Riptide (31 page)

He deserved one more hour of her company. Soon enough he’d be kissing her good-bye.

Bria rested her chin on his shoulder, tightened her arms around his waist, and leaned as he followed the first switchback. “I could do this all day,” she shouted, wet hair lashing against his cheek as the wind whipped tendrils around her head.

Nick smiled. He couldn’t remember when last he’d done anything unrelated to diving just for the sheer joy of it. Bria had an amazing capacity to enjoy life no matter what it tossed at her—and it had thrown a lot. She’d come from her brutal childhood a strong, vivacious woman unafraid to take life by the horns, and she pulled everyone within arm’s reach along with her. She turned the world Technicolor brilliant, and somehow he wasn’t sure he could go back to feeling the same way about black-and-white.

A surprising dull boom of thunder had him sending a fleeting glance up at the cloudless sky. “Sounds like a storm is coming.” Didn’t look like it, however. The hair on the back of his neck lifted.

“We left just in time,” she said, pressing close. Nick was hyperaware of her soft breasts pushed against his back and the curve of her thighs around his hips. They’d made love several times, yet he was ready to do it again, and he felt a pang of …

Hell, he didn’t know what it was. Regret? Relief? Whatever it was, he realized that in an hour or less, his interlude with Bria would be over. But for now, he wouldn’t analyze the situation and ruin what moments were left.

Something moved in his peripheral vision, but he didn’t dare look away from the upcoming curve. Scudding clouds, or a low-flying bird, maybe.

Except his sixth sense was kicking in. Hard. He risked a glance up the mountain, and saw a very large shadow positioned on the edge above the road. Thunder boomed again.

No. Not thunder. The unmistakable retort of an explosive device. He dragged a quick glance away from the dangerous curves in the road. The dark shadow shuddered on the lip of the mountain and he realized with a sick twist to his gut that wasn’t a shadow—it was a fucking boulder. And it had just been blasted, dislodged, right overhead.

“Hold on! Hold on!” Nick leaned low, hands flexed to squeeze down on the brakes if needed, but until then he was gunning the bike for all it was worth.

“What happened?” she shouted in his ear.

A hell of a lot in a split second, but now wasn’t the time to explain. “Bury your face against my back!” The precariously balanced boulder above had knocked loose a lot of stones and grit that fell like rocky hail, making the road a death trap of slippery scree. There was no way he could avoid the small stuff. His goal was to avoid getting flattened by the big boulder teetering on the edge and not skidding off the two-hundred-foot drop to the ocean below.

She buried her face against him, her hands tight at his waist, her heart beating a manic tattoo against his back.

With the sound of another thunderclap, the boulder broke free and Nick’s heart hammered as he sped down the mountainside. The narrow road wasn’t made for speed, and the little moped shook at anything over fifty miles an hour.

Nick swerved to avoid being slammed with shrapnel, using one foot to brace the Vespa as they tilted at a dangerous angle almost parallel to the road. Bria’s arms clutched his middle, but she didn’t scream, didn’t make any sound that might break his concentration as he shifted gears. Pieces of rock pinged off the Vespa and bounced off his arms and thighs, shredding the places that weren’t covered. Helmets would’ve been a fine idea when they’d left, but they were in Marrezo. Italians as a freaking species didn’t believe in wearing them.

Second gear. Third. Fourth. Back to third gear.
Boom!
The refrigerator-sized boulder fell behind them, taking one entire lane of the road with it as it cracked the pavement, turned end-over-end, and plunged over the side. Bria molded herself to Nick’s back as they heard the giant boulder hit the rocks two hundred feet below and shatter on impact.

“Made it,” Nick said grimly. “Can you hang on until we get all the way down?”

He felt her nod and slowed the bike to a mere jaw-shaking forty-nine miles an hour. Slow enough that he was able to hear another blast. “Damn it,” he growled. A massive rock slide would come on the heels of that detonation. This was no fucking accident.

The Vespa whined as the engine worked overtime. Zigging. Zagging. He was running when it was his style to stay and fight.

He heard Bria draw in a shaky breath, heard himself roar, “Hang on!” He skidded the scooter as close to the solid granite wall as humanly possible. And then the second barrage jettisoned over them. Crashing onto the roadbed hard. Jagged, sofa-sized blocks of granite, boulders of lava rock the size of cars dumped over them. Gravel flew as the wheels slewed into another spin. A big chunk of mountain crashed to their right and he had to swerve to get the hell out of the way.

Somehow, he had to navigate them beyond the rock slide.
Now
. If he didn’t, they’d have to scrape what remained of his and Bria’s bodies off the side of the mountain below. Nick cranked up the gas, the Vespa shuddering in protest.

Chapter 18

Bria clung to him, and he was acutely aware of how much depended on his quick thinking in the next crucial seconds.

Visibility was limited as rocks and rubble crashed down around them in a thick choking cloud, surrounding them with fallout. Assorted debris, dirt, rocks, vegetation rained down without letting up, skittering and bouncing off the road, rolling down like a hellish waterfall over the almost sheer drop to the rocks and ocean below. The majority of the big chunks flew over them, but not all. Bria curved over his back like a protective blanket. Shit.

While he was trying to save her life, she’d been saving his ass from the worst of the sharp rock. Without a word of complaint. His respect swelled in his chest into something he didn’t want to name.

He brought the bike to a bone-jarring stop. “Switch places,” he shouted. He flung his leg over the handlebars, clearing the bike easily. “Move!”

With a startled look, Bria slid forward. He pulled the backpack off her shoulders. It had taken the brunt of the hits and was a ragged mess. But there was still blood and rips and tears in her shirt. Damn it to hell. He tossed the pack aside, then jumped on the back, covering her body with his as he revved the engine and gunned it. The thin shirt on her back was stained with blood and dirt, and he cursed again. Himself, and the assholes trying to kill them.

She knew automatically not to grab the handles for purchase, and held on to his thighs with a precarious death grip, while he kept her caged between his arms.

He’d been followed to Marrezo. Or Jesus!
Bria had been followed?
One and the same. Fuck. He didn’t know. Right then he didn’t care. The killer was right here on the island. He hadn’t fooled anyone by bringing the princess home, where he’d been sure she’d be safe. He’d been too mesmerized by her in her natural setting to fucking notice until it was too late.

His goddamn fault. A lesson he’d learned well from his father—never let a woman take your eye off business.

But what was a man to do when the woman
was
his business?

Fingers white-knuckled on the controls, Nick squeezed the gas to gain an ounce more speed. Wasn’t happening. Instead of more speed, the Vespa dragged slower. Hell! He glanced down and behind him briefly and swore out loud. The rear tire was rubbing on the motor case, which had probably been crushed against it by a bouncing rock; he thought briefly that it could just as easily have been Bria’s leg, and shuddered. They weren’t moving fast enough to begin with, and now they were moving slower.

Nick knocked it back to third, maneuvered through the crap littering the road, then nailed the throttle again. The bike leaped forward. He maneuvered through the rocky obstacle course—volcanic rock and granite, a black hailstorm of shrapnel that rained down all around them. He jerked the bike across the road in a crazy zig-zag, the small tires bumping and slewing over the rocks and stones littering the road surface. The front tire hit the base of the rock face, where Nick hoped to hell the shit would jettison over them.

Another muffled boom warned of the next onslaught.

The attackers obviously didn’t care if they took down the whole fucking mountain, so long as he and Bria were buried alive—preferably dead.

“Nick!” She tipped her head back, her side pressing into his arm as she shifted to look at him. Her face was smudged, her eyes impossibly wide and dark in her pale, set face. “There’s a lookout ahead. Right over—Just go!”

Without hesitation he went for it, keeping his head down, his body cradling Bria’s as he swerved through the minefield ahead.

The rear wheel locked, screeching in protest as he pushed the bike beyond its limit. Under the smell of dust and debris was the stink of burning brakepads and rubber as the overworked tires started melting beneath the friction of metal and pavement.

The clutch cover lifted from the motor, clattering to the roadside.

More boulders thundered down in their wake.

Another distant boom.

The bike started pulsing up and down, indicating a warped front disc. Jesus, what next?

Nick guided the Vespa back to the interior mountain wall opposite the guardrail, engine idling. He swung his leg over the back of the bike and grabbed her arm. “Off!”

White-faced, Bria clasped his forearm with both hands to maintain her balance and jumped off the bike. Nick flattened her against the vertical granite wall. Then spun around and revved the engine to a high-pitched squeal. “Give me that elastic on your waist—Good girl.”

Nick jumped back on the bike, spinning it to face the other side of the road. He twisted it around the accelerator several times. “Stay put!” If the bastards saw the Vespa go over, maybe they’d fucking stop blowing up the mountain on top of them.

“Nick!”

Ignoring the fear in her voice, and his own gut wrenching with it, he headed at full speed straight for the guardrail and drop-off.

As the front tire hit the edge, he dropped and rolled.

*   *   *

Bria screamed in wordless terror as, through the bombardment of falling rocks, she saw Nick disappear over the edge
with
the bike.

Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!

Her next breath brought a painful onslaught of dust into her lungs and she coughed hard against the assault.

Eyes narrowed against the dust, her gaze never wavered from the spot he’d gone over, even as she couldn’t stop coughing.
Please, be okay.
If she wished it hard enough, thought it hard enough, prayed it hard enough—

“Ow!” She flinched as a fist-sized rock struck her shoulder, knocking her off balance and down on one knee. Eyes watering, heartbeat racing, she staggered to her feet, pressed by necessity against the granite mountain to avoid what was crashing down unrelentingly.

He’d driven the Vespa away from the narrow lookout point and over the edge to the ocean below. Maybe he’d hit the water? God, she hoped. But then logic dictated that he’d more likely hit the rocks. Her stomach clenched into a hard knot, part fear, part pain. She’d go see for herself. As soon as she assessed the situation, she’d call for help. Only he had his phone. She had nothing.

For God’s sake,
somebody
had to notice the mountain was disintegrating! The explosions alone would have carried into town. Antonio knew where they were … When she didn’t return, surely he would notify her brother?

She had to get to Nick now and make sure he was okay, then they could wait for Draven to return from Rome. She started across the road, arms over her head. “Crazy man!”

Nick’s dark head topped the cliff, his eyes hidden from view, his voice gravel rough. “Get back!” He levered himself over the lip with his upper body, then flung one leg up, pulling himself the rest of the way onto the edge of the road. He paused as a boulder bounced twice beside him, then dropped out of sight. She would have laid out flat as a pancake, exhausted. He rolled quickly, scrambling to his feet, his whole body tense as if braced against an impending collision. He crouched low, then sprinted toward her.

Bria hesitated, torn between following his sensible instructions or dragging him to safety. She darted two more steps away from the wall and got hit a glancing blow on the head for her trouble. Heart beating wildly, she hesitated.

“What the fuck are you doing, woman?! Get
back
!”

Bria backed up, flattening herself against the solid rock face as he ran across the street. Her mountain was trying to kill them. Her island had decided to wipe them off its face with everything it had. Perhaps she just didn’t belong here any longer.

Another enormous boulder dropped, missing Nick by what looked like inches. Unblinking, she watched his every move, anticipated every obstacle, every missile, as he ran.

A deafening crash, followed a minute later by an enormous splash as another boulder hit the rocky shore hundreds of feet below.

Her eyes smarted from the dust, her lungs hurt, her chest hurt. She held out her hand for him, even though he was fifteen feet away. “Hurryhurryhurry!”

Her head jerked up as another muffled crack came from high above. The sounds melted into one vast, loud, chaotic blur.

Bria realized she was holding her breath as Nick alternated between sprinting and dodging as he made his way across the rock-strewn road. It didn’t seem as though the avalanche would ever stop. “Hurry!” she urged unnecessarily. Nick “I don’t exercise” was moving at a remarkable speed.

When he got to her side and straightened, he wasn’t even out of breath. “That was fucking stupid!” he said, voice low and steady, but his eyes blazed with temper as his fingers curled around her scraped and bleeding shoulders. “You knew what I was doing. Why did you put yourself in danger like that?”

She unclenched her fists and asked deliberately, calmly. “How will we get down the mountain now?”

He didn’t let her go. He didn’t shake her, either, and she realized that while she was talking, he’d been checking her over for injuries. “I have a plan,” he said, not bothering to answer the question. Satisfied that nothing was broken, he pulled her tighter against the wall, and shifted his body in front of her.