She stood. She stepped around the tree. She looked up.
She couldn’t see anything. Not anything. There was no moon. The meek starlight could not pierce the branches to reach the floor of the forest.
But this was stupid. The car was somewhere in the inky dark, close enough for her to find. She climbed, using branches and brush to pull herself up, and found the fast downhill trip meant a tough uphill grind. She thought she was close to her car. Then she found herself at the bottom of a rock cliff that extended as high as she could reach, that she couldn’t find a way around . . . and she still couldn’t see anything.
The trees creaked in the breeze. The scents of pine and cool dirt swirled in the air.
She stood there, her hand resting on the cold, hard stone, and realized—she was absolutely, totally alone.
Her car had disappeared. Her cell phone was gone. She couldn’t go up. She couldn’t stay here. She had to go down.
She sniffled, wiped her nose on her sleeve, and sniffled again.
She started limping downhill.
She wasn’t as afraid of the killer now.
She was afraid of the wilderness.
She was a city girl who had flunked out of Girl Scouts.
She didn’t know how to tie a knot or start a fire.
There were probably wolves out here.
The night was so dark. The stars wheeled across the sky. Every time something brushed her face, she softly screamed and flapped her arms hard enough to take wing. Once she flapped so hard she slipped and fell.
Bats. Or bugs. Or both.
Every inch of this mountain was steep.
Her sneakers were not made for this kind of descent. They were boat shoes. They had little nautical flags on the heels. They were cute. They weren’t made to walk for hours and hours. And hours and hours. And hours.
Stupid California. No civilized place would have mountains so steep she had to sit on her butt and slide. And slide. And slide faster and faster until she slid right off an embankment and landed in the soft dirt that wasn’t soft enough.
The impact knocked the breath out of her and made her feel her bruises—her side and her shoulder—and her right cheek felt as if she’d punched herself with her fist. Which, during the car’s tumble, she very possibly had.
She rested there because . . . because she was tired. She wanted to give up. She wanted to curl up and die.
This was Eli’s fault. Why wasn’t he here instead of her? He was the big primitive mountain man. He’d survived in the mighty Andes in the middle of winter. He’d probably laugh at her fears, pick her up, and carry her to safety.
And to hell with her pride, she’d let him.
Damn him. Where was he? She was not moving from this spot until he found her.
Tears sprang to her eyes. She’d been walking for so long. She needed to sleep, but it was too chilly and—
A charley horse brought her to her feet. “No. No! Not now!” She hopped down the slope, trying to ease the cramping. “Owie, owie!”
Her heroines never got charley horses, especially not on a mountainside in a pitch-black night, and they never said, “Owie!” which was stupid and juvenile and didn’t help one bit.
But somehow it did make her feel better, even when she stepped into the stream she could hear but not locate.
The cold water cured her charley horse right now. She cursed, stepped out, knelt, put her face right in the water, and got a drink. She splashed her face and felt sweat, grime, and fear wash away. She took off her shoe, poured out the water, wrung out her sock, put them back on, stood, and kept walking.
And realized with a shock that she could see shapes. The dark wasn’t so dark. The sky wasn’t so black.
Night was ending.
She rested and waited as the sky turned gray, then faintly blue. It must have been five or six in the morning. She looked up the slope, and couldn’t believe she’d come down that perilous incline. She looked ahead and couldn’t believe the mountain could still fall away at her feet.
Was there no level ground left in the world?
But light made the descent easier. She went around the precipices instead of falling off them, around trees instead of bumping into them. As the sun rose and cast glorious light across the land, she stepped out of the forest and into a valley . . . and there she found herself in a vineyard, overgrown and untended.
She was back in Bella Valley.
All she had to do now was find her way home without getting killed.
And she could really use some breakfast.
Chapter 41
For two hours, Eli drove Browena Road in the dark, searching for a sign of Chloë, and found it near the summit in a trail of broken plastic and glass from taillights. He followed the red shards into a turnout that ended in nothingness. Getting out of his truck, he shone his spotlight along the trail of wreckage to the shattered Ford Focus.
Had she survived?
He made the descent too fast, skidding and sliding on the slick pine needles, and discovered . . . Chloë was gone.
He found her cell phone in the back window, smashed and unusable.
Using his flashlight, he looked around, found her trail, and then, at last, he could breathe again.
She wasn’t safe. He wasn’t stupid enough to think that. She might have broken bones. She was probably in shock. But no one had forced her out of the car; she had left on her own. She hadn’t been kidnapped, and there wasn’t a blood trail. She had a determined spirit, and she would survive.
For two hundred yards, he tracked her descent. He found the place where she had crouched behind a tree. He saw where she tried to climb up and realized she was lost. There, he hesitated. He wanted to go down after her. When he thought of the drop-offs and the dangers of navigating that mountain in the dark, he remembered his own ordeals in the Andes. Because of those months he spent alone, barely surviving, hunting his food and dodging his pursuers, he knew how to track Chloë . . . in the light. For the first time, he was glad of that ordeal, for it had trained him well. He knew that in this bleak darkness, he might miss her. That would be disastrous. And if she was hurt, he’d be unable to bring her up to his truck across such steep, rugged terrain.
No. He knew every inch of Bella Valley. He knew her likely path of descent: In the dark, without any idea where she should go, he knew where this part of the mountain would take her. He would drive down, and if she hadn’t made it to the bottom, he would hike up to find her.
Her computer case was still in the car, leaning against the downhill front door. He reached in the broken window and grabbed it. The computer was probably smashed, too, but someone might be able to retrieve her data off the hard drive, and right now, that might mean something in their search for whoever wanted her dead.
He knew, too, that she cherished her computer and the book she kept there, and his effort was now more about renewing his courtship than seeking evidence. He was a selfish ass, an excellent strategist, and . . . and he would do anything, sacrifice anything, including his life, for her.
In the cool predawn where morning was merely a hint and a promise, he rushed back to his truck, then headed down the road toward the bottom of the mountain. As soon as he got back in the valley and within cell phone range, his phone rang. He glanced at it.
Rafe. Undoubtedly inquiring what he was doing, where he was going, whether he had gone mad with grief.
Eli ignored it.
The sun peeked over the horizon.
Ringing again. He glanced at it.
DuPey. Undoubtedly ordering him to return and seek immediate care.
He turned off the phone and pulled the battery.
He didn’t need the distraction of trying to soothe Nonna or convince his brothers he was okay. More important, he didn’t need the police tracing his GPS as he had traced Chloë’s.
He drove the highway, then the side road; then at the broken-down sign reading, INTERESTING WINES, he turned into the unpaved driveway. This winery had
been one of two dozen in Bella Valley that had fallen victim to the recession, and if Chloë had made it down the mountain, she was here: isolated and alone, hungry and cold.
He stopped to open the gate and examined the tracks in the dirt. No one else had driven this road lately, and that meant she was safe from her killer, whoever he was.
Eli drove past the tumbledown farmhouse, looking for any sign that Chloë had been there, then turned off into the gently sloping vineyard planted with a tangle of chardonnay grapes. Putting the truck in a low gear, he chugged through the long grass beside the end row, searching for one small, lone figure.
He saw no one.
Rolling down the window, he called Chloë’s name.
Nothing answered but the gently warming breeze.
He reached the end of the row. Here the mountain rose abruptly from the earth, and Eli knew that far above, Browena Road curved its way toward the summit. The mountain’s natural drainage channels should have led Chloë here, so he parked the truck and walked along the tree line, looking for proof that Chloë had descended to this place. If she hadn’t, he’d go up that mountain after her. He would find her no matter where she had gone.
But there: footprints beside a stream, turning, trekking along the edge of the forest toward whatever she could find in this abandoned winery. Breathless with relief and anticipation, he got back in the truck and drove along between the forest and the ends of the rows, watching for her footprints to trail off into the tall grass.
He found them, a straight line leading right to a fig tree, ripe with fruit. Some had been plucked and eaten. “Good girl,” he said. Good survival instincts.
After that, it was easy. He drove through the remnants of a small orchard of plums and straight toward the vineyard’s sagging wine-making shack.
She was there, stretched out on canvas bags on a broken bench on the broken porch, asleep.
He parked the truck, walked toward her. Tears prickled his eyes as he approached.
He’d found her. Thank God, he’d found her, and now . . . how could he ever let her go again?
Softly he called her name.
For a moment she didn’t stir, so deeply asleep was she.
Then she was on her feet, her face bruised and fierce, a broken two-by-four held in her hand, ready to swing.
“Whoa!” He held up his hands.
For one long moment she stared blankly. Then she recognized him. Her eyes kindled with gladness. She flung the makeshift club aside, jumped off the porch, and ran to him.
Gently, he caught her in his arms and held her, and as he petted her head, she said over and over, “I knew you’d find me, Eli. I knew you would.”
She might not like him anymore, but she did have faith in him, and that was a start back in the right direction.
Tilting her face up to his, he examined the bruise on her cheek and under one eye, and cuts scattered across her forehead and neck caused by flying glass. “Where else are you hurt?”
“My shoulder aches, and I’m still jarred by the impact.”
“Anything broken?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but slid her jacket off her shoulders and lifted her T-shirt.
Her left side was bruised.
“Can you raise your arm?” he asked. “Can we get this off of you?”
“I don’t think so.” She grimaced and flexed her shoulder. “At least, I don’t want to try.”
“I’ll get you out.” Pulling out his pocketknife, he sliced her T-shirt from the neckline to the end of the sleeve in both directions, then sliced it down to the hem and pulled the rags away from her.
“Eli!” She half laughed.
But he was not amused. The sun too clearly illuminated bruises caused by the seat belt across her collarbone and between her breasts. Her shoulder showed no damage, but he never doubted she had smacked it hard. “Anything below the waist?”
She stepped back. “No, and I like these jeans, so put that knife away.”
“Darling, cutting off your clothes is the best thing we could do for them. They’re ruined.” But he shut the knife and put it away.
She looked down at herself. As if for the first time, she realized how much dirt caked her, how badly the wreck and the descent had frayed the cloth of every garment she wore. She sighed unhappily. “I really did love these jeans.”
He pulled out the knife again.
Hastily she said, “Nothing’s broken. Considering the shape of my car, I came off lightly. But what happened to you?” She touched the place where his eyebrows had been.
“I’ve got a first-aid kit in the truck.” He helped her back into her jacket. “Let’s get you an ice pack and some painkiller and move to another location, and I’ll tell you the whole story.”
He got her settled in the truck. He turned on the heated seat for her, gave her an emergency ice pack and two aspirin washed down with a partial bottle of water he’d found rolling around in the backseat. After putting a blanket over her lap, he drove as swiftly as he dared back toward the highway.
“Why are we moving?” she asked.
“If whoever forced you off the road knows the area, he’ll know where you came down off the mountain and arrive soon.”
“Like you did.”
“Yes. If that happens, I want you away from there.”
She shifted the ice pack from her cheek to her ribs. “I’ve been thinking. It was probably some kind of random road rage.”
“I don’t think so,” he said, and told her about the cottage.
When he finished speaking, a quick glance in her direction showed her staring out the window, her eyes wide and frightened. She shuddered in tiny paroxysms of chill and distress. Tugging the blanket up to her neck, she huddled into it and whispered, “Someone’s trying to kill me. Why would someone try to kill me?”
He couldn’t stand it. As soon as he could, he pulled into an isolated side road and through the gate of another abandoned vineyard. He shut it behind them, pulled a chain and lock from his tool kit, and secured the gate from any but the most determined intruders.
Driving to the farthest vineyard on the place, he turned once more and drove along the row to the end.
He stopped the truck, then came around and gathered Chloë into his arms. Tucking the blanket close around her, he carried her onto a grassy knoll. There the wind blew softly and the sun shone, and he sat and cradled her, rocking her in anguish and relief.
This comfort went both ways.
He’d almost lost her, and not merely as his wife. He had almost lost her forever. When he remembered his horror at the explosion of the cottage, and his frantic fear at her phone call . . . when he remembered that someone had driven her off one of the most treacherous roads going out of Bella Valley . . . all he could do was hold her in gratitude and in love.
She was alive.
And the shell that had for so long protected him from pain lay shattered in a million pieces. No matter what, he would never be the man he was before.
That was her fault.
She deserved all the credit.
Putting her arm around his neck, she buried her face in his chest. By increments her shivering stopped and she relaxed against him.
“I don’t know who’s doing this, but I intend to find out,” he told her.
“I know you will.” She stroked his head, found the goose egg from his impact with the pavement, touched it lightly with her fingers. “My God, Eli, do you have a concussion?”
“It’s okay. I landed on my head. Hardest part of me.” She laughed a little dolefully. But she laughed.
He kissed the bruise on her cheek.
She turned her face up to the sunlight and to him, and let him press his lips to her forehead, her ear, her mouth.
Then . . . he was kissing her, really kissing her, his control crumpling under the twin onslaughts of an upwelling of overwhelming relief and desperate love.
He’d almost lost her. If she hadn’t left the cottage when she did . . . If she’d been
forced off the road in a different spot . . .
She wrapped both arms around him. Her lips opened under his.
And he tasted the salt of her tears. Lifting his head, he said, “I’ve hurt you.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I didn’t think I would ever see you again. Then I was cold and afraid, and you found me.”
Then she said the sweetest words Eli had ever heard.
“Eli, please . . . make love to me. Make me know I’m truly alive again.”
Chapter 42
Eli spread the blanket on the grass, and tilted Chloë back until she rested on rough wool. The green scent of crushed grass enveloped her. The cool earth supported her. The blue sky collected wisps of clouds and sent them on a lazy journey from horizon to horizon.
And Eli leaned over her, his eyes hot, his face taut with passion. With need. For her. Yet his hands were gentle as he removed her jeans, and he winced at the bruise on her thigh, the scrape on her knee, as if her pain were his.
“I’m going to be sore tomorrow.” It could have been so much worse, she meant.
“So sore and stiff. I’ll take care of you.” He slid her panties off, kissed her hip, her belly. “Relax and let me take care of you.”
She closed her eyes against the bright sunshine and let him ease her clothes away until she was naked in this isolated place, alone with him. She felt new, like Eve cast back into the Garden of Eden and given everything she ever desired: sunshine, a faint breeze that stirred the warm air, the mingled scents of leaves and pine and Eli.
As he removed his own clothes, as he caressed her with a barely restrained eagerness, she was reminded of that first night when he had embodied all things forbidden, sinful, and sexy, when he rode her and she rode him and they were impetuous together. She wondered, as he stroked the sensitive cup of her palms, what would happen if she commanded him to stop.
As he came up to string kisses like pearls along her throat, she opened her eyes and looked into his—and saw a flame that would consume them both.
She couldn’t change her mind; it was far too late for that. He might be the epitome of a tender lover who treated her bruises with loving care, but he definitely intended to claim her.