not sure. Maybe because he only wants my money.”
“So the bruises are from what?” he persisted.
“This—” she indicated the area above her hand and gave a little shrug “—one of the guards got a little rough. The rest—” inexplicably, a faint flush colored the curve of her elegant cheekbones “—are from when I was being held in Santa Marita. There was a car accident. Well, I suppose accident might not be exactly the correct term—”
“But nobody forced themselves on you?” he interrupted, wanting—needing—to be sure.
“No.”
“Okay, then. That’s…good.” As if his vision had suddenly improved—maybe he’d taken a harder hit to the head than he’d thought—he now saw that in addition to having been roughed up, she was on the brink of being not slender but fragile, the kind of look people got when they’d gone too long without adequate food.
The discovery didn’t improve his temper. He wanted her out of here now. Even more than he wanted a piece of the guards, and he wanted that pretty damn bad.
The fierceness of his feelings caught him off guard, but he’d think about it later. Over that beer he planned to drink back home. Without a certain blue-eyed, satin-skinned blonde to distract him and make him crave things he didn’t need.
“If we’re not leaving through the door, how do you plan to get us out of here?” Lilah asked.
She was nothing if not persistent. “If I tell you, will you stop with the Twenty Questions?”
“Yes, of course. I—”
“Deal,” he said flatly, cutting her off. “To answer your question—we’re going out through the hole I’m going to cut through the wall.”
Lilah watched in shock as Dominic turned his back on her. Stepping close to the expanse of rough gray concrete that formed the back of the cell block, he began to run his hands over it like a blind man exploring a lover’s face.
A score of questions screamed for answers in her head, competing for space with a dozen exclamations. The two common themes seemed to be “how on earth?” and “you’re out of your mind.”
Yet his silence, combined with his averted back, made it perfectly clear he didn’t want to talk.
Well, neither did she, Lilah thought, retreating to her bed. She could use some time to think. And to sift through all the contradictory emotions that were bouncing around inside her like rubber balls in a cement mixer.
She was barely settled, however, and nowhere close to sorting through the jumble of doubt, hope, fear and frustration vying for her attention, when the sound of the bolt being drawn in the outer door splintered the silence.
Her gaze snapped to Dominic. In the fraction of time it took for the door to swing open, her jailmate whirled and slid down the wall to sit in a crumpled heap on the floor, his arms dangling limply, his eyes shut, his head flopped to one side.
If she hadn’t known better, she’d have believed he was an injured man just barely holding on to consciousness. Heaven knew, the guard certainly bought it. Flicking the big American a dismissive look, he said something clearly contemptuous in San Timoteo’s version of Spanish as he headed for Lilah’s cell.
To her surprise, Dom answered back, his voice slurred convincingly.
The guard laughed. The sound was ugly, as was the lecherous look he sent Lilah’s way as he stooped down and slid the small tin plate clutched in his meaty hand through the gap at the base of the bars. He stood and spoke again, blew her a noisy kiss, then strolled back out the door.
The second the sound of the bolt sliding into place faded, Dominic straightened. “Bastard,” he bit out, his voice low but lethal.
Curiosity overcame Lilah’s earlier pique. “What did he say?”
“Nothing you need to hear.”
She pursed her lips. It was hardly the response she’d been seeking, but at least he was talking to her again. “I never knew you spoke Spanish.”
“I learned as a SEAL.” He hitched his muscular shoulders a fraction of an inch in one of his trademark shrugs. “Turns out languages are easy for me.”
“Oh.”
His gaze flicked to the plate. “You should eat.”
She considered the meager portion of beans and flat bread. The food was an unappetizing shade of gray, and she knew from experience it looked far better than it tasted. Even so, the sight of it made her stomach squeeze and her mouth water.
Yet how could she eat when he didn’t? “We’ll share it.”
His reply was immediate and forceful. “No. We won’t. You need it a hell of a lot more than I do.”
He clearly didn’t intend to budge. Since arguing would no doubt be fruitless, Lilah dutifully stood and retrieved the plate. She picked up the crude wooden spoon, unhurriedly ate exactly half of what was there, then walked over and slid the plate under the narrow gap between the floor and the bars.
Without a word, she went back to her bed. When she turned, he was giving her a hard look. She gazed unflinchingly back.
With a curse that made her wince, he reached for the plate, jerked it close, and ate.
“Do you really think you can hack through solid concrete with that flimsy bar?” she asked a moment later as he mopped up the last morsel of beans with the last scrap of bread. “And what about the guards? Won’t somebody outside notice what’s going on?”
“The wall’s aren’t made out of concrete. They’re made out of concrete block,” he corrected, climbing to his feet. “Cemented together with a local mortar, which is made out of straw and mud, and which is what I intend to go after. My flimsy little bar, in contrast, is made of a space-age titanium alloy ten times stronger than tempered steel. And nobody’s going to see what’s happening because the back wall’s built right on the edge of a drop. So yeah. I think my plan will work.”
He walked over and chucked the empty plate at the outer door with a fierceness that startled her. Yet when he turned, he appeared calm and in control, and when he spoke it was with an easy confidence she wanted desperately to believe in. “Give me a little credit, okay? I didn’t just get myself tossed in here hoping an idea would come to me. I know what I’m doing.”
“Yes, of course,” she said faintly. He might look like the boy she’d known, but clearly he was all grown-up. What’s more, he was right. He was her best, her only, hope of escape and questioning him at every turn wasn’t doing either of them any good.
“And now, since our hosts really don’t seem inclined to check up on us despite my bad manners—” he slid his blade free of its hiding place and once more headed for the back of his cell “—I might as well start. Why don’t you try to get some rest? You’re going to need it for later.”
She was being dismissed. Again. Yet this time she didn’t take offense, simply did as he suggested and laid down. Partly because there was nothing to be gained by arguing, but mostly
