Wild Encounter (2 page)

Her mouth dried up.
His best
. Meaning it wasn’t likely.

But she had to know…

“Wait,” she cried as he reached the doorway, his back straight and inflexible. Cold, gray eyes turned back, pinning her, and she took a deep breath. “What are you going to do with my dogs?”

Something flitted across his shielded eyes. Disappointment. Anger. A strange kind of regret. He stepped closer and his lip curled. Her eyes fixated on it.

“Rule number two. Don’t do it again.”

And then he turned and slammed the door firmly in her face.

…

Without her watch, Clare had no idea how many hours had passed before she saw him again. Her head ached from clenching her teeth and her tongue peeled off her gummy palate. The naked, dusty bulb that illuminated her room dimmed. She’d been on enough bush expeditions to recognize the dip and surge of generator electricity. But at least she wasn’t in the dark, not literally, anyway. The air in the room may have been hot and thin but she couldn’t stand the thought of being in darkness, as well.

She was barely holding herself together as it was.

She twisted her hands to get some flexibility in her bonds. She’d already challenged the locked door repeatedly, bruised her fist banging on the ancient timber, and shouted until she was hoarse. At last, she’d slid to the floor, trying to hear what was going on outside. Eventually, even the flickering light bulb hadn’t stopped her from falling into an exhausted sleep on the ancient, moth-bitten mattress.

Now, she pushed up off it and crossed to the window to peer out into the darkness where a sun-bleached yard and rusty old water tank had been when Alpha first locked her in during daylight.

What the hell was going on?

She had a fair idea of what fourteen wild dogs—or their body parts—were worth on the black market but to take the truck in broad daylight… On the highway. That was bold. Or desperate. More than the average villager out stealing bush meat would have risked. This was organized.

Trafficking.

Her eyes explored what her fingers couldn’t; the louvered windows, the weakest link in the room. Just begging to be smashed open. They weren’t expecting a human hostage along with their canine cargo or they would have prepared this room better.

She shifted uncomfortably, as her bladder made its presence well and truly felt.

Night time. The dogs were almost certainly conscious by now. If the sweltering heat in her prison was any indication, the sun beating down on the stationery truck all afternoon would have turned it into an oven.

She pounded on the door with unsteady hands. “Can somebody give the dogs water?”

Nothing.

She banged again, louder. “Please…will you water the dogs?”
And how about some for me while you’re at it?

This time she heard footsteps. Outside, someone stopped but didn’t open the door. Clare leaned against it, tired, frightened, and worried for the pack. She pressed a whisper into the flaking timber. “Please…”

After a pause, the bolt shifted. She stumbled backward as the door opened to reveal Alpha’s carefully schooled expression and tense posture. Her urgency made her forget caution.

She started forward. “The dogs…please can you—”

He held up both hands. “Do you need the bathroom?”

She did need it—badly—but she was more worried about her parched animals. “They’ll need water,” she said, her temper rising.

“So you keep saying.” Boredom flattened his voice.

Understanding finally dawned. He had no intention of helping them. “I’d be happy to—”

“I think not,” he said.

Her breath quickened and she stumbled to try to block his body with hers. Lifting her eyes to his, she implored him. “Please.”

He sighed and turned to go. “I’ll bring you food soon.”

“Wait!”

He stopped but didn’t bother to turn around. This wouldn’t be pretty. She took a breath and risked speech.

“I do need the bathroom.”

…

Simon deVries leaned against the door to the washroom, crossed his arms, and got comfortable for a long stay.

Christ!
A hostage. Not part of the plan. It had been a good plan, too, detailed and thorough. Until now.

Now there was a gaping, five foot two flaw with big, brown weepy eyes. To complete the insanity, he had cast himself as chief babysitter. Not like he’d had any choice. There wasn’t one man on this crew he would trust if Miss Irish USA decided to wield her only weapon—herself. Including him, and he was the best of the lot. He didn’t owe Dyson, Corby, and the others a thing, but his loyalty and his entire focus had to be on this job, not on their unexpected guest.

The toilet flushed and, after a moment, he heard the sound of a tap running. He was vaguely aware of the state of the bathroom when they’d first returned, and figured the room couldn’t be any better now that five men had used it.

She’s a hostage, deVries. I don’t think it matters what she thinks of the facilities.

God knew its function was more important than its form at this point. His hormones might be suckered, but his nose was working just fine. The woman smelled positively gut-turning thanks to the feral blanket she’d been covered in for the ride, and having held her close to him a couple of times now, so did he. His own wash could wait until the main business of the day was complete. Thankfully, it almost was.

He settled back against the doorframe and dug his hands deep into his pockets.

The transporter—the evidence—would be fifty miles away by now, en-route to a fiery destination far from the farmhouse. Just as well she was occupied in the bathroom, otherwise she’d be bleating about those damned dogs. He wasn’t convinced the gravity of the situation had dawned on her yet. There was only one thing they wanted from those animals and it wasn’t their rare genes.

The door creaked open and he straightened, ignoring how small she seemed in the opening. “You need a shower,” he said. He stood a little taller when she didn’t move. “Now. You stink, and thanks to you, so do I.”

He followed her gaze into the bathroom to see it was devoid of both shower stall and tub. Instead, there was a square patch of ancient tile with a broken drain hole in the center that opened to the cavity under the house. Nothing more.

“You’ll have to use the bucket,” he said, irritated. When she hesitated, he lifted an eyebrow. “I promise not to peek.”

She flushed scarlet. “I don’t have any clean clothes, or a towel…”

Neither did he—not for a woman. An unexpected and unplanned-for woman. He cursed under his breath. “Wash your clothes. I’ll bring you something to wear while they dry. Get started.”

She closed the door quickly and, seconds later, he heard the sound of the tap running and the old plastic bucket filling. He was about to head to the bunkroom when he paused. Was she crazy enough to wait until he’d moved from the door, and then make a break for it?

He groaned. Not crazy, maybe, but certainly desperate.

He put his fingers to his lips and belted out a whistle, not risking calling anyone by name within her earshot. He hoped it would be Dyson, the least worrisome of the three. Dyson liked his women more masculine. Completely masculine, in fact. Didn’t make him a better human being particularly—the man was still a creep—but it made him just trustworthy enough to guard a naked, vulnerable woman behind a door with no lock on it.

He heard the thump of steel-capped boots on the wooden floor.

Shit. Corby. The worst possible choice. He’d have to move fast.

“You rang?” Mockery ran thick in the weedy voice.

Simon kept his voice low but threatening. “Stay here. Make sure she doesn’t come out.”

“Sure, sure.” Corby studied his nails, a badly disguised smirk under his pointy nose.

Sarcastic little maggot.
“Do not go in there.”

Simon turned and headed for the bunkroom where five camp beds were set up. Rummaging in his pack for his towel and the biggest T-shirt he had, he’d just turned back to the hallway when he heard coarse laughter. That couldn’t be good. Rage boiled as he approached the bathroom door, now standing wide open, to see Corby leaning on the doorframe soaking up the view.

Son of a bitch.

“I didn’t go in—”

He grabbed Corby by the hair and hauled him out. The mirror framed her, backed pitifully into the corner of the room, no shower-curtain, no towel, nothing but an empty bucket to afford her some privacy. She wielded it like a weapon. She looked—what?—angry, embarrassed. Definitely frightened, and so she should. But there was something else.

Defiance.

The rigid set of her arms—refusing to cover herself—and her heated glare that burned right back at the laughing weasel. That took guts.

He shoved Corby down the outside steps where the scum slammed into a steel water trough beside the house. The skinny pervert swore up a storm and rose to take him on, but Simon pushed him back down and snarled, one hundred percent primitive instinct. “You pathetic degenerate. Go near her again and I will peel your skin off with a carving knife.”

He marched back into the house before his fingers did actually reach for his blade.

“You’re the new guy, asshole,” Corby shouted at his retreating back. “You don’t run this show.”

“Yeah I do,” Simon muttered to himself. “Just none of you have caught on yet.”

He lowered his eyes as he approached the bathroom. She hadn’t moved far—where could she go completely naked?—but she had picked up the towel and shirt he’d dropped by the doorway and now clutched them against her. They did nothing to wipe the tantalizing mix of alabaster curves, pink flush, and downy shadow from his mind.
That
was going with him to the grave.

Now that the streaks of dirt were washed off her face, he could see a dark bruise blooming on her jaw where Corby had kicked her on the highway. His lips tightened. He reached for the wet clothes she’d piled on the closed toilet lid.

“I’ll return them to you when they’re dry,” he said, his gaze fixed firmly over her head.

She nodded, silent and dignified. Not many women would have managed that, naked. Or men.

Bundling up her clothes, he closed the door behind him and waited, his heart pounding at the back of his throat. Echoing parts of him farther south.

Fuck.

Keeping this job on track had just gotten a hell of a lot harder. Corby had changed the ground rules. Within minutes that little piss-ant would be spilling his guts to the others, and they’d think Simon was keeping her for himself. He’d have to be ready with some damn fine reasons not to share her around.

Obligation burned deep in his belly. He was all that stood between her and a nasty end. Maybe it would’ve been better to leave her dry, smelly, and out-of-sight.

She emerged a few minutes later, his T-shirt ridiculously oversized yet still not covering as much as he’d hoped. Her wet, dark hair tumbled around an oval face in which three features stood out notably—a luscious pair of lips, the darkening bruise, and enormous brown eyes which glittered whilst resolutely avoiding his. His stomach churned. He’d left her exposed and vulnerable, and she’d only been under his care for a few hours.

Not your
care
, he had to remind himself. Your supervision.

Nonetheless, not a good start.

At the door to her holding room, he retrieved his towel and turned her to face him. Brown eyes fixed on his left shoulder, the color now high in otherwise ashen cheeks. He wrapped a new piece of cable-tie in a figure-eight around her wrists and yanked it tight in front of her.

Then, without a word, he closed her in the room.

He couldn’t have felt more like a bastard if
he’d
been the one enjoying the show back there in the bathroom. Not that he’d looked—liar!—at least not for long, and certainly not on purpose.

He returned the damp towel to his bunk and fumbled the padlock off his pack. It would fit fine. Not particularly robust, but secure enough to slow Corby down, or anyone else who might take a shot at getting lucky. It would at least lend some warning they were busting in. Not that she could do much with that heads-up except to maybe yell the place down.

A little voice asked him whether she would be any safer with him holding the key…

In a few hours, he’d moved from minor physical contact to having seen her as God intended. Minus the bucket. She’d been scared, vulnerable, and stark naked, and to his shame he’d hardened up in that moment. Not a sterling recommendation of his character.

But he wasn’t here to win awards for chivalry, he told himself, shoving a kitchen chair out of the way as he passed through.
You’re here to secure the shipment
.
There was a reason he’d been assigned this job, a reason he was working with men he couldn’t stand on a project that turned his stomach.

He was the best.