Ruthless Game (GhostWalkers, #9)(16)

Kane shook his head, easily keeping pace with her. A slow smile started somewhere in the pit of his stomach. That was his woman—resourceful.

“You can barely see it from the air, and it looks small, abandoned, and nothing more than an old, broken-down roof lying in the dirt and sand. It’s perfect. I’ve been bringing supplies to it about every three weeks. I haven’t gotten a lot, but I didn’t want to leave evidence that anyone had been around the place.”

He flashed her a quick, appreciative grin when she glanced at him. “I’m going to have to watch out for you. You’re smart and always thinking, aren’t you?”

“I had to think about the baby, and I didn’t know he would have a secluded house in the desert no one knew about. Did I mention the dune buggy?”

She sounded a little smug, but he supposed she had the right. She certainly took care of business. They walked in silence for another couple of miles, and she stopped abruptly, hunched over a little, one hand pressed tight to her side, as if she had a stitch. Her breathing was ragged again. He waited in silence, noting she seemed not to want him to notice. He had to quit making comments on her being out of condition. He stared up at the clear night sky instead, pretending interest in the stars, but the scent of her enveloped him.

Now that they weren’t running for their lives, his body insisted on reacting to hers. It was physical, he reminded himself. They’d talked months ago, conversing in low tones or using the more intimate telepathic communication when they feared the guards would overhear them and report back to Whitney. Kane had been impressed with her courage. Mostly he respected that she treated him as if he were a human being and not a monster bent on rape. She could have been crying and screaming, but she had cooperated, trying to relax, even going so far as encouraging him despite the circumstances.

He pressed two fingers to his throbbing temples. Every time he thought about her first time with him, he got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. For him, their union had been paradise, her body hot, velvet soft, so tight he thought he was in heaven. But he knew, no matter how slow he’d gone, how careful he’d been, he’d hurt her.

She straightened up, breathing deeply. “I’m sorry. I just need to rest.”

He handed her water and watched carefully to see that she drank it. She looked exhausted and the smears of blood along with the sand burn on her face bothered him more than they should have. He used water on the hem of his shirt to gently wipe the smears from her face. She stood without protest, allowing him to clean her face.

“Does it hurt?”

She sent him a small smile. “In the grand scheme of things, no. I’ve been thinking about the kid. We just left him there for the cartel to slice and dice while they questioned him.”

“Javier has the kid,” Kane soothed, slipping his arm around her shoulders and bringing her close to his warmth. Maybe everything was just too much for someone so fragile. She was disoriented and couldn’t remember things clearly.

She shook her head. “The teenager. The one tied up. I felt his pulse, and he was alive, but he was unconscious, maybe dying. There was a lot of blood on the floor around him. I should have done something. You know they’ll kill him.”

“Sweetheart,” he said softly, “we had no choice. We couldn’t have taken him with us. He didn’t see us. Hopefully they’ll realize that and let him go.”

“They were never going to let him go.” She turned her face up to the sky.

Rose looked so sad his heart gave a curious shiver, and it took great effort not to pull her into his arms. He had to keep reminding himself, what he felt for her had nothing to do with emotion, and she felt nothing for him. He thought of her as his woman. The one woman. The only. She belonged to him, and he wanted to comfort and protect her, to hold her close to him and make her world a wonderful place. She would be appalled if she knew how he felt—not just appalled but frightened. And if he was entirely truthful with himself, she might have cause to be afraid. He planned on courting her.

He hadn’t gotten off to a very good start. She’d already tried to shoot him, and she definitely had considered shoving a knife into him. The remark about her being out of condition hadn’t helped his cause either. Kane frowned. So far, his scorecard read pretty much zero. A big fat zero, to be exact.

“No, they were drunk and they wanted el presidente’s nephew to kill him. I’m sorry we couldn’t save him, Rose, but we had no time, and we had to get the five-year-old to safety.”

“I know. It’s just hard to think of his mother waiting for him to come home, knowing those horrible monsters took him from her for no reason other than their own amusement.”

Kane didn’t know how to comfort her, so instead, he took her hand and set a much slower pace, catering to her short legs and lack of physical fitness. The terrain changed from pure sand to patches of saw grass. A few hearty flowers tried to grow among the thick stalks. Rocks formed a rough terrace along several of the rolling hills of dirt and sand. This was barren country, without the natural beauty of the desert. The land was so stark, he couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to build a home in the middle of such a wasteland—unless they were in hiding.

“Who exactly was this man you befriended? To come out here, he must have a lot of enemies.”

She didn’t look up at him, but he caught her smile. “He was in his eighties, and let’s just say he lived a very full life opposing the government. He lost his children and his siblings to the fight and eventually his wife.”