“Your driver’s ed teacher would be proud. Not another car as far as the eye can see, but still you come to a complete stop.” His gaze met hers over the top of mirrored sunglasses, the glint of humor in his gray eyes making her pulse skip.
Oh, no, girl! You arenotattracted to him.
“You told me not to draw people’s attention.”
How could she find him attractive? He was a crook, a criminal, a man who stole cocaine and shot people and ate dirty grapes off the floor of an arachnid-infested cell—not a gentleman like Beau. The fact that he was also tall, strong, brave, and still had enough goodness left inside him to help her escape the Zetas didn’t matter.
“That was back on the highway. I didn’t want you to attract attention from the cops because some of them work for the Zetas.” He glanced around. “But I doubt you’ll find any cops lurking behind these old saguaros.”
And just like that, she felt like an idiot.
Her cheeks burned. “Sorry. I didn’t think . . . I’m not used to . . . I guess I’m just tired and not thinking clearly. I’m doing the best I can.”
“Do you know what happens if our best isn’t good enough?” His gaze met hers again, any hint of humor gone. “We die.”
Fear made her snap at him. “I know that!”
She hadn’t forgotten that they were running for their lives, but she hadn’t thought of it quite like that either, his stark words making her stomach knot.
“I’m not saying this to try to scare you, Natalie. We both need to do better than our best if we’re going to survive.”
Ifthey were going to survive?
Natalie didn’t like the uncertainty of that. “Do you really think they’ll come after us with a helicopter?”
“Cárdenas is the ultimate narcissist. We escaped from him, killed five of his men, stole arms, ammunition, and a car from him. His ego won’t be able to stand it. Hell, yeah, he’ll come after us with a helo. He’ll send ground troops. He’ll alert the cops andfederaleswho work for him. By leaving the highway, we’ve bought ourselves some time. But his men are out there, Natalie, and they’re hunting for us.”
She pushed on the gas, nudging the needle past seventy.
Outside the window, drab, parched hills rose from drab, parched plains that stretched as far as the eye could see, stands of tall cactus and scraggly shrubs dotting a brown landscape that shimmered with heat. Other than the occasional jackrabbit that darted across the road, Natalie hadn’t seen any sign of life. It certainly didn’t seem possible that they were on the outskirts of a big city, but Zach insisted that Chihuahua wasn’t far ahead and that the only way to reach it safely was to take the back roads.
They’d been making good time on Mexico 45 when he pulled out one of the Zetas’ cell phones and called someone named Carlos, his Spanish sounding like gibberish to her—something about new houses, bridges, and goat horns. All he’d told her afterward was that they needed to get off the highway and ditch this car. Then he’d pulled out the phone’s SIM card, tossed the phone out the window, and told her to take the next exit.
Only later had it dawned on her that his phone call might have had less to do with getting her safely home and more to do with the stolen cocaine.
She’d been on the brink of asking him once or twice about the coke but had thought the better of it. She couldn’t afford to have him dump her by the side of the road out here in the middle of the desert. The landscape was every bit as deadly as the Zetas. And with nothing stronger than a promise to keep him from abandoning her, she needed his goodwill. She wouldn’t say anything.
Not yet.
“THIS ISN’T WORKING!”
Zach raised his head and glanced up to where Natalie was bent over a mesquite branch, trying to rub out the car’s left tire tracks, her hair tied back, the AK she’d insisted on carrying slung over her shoulder like an ugly purse. “Put more muscle into it.”
“Easy . . . foryou. . . to say.”
Itwashard work, and he supposed having two X chromosomes made it tougher. Then again, none of this had been easy for her.
You’ve been hard on her, too, McBride.
Yeah, he had been.
He’d done well enough when he’d been in chains and needed her help, but for the past few hours all he’d done was issue orders. But she wasn’t a SEAL. She wasn’t a deputy U.S. marshal either. And she sure as hell wasn’t an enemy combatant or a fugitive. She was an innocent civilian, a young woman who’d suffered more than her share of tragedy, who’d witnessed a massacre, who’d been kidnapped and assaulted, who’d been forced to kill. She deserved his respect—and some damned human kindness, if he could manage it.
Yet his first priority was getting her safely home again. And that meant staying focused on the objectives, which, at the moment, were evasion and escape.
Driving the Tsuru down into the arroyo had been a bitch. Zach had made Natalie get out of the car just to be safe, and for a few seconds he’d thought he was going to roll the damned thing or get stuck in the sandy, dry bottom. But the vehicle was now concealed beneath a concrete bridge, hidden from anyone who might drive by or fly overhead. Once its tire tracks were wiped out, it would take an expert in cutting sign to know they were there.
Or that was the theory, anyway.