Bride of the Tiger by Heather Graham (best large ereader .txt) 📗

Ortega went with him. Rafe and the sharpshooter stared at each other and counted off the seconds.

Then Rafe crashed through the window. The sharpshooter followed, covering them both with a burst of fire directed at the door. Rafe found Ashley first and pulled her to the floor, shouting that the others should duck.

It was really ridiculously easy. The sharpshooter shouted to the armed man guarding the hostages that he would be a fool to die for the criminal norteamericano.

He gave up without firing a shot. By then, Ortega and Costello were coming in through the front, herding two more men ahead of them. To Rafe’s amazement, one of them was George Galliard.

He couldn’t dwell on that for the moment, though; he saw his brother and clasped him tightly in an embrace.

But then he even pushed Jimmy from him. “Where’s Tara?”

“Out—out somewhere with Elliott.”

“Wait!” Costello ordered Rafe. But it was too late—Rafe was already out the door, running into the night.

He paused a short distance from the hut, looking left, right and forward. The mountain was so dark. It seemed to have an evil pulse. No, the pulse was his heartbeat. It was the panic, the fear, the desperation bubbling up within him.

And then he heard it—a scream. Tara. Sick with dread, but galvanized, Rafe started running. He veered, he slid, he crashed into the trees. She screamed again; the sound was nearer.

He saw her, and his heart caught. She was so close to the edge. Struggling. And there was Elliott. A big man, his blond hair gleaming in the night. He was laughing as she screamed. Bending over her, saying something, taunting her, touching her…

Something burst inside Rafe’s brain. He thought he could rip Elliott into a hundred thousand pieces, do it savagely, do it horribly. He didn’t feel quite human. Power rippled through him and he didn’t remember taking the last few steps; he was just there, driving his fingers into Elliott’s hair, wrenching for all he was worth, tearing the man away from her.

Elliott came up swinging. Rafe ducked, something warning him that his adversary was tough. He pitched himself into the air, bringing his full weight down on Elliott. They wrestled, spinning in the dust, against the rock. Rafe felt it all. Elliott aimed a well-delivered blow at Rafe’s jaw. For a moment, the night spun—stars bursting inside his head instead of against the sky. He saw the man’s fist rise again; he saw the hate in the powder blue eyes, and he twisted just in time.

He saw Tara there, standing too close to the edge. “Move!” he shrieked to her. “Tara, damn you, move!”

He saw her indecision; he saw her anguish. She was trying to figure out a way to help him.

He catapulted, putting Elliott beneath him, slamming his fist against his jaw. He took a pause. “Get out of here so I don’t have to worry about you, too!”

Elliott swung and caught Rafe’s jaw again. “Go!” Rafe shouted.

Tara ran.

“Tyler!” Elliott raged. “If I go, you’re going.”

“Then let’s do it, damn it!” Where the hell was Costello?

They started to twist again, and Rafe got in another blow. They broke and stood, coming closer and closer to the ledge. They used their feet; they used their hands. Rafe slammed a good right hook under Tine Elliott’s jaw. Elliott let out a grunt and went down, but the impetus took Rafe with him—over the ledge.

So this is it, Rafe thought fleetingly.

But to his amazement he hit another shelf just a short way down. He looked over a few feet, dragging himself up, leaning against a rock.

He gasped for breath and dragged in the mountain air. Elliott was a foot away, out like a light.

“Rafael!”

Costello was above him at last. He saw Rafe and Tine, and he grinned. “You need some help?”

Rafe laughed. It felt good to laugh. “Yeah, yeah. I could use some help. Take the carcass away!”

Ortega and the lieutenant came down to collect Tine Elliott’s unconscious form.

Rafe waved away Ortega’s hand when he would have helped him. “I need to catch my breath. I’ll be up in a minute.”

Costello didn’t really think when he passed Tara on the mountain path. There was terror in her eyes, fear, anxiety—she looked like a beautiful gazelle caught in bright lights, elegant, still, ready to bolt like lightning.

“My God, where’s Rafe?”

“Down—down on the ledge.”

She bolted.

Costello realized that he hadn’t told her that the man was fine. He shrugged. She would see for herself.

Tara just ran, her heart racing. Only the moon and stars illuminated her way; nothing but raw emotion guided her. There was no time to think that he was a man who had betrayed her, too. She was terrified, more so than she had been through any of it. The fear for Ashley, the terror when Tine had dragged her out. None of that meant anything now, nothing in the past, nothing in the future. She only knew that if Rafe was injured or—oh, God! no, she couldn’t even think the word—she would not be able to bear it. She had to hurry. If she could just touch him, she could stop his pain. It was madness, but it drove her relentlessly through the trees, over the bracken, branches ripping at her clothing, stones and roots tripping her. Nothing stopped her.

She found him just below the ledge. Scrambling precariously down to him, she clutched a decaying root and paused, her heart seeming to rise to her throat and catch there, no longer beating.

He was dead. Blood trickled from his mouth. His eyes were closed, and he was hunched back against the rock, as still and pale as the stone.

“Rafe!” Tara shouted in desperation. Frantically she scrambled the last few feet to reach him, kneeling at his side, touching his forehead, taking his hands.

“Rafe, Rafe, please, I love you so much. I’ve got to get help. Hang on. I’ll be back. I’ve got to get them down here. Don’t—don’t—you have to be all right. You have to be. I