Nicole’s neck. “Don’t do this. I have been planning this rescue for months. I’m here to take you home. You, Nicole.” He kept his voice low, but his tone vibrated with fury and frustration.
An odd sense of familiarity sketched down her spine. Something about his voice …
“I will not do anything that could jeopardize my objective. Got it?”
Nicole’s temper spiked. “Did I ask you to save me?”
She felt him tense, his fingers digging into her scalp. “Get your ass moving, or I’ll carry you out of here.”
A frisson of fear slithered through her. Indecision. Anguish. “I won’t leave her. If you don’t take her, I’m not going, either.” To prove her point, Nicole shoved the boot into his chest and let it drop.
Even with the night shadows, she couldn’t miss the lethal scowl he narrowed on her.
“Lafitte!” another male voice whispered just outside her plywood shelter. “What the hell’s the hold up? Haul ass!”
Her rescuer bit out another curse, in French this time, and pivoted to where Tia slept. Bending over her, he scooped the girl into his arms.
Relief and gratitude swept through Nicole and left her trembling.
When Tia woke and whimpered in fright, the man clapped a hand over her mouth … which only frightened Tia more.
Quickly Nicole scrambled over and stroked Tia’s arm, squeezed her hand. “It’s okay, mija. Es un amigo.” She tugged the man’s hand away from Tia’s mouth, then tapped her own finger to Tia’s lips. “Shh.”
Nicole didn’t miss the irony of hushing a girl who hadn’t spoken a word since arriving at the camp, traumatized and alone. Tia raised wide brown eyes so full of blind trust that Nicole’s heart twisted. She prayed trusting these men, attempting an escape with them, didn’t prove a deadly mistake.
When Tia quieted, Nicole jammed the boots on her feet and crawled out of her plywood lean-to in time to see her rescuer pass Tia off to the second man.
“What the hell?” the second man whispered harshly.
“Change of plans,” he grumbled under his breath, then stalked back to Nicole. “Ready?” He offered her a hand up, which she took. When he’d pulled her to her feet, he drew her close, and she grabbed one of his muscular arms while she found her balance. “We have to move fast. If you can’t run, I’ll carry you.”
Judging by the size of the arm she held and the width of his chest, she had no doubt he could carry her for miles. The notion started an odd tremble low in her belly. She shook her head. “No. I can run.”
“Good. Keep your head down, and do exactly as I say, when I say. Got it?” His tone and face were hard and unyielding.
She bristled a bit at his high-handedness but swallowed the sharp retort that came to mind. Under the circumstances, she’d forgive his bossiness. “Got it.”
He seized her hand and hauled her with him as he moved to the hole cut in the cage that had imprisoned her. The second man had already carried Tia out and was headed toward the perimeter fence. She scurried through the gap and glanced warily around the dark camp, her heart thundering.
Two shadowy dark figures lay unmoving in the dirt by the weapons cache, and a sick understanding crawled through her. Her rescuers had killed those men and who knew how many others in order to reach her. Bile rose in her throat, and she fought the urge to vomit.
As he rose to his feet, her rescuer shoved a cumbersome-looking pair of goggles on his head, then pulled a large handgun from the waist of his fatigues, reinforcing her recognition of his deadly skill. Her breath hung in her lungs. Apprehension shuddered through her.
Before she could reconcile this lethal soldier with the man who’d kissed her so sweetly and dried her tear moments earlier, he grabbed her arm and ran. She stumbled, trying to keep up with the pace he set, and gritting her teeth, she forced her exercise-deprived legs to move faster. She refused to slow him down, be a hindrance to their escape.
When they reached the hole cut in the perimeter fence, she had precious seconds to rest while the first man shimmied through the hole on his belly. As they coaxed Tia through the gap, Nicole gasped for breath, already winded. The pitch blackness of the jungle loomed beyond the fence that served not only to keep prisoners in, but also to keep wild animals out. Their escape route lay through that dense, wild terrain.
“Nicole.” Her rescuer waved her toward the hole in the fence. “Come on, cher.”
The endearment reverberated in her head as she dropped to her knees in preparation to crawl through the hole. She recognized the colloquial Cajun French term, pronounced sha, which she heard often in her home state. “You’re from Louisiana.”
He stilled for an instant, and she felt more than saw his gaze boring into hers. “Yes.” Before she could respond, he put a hand on her head and shoved her down. “Go!”
She did, with Cajun Man at her heels. Already the second man had disappeared into the thick foliage with Tia. Once through the fence, her rescuer dug in his pack and gave her a pair of goggles like the ones he and his partner wore. “Put these on.”
She obeyed, then marveled at the green images that leaped out of the blackness of the night. Night vision goggles. Of course. She studied him with her newly enhanced vision, but he, too, wore a pair of goggles that obscured her view of his face. The goggles only confirmed for her that he was dark-haired and broad-shouldered and had a heavy layer of stubble covering his cheeks and chin. She’d had little chance to familiarize herself with the goggles before he grabbed her hand and pulled her into the jungle.
Behind them, a voice shouted in the camp. A warning. An alert. Someone had discovered the dead guards or her empty cage.
Cajun Man’s hand tightened around hers. “Damn! Go, go, go!”
Through the overgrown jungle, she heard the rebel encampment waking, engines starting, angry shouts. He tugged her arm, urging her to go faster, and adrenaline fueled her feet.
Their escape path led them up the steep side of a mountain, and soon her muscles trembled from exertion. Nicole used her free hand to grab limbs and roots, anything she could use to help pull herself up the incline as he hauled her forward by the hand. She couldn’t quit, had to find the strength to press on. Letting the rebel soldiers catch her now would mean certain death.
Wide-leafed branches slapped at her legs, her face. Around her, the eyes of nocturnal animals glowed in her goggles, and she fought the fear that threatened to suffocate her. She had to keep moving, keep running. Keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Finally, they reached the top of the incline, and the terrain leveled out. Cajun Man never slowed their pace. The foliage thinned out in places making their progress easier. Many minutes later, when Nicole thought she might drop from exhaustion, he slowed at last and led her behind a wide tree trunk where his partner had stopped with Tia.
She gulped oxygen and collapsed on the ground beside the little girl. Tia crawled close and buried her head in Nicole’s chest.
“Where are we?” Cajun Man asked his friend, who’d pulled out a small gadget she couldn’t
