Silent Truth (B.A.D. Agency #4)(23)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

And missed.

Blood pumped loud through her ears. She tried not to breathe hard for fear of disturbing her tenuous position, but hyperventilating required some amount of priming.

The wind cried her name.

She paused, listening, her heart thundering with hope.

Hunter might be pissed off, but he wouldn’t let her fall to her death. Screw it. She couldn’t help her mother if she ended up in a body cast… or worse.

Licking her dry lips, she opened her mouth to call out.

The limb snapped.

She took off down the hill like a bobsled.

Chapter Twenty

Abbie grabbed at anything to slow her down. She slid over snow, then hit rock and sand patches. The world barreled by at lightning speed. Momentum flipped her onto her back. All three shirts climbed up her body, letting the scrub-board-rough mountain scrape a streak of pain along one side of her back.

She spun sideways, then slammed into a snowbank… hiding a boulder. The world wobbled unevenly, trying to level out. She gasped cold breaths that burned her lungs and groaned, but damn, what a good sound. Meant she was alive.

She lay there, gulping for air.

Talk about a huge flaw in her escape plan. She took mental stock of her body and considered sitting up, but not just yet.

“Abbie!” a voice roared from way up above her.

She covered her eyes to look up against the glare of sunlight. Hunter charged down that incline like an enraged bull, almost as quickly as she had, but he wasn’t bodysurfing.

She took stock of the damage now that every raw nerve wanted to report in, screaming with pain. One patch on her side felt seared, but the layers of clothes had protected the rest of her skin. Her knee throbbed. She wiggled her feet, lifted her legs, and stretched her shoulders.

Hallelujah. Nothing broken.

Branches snapped above her. Boot heels pounded against rock-hard ground toward her. Interspersed with cursing.

Better get ready to face Hunter.

Using the hem of her shirt, she wiped her face, hands, and clothes. Blood seeped from the scratches on her palms and wrists, but not so badly.

She pushed up to a sitting position and tugged her shirts down, gritting her teeth when cloth touched that one abrasion on her back.

Hunter jumped the last six feet, landing in a skid close to her. “Did you break anything?” He sounded panicked, which sort of surprised her since he’d been so calm with the killer. He squatted down next to her and examined the tear in her stolen jeans, then gently touched her leg above and below the rip.

If he kept acting so concerned and careful with her, she’d lose her grip on her shaky control.

“I don’t think I broke anything. Help me up.” She meant for him to give her a hand, but he hooked his hands under her arms and lifted her to her feet. When she pushed his arms away to prove she could stand, she hissed at the ache in her knee.

“You hurt your knee,” he accused.

“No worse than getting knocked around in a pen full of sows,” she muttered.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” Muscles along his neck flexed with each breath he shoved in and out.

She jutted her chin up at him, in no freakin’ mood to be criticized. Especially when she noticed he’d made it down the same incline without even getting his jeans dirty. “Don’t yell at me when I just survived a near-death experience.”

That might have been the wrong thing to say.

The brown chamois shirt practically vibrated with energy rippling off his body. He lifted his hands to touch her, then pulled back and crossed his arms. “I told you last night to stay in that bedroom until I came for you.”

She’d had enough of this. “I don’t give a damn about your orders. When will you get it through your thick skull that I have my own set of problems?”

His lips pressed tight, caging the fury riding his shoulders. “Do you realize you could have been killed?”

“No, that was just a practice run. I’m thinking about trying it again because it was so. Much. Fun!” she shouted, now shaking with anger. “What the hell do you think?”

His eyes had widened with each octave her voice jumped until he just shook his head. A vein pumped in his temple. He stood there all intimidating, which was a waste of time.

She was too damn hurt, tired, and spent to be intimidated.

“I never thought a pissed-off woman could be hot until I met you.” He blew out a stream of air and unfolded his arms to reach for her hands.

Hot? He thought she was hot when she was ticked off? Why did he have to say things that knocked the legs out from under her anger?

He took her hands in his and studied the scratches across her wrist. And a cut on her palm. That didn’t improve his mood one bit. He scowled. “Sure you didn’t break anything?”

“Yes. So don’t start in on me.” She would have added some heat to that order if not for the way he gingerly handled her damaged hands, carefully wiping off dirt and barely touching the cut that trickled blood.

“We’ll get you cleaned up back at the cabin.” He looked up, eyes searching the terrain.

“Aren’t you listening to me?”

“Tough to avoid.” He released her hands and fixed her with a green stare hard as malachite. “Did you really think you could escape?”

“I did escape,” she pointed out, sure that had to rub on his James Bond ego. “In case you forgot I’m in a bit of a time crunch. I mean, what’s going on? Am I a prisoner or what?”

His lips moved with unspoken words. He cupped a hand over his eyes, his fingers rubbing his temple for a second before he lowered his hand. “Where did you think you were going?”

She was out of patience. “Answer my questions first.”

Hunter took her in from head to toe and back with a wry frown. “The idea of gagging and hobbling you is tempting, but, no, you’re not technically a prisoner.”

“‘Technically’? What kind of crap is that?” She crossed her arms at her waist. “You kidnapped me. I thought you were some kind of law enforcement. Was that a scam? Who the hell are you?”

“I’m with a branch of law enforcement you’ve never heard of and I can’t disclose. I have not kidnapped you or taken you prisoner, but you’re connected to Gwen Wentworth’s shooting so technically you’re in protective custody.”

“I want my lawyer.” Shock from the scare had settled in to foster a serious chill she couldn’t hide when her teeth chattered.

“Do you even have a lawyer?” He shrugged out of his jacket. “Put this on.”

She opened her arms to put on the jacket, because warm beat cold any day. Her fingers didn’t appear. The bottom of the coat hit her midthigh. She looked up with a begrudging “Thanks,” then added, “I’m still not through discussing this.”

He zipped the front of her jacket, jerking the tab up with a quick flick that telegraphed his waning tolerance. “You’re not getting a lawyer and if you try another unauthorized attempt to leave here I will consider handcuffing you. You can’t get off this mountain without me. Where did you think you were going?”

No point in lying since she didn’t have any other answer. “To find the truck, then I was hoping to find a neighbor. I was going to tell them I got lost hiking and ask them to help me get to Chicago.”

His eyebrows dropped severely in what she saw as a prelude to lecture mode, so she added, “I wasn’t going to say anything about you or that you’d brought me to your cabin… against my will.”

She waited for him to say something, to give her any indication they were back on speaking terms. But no. He just stood there pulsating with unspent words. “I am not going to sit here doing nothing, Hunter. I’m tired of waiting for you… to…” She lost her thought when he leaned forward, cramping her space.

His voice dropped to a dangerous decibel. “Listen closely. The truck is so well hidden you’d never find it. The nearest structure is a fire tower that isn’t manned. The first residence is twenty-six miles away through country that would test the best outdoorsman. You triggered a security device from the wrong side that could have caused you to break your reckless neck. And—” his voice had started to climb, reaching for a shout “—if by some unimaginable chance the next booby trap hadn’t stopped you, there’s a mountain lion den on this path. They’d have been thrilled at lunch showing up.”

She swallowed. Mountain lions?

What he’d said before that sank in. “You set booby traps out here? When I asked you where we were going last night you said you couldn’t tell me, that no one knows about this place. Not like you should have unexpected company.”

“It’s to prevent unwanted company, like the kind you had yesterday in your apartment.”

Point taken. She tried to push hair out of her eyes and only managed to swat a sleeve at her face.

“Lift your hands.” He rolled one sleeve until her fingertips stuck out.

“Aren’t booby traps illegal, or don’t you care?”

“The traps are meant to detain, not kill,” he muttered, and worked on the second sleeve. “But they were never tested for going downhill from the cabin.”

Her gaze fell to his worn jeans, where a banged-up silver karabiner hung from a belt loop. The thing looked professional quality but bent, which would render it useless, right?

Couldn’t someone with Hunter’s money buy a good one?

He took her hand, careful of the scratches, and waited until she looked up at him. “I’m trying to keep you safe. Don’t go outside the cabin without me. Got it?”

“Got it, but you should have told me this place was booby-trapped.”

“Now you know.” He turned, surveying the area as though choosing their direction. “I’ll take us back on an easier trail—”

“I don’t think so.” She planted her foot, unwilling to move another step until she got some answers.

“What now?”

“Stop snapping at me. I haven’t done anything to be stuck here in the first place. What’s got your jockstrap in a wad?”

Hunter wished counting to ten really worked.

Abbie glared at him in silent defiance. Hair wet and tangled from the fall. A scratch on her chin marred her creamy skin. She could have died.

Hell, he could count to a thousand and still not calm down. She’d fallen like a rag doll bouncing along the mountain. He hadn’t been that scared in a long time and didn’t like the feel of it one bit. Now that he knew she was going to be okay his body was screaming for her in a primal way.

The need to feel her alive beneath his hands.

More than just assuring himself she was safe. He fought a rush of lust that burned through his veins. Every whiff of her drove that lust like oxygen feeding a fire.

If she caught a hint of what he had on his mind she’d go racing away again like a crazy woman. Didn’t she have any survival instincts? What had she been thinking to strike out on her own with no map, no weapon, no supplies…

She’d been rattled in the woods last night.

Had she thought the threat of animal attack was any less in daylight?

He had to stop thinking about all the ways she could have been severely hurt or killed. Every one of them would have been his fault.

“Hunter?”

“We’ll talk back at the cabin.” If she didn’t like the surly edge in his voice she needed to stay put in the safety of the cabin and follow directions.

“Do you have any other tone than pissed-off ?”

“I used to.” Before I ran into Abigail Blanton again and she turned me into one big frustrated dick. Drawing a long breath he hoped transmitted his short patience, he said, “Make it quick.”

She crossed her arms again and lifted two soft eyebrows, giving him a to-hell-with-you look. “I am done with blindly following you. I want answers.”

“I already told you there are a lot of things I can’t share. You’re just going to have to trust me.”

“Trust you? The last man I trusted shared my bed with another woman after he put a ring on my finger. Taught me just how naïve I had been to believe in words alone.”

How could he argue with logic he shared? He’d heard his mother say, “I love you,” to him and his brother many times, but she’d proven him naïve for believing those words the day she sold her children for bonus money.

Maybe he could use that topic to get Abbie on his side again. “Your fiancé sleep with someone you know?”

“Yep. Someone much younger and prettier.”

“What was she? A teenager? She sure as hell couldn’t have been prettier.” He meant that. Young and cute was fun but not hot. Not in his book. Abbie was definitely hot.

Her eyes turned buttery soft for a moment, then she shook off whatever she’d thought. “See, that’s the kind of sweet-talkin’ trash that got me in trouble before. I believed what he said and let him humiliate me. Then I made it worse by demeaning myself with you. I was on a roll that week.”

So that’s what had sent Abbie into the bar the night he met her.

His anger lost its sizzle.

She had a gift for pissing him off with quicksilver speed, but watching hurt replace the hellion spark curbed his irritation.

Six years ago she’d charmed him with her laughter.

If he didn’t take care, she’d charm him all over again with her spirit this time.

But six years ago she’d been looking for a man to spend the night with to pay someone back and Hunter had been more than willing at the time. Until he realized she wasn’t the cavalier bar hopper she’d pretended to be.

He shouldn’t have let that golden opportunity pass when they first met, because this sure as hell wasn’t the time to find out what it would feel like to make love to all that fire.

But damn, he wanted to and couldn’t believe some moron screwed her over for a kid, because she had to be early twenties when he met her. “You didn’t demean yourself that night.”