Page 49 of Hot Intent

“The fun has just begun. Now we get to flee through the jungle at night in wet clothes.”

They waded out of the pool and Katie frowned. “Should we check each other for leeches or something?”

“We should. But we need to get moving. The leeches can dine on our blood in the meantime.”

She made a face and shuddered as they retraced their steps up the hill. And that was when he heard a different kind of engine. Crap. ATV’s.

Alone, he would have had no trouble avoiding the Cubans. But with Katie in tow, the two of them didn’t stand a chance if Cuban Special Forces, riding, all-terrain vehicles, came after them.

8

Katie crouched in terror. Now she knew exactly what a mouse felt like when the fox came after it, or a rabbit when a hawk circled overhead.

“We have to split up,” Alex breathed.

“No!” she cried back in a bare whisper. She clutched at his arm frantically. He couldn’t abandon her out here! Sheneededhim. She couldn’t do this running around evading bad guys stuff by herself!

“It’s our only chance,” he whispered back sharply. “I’ll draw them off while you make a run for the mo-ped. Take it and get to Guantanamo. I’ll make my own way there. It may take a few days, but wait there. I’ll join you.”

“But—"

He grabbed her shoulders and kissed her hard, cutting off her protest. “I believe in you. I know you can do this.”

“I can’t do it!”

“You can. You must.”

“It’s suicide for you to engage those soldiers. They’ve got numbers, equipment, technology—every advantage. I’ve heard my brothers talk. You’d never survive.”

“Trust me. I’m very good at what I do. But I can’t do it with you here. I need you to go.”

She opened her mouth to argue more, but he cut her off, murmuring under his breath, “I’m sorry.”

And then he gave her a hard push that sent her stumbling, sliding, and ultimately rolling down a steep slope. It was so muddy and slippery she stood no chance of stopping her descent. A good hundred feet below Alex, she finally reached the bottom. She scrambled to her feet and tried frantically to run back up it to Alex.

To no avail. Every time she made it a dozen feet up the slope, she hit a patch of slick mud and slid right back down to the bottom.

Appalled, she heard someone shout above her. For all she knew, that was Alextryingto get spotted by the Cubans. Damn him!

He’dpushedher down that hill, knowing full well she wouldn’t be able to climb back up it to him! She hated it when he outmaneuvered her like this. Especially when he didn’t leave her with any choice about what to do next.

Furious, she took off running through the trees. And with every step she took, she got a little madder. If he was going to be a giant idiot and get himself killed being a hero, far be it from her to waste the escape window he’d given her.

He was insane. And stupid. And heroic. And did she already add being a giant idiot to the list?

At some point in her frantic flight, it dawned on her that tears were streaming down her face. Was she ever going to see him again? Or had he just consigned himself to a terrible death to save her?

Whether her horror or her panic spurred her harder, she couldn’t say. But she ran until her legs felt like burning rubberand her lungs felt consumed by fire. And then she ran some more. It was awful beyond description.

Only the sound of the ocean on her left and the moon sliding gradually to her right kept her from getting lost. The terrain was difficult during the day, but at night it was brutal. She twisted her ankles and wrenched her knees more times than she could count. She fell on her rear end and fell on her face. She ran into trees, skinned her knees, and got poked by god only knew what. But she didn’t stop. Alex would kill her if she sat down out here and gave up.

And then there was Dawn. She needed at least one parent to come home from this mission from hell. Clinging to a mental image of her daughter’s sweet face, she forced her feet to keep moving.

She tried to distract herself by thinking about what she and Dawn would do together when she got home. But that made her cry too hard to see where she was going.

She tried cursing out her personal trainer. That carried her for a good ten minutes. But then she had no more anger left to summon. Exhaustion set in. All that motivated her now was planning what she was going to do to Alex the next time she saw him. That, and a fierce determination to survive long enough to do it to him.

The mountainous terrain she’d been crawling up and down, for what seemed like forever, finally gave way to a rolling plateau. But with level ground came open fields. Farms. She wasn’t worried about locals spotting her. There were practically none here, and those who were left would be asleep inside whatever shelter they had at this hour of the night.

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