanted to see her again.
It grew dark as hours passed, and Kane bore the passing time stoically. He blanked his mind and waited, knowing that they would come for him. But when a lantern was carried into the one-room shack, he saw that Valonia held it.
He had been told, by a number of ladies in various parts of the world, that he had a charming smile and charming ways. He had been told he possessed the gift of being able to persuade a woman even against her own nature. But when he looked into Valonia’s black eyes, he felt a primitive shock tingle down his spine. Because there was nobody there. And on the beautiful face that housed that soullessness was a smile never meant to be worn by a woman. A smile never meant to be worn by anything human. A smile of pure evil.
“You have a name?” Her voice was soft, gentle, her Spanish investing the question with a curiously erotic sound.
“Kane.” She had cleaned herself up, he saw, and was wearing only a man’s shirt that reached halfway down her thighs.
She set the lamp on an upended crate that served as a table, then turned to face him with her hands on her rounded hips. “Kane. Have you ever been at the mercy of a woman, Kane?” She laughed when he was silent.
“No, I see you have not.” She approached the bed and bent down, beginning to unbutton his shirt. Her own shirt gaped away from her breasts, giving him a view all the way to her navel.
He moved suddenly in resistance, realizing what she had in mind. And his mind balked violently. She was right; he’d never been at a woman’s mercy before. Not like this, not physically. Not even emotionally. He didn’t know if she planned to tease him sexually or simply torture him, but given her scanty outfit he thought the former was most likely. And the excitement gleaming in her eyes was purely sensual. She intended to . . . But he couldn’t believe she meant to—
“A man can be raped,” she purred, running a hand down his chest and curling her fingers under his belt. “But I want your full cooperation, lover.” Laughing, she backed away from him and began moving slowly, sensuously, in a dance expressly designed to arouse a man. She unbuttoned the shirt, dropping it teasingly off one shoulder, then the other, her hips moving in a rhythmic gyration. Twirling on bare, light feet, she danced close to the cot and then away, her hair flying, the material of her shirt baring and then concealing golden flesh.
In all his varied adventures, Kane had never before had a woman dance to arouse him. He wondered if he could be aroused totally against his will. Somehow, he didn’t think it would happen. Not this time, at least. His mind was blank, his body chilled. Valonia literally radiated sex, but it was a hungry, grasping thing. Like a black widow, she would consume her mate once his duty was done, whether or not he performed to her satisfaction. And though everything male in Kane acknowledged her beauty and sensuality, his instincts icily rejected the attraction and a hard inner core of self-preservation kept a wary guard on his senses.
Even when she danced close enough to stroke his chest and teasingly unbuckle his belt, Kane felt only a deep, cold distaste, a grinding revulsion so strong he could hardly keep it out of his expression. Her flesh was hot, burning, the red-painted nails curved like the talons of a bird of prey.
He watched her dance, his face immobile, his eyes detached and dispassionate. He wondered what kind of rage her failure would unleash.
TYLER HAD BEEN forced to bide her time after trailing Kane and his captors to their camp. Reckless in some ways she certainly was, but she wasn’t fool enough to storm a camp containing four armed men and a woman who, unless Tyler didn’t know her own sex at all, was more dangerous than the rest together.
It was dark when she managed to move closer to the shacks. She flitted silently from one patch of darkness to another, using cover wherever possible, careful to remain downwind. Peering cautiously between the warped boards of the shacks, she managed to place all four of the men in one; they were sitting around a fire talking, laughing. One was jabbering away in his own language and making graphically obscene gestures as he talked.
Tyler was glad her Spanish was almost nonexistent; she really didn’t want to know what that one was saying.
Slipping away, she headed for the third and last shack. It stood apart from the others and seemed in better shape structurally. It was lighted from inside, and Tyler was cautious as she circled it far enough to find a few warped boards. She looked inside. For a long moment she remained frozen. Then, moving silently back, she searched until she found a piece of wood a little over a foot long and fairly heavy. Hefting it, she started around the shack toward the door.
KANE FOUND HIMSELF looking up into black eyes holding nothing but mindless, animal fury. His entire body grew taut, expecting that anger to explode into action. Deadly action. She was hissing obscenities as she whirled toward the door, groping almost blindly for his hunting knife where she’d left it on the upended crate.
As she turned back toward him, jerking the knife from its sheath, the door opened silently behind her. She barely had time to step toward him, arm raised to begin the vicious downward plunge, when a thick board cracked across the back of her head. She went down instantly.
Tyler eyed her for a wary moment, then knelt to check her pulse. Muttering to herself and completely ignoring Kane, she methodically shredded Valonia’s abandoned shirt, bound the naked woman and gagged her. She picked up his knife, then rose to her feet and looked at him expressionlessly.
“I thought you were probably having fun, but the lady seemed a mite upset. If you’d rather, though, I can untie her and come back later—”
“Just untie me, if you don’t mind,” Kane managed. “I got tired of the party a long time ago.” Like Tyler, he kept his voice soft.
She used his knife to cut the thongs binding his hands, then sliced the ones at his ankles while he sat up
and buttoned his shirt. Still expressionless, she said, “Well, I owed you one. You saved my skin last time in Hong Kong. And just like this—from a fate worse than death. Would it have been a fate worse than death? I’m just curious, you understand.”
Kane grabbed her arm and pulled her down across his lap, holding her tightly and completely ignoring the knife she still held. He kissed her quickly, hard, and said in a rough voice, “Yes, it would have been—except that that lady didn’t turn me on and this lady tracks better than Daniel Boone. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Sounds good to me,” she murmured.
chapter three
THEY RETRIEVED THE backpack from where Tyler had hidden it, and within half an hour they were back at the clearing by the stream. Kane led the way from there, moving downstream swiftly to put as much distance as possible between them and the bandits. Around 2:00 A.M. they left the stream, heading due west. The night air was warm and sticky, and the forest grew even more dense.
By 4:00 A.M. Tyler decided that enough was enough. “Hey, let’s stop, okay? I knocked that she wolf silly, and from the look of them, the men weren’t about to interrupt her little games. We’ve got hours before they even know you’re gone.”
There was no moon visible, and it was almost pitch black in the forest. Tyler had been walking directly behind Kane, at his very heels, in fact, and when he stopped she banged into him. She grabbed at his shoulders to keep her balance, but almost instantly rebounded away from him nervously. Damn it, why did she react to just touching the man? She hadn’t been aware of it before this encounter.
Kane spoke calmly, apparently not noticing her reaction. “If I know where we are, there’s another stream about twenty minutes’ walk from here. You game?”
“You’ve been here before?”
“No. I once met a man who’d traveled all through this part of the country.”