there in the ignition, beckoning to her.
Perfect. Or would be, if—
Ah, another break. He had his head out the window, muttering as he tried to see around the line in front of him in an endeavor to learn what was holding them up.
This was the moment she’d been waiting for. And feared she would never get. But somebody upstairs must have been listening to her prayers. Haley didn’t hesitate.
Unsnapping her seat belt, she leaned forward, snatched the keys out of the ignition and, with a pitch worthy of the Seattle Mariners, sent them flying out the open window, managing to just miss his head. With satisfaction, she heard them striking the pavement.
“Whoops.”
Chase’s ears were red with righteous anger when he withdrew his head. “Why, you little—”
He must have choked on whatever would have followed, because she never heard it. He couldn’t have been thinking clearly, or for that matter thinking at all, when he opened his door and exited the SUV. On the other hand, there was no other way for him to recover the keys. Haley had counted on that.
Chase was quick, but she was quicker. Before he could get the keys and stop her, she was out the door on her side, dashing across the shoulder, plunging into a ditch and scrambling under a rail fence. She was busy losing herself in the pine woods on the other side before it struck her that he had her purse. She had no money. No cell phone. What was she going to do on her own in a place where she knew no one?
Her escape hadn’t been so clever after all.
* * *
Chase ignored the blasts of the car horns behind him. Now that his brain was functioning again, he figured those blasts meant the traffic was rolling once more but the vehicles stuck behind his SUV weren’t.
Too bad. Let them squeeze around the SUV when they got the chance. He had a task more important than going back and moving it out of the way. He had Haley Adams to hunt down. When he caught up with her, and he would, he was going to blister her with language she wouldn’t forget. And that was the very least he was going to do.
She had disappeared into the woods on the other side of the fence. He had seen that much and was able to enter the forest at the same spot. Beyond that, he didn’t know. From here she could have chosen any direction, weaving her way through the ranks of the tall pines.
He looked for some flash of movement ahead of him. There was none. That slim figure was nowhere in sight.
Where are you, Haley?
The dense canopy of the trees cast a cool, damp shade below. Chase stood still, hoping to catch some sound that would betray her. All he heard was the distant call of a dove. Sounded like a dove, anyway. But what did he know? He had a limited knowledge of birds.
Silence followed. Nothing to hear now. And nothing to smell but the sharp fragrance of the pines. So it was his sight he needed to depend on.
Training in the army rangers had taught him tracking. He used that now, walking in a circle, gazing down at the forest floor for signs. It wasn’t long before he picked up the partial footprint of a tennis shoe in the moist earth. The toe pointed the way for him.
After that he was able to spot other signs, several places where the pine needles had been recently disturbed, sticks just as recently snapped underfoot, more prints where there was clear earth.
He figured she wanted to leave the forest behind her as soon as possible. It looked like once she’d chosen her direction, she had managed to stick to it. It didn’t take Chase long to discover bright sunlight ahead of him.
Clearing the last of the trees, he reached another rail fence. On the other side was an open pasture. He was disappointed not to see her in the pasture or the field beyond it. Damn. Had he lost her altogether?
He stood there, trying to decide what to try next. Off to one end of the pasture was a horse shelter, enclosed against the weather on three sides, with the fourth side left wide-open for the animals to enter.
No sign of any horses in the pasture now, just the silent shelter. Chase wondered. Did it bear investigating? With no other alternative, it seemed like a good idea.
Hand on one of the fence posts, he vaulted over the top rail, cleared the barrier and strode toward the shelter. The dung in the pasture, though not recent, was evidence horses were grazed here at one time and apparently had been moved elsewhere.
He reached the shelter and looked inside. It was deserted. Nothing in there but a stack of hay keeping dry under the roof. Wasted moments, he told himself. He needed to get back to his search.
Chase was just turning away, ready to look elsewhere, when out of the corner of his eye he saw the hay quiver slightly. Or had he imagined it? Must have. All the same...
He went back inside and squatted on his heels beside the mound, waiting quietly. There was no further movement. He was about to get to his feet when he heard it. A faint rustling inside the pile.
Probably a small creature. Maybe a mouse. At least he hoped it was nothing large.
Willing to take the risk, he plunged his hands into the stack, where his fingers probed around in the vicinity of the rustling. Almost immediately he encountered warm flesh. Yep, something wild had burrowed into the hay all right. Except it was of the human variety. No doubt of that when his hands closed around a pair of very nice, smooth-skinned ankles.
Grasping them tightly, because the body they were attached to began to resist, he dragged Haley Adams out of the hay where she’d been hiding.
“Now just look what we’ve turned up here,” he gloated.
He was pleased with what he’d hooked, but once she spit the bits of hay out of her mouth, she was anything but a docile catch. Managing to twist her legs free of his grip, she flipped over on her back, and when he tried to grab her again, she fought him like the animal he’d been worried about.
She kicked, she clawed, she punched, she jabbed, she writhed and rolled and heaved. She even managed to yell language at him that he hadn’t heard since the army, though never from the women in the ranks, tough as some of them were. No question of it. Haley Adams was one pissed-off female.
The only way Chase could subdue her in the end was to pin her down by lowering his body full length on hers. She went totally still then. Maybe because she was as instantly aware of their intimate contact as he was. And God help him, that soft, womanly flesh beneath his weight not only felt good, it smelled good.
There was a long silence. Their gazes met and locked in a battle of wills. Or was it that? Was it maybe not so much a conflict as it was a shared desire? Chase’s gaze drifted down to her parted lips. He might not have even considered kissing those lips if she hadn’t used that moment to start squirming.
It was a bad movement. He felt himself beginning to grow hard.
“Let me up,” she whispered. “You’re suffocating me.”
His only defense against her breathy plea was a dry “You could have suffocated inside that hay.”
“The hay wasn’t heavy. You are.”
He
