Run Among Thorns (7 page)

Jenny dreamt.

She was in a room like the cell they had taken her to at the facility. She had a gun in her hand. People were walking into the room one by one, and she was shooting them.

They kept coming, and she kept shooting, until the room was full of bodies and the scent of blood, and she was clambering over them until she reached the ceiling. Still they came, filling the room, pressing against her, till she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. Couldn’t open her mouth to scream.

Then she was awake, but the dream hadn’t ended. She was held, suffocating. Arms were pinning her down, trapping her against something solid that smelt hot. There was a sound in her ear, but she couldn’t make it out over the sound of her own gasping, wrenching sobs. She heaved in another breath and heard Kier’s voice saying, “Shhh, stop it,” felt Kier’s chest move under her cheek.

Jenny burst into movement, struggling against his grip, trying to push away. His hands tightened to the point of pain, and he hissed in her ear.

“Stop it,” he warned. “Keep still or you’ll hurt yourself.”

Her incredible hair was in his face, her legs tangling with his, her breasts crushed against his chest. The warmth and scent of her flooded his senses and sent the blood rushing to his groin. He cursed, thickly, pressed his lips near her ear so he knew she could hear him.

“Damn it, Jenny, stop! Don’t make me hurt you.”

Under the circumstances it was a ridiculous thing to say, but it stopped her. At least he hoped that was what stopped her, but he could be wrong, because her last little wriggle had thrown her thigh across the hard ridge of his erection and now she was utterly still on him, her breathing shallow.

He flexed his fingers on her arms, taking a deep controlling breath.

“Okay. Get off,” he said.

She lifted her head and looked at him. He could see her eyes cross slightly as she tried to focus. She looked bewildered again, as if she’d expected him to take advantage of the situation, and he wondered with a spurt of anger what sort of a bastard she took him for.

Exactly the sort of bastard you are, McAllister.

Chapter
        FOUR

L
ater that night, the rain came down again in earnest. McAllister heard it, dozing uncomfortably in the armchair in the corner of the bedroom. In the half light shed by the oil lamp he’d put on the table in the kitchen, he watched Jenny sleeping again. It seemed she had drifted off fairly quickly again, after he’d left. At any rate, she was asleep when he came back in from a short walk. A couple of times she’d stirred, sleepily sweeping her hair off her neck. Now she lay on a pillow of her own hair, pale skin against a dark-painted background.

The way that sight made him feel kept him at a distance more effectively than his own pride, although both were working together to keep him in this chair. When he should be in that bed. Crowding her. Making her uncomfortable.

Except it was backfiring. Again. The only one feeling uncomfortable was him.

So here he was. Listening to the rain thunder on the slates, the beck outside gradually roaring louder. Occasionally that sound was punctuated by large splashes, and he knew clumps of turf were being undercut by the flow, and torn free of the bank.

The cottage was safe enough. After he’d rebuilt it, he’d visited once shortly after a real bastard of a flash flood. The beck had shifted, wearing itself a new channel, cutting through the peat. But the building stood on a small rise, almost imperceptible, but enough to keep its feet dry. There was granite under that rise, that kept the beck at a safe distance. It moved away from the cottage sometimes, but never towards.

Jenny shifted in her sleep, and he tensed, remembering how he’d woken to her sounds of distress earlier that night. On duty, hardly sleeping, he should have been perfectly in charge of the situation, even used it to his advantage. Instead there had been a spurt of panic, and, God help him, he’d reacted to it, and to the sudden need to comfort her. To hang on to her until she calmed.

Here in the half light, half-asleep, half-afraid, he couldn’t classify that need. Couldn’t rationalise it.

It wasn’t just her obvious femininity, that fragility fired with the flame of strength that was so elementally woman. He’d worked on women before, without having to deal with the tedious interruption of emotion. In any case, she wasn’t his type.

Those liaisons that meant enough to be classified as relationships, rare as they were, had always been with the type of well-formed, confident woman who recognised the ground rules he established. They had been, as a rule, but not exclusively, curvaceous, tanned blondes. And, as a rule, he hadn’t had any trouble acquiring them. Certainly they had been nothing like the pale-skinned, dark-haired little creature in his bed.

Perhaps it was a growing uncertainty in his chosen career. He did what he did because he was good at it. The best at it, in plain fact. He was afraid that wasn’t proving to be enough of a reason anymore.

What if he was slipping? What if he was losing the edge? What if he was going to have to resign himself to joining another profession where he would be just another ordinary worker, while parts of his mind withered and died, never needed, never used.

He sighed, trying to pinch out the tension between his eyes.

His rational mind knew he was seeking reasons to justify his uncharacteristic behaviour, but the same part of his mind knew he wasn’t going to find them. Not reasons he liked, anyway.

So he slid down in the chair, tipped his head back, blanked out his mind, and waited for dawn.

For a moment there was only the warm pleasure of waking up with a handsome man beside her bed, asking her to help him.

For a moment, Jenny just blinked blearily, admiring the tall, broad form filling out jeans and a soft denim shirt.

For a moment, she didn’t remember where she was, or even who she was.

Then she did.

She closed her eyes tightly, fighting the wave of nausea that accompanied the resurgence of memory, of yesterday’s remembered grief, of the fear that was dogging her.

McAllister’s words filtered through.

“I hate to disturb your rest,” he said, with rough sarcasm, “but I can’t do this by myself. And if you ever want to get out of here, I suggest you get up, get dressed, and come help.”

Jenny slipped out of bed, dragging the covers with her, and juggled covers and clothes. “Explain again. I was half-asleep.”

She ignored his impatient sigh and scowl, and concentrated on what he was saying.

“There was a flash flood in the night—”

Jenny looked back over her shoulder. “Is the cottage okay? Are we alright?”

He sighed again. “Shut up, Jenny, and listen to me, will you?”

Taken unawares, and still half-asleep, Jenny was reminded of a hundred similar exchanges with her brother. Without thinking, she smiled, and was still smiling when she pulled her shirt over her head and turned to face McAllister.

He faltered, and simply stared at her. She dropped the smile in a flash, and folded her arms.

“Well?” she said.

He blinked. Once. Twice. She saw the cords of his throat move as he swallowed, then carried on speaking.

“The beck moved. It’s washed the bank away from under the SUV. The hood is in the beck, the back wheels on the bank, and it’s well and truly stuck.”

She twisted her hair into a quick braid, and used a strand to twine round the end. “So? It’s a four-wheel drive. Drive it out. If you—”

“It’s stuck, Jenny.”

She shut her mouth with a snap, and watched him.

“I’m going to have to rock it up and back with a lever. You’ll have to do the driving. You up to that?”

Jenny pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow. The fizz of a challenge was waking her up fast, that little tingle even making her enjoy talking to McAllister like this. “The question is, are you?”

The water in the beck was down again, only a little swollen from last night’s rain. What had fallen had obviously pushed through the sodden bogs fast. Jenny could see the flattened grass and raw black peat where the water had passed. There were clumps sitting like islands in the middle of the flow, still shifting as the brown water swirled and sucked at them.

The car actually looked like it had just slipped forward, only there was only a short, dark trench behind the back wheels. As the bank had worn away, nearly two metres of it sucked into the water; the weight of the front end must have pulled it forward into the stream. The new bank edge was pressed up against the chassis just behind the front wheels. Squatting, Jenny could see the peat and torn grass, and heather was actually pressing against the tyre, too, so there would be a little traction as soon as the vehicle was jogged backwards.

The water was swirling around the front wheels and grill, gurgling around the bumper. She glanced down at McAllister, who was already up to his knees in the cold water. Jenny didn’t envy him that. It wasn’t winter yet, but up here it didn’t have to be, and that water had to be very cold indeed.

He had a rough-hewn timber pole, more than two metres long by her estimation. He’d obviously taken a short walk to the forest, then. Jenny wondered what he’d used to cut it down and strip the branches from it. From the look of it he’d used a billhook or a machete—the cuts where the branches had been removed were broad bladed and smooth. Thinking of weapons made her wonder where he kept it.

Jenny walked round to the driver’s side. The door was locked. “Keys, McAllister!” She had to raise her voice to ensure he heard her over the musical sound of the water passing. He propped the pole up against the front of the SUV and dug in his pocket, carefully tossing her the keys. She caught them easily, and got in.

Adjusting her seat, she watched him work the pole under the front of the vehicle. Horizontal, it was about level with his waist.

The pedals were a reach, but Jenny only found that reassuring. Driving something this big was like driving a tank.

A tank is good. In this case, I want a tank.

She didn’t think he had his gun with him. It hadn’t seemed small enough to fit in something like an ankle holster, and he didn’t have it in his waistband or under his shirt, fairly obviously. He was in the beck. She was in a car. A stuck car, yes, but transportation nevertheless.

Jenny took a deep breath. The problem was that she knew this, and he knew this, too. So, what was he planning to do to prevent her from driving away? Surely he wasn’t relying on the goodness of her heart?

She pushed back her hair with nervous hands, and then took a good grip on the wheel.

As if on cue, he shouted at her.

“Jenny. Don’t get any ideas, sweetheart.”

She fervently wished he wouldn’t call her that.

He called out again. “We have unfinished business. I haven’t said you can go yet, Jenny. Remember the rules.”

Through the windscreen, across the crazily tipped bonnet, his eyes drilled into her, commanding, demanding. Her hands tightened on the wheel until they hurt.

She started the engine. It came to life with a diesel roar, and the comforting thrum of the engine touched her through the wheel and the pedals, and through the levers, as she set it up for a good pull. She concentrated on what she was doing, trying to put his threats out of her mind. Truth was, she loved off-road driving, and she loved a challenge.

Down in the beck, McAllister was kicking a footing, settling the pole in for the last time.

He glanced up. “There should be a lever beside you, on the floor by the gear lever. It says Diff Lock. If you—”

“I know what a diff lock is, McAllister,” she said. “I engaged it when I put it into low ratio.”

For the second time that day, he just stared at her. Then he rolled up his sleeves. “Right. Okay. You ready?” he said.

“Ready,” she said.

“Now, when you go, don’t …”

She interrupted again. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to try to tell me how to work a four-by-four, Kier. I could probably teach you a thing or two.”

His brows snapped together and he opened his mouth as if he was going to defend his driving. He had “hurt pride” written all over him. Jenny quirked a brow and tried not to laugh.

McAllister just shook his head and apparently thought better of it. He picked up the pole, crouching down and bracing it on his shoulder, wrapping both hands around it just in front of him.

Jenny put the Rover into first, kept the clutch on the floor, and then put one hand on the hand brake.

She saw rather than felt McAllister take up the strain, the muscles along his forearm bunching, his shoulders lifting, the cords on his neck standing out, face taut with effort.

She slowly lifted the clutch, releasing the hand brake. At first the wheels gripped, and she felt the car sway on its springs as it began to bite into the turf and climb back up the bank. Kier started to heave at the pole, trying to rock the Rover back and up. Tentatively, she stroked the gas pedal, just feeding a little more through to those slowly turning wheels.

Without warning, they started to slip, not spinning wildly, because the four-wheel drive and diff lock wouldn’t let them, but sliding inexorably forward towards McAllister. At the same moment, he shifted his position, trying to get more leverage. Then suddenly his feet went out from under him, and he disappeared from view under the front of the vehicle.

Jenny yanked the hand brake on again. Sickeningly, the SUV lurched and slid forward for a moment, splashing back into the beck, but then it held.

For a split second she sat there, heart hammering in her ears, imagining Kier crushed under the wheels, under the bumper. Seeing in her mind’s eye his blood swirling away downstream, turning the beck red, then pink. Her vision blurred, and she saw last night’s dream again, smelled for a moment hot blood and hot metal.

Not again, please.

She bit hard on her lip, until the she tasted blood and the pain spiked through her head, galvanizing her to action.

Jenny snatched at the door handle, threw herself out the car. She slipped and stumbled on the wet ground, falling to her knees, trying to scramble to her feet again just as Kier reared up out of the beck, water pouring off him.

She stopped where she was, on her hands and knees, absorbing how wonderfully
alive
he looked, sweeping the water out of his eyes and gasping for air. His clothes were plastered to him, marking the play of lean muscles over his ribs as his chest heaved.

The sun briefly slid out from behind the scudding clouds as he ran his hands over his head, shaking the water from his hair. The golden light of early day caught and shimmered in the droplets as they flew, and she was transfixed by it, achingly grateful she didn’t have to watch another man die today.

Brushing the water from his eyes one last time, he looked up and saw her on the bank. She stared at him standing there. Poised, alert, physical, wet. Cold as the water was, seeping through her leggings and chilling her hands, she was suddenly uncomfortably hot.

His brows snapped together in a frown. “Jenny?”

Awkwardly she got to her feet, feeling like an idiot. Telling herself that was why she was flushed.

“You okay?” she asked, trying not to look at him.