Forbidden River (The Legionnaires #2.5)(30)

“I’m more of a kilograms girl.”

She returned with the towline and clipped it to the dog’s collar. It rolled its eyes back, trying to figure out what she was up to. Me, too, mutt. Another whistle from downriver. The dog whined.

“It has an attachment problem,” Tia said. “Well, a detachment problem. Doesn’t know how to let go.”

“You tell me this now?”

She hoisted its hind legs, easing the strain. It twisted, eyes rolling back, paws scrabbling in air, like it wanted to turn and take out her instead but didn’t know how. “Walk inland. To the pig.”

“You’re not tying it up?”

“Got a better idea.”

“I’m not really warming to your last idea.”

His body was chilling with panic, his nerves screaming at him to do something. His medic’s Scottish brogue landed clear in his head: “Suck it up, Princess.” Tia had done this without the armor.

After forever, they reached the dead pig.

“Now what?” he asked.

“Sorry, that’s as far as my plan went.”

“What?” Another whistle. Closer. The shooter was on the move.

“I’m kidding. Let’s lower the dog.”

Bad idea. As soon as its paws hit dirt it yanked, trying to drag its prey down. Tia leaped to a tree and tied the towline around it.

“Jaws, release,” she hissed.

It didn’t.

She scanned the ground, grabbed a stick and caught the dog around its middle, which triggered more head thrashing. She angled the stick up and tried to wedge it into the corner of the mutt’s mouth. With the jacket and Cody’s arm stuffed in, there wasn’t room.

“Hold tight,” she said.

“Again, me or the dog?”

Cody braced as she shoved the stick. The dog released and dropped onto its spine with something between a cough and a bark. Tia grabbed Cody’s good arm and they stumbled away. With another cough-bark, the dog lunged. The towline snapped tight and yanked the mutt back. It whined and shook its head, then found its voice, barking to burst an eardrum.

Ah, now he got it. Not only were they just out of reach—so was the pig. Dog goes bat-shit crazy at pig, shooter thinks it’s guarding Cody and Tia and leaves the bridge to come find it, they get over the falls. Genius.

Tia shoved Cody. “Get the kayaks ready. If I’m not back in two minutes, go without me.”

“What the fuck? He’s coming!”

“Go!”

“I’m not leaving you behind, if that’s your pl—”

“It’s not. Trust me. I can’t waste time explaining. I’m a soldier, too, Cody—show me some respect and go.”

She was right. He wasn’t her bodyguard—they were a team. He’d give her two minutes but no way was he pushing off without her.

He’d just gotten the kayaks to the water when she leaped down the bank. Blood everywhere—her shorts, her jacket, a smear across her forehead.

“Shit, Tia, what happened?”

She held up a couple of dripping slabs of meat, hairy black skin still attached. “Ham steaks happened. He keeps them hungry. If we have another encounter...”

She zipped them into her jacket pocket. Shee-it, this could well be love. As they pushed off, stretching their spraydecks on, he ran through instructions for clearing the waterfall. “Only thing you gotta remember—you have to hit it from the left. You go down in the middle, you’ll get caught in the suckback. Too far right, you’ll hit a nasty undercut ledge.”

“The left. Okay.”

“Coming up to it, the current will push you right, so be ready. You gotta shoot out of that left-hand corner with nose straight and as much momentum as you got.”

She nodded, her face locked in calm focus. Show me some respect. Man, that’d stung. He had total respect, total faith in her, like he had in his commando team, like he’d had in Zack. Like Zack once had in him...

Cody rounded the bend in the river, his hull scraping a submerged rock. The current was already forcing him right. A stream of sunshine lit a rainbow in the curling mist. Fifty feet ahead, an old rope-and-wood bridge swooped low from bank to bank. Beyond it the water vanished over a crisp, smooth line, like his folks’ infinity pool, and reappeared much smaller far down the valley. Merde. Was this a waterfall or the fucking Hoover Dam? He pushed away from the rock and corrected to avoid the wake of a fallen tree splitting the current. One hell of a sieve trap. He glanced back to warn Tia—and caught movement on the stony beach they’d just left. The beach drifted out of sight but he knew what he’d seen. Camo gear.

A gunshot. Tia cried out, her boat rocking. Crack. Her paddle splintered, leaving a stump in her hand. Her gaze met his, eyes wild. A bullet had ripped the side of her kayak open. The current pulled her into a spin, going downstream fast. Another gunshot. The bullet smacked into the water behind her. She was using her half paddle as an oar, desperately pulling herself right—to the sieve. He veered violently and caught a branch of the fallen tree with one hand, his biceps straining to steady the kayak against the charge of water.

She was out of the hunter’s sights, but her nose was dipping, threatening to flip the kayak end over end and send her down the falls belly-up. Not a fucking thing he could do but watch her fight. And man, was she fighting, her cheeks blown up with the effort of feeding oxygen to her overworking muscles. She leaned hard to the right and the kayak swung—and wedged neatly between the tree’s upended roots. Good plan but it wouldn’t hold her long. His kayak lurched. The branch slipped from his grip. She thrust out her paddle, and he caught it with one hand while backpaddling with his other hand and wrangling the current with his hips and abs. Not sustainable.