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She whimpered noisily and snapped her head up, as though Rafael had tightened his grip at the sound. “Ay, Dios,” she breathed dramatically. She watched one man swallow hard and look to Ernesto for instruction.
Rafe almost laughed. He was barely holding her. Even if he hadn’t been suffering from what he was certain was at least one cracked rib, she could easily have escaped him by simply stepping out of his reach and into the waiting arms of Cervantes’s thugs. Instead, she was hamming it up for their audience, and saving his hide by doing so. If he hadn’t wanted to throttle her for letting Cervantes grope her earlier, he would have kissed the top of her head.
He glanced over at Cervantes, who was standing, albeit unsteadily, with his gun still leveled at Rafe’s head. Cervantes glared at Rafe for a moment, taking his measure, then jerked his head at his henchmen.
“Get out,” he snarled.
“I don’t think so,” Rafe said quietly. “I think we’re leaving, instead, if it’s all the same to you.”
Ernesto was visibly seething. Olivia could practically see his blood simmering behind his swollen eyes, could clearly see the struggle he was having to keep himself in check. She half expected smoke to come out of his nostrils at any moment.
On the one hand, he very probably wanted Rafael dead more than he wanted another sun to rise in the morning. On the other, he had announced in front of his entire town, his family and dozens of honored guests that the noted Doctor Olivia Magdalena Rosanna deRuiz Galpas of the famed Scripps Institute of Oceanography was to be his wife. Any risk he took with her safety would be noted, reported and discussed, on both sides of the border, for years to come.
Please, Olivia prayed silently. Please, Ernesto.
Finally, Ernesto’s trembling hand lowered, the gun coming to rest at his side. He did not take his eyes off Rafe.
“Let her go,” he said hoarsely. “I will guarantee you no one will touch you if you let her go.”
Rafe smirked. “Forgive me, se?or, if I do not trust you.” He pressed the gun more tightly to Olivia’s temple. Her head tilted to the side, and she whimpered again. Good girl, he thought. “Drop your weapon.”
Again, Olivia waited, breathless, while Ernesto decided how much of his pride he was willing to sacrifice for her. Enough, she noted in relief as the gun clattered to the floor. Ernesto nodded at his men, who grudgingly laid down their guns, as well.
“Now,” Rafe said calmly, “since I assume the rest of your boys here are armed, I’ll just ask Se?orita Galpas to escort me out of here.” He looked down at Olivia, saw her face had gone another shade of pale. “Se?orita?”
Olivia shot a last look at Ernesto. The blood coming from his nose was slowing to a grisly trickle that skirted his full upper lip to drip to his jaw. Olivia willed him not to do anything. Though she had put herself in this position of her own free will, she had no desire to get shot over one moment’s deranged impulse. And Rafael would shoot her, she was pretty sure. He might have the mouth of an angel, but he was still a drug smuggler, and Olivia was certain “ruthless” was part of the job description.
Besides, she thought dizzily as he pulled her none-too-gently backward through the parting crowd of party-goers and household staff and grim-faced deputies, if he didn’t shoot her, someone else would in the riot that would surely follow.
Heaven help her, what had she done?
Rafe’s hand had tightened on her throat, and she realized she’d stopped moving.
“No cold feet now,” he said in her ear. “This was your idea, princesa, so move it.”
She stumbled against him again and allowed him to half drag her to the stairwell. He backed himself against the thick plaster wall and began stepping sideways down the stairs, Olivia trying to match her tread to his. He grunted softly at every step, and Olivia could feel the short breaths he expelled against the skin of her neck.
Like automatons, the people on the stairs, who had not been able to squeeze into a space in the crowded hall, parted silently in front of them. Those who had been in the hall and in the bedroom followed their slow progress down the stairs with their eyes. No one spoke, no one moved. Only Ernesto came through the crush of people to follow them.
Rafe watched him carefully, his eyes scanning the rest of the dinner guests briefly every few seconds. Olivia was starting to balk, giving him another thing to worry about.
Tough luck for the princess, Rafe thought. She’d put herself in the middle of this drama. And if she changed her mind now, they were screwed six ways from Sunday. She’d be hurt in the cross fire, possibly killed. And as furious as he was over that disgusting scene in Cervantes’s bedroom, he wasn’t about to let a bullet meant for him hit her. She’d just have to go through with the charade. He’d figure out what to do with her once he got her away from the hacienda.
“Only a little farther, princesa,” he whispered.
“Don’t call me that, you psycho,” she hissed back. It was the worst epithet she could think of, though she’d spit it out in English so he probably wouldn’t understand it, anyway. Dammit.
“Olivia!” Ernesto shouted to her as they reached the wide, welcoming front doors of the house.
Olivia stopped, forcing Rafe to stand behind her. She knew from the way he was breathing in her ear that he probably didn’t have the strength to drag her out if she didn’t want to go. She looked up at Ernesto, felt a horrible pang of regret. He looked anguished, enraged.
“Ernesto,” she said quietly, and for the first time felt Rafael tighten his grip on her. “I will be all right.”
“I will come for you, Olivia,” he said dramatically, and Olivia had the strangest sensation he was speaking not to her, but to his enthralled guests. Come for her? Surely he did not think this drug runner would keep her. The bandit would be suitably grateful for her saving his life and he’d let her go. He had to. She had a plane to catch in the morning. She had a job to go back to.
“I will kill you for this, Rafael,” Ernesto shouted, as Rafe passed through the front entrance.
Rafe didn’t bother to answer. He pulled Olivia out the door after him, and after a quick scan of the compound from right to left he grabbed her hand and started a painful, shuffling jog down the front steps.
“Let me go, now,” Olivia said, pulling at the hand that gripped her. She was grateful to have the barrel of his gun pointing at the ground now instead of at her temple, but she wasn’t grateful enough to let this go on any longer. “Listen, you, let go of my hand.”
“Not yet, sweetheart,” he said grimly. “Look around. We’ve got company. Now come on.”
Olivia glanced quickly around the pretty yard. There were people everywhere. In the darkness, she couldn’t tell who was pursuing them and who was simply observing their bizarre exit from Ernesto Cervantes’s party, but Rafe gave her no time to figure it out. He ruthlessly dragged her in his wake as he left the wide driveway in front of the house and melted into the scrub around the manicured yard.
And melted was the only word for it, Olivia thought. If she hadn’t been attached to him, she’d never have believed he could move so quietly and efficiently. Wouldn’t have believed anyone could.
“Where are you going?” she whispered. It did not occur to her to scream out their whereabouts to potential rescuers.
“Where are we going, princesa,” he corrected breathlessly.
“I said, don’t call me that,” she snapped furiously.
“Be quiet. You make as much noise as five regular women, I swear,” he muttered. He could hear thrashing behind him, knew Cervantes’s men were just hitting the brush. At least, with Olivia tagging along, they wouldn’t shoot at him. Or let dogs loose on him. He’d been chased more than once by dogs in the barrio, usually after he’d performed some moderately illegal act. He hated being chased by dogs. It made the hair on his neck stand on end.
“How many ‘regular’ women have you kidnapped?” she demanded. Personally, she thought she was holding up pretty well.
He didn’t bother to answer, just dodged hard left, dragging Olivia along pitilessly. Both of them hunched over to make themselves invisible in the low, thick brush. He tucked the gun into the waistband of his jeans and wrapped his free arm around his chest. It didn’t help much, but at least he didn’t feel as though he was going to pass out.
They made their way in that odd, shuffling, walk-jog for what seemed to Olivia like an hour, though when she looked back at the lights of the house she knew they hadn’t gone nearly far enough for Ernesto’s men to have given up the chase. She wondered, as she caught her sandal on another prickly clump of sagebrush, if any place on earth would be far enough.
They reached a road, or what passed for a road in this part of Baja California. Rafe paused, still keeping his death grip on Olivia, and studied the terrain. He cursed quietly.
“Yes,” Olivia said encouragingly. “This looks very bad. We’ll never make it at this pace. You must go on without me.”
“Shut up, will you?”
“I’m slowing you down. Leave me here. You’ll make better progress without me.”
“If you don’t stop yanking your arm around, Doctor, I’m going to pull it out of the socket and drag you through this brush on your butt,” Rafe said sharply.
Olivia peered through the darkness at his face. He looked ghostly pale despite the run, and she realized he’d been holding his chest as though to keep his internal organs from spilling onto the desert floor.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing. Be quiet,” he growled.
She glared at him. “Very nice,” she said, her breath coming out in gusts after their flight. She waved wildly in the direction of the hacienda. “I just saved your ass back there, if you weren’t paying attention.”
His head whipped around, and Olivia was instantly sorry she’d poked at the wounded beast.
“I was paying attention to everything you were doing back there,” he said through his teeth. “I was certainly paying attention when you let that son of a bitch put his tongue down your throat and his hand on your—”
“He’s practically my fiancе,” Olivia said rashly.
“The hell he is,” Rafe muttered, and started walking again. He pulled her roughly along when she slowed. They crossed the road and dove back into the low, sand-swept cover. This time, they headed west, toward the foothills.
Olivia stumbled along as best she could, every few minutes or so experimentally tugging at her hand, which was still clamped firmly in Rafael’s. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” she asked again after a while.
“No.”
“Ow,” she said loudly as her sandal snagged on a rock, peeling a strip of skin from the side of her big toe.
Rafe didn’t so much as glance back at her exclamation or slow his pace. “Quiet.”
“I think you just ripped off my toe.”
“You wear stupid shoes,” he muttered, though the first glimpse of her small, slim feet in those strappy sandals back in that dim hallway had made his mouth water. “I’m surprised you have any toes left.”
“I didn’t know I was going to be kidnapped tonight or I would have worn something more sensible.”
He stopped, turned very deliberately to her. “I didn’t kidnap you, princesa,” he said, and watched the light of fire come into her eyes. Good, it would help propel her the rest of the way up this mountain tonight. When Bobby discovered Rafe had never made it back to the beach camp, he’d meet them there. Rafe and Bobby had worked out a contingency plan weeks ago, before Dr. Galpas had ever come along to ruin his mission and his destiny and possibly his life. “You tossed yourself into this whole mess headfirst.”
“What was I supposed to do—let Ernesto kill you?”
He snorted. “You think he could have killed me?”
Olivia gaped at him. “He had a gun, you moron.”
“So did I.”
Olivia threw her free hand in the air. “Are you stupid? What makes you think he wouldn’t have shot you first?”
Rafe shrugged. “I’m faster.”
Olivia hoped a derisive snort would let him know her opinion of that bit of lunacy. When he appeared unfazed by it, she decided to make her point more forcefully. “You’re not the sharpest tack in the box, are you.”
Rafe glanced over her shoulder. He could see men fanning out into the scrub around the hacienda. “Keep your voice down.”
“You may have been faster, but you were in his house,” she continued in a furious whisper. “Without me, you never would have gotten out alive.”
He looked down at her. Her mouth was swollen—from the bastard’s kisses, he thought sourly. Still, he could think of nothing he wanted more than to pull her into his arms. She had saved him. She was far braver than he ever would have given her credit for. Far braver than any woman he’d ever known. Not that he’d tell her that.
“Now is not the time to congratulate yourself, princesa,” he said into her ear. He bit down on her lobe, making her gasp. “If you don’t start moving your butt up this mountain, your efforts will have been for nothing.”
“Why are you holding onto your chest like that?”
“I think your boyfriend broke me,” he said shortly. “Let’s get moving.”
“He broke you? He broke your ribs?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, my God. How many?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “My X-ray vision is on the blink.”
“Let go of my hand. Let me feel.”
He eyed her suspiciously. “I don’t think so.”
She hissed at him like a snake.
“You’re not that kind of doctor, anyway,” he said. The truth was, he didn’t want to let go of her hand. He couldn’t have explained it, but he felt that if he did, she’d disappear into the desert and he’d never see her again.
“No, I’m not that kind of doctor, but I can help you if you let me, you dufus.”
The American slang sounded incongruous, preceded as it was by a long stream of furious Spanish, and Rafe had to bite back a smile. Dufus? He couldn’t think of a Spanish equivalent. Now, psycho—
He let go of her hand, then realized his was sweaty and wiped it down his pant leg.
“Lift your shirt.”
He gingerly lifted his black shirt, and heard her gasp.
“You look like you’ve been hit by a truck,” she said in English.
He watched her curiously as she bent over and ripped the bottom half of her long skirt along the slim strip of embroidery that attached it to the top half. She straightened.
“What are you doing?”
“Applying first aid,” she said.
“With your dress?”
“Well, I could take off my bra and snap it to your chest, but then you’d have a lot to explain to your cell-mates once Ernesto throws you in jail.”
She clamped the bottom of her skirt to his chest with one hand and began wrapping the material tightly around him.
“If you don’t hurry, he will throw me in jail,” Rafe said, sucking in his breath as she touched a sore spot.
“I’m hurrying, I’m hurrying, you ungrateful pain in the neck.”
He heard her mutter in English, and he smiled over the top of her silky hair.
“Good thing I was wearing a skirt like a proper damsel. Good thing I’m not a respected scientist or anything. Then this would be absolutely absurd. Oh, if my parents ever find out about this…Oh God, and Dr. Eames—at least he won’t make me do any more press conferences—” She tucked the end of the fabric into the wrapping and stood back. “There,” she said, switching to Spanish again, proud of herself.
“Thank you.”
