“Only the unimportant things. This is where we go across.”
He stopped, allowing her to catch up. Despite the gunfire from the valley below, in the nighttime stillness she could hear the labored sound of her own breathing.
The moonlight illuminated the path he was indicating they should take. Even in comparison to the steepness of the trail that led up to the plateau, the ascent looked impossible. It ran straight up the rock face, hand and toe holds invisible in the darkness.
“I hope all those years of sitting behind a desk haven’t taken too great a toll.”
Without waiting for a response to his gibe, Landon began to clamber over the rocks, seeming to locate the next hold intuitively. Grace watched him for maybe ten seconds before she admitted that, no matter how she might feel about him, she had no choice about this.
She could follow Landon, or she could wait here for her captors to find her. Mike Mitchell was dead, and Stern might be, as well. Although she had not felt the affinity for the colonel that she and the pilot had quickly found, he had been another American. Someone to talk to. Someone with whom to share her concerns about whatever was going to happen next.
If she broke with Landon, then she would be on her own. And very much alone.
It had already become evident that the tribesmen who’d captured her were unwilling to negotiate an exchange. She and the others had been held for some purpose, and without knowing exactly what that purpose was…
She put her hand on the rock, pulling herself up onto the slope Landon was climbing. She could hear him above her, but she refused to look up, fiercely concentrating instead on finding the next fingerhold.
After all, there would be plenty of time after tonight’s journey was over to wonder about what would come next. And time, too, to worry about the very different kind of danger being in such close proximity to Landon James would pose for her emotions.
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