PhD Protector Page 6

  She remembered the feel of his body against hers. He had definitely kept in shape. She glanced toward the bed, and the memory of waking in his arms this morning was so real she could almost feel the warmth of his fingers. “Speaking of sleeping—my offer still stands to bed down on the floor.”

  He shut off the water and began sponging plates. “That isn’t necessary. We can share the bed again. You don’t have anything to fear from me.”

  She wasn’t worried about him—not really. But her own strong attraction to him unsettled her. She couldn’t say what she might do if he wrapped his arms around her in the darkness again.

  Maybe he mistook her silence for disagreement. He dried his hands and turned to face her. “Look, we’re both adults,” he said. “I don’t know about your past relationships, but it’s been a long time since I slept with a woman. You’re beautiful and I like you and yes, I’m attracted to you. But I’m not going to do anything you don’t want.”

  The look in his eyes sent heat curling through her and she struggled to keep her voice even. “I haven’t been involved with anyone in a long time,” she said. “And yes, I am attracted to you, too. But I don’t think, under the circumstances, that acting on that attraction would be a good idea.”

  “No, it wouldn’t.” He crossed his arms over his chest. He had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and the corded muscles of his forearms stood out. “So are you okay with sharing a bed?”

  “Sure.” Though she doubted she would get much sleep with him so near.

  She helped him finish the dishes, the light outside fading away as they did so. He lit the oil lamp in the center of the table and left the box of matches beside it, then gestured toward the bathroom. “You can go first.”

  She debated taking a shower, but no telling what water would do to the collar, so she settled for a sponge bath, then brushed her teeth and resigned herself to sleeping in her clothes for a second night. Mark was waiting when she emerged from the bathroom, and slipped in behind her. She removed her shoes and slid under the covers and lay staring at the ceiling until he returned. He blew out the lamp and slid under the blanket beside her.

  Though their bodies didn’t touch, the heat of him seeped into her, and the subtle scent of him surrounded her—a mixture of shaving cream and lab reagents and male that left her longing to inch toward him. She shifted, trying—and failing—to get comfortable.

  “I know it’s hard, but try to sleep,” he said. “Everything is that much more difficult if you’re exhausted.”

  “They don’t ever come in here at night, do they? The guards?” The thought of one of those creeps watching her while she slept made her skin crawl.

  “They haven’t before. I’m a pretty light sleeper, so I think I’d know.”

  “Yeah, but I wasn’t here before,” she said.

  “Good point.” He slid his arm around her. “I won’t let them do anything to you. I promise.”

  She let herself relax against him. After a moment she moved closer and rested her head on his shoulder. “Is this all right?”

  His arm tightened around her. “It’s more than all right. Now try to get some sleep.”

  She felt safe in Mark’s arms—safe enough to drift into the most restful sleep she had had in weeks. She was deep in slumber, surrounded by darkness and the warmth and strength of Mark’s body against hers, when the blare of a light and a man’s shout roused her.

  “Get up!” someone ordered.

  She shielded her eyes with her hand and tried to see who was speaking. “What?”

  “Mr. Braeswood has ordered you moved,” the intruder said. “Now get going.”

  Chapter Six

  Heart slamming against her chest, Erin gaped at the three men with guns who had burst into the cabin. An icy breeze swept through the open door behind them, fluttering papers on the workbench and raising goose bumps on her bare arms.

  “What are you talking about?” Mark’s voice was sharp, and much more alert than she felt.

  “You’re moving.” The beefy guy who had fought with Mark earlier prodded him with the butt of the rifle. “Get up and get dressed to go.”

  Erin scrambled from the bed before the guard could focus on her, and began pulling on clothes, layering a sweater and her jacket over the T-shirt and jeans she had worn to bed, then shoving her feet into her boots.

  Mark dressed, too, also pulling on his coat. The blond guard and the wiry black man who had accompanied him earlier kept watch over them while a third guard lit an oil lamp and began packing the items on the workbench into a cardboard box that had once held vodka. The lamplight reflected off the blond peach fuzz of this younger guard, whose acne-scarred face made him look as if he was scarcely out of his teens.

  As Erin came more awake, her fear increased. If she and Mark were being moved, maybe it was to a more secure location. They might be separated. Or maybe Duane’s men planned to take them out into the wilderness and shoot them. She had heard rumors once that this was the way he had dealt with one of his followers who had done something to displease him. She caught Mark’s eye, trying to telegraph her panic.

  His gaze locked to hers and he gave an almost imperceptible nod. A clatter from the workbench made him jerk his head in that direction. “Hey!” His shout made her jump. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Before either guard could react, Mark had crossed the room and grabbed the arm of the man who was packing up the lab supplies. “This equipment is delicate and in some cases dangerous,” he snapped. “Break anything and you jeopardize everything I’ve been working on—everything Mr. Braeswood ordered me to do.” He yanked the box from the man’s hands. “Let me take care of this. You and one of the other men see to that trunk.” He indicated the silver metal trunk beneath the bench. “Don’t jostle it, and whatever you do, don’t drop it. It’s the key element in this entire project.”

  Erin stared at the box, a chill shuddering through her. She hadn’t noticed it before. Was it really that dangerous?

  The guard stepped back and eyed the trunk warily. “What’s in it?” he asked.

  Mark focused on rearranging items in the box. “Do you know why I’m here?” he asked.

  The guard furrowed his brow. “You’re building some sort of secret weapon?”

  “A nuclear bomb.” He turned to face the guard, one hand on the box beside him. He nodded to the trunk. “I’m almost finished. I won’t be to blame if you screw this up.”

  “Quit wasting time and get moving,” the blond guard, who had moved closer to Erin, said.

  The young man with Mark shrugged, slung his rifle across his back and bent to pick up the trunk. He grunted and managed to lift it a few inches.

  “Get someone to help you!” Mark’s voice was sharp with annoyance. “Didn’t you hear anything I just said?”

  The door was still open, letting in a bitter cold. Erin grabbed the blanket from the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders, though some of the chill that engulfed her came from inside her. What had happened to the calm, stoic man she had come to know? This version of Mark was a crazed mad scientist, exactly the kind of man who would build a nuclear weapon for a maniac. And what was really in that trunk? Had he actually been building Duane’s bomb, despite his denials to her?

  “Trey, you help move the box.” The blond guard indicated the black man, who had positioned himself by the door. “Don’t waste any more time.”

  Trey moved forward to help the younger man with the trunk. The two of them hefted it and shuffled toward the exit. Mark began packing more items from the workbench into the box and the blond guard positioned himself between the two prisoners, his rifle cradled in his arms.

  Time, which had been moving forward too quickly up to this point, seemed to slow down as the men with the trunk stepped through the door and onto the porch. The th
ud of their booted feet on the wooden steps echoed in the middle-of-the-night stillness. The lamp sputtered and Erin pulled the blanket more tightly around her. Mark stood beside the laboratory bench, his hand wrapped around a tall glass beaker. The blond man took a step toward the bench, blocking Erin’s view of Mark. She glanced back toward the open door.

  “Run!” The command had her moving toward the door before the meaning of the word had fully registered. The blond screamed, an animal howl of rage, and she turned to see him with his hands over his eyes, liquid dripping down his face, the rifle on the floor, almost at her feet. He shouted curses as Mark hurled a now-empty glass beaker at him, then grabbed Erin’s hand and dragged her toward the door. She pulled away and scooped up the rifle, then raced with him out onto the front porch.

  * * *

  MARK PAUSED AT the top of the steps, trying to get his bearings. In front of him and a little to the left, light spilled from the open back hatch of a black Humvee, where the other two guards struggled to shove the heavy trunk inside. One of them looked up and shouted, jolting Mark into action once more. Pulling Erin along behind him, he raced past the vehicle and down the rutted track that led away from the cabin.

  The thunder of gunfire shattered the night stillness, and shards of rock pelted the legs of his hiking pants. Erin screamed, and he held on to her more tightly. They stumbled along in the dim light of a quarter moon. Bright white patches glowed amid the rocks and he realized with a start that it had snowed recently.

  The rev of an engine behind them told him the guards had started the Hummer. “We can’t outrun a vehicle,” Erin sobbed.

  “No. But a vehicle—even a Hummer—can’t drive cross-country here.” He yanked her off the road and they stumbled and slid down a slope of loose rock. They wove in and out among stunted piñon and junipers, and clusters of boulders like crouching giants silvered in the moonlight.

  “I have to stop.” Erin pulled him back against one of these boulder formations, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

  “Are you okay?” He moved closer to study her face in the moonlight. Her hair was a wild tumble around her face, and the blanket flapped behind her like a cape.

  She nodded and swallowed. “Just winded. And scared. What about you?”

  “The same.” He took a deep breath. “I kept expecting a bullet to slam into my back at any minute.”

  She clutched his shoulder, fingers digging in hard. “What was that all about back there?” she asked. “All that rage over the lab equipment and the trunk?”

  “I wanted to catch them off guard. I’ve been so passive these past few months, that’s what they expect from me. I thought if I stunned them enough, they would agree to do as I asked. After all, they’re men who are used to obeying commands.”

  “You certainly startled me.” She still looked wary. “What was really in that trunk?”

  “Exactly what I told them—a nuclear bomb. Or rather, something that looks like a nuclear bomb, minus the fuel or the means of detonation. I built it months ago as a decoy, in case Duane ever pressed me for results. I figured I could show him the trunk and he would believe I had been making a good-faith effort. It’s not the suitcase nuke he wanted, but any serious reading on the subject would tell him he was asking the impossible. I wanted to placate him with something that at least looked probable, even if it wasn’t the real thing.”

  “Why would you try to placate someone like him?” she asked, with surprising vehemence.

  “Because I would do anything to get away from him and get back to my daughter, or at least to keep him away from her, including acting as if I was as dedicated to his crackpot cause as he is.”

  Her shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so angry at Duane I forget that I’m not the only one he’s hurt.”

  “I don’t blame you for being suspicious,” Mark said. “After all, you don’t really know me.”

  “No. But I want to trust you. I want to believe you’re a man who can be trusted.”

  Before he could respond to this confession, or even process it, she pushed away from the rock. “We should be going,” she said. “They’ll be coming after us.”

  He glanced over his shoulder, but heard no sounds of pursuit. Maybe the guards were being stealthy, but he didn’t think they would be at that point yet. “It will be morning before they can see well enough to track us,” he said. “We need to use that time to get as far away from the cabin as possible.”

  “I don’t know if I can keep up,” she said. “I can’t see where I’m going and I keep stumbling on the rock. Maybe we should split up so I won’t slow you down.”

  “No way,” he said. “If not for you, I wouldn’t have worked up the nerve to try to get away.” He squeezed her arm. “You’re doing great. Bringing that blanket was a good idea.” They would need all the warmth they could get. Already his fingers were numb and aching.

  “I got something better than a blanket,” she said.

  When she pulled the rifle from beneath the blanket, he could have kissed her.

  And then he was kissing her, anxiety and relief and pent-up need driving him to pull her tightly against him and press his lips to hers. She shivered slightly and he stilled, unwilling to move away, but knowing he would if she protested or pushed at him.

  Then all the stiffness went out of her and she melted against him, her arms sliding beneath his coat and encircling him, her mouth slanting against his, lips parting slightly so that he tasted her heady sweetness.

  He had forgotten how wonderful a woman could feel, how soft and strong, delicate yet powerful, every feminine part of her designed to remind him of what it meant to be a man. She shaped her body to his, and he slid his thigh between hers, her sigh of delight warming him as no fire could.

  He slid his hand to her side and knocked the rifle that hung from her shoulder, startling them both. Looking flustered, she jerked away. “I... I didn’t mean for that to happen,” she stammered. “I just...”

  “It’s okay.” He busied himself zipping up the ski jacket, as if he could somehow keep in the memory of her hands on him. “It happened. It’s okay.” More than okay.

  “We’d better get going,” she said. She looked to her left and right—anywhere but at him. “Which way?”

  He started to apologize, but he wasn’t sorry about the kiss. For now, he’d follow her lead in pretending it had never happened. “We can try to parallel the road as much as possible, but that may not be feasible all the time,” he said. He glanced overhead. “How much do you know about navigating by the stars?”

  “About as much as I know about nuclear physics,” she said. “What about you?”

  “Nothing,” he admitted.

  “I was hoping it was a secret hobby of yours,” she said. “Along with gourmet cooking with wild foods and erecting palatial wilderness shelters.”

  “Sorry to disappoint.” He smiled, even though he doubted she could see much of his expression in the dark. He felt so much lighter and freer out here in the open, even though they were far from out of danger. He put his hand on the rifle. “Let me carry this.”

  She relinquished the weapon. “Do you know how to use it?” she asked.

  “I do.” And he would, if necessary. He took her hand. “We’ll stick close to the road for now,” he said. “We should be able to hear anyone coming.”

  Even walking in the roadway, the going was tough. The twin ruts in the snow were barely visible in the pale moonlight, strewn with loose rock in others. The cold was numbing, slicing through his clothes as if they were made of paper. Even with the blanket wrapped over her thin jacket, Erin must be freezing. They picked their way across an icy stream, then fought to keep their balance on a steep pitch. “I wish I had grabbed a flashlight, too,” she said.

  “It would be too risky to use it,” he said. “I
did palm the box of matches while I was pretending to pack the items from the workbench. They’re in my pocket, but we ought to save them for starting a fire when we get somewhere safe to do so.”

  “You sound so confident,” she said. “I’m completely out of my element here.”

  “In the morning we should be able to get our bearings and come up with a plan,” he said. “All we have to do until then is focus on staying alive.”

  “Hiding from crazed killers, not freezing to death and not falling off a cliff. Piece of cake.”

  “Well, when you put it that—” He broke off the words, tensed. “Did you hear that?”

  They listened to the distant growl that grew louder. “It’s a vehicle,” she said. “Headed this way.”

  The roar grew much louder as the bright, blue-white beams of headlights swept around the corner. Mark pulled her to the side of the road, where they crouched behind a rock outcropping, out of range, for the moment, of those searching beams. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she said, her voice trembling.

  He stared toward the approaching headlights. Behind them, a third beam swept the sides of the road—probably a handheld spotlight. In daylight, he might have a chance of taking out the driver, and maybe one of the other men, but he would never be able to shoot three of them before one disabled him, and probably Erin, as well. With the bright lights blinding him, he didn’t have a chance.

  “This way,” he said, He pulled her around the outcropping of rock, feeling his way along a narrow ledge. By the time the vehicle crawled past them, they were well behind the screen of rock.

  Erin sagged against him as the sound of the engine faded. “Thank God. I was sure they were going to see us.”

  “They didn’t see us.” Not this time. They still had an hour or more before daylight to make their way down this mountain toward safety. It wouldn’t be easy, but maybe they were past the worst of it now.

  Then the ground gave way beneath them and they were sliding and falling, careening down a steep slope, Erin’s scream echoing in his ear as she was torn from his grasp.