Desert Ice Daddy by Marton, Dana (best motivational novels .txt) 📗

be safe because she’d gotten away from Gary and she was with Flint. But Christopher hadn’t been safe. She couldn’t make that mistake again.

Tomorrow, the voice had said.

Which meant that Christopher would have to spend one more night with those criminals. Almost another whole day in which anything could happen. She could hardly bear the thought; it wrung her heart out, leaving her empty.

“Why are they making us wait? This is driving me crazy,” she snapped.

“That’s why,” Akeem said without turning. “They want you scared and compliant this time. They probably figure we can’t have many resources left. They prefer us hungry and dehydrated.”

“Weak,” she said, summing it up. She did feel that already, listlessness interspersed with periods of murderous rage that someone would do this to her son. That rage gave her the energy to go on.

Although Akeem had come prepared, he hadn’t expected to spend days in Hell’s Porch. They had one bottle of mineral water left between the two of them, and at least another twenty-four hours to go. If they were lucky. If they were going in the right direction.

She didn’t know how she could possibly put all her hopes in the hands of Akeem Abdul, a man she’d barely seen in the past couple of years. But a man she knew to be true and good, nevertheless, she reminded herself.

She wasn’t going to think about what it had felt like to spend the night in his strong arms. Not now.

His skin was soft, stretched over hard muscles that came from hard riding. Akeem was a formidable horseman, and he’d seen her at Flint’s plenty of times with the wild mustangs Flint bought from the government each year to introduce to his breeding program.

His lean but powerful thighs had been pressed against the back of hers for most of the night and—

Good thing she hadn’t yet known how well the man could kiss.

So much for not thinking about him. She bit back a groan, looked up at the sun and wiped her sweat-beaded forehead. “The heat is definitely back today.” The cooling effect of last night’s rain was long gone, the ground as dry as if it had never happened, the only sign of recent moisture the plants that stood straighter and looked greener than the day before.

“We’ll stop for another break soon. The refinery shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours from here,” he said.

But he was wrong.

Either he’d remembered in riding distance—much faster than walking—or they were seriously slowing down due to their insufficient rations of food and water. The sun was ready to retire for the day by the time they rounded a dip in the landscape and came upon a higher point and she could see the refinery up ahead in a shallow bowl of rock and sand.

The complex looked deserted, no vehicles in sight. No sign of life whatsoever, no matter how carefully she looked, eyes squinted, her hand over her brows to block the sun.

Her heart dropped to the bottom of her grumbling stomach.

They had gambled everything on Akeem’s hunch. If they’d made a mistake by coming here, Christopher was in big trouble. Because there was no way to get back to the kidnapper’s assigned meeting point by tomorrow morning.

“Keep low.” Akeem crouched to stay below the waist-high brush that covered most of the landscape.

She followed his example, and another hour passed before they reached the first fence. Her thigh muscles were about ready to explode. Walking in a crouch for this long had put the worst boot camp–style exercise program to shame. “And now?”

“We go in and look around.” He was already moving toward a spot where a clump of larger bushes had grown close against the fence. He was unraveling the chain link by the time she caught up with him.

They squeezed through only to realize that the second fence was much sturdier than the first, with barbed wire on top and EPA notices every hundred feet or so warning everyone to keep out. The strip between the two fences had scarce vegetation, not much to hide behind. Anyone from the refinery could see them if they were looking.

Akeem signaled toward what looked like a beat-up guardhouse. He walked over, peeked in through the glassless window before going in.

“What are we doing here?” She followed him and closed the door carefully behind her.

“Waiting for the night to get a little darker. Getting some rest. Giving anyone who might be in there—” he indicated the refinery “—time to fall asleep.” He shrugged off the duffel bags, banged around a little to scare the snakes and scorpions out, then sat.

She did the same. Her shoulders and back ached from carrying the two briefcases all day. Even her blisters had blisters. The muscles in her legs throbbed. She was an active person, but her job required her to spend considerable time behind a desk. She hadn’t been on a multiday hike since Christopher had been born. Riding out to the south pasture once or twice a week hadn’t prepared her for this. She hoped Christopher was here, because she wasn’t sure how much farther she could go.

She pushed that thought aside. Nonsense. She would walk as far as necessary, even to the ends of the earth.

Akeem watched her as she stretched her fingers, then tightened them into a fist a couple of times, then rolled her shoulders. “Sore?”

“I’m so far past sore, I can’t even remember it. I think my muscles have set themselves on fire in protest.”

He smiled in the dim space, leaned against the wall, spread his legs. “Come over here.”

Her heart beat out a staccato rhythm.

The awareness was back between them with full force, and she wondered for a moment if this would always happen when they were in close proximity. Heaven help her if it did.

He waited.

She gave up pretending that she could have resisted.

When she scooted over to him, he turned her and pulled her closer. She would have been grateful for a reassuring hug,