clattered along the path outside the hut. Then they stopped.
For a long moment, Alex heard nothing. She waited a little longer and then eased toward the door.
Before she reached it, an arm wrapped around her middle and a hand clamped over her mouth, stifling a scream rising up her throat.
She struggled to free herself, but the arm holding her tightened, trapping her arms against her side and her back against a hard wall of a chest. “Shh,” he whispered against her ear, his breath heated and minty. Not what Alex would have expected from an enemy rebel.
“Check in that building,” someone said in French outside.
Alex froze. Though she was unsure of her captor, the men outside had been shooting. She’d make her escape from the man holding her after the other men passed in the street. Until then, she held still against the warm, hard surface of a hulking, big man with arms like steel vises. As she waited, she listened for the sound of movement outside the building.
Someone called out next to the door, “I have this one, you check the next.”
The door jiggled.
The hand over her mouth dropped to her arm and she was shoved backward, behind the man.
If she wanted, she could escape him. But to what?
She couldn’t go back out into the street and risk being captured by the rebels storming the village. She’d be better off taking her chances with her unknown captor in the dark interior of the hut.
The door swung inward.
Alex was shoved behind the opening door as a beam of sunlight slashed across the floor.
A man in black clothing stepped into the building, pushing the door wider with the rifle he held in his hands.
As the light beam fanned out, it chased away the darkness of the rest of the room. In the gray light out of the sunshine’s wedge, Alex studied her captor.
He wore a desert-camouflage military uniform and a helmet, and carried a wicked-looking rifle of the type the Special Forces units carried. She searched for some indication of whose team he played for. Was he American, French or—God forbid—one of the paid mercenaries so often found in conflicts where they didn’t belong? He wasn’t from Niger. The skin she could see was too light. Granted, it appeared tanned, but not the rich darkness of the native Niger people.
The man who’d pushed open the door stepped inside the room, his weapon raised. Then he fired several bullets.
Alex flinched and shrank back into the corner. If the shooter turned any farther in their direction, he’d hit her captor.
The rebel turned slowly.
Alex’s captor leaped forward, slamming the butt of his weapon into the side of the shooter’s head. The weapon dropped from his hands and fell to the floor. Before the man could react, the military guy pulled a knife and slit the shooter’s throat. Her captor bent to retrieve the other man’s weapon. With equally efficient movements, he removed the bolt, slid it into his pocket and laid the remainder of the rifle on the ground next to the dead man.
Then her captor turned to her and held out his hand. “We have to move.”
She remained frozen in her position crouched on the floor of the hut, her heart beating so fast she could barely breathe to keep up with her need for oxygen.
His hand shot out, palm up. “Now!”
Alex stared at the big, calloused hand that had just dispatched a rebel fighter with such ease and efficiency of movement. Would he do the same to her?
Shouts outside the open door of the hut shook Alex out of her stunned silence.
Her captor dropped his arm, eased up to the door and glanced out. Without turning, he spoke softly, “If you want to live, come with me now.”
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Introductions later. Run now!” He hooked her arm, jerked her up off the floor and rushed her to the doorway.
After a quick pause, he dragged her out into the street and back toward the hills.
They’d gone past several huts when Alex remembered why she’d returned to the village in the first place. She dug her heels into the dirt and ripped her arm out of his grasp.
He wheeled around, his gaze shooting in all directions. “Why are you stopping?”
“I came to help Reverend Townsend and his wife,” she said.
His lips pressed into a thin line. “You can’t help anyone if you’re dead. We have to get out of the village, before they find that man’s body.”
“I didn’t kill him,” she pointed out. “You did.”
“It was him or us.” The man grabbed her arm and pulled her off the street and into the shadow of one of the huts. “Now isn’t the time to argue. The terrorists outnumber us twenty to one. And they won’t hesitate to shoot first. If they take prisoners, they won’t be kind to them.”
“Exactly my point. The reverend and his wife stayed behind with a new mother and her baby. I can’t leave them to the terrorists.”
“You will do them no good if these ISIS bad guys capture you, as well. The best we can do is get out of here, notify someone with more firepower than we have and let them launch a rescue mission.”
“Why should I go with you? I don’t even know if you’re one of the good guys.”
“If I was one of the bad guys, I would have left you behind for ISIS to find instead of wasting my time arguing with you.” He peeked around the corner of the building. “Now, if you’re done flapping your jaw, we need to move.”
He had an American accent, and, despite his gruff demeanor, he had saved her from being filled with bullets. Or had he saved himself? Either way, she was still alive and he was the reason.
This time he didn’t grab her and drag her; he glanced back and raised his eyebrows. “Ready?”
She nodded.
He held out his hand.
Alex laid hers in his. A jolt of awareness raced up her arm into her chest. His fingers curled around hers, strong, sure and rough. A fleeting thought ran through her mind. What would it feel like to have those hands run freely over her naked body?
Shocked at her thoughts, Alex shook herself and fell in step with the man who had her life in his hands. Once he got them out of the current situation, he could do anything he wanted with her.
A trickle of fear and something else slipped down her spine. Alex refused to think past getting out of the village to somewhere safe where they could hide. For all she knew, she was trading one bad set of cards for another.
* * *
JAKE HADN’T EXPECTED to find an American woman in the village. When she’d run into the hut where he’d been hiding, he knew he couldn’t leave without taking
