Close Pursuit. Cindy Dees

the eggs someone had brought last night. She and Alex were frequently paid in bread, jugs of yak milk and these oversize eggs she hadn’t had the courage to ask the source of. Geese, maybe? Or something weirder?

      Chickens. In her world, every egg came from a chicken, and she was sticking with that mental image. She’d tried to explain to the local women that Doctors Unlimited was paying the two of them, but that didn’t stop their patients from showing their gratitude.

      “So, Doc. Why do you think there won’t be any babies tonight?”

      He glanced up from the bucket, where he was washing his hands. “I listened to the radio while you were sleeping. A rebel force is moving into the area.”

      “Again?” she complained. “I swear, it’s like they’re following us!”

      “Noticed that, did you?” he asked drily.

      She did a double take. Seriously? They were being tracked somehow? The thought chilled her to her bones. “Why would somebody track us?” she blurted.

      “That’s a damned good question,” he bit out.

      She recoiled from the tight fury in his voice. Did he think the rebels were chasing him? Why? What was the big mystery around him, anyway? The six-hundred-pound gorilla in the corner of the tent was why her intel–Special Forces brother had asked her to come out here with Alex in the first place. Surely she was not the only person in the entire United States who spoke Zaghastani. And why did Mike drop that cryptic comment as he dropped her off at the airport to keep an eye on Peters and see if she noticed anything odd about him or why he was heading out to Zaghastan to deliver babies? Only odd thing so far was that the guy seemed totally immune to her general hotness and willingness to let him jump her bones.

      Alex circled back to the original conversation. “If fighting breaks out between the rebels and the locals, any women in labor tonight will stay home.”

      “I dunno,” she responded. “These women are already braving pretty dangerous obstacles to get to you. I doubt a little gunfire will slow them down.”

      “The rebels are well armed and violent. When they come, they’ll crush everything in their path.”

      Yeah. Like the two of us. She shook her head, unconvinced, and declared, “I’ll bet you five bucks we deliver a baby tonight.”

      The effect of her challenge on Alex was shocking. He went utterly still, and she thought she saw a shudder pass through him. From this angle, it looked as if he actually paled. The tension abruptly emanating from him was terrible in its intensity.

      She was on the verge of asking him if he was okay when he turned abruptly. His gaze was hooded. Dark. And his entire being was suddenly sharply, dangerously alive. It was as if she’d woken a sleeping tiger. And now the beast was not only awake, but he was hungry...and on the hunt.

      “Shall we make the wager a little more interesting?” he purred. The sexual energy in his voice raked across her skin like claws.

      Whoa. She asked cautiously, “What did you have in mind?”

      “What do you like best in all the world?” he asked.

      “Ice cream,” she answered promptly. It was the first thing that came to mind.

      “Better than sex?” He sounded skeptical.

      She shrugged. “I stand by my answer.”

      He replied huskily, “Then you haven’t had good sex.”

      The promise of just that was thick in his throat. She didn’t dare let her gaze stray south to see if he was as turned on as she was, all of a sudden.

      “I think we have the terms of our bet then.” Her gaze snapped to him as he prowled across the tiny space to less than arm’s length from her. “If you win, we have a date to eat ice cream together. If I win...” His mouth curved up in a smile that was pure sin.

      Her jaw dropped. “No way!”

      His heavy lids might hide the fire blazing in his eyes, but they in no way diminished it. “A woman daring enough to travel halfway across the world, to brave a war zone and death threats, living alone in the wilds with a stranger...” He shrugged. “I thought you were...more.”

      More what? her brain shouted. More than average? More than a nice little schoolteacher? More than a desperate wannabe in a family of adventurers and warriors? More than a fraud?

      Stung, her gaze narrowed and she glared at him. She thrust her hand out truculently. He stared down at it uncomprehendingly.

      “Are we shaking on the bet or not?” she demanded.

      His gaze lifted to hers, and if it had been hot before, it was an inferno now. Never breaking eye contact with her, he reached out slowly with his right hand and grasped hers. Heat built between their palms that scalded her all the way up her arm and down to her core. His fingers were strong. Capable. She’d watched that hand perform miracles. And right now, it claimed her fingers possessively, promising heretofore unimagined sensual delights.

      His grip finally fell away and he broke the stare, turning away from her sharply. His rib cage lifted once short and hard. At least he wasn’t entirely unaffected. As for her, she was panting like a dog in a sauna.

      Holy crap, I just agreed to have sex with him. What on earth had she been thinking? She’d known since she was about seven years old not to let boys goad her into accepting dares. He’d just manipulated her like a master, damn him.

      Of course, if she was lucky, she’d win the bet and get an ice-cream sundae out of the deal. That was the lucky outcome...right?

      * * *

      ALEX STRETCHED OUT on the cot in the corner. He’d turned down the lantern hanging over the bed, intentionally wreathing himself in dark shadows. It was easier to watch Katie that way. She was pretending to read—she hadn’t advanced the screen on her e-reader for ten minutes.

      She’d been as nervous as a cat in a roomful of rocking chairs and squirt guns ever since they’d made their bet. It was highly entertaining watching her alternate between wishing to win the bet and wishing to lose. Her face was a constantly changing mosaic of emotions ranging from chagrin to suspicion that he’d set her up—which he had, blatantly—to reluctant lust and back to chagrin.

      If he were going to lie to himself, he’d say he’d made the bet with her to relieve the boredom and distract her from the building danger. To add a little spice to an otherwise tedious and miserable assignment. But the truth was he found her fascinating. She was such a girlie girl. But more compelling was how she reminded him of a shiny new penny that had never been nicked or tarnished. What must it be like to never have had anything bad happen in one’s life? To be good. The concept was completely beyond his comprehension.

      A shocking compulsion to end all that innocence rolled over him. Most men would call it simple lust. But he knew it to be more.

      The girls at his various universities had all been many years older than him, deeply intellectual and far too cool to pay any attention to the skinny kid blowing out all the grade curves in their classes. At the opposite end of the spectrum had been the groupies in the casinos. Hookers, showgirls and hangers-on looking to trade their bodies, and even their souls, for access to his bank account. Not that he particularly held it against them. They were using what tools they had to climb out of life’s cesspool, while he used them to climb into it.

      There had been a few older women looking to take on the role of his missing mother—social workers, counselors, even a professor or two—who tried to mentor him along the way. Their hearts had been in the right place. Hell, they might even have had decent advice for him. But he hadn’t been ready to hear it. Not back then. Not before his life imploded and he sent himself to hell.

      Some would say he’d always been in hell and had just managed to find a stairway down to a deeper circle of it. They were also the ones who tended to declare him a lost cause. Doomed to wallow in his own black pit of despair, forever.