Page 23 of Manhunt in the Narrows
She shook her head. “No. He didn’t hurt me, but I can’t say the same for him.”
“Good.” He wasn’t sure what came over him, why every cell in his body urged him to close that short distance between them, but he had nothing left in his arsenal to avoid it. Elias crushed his mouth to hers. This beautiful, confident, inspiring womanwho a mere twenty-four hours ago couldn’t stand being in the same room as him. There was nothing sweet and romantic about the kiss. A frenzy had started the moment he’d realized she’d been taken and hadn’t let up. Every second of concern and fear laced each stroke of his mouth against hers until he had to break to catch his breath. Setting his forehead against hers, Elias breathed her in. Tried to convince his nervous system the danger was over. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to keep him from taking you.”
Blood blended with water between her fingers. “It wasn’t your fault. I knew you were coming for me.” She interlaced her hands with his on either side of her face. “I knew you wouldn’t give up.”
“Never.” Reality tendriled into his awareness. They weren’t safe up here. At any moment, the trail could fail altogether, and he’d never forgive himself if something happened to Sayles because he couldn’t keep his mouth to himself. “We need to get the hell out of here.”
She nodded as if just realizing their situation. Water streaked down her face, and Sayles swiped it away to clear her vision. Most likely missing that iconic hat of hers. “We’re above Orderville Canyon Junction. We should be able to camp there until the storm passes.”
“Good. Then let’s get moving.” Elias helped her maneuver off his lap, instantly missing the heat she’d generated. Then the pain moved in. Hell. He’d forgotten about the hole in his side. “I might also need you to patch me up again. Seems I got into a fight with a twig.”
Sayles didn’t answer. Didn’t even seem to breathe.
He followed the direction of her gaze over his shoulder. And froze. “Damn it.”
Surging to his feet, he searched for signs of movement. Of something to give them an idea of where the hell the killer had gone. He couldn’t have just vanished. Had his unconscious bodygone over the trail’s edge, or had the Hitchhiker Killer managed to escape without notice? Elias couldn’t see the bottom of the canyon clearly from here. Not with the storm attacking from every angle.
“Come on.” He grabbed for his pack with one hand and for Sayles’s hand with the other. He wasn’t letting her out of his sight from here on out and headed along the trail he assumed was meant for pack horses rather than actual human beings. Toward that cave where he’d found her antibiotic ointment.
They’d barely managed to survive between two flash floods, hypothermia, a rogue twig and a killer determined to get away with murder, but one thing was for sure. “This isn’t over.”
Chapter Seventeen
It took longer to set up the tent than it should have.
Between the gashes on her palms and the wound in Elias’s side, they were moving slower than either of them wanted, but the storm had given them a slight reprieve. In the end, neither of them had even bothered pretending to want to sleep in separate tents. They didn’t have the energy by the time they’d collapsed onto their sleeping bags or to fight the incessant need for warmth. And connection, in her case.
Sayles stripped free of her wet uniform with sore muscles that fought her at every turn as Elias did the same on the other side of the tent. There really wasn’t that much room between them. Her tent had been structured for one person, and she collided with his shoulder or arm more than once as the weight of this assignment pressed in. A single spear of sunlight reached the bottom of the canyon, but seemed to go out of its way to avoid them, and she couldn’t fight the responding chill.
They hadn’t spoken a word to each other since descending down that too-thin goat trail that’d nearly killed them. Didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that the Hitchhiker Killer had gotten away, that he had won, leaving them to do nothing but lick their wounds. Elias had held her hand the entire time, as if he couldn’t stand the thought of letting her out of his reach, and she’d been just as desperate. Her awareness of the federal agent prodding at the medical tape from his bare torso only grewthrough the unending exhaustion trying to drag her down. He’d come for her. Risked his life for her. Saved her. “Thank you” didn’t feel like enough.
Elias flinched against some invisible pain as he lifted the tape and gauze to get a better view of his wound.
“Here. Let me.” Relieved of her soaked uniform, she realized she should’ve been embarrassed about the fact there was nothing between them other than the thin material of her oversize T-shirt from her recovered pack. But she couldn’t summon the internal argument. Sayles skimmed her fingers around the edge of the dressing, reveling in his instant body heat soothing the scrapes on her hands, and peeled the gauze away to get a better look. He’d done a good job cleaning the small hole. Managed to stop the bleeding. “It doesn’t look so bad. What did you clean it with?”
“My drinking water.” His voice sounded as though it’d been raked over gravel. From screaming, from tiredness, from debris in the water he’d swallowed. Almost…broken.
The effect chased back that relentless need to keep her mask in place, to be the woman he’d met in the visitors’ center. The one who could keep herself together despite their circumstances. Maybe right now she could just…be. Acknowledge that they’d been through something terrible and leave expectations outside the tent. As rewarding as it’d been to disappear in Zion, to start making her own choices and discover who she was without a manipulative bastard calling the shots, wasn’t letting go another kind of freedom? “Good choice.”
“I learned from the best.” The weight of his gaze burned her scalp, but Elias held utterly still as she inspected the wound. It wasn’t deadly. However, infection took root in all kinds of circumstances, and they couldn’t take the chance. Not with the killer still out there. Potentially watching them as he had these past two days.
Grabbing for her pack, she twisted to pull her first aid kit free and spread the supplies she’d need. “You mean my survival cards.”
“No. Not the cards.” The whisper contradicted the fierceness with which he’d kissed her on that trail. As though his entire being depended on consuming her from the inside out. He’d done a fantastic job. She could still feel the press of his mouth against hers, the heat they’d shared, the desperation. It’d awoken something in her she hadn’t felt for a long time. Not just her physical desire but the desire to feel wanted, to no longer be ignored and small. In those rare seconds, Elias had eradicated her deep need to slide through life unnoticed and alone. He’d empowered her to make the next call. And she wanted more.
“I have more alcohol.” Redressing his wound was all she could focus on to keep that crazed want in check. She wasn’t sure she’d ever been kissed like that. From the beginning, her ex had made her feel owned, and there’d been a kind of safety that came with it. At first. Instead of choice, he’d taken the brunt of their decisions—her decisions—and convinced her it was for the best. The fewer decisions she had to make, the more energy she had to focus on him, his needs, their relationship. It’d somehow made sense, but over the years that ownership had turned to domination. To belittling and criticizing any attempts to take control of her own life. Questioning her loyalty and commitment to their marriage. A long con. That was what it’d felt like. Like she’d signed up for one thing but had wound up with nothing in the end. Slowly and meticulously destroying everything that made her…her. Shaping her into someone she didn’t recognize in the mirror, the damage irreparable.
Sayles dabbed a fresh pad of gauze with alcohol and pressed it against Elias’s wound. He sucked in a deep breath through his teeth, and she pulled back. “Sorry. I know it stings, but it’ll lower chances of infection.”
“I trust you.” Elias notched his head back on his shoulders, staring up at the top of the tent.
Her heart shuddered in her chest. Was that physically possible? Because it certainly felt like he’d just handed her the keys to the kingdom without so much as doing reconnaissance. Trust. Had her ex ever trusted her? Beyond believing his nightly dinners weren’t poisoned, she wasn’t sure. He hadn’t trusted her to choose her own outfits or to lead in the bedroom. He hadn’t trusted her to stay in touch with her friends and family. Or maybe he just hadn’t trusted himself. But Elias… This was a man who earned respect and expected others to do the same. The idea that she’d met his qualifications added to the lightness of knowing they’d survived a killer. Though she wasn’t sure what she’d done to join that small club.
The skin across his stomach was smooth and warm and urged her to linger. Muscle flexed and released under her ministrations, and she couldn’t deny there was something wholly superficial in the heat clawing up her neck and into her face. He was attractive—no argument there—and Sayles almost didn’t recognize that tug in her lower belly. It’d been so long since she’d let herself notice another man. And Elias was definitely hard to ignore. “Almost done. Just need to apply a new dressing. Does it hurt?”
“Not so much anymore.” The gravel in his words eased. Softer.
She stretched one hand across his midsection to hold the new gauze in place and fought with the roll of medical tape. The burn of his attention spread lower, raising goose bumps along her arms and waking her nerves to the point she couldn’t focus on what her hands were doing at all.
