“It’s beautiful.” Her face was flushed from exertion, the last rays of sunlight wrapping her in gold.
He felt a hitch in his chest. “Yeah. Beautiful.”
Four days max, McBride. And then she’s gone.
He pushed aside a sense of gloom. That was how it should be. He’d been so worried this morning that he would hurt her, but she understood as well as he that whatever this was between them was a temporary thing.
Relax. It was just sex.
He had to admit that he’d been surprised to hear her put it like that. He’d bet cold, hard cash that she’d never had “just sex.” Zach had. Having “just sex” was like going jogging side by side with a stranger. You exchanged polite greetings, got sweaty, tried to pace yourself so that you could finish the run with some dignity, then you waved good-bye, went home, and took a shower. What had happened last night between him and Natalie didn’t feel anything like “just sex.”
Then again, maybe his brain was fried. Or maybe those long hours he’d spent chained in the darkness alone had showed him exactly how empty his life was. Not that he could change it now. But if there’d ever been a woman who—
Out of the corner of his eye, in the distance, he saw movement. “Get down!”
He peered through the infrared binoculars, the device offering clarity of vision through the desert’s deepening shadows. And there, where they’d been a mere twenty minutes ago, he saw exactly what he thought he’d see—bajadoresclosing in on their abandoned vehicle with weapons drawn.
He handed Natalie the binoculars, motioning for her to look through them. She did as he asked, her little gasp proof that she’d seen what he wanted her to see. He readied the AK-47 with its new night scope just in case thebajadorestried to track them. “That’s why we didn’t stay with the car.”
NATALIE FOLLOWED ZACH, doing her best to keep up and to step where he stepped so as to avoid stepping on a rattlesnake or anything else with fangs. She trusted him—and the night vision goggles he wore—to find a safe path through the darkness. He looked a bit like a character from aTerminatorsequel with the headgear on and the goggles over his eyes, but she wasn’t in the mood to joke about it.
Thebajadoreshadn’t tried to track them—thank God!—but Natalie couldn’t shake the jittery feeling she’d gotten as she’d watched those terrible men move in on the car, ready to steal and kill. If she and Zach had stayed at the car, as she’d suggested . . .
She shuddered.
Zach had watched through the scope on his rifle until the men disappeared, his finger near the trigger. If he’d felt any anxiety at all, he hadn’t showed it. She had no doubt that he would have shot and killed every single one of those five men if he’d felt it was necessary to keep them both safe.
Darkness had come quickly after that. It was the most complete and total darkness Natalie had ever experienced—no flashlight or headlamps to light their path or to give their position away to others. And although her eyes had adjusted somewhat, human eyes just weren’t meant for this. The desert as she knew it had disappeared, leaving in its place a world of sinister shadows and strange sounds.
Saguaros stood all around them, gray shades against the darkness, looking strangely human, like people who stood frozen with their arms raised in surrender. Hills rose in the distance, black against the starlit sky. Ocotillos floated like black coral in a dark undersea realm. And all around them came the noises of night creatures.
It was the strangest symphony Natalie had ever heard—crickets chirping, coyotes yipping and yowling, and countless frogs belching, ribbeting, and croaking out love songs, hoping to attract mates. As for the other creatures of the night shift, Natalie hoped to see and hear nothing.
“Watch your step.” Zach turned and gave her his gloved hand, helping her down the side of a steep gully. “It gets rocky down here. Don’t trip.”
She tripped anyway, but he caught her, strong arms steadying her.
“How are you doing?”
She took a sip of water, the electrolyte powder he’d added giving it a disgusting fake lemonade taste. “Fine. A little chilled.”
The temperature had dropped quickly.
“The best way to fight that is just to keep moving.”
On they went for most of an hour, Zach guiding her across the landscape, headed roughly northwest. She’d begun to feel the weight of her backpack, not only in her shoulders, but also in her thighs. Forty miles was beginning to feel like a thousand. But she wasn’t about to complain. She would gladly walk a thousand miles barefoot on broken glass if that’s what it took to get safely home again.
Then Zach took her hand, turned her, and pointed. “There it is.”
Natalie looked where Zach pointed off to their right but couldn’t see anything.
He drew the goggles off his head and handed them to her.
She held them up to her eyes—and the world reappeared, the desert cast in a strange green hue. And there in the distance she saw what he’d wanted her to see—the U.S.-Mexico border. She felt a swell of emotion behind her breastbone.
Home.
“Thank God!”