Page 52 of Hide My Heart
Amber kisses me back, more wild and lustful than she’d ever been in the past.
Hmmm… Maybe being with other men’s not a bad thing. They might have taught her a trick or two. Too bad for them I get the fruit of their labors.
“You missed me, didn’t you?” I growl as I disengage. The temperature is dropping again, and I can’t afford to dally if I want off this mountain.
“Yeah, I missed a real big man. A real mountain man,” she says. “If you can fix the truck, you’re my real hero.”
She’s lathering it on a little thick, but I deserve it, after the hell she put me through. I figure she’s scared of what I’m going to do to her.
Maybe I’ll be nice this time.
Surprise her.
Yeah, buy her some flowers or let her take a nice, hot bath.
I pat her thigh and wink, then amble to the hood where the front of the truck is leaning against a tree stump over a snow bank full of ice. Wet leaves are spread behind the ice, giving me traction to lift the hood.
Snap!
Ow!
The jaws of a bear trap crush my ankle and pain shoots from my leg, popping out my eyes and exploding up my thigh.
“Bitch!” I gasp and all my muscles spasm and seize.
She moved my trap. She fucking done moved my trap.
I pull and yank my ankle, but the trap has teeth and I can’t get a good angle to release the springs. I try running away, but she done chained it to the truck’s bumper.
From the side, I hear a shuffling noise and a loud male chuckle. It’s Nate Riley. What the heck is he doing?
He stumbles to where I dropped the rifle and picks it up, pointing it at me. “Looks like we caught a big, old skunk.”
“You’re not going to get away with this,” I shout. “I’m going to kill you and that little rug rat of yours.”
He cocks the rifle, and I know there are bullets in there. I just reloaded the magazine, but I don’t care. He’s too much of a wuss to use it.
“Amber says she threw your baby away. Dropped him in a deep ravine,” I taunt. “Maybe you ought to get out there and find your baby boy.”
Amber steps out of the passenger door, where the trap used to be set. She slowly walks to the hollow of a nearby tree and takes out a sleeping baby wrapped in a glossy-red fox fur. She cuddles Riley’s brat in her arms and glares down at me before walking to Nate’s side.
“Hunter, this here’s your son.” She lifts the little guy and shows him to me. “Too bad you’re never going to get to know him, because you’ll be in jail.”
“You bitch! You should have killed him.” I holler and fume. The pain is just a distant pulse as I rip my pantleg and yank out my hunting knife.
“I’ll kill him.” I throw the knife at the squalling baby.
My body jerks and jumps all by itself. Hot points of pain slice through me and everything explodes at once.
The last thing I hear is the sound of sirens before Hell pulls me under and drowns me in its ice-cold fire.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Amber
I scream and scream andscream, checking Beck’s little body for wounds. Hunter threw the knife so fast, I didn’t even see it fly.
“Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God,” I pray mindlessly. Why was I so stupid to hold Beck up like a target?
